“He has the firing form printed out on his clipboard,” Carl wrote.

“Says final write-up and you lose the job if you are not at the register by 2:45 PM.

Call me boss.”

I looked at the little blue numbers in the top corner of the screen.

It was two twenty-eight in the afternoon.

Seventeen minutes to save a job I had worked six days a week for twelve years, paying Evelyn’s water bills and buying her root beer floats on hot summer nights.

My thumb hung over Carl’s name on the screen for three seconds.