Free The Last Days of Video by Jeremy Hawkins Page A

zitty Errol Flynn. But you’re not getting a thank you, Waring thought. I didn’t ask for your help. And if I find out you’ve told Alaura, then you’re fired, Opie Taylor. That whole incident is better left forgotten.
    Jeff scurried onto the floor without looking at Waring—probably to organize DVDs or to dust or to do something else in a preposterously productive way—and Waring’s gaze scrolled across his expansive store and came across Farley, who was standing near the Criterion section.
    Farley held his video camera. The camera was trained on Waring.
    Had Farley captured his entire conversation with Clarissa Wheat?
    Waring sneered at the camera and its rotund operator. “Farley?” he said. “Alaura might not let me fire you. But that doesn’t mean maiming is out of the question.”
    Farley smiled and gave Waring an enthusiastic, directorial thumbs-up.

THE ONE WHERE THEY PERPETRATE A COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS SCHEME THAT COMES TO BE KNOWN SIMPLY AS “THE CORPORATE VISIT”
    On Tuesday, three days after the bad-news phone call, Clarissa and Barney Wheat arrived at precisely two p.m., driving a rented minivan, and as Jeff watched Alaura welcome them outside the shop, he decided that he had never witnessed a couple dressed so identically who also looked so different. The Wheats wore matching three-button navy suits, crisp white shirts, red ties, and shiny gray shoes, and around their necks hung thick silver chains upon which dangled thick silver crosses, resting over their ties. But Clarissa Wheat was a head taller than her husband. And twenty years younger. She was rail thin where he was pudgy and folded. Her coal black hair was pulled into a tight bun, while Barney Wheat’s hair was sporadic and disheveled and gray. A dopey, perpetual smile swung on his sagging face, while her lips seemed to disappear into a haughty point an inch below her nose.
    As if the Wheats’ arrival had initiated a dimensional shift, Alaura looked like a different person. She wore no makeup besides a swipe of dull red lipstick. Her hair lay flat and parted like a brunette Mia Farrow. And though the temperature was well over eighty degrees, she wore a white turtleneck sweater and a pale blue, ankle-lengthskirt—an outfit designed to cover her tattoos, Jeff decided, just like that morning at Tanglewood Baptist.
    Jeff watched Alaura banter and smile with the strange couple. He watched her ask questions and nod thoughtfully at their answers. But her skin was pale. Her face looked thin. Shadowy circles hung under her eyes. Jeff had caught her crying in the loft the other day, and she’d been mean to him, but he’d probably deserved it, though he didn’t know why. Since then she’d been hours late to every shift, and she no longer emitted that same bright energy with customers or employees or him.
    â€œLook alive, freshman.”
    Waring stood at the counter.
    Jeff could not believe what he saw.
    â€œWhat?” Waring said. “This is a thousand-dollar suit.”
    But Waring’s charcoal suit was wrinkled and crooked, too tight over the stomach, too loose in the shoulders. One button dangled like a dislodged tooth, and around the suit’s neckline looped a weird ring of dark wet spots. His hair was combed back and glistening. Jeff smelled the heavy tang of Vitalis.
    Waring looked like a member of the Brat Pack after too many calzones and a rough night in a country jail.
    â€œStop staring,” Waring said.
    â€œSorry.”
    â€œListen, Blad, I know you’re not thrilled about this corporate visit thing. But you have to play along.”
    Jeff sighed. Waring had employed the phrase “You have to play along” at least five times that day. Which apparently meant lying to Clarissa and Barney Wheat. But lie about what? Jeff had no idea.
    â€œNone of that,” Waring said. “No discontented exhales. No shrugs. Understand?”
    â€œNot