Page 53 of Stacked
Bending down, I pulled the Windex and a few paper towels from the small stash of cleaning supplies I kept beneath the cash register. The large storefront windows were streaked with fingerprints, and the morning light streaming through them highlighted how much they needed cleaning. Doing a task like this would prevent me from accessing my phone, which I wanted to keep locked up in the office.
“Let me take care of these windows,” I said as I rounded the cash desk. “I didn’t realize they had gotten so bad.”
Morgan followed me back to the front and offered to help, but I insisted on doing it myself, reminding her that I had a certain way I liked the windows to look. She laughed at that and reminded me of the disastrous window paint I’d put on them back when I first took over the store, paint meant to advertise a huge back-to-school sale, and that took five tries to wash off the glass.
“That’s when I learned you were a picky person,” she said. “Much more than I remembered.”
“I guess I’m just old and crusty.”
I squirted some cleaner on a paper towel and began cleaning the window, starting with the large cluster of fingerprints near the display of Madeline and her friends. I didn’t understand why people wouldn’t monitor their children, wouldn’t stop them from touching things in the store they didn’t plan to buy, but it never failed. These arrangements were too popular with guests, and I didn’t want to risk further alienating what was already a dwindling customer base.
“I know the video is getting a lot of traction,” I said once I cleaned the first group of smudges. “The remix was pretty silly.”
“Well, they partnered it with those dance videos fromSwept in Love, and I thought that was pretty funny.”
I grimaced. “TikTok dances are so cringe.”
“Unless you’re, like, a nineteen-year-old gymnast from some SEC school. Then they get you million-dollar endorsement deals.”
I stopped rubbing the glass with the paper towel. “Glad to see I’m not the only one who’s old. I’m sure this is just a flash.” I moved to the second section of the window. “A trend. People aren’t that interested in someone like me.”
“But that kiss looked like something out of a romantic comedy.”
I scoffed. “Says the woman who has already found the love of her life. I think you’re a little too hopped up on romance right now for your own good and all the wedding planning.”
“Actually, I still need a break from that, so now that I don’t have the float to distract me, I’m moving on to this viral video business.”
“I’m glad to provide you one.” I gave her a mock bow.
Morgan studied me. “You’re not curious at all?”
“About what?” I spritzed more cleaner on the paper towel and glossed it over the nearest section.
“What’s on your phone? What’s happening to that video right now?” She took an unused paper towel and followed my lead, streaking it with Windex before crossing to the unclean area on the farthest side of the window. “You’re not thinking about it at all?”
“Oh no, I’m obsessing about it all the time. Just trying to keep myself from accessing my phone all day.”
“And how’s that going for you?”
I stopped working. “Not very well.”
Morgan stopped cleaning too. “Good, I’m glad I’m not the only one.”
“Do you think this will be a good thing or a bad thing?”
“There’s no such thing as bad press.” She walked toward me, crumpling the used paper towel. “You know that.”
“But—”
I considered all the viral videos I’d seen across the internet in the past, all the time when they went wrong, when people messed up their lives with one moment, with one break in their usual behavior. It didn’t matter that the internet had been around for a few decades and that most people had daily access to it. The internet was still the Wild West, still a vast place with few rules and lots of dark corners. What people cheered today they could easily jeer tomorrow.
There was nothing saying they wouldn’t do that to me. To the store. To the life I’d built since coming home to New Burlington.
“What if this goes wrong?” I asked. “What if this ruins my life?”
Morgan leaned against the nearby display table of puzzles and games for early elementary-aged school kids. “I don’t think it will.”
“I’m scared,” I admitted. “And in shock. I knew people were recording that moment. I saw all the phones out, and I know that’s what people do now. It’s instinct. But I didn’t think anything I did would be of that much... interest to people. Especially not my love life.”
