The Store Read online

  It seemed that every kind of “stuff” in the world was in those eighteen enormous buildings. Approximate size? Imagine fifteen Madison Square Gardens.

  Did you need a leather three-piece sectional sofa, a watermelon and a melon baller, a Patek Philippe watch, an ironing board, two thousand plastic-recycling bags, red paper clips, or an autographed Mickey Mantle baseball card? Maybe you’d like a low-flush toilet, a package of condoms, a Roku box, a pasta machine, a fifty-thousand-dollar Edwardian diamond tiara, a pound of sevruga caviar, a thousand pounds of manure, a napkin holder, a case of napkin holders, a Hershey’s Special Dark chocolate bar, a case of Hershey’s Special Dark chocolate bars, a canoe, a Jet Ski, a box of colostomy bags, a…

  If it existed, the Store sold it. The Stormers zoomed around like roaches running from the light. The workers popped up and down like characters in old silent movies.

  Megan and I watched it all as our Stormer took us on a “training and orientation” tour. A woman’s soothing voice came through our earbuds as we rode along:

  “At the moment, you’re witnessing the assembly of a packing crate. Watch the merchandise being lifted into the crate. The follow-up accountant checks the order and…”

  Every few yards, the voice would resume: “At the moment we’re in ‘semiperishables,’ everything from jicama and avocados to deviled eggs and smoked salmon. The temperature in this area is precisely calibrated to…”

  Then a surprise.

  We were making a left turn from “photo printing and three-dimensional laser printing” to “all-natural flooring, door saddles, and colonial molding” when a hand reached toward my head and pulled off my earbuds.

  The assailant, whom I hadn’t yet identified, spoke in a loud stage whisper: “Welcome to Planet Crazy. Please check your brain at the entrance.”

  It was Bud.

  “Holy shit!” I said.

  “Watch your mouth, New York boy,” I heard a woman say. It was Bette.

  Yes, our two pothead friends from the church parking lot.

  Bette showed us the face of her standard-issue Store tablet as she said, “We tracked your orientation path on the ‘Who’s New’ page. Take a gander.”

  On Bette’s tablet were two very retouched photos of Megan and me. We looked like models in a 1950s clothing catalog. The caption below our picture read “Say hello to Meg and Jake.”

  Meg? Jake?

  Megan shook her head and said, “And so the madness begins.”

  “And it is only the beginning,” Bud said.

  “We’ve got to scoot,” said Bette. “We can talk later. We’ll stop by soon.”

  Bette and Bud walked away quickly. And Megan and I slipped our earbuds back in.

  The voice of the guide began again, “Now that your unscheduled visit is ended…”

  Someone had been watching us.

  The voice continued, “Please report to assignment area 44 for your first task.” The voice clicked off.

  The Stormer made a sudden sharp right turn at “smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, and carbon monoxide detectors.”

  In approximately ten minutes we had arrived at assignment area 44. During that ten-minute drive I had counted ninety-five Store slogan signs.

  NO WORRIES

  No worries?

  In my opinion, nothing but worries.

  Chapter 15

  AT THE Store assignment area a bell rang, and a text message appeared on our tablet.

  The success of the Store depends on the excitement and involvement of the consumers we serve. Sometimes our friends the consumers are so pleased with the low price and easy delivery of the goods they buy that they become totally immersed. When that happens, our friends at home need some help and guidance from their friends at the Store.

  Today, Meg and Jake, you two, as a team, will be representing us as we try to help folks break away from their commitment to the products they’re using. In other words, let’s get them out of their houses and return them to service. Many of them have been on extended leaves of absence.

  Please review the prepared talking points as your Stormer takes you to your first stop. Good luck.

  So a Stormer took us to visit Store customers who had become “so engrossed” in Store merchandise that they needed to be “deimmersed and reimmersed.” The objective was to get people to stop using their favorite Store products and go back to work.

  Our first stop was a big Tudor-style house. According to the information on our tablets, the thirty-year-old couple living there had not left the place for sixty-five days. That’s right, sixty-five days. They had become obsessed with using their small army of Vitamix blenders.

  “Man, take one sweet sip of the red cabbage, kale, and blueberry,” the husband said at his doorway, holding out a big glass of very unappetizing blue-tinged mud.

  “No, thank you,” I said.

  “Ma’am,” he said, offering the same potion to Megan.

  I don’t think the guy had shaved in sixty-five days. He was wearing a dingy T-shirt and red boxer shorts, both covered with stains the same color as the juice he was offering.

  “We’re two of your friends from the Store,” Megan said.

  “And you are friends indeed.” It was a different voice, a woman’s voice.

  Then we saw the woman. She easily weighed 250 pounds.

  “Our friends at the Store sold us our Vitamix machines, and those mixers or blenders or whatever they are have just changed our lives.”

  She, too, held a big glass of liquid. She called her offering a chocolate yogurt ambrosia smoothie.

  “Tastes delicious, and it’s good for what ails you,” she said.

  I took the glass. I took a gulp. It was exceptionally delicious. It was also exceptionally sweet and exceptionally rich. I would have bet that she’d been drinking gallons of similar smoothies for the previous sixty-five days.

  Megan and I tried to tempt them with the benefits of “getting back to your colleagues at the Store.” Their reaction? They invited us into the kitchen to see their “family.”

  The family consisted of five different Vitamix machines: two CIA Professional Series blenders, two Professional Series 500 blenders, and a G-series 780.

  “The G-series is the next generation,” the wife whispered confidentially.

  They described their lives—if you could call what they were doing living.

  The husband ordered his juicing produce—from leeks to oranges to avocados—from the Store. The wife ordered her Chobani yogurt and Mast Brothers chocolate from the Store.

  The husband said it perfectly: “The Store makes everything so easy that you never have to leave your house.” He paused for a moment and then added, “Well, sometimes you do, but just once. I was playing Pokémon GO.” Then he laughed.

  They elaborated on this theme. This couple subscribed to the Store’s streaming services for movies and TV and sports specials. The Store filled their medical prescriptions (“I have a touch of diabetes, so I gotta have my metformin,” the wife said). The Store sold them “a really reasonably priced” Thermador refrigerator in which to keep their overflow of smoothies. The drones delivered their food.

  “But what about people, human contact, your friends?” Megan asked.

  “Who needs them when you have this?” the woman said.

  We left.

  Our next stop was only two houses away from the Vitamix couple.

  The door was unlocked. So we walked into a big front hall filled with mirrors, clouds of hot steam, and the scent of eucalyptus and menthol. The sounds of exotic music—harp and piano and waterfall—filled the air.

  A woman entered, perhaps fifty years old, wearing a long white terry-cloth bathrobe. Her blond hair looked wet; it was pulled back. She asked sweetly if she could help us.

  Before I could answer, Megan said, “Wow. You’ve got some kind of luxury spa in here.”

  The blond woman spoke: “We think it is a luxury spa in here.”

  She was immediatel
y joined by a smaller version of herself—a thirtyish blond woman, also in a white terry-cloth robe. They had to be mother and daughter.

  “I bet you folks are from the Store, aren’t you?” the younger woman asked.

  We said we were.

  “It won’t work,” the older woman said. “You two aren’t the first. They’ve sent plenty of others. Over the past six months there must have been ten different people from the Store. Sometimes couples, most times women. But the thing is this: they see what we’ve done with the place, and sometimes they don’t want to leave, either. The massage machines, the saunas, even the three attendants…we call ’em the boys. We got them all from the Store, and now the Store says we should get back to work. Well, why should we? They keep extending our paid leave. And…why should we leave all this?”

  I suggested that returning to a life of accomplishment and people—the joking, the parties—would be fun.

  They laughed at me. They thought I was crazy.

  “We have air purifiers, tanning beds, everything we need,” the younger woman said.

  Then they took us on a short tour of their magical mystery spa, and it was…well, it was a real spa. Another young blond woman was being massaged by a well-built older man. A fat hairy guy sat in a dry sauna. A very old woman sat in a wet sauna.

  “Is this a legit business here?” I asked.

  “Oh, no,” said the older woman. “Just friends and family.”

  Unsuccessful again. We left the spa. Megan said, “I feel like a Jehovah’s Witness.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Door-to-door but no converts.”

  Back in the Stormer I gave her a short, sweet kiss. “Ugga-bugga,” I said.

  “No,” Megan said. “The proper expression is…”

  She paused for a few moments, and then, almost in unison, we said, “No worries.”

  Chapter 16

  THE NEXT day Megan and I were separated…at work. In our strange new world this was a strange new feeling—being alone. Megan and I were always together, especially during the previous few months: working on the disastrous Roots of Rap, organizing the move to New Burg, moving in, working in the attic on the new project. Now we were alone, which was unusual for us.

  We were each assigned our own Stormer, working in different buildings. That second day I was assigned to “collection housewares,” gathering and prepacking wall-mounted plastic-bag dispensers, silicone spatulas, apple-pie-scented candles, and disposable espresso cups.

  Megan was assigned to “maternity denim,” filling orders for elastic-waist butt-lifting black jeans, stretch-sided white twill jeans, and elastic-waist distressed jeans with “worn, torn, not yet born” holes at the knees.

  We drove back home together, of course. Megan did the driving, and I did the writing, filling index cards with notes (“Quick calculation: free cafeteria lunches cost the Store approximately $830,000 daily”) and observations (“Pretty sure the ‘collection housewares’ supervisor has small computer chip embedded in his forearm”), and personal insights (“Stormer check-in staff all nice, polite; Stormer repairmen all suck”).

  When we arrived home our plan was to check in with Alex and Lindsay, then use the matching treadmills in the basement for half an hour, do fifteen minutes on the StairMaster, and finally cool down with a few icy Sam Adamses.

  As I say, that was our plan. Alex was waiting at the open garage door.

  No “Hello.” No “How was your day?”

  His greeting was, “Do you know two people named Bette and Bud?”

  “Yes,” said Megan, and then, quite sanctimoniously, she added, “We met them at church.”

  First Alex said, “Alleluia.” Then he said, “Well, they’re in the dining room, and they just droned in a bucket of Buffalo wings and fries.”

  We walked into the dining room and were greeted by lots of hugs. Bette and Bud obviously subscribed to the hugging craze that was sweeping the country, including New Burg.

  “I warned you we’d be coming by,” said Bette.

  We told them how pleased we were that they just dropped in, that we had absolutely nothing planned for the evening, and that Buffalo wings were some of our favorite foods in the world.

  They didn’t seem nearly as hip and good-looking as the previous two times we’d met. Bette seemed pale and wasn’t wearing makeup. Her clothes were loose and matronly, and she wore a foolish-looking pink sweatshirt. Bud had a puffiness around the eyes. He was wearing “Dad” pants—baggy, pleated chinos belted high on his stomach.

  “Took us exactly two minutes to walk here,” Bud said. “Door to door; timed it.”

  Bette said, “Can you think of anything more boring than to use a stopwatch on a walk down the block? Next he’ll be counting raindrops.”

  “By the way,” Bud said. “It looks like we were right about something.”

  “About what?” I asked.

  Bud tilted his head in the direction of the fireplace. “The spaniels,” he said.

  Both Megan and I turned our heads toward the mantel and the early nineteenth-century ceramic cocker spaniels Megan’s grandmother had given us.

  I must have looked confused.

  “He’s talking about this,” Bette said. She walked to the fireplace, picked up one of the dogs, and turned it upside down. You didn’t have to be a CIA operative to spot the surveillance camera that had been drilled into the dog’s paw.

  “Son of a bitch,” I said.

  “Please, Jacob,” Megan said. “Don’t start.”

  I surveyed the living room and front hall. Yes, the cameras were back, reinstalled, just as Bette and Bud had predicted. Over the front door. Over the hall mirror. Over the hall closet. Over the fake Matisse in the living room. In some of the same places. And in a bunch of new ones. “Get used to it, man,” Bud said. “This is the way the Store works. And there isn’t anything you can do about it.”

  He paused. He smiled. Then he said, “Nothing but this…”

  Bud leaped up and began singing the teenybop song of the hour, “Jealous.” He held the camera-loaded china dog as if it were a microphone. As Bud sang and gyrated and did a third-rate imitation of Nick Jonas, moving the dog back and forth in front of his face, Megan and I were a little bit too stunned to laugh. Man, the guy was moving with passion.

  I don’t like the way he’s lookin’ at you.

  He stopped suddenly. He plopped back down.

  “I always like to provide a little entertainment for the bastards who have to watch all these videos. You should see my Lady Gaga. It’s perfect.”

  Bette then said, “Of course, you should know that since Bud’s wacko performance was recorded on one of the cameras in your house, the Store will bring it up in your interview.”

  “We’re being interviewed?” Megan asked.

  “Sure thing. Everyone who moves here has a three-hour introductory interview. They call it the in-in. You bring the whole family. The kids. Even a dog or a canary if you’ve got one. Then they ask about a zillion questions. Some highly personal. Some highly intellectual. And some just plain crazy.”

  “They’re very polite, very courteous,” said Bud. “No one seems to know what they do with the results,” he said. “But it’s nothing to worry about.”

  From the looks on their faces, we knew it was nothing to look forward to, either.

  Chapter 17

  THE VERY next day Megan, Lindsay, Alex, and I were seated in a large comfortable room.

  “Lindsay, let’s start with you. Name two things you’d change about your parents if you could.”

  The walls were paneled in dark wood. The furniture was classic psychiatrist-office stuff: Eames chair, brown-and-black tweed sofa, matching tweed club chair, and, of course, a coffee table topped with a box of Kleenex.

  “Jacob, would you ever skip church on Sunday to go to a Major League Baseball game?”

  The interviewer was named Justin—a skinny guy with the standard good looks of a TV game-show host. No
idea whether he was a real psychiatrist.

  “Megan, are you an organ donor?”

  Justin said that this was a purely get-to-know-you session. They did it with all new employees and their families. Justin told us something he would repeat a number of times throughout our three hours there. “There are no right or wrong answers.” Yeah, sure.

  “Lindsay, what do you miss most about New York City?”

  “The craziness.”

  “Megan, do you believe that thirteen is an unlucky number?”

  Megan said she was not a superstitious person.

  “Follow-up, then. Would you live in an apartment on the thirteenth floor?”

  “Well, like I said, I’m not superstitious. So I guess I would.”

  “Another follow-up. You said ‘I guess I would.’ Does that mean you’re not certain?”

  Megan said she was certain.

  “Alex, same question. Thirteenth floor?”

  Alex was ready: “I tend to live wherever my parents live.”

  “Good answer, my man.”

  Justin had no paper or pen. He took no notes. I could only assume that we were being recorded or even streamed on video. Had he conducted these interviews so many times that he had it all memorized? Did he just invent things as he went along? Or was it a combination of both?

  “Jacob, there are only three flavors available at the ice cream store—pistachio, butter pecan, and chocolate peanut butter cup. Which do you choose?”

  I figured I’d show him I was a traditionalist. I answered, “Butter pecan.”

  Justin’s face turned solemn.

  “But you’re allergic to nuts, Jacob.”

  I told him I thought it was a theoretical question.

  “No. It’s a personal question. This is a personal interview. Let’s move on.”

  “But I made the assumption that—” I began.