The Mall is Not Enough, page 1
part #3 of Secret Shopper Mom Mystery Series
The Mall is Not Enough
Kelly Mcclymer
The Mall is Not Enough
Secret Shopper Mom Mystery
3
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by
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Kelly McClymer
Copyright © 2018 Kelly McClymer
All rights reserved.
No part of this may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the tireless moms (and dads) who balance the hairpin turns of the family budget with panache, imagination, and dedication.
Contents
Dedication
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1. Summer on the Horizon
2. To Loaner or Not to Loaner
3. Downsized by the Dealer
4. Looking for Luck in All the Wrong Places
5. Bank Holiday Roulette
6. Conspicuous Conundrum
7. Luck and Lies
8. Win a Little, Lose a Lot
9. A Spy by Any Other Name
10. A Real Bank Job
11. Your Friendly Neighborhood Spy
12. The Solitary Shopper
13. All the Work That Comes Before
14. High Stakes Secrets
15. The Surgeon and the Spy
16. When the Perfect Fall
17. Beginning of the End of the Story
18. What Just Happened?
19. Too Many Secrets, Too Little Time
20. Moms in Amber
21. Sister Spies
22. Lock Blocked
23. The Spy Who Went Overboard
24. No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
25. Time to Pay the Piper
26. Fallout Shelter
Does Molly get a glamorous vacation?
Also by Kelly Mcclymer
About the Author
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1
Summer on the Horizon
Mystery shopping and motherhood have a lot in common — just when you think you have it all figured out and under control, the universe laughs and throws you a wicked spitball.
My every-three-month oil change mystery shop was a great example of the Wicked Spitball Principle. It was an easy, ten-item checklist shop.
Pull up and note time.
Wait to be beckoned in and note time.
Ask for regular oil change.
Note upsell attempts.
Note service person’s uniform condition.
Note name and name tag placement.
I obediently took my place on an uncomfortable chair in the cramped waiting room, blissfully unaware of the huge wet spitball that the universe had in store for me.
My attention was on the the last few items of my checklist:
Note cleanliness of waiting room;
Note latest special deal prominently displayed;
Note time called to desk to get bill and service report.
All in all, the company was getting high marks.
The only problem I could see was that there was one unapproved flyer taped to the window.
It was eye catching, with a huge check that featured $10,000 writ large upon the face in green, and You! in glittery gold foil in the Payee space. I could see why whoever put it up had chosen this place. When your car is broken and needs fixing, you’ll try anything to get the money to get it done, even a scam sweepstakes.
I pretended to be texting and took a quick picture of the errant flyer with my phone. The mystery shopping company liked documentation, to prevent the he-said-she-said back and forth with the manager. Once, I hadn’t taken a picture of something out of order, and the company had made me redo the whole shop, with picture, in order to get paid. Lesson learned.
I hoped the flyer wouldn’t get them a scolding from their parent company. Probably a customer has stuck it there when the employees weren’t looking.
Feeling good about being on schedule, I was completely unprepared for just how badly my day was going to go when the cosmic spitball finally landed with a thick wet splat.
There were only the final two very easy items on the checklist left:
Note name and demeanor of person at desk;
Note whether bill was correct.
The guy behind the desk — Sammy T. — greeted me without his customary smile. “Bad news, I’m afraid.”
I was focused on noting Sammy T.’s demeanor, so it took a few seconds for his actual words to sink in. That and the fact that there was no bill in Sammy T’s hand.
Still in spy mode, I raised my eyebrows to indicate I’d heard him and kept my expression bland while I processed the abrupt departure from script. I carefully made my mental notes for my report. It seemed wrong to mark Sammy down for not greeting me with a smile when he was giving me bad news.
He was supposed to say, “Your car will run like dream now, Molly.”
He was supposed to say, “Let me go over what was done today.”
He was supposed to hand me the bill and go over it line by line with me.
Then I would pay him his $29.99 and drive away happy.
Instead, he followed his announcement of bad news with the actual bad news. “Your engine is shot.”
“Shot?” For a minute, I actually thought he meant that someone had shot my engine. I blamed that random disconnect on the excess time I’ve spent with the FBI lately. “Someone shot my engine?”
I pictured neat round bullet holes in my engine block. Was that the kind of thing they made heavy duty spackle for?
He blinked and his expression went suddenly, carefully, bland. “No, ma’am. Your engine needs to be replaced.” I recognized the polite mask for what it was — a way to make sure I didn’t see his true thoughts, which were probably something along the lines of how women shouldn’t be allowed to drive cars.
“Oh.” I let it sink in. “Oh.”
His bland expression slipped a little and I noted his glimpse of relief that I had, at last, understood the issue. He switched to an expression of concern. Very appropriate, considering the circumstances.
His voice was solemn and a little hushed. “Obviously, we can’t do the work. We’re just an oil change place. I recommend you get this to the dealer ASAP.”
I thought about the two more shops I had planned before it was time to pick the kids up from school. I tried hard not to think about all the extra things on the schedule as the school year wrapped up. “So, next week or so?”
He shook his head. “Mechanic says it could give out on you at any time. You’d hate to be on a busy road when that happens. You have kids, right?”
I nodded, thinking of the impact on Anna’s anxiety if she were to be in a car that simply stopped moving in the middle of the freeway. Something to avoid, at any cost. Well, maybe not at any cost.
As if my nod gave him permission, he at last held out my bill and waited for me to hand over my credit card to pay him for the oil change on the car-that-must-soon-die.
“Thank you for letting me know.” I ran through the rest of the secret shopper script as rapidly as I could, calculating the amount of luck that might be left in my karma bank to help me scrape this wicked spitball mess off my heavily-scheduled life.
I glanced at that unauthorized sweepstakes flyer with new appreciation. How much did a new engine cost? I shook aside the thought of winning money. That didn’t happen to me. I was the kind of person who worked hard for hardly enough pay. And, when it came to my family, not even much gratitude.
Fortunately, figuring out how to come up with the money to pay for the car was Seth’s department. I handled routine maintenance and he handled major breakdowns. At least, he would take over after I’d managed to get the car to the dealership. Until then, both the safety and security of the car engine were in my hands.
I decided to take the position that the mechanic was erring on the melodramatic side. I had felt nothing wrong when I drove the car into the oil change shop, so I had time to deal with this before the engine truly did heave a big sigh and die on me.
I chose to err on the side of caution, just in case the mechanic wasn’t quite as melodramatic as I had judged him to be. I sat in the car, out of sight of all the helpful oil change mechanics, while I submitted my report.
I knew once the shock of the news had worn off, I would never remember small details. Reports without the small details got marked down. I didn’t like to get marked down. Shoppers needed top scores to get those elusive top paying shops.
After my report was submitted, I called Seth and got his voicemail. He was probably still tied up with his students. He liked to make himself available for questions right after class. He said it gave the students more chance to clear up their misconceptions before they solidified into immutable misunderstandings.
I spoke quickly after the beep that indicated my voicemail message was being recorded. “Hey, I need you to pick up the kids from school.” I hated to ask him to do this because it meant he had to walk over to the school.
His car had needed a costly repair, and we’d decid
I explained quickly, just in case he didn’t feel like a walk. “I have to take the van into the dealership because the oil change guys think there’s something wrong with the engine. Let know if you can’t pick them up.”
I hung up. I’d left the bad news details vague, the better to tempt him to call me back. It would be easier to convince him to pick up the kids if I talked to him than it would be in a series of texts or voicemails.
To be on the safe side, I called and left a message on the voicemail of one of the moms I knew from school, and gave her a heads up I might need to ask her to pick up the kids. Again, I kept it a little vague and put a lot of I’ll-owe-you-big-time into my voice that I wouldn’t have been able to add to a text.
I’d rather Seth did pick up the kids because then I wouldn’t owe another mom a favor. Summer break was a bad time to be on the wrong side of mother quid pro quo.
On the other hand, I needed a backup plan in case Seth didn’t get the message. With Anna’s anxiety, I couldn’t risk having her melt down if there wasn’t someone to pick her up after school.
I hoped one — or both — would call me back before it was time for school to end. Voicemail was great…if people listened to it quickly enough.
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I started up the car and listened to the engine. Was that a whine I heard? A grinding noise? I turned up the radio. I needed to do the mall shops I had scheduled. After that, then I could swing by the dealership.
I drove like a cataract-ridden grandma going to the vet with her most precious teacup poodle in the back seat. No way did I want the engine to decide to quit on me in the middle of traffic, thank-you-very-much-universe.
I hadn’t noticed anything before Sammy T. had told me the bad news, but now every sound seemed suspicious. I decided to take the side roads and not use the interstate, even if it would take me a little more time.
Fortunately, both of my remaining shops were at the mall. Even more fortunately— or so I hoped — the dealership was only about five minutes away from the mall.
At the sunglasses shop, I had planned to be able to buy a nice pair of sunglasses for our upcoming family vacation and justify them with my fee. My sister-in-law, Liz, always made fun of my $5 sunglasses that broke at the worst times, or made me look like I had weird alien eyes.
I’d had my eye on a cute, moderately-priced pair that I thought made me look like the perfect blend between a mother and a part-time spy. I tried the pair I coveted on, asked the right questions of the very bored salesgirl, who gave me the answers as if she were reading from a script (which she was; I could see it taped under the countertop).
I carried the sunglasses away in a pretty yellow bag, knowing that I probably wouldn’t be able to keep them. I tried to find justification for busting the budget with a pair of too-expensive sunglasses as I quickly did my next shop at the footwear store at the opposite end of the mall. Sadly, even sister-in-law scorn did not rise to an important enough reason to raid the tiny savings account.
The sunglasses shop instructions gave me the option to return my purchase after I’d completed all the shop requirements.
Thinking about engines with bullet holes spraying oil and gas and whatever else a shot up engine would spray, I perched on a bench mid-mall and completed the reports for both shops. I made sure no one could see my phone screen, and tried to project the image of a mom doing casual email with a cup of coffee.
Reports filed, I picked up my pretty yellow bag and headed back to the sunglasses kiosk.
I hated returning things. In fact, I never returned anything. If a pair of pants I’d bought on sale were too long for me and my flats, I just put them in my “can’t wear this drawer.” Eventually, when I couldn’t close the drawer anymore, things found their way to Goodwill.
But the shop requirements had been very specific. I had to buy a pair of sunglasses. I couldn’t afford to buy them with the specter of the car repair bill hanging over our budget. So, I had to buy them. Then I had to return them.
I stepped up to the kiosk with a pasted-on smile that felt false. The reason I never returned things was simple. I was a coward. I didn’t want to be accused of being a shoplifter. I didn’t even want to be thought of as a shoplifter. And I never wanted to explain why I had to return something. The reason always sounded lame to me.
“I need to return these. They slide off my nose,” I babbled, hoping that seemed like a good reason to return a pair of sunglasses.
The bored young woman looked up and I could see the script flash into her mind as she asked me, her voice full of suspicion, “In order to return merchandise, you must have your original receipt and return the item within 10 days.”
Wow. She didn’t seem to remember that I had just bought these sunglasses thirty minutes ago. She was lucky my report was already turned in. I didn’t have to report on the return portion of this shop. “I have the receipt right here.” I fumbled it out of my pocket and handed it to her.
She took it without comment, but I’m sure she thought I was trying to scam her somehow, some way. It’s what we all worry about most, right? That the person who seems so unassuming is about to take us for everything we’ve got. Even though I don’t have much, I still worry about it.
My phone rang, distracting me from feeling guilty as the sunglass kiosk clerk sullenly worked her magic to refund the cost of my returned sunglasses.
It was Seth. I could hear the excuse in his voice before he said it. “Molly, I can’t get the kids. I have a meeting. What did the mechanic say, exactly?”
“He said I was driving on borrowed time.” I exaggerated, but only slightly. “You could pick the kids up and bring them home, and then go back in to finish up after I get home, couldn’t you?”
“No. I have that project I’ve been working on for the Dean. After the whole admissions office fiasco, I have a lot of ground to make up to regain his trust. I’m meeting with him to update him on the progress. Can’t you ask Deb?”
“I forgot about your meeting,” I said, taking the receipt from the kiosk girl and returning her sullen glare with a sunny smile. I gave one last fond farewell to the nice pair of sunglasses and headed toward the car while I was talking to Seth. “Deb is on her first stakeout, so I can’t ask her. I have a call in to Norma. I haven’t heard back from her yet.” I dropped the bombshell of bad news, “The mechanic said the engine was shot.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. “He’s only an oil change expert,” Seth finally said. “He may be completely wrong. Could you just wait until tomorrow to drop the car off at the dealership?”
“I may have to,” I said. As I walked toward the car, considering his suggestion, I found myself looking at my SUV in a very different way. Instead of the old reliable, take-it-for-granted vehicle, I saw an accident waiting to happen.
I changed my mind. “I don’t want to risk breaking down with Anna in the car. I’m not that far from the dealership.”
“If the engine is shot, you’ll need to get a loaner.” He added, “And our vacation fund will be gone.”
“We’ve already made plans with Liz. She isn’t going to like it if we back out,” I reminded him. He knew his sister better than I did. Of course, if we had to back out, Liz would blame me, not Seth. That was the way it always went with us. Her brother walked on water. Her sister-in-law — me — couldn’t chew gum and breathe.
