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“Zhi, thank god you’re here.” He thrust a thumb at the source of the offending odour. “Someone needs to clean this up right away.”

“Not now,” he howled without looking over. “We’ve got a code brown in all but one of the portable washrooms, so now everyone is using that one. The line is a mile long, and some kid already piddled on the floor, and then some woman in ridiculously impractical footwear stepped in it and fell on her butt. Now she’s threatening to sue us for not putting up a caution sign and…” He was still ranting away as he went right past him in the direction of the bathrooms.

“Yikes.” Bradley swallowed thickly.

He wanted to go find Eunji right away. To apologize for his absences and make sure his manager knew he was here now, ready to work harder than ever. But surely a bathroom crisis of this magnitude took priority?

Bradley rolled up his sleeves and dashed after Zhi. His foot clipped a toy train in the middle of the aisle. He stumbled to the ground, one of his palms catching the floor while the other landed hard on a train track that imprinted its hatched pattern onto his skin. He sat on the floor and rubbed his sore palm. That was when he saw that the entire train set display had been knocked over. The typically dazzling arrangement of medium-sized green boxes layered upon one another in the shape of a Christmas tree was now scattered across two aisles, preventing customers from safe passage through this supposed winter wonderland. Expanding his view, he took in the entire scene and saw customers struggling all around him. Some were slipping and tripping down messy aisles like the tent was on ice rather than concrete; others were further pillaging wrecked displays; several were shouting for assistance that never arrived.

December 21st. Today was December 21st. Smack in the middle of hell week for any department store.

Bradley pushed himself up to standing, but then he froze, unable to make a decision between the bathrooms, the fallen display, the spilled milk, the shouting customers, or Eunji’s office, where he was growing increasingly prepared to beg for her forgiveness. Before he could make a decision, a scream and a flash of red stole his attention.

He turned and saw Kaitlyn running back and forth a few aisles over, her medical boot gone, a sling on her arm that crackled with flames.

“Kaitlyn,” Bradley yelled, “you’re on fire!”

“No shit!”

“Stop, drop, and roll,” he shouted. “Stop, drop, and roll!”

Despite his instructions, Kaitlyn kept running laps, moving at full speed, shrieking and waving her sling in the air in a manner that only fanned the flames.

Propelled into action, Bradley swung back around to the eggnog fridge and grabbed the adjacent “Try Me” cooler before leaping back over to the fallen display of trains and crashing through an arrangement of Christmas lights—one of the few displays that had still been intact—his only concern putting out the fire. Bradley tugged the lid off the cooler.

He was right beside Kaitlyn when she turned in his direction, and for a split-second her eyes went even wider with alarm.

Bradley began to pour.

Kaitlyn tried to cover her face as two gallons of milky nog sloshed onto her until the fire was fully extinguished.

Bradley dropped the cooler and breathed heavily.

Kaitlyn was stuck standing like a creamy, nutmeg-scented statue of a drenched rat, strands of her hair clinging to her cheeks, until she screamed out, “I’m lactose intolerant!”

“Oh. Sorry about that.” Bradley looked around and picked up a mis-aisled holiday-themed throw blanket. “Here.”

Kaitlyn ignored his offering as she shook off her soaked sling, lifted her singed sleeve, and sighed with relief. “I suppose I should thank you for saving my arm. But honestly I would have called in injured today if I’d known you weren’t going to show up, so instead I’m going to blame you for ruining my favourite shirt.” Using her previously slinged arm, she snatched the blanket from his hand and began patting herself clean. Then she abruptly paused, looked up at him, and asked excitedly, “Think I could get paid leave for this?”

Before Bradley could reply, a voice cut through the chaos, burning as hot as any fire.

“Bradley.”

He swivelled around on the creamy floor and saw Eunji, arms crossed over her chest, her usually slicked-back ponytail poking out in odd directions, a slap of paint on one cheek, glaring at him from across the store.

Eunji tapped her fingers on her desk in the small grey backroom that constituted her office. Bradley sat across from her, his shoulders slumped. Together, they’d gotten the store through a hellish day, but there was still more work to be done—late-into-the-night overtime work—to fully repair the damage and disorganization of the past few days and return the Christmas tent to its usual splendour. Damage Bradley couldn’t help but feel he had caused himself.

“What am I going to do with you?” Eunji huffed.

“I’m sorry,” Bradley mumbled again.

“We needed you this week, Bradley. We really needed you.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you. I’ll work extra shifts. I’ll stay late every day until the end of the holiday season. I promise.”

Eunji raised a hand as if his promise offended her. Then she fanned her face, muttering about hot flashes, until she continued, “You are the only full-time employee in the Christmas department, one of the only reliable employees in this whole company. I put you up for a supervisor position. So to have you not show up, without even calling in sick and giving me time to find a replacement, has been devastating to our department.”

Bradley hung his head.