Invisible Ellen by Shari Shattuck Page B

illuminated office, the Boss was seated at his desk, looking over paperwork that she recognized as time sheets. As she hurried past, he patted his jacket’s bulging breast pocket as though to reassure himself.
    At the end of the hallway, just inside the door, which opened into the freezer section in the back of the store, the thermostat for those offices was mounted on the wall. Ellen stopped in front of it and glanced back down the deserted hall.
    Reaching out a tentative finger, she tested the electronic panel. It lit up when she touched the button. Ten seconds later, she was on the floor in frozen foods.
    Irena, Rosa and Kiki were all busy scrubbing down the glass fronts of the wall of freezers. Ellen went back to work, but kept an eye on Irena’s location. The droning floor buffer was still making its way through the aisles, Squirt at the wheel. After half an hour, Ellen went into the food section and located the fifty-gallon vats of cookingoil stacked three high. These large, impossible-to-steal items were always placed in the cameras’ dead zones. She could hear the off-key whine of Squirt and his machine coming down the next aisle. With a grunting effort, she tipped the uppermost two vats onto their sides and popped off the tops. With a thick
glug-glug
the sickly yellow liquid began to run over the floor, spreading into a large, slippery pool. She could hear the buffer begin to make the wide turn into her lane, so she hurried off in the opposite direction and made her way back to the freezer section. Pulling a cloth from her apron pocket, she began to polish the glass doors, keeping an eye on the exit to the offices.
    The shouts started within seconds. Accusations were made, walkie-talkies crackled, and then—as she had known he must be for a loss of over fifty dollars—the Boss was summoned.
    He flew out of the door from the back, shouting obscenities, dispensing blame and vowing that heads would roll. He spotted Irena and Rosa and shouted, “You two, come with me! Bring your mops, hurry up!”
    Red in the face, he was in his shirtsleeves, tieless, and his collar was unbuttoned. There were telltale half circles of dampness under his armpits.
    Before the access door completely closed behind the Boss, Ellen slipped through it and hustled back along the row of offices, her inner thighs hot with the friction of rapid chafing. The Boss had left his own door ajar in his haste to verbally abuse his staff, and his jacket was hung on the back of his chair along with his tie.
    It was muggy in the tiny room, not surprising, as Ellen had set the thermostat to eighty-nine. Feeling a sweat break on her back, she searched the jacket pockets and quickly came up with the wad of cash she had seen the Boss scam a few hours before. She stuffed itinto her fanny pack, retraced her steps down the hallway, reset the thermostat to seventy-four and slipped back onto the floor. Squirt was emphatically denying the Boss’s accusation of a collision with the vegetable oil, in profile to avoid the flying specks of spittle. Irena and Rosa mopped furiously. With a grunt of satisfaction, Ellen retrieved her cart and pushed it through the break room. She left it in there and took only what she needed to clean the staff restrooms.
    She was scrubbing the stench of sticky urine off the base of a toilet in the men’s stalls when she heard the door swing open. She stood stock-still. Heavy footsteps clumped in and then ceased. The Boss called out, “Anyone in here?” To which Ellen gave no reply. Then the Boss started swearing, a loud crash informed her that he had smashed his fist into the metal towel holder and it had most likely been permanently reshaped. A few more inventively profane expletives peppered the atmosphere, and then he left.
    Unhurriedly, Ellen finished the stalls, rinsed the sinks and mopped the floor. She even polished the dented towel holder. Then she did the same in the ladies’ restroom,