Róża

Róża sat behind the register counter, because there wasn't a proper office, just a folding card table shoved against the back wall with a stack of résumés she'd printed out and then immediately regretted printing. She'd been at this since ten. It was now nearly three. The bell over the door had rung forty-two times, she'd actually counted on a sticky note, and only six of those had been interviews.

She wasn't good at this. That was the whole problem. That had always been the whole problem. She'd put off hiring for years, telling herself the schedule was fine, the store was fine, it was all fine. And it was. Mostly. But Alyssa kept giving her that look, the one that said you cannot keep working twelve hours a day forever, Joey, and Tommy had actually printed out a help wanted flyer and taped it to the window himself and made her promise not to take it down, so... She hadn't.

So here she was.

The first guy had shown up in a suit. A full suit. For a card shop. He'd shaken her hand too hard and asked about "upward mobility" within the company, and Róża had stared at him for a long moment before saying, "Yeah, nah, the ladder tops out at sorting bulk commons." He'd left looking confused.

The second was a teenager who'd brought his binder to show off and spent most of the interview trying to trade her out of a Mewtwo that wasn't even for sale. She'd let him talk for twenty minutes because cutting him off felt mean.

The third had been very nice. Too nice. Like, weirdly invested. She'd asked what his availability was and he'd said "whatever you need, miss" and then spent five minutes explaining how grateful he'd be for any opportunity. It made her skin crawl and she didn't know why, so she'd told him they'd be in touch and didn't write anything down.

The fourth had no-showed, which honestly she respected.

The fifth had walked in with a vape in his mouth and Róża had pointed at the no smoking sign on the door without saying a word. He'd rolled his eyes so hard she thought he might fall over, and left.

The sixth had been a middle-aged woman who actually might have worked out, except she'd referred to the Pokémon cards as "Pokey-mans" and Róża's left eye had twitched the entire rest of the conversation. It was a dealbreaker. It wasn't fair, but it was a dealbreaker.

She rubbed her face with both hands, sleeves bunched over her fingers, and exhaled. The current one — number seven — was sitting in a folding chair across from her, telling her about his experience "leading a team" at a cell phone kiosk.

Róża was not listening.

She was thinking about cereal. Specifically whether she had any left at home or if she needed to stop on the way. She still had like three hours of this. She could theoretically leave the store to itself during a lull, except she couldn't, because that's not how you run a shop, and also she was starving.

"Alright," she said eventually, because she couldn't think of anything else to ask and honestly just wanted him gone. "I'll, uh. I'll be in touch."

They both knew what that meant.

He stood, shook her hand again — gentler than the suit guy, which was something — and left. The bell rang forty-three times.

Róża stared at the door for a while. Then she reached over, grabbed the stack of résumés, and shuffled them like a deck of cards. Badly. One of them slipped onto the floor and she didn't bother picking it up.

She still needed to actually hire someone.

She picked up her phone, stared at Alyssa's contact for a long moment, and then locked it without texting.

The bell rang.

Róża looked up, sleeves bunched over the edges of the résumés, hair slightly more disheveled than when the day started, and didn't stand up.

It was seven in the morning. Róża had been awake since three anyway, having spent the dark hours staring at the ceiling of her bedroom before giving up, eating two dry bowls of Reese’s Puffs straight out of the box, and driving over to Action Comics before the sun had properly hauled its ass into the sky.

Her eyes felt grainy as she dragged a stack of folding chairs across the linoleum. The metallic screech echoed off the comic racks.

"Fucking hell," she mumbled, she was too warm from hauling the eight-foot plastic tables out of the back storage alcove, and let her sweater fall a few more inches down her shoulders.

Her Vans squeaked against the floor as she lined the tables into two long rows down the center aisle, leaving just enough clearance for people to squeeze past the longboxes of back-issues.

If Tommy and Alyssa didn't show up on time to help wrangle the crowd, Róża was fully prepared to threaten them with violence. Tommy had promised to run the register during the tournament, which was the only reason she was going to be able to actually play in the bracket herself instead of being chained to the till all day.

The tournament wasn't scheduled to start until noon but nerds gonna nerd, and there'd be a crowd by ten.

She walked behind the counter, nudging a stray booster box out of the way with the toe of her shoe. On the top shelf, nestled securely between an original run run of Transmetropolitan and a vintage Gundam kit, sat the ceramic urn holding her dad.

Róża reached up with a sleeve-covered hand and tapped the smooth glaze twice. "Big day, old man. Don't let me draw dead on turn one."

Róża pulled her own deck box from her canvas tote behind the counter—matte black, scuffed at the edges, containing a list she'd tuned until two in the morning. She gave the 60-card sleeve stack a crisp, practiced riffle shuffle, the plastic snaps sharp in the quiet room, before tucking it into the front pocket of her sweatpants.

By eight-forty-five, the bracket sheets were clipped to the tournament board, the felt playmats were spaced out across the tables, and the faint murmur of voices began to drift in from the pavement outside. Footsteps paced back and forth near the glass. Somebody leaned against the storefront, their shadow cutting across the display posters.

Róża took a slow breath, blowing her bangs out of her eyes. Her shoulders ached, her feet were sore, and she was running on about three hours of broken sleep and pure caffeine. Perfect tournament condition.

She grabbed the brass keyring off the peg beside the register, waddled out from behind the counter, and made her way to the glass entrance. Outside, a dozen eager faces were already waiting on the sidewalk, deck boxes clutched in hand.

Róża reached up with her sleeve-covered fingers, grasped the deadbolt, and twisted it until it clicked open.

Action Comics was packed, the air conditioner fighting a losing battle against the collective body heat of three dozen teenagers and twenty-somethings digging through longboxes and arguing over the latest Marvel run.

Róża stood behind the main glass display counter, her oversized, mustard-yellow sweater slipping off her left shoulder to reveal a stark black bra strap and a generous amount of pale skin. Her sweatpants today were green with a black stripe down the sides.

An elderly man stepped up to the register. He had to be pushing eighty, dressed in a neat tweed jacket and a flat cap. He looked entirely out of place standing next to a life-sized cardboard cutout of Gojo Satoru.

Róża blinked, shaking herself out of a momentary zone-out. "Hey there," she said softly, her voice barely rising above the ambient noise of the shop. "Can I help you find something?"

He smiled, a warm, crinkly expression that reached his eyes. "No, no. I'm just here to drop something off. My grandson, Leo... he spends a lot of time here. You've always been so kind to him. Made him feel like he belongs somewhere."

Róża's posture softened. She knew Leo. He was a quiet kid who usually sat in the corner during tournaments, too shy to ask for trades. She usually slipped him a few promo cards on anything he purchased. "Oh. Yeah, nah, Leo's a good egg. Always happy to have him around."

"I wanted to thank you," the old man said. He reached into his breast pocket with a slightly trembling hand. "I was cleaning out the attic. Found some of his father's old things. Leo said you'd appreciate this more than anyone."

He placed it on the glass counter.

Róża looked down.

Her brain flatlined.

It was a Charizard. But not just any Charizard. It had the thick HP font. There was no shadow around the art box. And sitting proudly on the left side, right below the artwork, was the little black 'Edition 1' stamp. It was a 1999 Base Set First Edition Shadowless Charizard. The centering was immaculate. The edges, from what she could see, were crisp.

And it was sitting in a flimsy, ninety-nine-cents-for-a-pack-of-a-hundred, soft plastic penny sleeve.

Róża stopped breathing. Her hands, swallowed by her sweater sleeves, hovered over the glass.

"He said it was a dragon," the old man chuckled, entirely oblivious to the fact that he had just casually dropped the holy grail of trading cards onto a smudge-covered countertop. "Thought it might look nice on your wall."

"Sir," Róża whispered. She carefully, painstakingly, pinched the very edge of the penny sleeve, lifting it as if it were an unexploded bomb. "Sir, do you... do you know what this is?"

"A Pokey-man?" he offered gently.

Róża's heart was hammering against her ribs. "Holy shit," she muttered under her breath. She spun around, practically throwing herself at the premium supply shelf behind her. She grabbed a rigid magnetic case and a perfect-fit sleeve, her hands shaking so badly she almost dropped them.

She turned back, sliding the card into the hard plastic armor with the practiced, delicate touch of a surgeon. Only when it was safe behind a thick layer of UV-protected acrylic did she let out a breath that sounded suspiciously like a wheeze. She clutched the encased card to her chest, her wide eyes snapping back to the elderly man.

"Sir. This... this is..." She struggled to find the words, her usually soft voice cracking. "I can't take this. You don't understand, I absolutely cannot take this."