Invisible Ellen Read Online Free Page B

dwindling home stock.
    Often, it was as easy as finding the packets that had been torn open, partially devoured and then stuffed behind other items on the shelves by shoppers who regarded the store’s goods as a complimentary all-you-can-eat buffet. This smorgasbord without a waitress happened far more frequently than Ellen would have thought possible in a crowded store. Though the official policy of Costco was that any opened packages should be discarded, and this was partially to discourage the employees from damaging packages themselves, most of the managers overlooked their minimum-wage coworkers taking home the unsellable remains. Tonight’s finds included a full box of Oreos—all that was left of a three-package value pack—and a torn-open assortment of individually wrapped Fruit Roll-Ups. Both nice, but Ellen knew she would want salty before sweet. The easiest thing to pilfer was chips. Ostensibly reorganizing the three-pound sacks of ranch-flavored Doritos, Ellen took a small trash bag from a pack on her cart.
    As she snapped the white plastic in the air to open it fully, she glanced at the security camera mounted on the wall about fifteen feet up. There were exactly twenty-seven of these cameras placed around the store, and Ellen had memorized their locations. That and a few surreptitious trips past the glassed-in security booth, which housed the monitors, had helped Ellen identify precisely what was revealed by these watchful electronic eyes, and, more important, what they missed. Making sure that her cart was blocking the chip bag from the lens, Ellen produced a box cutter that she kept in her fanny pack, made a slit down the back seam of the chips bag, shook about a fourth of the product into the clean bag, knotted it loosely and placed it on top of her cart. Then, using a roll of clear packing tape, she closed the seam of the Doritos bag and repositioned it. It looked much like the others. With a self-satisfied grunt, Ellen read the words “Contents may have settled during shipping.”
    When her shift was over, Ellen would punch her time card and then spend an extra hour cleaning—off the clock. It was her way of paying for the items she took home. She knew they would never be missed, but she was a barterer, not a thief.
    During break, Ellen went to a stall in the ladies’ room, taking with her a liter of orange soda and a family pack of Xtra Cheddar Goldfish snacks. She was munching the last broken fin crumbs when she heard the door open and someone enter. Closing one eye, she peeked through the crack in the door to see Irena standing by the sink, sobbing with her face in her hands. After a few minutes, the woman splashed cold water over her face, wiped it roughly with the brown paper towels, and left. Ellen came cautiously out. She did not like that Irena had been mistreated. She gingerly prodded the part of her that felt good she had done even a small thing to deter it. It didn’thurt, so she decided to keep a closer eye on the whipped Russian puppy. Somehow, the idea made her feel . . . bigger, but then, she thought, maybe that was the Goldfish.
    Remembering the satisfying feel of the bag snatcher’s instep under her stomping foot, a new and totally unexpected character trait raised its hand to request a turn in Ellen’s persona, like an infant flexing a tiny muscle, and Ellen’s cautious smirk writhed and curled deliciously.
    So, the Boss thought that his antics were invisible.
    Ellen thought,
Welcome to my world
.

W hen Ellen arrived home at seven a.m., she closed and bolted the door behind her. That was the first step to casting off the nerve-scratchy sensation that always followed her in from the world outside. But the next step was to shore up her interior walls of defense, which required constant maintenance, and she never went wrong with bacon. Its heft and solidity, its very
fattiness
, somehow staved off the hunger-fear inside her in the same