Olive Branches Don't Grow on Trees by Grace Mattioli Page A

was pondering what
it would be like to live there.  James looked back at her with a
combination of credulity and admiration, undoubtedly for being so young to have
purchased her own home.  She knew that mobile homes were cheap, especially
in today’s crumbling real estate market, so this lie was not so far out of the
realm of possibility.
    He
told her that he would give her a call after he checked her references, and he
kept his promise.  He called the next night to tell her that she was hired
as the new store manager.  She was scheduled every day from nine to six
except Tuesday and Thursday.  He told her about the other employees at the
store.  There was Dave who was diabetic, so “you don’t have to worry about
him stealing the candy.”  There was Casey, who was a senior in high school
and worked the night shift, and did way too much socializing during her shift.
 “But you know how high school kids are,” he added.  There was Melesha , who was a kindergarten teacher and worked as the
night manager.  He told her that he would meet her the next day at nine in
the morning in front of the store. 
    She
hung the phone up feeling proud of herself.  She was almost embarrassed
for feeling proud of her new mall job.  But it was, never-the-less, an accomplishment.  It was a management job.  And it
was in a candy store.  It would be fun. When she thought of candy, she
thought of her family’s summer trips to Canada when she was always sure to get
a lollipop almost as big as she was.  It had vibrant swirls that went
around and around. She enjoyed looking at it even more than she enjoyed eating
it.  Cosmo would try to hypnotize her with it.  Angie tried to steal
it from her.  And Vince just looked at it with curiosity and
wonderment.  There were no giant sized swirl lollipops at Savor the
Flavor, but there was a plethora of other candy varieties.  The next day
when James met her at the store, he talked about all of the candy, but mostly
about the gummy bears.
    “They’re
your bread and butter,” he said with a big grin, assuming she cared about the
sales of the store as much as he did.  “If the distributor ever tries to
send you a box of blue whales after you’ve specified gummy bears on the order
form, don’t accept it!” he warned her.  Then he went on about the blue
whales like he had something against them.  “They just sit there in the
bins. They don’t move.”
    Silvia
could not imagine getting on the phone with anyone, demanding that they
compensate for their blue whale mistake.  She wondered how long James
worked for the company before he began speaking in this strange candy language.
 Furthermore, she found it difficult to keep a straight face as she
listened to a grown man talk so seriously and passionately about candy.
 But he was, after all, the vice president of the company.  And to
his credit, the company was doing well, even in these tough times.  There
were eleven other Savor the Flavors spread throughout
malls in Southern New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania.  The store where
Silvia now worked ranked pathetically low in sales at number ten, but she felt
nothing for the cause of bringing up the sales.  In fact, she was probably
doing the locals a favor by keeping the sales low, thereby not contributing to
the country’s obesity problem in this geographic area.  Of course, she
would not reveal a trace of her work ethic or her inherent laziness for this
cause to James.  As far as he was concerned, she was a shiny, young,
ambitious recruit starved for learning the business of candy and eager to
increase sales.
    While
James continued to talk, she half paid attention and half fantasized about
moving to Portland, and as the minutes drifted on, his voice got so muffled, he
came to sound like an adult in a Charlie Brown cartoon.  Fantasizing would
be the only way she would be able to endure the remainder of her orientation.
 She imagined herself clearly in the downtown of