“The Holiday Market has special rules,” Brenda cooed, inventing a lie so perfectly crafted to sabotage my most important sales day that every ounce of patience I had evaporated into pure, cold rage.
No such email existed.
My son’s tuition deposit rested on the sales I’d make in the next hour, a fact this woman was gleefully ignoring. Her little acts of sabotage had been a fixture of my Saturday mornings for months—a “missing” key here, a “reserved” cart there. She got a visible thrill from it, a pathetic jolt of power from her tiny kingdom of concrete floors and rolling carts.
But this lie was different. This was a direct assault on my business, and I was done being her victim.
She thought her power came from the keys on her belt, but this petty tyrant had no idea her reign was about to be systematically dismantled by a suggestion memo, leaving me to write the very rules that would become her undoing.
The Gatekeeper’s Gambit: The Cold Concrete Welcome
The air in the back hallway of the Harrison Arts Center always smelled the same: a mix of industrial cleaner, damp concrete, and the faint, sweet perfume of popcorn drifting from the main lobby. It was a smell I associated with stress, a Pavlovian trigger that tightened the muscles in my shoulders. Every other Saturday, this beige corridor was the first hurdle in an eight-hour steeplechase of selling my art.
My husband, Mark, kissed my cheek before he pulled the minivan away from the loading dock. “Go get ‘em, tiger,” he’d said, the same line he used before every fair. I smiled, but the sentiment evaporated the moment I faced the service elevator.
And her.
Brenda stood sentinel by the steel cage where the hand trucks were kept, a volunteer lanyard swaying from her neck like a military medal. She was probably my age, fifty-three, but carried herself with the rigid authority of a high school vice principal who genuinely enjoys handing out detention slips. Her thin lips were a permanent, disapproving line.
“Morning, Brenda,” I said, my voice deliberately cheerful. I pointed toward the cage. “Just need to grab a flatbed cart.”
She jangled the cluster of keys clipped to her belt loop, a sound like a jailer making his rounds. “Oh, dear. They’re all signed out,” she said, her voice a syrupy, insincere apology. “You’ll have to wait.”
I glanced through the diamond-shaped holes in the steel mesh. I could see at least three flatbeds and two upright dollies sitting right there, gleaming under the fluorescent lights. The knot in my stomach cinched tighter. This was the third fair in a row.
“I can see them in there,” I said, keeping my tone level. “Looks like there are a few left.”
Brenda gave a theatrical sigh, a puff of air that ruffled her stiff, salt-and-pepper bangs. “Those are reserved. For the main stage performers. You know the rules, Noor. Vendors wait.”
The “rules” were a document as mythical as the Minotaur. No one had ever seen them, but Brenda invoked them with religious fervor. The main stage performers, a children’s ballet troupe this week, wouldn’t arrive for another two hours. My prints, carefully packed in heavy-duty portfolios, sat on the concrete floor, silent and heavy. The first wave of serious buyers—the collectors and interior designers—would be sweeping the main hall in forty-five minutes. Without a cart, I’d be making four separate, back-breaking trips, eating up at least half an hour. I’d miss them. Again.
A Symphony of Excuses
Two weeks prior, the excuse had been different. “The key’s gone missing,” Brenda had chirped, patting her pockets with performative distress. “Someone must have forgotten to return it. So irresponsible.” I ended up borrowing a rickety, squealing dolly from Maria, the potter in the booth next to mine, after she’d finished her own setup. By the time I was ready, the early rush was over, replaced by families with strollers and sticky-fingered kids. My sales were down by thirty percent.
The time before that, the cage was wide open, but Brenda had physically blocked my path. “Maintenance needs to do an inventory count,” she’d declared, arms crossed over her chest. “No carts can be moved for the next hour.” I watched as a young man, a musician with a guitar case and an amp, walked right past her, grabbed a cart, and left. When I pointed this out, she’d smiled sweetly. “He’s talent, dear. Not a vendor.”
The distinction was her favorite weapon. We, the people who filled the grand hall with life and color and paid a hefty fee for the privilege, were a lower caste. We were the scullery maids of the art world, while she was the keeper of its back-hallway keys.
Today, I tried a different tactic. “Okay. Who do I talk to about getting one of the reserved carts cleared for use? Since the performers aren’t here yet, maybe I could just use it for twenty minutes and have it back before they even arrive.”
Brenda’s eyes, small and dark, glittered with something that looked like pleasure. She enjoyed this. “That’s not how it works. The reservation is for the full block of time. It’s a liability issue.”
Maria wheeled past me then, her own cart loaded with boxes of glazed mugs. She gave me a sympathetic glance and a slight shake of her head, a silent warning: don’t bother, you won’t win. She was in her seventies, had been doing this circuit for thirty years, and had the weary resignation of a soldier who knows which battles to fight. I, apparently, was still learning.
Frustration burned in my throat, hot and acidic. I could feel the seconds ticking away, each one representing a potential customer I wouldn’t meet, a sale I wouldn’t make. This wasn’t a hobby. This was how I was helping my son, Liam, get through his final year of college without taking on crippling loans. Every lost dollar mattered.
The Kitchen Table Debrief
That night, I sat at our kitchen table, pushing a cold piece of lasagna around my plate. Mark watched me, his brow furrowed with concern. He’d already heard the sales numbers—or lack thereof.
“It’s that woman again, isn’t it?” he asked gently.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. The rage I’d suppressed all day was bubbling up, and if I started talking, I was afraid I would start screaming. I’d spent the day forcing smiles for customers, talking about the archival quality of my paper and the inspiration behind my black-and-white cityscapes, all while a low-grade fury simmered just beneath the surface.
“Noor, you have to report her,” Mark said, his voice taking on the practical, problem-solving tone he used when fixing a leaky faucet. “Go to the event manager. This is ridiculous. It’s targeted.”
“I know it’s targeted,” I snapped, then immediately regretted my tone. “I’m sorry. It’s just… who do I report her to? Her boss is probably some other volunteer. And what do I say? ‘The lady in the back won’t give me a cart?’ I’ll sound like a whiny child.”
“You sound like a business owner whose logistics are being deliberately obstructed,” he countered. He reached across the table and covered my hand with his. “It’s not just you, right? You said Maria has issues with her too.”
“Maria just works around her. She gets here at the crack of dawn, before Brenda even starts her shift, just to get a cart. I can’t do that, Mark. Liam has his morning class, and I need to be here to make sure he’s actually up and out the door.”
He sighed, a long, weary sound. “So what’s the alternative? Keep losing the best hour of sales every single fair?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? The ethical math was grinding in my head. Was this a personal vendetta worth pursuing, or a professional obstacle I should just find a way to circumvent? Complaining felt petty, like tattling. But letting it go felt like surrendering a piece of my dignity, and my income, to a woman who got her kicks from wielding a tiny sliver of power over people like me.
The lasagna stared up at me, congealed and unappetizing. It felt like a metaphor for my career at the moment: cold, stuck, and deeply unsatisfying.
The Seed of a Plan
I lay in bed that night, long after Mark’s breathing had evened out into a soft snore. My mind was racing, replaying every condescending “dear” and every infuriatingly sweet smile from Brenda. Mark was right; I couldn’t let this go. But he was wrong about the approach. A direct confrontation would devolve into a she-said, she-said argument. Brenda, a long-time volunteer, would likely be seen as more credible than a transient vendor.
I needed evidence. I needed something indisputable.
The problem wasn’t the rules; it was the person enforcing them. Brenda thrived in ambiguity, in the unwritten, unofficial power structure of the back hallway. She was a petty tyrant, and the only way to dethrone a tyrant was to take away their power. Her power was control over the equipment. The keys. The carts.
What if there was a system? A real one, not just the one she invented on the spot. A system with a paper trail.
An idea began to form, small and sharp, in the darkness of my bedroom. It wasn’t about complaining. It was about proposing a solution. A solution that, on the surface, would seem like a simple, logical improvement for the Arts Center. It would be helpful, efficient, and professional.
But its real purpose would be to build a cage of accountability around Brenda, one she wouldn’t even see until the lock clicked shut. I wouldn’t go to the event manager, who dealt with vendors. I’d go to someone who dealt with assets. Equipment. Logistics.
I’d go to Facilities.
I reached for my phone on the nightstand, the screen flaring to life. I opened a new note and began to type.
“Subject: Proposal for Equipment Management Improvement.”
A small, grim smile touched my lips. If Brenda wanted to play by the rules, I was going to write the rulebook.
The Art of Observation: The Whisper Network
The next fair, two weeks later, I arrived with a new strategy. Phase one was reconnaissance. Instead of making a beeline for the service elevator, I lingered by the coffee station in the vendor break area, a cramped room with mismatched chairs and the lingering smell of burnt bagels.
Maria was there, stirring sugar into a styrofoam cup. “Morning, Noor,” she said, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “Ready for battle?”
“More than you know,” I replied, keeping my voice low. “Can I ask you something, Maria? About Brenda.”
She glanced around, then leaned in closer. “What about her?”
“Does she only pull the ‘no carts available’ routine on me, or am I just lucky?”
A wry, humorless smile touched her lips. “Oh, honey. You’re not special. She has her favorites. The young ones, especially the men, they get whatever they want. They flirt a little, call her the ‘queen of the castle,’ and she melts. Women our age?” She took a sip of her coffee. “We’re competition, I think. Or maybe we just remind her of something she doesn’t like. I gave up trying to figure it out years ago.”
A woman I vaguely recognized from the jewelry section, probably in her late forties, overheard us and chimed in. “Last month, she told me my display was a fire hazard and I couldn’t bring my cart in until I rearranged it. I’ve had the same setup for five years. I missed the entire first hour.”
My blood ran cold. It was worse than I thought. It wasn’t just about the carts; it was about any rule she could invent to exert control. We were a silent sorority of the harassed, each of us thinking we were the only one, each of us too busy or too tired to fight back. We’d been isolated, and that’s how she maintained her power.
I spent the next twenty minutes talking to three other vendors, all women over forty. The stories were hauntingly similar: a loading bay door that was suddenly “broken” for a thirty-minute window; a key to the vendor storage closet that was “at the front desk” and required a ten-minute walk; a service elevator that was inexplicably “out of order” until the prime setup time had passed.
The pattern was undeniable. It wasn’t random. It was a targeted campaign of petty sabotage. And knowing that, feeling the shared frustration of these other women, solidified my resolve. This wasn’t just for me anymore.
A Suggestion for Facilities
On Monday morning, I called the Harrison Arts Center, but I didn’t ask for the volunteer coordinator or the events manager. I asked for the Facilities Department. After a brief hold, a man with a gravelly voice answered. “Dave speaking.”
“Hi, Dave. My name is Noor Bishop. I’m one of the vendors at the weekend art fairs.” I launched into the carefully rehearsed speech I’d practiced in the shower. I didn’t mention Brenda. I didn’t mention harassment or delays. I framed the entire conversation around efficiency and asset protection.
“I’ve noticed the hand trucks and flatbeds are a hot commodity during setup,” I began, my tone collaborative and helpful. “And with so many people coming and going—vendors, staff, performers—it seems like it would be easy for one to go missing or get damaged. I was just thinking, it might be helpful to have a simple checkout system in place. You know, just a clipboard with a log sheet. It would help you guys keep track of your equipment and ensure everything is accounted for.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. I held my breath.
“You know,” Dave said finally, his voice thoughtful, “that’s not a bad idea. We lost two dollies last year. Just vanished. A checkout sheet… yeah, that could work.”
I pressed my advantage. “You could even put inventory tags on them. Simple asset tags with a number. That way, people just sign out ‘Cart #7’ and sign it back in. It makes it clean and simple for everyone.”
“Asset tags,” he repeated, and I could almost hear the gears turning in his head. “I like it. Simple. Low-cost. Solves a problem.” He cleared his throat. “Thanks for the suggestion, Ms. Bishop. I’ll look into getting that set up before the next event.”
I hung up the phone, my heart hammering against my ribs. It was a small step, but it felt like a monumental victory. I had planted a seed of logic and order in Brenda’s chaotic little kingdom. Now, I just had to wait for it to grow.
The Bait is Set
When I arrived for the next fair, I saw it immediately. Taped to the steel mesh of the cart cage was a clear plastic sleeve holding a fresh sign-out sheet. A pen dangled from a grimy piece of string. And on the crossbar of every single cart and dolly inside, a small, laminated tag with a bold black number was attached with a zip tie.
My breath caught in my throat. It was real.
Brenda was standing nearby, watching me with narrowed eyes. She’d clearly noticed the new additions.
“Morning, Brenda,” I said, walking toward the cage.
“They’ve made things very… bureaucratic,” she said, her voice dripping with disdain. She gestured toward the sign-out sheet as if it were a piece of modern art she didn’t understand. “More paperwork for me, I suppose.”
“Looks more efficient, if you ask me,” I replied breezily. I scanned the sheet. A few names were already on it. I picked up the pen. “I’ll just take cart number four, please.”
Her lips tightened into a razor-thin line. She couldn’t say they were reserved; the new system didn’t have a column for that. She couldn’t say the key was lost; it was hanging on a new, designated hook right next to the cage. Every excuse she’d ever used had been neutralized.
She unlocked the cage with a short, angry jerk of her wrist. The door swung open with a groan. I wrote my name, the cart number, and the time—8:05 a.m.—in the corresponding columns on the sheet. As I wheeled the cart out, I felt her eyes on my back, hot with resentment.
The bait was set. The trap was armed. All I had to do now was wait for her to try and chew her way through the wires. I knew she wouldn’t be able to resist. People like Brenda don’t surrender power gracefully. They just find new ways to abuse it.
A False Dawn
For a moment, I allowed myself to feel a flicker of hope. I got my booth set up in record time, a full fifteen minutes before the doors opened to the public. The early crowd was good to me; I sold two of my largest, most expensive prints before 10 a.m. The day felt different, lighter. The back hallway, for once, had been just a hallway, not a battleground.
But as I was packing up that evening, I saw the first sign of trouble. Brenda was at the cart cage, talking to a young vendor, a painter in his twenties with a man-bun and paint-splattered jeans.
“Just leave it,” Brenda was saying, waving a dismissive hand as he started to wheel his cart back toward the cage. “I’ll sign it in for you. Go on, get on the road.”
The young man, oblivious, thanked her profusely and hurried off. I watched as Brenda picked up the clipboard. She looked at the sheet for a long moment, then deliberately hung it back up without marking his cart as returned.
My stomach dropped. Of course. That was how she would do it. The system was only as good as the person enforcing it. By being “helpful,” she could create chaos. She could leave carts signed out under other people’s names, then claim they were lost or stolen. She could let her favorites bypass the rules while holding others strictly to them.
I wheeled my own cart, #4, back to the cage. “Ready to sign in,” I said, holding the pen.
She gave me a tight, artificial smile. “Just checking the sheet,” she said, her body blocking my view. “Looks like you’re all set.”
“I’d prefer to sign it in myself,” I insisted, stepping around her. I found my name on the list and drew a firm line through it, adding the return time in the final column.
She watched me, her expression unreadable. She hadn’t been caught, not really. She had plausible deniability. But she knew that I had seen. And I knew that this was just the beginning. The next fair was the big one, the annual Holiday Market. It was the most important sales day of the year.
And I had a feeling Brenda was going to make it a masterpiece of petty tyranny.
The Confrontation: The Point of No Return
The morning of the Holiday Market was crisp and cold, the sky a pale, fragile blue. This was the day that could make or break my fourth quarter. Sales from this single event were enough to cover Liam’s tuition deposit for his final semester. The pressure felt like a physical weight on my chest.
I’d packed the minivan with military precision the night before. Mark had made me coffee, his hand lingering on my shoulder as I stood by the door. “You’ve got this, Noor. You’re prepared for anything.”
I was. I had my inventory, my cash box, my display grid. And I had my phone, fully charged.
I pulled up to the loading dock at 7:55 a.m., five minutes before my official load-in window. I wanted to be the first one at the service elevator. I wanted to eliminate any possible excuse Brenda could invent about a rush of people or a lack of equipment.
The back hallway was quiet and cold. A string of sad-looking tinsel was taped above the elevator doors, the only acknowledgment of the festive spirit that supposedly filled the rest of the building. And there, by the cart cage, stood Brenda. She was wearing a cheap Santa hat, perched jauntily on her helmet of hair. It didn’t make her look festive; it made her look like a deeply resentful elf.
I took a deep breath, the cold air stinging my lungs, and walked toward her. This was it. The point of no return. Whatever happened in the next ten minutes would set the course for the rest of my day, and maybe the rest of my time at the Arts Center.
“Good morning, Brenda,” I said, my voice steady. “Happy Holidays.”
She turned, and the smile she gave me was all teeth. It didn’t reach her eyes, which were as cold and hard as river stones. “And to you, dear,” she said. “Big day today.”
“It is,” I agreed. “Which is why I’m here bright and early. I’ll take a cart, please.” I gestured toward the cage, which was, as expected, full of them. The new sign-out sheet was in its plastic sleeve, completely blank. I was the first one here.
The Siren’s Song
Brenda didn’t move. She just stood there, jingling her keys, the Santa hat bobbing slightly. The silence stretched, thick and uncomfortable.
“A cart?” I repeated, my patience already wearing thin.
She let out a little sigh, a sound of profound disappointment, as if I had failed a test I didn’t know I was taking. “Oh, Noor,” she cooed, her voice dripping with condescension. “You know the rules.”
There it was. The phrase she wielded like a weapon. The rage that had been simmering for months began to boil. I kept my face a blank mask, my hands clenched into fists inside my pockets.
“The rules?” I asked, my voice dangerously quiet. “What rules are those, Brenda? The rule that says the first vendor to arrive on the most important day of the year isn’t allowed to use an available cart?”
Her smile widened. She was enjoying this. This was the moment she had been waiting for, the culmination of her power plays. “The Holiday Market has special rules. Management sent out an email. All equipment is on hold until 8:30 a.m. for the catering setup. They get priority. It’s for the Donors’ Breakfast.”
My heart pounded in my ears. I knew, with absolute certainty, that no such email existed. I check my vendor updates obsessively. This was a lie, pulled from thin air, constructed for the sole purpose of sabotaging me. The Donors’ Breakfast was in the upstairs ballroom; the caterers used a different entrance.
“I didn’t receive that email,” I said, the words coming out clipped and precise.
“Well, you should check your spam folder,” she sang, turning her back to me to adjust a stray piece of tinsel. The dismissal was absolute. “You’ll just have to wait.”
I looked at my boxes sitting on the cold floor. I looked at the clock on the wall. 8:03 a.m. Waiting until 8:30 meant I wouldn’t be set up until after 9:00, when the doors opened. I would miss everything. All my planning, all my preparation, rendered useless by one woman’s pathetic need to feel important.
This was the moment. The rage was white-hot now, but it was a clarifying fire. It burned away the anxiety and the hesitation, leaving behind a cold, hard certainty. I was done.
The Unveiling of the Ledger
I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t plead. I simply pulled out my phone.
Brenda glanced over her shoulder, a flicker of curiosity in her eyes. “There’s no use calling the event manager,” she said smugly. “She’s in the pre-opening briefing. Won’t be available.”
“I’m not calling the event manager,” I said calmly. I scrolled through my contacts and pressed the call button. I put the phone on speaker.
It rang twice before a familiar, gravelly voice answered. “Dave.”
“Hi Dave, it’s Noor Bishop,” I said, my eyes locked on Brenda. Her smug expression began to falter, replaced by a look of confusion. “Sorry to bother you so early. I’m down at the service elevator in the vendor hall. We seem to have a bit of a logistical problem.”
“What’s going on?” Dave asked, his voice instantly alert.
“Well, all the carts are locked up again,” I said, letting a note of weary frustration enter my voice. “Brenda’s telling me there’s a new rule about caterers getting priority, but it’s the first I’m hearing of it. More importantly, it seems like cart number seven, from the last fair, was never properly signed back in. I’m looking at the old sheet. It’s still under my name.” I wasn’t, but I knew Brenda hadn’t checked it. It was a calculated bluff.
There was a pause. Brenda’s face had gone pale.
“I’m on my way down,” Dave said, his voice grim. “And I’m bringing the master logbook. Don’t go anywhere.”
I disconnected the call and looked at Brenda. The Santa hat seemed to mock her, a ridiculous splash of red on top of her ashen face. The power in the hallway had shifted so completely it was almost a physical force. The air crackled with it.
“What did you do?” she whispered, her voice barely audible.
“I’m just trying to follow the rules,” I said, throwing her own words back at her. “It’s all about accountability, right? Just want to make sure the center’s assets are protected.”
About the Author
