The Mystery Shopper Who Got Overlooked

I laughed, more furious than amused, and couldn't help myself. "How would you know whose money I'm spending?"

On the other end of the line, Lenny Sloan sneered, dripping with contempt. "Kid, I've been selling cars for eight years. You think I haven't seen every type there is?

"That T-shirt of yours is pilling, and those pants look like they came off a five-dollar clearance rack. Your whole outfit isn't worth fifteen bucks. Where's a guy like you supposed to get the money for a car like this? Meanwhile, your girlfriend's carrying an expensive Chanel bag like it's nothing. You just got lucky and landed yourself a rich woman. I've seen it a hundred times."

He paused, then went on, his voice turning oily. "What, did things not work out with your sugar mama? She's not paying anymore? Tell you what, I can hook you up with a new client. I've got plenty of connections."

I didn't lose my temper listening to him spew his garbage. Not because I had a saintly temper—I was recording the call, and cursing him out wouldn't have looked good on tape.

I answered him, calm as ever. "Since you've got so many connections, you should keep them all to yourself. Contact whoever you want to pick up the car. I'm out."

I hung up, then packaged every recording, every video, and every screenshot of our chat logs and uploaded the whole thing to the company's internal audit system.

Under normal circumstances, a mystery shopper was supposed to complete the entire process end-to-end—walking in, consulting, test-driving, negotiating, putting down the deposit, and finally the pickup—and score every single stage.

But this time, the process wasn't even halfway done, and it had already gone completely rotten. Every stage so far scored a flat zero. There was no reason to keep going.

The next morning, my girlfriend called.

"Babe, that salesman keeps pushing me to come pick up the car. When are we heading over?"

I frowned. "If he's pushing you, then go. I'm not going—he never asked me to pick it up anyway."

Fleur sounded a little anxious. "You're the one who put down the deposit. If you don't go, we lose that money. What did you even do to get on his bad side? He's just doing his job—don't make it so hard on him."

Hearing that made me even angrier, but I couldn't tell her what I actually did for a living. As far as she knew, I was just an ordinary office worker whose job happened to involve a lot of travel, and nothing more.

When I stayed quiet, her tone softened.

"Baby, I know that salesman's a little rough around the edges, but isn't this the car you've wanted forever? We finally worked out the price and put the deposit down. It's not worth picking a fight with someone like that."

I couldn't hold out against her pleading and finally gave in. I figured I'd just go finish recording the last stage—the pickup.

Part of me was curious anyway. If he found out I was the one paying, would his attitude change at all?