SUPPLY CHAIN > FICTION
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While Matthew was working in the storeroom, Harry stopped by. He was a potbellied man who liked calling Matthew “Tiger” and then focused his eyes on some middle distance, as if remembering a time before his potbelly when someone had called him Tiger. Today, he slapped Matthew’s shoulder, said, “Hiya, Tiger,” then gazed around the storeroom. “Wow. Whole lotta raunch in here, huh?” “It’s not so bad,” said Matthew. “I’m glad to see you, though. I wanted a chance to talk about the corporate referral you mentioned last time.” Right now, all Matt’s accounts were local, meaning he worked directly with people like Harry. But Harry said he was pleased with Matthew’s results, and if things continued going well, he’d mention it to his regional boss. Deploying Perish Tracker at the regional level would multiply his business by ten overnight. Things would grow quickly after that, if region heads started talking to each other. Matthew could imagine a map of the state, and server instances of his tracker spreading out quickly, like spilled juice. He’d have to hire people. Maybe two. The thought made him lightheaded. “We’re doing good,” said Harry, reaching to poke a box of butter that had gone soft and transparent. “One more visit, just to make sure the decrease in loss isn’t a blip. Okay, Tiger?” “Well, it would be great to get started sooner, but…” Harry slapped his shoulder again. “Your work stays this good? Whole region’s gonna know about it in a few weeks.”#
Matthew’s coffee date with Sara was one of the rare moments of sustained charm in his life. Sara had a latte. Matthew shook nutmeg onto his cappuccino with a single swift cut of the shaker, hoping the sure movement of his hand would make him seem sophisticated. Perhaps even European. Matthew explained his job: how he input specification codes from every perishable food item that was “dropped and left” – misplaced in a non-refrigerated zone – into a computer program that tracked how much revenue a store lost. Grocery stores sometimes did this themselves by calculating the price of everything spoiled, but this only gave them a total of lost revenue. Matthew’s program (PerishTracker 2.0, patent pending) used algorithms to analyze patterns, so stores could discover if one brand of cheese was being dropped more than others, or if a certain location was particularly prone to left-behind potato salad. Then Matthew would suggest how to prevent it: rearrangement of promotional displays to make them less inviting to set things on. Things like that. He didn’t tell her about how he had to hold his breath to scrape green-orange fur off packages of meat so he could read the labels. Or how he had to step out of storerooms to get fresh air, or how he scrubbed his hands at the end of the day, using entire motel-sized bars of soap to take the stink off his hands and wrists and then air-drying his chapped skin. He still loved being an entrepreneur, but dealing with so much rot was adding up to a serious dent in the time he could devote to sales and updating his algorithms. He made jokes, and she laughed. She even snorted into her latte once, then looked at him, giddy and accusing, as she coughed into a napkin. As they stood at her car saying good night, she clasped his hand quickly and Matthew, distracted by her eyes, wasn’t even embarrassed by the raw skin of his palms. For the rest of the month, Matthew’s happiness made him immune to the smells and textures of his job. Between stores, he rolled down his windows, rolled up his sleeves, and turned the radio volume higher than he ever had. One employee in Langston Ridge saved an entire leg of lamb, and the plastic that should have kept in the worst of the smell had been perforated by a jagged bone. When Matthew saw that maggots had made a home under the barcode, he just whistled as he used a knife to pry the label away. At the Riverside store, he thought of a way to track drop and leaves by time of day crossed with store location. In the reeking storeroom, he went through past data, typing with one hand and eating a pastrami sandwich with the other. He saw it: a trail of chicken salad in the baking goods aisle every Thursday afternoon. “Sure,” said the deli supervisor, when Matthew went out to praise the sandwich and ask about the chicken salad. “I know who you mean. Little old lady.” Matthew got a call from the Riverside manager the next day. The manager was ecstatic. “We got her! She goes to the deli and then she goes to the baking aisle! But she doesn’t use a basket. Tries to carry everything! And she puts down the chicken salad to pick up her muffin mix. And leaves the salad behind!” “I’m happy to help,” said Matthew. “And if you upgrade your PerishTracker package now, you can save up to three times the revenue…” The manager chuckled. “Seems like the package we have is doing pretty well.” “Sure, but the increased upfront costs pays for itself in just a couple months when you take into account…” “We’re fine with what we have now,” the manager interrupted. “But thanks for offering, son.”#
Matthew talked to Sara a couple times from the road, or from his apartment, which had become a dusty repository for his SQL and R textbooks, the licensing documentation for PeriShure, LLC, and his now-dead houseplants. He always thought of something witty to say first, some lightly cutting observation on the ValueFoods manager he’d seen most recently, or even something he’d seen during his drives across the region. She laughed, she asked questions, she compared what he told her to her own ValueFoods experiences. And although he did his best to steer the conversation away from PerishTracker 2.0 (patent pending) she managed to bring it up a few times. She seemed genuinely interested when he told her how he’d gotten the idea (a custom birthday cake he’d seen abandoned in the soup aisle) or how the algorithms worked (he kept that at a high level). “If I had more capital,” he said, “I’d do observational stuff. Like finding a way to see people as they’re dropping stuff and then doing follow-up interviews with them. Figure out the root causes, fix those.” “Well, you can,” she said. “PerishTracker is about to take off and you’ll be fabulously rich and famous. Right?” He tried to imagine it happening. “I guess. That’s always the hard part, you know? You get the idea and it’s great. And you sell some people on the idea. And there’s no one else to share the credit with. So the ups are higher, but the downs…it’s like they were hills before and now they’re cliffs. With no safety net.” “Yeah.” She sighed.“I think I know what you mean. Cliffs.”#
The evening before he went back to Pine Bluffs, he made sure the spaces under his fingernails were pink. He sent out a shirt for overnight cleaning and the next morning, the starched-shut sleeves made a tearing sound as he pushed his hands through. The manager met him at the front of the store, and although Matthew glanced down the row of checkout aisles, he didn’t see Sara. “Hi, Harry,” Matthew said “Got a minute? I’d like to talk about the frozen dinners in aisle eight.” “Sure.” Matthew went into Harry’s office and they both sat. When Harry’s eyes slid over Matthew’s shoulder to the door, Matthew turned. Sara came into the office and stood leaning against the doorframe behind Matthew. “Hi,” she said. “Don’t mind me.” Harry glanced at Matthew, eyebrows up. Matthew gave a little shrug. He told Harry about the frozen dinners, the curious variation of brand paired with consistency of drop locations. Told Harry his theory of who might be doing it. Suggested a couple preventative measures. Sara’s rubber soles made little squeaks on the floor, and a couple times she puffed out little sighs. Afterwards, Matthew tried to be nice about it. “Next time,” he said, “Just give me a minute alone with Harry, okay?” He couldn’t forget Harry’s perplexed looks, and the way he hadn’t called Matthew “Tiger” when they shook goodbye. “Don’t be silly.” She lifted up onto tiptoes to kiss the side of his face, repeatedly, like a bird drinking out of a puddle. “He doesn’t care. Anyway, I need to watch out for you.” Matthew wasn’t quite sure what she thought she was watching out for, and she wouldn’t tell him. She seemed to think it was so obvious that he was making fun of her by asking.#
He was halfway through his regional rounds – a week and a half away from returning to Sara – when the Alderwood store pulled their account. “I’m really sorry about this,” the manager told him over the phone. “Regional says we’ve maxed out on the prevention we can do with your system, and now it’s just…you know.” “No,” said Matthew, trying to be pleasant. He was gripping his phone hard enough to make the plastic groan. “I don’t know.” The Alderwood manager gave a few audible grimaces. “Fluff,” he finally said. “Just…information we can’t do anything with.”#
Matthew spoke to Sara the night before he returned to Pine Bluffs, talking lightly about how he needed guy time with Harry. He wanted to see her, of course, but not at work. “Come on,” she said. “No one wants guy time with Harry.” “Just give us time alone.” Matthew rubbed his jaw and noticed for the first time in weeks how rough his hands were. “I don’t want to get you in trouble, anyway. I’m sure you’re not supposed to be dating anyone at work.” “But you don’t work at ValueFoods.” She giggled. “Silly.”#
As soon as he stepped into the Pine Bluffs store, Sara saw him and closed her station, leaving customers in line. She wrapped her arm around his waist, matching the length of her stride to his as he walked back toward Harry’s office. “I missed you,” she said. “Three weeks is too long.” Harry stepped out of his office and watched them approach. Matthew said quickly: “I want to see you, but please Sara…” Sara tightened her grip, and suddenly Matthew felt a rush of something too hot, too all-encompassing to be called anger, at least anger as he’d known it. This was his job, his life. He pushed her arm away and hissed, “Later.” In his office, Harry shook his head. “What have you gotten yourself into, Tiger? You know she’s only seventeen?”#
That conversation with Harry was the toughest thing Matthew had ever done. More difficult than his first calls to grocery store managers, trying to explain PerishTracker® without sounding desperate, trying to sound confident even after they said: “Wait, it does what?” through their laughter. Matthew told Harry what he would gain by upgrading the Tracker package, how he could get a cut of the returns once he’d advocated PerishTracker® to the corporate office. Emphasized now was the time to act. Harry never met his eye, and the word seventeen hung between them. “I just don’t think I can stick up for you,” Harry said, finally. His voice, like his gaze, seemed fixed in the middle distance somewhere. “I don’t think you’re the guy I thought you were.”#
Matthew only answered Sara’s calls after he had left town. “How old are you?” “You left me sitting there!” “Sara,” he said. “How old?” She sniffled loudly. “What did Harry say?” “Can’t you just answer–” Matthew took a deep breath. “Look. Sara. I like you. A lot. But it doesn’t matter if…” The sniffling stopped. “I should have seen it before. I’m an idiot and…” he decided laying it on thick might be a good idea. “I know I’ve lost the best thing that ever happened to me.” He took a breath. “I just need you to tell Harry nothing happened. That you and I…that there was nothing inappropriate there. Okay? Please?” “You know what?” Her voice was as quivery and cold as gelatin in the freezer. “That would be a lie. Are you asking me to lie?” “It’s not a lie!” “No?” Her voice warmed up, becoming coy. “You don’t remember the sex?” Matthew got dizzy. “We didn’t…” She hung up.#
He went back to Pine Bluffs the next week, as quickly as he could get away from his other accounts. He’d been rehearsing ways to beg for Sara’s mercy. On his way to Harry’s office, she stepped out of the staff restroom and stopped. Matthew stopped, too. “Sara. Hi.” She turned away and walked down the hallway, pulling out her retractable key ring. “I’ll let you in. But it’s the last time.” “I’m not here for that.” He jogged to catch up. “I came to talk to you actually, and Harry too, and see…” “It’s the last time.” She stopped with her hand on the door handle. “Because Harry’s going to fire you.” Matthew’s mouth went dry. “He’s…he said that?” “No.” She smiled and he remembered how her face had been like a satin heart. “But he will.” “Sara.” He tried to think of what he could say, how he could beg, tell her how hard he’d worked, how he’d given up everything for PeriShure, LLC, and she was being unfair. But her eyes had gone flat, dull, like a layer of wax on an apple’s skin. “Sara,” he said quickly. “Don’t do this. I love you.” She watched him: long excruciating seconds while her eyes twitched over his face. Then she said, “Yeah, right.” She sipped in a lungful of air and held it when she opened the door. The smell rolled into the hallway. It was the worst thing he had ever smelled, worse than if the maggot-ridden leg of lamb was stacked on a heap of other sheep parts and left in the sun. The smell was tangible. It enveloped him. It invaded his sinuses and expanded. Still holding her breath, Sara gestured him inside. He followed the movement of her hand, hearing the word love echo in the hallway. Inside the storeroom the heat was turned up and there was more food than careless customers could possibly have dropped in a week. The food seemed selected for how revolting it was: slime-coated fish filets, cracked and sulfurous eggs, puddles of hairy milk surrounding ice cream cartons. “Enjoy,” she said, and closed the door. In the immediate darkness, Matthew believed he could hear the food putrefying, could feel the rot covering his skin, and realized the only things in the storeroom were in the process of dying or already dead.Andrea Eaker: Many years ago, Andrea was told by a man that she was flirting wrong: instead of asking whether he enjoyed his job, she was supposed to ask how much money he made. Andrea has worked as a minimum-wage summer worker at Boeing. She has been a VP of research management of her company’s dedicated Microsoft account. She currently works somewhere in the middle: as a researcher for Alaska Airlines. Her stories have appeared in Blue Fifth Review, Shooter Literary Magazine, and Every Day Fiction.