Save the Princess!
“Have a great night!” Landon offered with a smile, trailing behind a young shopper as the pair made their way to the door. It was 9:15 PM on a Monday night; A.K.A fifteen after closing on ‘Landon’s Friday’. In his hands, the keys to the store felt cold and sharp: it was anticipation that made him press his fleshy fingertips into their teeth. The last customer of the night seemed to linger well beyond closing time, and who knows what could happen in the five seconds he had the door unlocked to let the customer out? There always seemed to be opportunity for another customer to jump at the chance to barge inside when the employees all just wanted nothing more than to leave. Mercifully, Landon locked the door behind this final customer without issue. His reflection stared at him as he looked up from his keys twisting in the lock, plain brown eyes and a round face faintly reflected in the blackness outside.
“Are they finally gone?” a whine behind him made Landon feel all the more exhausted than he actually was.
“Yeah, Chris, they’re gone. After I’m done counting down the till we can leave.”
Being a manager meant working the most inopportune shifts and doing the heavy lifting: but after almost 12 years of tenure, he couldn’t see himself doing much of anything else. Landon sighed happily as he finally sat down for the first time in his nine hour shift, his aching feet groaning almost as loudly as the office chair that’d been there longer than his time. Chris did the same, sitting on the floor just outside the back room, his back pressed against the doorframe.
“I think my girlfriend is pregnant.” Chris over-shared, something that Landon had been coaching him on recently.
“Oh?” Landon began counting quicker, opting to shift trough the bills manually rather than hauling out the dinosaur of a cash counter hidden under the cluttered desk.
“Yeah, and like, I’m excited and all but she’s going to go straight to my mom if she is…”
Landon eyed the young man for a moment, careful not to make it obvious he was stealing a glance. Chris was an okay kid, about the same age as Landon when he first started working for Gamestop. He had a mop of greasy blonde hair and a mild case of acne, but honest blue eyes. He worked the same way he kept his appearance: about half-invested all the way around. The truth is that Landon favored him a bit, if not for pity. In a way, Landon had inherited a store full of younger siblings when he agreed to take the position when his old store manager escaped.
“Your mom will understand, you know. You’ve been with Gabs for years now.” Landon broke finally, his soft-hearted nature winning over his want to leave the store as early as possible.
“Yeah well, we won’t find out until tomorrow.”
Landon and Chris both knew that Gabs would actually not wait until tomorrow. So that’s why the young employee offered to work closing shift – even being at work sounded better than being at home right now. This was the case for every person on the payroll at one point or another. An awkward silence stretched between the two, broken by a humane air conditioning unit that had excellent timing. Why the cold air started funneling in the frigid room, Landon wasn’t sure: it’d be the day manager’s problem.
“Well, man, keep me updated.” Landon offered, zipping up the blue bank bag and slipping it into the safe. “If you need to crash at my place for a while, you know you’re welcome.”
Chris nodded before reluctantly rising to his feet. Landon groaned under his breath despite himself as he hoisted himself up, his knees burning. The two had just worked the entire shift together; and there’s no sore like retail worker sore.
Landon pulled into his driveway just as the drizzling rain from outside began to build speed – cold, wet, and beautiful. His heart leapt into his throat as the beams of his headlights swept over cherry-red paint: a visitor was inside his home. All of the windows on his house were shut tight, covered with thick wooden blinds and heavy floral drapery; but the filtering light shining through them in the dark made him feel a little better. It’d been a long time since someone had been there for him…
Just as he walked through the garage door, a symphony of pleas came from the ground. Cats seemed to appear out of the woodwork, and they all knew exactly when to swarm. “Mrew!” cried Peach, “Mao” droned Luigi, “Meeeh” rasped Bowser, “Mraow” called Mario, and from the perch of his cat tree in the living room Link watched silently. Just as her fashion, Daisy was probably in the other room asleep. Landon couldn’t help but smile at the mess he’d made by spoiling his pets, feeding them as soon as he came home every day. In a sick way, he’d trained them to wait for him to come home at night, if only because the company made him feel wanted. The activity lied to him; a house full of cats sure beat a house full of emptiness.
Landon made his way through the constricting circle of fur carefully – reaching an artful row of ridiculously colored food bowls and a tightly sealed plastic container of kitty kibbles. One scoop after another (the sound of which lured in a disinterested Link), and all five of his six friends were face-first in their bowls. Happily, the young man spun on his heel to survey the room, his eyes looking for something in particular. She would be sitting on the couch, not jumping up to her feet the way she wanted to when he opened the door: the beautiful woman grinned when their eyes met at last.
“When did you get here?” Landon didn’t know enough about women to hide his excitement as he pulled his lanyard off his neck, ruffling his brown hair.
“About eight.” She admitted, sitting up slowly from a reclining position.
“No no, I have to get changed! I’ll be right back.” Landon waived his hands in front of him as he made his way across the room as quickly as a man of his size would move without embarrassing himself. “I smell like plastic!” he called, heading down the hallway.
As Landon walked past closed door after closed door, something caught his eye; a small sliver of black against the dimly lit walkway. A door was left ajar that wasn’t supposed to be – feelings of wrongness swept over him. Landon stopped short, mid-step, and he entered the room cautiously. His heart pounded in his ears, and a smell hung in the air, both sweet and stagnant. Reluctantly, Landon flipped on the light, his hand instinctively moving toward the switch after so many years of practice. Pale yellow light raced over the room, illuminating every corner. A carefully made queen size bed took up only a portion of the large master bedroom, the rest occupied by tightly tied trash bags and aged storage bins of trinkets. It was a bizarre mix of misuse, portions of the room carefully kept just so and other portions in a disarray of clutter. Dust glittered in the air as the ceiling fan slowly whirred to life, permanently stuck on the lowest setting. The feeling that something was not quite right crept in on Landon as he made his way into the room, walking along a thin pathway among the trash bags that he was so proud of creating last summer.
The sound of a tinkling bell and sudden activity made Landon jump: Daisy had just dislodged herself from the top of a pile of old clothing in the window where she had undoubtedly been slumbering since daylight. She ran past Landon, leaving a single floating white hair in the air behind her: even she knew that this room was off-limits.
Landon sighed, not realizing he had been holding his breath all along. The feeling of relief swept over him, but before he could muster up the energy to turn around and leave, the corner of his vision picked up on a memory. Sitting almost precariously on top of a waist-high pile of old magazines and newspapers, a linen-and-lace stuffed rabbit lay face-down. Landon silently cursed himself when he picked up the aging stuffed animal, his fingers roughly picking off a fine layer of almost black, lint-textured dust. Such a precious thing left to gather dust like this. For a moment, he sat on the edge of the bed, suddenly ten years old again.
“Landon, this is such a special rabbit.” His mother crooned in her good-natured way. It was spring 1999, and the seemingly normal task of gathering items for a garage sale had turned into an all-day ordeal.
“Moooom.” Landon whined, his arms sore from carrying a box around, walking behind her. It’s not like he got a lot of physical activity as it was: this was too much of a mental and physical workout. All he wanted to do was play Donkey Kong 64. “Everything you have is special! How are we ever gonna sell this stuff if-”
“Yes, but baby, my father gave me this when I was around five years old. I’ll never forget it…he won it from a game at the fair when they had come to town. It was my first fair, Landon…we can’t get rid of it.” Landon made a face, and his mother did not look amused. “Well, one day I hope these things will mean something to you the way they do to me!”
Landon’s eyes widened, even though it felt like the deeply cluttered room were closing in on him. “No mom…you know, there’s no reason to have this garage sale right now. There’s not even a lot of stuff to put in it. How about next year?”
The woman smiled softly, reaching up to push some too-long strands of hair away from her son’s forehead. “You’re a good boy, Landon. Did you know that? Landon?”
“Landon?”
The memory of his mother snapped abruptly from his mind as his attention jerked toward the doorway. She was bracing herself against the frame; she had probably gotten up too quickly in search of her lost boyfriend. Embarrassed, Landon hastily wiped tears off his cheeks.
“I uh…Daisy got the door open and…”
Estie just nodded at him, eyes wide and understanding. “Do…I mean are you…”
Landon shot up to his feet, carefully sitting the bunny in an upright position atop the pile of papers. The last ones on the stack were the last his mother ever read: 2007. They were precious, the last words her eyes would ever see. Everything in that room was precious, beyond worth and to some degree, always on his mind – every sun-faded magazine and every trinket. Landon made his way to the door, stepping high to plow his way through the soft edges of plastic containing clothing. Comical rustling seemed to follow him. As if trying to tuck away a dark secret, Landon flipped off the light before he wanted, his finger lingering on the cheap plastic light switch as he watched his girlfriend walk back down the hall. Her hair bounced in that familiar voluminous way, landing just around the small of her back. Having her here seemed to change the way he thought – her presence brought him back every time. Everything about Estie was round and bouncy, just like Landon; the two of them knew exactly what they were about.
And that wasn’t changing tonight.
Landon raced to the bedroom he’d grown up in, a small postage-stamp better suited for a boy than a man of almost 30. Some soft lounge pants and a triple-extra-large t-shirt later, Landon finally felt at home. Estie had already fired up the Xbox by the time he made his way to the couch, her hands wrapped familiarly around the controller. Landon pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, but soft, round hands stopped him. She said the words he’d been aching to hear for hours:
“The pizza’s already on its way.”
Landon couldn’t help but laugh at himself as he wrapped his arm tightly around her. She settled in with ease, her cheeks pink from the activity and the sudden change in blood pressure. Her eyelashes obscured her honey-brown eyes, illuminated by the rectangular glow reflection of the television. Landon’s eyes drifted to his game cabinet, all of the new releases waiting for him, still in their packaging: God of War, Overwatch, Fallout 4…but when Estie hit the power button, the rhythmic chanting of a thousand Nords blasted from the Logitech G560 speakers.
“Skyrim?” Landon asked, his nose buried in her fragrant hair.
“90 hours and I haven’t even got to the dragons yet!” Estie bragged, her side-questing procrastination a marvel even to Landon.
Landon settled in for his favorite night of the week, content for just another day. “Estie?” he questioned, to get a distracted “Hmmm?” in return.
“Even if things aren’t perfect, Estie, they’re perfect with you .”
