Black Thursday (4 page)

“Deal maps, I presume?” I asked, as the camera crew headed that direction to set up.

“For the specials advertised in the newspaper and some unadvertised discounts on smaller-ticket items we've placed throughout the store,” Alan said.

“Eloise, would you mind grabbing a few so we can figure out how best to divide and conquer?”

“No need,” Alan said before Eloise could turn for the front counter. “Just use your smartphone.”

“You created a QR code
12
for tonight?” I asked, digging through my purse and locating my cell.

“And by keying FRUGARMY into the passcode I set up, Mrs. Frugalicious followers will be directed to the layaway counter for the stereo system,” Alan said. “To sweeten the pot, they will get vouchers for another item of their choice without having to stand in a second line.”

As in a double frugasm? “Seriously?”

“Excluding the TV, which really wouldn't be fair to other shoppers since the supply is limited.”

“Makes sense,” Craig said. “I'll wait in the TV line if someone will get the sound system for me.”

“Not a problem,” Barb said. “As long as I can get two.”

“Absolutely,” Alan said.

“This is awesome,” I said.

“Small token of my thanks for bringing the news crews and the shoppers here,” Alan said in a chipper voice.

“Perfect,” Anastasia said. “We'll be able to cover Mrs. Frugalicious, the Frugarmy, and the family shopping angles all at once.”

“So I
do
get to be on camera?” Eloise asked.

Frank put his arm around her. “Day full of unexpected surprises.”

“Incredible ones,” I said. “But how will the Frugarmy know to—”

“I posted a message on your website,” Alan said.

“You did?” I asked with more concern in my voice than I'd intended.

“About two hours ago.” He moved closer as I scrolled down my web page to the
Comments and Last Minute Deals
section where, thankfully, there was nothing but a big bold CHECK IN WITH YOUR SMARTPHONES AT BARGAIN BARN TONIGHT FOR A DEAL WAY TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE!!! PASSCODE: FRUGARMY.

“Brilliant,” I said, as much about his offer as Eloise's insistence I block Contrary Claire's potentially toxic commentary. It must have been mere seconds before Alan logged onto my website.

He smiled. “I thought so.”

“The Frugarmy will love it,” I couldn't help but notice how good he smelled, in that woodsy/spicy/soapy kind of a way. “Thank you, Alan.”

Our eyes met. “My pleasure.”

“We need to get cracking,” Frank said, turning to Anastasia. “Don't we?”

Alan furrowed his brow in what I could swear was an expression of
why exactly is he here tonight, anyway?
Anastasia looked up from her own cell phone at the sign marked
Layaway
with an arrow pointing toward the back left corner of the store. “So the Frugarmy line will form where?

“In Small Appliances. It'll switchback as necessary through the back aisles.”

She pointed to the main corridor, which was lined with dishwashers, refrigerators, and ranges. “Any chance we could direct the line down one of the central thoroughfares instead?”

“They are way more open,” Frank added. “For the camera and everything.”

“Technically, that could impede other lines like the Blu-ray players also in that part of the store,” Alan said. “But I suppose we could direct the Frugarmy line around toward the access aisle once it winds in and out of Linens.”

Anastasia, despite wearing spiked heels, jogged down the main corridor of the store to the spot halfway to the back, where it intersected the center aisle. She looked around, turned back toward us, and nodded. “Works for me.”

_____

“This is fabulous!” Anastasia said watching the sea of shoppers rush through the front doors and immediately jostle for position. “Pure insanity.”

“More like organized chaos,” I said, watching a group of women confer over a Black Friday map, make assignments amongst themselves, and set off in different directions.

On Anastasia's cue and with the camera rolling, I walked over to Customer Service, picked up a map, pretended to consult it, and headed toward the Frugarmy line in Small Appliances. A line that, thanks to Bargain Barn's last-minute message on MrsFrugalicious.com, already spanned the length of the aisle, wound into Linens, and would soon be curling into the center corridor bisecting the store.

Alan (after some light arm-twisting by me) agreed to make a cameo at the register. He stood poised to ring up Customer #1 (who just happened to be Eloise). With the cameraman's nod, she gave her hair a meaningful flip and pretended to transact what were really my purchases. Barb, Gerald, and a suspiciously laugh-line-free Joyce smiled gleefully from behind her.

Anastasia and I stood to the left of the Layaway counter and provided color commentary.

“The most important thing to do on Black Friday is stick to your game plan,” I said. “If you've done your research and have your shopping posse with you, there's no reason you shouldn't leave with most of the big items crossed off your list at the smallest possible prices.” I felt like the crown princess of bargain shoppers, speaking to the TV audience but addressing the countenances of my loyal Frugarmy. “This isn't the time to worry about stocking stuffers and odds and ends that will just bog you down. Those half-off fuzzy slippers and sparkly holiday earrings will most likely be there early next week when the crowds have thinned, but that flat-screen TV definitely won't.”

“Terrific!” Anastasia said, as the camera panned onto the people queued up behind the Michaels clan. “Next, we get customer reaction shots.”

“Be there in a sec,” I said as Anastasia, Frank, and the crew swung around to interview random shoppers at the less-crowded back of the line. Instead of following them, I headed straight down the aisle to meet and greet fans, friends, and clients like L'Raine, my former massage therapist, and Mrs. Piggledy, who, as a former big-top performer and co-owner of one of my favorite stores, Circus Circus, was both.

It took a full ten minutes of hellos and handshakes to work my way to them, just behind an end cap filled with toasters.

“Maddie!” Mr. Piggledy, her round, ruddy husband (made all the rounder by his bright red holiday sweater), appeared beside his wife. He gave me a big, squishy hug. “You're a star!”

“I don't know about that,” I said.

“Well we certainly think so,” he said, handing a customer pick-up voucher to his wife. “We have a brand-new, state-of-the-art TV being delivered next week—thanks to you!”

“You have to be reveling in this wonderful manifestation of your hard work as Mrs. Frugalicious.” Mrs. Piggledy was equally ample and, despite an affinity for flowing tops, denim skirts, and New Age rhetoric, bore more than a passing resemblance to Mrs. Claus. She gave me an even warmer embrace. “I knew that crazy person's note wouldn't keep anyone away from here tonight.”

“I …” I looked to make sure Alan, who'd also stopped to press the flesh with a few customers after passing the register job off to real cashier, was out of earshot of Mrs. Piggledy's high but resonant voice. I lowered mine. “I was a little worried about that.”

“No need. It wasn't up on the website long enough.” A boxy-looking woman of about forty with a sweet face, bobbed hair, and neon pink sneakers who stood behind them embraced me as well. “I'm so excited to meet you in person, Mrs. Frugalicious. I'm a big fan.” She took a camera out of her bag. “I can't believe my husband is in the TV line missing this! Will you take a picture with me so I can show him I met you?”

“Of course,” I said.

She was about to hand the camera off to Mr. Piggledy when Frank appeared beside me. “How about I do the honors?”

“Frank Finance?” she said handing him the camera and swinging her arm around my shoulder. “OMG! I never expected to see you tonight! Aren't you two—”

Before I could pull him aside, look into the whites of his eyes, and confirm my suspicion—that he truly had been taken over by a kinder, gentler, more faithful being from a different dimension—Frank's cell phone chirped the theme song to the old seventies sitcom
All in the Family
.

“Looks like my mom needs me for something or another,” he said, answering the call.

“And I need Maddie.” Anastasia appeared beside us. “We're done getting shopper feedback and I have to take a quick potty break. Can you go with the cameraman so he can get tape of you in the voucher redemption line?”

“Sure.”

“I'll be right there and we'll move on to interview folks loading goodies into their cars.”

The next thing I knew, Anastasia had taken off toward the restrooms, Frank had joined his family, and I was being filmed pretending to wait for my purchases at merchandise pickup.

Resisting the urge to smile.

Feeling more hopeful about my career and future than I'd been since before …

A loud, booming crash echoed across the store.

three

“Couldn't be an earthquake,”
the woman behind me said. “Could it?”

“This isn't California,” her husband said. “Something fell.”

“Something really heavy,” the guy behind him added.

The merchandise fulfillment clerk picked up his phone. “What's going on out there? My counter just shook like there was an explosion or something.”

Anastasia appeared in the open doorway and beckoned the cameraman and me. “Follow me and keep the camera rolling!”

“What happened?” I asked, maneuvering around the people in line and trailing her through the open double doors and back into the store proper.

“They're saying a pallet slipped,” she said, circumnavigating the horde of shoppers blocking the middle thoroughfare of the store by taking a sharp right into an aisle of strollers. “Off one of the upper shelves.”

“Where?” I asked, as we made a left and started down the picture frame aisle.

“Everywhere,” Anastasia said.

I figured she had to be referring to the onlookers blocking the ends of every aisle we'd entered, until I veered around a cracked, upended Hamilton Beach toaster.

And a Black & Decker.

“A pallet of toasters?”

My breath hitched with Anastasia's nod.

“Tell me they didn't fall anywhere near where the Frug—”

“A bunch of people are already helping the injured over there.”

I'd already turned and was racing toward Layaway where Frank had gone to find his parents. Where I'd last seen …

“Eloise?” I shouted as though my voice could be heard from Electronics and over the ominous din of people surrounding the scene. “Frank?”

I reached the counter and the Frugarmy line, which was no longer a line but a bottleneck of stunned onlookers clustered at the end of a kitchen appliances aisle. There was no sign of anyone from the Michaels family, all of whom but Craig should have been somewhere near the back of the crowd given their spots at the front of the line when I left them.

“Eloise?” My throat constricted with panic as I fumbled for my phone, shot off a
Where are you??
text to Frank, and worked my way around a dented Cuisinart box and an Oster four-slice model and into the cluster of people. “Joyce? Gerald?”

I was two people deep in the crowd when I got a return text:
OMG! Where are you?

From Eloise.

I allowed myself a momentary breath of relief knowing it was her and not someone trying to locate next of kin using her phone. I texted back:
At layaway. Looking for you.

We were coming to find you when it happened.

Who is we?

Everyone but Daddy and Uncle Craig.

Before I could type the
where
in
Where are they
?
the man directly in front of me shifted to the left. On my tiptoes and looking around the frizzy auburn hair of the woman in front of him, I spotted assorted appliances, a slice of floor, and people tending to what appeared to be injured shoppers.

“Coming through!” I shouted, putting my hands together and using them as a wedge to push my way forward. “Mrs. Frugalicious coming through!”

The cluster of people parted long enough for me to step into what looked like the aftermath of an F5 tornado. I found myself staring in disbelief at a swath of damaged assorted collateral merchandise and shell-shocked shoppers, some with cuts and bruises. The injuries seemed minor in general, until I saw the distinctive tomato red of Mr. Piggledy's XXL holiday sweater through the legs of a group clustered together to the right of me.

He knelt down beside a silver-haired woman lying on the ground, her full denim skirt splaying around her like a flower.

“Oh, no!” I kicked aside a blender from a display that had toppled as well and rushed over in what felt like slow motion. “Mrs. Piggledy!”

“I'm okay,” Mrs. Piggledy said. “I just twisted my ankle.”

“I'm afraid it's broken,” Mr. Piggledy said.

“It can't be,” she said. “Not with Higgledy's commitment ceremony on Saturday.”

“He and Birdie are supposed to tie the knot,” Mr. Piggledy said by way of explanation about their pet monkey Higgledy and Birdie, the parrot from the mall pet store he'd fallen hard for. “Which is the last thing to worry about right now.”

“Have to admit,” Mrs. Piggledy said through gritted teeth and looking at the foot, which was already blackish-purple and starting to swell. “It sure hurts.”

“I can't believe this is happening,” Mr. Piggledy said, cradling his wife's foot. “One moment we were enjoying the spectacle of it all, and the next …”

“Appliances,” Mrs. Piggledy mumbled. “Raining from the sky.”

“It all happened so fast.”

“So sorry, honey.” Mr. Piggledy dried the tear rolling down his cheek with his sleeve. “I just couldn't get her out of harm's way fast enough.”

“Oh my God,” I said. “This is awful.”

“Could be worse,” Mrs. Piggledy said with more stoicism than I could possibly have mustered in her condition. “Much worse.”

“I don't know how it could be much worse than—”

My voice was drowned out by the wail of sirens nearing the store.

Mr. Piggledy pointed around the corner at the cluster of people now tugging at the plastic rope and shrink wrap affixing boxes to what turned out to be a double-decker pallet that had slipped off the shelf.

Specifically, she pointed at the pair of neon-pink tennis shoes jutting out, Wicked Witch of the West–style, from underneath.