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Gertrude passed her drug test, and Sherri called to let her know she could start her training on Thursday morning. Again, Gertrude agonized over what to wear, but ended up going with a yellow dress with large black polka dots over blue leggings. She thought that would work well with her new blue apron.
She wasn’t entirely wrong. She did look somewhat coordinated, if not outdated, but the ensemble wasn’t exactly slimming.
Sherri tied the apron behind Gertrude’s back—without much string to spare—and then came around to the front of her to look her up and down. She nodded and said, “You look great,” unconvincingly. Then she motioned for another woman to join them. “This is Willow,” she said to Gertrude. “She is going to train you.” Willow was tall, thin, and expressionless.
“Nice to meet—” Gertrude tried.
“Come with me,” Willow said tonelessly and turned away from them.
Gertrude looked at Sherri, who said, “Good luck,” and headed in the opposite direction.
Gertrude and her walker followed Willow’s tight ponytail through the beautiful swinging doors and into the open area in the back. “You’ll start out with sorting,” Willow said without looking at Gertrude. “People drop their junk off out there,” she pointed toward the door, “and then we examine, categorize, and price.”
“All right,” Gertrude said.
Willow looked at her. “Don’t you think you should be writing this down?”
Gertrude shook her head. “Look at, put in piles, put a number on it. Got it.”
Willow rolled her eyes. “OK, so let’s start with this bin.” She pulled a bin closer to them. “Don’t touch anything,” she said, and disappeared. Gertrude gazed longingly into the bin, but everything was bagged up in black garbage bags, so she couldn’t tell what she was looking at. She could feel her heart rate increase. She couldn’t believe she’d never thought about working at Goodwill before.
Willow returned and handed Gertrude a pair of rubber gloves.
Gertrude took them and slid them on.
“We always wear gloves,” Willow said. “Some of this stuff is completely disgusting. I learned that the hard way.”
“But some of it is treasure!” Gertrude offered. She smiled, but then Willow gave her a chilling look, and Gertrude’s smile faded. “They don’t let you work with the customers, do they?”
Willow glared at her. “Of course they do. I’m the smartest person here. I can’t believe Sherri has me wasting my time training you. A monkey could do this job.” She snapped her rubber gloves into place and then said, “So let’s get this over with.”
She tore into one of the trash bags. Gertrude’s heart leapt as a variety of brightly colored trinkets spilled out.
“Do we get first dibs on this stuff?” Gertrude asked, breathless.
Willow glowered at her, and then returned her attention to the bin. “Of course not.”
“Well, do we get an employee discount?”
Willow didn’t look at her this time, but Gertrude knew she was still glowering. “No.”
“Well,” Gertrude was exasperated, “what do we get?”
“Paid.”
“I know that,” Gertrude snapped. “I mean, don’t we get some benefits with the ... with the ... with the ... stuff?”
“No.” Willow held up a cracked glass bell. “See how this is broken?”
“I’m not blind,” Gertrude said.
“So we don’t put this out.” Willow efficiently overhanded it into a giant box twenty feet away. It smashed on impact.
“What’s that?” Gertrude asked, gazing at the box.
“Read the label. Glass recyclables. We recycle almost anything we don’t sell. All you have to do is read. You can read, right?”
Gertrude noticed that all the boxes along the far wall were labeled for recycling: glass, miscellaneous electronics, computers, paper and cardboard, clothing. “Wow, you throw all that away?” Gertrude asked, wondering if she might be able to paw through it first.
“No. We recycle it,” Willow said, handing her a stack of books. “Go put those in the book bin over there,” she said, pointing with her chin.
“You didn’t go over these very good,” Gertrude said.
“Well,” Willow corrected. “And no, we put out almost all the books we receive, unless they’re wet or moldy.”
“Moldy books?” Gertrude asked, appalled.
“You haven’t seen anything yet. I think some people just try to gross us out. Go put the books in the bin.”
Gertrude did as she was told, though it wasn’t easy balancing all the books atop her walker. “Can you just give me one or two books at a time next time?” she asked on her return.
Willow rolled her eyes again. “Why don’t I just let you take over?” she said, stepping back from the bin. “I’ll just supervise.” She folded her arms across her chest.
Gertrude thought this was a great idea. She grabbed two more books and headed over to the book bin. Then she returned and grabbed two more books and headed for the book bin again.
“Oh for crying out loud, you are slower than death. I’ll do the books. You do the rest.”
“Fine by me,” Gertrude said. “I don’t really like books.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Willow mumbled.
Gertrude picked up a pretty glass frog. It looked like a bookend, but there was only one. “What do I do with this?”
Willow pointed to a bin to their right. “We have a whole section of décor. Go put it in that bin, along with anything else of its kind.”
Gertrude did as she was told. Then she returned to the unsorted bin. Willow had already given up on supervising and was back to helping. She began tossing clothing into a nearby bin.
Gertrude held up a small jacket. “What do we do with kids’ clothing?”
“All clothing goes in the same bin. We sort it later.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Gertrude said.
“Then you should talk to management. I’m sure they’d love to hear your input.”
“All right. I will.” Gertrude too, began tossing clothes into the clothing bin. It was kind of fun. She felt quite mischievous, as if she was getting away with something, throwing other people’s belongings about.
“You have to look at them first,” Willow interrupted her fun.
“Oh, sorry,” Gertrude said. She held up a sweater for inspection, and then headed toward the recycled clothing bin.
“What are you doing?” Willow snapped.
“It has a hole in it,” Gertrude explained without turning around.
“Get back here!”
Gertrude turned around and trudged back to her trainer, suddenly feeling quite tired after her first half-hour of employment. “What?”
“Let me see.”
Gertrude held the sweater up. “See?”
“Yeah, I see. But that’s OK. We can sell that. We only recycle clothing that’s been completely destroyed.”
“Oh.” Gertrude reached in for more clothing and went through the pieces one by one, holding them up, pretending to inspect them, and then chucking them into the clothing bin. She didn’t exactly know what Willow had meant by “completely destroyed,” but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
Gertrude ripped into another trash bag and a bunch of puzzles spilled out. “What do I do with these?” she asked.
“All games and puzzles go in the toys bin,” Willow said, nodding toward another bin.
“Some of these are open. Do we count the pieces first? Make sure they’re all there?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Willow said. “People mix up pieces among puzzles all the time. Counting wouldn’t do any good. We’d have to put them together, which we obviously don’t have time to do. Now, hurry up. We have more to do.”
I hate her, Gertrude decided, and then heard her pastor’s voice in her head. OK fine. But I really don’t like her.
By the time Gertrude had deposited all the puzzles in the toy bin, Willow had finished sorting everything else.
“Now what?” Gertrude asked.
“Now we sort another bin.”
“Can we do something else? I think I understand how to sort.” Gertrude found it highly unlikely she would find the dead-bird-lamp in a bin of new donations.
“OK, let’s go sort the clothes.”
Gertrude groaned, but she followed Willow to the clothing bin.
Willow grabbed a giant can of something and began spraying the clothing.
“What in tarnation is that?” Gertrude asked.
“Bug dope.”
“Ew!”
“Yep,” Willow said as she finished spraying. “You can get everything at Goodwill, except parasites.” Willow put the can down and moved to another clothing bin.
Gertrude stood rooted to her spot.
“It’s OK,” Willow said. “These have already been sprayed. We have to let them sit for a while after spraying.”
“All right,” Gertrude said, reluctantly approaching the new bin.
She was slow getting started, but soon she got the hang of it. Willow showed her how to use a tagging gun, and Gertrude thought that was great fun. She and Willow sorted and priced clothing until lunchtime. By then, Gertrude was starving. She gratefully followed Willow into the employee break room and collapsed into a chair. She pulled a warm cheese and pickles sandwich out of her walker pouch.
“You can use the fridge if you want,” the young woman seated across from her said. Her eyes were so wide they made her face look even rounder than it was. “Sherri is really nice and lets us use the fridge and the microwave.”
“Thanks,” Gertrude said. “How old are you?” she asked. The girl looked too young to be working there.
“I’m twenty-one,” she said proudly. “My name is Azalea. I work here.”
“Gertrude,” Gertrude said through a mouthful of sandwich. She swallowed. “I work here too.”
“You will love to work here. It’s the best place ever. Sherri is so smart and so nice and so pretty. You will love it. I love it. It’s the best job ever.”
“Good,” Gertrude responded. “I hope so. How long have you worked here?” Gertrude didn’t really care, but she figured Azalea was a suspect and so she should gather information.
“Three years,” Azalea said proudly. “It is the first job I’ve ever had. I love it.”
Gertrude nodded. “You mentioned that. Did you know the dead woman?”
Azalea’s eyes grew wide and filled with tears. Her bottom lip shook for a second, and then she got up and ran out of the room.
“What did you say?” Willow asked, but she didn’t sound accusing.
“I just asked her about the dead woman.”
“Oh. Of course. Well, don’t mind Azalea. She’s not very bright. Loves Goodwill more than any rational person should. She’s probably more upset that it happened here than that the woman’s dead.”
“What about you?” Gertrude asked. “Did you know the victim?”
“No. Seen her around. Why, did you?”
Gertrude shook her head. “How long is lunch?”
“Thirty.”
“Thirty what?” Gertrude asked.
“Hours. What do you think? Thirty minutes. We have till 12:30.”
Gertrude glanced at the clock. It was already ten past. She hurriedly finished her sandwich so she could go look for the lamp. When she got up, Willow asked, “Where you going in such a hurry?”
“Oh,” Gertrude said, frantically trying to think up a lie, “I’m just going to go read the labels on all the recycling boxes.”