Minding the Store

Hello Reader,
This is a new story and I believe it still needs work, but since I've been so close to it over the last month or so, I'm not sure I can see it clearly. I've posted it for review, so if you have any suggestions, corrections, thoughts,---whatever---please feel free to let me know! Thanks in advance and have a nice day!
Peace,
Christine L.

P.S.: Is the ending too anti-climactic, or is it just?

Minding the Store

         Jamie’s hands shook, especially the one holding the gun on the 7-11 clerk. She willed it to stop but her efforts came to nothing.
         She was trying hard not to show the cold hard fear she felt crawling up her spine and dancing madly in the pit of her stomach, but she knew the clerk could see it in her eyes—and her hands—and was hoping it would help him in the end.
         The white-hot anger she’d felt boiling up inside of her only a short time ago had now settled down to a mere simmer, and she had begun to forget why she had wanted to do this in the first place.
         Her two so-called friends—those chicken-shits—with their beer-enhanced bravado had been in it as much as she, but as soon as she had pulled out the gun inside the store they had run.
         The gun felt solid and heavy in her cold, sweaty grasp and Jamie suddenly wanted nothing more than to let go of it and let it drop to the floor at her feet—and run.
         But she couldn’t. She stood frozen in fear, her eyes locked with the clerk’s, her mind racing and rambling with fright and regret as she struggled to find a way out of this mess...

___________________________

         One month earlier...

         “You can’t just dump me in the middle of the hall, Steve!”
         Jamie was screaming despite herself and despite the school’s entire student body milling all around them, laughing and talking, walking and getting books from lockers, all of them leading the normal, high-school life which to her, now, felt long gone.
         Steve just lowered his head and sighed with what seemed like embarrassment and annoyance.

         “Well?! Aren’t you going to say anything else?!” Jamie demanded.

         “Like what? It’s over—that’s it,” he said, not even bothering to look up at her.

         “Like what?! How about like why you’re doing this all of a sudden?! How about like what happened since last night, huh? Well?!”

         Steve just stood there leaning against his locker, where she’d found him only minutes earlier, and sighed again, still looking at his sneakers.
         Wimp, she thought. But still, her heart was broken. The last few months had been so magical, so real... at least to her.

         “Well...?!” Jamie tried once more, knowing all was already lost, but intent on trying anyway. She didn’t want to lose him.
         Steve raised his eyes to look at hers and Jamie could see the determination there, solid as ice. But she hardly recognized the eyes into which she was looking.
         He wasn’t the same Steve she’d known.
         At least he had the decency to look ashamed.
         It really was over.
         She knew that now, beyond any doubt, but she still didn’t know why. And she could see—more clearly than she would’ve liked—that he either couldn’t or wouldn’t answer that question for her, no matter how she might push and prod, question and demean with words poured from pain.
         Her eyes began to water and she didn’t want him to see her cry so she turned and ran down the hallway, dodging some and bumping into others as she flew. She didn’t care about them. Barely even registered them. She just ran, eyes blurry with tears and head blurry with pain and confusion. Her broken heart still beat hard in her chest and she was finding it harder to breathe, run, and cry at the same time.
         Choking on nearly-swallowed sobs, Jamie tripped on her own feet, swerved to her right and slammed hard into the cold, tiled wall near the restrooms. Crying out, she collapsed to the floor, dropping her books and grasping her right shoulder in surprise and pain. Forgetting to feel any shame or embarrassment, she let herself fall apart sitting crumpled on the hallway floor, her mind a dazed and lost thing and her body in much the same state. Nobody seemed to notice her.
         She didn’t know how long she’d sat there lost in herself until someone poked her on her sore shoulder. She opened her puffy, wet eyes to find her English teacher, old Mr. Sorensen, looking down at her with obvious distaste.

         “Excuse me, Miss Shelton, but don’t you belong somewhere?” he asked with a tight twisting of his pursed lips to one side of his face.

         Jamie blinked up at him, her mind still swirling, and simply stared at him, not really taking in the words he had spoken to her.

         He grasped her shoulders and shook her. Jamie, surprised, cried out in a sharp little yelp and he gasped, let her go and backed away.

         Realizing where she was, she stammered, “I—I’m sorry, Mr. Sor—Sorenson... I—my boyfriend just broke up with me... R—right down there...”

         She pointed in the direction of the lockers down the hall, the last place in which she had felt normal—it seemed so long ago now—and he followed her finger’s lead with his eyes to the long, empty hallway beyond. After a moment he looked back to her.
         Jamie’s eyes were filling with tears again.

         “I guess I’m just a little lost right now.” Her tears fell over her lower lashes and down her pinking cheeks as she stared at him.
         His eyes were blinking and couldn’t quite meet hers. She thought he must be focusing on her left cheek.
         He surprised her by offering his hand to help her up, his head bent down at an awkward angle, his eyes still not meeting hers. Not knowing what else to do, she placed her hand in his and allowed him to guide her body back to a standing position.
         He leaned down and picked up her books and gently placed them in her hands, making sure she had a good hold on them, and then placed one of his large, wrinkled hands atop one of hers. She nearly pulled away, but before she could, he’d patted her hand with his and stood back again, looking down the hall.
         Now he stammered.

         “Perhaps you should g—go home for the day... J—Jamie... Under the circumstances, you probably wouldn’t take much in today anyway... I’ll let the office know. Just go home and rest. You’ll feel a little bit better tomorrow.”

         With a clumsy, jerking motion he reached out and patted her good shoulder and smiled lopsidedly at her, his mouth still twitching and his eyes still searching for other places on which to land besides hers.
         Her mind a bit more clear, Jamie could see he meant well, and she smiled back.

         “Thanks, Mr. Sorensen, for being so... nice. I didn’t mean for...” Her voice fell away and her eyes fell, too.

         “It’s okay, child. Just... just go home now. You’ll see... everything will be better tomorrow... and a little bit better every day after that...”

         He looked off into what seemed to Jamie to be the past and then wandered off down the hall with a lonely, tilted gait.
         She watched him walk for a moment and then pulled her books to her chest and took a deep breath as he reached the corner and turned, not looking back at her.
         He seems as broken as I am, she thought. Then she turned in the opposite direction, tears threatening again, and carried herself deliberately down the hall to begin the long walk home.

__________________________

         Once home, Jamie let herself in with her key, trudged to her room with her knapsack dragging along the floor behind her, and flopped onto her bed.
         It was only ten-thirty in the morning and both her parents were at work; neither would be home until way into the evening. They were tied to their jobs most of the time, anyway—even when they were at home.
         Usually, Jamie didn’t mind; she liked her freedom. But today she needed them. She didn’t even know it consciously—the house simply felt empty for the first time she could remember and she noticed every little sound, both within and without.
         Her mind rocked with images past: she saw herself and Steve laughing and talking as they sat and ate at the diner; she saw them making out with wild passion in Steve’s crappy old car—the fact that it was crappy had never mattered to her, but it had mattered to him—parked on the dead-end street a couple blocks from her house; she saw them holding hands and walking down the halls at school...
         head reeled and she closed her eyes to the pain... but it stayed on. It put sharp, probing claws into her and threatened to take away her sanity completely. She began to sob violently, rolling from side to side on her bed, her arms and mind flailing about until she had spent most of what was left of her energy.
         Before long she was asleep, still adrift in her emotions...

________________________

         Jamie awoke to the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and knew her parents were home. They always began their evenings with coffee, and then they all had dinner together. Afterwards, the martini shaker came out and they either became caught up in discussions of their work or caught up in actual work.
         Usually, she didn’t mind the routine: after her parents became involved, she had herself to herself and she was content with that. Without the presence of any siblings she had developed a highly tuned sense of imagination, and time alone to her was time to create—she loved to write poetry and stories, draw and paint, and sometimes read or just daydream about her next project...
         Tonight was different, though.
         As Jamie sat at the dinner table and ate quietly, her parents had begun to talk of their work already and barely seemed to notice her presence.
         She forked a piece of broccoli and flung it off her plate. It landed on the white linen tablecloth in the middle of the table and simply sat there, alone.
         Her mom glanced over at the broccoli and giggled.

         “Jamie, it’s much better in your stomach than on the dining room table!”

         She turned her attention back to her husband and their conversation continued on as if nothing had happened.
         Did her mother see her at all? And her father hadn’t even looked her way. He had simply laughed with her mother and resumed their talk.

__________________________

         Later that night, as Jamie was drifting off to a disturbed slumber after spending her evening staring intently at nothing as she lay on her bed, she thought of something she’d overheard her father saying to her mother earlier: “...Who’s minding the store?”
         Who’s minding the store...
         It played in her subconscious, over and over as she melted into a sweet, deserved oblivion.
         Her nightmares were horrid and deeply sad, and when she awoke from them at the insistence of her alarm she found herself in the terrible midst of a waking nightmare called reality.
         It had taken a moment or two to hit her but when it did it hit with such force that, had she been standing, she would have been taken to her knees in an instant.
         Her mind teeming with pain and confusion, she began to cry again, her tears hot on her cheeks as they spilled heartily from her eyes.
         Closing her eyes again, a remembered part of a dream taunted her: minding the store... who’s minding the store...
         It crawled back into its recesses as quickly as it had crawled out to her and Jamie sighed and rolled over in bed, hoping she would be able to convince her parents she was sick and needed to stay home today. Considering their usual demeanor in the mornings, she didn’t expect much of an argument: they were generally caught up in the morning’s routines and the workday to come, and she was lucky if she got a peck on the cheek as they all left the house.
         Not that her parents didn’t care about her: Jamie knew they loved her very much, but they were the type who liked to foster independence in a child and they expected her to come to them if she had a problem. She always had when she’d been a girl, but now, as a teenager, she naturally kept more things to herself and she often wondered lately if they had noticed the difference.
         She didn’t think they had.

__________________________

         The day at school was a nightmare. She’d decided not to stay home after all; thinking about Steve was driving her mad and she needed distractions. She’d missed homeroom and by the time she got to her locker just before first period, she was besieged. It seemed that everyone knew about the breakup, and her best friends, Kara and Shawn were super-angry with her because she hadn’t told them about it; they had had to hear it from the school grapevine like everyone else and they felt insulted.

         “I can’t believe you didn’t tell us, Jamie! We’re only your best friends!” Kara glared accusingly at her, daring her to defend herself.

         “Yeah, Jamie, how could you do this to us? We had to find out from Debra in English yesterday, for God’s sake! Do you know how embarrassing that was?! And then we tried calling your cell all night, but you didn’t answer!” Shawn shook her head in disbelief and disgust.

         Jamie just stared helplessly at the both of them, not knowing how to respond to the attack. After a moment, she simply burst into tears.
[indent}It seemed to jar her friends out of their selfish tirade and they both became quiet for a moment. Then Kara spoke.

         “Geez, I’m sorry, James... I didn’t mean to... It doesn’t matter, really. Are you okay?”

         Shawn chimed in next. “Yeah, I’m sorry, too. Really. We were wrong to yell at you.” She looked down at her hands, obviously ashamed.
Jamie shook her head and managed to speak through her tears.

         “It’s okay, guys. I know you didn’t mean it.” She began to cry again. “And I’m sorry I didn’t answer. I turned off my phone. I just didn’t feel like talking to anyone. You know...”

         Her voice trailed off and she turned to face her locker, leaning her forehead against it, her tears falling in hot rivulets down her cheeks.
         She desperately wanted to ask them if they had seen Steve yet this morning, but she couldn’t. She was afraid to hear the answer.
         She hadn’t needed to ask, as it happened; Kara volunteered the information.

         “Steve isn’t here today. He wasn’t in homeroom and Miss Thayer said he was sick.”

         Jamie’s heart leapt. Maybe he was feeling sick about the breakup!
         Her hope was short-lived, however.

         “Debra’s not here today, either,” Shawn said quietly.

         Jamie’s heart sank. She knew Debra liked Steve, and she’d even thought she’d seen him flirting with her a couple of times, but he’d always denied it.
         Well, that answers that question.
         But maybe they were all jumping to conclusions. Just because they were both absent didn’t necessarily mean...

         “Uh, Jamie, sorry, but... um, yesterday, after school... Steve and Debra walked home together. We, uh, saw them... sort of... holding hands,” Kara said.

         Jamie didn’t think her heart could sink any lower, but it somehow found its way down to her stomach and she felt like she was going to throw up.
         The bell rang and one of her friends touched her lightly on her back.

         “We gotta go, James... We’ll see you later, okay?” Kara said.

         “Yeah, okay. I’ll see you guys later...” She barely got the words out, she was so ready to throw up.

_________________________

         The rest of the day was a blur. She had some classes later in the day with Kara and Shawn, but they both seemed uncomfortable around her and she didn’t even care that much. She just wanted to go home and die.
         She felt so alone, so humiliated, and so lost. It hurt to breathe. Nothing seemed real to her and she drifted through the rest of the day in a cloud of disorientation and anguish.
         The only thing she did notice was that no one seemed to care. Even old Mr. Sorensen didn’t seem to notice that she had not been paying attention in class. He merely glanced uncomfortably at her as she was leaving the room, but said nothing. She found herself feeling disappointed at that but what the hell, nobody seemed to care, so why should he be any different?

________________________

         Jamie suffered through the next few days in much the same condition. Her friends tried—sort of—but they were so uncomfortable around her that she became uncomfortable around them, as well. Neither one of them had been through this before; they dated like it was a sport and breaking up only consisted of a few hurt feelings and a mad dash to the next contestant.
         They now seemed like strangers—not her best friends.
         And at home, her parents still had not seemed to notice her state.

         One night at dinner, her father seemed to observe something as he said to her, “Jamie, you’ve hardly eaten. Are you feeling all right, honey?”

         By this time, however, Jamie was so disgusted and disheartened by everyone’s uncaring attitudes and by her own reaction to it all that she simply gave her Dad a forced little smile and said, “Yeah, Dad. Everything’s fine. I’m just tired, that’s all.”

         He looked at her for a moment, studying her face. Jamie smiled at him again, her mouth a tight mask, and he looked over at her mom.

         Her mom looked back at him, then at her, and said, “Jamie, honey, you know you can talk to us, right? I mean, if something’s wrong, you can tell us—you do know that, don’t you?”

         “Yeah, of course, Mom. I’m fine. I’m just tired. I haven’t been sleeping well this week. I guess it’s school. Too much homework this year, you know?”

         Her mom looked at her closely, her eyes narrowing, and then she seemed to accept Jamie’s answer because she smiled and said, “Yes, I remember junior year, dear. It can be challenging sometimes.”

         You don’t know the half of it, Jamie thought.

___________________________

         Two weeks had gone by since the breakup and Jamie now felt utterly alone. An angry little knot had begun to form within her and yet she was still unaware of its existence as it festered and grew, feeding on her pain and resentment.

____________________________

         One night, as she lay on her bed half-listening to some stupid old movie, she heard something familiar.

         “....Who is minding the store around here?” someone cried out in anger.

         Jamie sat up in bed and began to listen fully to the words coming out of the speakers on her little television.

         “I said—who’s been minding the store around here?” An old man was screaming at some old woman and marching around in an angry huff, his fingers working his suspenders and his eyes nearly bugging out of his head.

         Jamie watched with supreme interest, wondering what it was he had meant by those words. She’d never heard them before a couple weeks ago when her father had uttered them, and she hadn’t really thought about what they meant. Those stupid words had been dancing around in her head since the day Steve had dumped her—had even been in her dreams—but she hadn’t realized it until now, and she wanted to know what they meant.
         A few minutes later Jamie had her answer. It seemed that the saying didn’t really have anything to do with a store, but was something people said when they were wondering about who was watching over things or taking care of things, especially when it seemed no one was.
         This was something to which Jamie could relate. After all, hadn’t she been wondering for the last two weeks who was watching over her? Who was minding her store?
         Jamie sighed and lay back down in bed, her anger now bubbling up to the surface and simmering like crazy.
         It felt good. Felt right. And it certainly felt better than the sadness she’d been feeling; at least it made her feel alive.

____________________________

         After a long, contemplative weekend alone—again, because her friends had apparently decided she wasn’t worth it and her parents and teachers just didn’t seem to care what she did—Jamie awoke Monday morning full of purpose; today would be different.
         If no one was going to notice her, then she could do whatever she chose to do. And today she was going to choose to be a different Jamie. Today, she would be a Jamie people might actually notice.
         The anger simmered just below the surface of her thoughts, now feeding the new Jamie.

________________________

         She dressed in her raggedy old jeans and a ripped tee—an outfit which she generally reserved for days off—and smiling at herself in her full-length mirror, her eyes afire, Jamie set off for school a full twenty minutes before her usual departure time, missing her parents entirely. Not that she thought they’d remark upon her attire—they’d always given her the freedom to choose her mode of dress. She merely felt anxious to begin the new day as a new Jamie.
         The new Jamie wasn’t concerned with others caring about her, and she didn’t care about them. The new Jamie only cared about herself and what she could take from the new day ahead of her.

___________________________

         As it turned out, the new day had quite a bit to offer.
         She was in the girls’ room after lunch, washing her hands when two girls she knew of—but didn’t know personally—clamored into the bathroom, talking and laughing and generally carrying on (as her parents would say), and Jamie glanced instinctively in their direction.
         They were the kind who lived in the back of the classrooms—that is, when they bothered to show up at all—and thoroughly enjoyed giving the teachers a harder time than they already had.
         Jamie groaned inside, but then a sudden realization hit her and took over her normally non-rebellious mind: they might be just what she needed to help her embrace the new Jamie.
         Maybe they didn’t want to learn, but did they want to teach?
         If so, she was ready to learn.
         She turned deliberately towards them, facing them with awe and open admiration written on her face, and they stopped talking immediately and gaped at her.
         Jamie didn’t know what to expect, but one of them—the smaller of the two—looked her squarely in the eye and spoke.

         “Whatcha lookin’ at, sweetheart? You lost?” A bright grin spread across her otherwise humorless face and Jamie wondered if she’d gotten into something here.

         She swallowed hard and spoke in a shaky voice. “N-no, I’m not lost. I-I was just wondering...”

         And she was wondering—wondering if she was making a big mistake—but her voice came clearly this time.

         “I was wondering if you guys knew a good place to hang besides this sorry old hole...”
         She took a deep breath in, hoping they wouldn’t notice the fear inside her, because although she was scared, she was standing on a new precipice and was ready to jump.
         They looked at each other and then back at her and Jamie felt their eyes bore holes into her as their minds worked in unison with the question of how they would deal with her.
         Simultaneously, they broke into shit-eating grins and the little one slapped her hard on her bad shoulder.

         “Whoa, girl...” she said. “We thought you were borrr-rrring! Got a little fire in’ya, though, dontcha?”

         Jamie felt an unfamiliar, though welcome smile open up her face and she slapped the little one back. It felt good. They both smiled again and that was it. She was in.

__________________________

         Days later, Jamie was a changed girl. Well... a more-changed girl. The initial change had come almost three weeks ago, but no one had noticed that.
         School, her old friends, her parents, her studies—even her artistic endeavors—were left in the distant past as she adopted a self she hadn’t known existed before.
         Steve, along with his new girlfriend, Debra, weren’t important to her anymore, even though she saw the two of them together every day she attended classes, and Jamie savored the power of her new-found self growing within her. It didn’t care about such things; it simply cared about more power. Anger pulsed through her, and it was good. It was very good.
         Because there was no more pain. It didn’t exist within this new Jamie. It was an unnecessary appendage and she had tossed it out with the rest of the trash she no longer needed.
         She was free. Free and easy, as they said. She did what she wanted—what pleased her—and so far she had managed to avoid any now-unwanted attention and also, any punishment for her actions. Not that she’d done anything major, really. Skipping a few classes, drinking some beer in the woods with her new friends, not finishing some homework assignments—nothing to write home about, really. In fact, Jamie was getting bored. She wanted some excitement.
         And she was still waiting to be noticed.

_________________________

         So the day Martina brought out a gun from beneath her worn leather jacket while they were drinking beer in the woods down the street from the school, Jamie found herself utterly intrigued, though she did hear a soft, tiny voice inside her saying, no, no, no—this is not the way to be noticed!
         She ignored the voice.
         It was the voice of the old Jamie, and she was gone. The new Jamie was now minding the store.

         “Wow,” she said. “Where’d you get that from?”

         “From my grandfather’s old chest in the back of the garage. Isn’t it cool? And I know how to use it—he showed me before he died last year.”

         “Martina!” said Leigh. “Your dad would kill you if he knew you took that thing! What the hell you plan on doin’ with it, anyway? And point it the other way, will ya?”

         “My dad’s not gonna know, and I figure this thing might be good for gettin’ us some cash to play with!” Martina looked down at the gun with a greedy smile and laughed at her friend. “Relax! I’m not gonna shoot‘cha—they’re ain’t no bullets in it, stupid!”

         “Yeah, well...” Leigh laughed a little and then shut up.

         “Well... what are we gonna do?” Jamie asked, her eager eyes alight.

         "You know that 7-Eleven down the street from my house? It don’t have nothin’ but one stupid kid workin’ there after midnight! We go in there, show him this thing, and he’ll wet his pants and clear the register! We can’t lose! One of us will have to hang out in front and make sure no one else comes in, that’s all.”

         “An’ how we supposed to do that?” asked Leigh.

         “Just distract ‘em! Geez, you are stupid, Leigh!” Martina laughed again, but not unkindly.

         “Screw you, Martina!” Leigh cried, her cheeks pinking. “I ain’t stupid! I just don’t know about all this... What if we get caught? We could go to jail, you know!”

         Jamie’s hands started to shake so badly she had to put her can of beer down on the cool, hard ground beneath her. Her heart bounced around in her chest, her hands balled into fists and she began to blink furiously, but she didn’t notice any of these things; what she did notice was the nearly blinding tingling she felt both in body and mind. It was akin to anger, akin to love and yet it was different—more. And she needed more.
         In the end they had all agreed to do it and that afternoon, they began the planning: it would take place on Monday night, it being the slowest night of the week, and they would wear face paints for disguises. It would be quick and simple.
         The three of them would saunter in just after midnight and pretend to be all caught up in girl stuff, giggling and talking and maybe even a little flirting with the kid at first. Then Jamie and Martina would pay for some gum or soda or some such triviality while Leigh would say she’d meet them outside and leave the store to go on watch; if anyone were to pull into the lot before Jamie and Martina were safely out of the store, Leigh was to pretend to be hurt and cry loudly so they could hear her and either finish up in a hurry if possible or just bag the whole thing and run before anyone knew what had hit them.
         Jamie was to hold the gun until Monday night; her parents never entered her room unless invited. She also got Martina to agree to let her hold the gun on the clerk for their little robbery, but only after Jamie wore her down with days of arguing and cajoling until Martina couldn’t take any more.
         The three of them practiced playing out their plan over and over in the woods for the next few days after school (they had decided to go so as not to either catch attention or trouble before their big night) and over the weekend until they all felt confident that it could actually work.
         Jamie discovered she liked the feel of the gun in her hand—it commanded immediate and full attention; therefore when she held it, she commanded immediate and full attention. What a rush!
         Certainly she wouldn’t go unnoticed, not with this thing in her hand.

_________________________

         Most of Monday at school dragged by without incident until the end of the day in English class with old Mr. Sorensen. Jamie sat daydreaming about the night to come and he caught her again—he’d been catching her a lot lately—and asked her to stay after class.
         Damn him, Jamie thought. She was sick of him watching her lately. She’d even begun to feel paranoid, wondering if he could somehow know of her intentions. Why couldn’t he just go back to ignoring her?
         Of all the days...

         “Miss Shelton? Jamie?”

         Jamie looked up to see that everyone else had left the classroom and she and old Mr. Sorensen were alone. He was speaking to her.

         “Jamie... Damn it, this is what I want to talk to you about! Wake up, child! Where are you, anyway?!”

         “Right here,” Jamie mumbled, wishing she weren’t.

         “Yes, your body may be ‘right here’ but your mind is certainly elsewhere. It has been for quite some time now...”

         Jamie’s heart began to flip flop and she felt her face grow hot. She looked down at her shaking hands and put them in her lap. He can’t possibly know anything, she told herself, but she wasn’t altogether convincing.
         He came around from behind his desk and sat at one next to hers. Jamie could feel his gaze and her face burned hotter. She looked down at her notebooks on the desk, willing herself to be calm. He didn’t know anything; this was simply about the daydreaming and that was all. She just had to get through the lecture and stop letting her paranoia take over.
         She brought her hands up from her lap to grasp her books in an effort to get control of the shaking. It seemed to work. She took a deep breath and felt herself calming.

         “Jamie, I just want to help you. You haven’t been yourself lately, and I understand you’ve been hurt badly, but you need to come back now. Your grades are terrible—no wonder, since you’re always staring off into space—your attitude has changed completely, and... well, you haven’t smiled, Jamie, not in a long time. People do notice that, you know.”

         His warm and wrinkled hand was suddenly covering hers. Jamie didn’t move. But her mind did. It tried to take steps back. Back to a day about a month ago now. To the first time he had covered her shaking hand with his. When it had all begun.
         It tried to, but Jamie didn’t let it. She damned up the trickle before it could become a flood and coughed so she would have an excuse to pull away her hand.
         Mr. Sorensen took the hint and pulled his hand away just as Jamie was bringing hers up to her face. She had to get out of here. She coughed once more into her hand, cleared her throat and spoke.

         “I’m sorry, Mr. Sorensen. I—I’ll do better. I’ll pay attention, I swear. One day at a time, right?” She fingered the coil at the edge of her notebook. “I just need a little more time, that’s all.”
         She turned to face him, her eyes round and blinking with feigned innocence and regret, but he seemed to buy it.
         He merely cocked his head to one side as he studied her face and smiled on one side of his mouth, resigned. He sighed with a heaviness Jamie could almost physically feel but told her she could go. She could feel his eyes on her all the way to the door, but she didn’t turn back to him.
         Strangely enough, she could still feel his eyes—and his warm, old, wrinkled hand—on her as she shuffled and ducked her way through the long, crowded hallway, which felt endless and dark—and lonely.
         Jamie bumped into a few kids here and there along the way but they barely acknowledged her as they joked with friends or hurried on to their after-school activities. White fire rose up again from within and burned brighter with each insulting encounter and Jamie imagined for a moment that she had the gun in her hand—how good it would feel to hold it right now...
         She stopped at her locker and threw in her books. There would be no studying tonight.

________________________

         At home following a very quiet dinner during which her parents barely spoke, Jamie paced her room in circles, shaking her head and mumbling to herself.

         “No one cares, no one even notices. My own freakin’ parents—‘come to us’. What a bunch of crap! Why don’t they come to me for once! No one gives a shit, that’s why!”

         She thought of Mr. Sorensen. Well, maybe he cares a little, maybe he notices, but that’s not enough—he’s just an old teacher.
No one’s minding the store, dammit!

         “Well then—fine! The store can do whatever it wants then, right? Screw all of ‘em!”
         The store would be minded tonight—well, if not minded, then at least noticed, Jamie mused.
         She stopped pacing and stared at her right hand for a long time. Then a smile made its way in tiny increments across her face, but she wore darkness and sadness in her eyes.

________________________

         Around eleven-thirty, after her parents had gone to sleep, Jamie sneaked out her bedroom window, a grimace of determination on her lips and the gun—safety on—tucked away in the inside pocket of her spring jacket.
         Her entire face was covered with muddy swirls of red, blue, and black paint which she had labored to apply for over an hour and a half in front of her door mirror. She was unrecognizable even to herself, but it wasn’t so much the disguise behind which she hid that had accomplished this feat, and somewhere inside Jamie registered this fact but ignored its implications.
         Meeting in the park a few blocks away, the three girls, faces painted and dressed in black, practiced twice more between gulps of beer and then walked in silence to the store, each heavy with anticipation and at least a little trepidation—although none would admit to the latter out loud.
         Jamie’s heart jumped in her chest and her whole body felt electrified as she finished up her last beer and threw the can into someone’s nicely tended hedges.
         She was scared but she felt more real and more solid than she had in quite some time, and with the weight of the gun against her side she felt powerful as well. Not the false power of creativity which she had always enjoyed, but real power: the power to be noticed, to be seen.
         And the moment was traveling toward her as she walked; each step brought her closer to it.
         A sudden calm began to overtake her. But it was powerful in itself and she didn’t mind the exhilaration wearing off: the transformation felt seamless and welcome.

__________________________

         When they arrived at the store Martina pulled Jamie aside by her arms, stared hard at her and asked, “You ready for this?”

         Jamie laughed. “Am I ready? Are you kidding me? Ready, willing...” She patted the pocket holding the gun. “...And able!”

         Martina held her eyes with her own a moment longer and then smiled.

         “Yeah, you are!”

         “Yeah, I am!” Jamie laughed again and was soon joined by both girls in a fit of giggles as they put their arms around each other and entered the store.
         The youngish clerk glanced up at them from his magazine on the counter for a nano-second and continued his perusal. It was twelve-thirty and there were only two other customers in the store: a fat, lonely-looking, middle-aged woman holding boxes of tampons and cat food and a near-sighted old man shuffling around empty-handed. Neither paid them any mind, Jamie noticed, even with their painted faces.
         Jamie had a sudden but brief urge to pull out the gun and make them notice but thought better of it. Martina and Leigh would be thrown off by her change in plans and she’d just screw everything up if she did that.
         Instead she just clenched her shaking hands into fists and took deep breaths as she and her friends waited for them to pay and get the hell out of the damned store.
         Jamie watched as the clerk rang up both customers and Martina and Leigh grabbed sodas from the fridges at the back of the store. Her hands felt clammy and tingly and she felt cold spiders creeping along her spine toward the back of her neck. For a moment, she forgot what was supposed to happen next. Panic found her. She closed her eyes tightly and bowed her head to her chest, willing her mind and heart to stop pounding. This was what she wanted, what she needed, and anyway, even if she wanted to stop now, it was too late.
         She picked up a bag of chips from the shelf in front of her and turned again toward the back of the store.
         She raised her head and faced her friends and they nodded to her with nervous eyes as they began to make their way up the aisle toward her and toward the counter.
         Jamie turned her gaze from them and walked in a semi-daze toward the clerk with the magazine and the thick glasses he kept pushing back up the hill of his smallish nose with his forefinger.
         He doesn’t want to be noticed, Jamie thought with a start. He knows I’m staring at him, but he’s pretending he doesn’t know. Well, he wouldn’t be able to pretend much longer. In a minute there’ll be a gun in his face and neither of them would be unnoticed by the other. He won’t get what he wants, but I’ll get what I want. Too bad for him, but, hey—that’s life, right?
         Jamie arrived at the chest-high counter in front of the clerk just as her friends ambled up behind her, pretending to be caught up in conversation as they threw their ‘purchases’ onto the counter. Jamie added her bag of chips and brought her hands to her sides.
         Barely glancing at them, the clerk began to ring up the items, still lost in his own little world of thought. Jamie watched, her eyes blinking furiously and her right hand on the gun within her jacket.
         At the very second he looked up at them to announce the total, Jamie grasped the gun, brought it out and up, and showed it to him.
         It didn’t sink in at first, she could tell. It took him a few seconds to register the gun in his face, but when he did his whole body flinched and his eyes—exposed, as his glasses were again sitting at the end of his nose—widened to almost comedic proportions.
         Jamie might have laughed had she not seen, out of the corner of her eye, her two friends backing up slowly and then running out of the store together, leaving her alone with the clerk and the gun in her hand.
         She couldn’t believe it. They had deserted her at the last minute! She hadn’t even seen it coming! One minute they were on either side of her at the counter, laughing and talking with absurd falseness and the next, they were gone. Just like that. Gone in a wake of tinkling bells from above the doors.

___________________________

         Now here she stood, alone but for the clerk and the gun, which was growing steadily more heavy in her hand.
         Their eyes locked on each others’, Jamie and the clerk stood motionless. Jamie’s mouth was dry and her throat was locked up; she couldn’t have uttered a word if she’d had one in mind—which she didn’t.
         She didn’t want him to see her fear, but she knew it must be evident in her shaking hands and in her frightened eyes, although he looked pretty frightened himself.
         She loosened her grip on the gun involuntarily—her sweaty hand was having a hard time holding onto it. She wanted more than anything to let it go, let it drop to the cool, hard floor at her feet and run out of there, erasing it all from her mind as she ran.
         All the anger was gone; it had dissipated as she stared into the eyes of this gun-scared kid who had most definitely noticed her. None of it mattered anymore. She just wanted out of this mess she’d created.
         But she was frozen, in mind and body alike.
         She didn’t know how to get out of this. Was there even a way now?!
         She couldn’t think.
         So she stood continuing the seemingly endless staring contest in which she and the clerk were participating, her mind awash in regret and horror at the Jamie she’d become.

___________________________

         The above-the-door bells tinkled. Jamie started but didn’t move her eyes.
         She knew this was it. She was busted. She was probably going to go to jail. Her life was over.
         She was almost relieved.
         And hey, she thought, you’ll be noticed now...

____________________________

         Resigned to her fate, unable to handle any more of this, Jamie lowered the hand holding the gun to her side, her eyes still holding the clerk’s for a long moment until they both looked toward the intrusive sound coming from the entrance to the store.
         Jamie’s eyes widened and her jaw fell.
         It was old Mr. Sorensen!
         What could he possibly be doing here in the middle of the night?
         He stepped inside and paused by the newspapers, sweeping his fingers across the piles before turning toward the counter.

         “So Simon, how’s the night going, son?”

         He was speaking to the clerk.
         Simon glanced at her and then at her teacher.

         “Uh... just fine, Grandpa...” he answered, with subtle terror half choking his words even as they passed his lips.

         Jamie’s heart was apparently performing gymnastics within her as her eyes followed the brief conversation between the two men. Had Mr. Sorensen noticed the clerk’s tone? Her hand tightened on the gun but she was unaware of this.
         She wondered how long it would take for all the shit to hit the fan.
         She looked toward her English teacher and knowing he couldn’t see the gun hidden by the counter but forgetting the paint on her face, she tried to smile and pretend all was well.
         He took a tentative step into the store, his gaze fixed upon her face.

         “Uh, Grandpa... do you need something?” Simon asked and he stopped.

         “Mr. Sorensen’s gaze meandered away from Jamie’s face and landed on the clerk’s.

His eyes blinked a few times and then he responded.

         “Well, of course, son. Why the heck else would I be here this time of night?” He smiled a crooked, nervous smile and turned back to Jamie, studying her. She felt naked, exposed... definitely noticed.

         He knows something’s wrong, Jamie thought. Oh my God, what am I gonna do now?!
         She tore her eyes from her teacher’s and they fell on the chips and sodas sitting on the counter between her and Simon.

         “Uh...” She stammered. “Uh...I don’t think I really need this stuff, so I’ll just go now, okay?”

         She didn’t look up at either of them as she shoved the gun in her jacket pocket and made a mad dash for the door, her head down.
         She nearly made it.
         The fingers of her left hand were actually touching the glass of the door when she was suddenly stopped by the gentle, yet solid grasp of her right arm.

         “Miss Shelton—Jamie? Is that you?”

         He turned and lowered his head toward hers, trying to get a look at her face. Jamie slowly raised her head and looked at her teacher directly, her eyes wide and terrified.

         “It is you! What are you doing here at this hour... with your face like this?”

         At the same moment, she heard Simon croak, “Grandpa, be careful! She’s got a gun!”

         ‘Grandpa’ looked up at his grandson with a quick jerk of his head and then looked back down at Jamie with obvious surprise, his grip on her arm tightening.

         “My God... What are you doing, child?! A gun?!”

         He was quiet for a moment. He still held her, but his grip loosened a bit as he shook his head from side to side, a sadness falling over him.

         “I thought your voice sounded familiar, but it’s the eyes... I know your eyes, Miss, uh, Jamie, and I know the look they’ve been wearing lately... Like nobody’s minding the store.
         “Now give me that gun, child. Uh—carefully...please.”

         Jamie’s head swam, her wide eyes blinked and began to fill with tears, and her body wilted, descending to the floor.
         Minding the store... minding the store... minding the store. The words played over and over in her mind. Had he actually said that or had she imagined it?
         Maybe it was a dream... Maybe all of this was a dream! She’d dreamt of those words before...
         And certainly, it all felt like a dream. Jamie closed her eyes and willed herself to awaken.
         There was an abrupt sensation of being lifted upward and her eyes flew open. It's not a dream! It was all real. Too real. She was here, and this was all really happening. Mr. Sorensen... the store... Simon, the clerk... the gun, still heavy in her pocket...
         Mr. Sorensen held her by her shoulders as she leaned up against the side of the counter. Simon had come around to the other side of it and was now standing next to his grandfather. As she stood—or, was held standing—in a daze, he reached into her jacket pocket with a swiftness and sureness she wouldn’t have expected of him and carefully retrieved the gun. He put it on the counter and went to lock the door, turning the ‘closed’ sign hanging on it toward the outside. He reported that the parking lot was empty.

         “Good,” said Mr. Sorensen. “Now—let’s all calm down, alright?”

         He took in a breath and let it out through pursed lips.

         “Jamie, come on over and sit down and lean against the counter here,” he said as he gently led her there, his arm around her shoulders.

         She let herself fall back against the counter and slide down to the floor in slow motion until she collapsed in a heap. Both men crouched down in front of her. She could feel their stares as she lowered her head.
         Jamie’s hands were shaking so badly she had to hold them together against herself as she sat cross-legged on the dirty floor, and even that wasn’t helping much. Hot tears overwhelmed her eyes and ran down her cheeks, and she wiped at them with her hands still as one, smearing paint off in places.
         Suddenly, she was outside herself, seeing what she must look like, and she had never been more embarrassed or terrified in her life.
         She wanted to scream, wanted to run. But she could do neither. Her energy was sapped. The only part of her filled with energy now was her brain as its circuits raced and flickered in its attempt to process everything that had happened in the last ten minutes.
         I’m so screwed, she thought, and began to laugh.
         She laughed and cried as one, her chin against her chest, for at least a minute. Then she stopped and looked up into their faces.

         “You sure noticed me tonight, huh?”

         Laughter followed again, high and shrill, until sobbing took over this time.
         Mr. Sorensen took a deep breathe in and then let it out, shaking his head as he dropped his eyes from hers. After a moment he spoke to her.

         “Is that why you did this? For attention? I tried to talk to you—“

         Jamie shook her head, still dazed, and mumbled half to herself.

         “Nobody’s minding the store... You said it. You said you could see it in my eyes... that they weren’t...”

         “No... I meant... Wait a moment. Who weren’t, Jamie?” Mr. Sorensen’s voice was soft.

         “Everybody!” Jamie cried. “Nobody cared! They just left me alone, like I wasn’t even there! Like I didn’t even exist anymore!!”

         Mr. Sorensen and Simon exchanged a look and their eyes fell.
         A second later, Simon stood up and turned away and her teacher turned his head and sat fully on the floor, his face buried in his hand.
         He began to cry.
         Jamie sat in shock, wondering what was happening. She looked from one to the other in silence and confusion. What had she said?

         “I–I’m s–sorry!” she said. “About everything! I am! I swear—I’m sorry! Please! What’s going on?!”

         Mr. Sorensen wiped his eyes with the same hand with which he had been covering them and pinched his bulbous nose with his thumb and forefinger, his wrinkled mouth in a grimace.
         Simon had gone behind the counter and Jamie could hear him sniffling. She sensed he had picked up the gun and put it away somewhere safe.
         She didn’t blame him.

         “Mr Sorensen? Are you... are you okay?” Jamie asked.

         “Those words... and those haunted eyes... and this... It’s my daughter all over again...” he said as his tears choked him.

         Jamie froze. She didn’t understand yet, but she remembered the touch of his hand and the sad, broken expression he had worn on the day Steve had dumped her. Fresh tears flowed, but her vision became clearer.
         She reached out and touched her teacher’s shoulder, her fingers gripping and twisting the rough fabric of his overcoat.
         He lowered his head into his hand once again and spoke in a whispery, faraway voice.

         “Sarah... My youngest. Simon’s aunt—she adored him and he, her. She... she was only twenty-six...”

         He was sobbing openly now and Simon came around again and knelt down to hug his grandfather as he wept. Jamie held onto his coat, not knowing what to do, what to say as she sat and watched them cry together.
         So she waited.
         After some time—she had no idea how long—their embrace loosened and Mr. Sorensen pulled out a packet of tissues, handing one to his grandson and using one himself. He blew his nose and wiped his face. Simon got up and ambled down the snack aisle, running his left hand along the middle shelf as he went.
         Jamie watched him for a few seconds and then returned her attention to her teacher.
         He stared at the floor, still grasping the tissue in his hand and kneading it with his fingers. It was beginning to fall apart, little bits of white fluff floating toward the floor, but he didn’t seem to notice.
         Clearing his throat, he began to speak again, but Jamie wasn’t sure he knew she was still there, though she still held his coat in her hand.

         “It was ten years ago now. A year after her mother died unexpectedly in a car accident... They were very close, the two of them, always together. They were so much alike...”

         He half-smiled into a place Jamie couldn’t see and his words drifted in airy little circles around them. She sensed he was only half in the present.
         She knew the feeling.
         Bewildered tears fell, but they were no longer for herself, and her heart continued to listen to his words.

         “Sh–she was lost after that. Her eyes became like yours have become. And she started to get into trouble.
         “I... I was lost in my own pain... and I wasn’t there for her when she needed me. I knew she was asking— I knew she needed me—but I was drowning in my own grief and anger and I just couldn’t, then... I just couldn’t help her.
         “And eventually, she stopped asking.
         “You have reminded me of her so very much lately, Jamie. And, I’m sorry to say, I pulled away from your pain, too. It took me back to a bad time, I suppose, but that’s no excuse—I should’ve been able to help you, Jamie. I’m sorry.”

         He stared down at the pieces of tissue on the floor.

         “Sarah... she wrote almost the exact words you spoke a few moments ago—‘like I didn’t even exist anymore’—in her suicide note.
         “Right before she used my old gun to end her life forever. You don’t ever get over something like that, Jamie, let me tell you.
         “Her death was in part a terrible fault of mine, but Jamie, this is not the way to ask for help, child! And ‘minding your store’ is not solely the responsibility of others around you. You have to mind your own store, and ask for help when you need it. And if you really need it, never stop asking. Never stop until you get it.
         “ But not like this. Asking for help in this way is just another way of ending your life... your future.”

         He straightened and took hold of one of her hands with both of his. It felt warm and good against her own.

         “Do you realize what could have happened here tonight, Jamie? To you, to Simon...”
         He swept his arm through the air toward Simon, who was pretending to straighten items on a shelf.
         “...To me? Or another customer, maybe?
         “Even if you’d gotten away, with some money in your pocket and no one the wiser, do you really think you’d have felt better about everything then? Or did you hope to get caught? Either way, is this truly the kind of attention you wanted?”

         Jamie began to sob again. Her cries were violent and wrenching to the soul.
         Her teacher—her friend—held her and didn’t say any more until she was finished.
         Jamie’s painted cheek rested against his wool jacket and she breathed in stale cologne and recently fresh cigar smoke.
         She wished she could smell these things for the rest of her life.

_________________________

         He took her home then, his arm about her all the way—even in the car—to wake her parents.
         Jamie was thanking God for many things on that ride home, not the least of those things being the fact that her new friend’s grandson had been the one minding the store tonight...
         And she’d finally been noticed.