In Which Brief Stories Are Told

What We Don’t Know

What We Don’t Know The truck must have pulled in about a quarter to three. I say about because I didn’t notice exactly. I was flipping through the latest Cosmo, delivered the day before, my day off, and I was tickled as usual why so many women would fess up to their foolishness —even make light of it! It never ceases to amaze me how shallow and sex-driven some women actually are, and so I look forward to every month’s issue, which I can read during downtime on my shift. I wasn’t paying attention to anyone pulling up for gas. Most purchases that time of night are made at the pump. Have to be. Unless the person wants to prepay at the night window . Store policy requires us to lock the doors between midnight and about five or so, during the hours we’re supposed to be mopping and stocking and making coffee—for our own protection, management claims—though I suspect it’s more a liability issue , given the tendency to understaff the place, so that most of the night—we’re open for gas 24-7—there’s just one employee. In my case, that employee is female, and so the potential always exists, management thinks, that I could be taken advantage of, In Which Brief Stories Are Told 14 ) robbed or raped or left duct-taped and lifeless in the beer cooler, slumped beside cases of Coronas. Yet more than once I’ve told Harold—the assistant manager—Look at me. Does this look like a person you’d want to mess with? I’m no pathetic little prom queen. I’m five-ten and big boned, as they say. The only girl on the wrestling team in high school, thanks to seasons of haying with my three brothers. For the two years I was at the police academy, few of the male cadets proved to be stronger. What I mean when I dispute Harold, of course, is Does this look like a person you’d want to fuck? I’m not the most attractive, you see, what with the sag of my cheek on the right side, the tuck of scar at the hairline, an eyelid that doesn’t quite open completely. I have a hard time imagining why anyone would want to have their way with a woman that looks like me. Still, store policy dictates that I lock up during the thinnest hours of night, and that I conduct any business through the double-glassed teller’s window, a waist-high drawer that can be reached (even sitting down) from inside the small, Plexiglas cubicle we call “The Aquarium.” I noticed the truck when I happened to look up from “Surprising the Pants Off Him,” an article detailing the extremes some women have gone to to spice up their sex lives, some of which was pretty unbelievable, like the woman who claimed to have met her boyfriend at the door wearing nothing but whipped cream. Needless to say, I was a little surprised myself when I saw the vehicle sitting beside the pump because I’m typically more observant. Uncanny, Harold says. I can be cleaning the coffee machine , my back to the window, and just know when someone pulls in. But this time I hadn’t. Nor did I hear the register bleep, which it does whenever a pump’s activated. No matter if you pay inside or out—cash or plastic—there’s always a bleep when the pump comes on. So I looked at the panel and, sure enough, there was no light lit for number five. The guy had pulled up, but he’d not yet pumped any gas. What We Don’t Know ( 15 I first figured he was trying to work his credit card out of his wallet, or, as I’ve known some night owls to do, dig through the change they’ve dumped into the map-holder of the armrest between the seats, trying to find enough quarters to buy a gallon or so and get themselves home. Or half-drunk, mining for bills in the front pocket of his jeans. Or maybe just trying to remember why he’d stopped. And I say he, not because I knew it was a guy just then—number five is on the near side of the middle island, which...