I fired a nineteen-year-old cashier for falling asleep at her register. At the time, I told myself I was protecting the store. Harvest Lane Market sat on the corner of a busy road in a small American town where everyone knew the price of milk, the high school football schedule, and which neighbors were behind on their bills.
It was the kind of grocery store with a flag near the front entrance, seasonal wreaths on the automatic doors, and regular customers who complained when their favorite cereal moved one shelf to the left. I had managed that store for fifteen years. My name was Arthur Davis, and I believed in order.
Clean aisles. Fast registers. Tight schedules.
Employees on time, shirts tucked, name tags visible. I did not think of myself as unkind. I thought of myself as fair.
That was the first mistake. “Chloe, step away from the register,” I said. “Right now.
You’re done.”
My voice cut across the front end of the store. A line of customers had backed up into the snack aisle. A woman in a cream-colored coat was tapping her credit card against the counter with quick, irritated clicks.
A little boy sat in the cart behind her, swinging his feet while a box of cereal slid slowly toward the edge. And there was Chloe Bennett, my newest cashier, slumped forward over the scanner. Asleep.
Her cheek was nearly touching the glass plate where customers dragged their groceries across the red laser. One hand rested near the register drawer. Her brown ponytail had slipped loose, and her oversized green polo made her look even younger than nineteen.
When I said her name, she jolted awake so hard her elbow hit the scanner. “I’m sorry,” she gasped. “Mr.
Davis, I’m sorry. I can keep going.”
The customer in the cream coat folded her arms. I could feel everyone watching me.
Customers. Employees. The bakery girl near the bread case.
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