Little Annie

A woman, miserable and fed up with her life, confronts a 12-year-old version of herself, who convinces her that it's all right to be happy.

Andrea Fitzgerald heads home after a hard day of work as manager of the Feldman Supermarket. It's the same place she's been working since high school. Beginning as a cashier, promoted to a shift supervisor, promoted to the department head, and eventually managing her store.  These days, it's stressful work, smaller brick and mortar retailers are finding it harder to attract customers, while warehouse wholesalers and internet delivery services are monopolizing the marketplace. In the last two years, her store barely met their sales targets. Each day is a nightmare, long hours, no recognition, and the pressure of superiors leaves Andrea exhausted and irritated.

Today, she had a meeting with corporate that lasted all afternoon; she has to cut staff again. Andrea has gotten to know the full-timers very well; they've been with her for years. Cutting staff is one of the most challenging aspects of her job as there are no more new employees to cut, come tomorrow morning, she's going to have to fire someone she has known for a long time. 

Andrea pulls into her driveway, heads into the house using the back door like she's done thousands of times. There's a little girl, about twelve,  sitting on the stairs, Andrea almost steps on her. She doesn't recognize her right away, but there is something familiar about her,

"Oh, hi, are you lost?" Andrea asks.

"Nope, I think this is where I'm supposed to be, are you Andrea Fitzgerald?" The girl asks.

"Yes, that's me, how do you know my name?" Andrea asks.

"I'm you, the much younger version of you. I'm you from twenty years ago when you were twelve," the girl says. Andrea's is confused, but she does see the resemblance. Andrea barely remembers what she looked like at twelve, but there's something about this girl that she believes, and she lets her into her house.

"How is this possible?" Andrea asks.

"I don't know, I guess, sometimes, when you need something, it appears," the little girl says.

"So, you are Andrea Fitzgerald, what elementary school did you go to?" Andrea asks.

"Don't you remember, everyone calls me Annie. I went to RFK Elementary; I had Mrs. Lipton for kindergarten, Ms. Martini for first grade, Mrs. Jurgen for second grade, Mrs. Stapleton for fourth grade, and Mr. Constantine for 5th grade," Annie says. Andrea can barely remember her teachers from elementary school but, as Annie rattles off the list, she remembers like it happened yesterday; the kid is right.

"Ok, so you're me when I was twelve, what do you want to know?" Andrea says. Annie thinks for a second, then responds,

"So, what kind of doctor are we?" Annie asks as Andrea laughs to herself. She remembers that back in middle school, she wanted to be a doctor. This reality was eventually manipulated in twisted until her ambitions in life turned into what she does now.

"Well, we didn't end up becoming a doctor," Andrea says.

"So, we're like a veterinarian or a nurse?" Annie asks.

"No, we work at Feldman's Supermarket, but we're the boss, the manager of the whole store," Andrea tries to brag.

"Feldman's, is that the place with the tomato mascot?" Annie asked.

"Yeah, we give him a cool set of sunglasses in the future," Andrea defends. 

"We went shopping with mom there, right? How did we end up doing that?" Annie asks.

"Yeah, I don't know,  we started working there in high school, and continued working there in college, we just kept getting promoted, and now we do that," Andrea tries to reason but realizes that some of her goals in life have fallen significantly short.

"Why do you work there?" Annie asks.

"Tell you the truth, I don't know, I do it because they pay me a pretty good salary, health benefits, and I have a retirement fund," Andrea says. Annie seems a little confused by the reasons listed and shifts the topic.

"How about boyfriends, I bet you had a lot of boyfriends?" Annie asked. As Andrea reflects on this question, she's started to realize that perhaps this 12-year-old Annie was here more for her benefit than the other way around.

"We had two boyfriends, Jacob Yaris, who you went to homecoming with, in 11th grade, and then you dated the rest of the school year, but you broke up in the summer when he went to space camp and met someone else," Andrea says.

"Jacob Yaris? He is so gross," Annie says.

"He's all right, he grows up a lot in high school," Andrea says.

"All right, who is the other one?" Annie asks.

"This guy, Andrew Simpson, he was the manager of my store when I was a department head, he was older, married, it didn't end well," Andrea says.

"That's it, that's not exactly how I thought it would have gone," Annie says.

"Hey, lay off, it's a lot harder than you think," Andrea says.

"Ok, so you don't have the job that you want, and you don't have the boyfriend that you want, do you at least have fun?" Annie asks. Andrea reflects on this question, thinking the last time she went on vacation, the last time she laughed, the last time she saw her friends, she couldn't even remember,

"I guess, I don't have that much fun, we work a lot, we have a lot of responsibility," Andrea says.

"You must enjoy doing that job if you keep doing it?" Annie says. Andrea thoughts immediately go back to the firing she has to do in the morning,

"What's wrong?" Annie asks.

"It's just tomorrow, corporate told me I have to make employee cuts, and no matter what I do, someone with a family, or someone I've known for a really long time, is going to lose their job," Andrea says.

"Oh no, that's awful. Why are they making you do that?" Annie asks.

"Sales aren't high enough; we're losing business. Online delivery is stealing our customers with convenience, and the profit margins are so low, to begin with," Andrea explained.

"If you don't believe in it, then don't do it," Annie says.

"It's not that simple; I have a boss, I have to do what they say," Andrea says.

"Just find a new job. You know if they keep getting rid of people, eventually it'll be your turn," Annie says. Andrea can't believe she didn't rationalize this before, only from the mind of twelve-year-old,

"Oh my God, you're right; eventually, they'll come after me, it's the bottom line over everyone," Andrea says.

"Think of it as an opportunity, if you could do anything in the world, what would you do?" Annie asks.

"I don't know what you would do?" Andrea questions right back.

"I would do something that helps people. Do you remember when we volunteered at the nursing home, and the old people were so happy to see us?" Annie asks.

"Yeah, it was fun, we were just volunteers, but it brought a lot of smiles to people's faces," Andrea says.

"Why don't you just go and do something like that?" Annie asks.

"I can't just go volunteer; I have bills to pay, I can't just quit," Andrea says. 

"Sure you can, just find a volunteer job that pays. What’s stopping you?" Annie asks.

"I guess nothing is keeping me from working with the elderly or with an advocacy group," Andrea says.

"I don't know what the advocacy group is, but it sounds like the person you're trying to fire tomorrow is yourself. You don't really want to be there; you're asking a 12-year-old what she wants to be when she grows up when it's you who should probably be thinking about what you want to be when you grow up," Annie says.

"You're right, tomorrow morning, I'm going to fire myself. Oh my God, I can't believe I just said that. I can't do that!" Andrea says, full of an anxious feeling.

"Yeah, you can, listen, I'm going to be you in the blink of an eye, I don't want your life, you need to fix it, so I have something to look forward to," Annie says. Andrea laughs, 

"Ok, deal, I'll start searching for a new job tomorrow," Andrea says.

"And get a boyfriend, I don't want to be all alone when I get older," Annie says.

"If memory serves, I don't recall 12-year-old me being a magnet for the boys, either? It'll happen when it happens," Andrea jokes back. Annie laughed.

The next day, Andrea spoke to corporate and told them she was going to quit. It took Andrea a few months to find a new job, but it was so much better than the one she had. She became an advocate of assisted living standards. She had to visit nursing homes all over the state, meet the elderly, and make them laugh and smile. Andrea loved going to work for the first time in a long time. Often adults succumb to fears of money, power, and avoidance of change at all costs. That's how people get stuck in a rut.  If you want to know if you're heading in the right direction, ask the 12-year-old who's in all of us, their ambitions are straightforward,  they just want to be happy and enjoy life.