“What is? Job hunting? Why?”
Lexie rolled her eyes and hauled me out of the kitchen and into her room. “(A), I don’t know if Mom and Dad will want me to go around looking for work, so (b), I want to surprise them tonight with all the jobs I find.”
I frowned. “What?” I said finally.
Lexie shook her head. “Never mind. Anyway, what do shorts have to do with job hunting?”
“We’re supposed to look nice when we apply for jobs.”
Lexie was silent for so long that I think she might have been counting to ten or higher. At last she drew in a deep breath. “(A),” she said again, “we don’t have to apply for jobs, and (b), I didn’t realize you were coming with me.”
“Well, I am.”
Now there was a twelve- to fifteen-second pause. “I will be wearing shorts when I look for work. If you insist on following me around, you can. But I don’t think anyone is going to want to hire a ten-year-old.”
I shrugged. “I think otherwise,” I said in a Mrs. Mott sort of voice. I flicked a yellow ribbon out of my eyes and stalked into my own room.
* * *
Lexie and I left our apartment together at 9:30. Dad didn’t look up from his computer so he didn’t see that I was wearing a job-hunting outfit.
“Where do you go to get jobs?” I asked my sister as we rode the elevator to the lobby.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m going to start on the first floor and work my way up.”
“The first floor of our apartment building?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you were going to a job-placement agency.” What I didn’t say was that I had thought she was going to a job-placement agency like Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz did when they needed to prove a point to their husbands in 1952.
“No.”
Lexie’s answers were getting awfully short, and I thought it was because she didn’t want to admit that a job-placement agency probably wouldn’t be interested in a fourteen-year-old.
But all I said was, “No one lives on the first floor.”
“No, but John’s at the desk, and I need to talk to him.”
We stepped off the elevator, and I ducked into the alcove where the mailboxes are, in order to avoid Mrs. Olson, who was hurrying through the lobby with Jasper and her flute case. When the coast was clear, I joined Lexie at John’s desk.
“… looking for summer jobs,” my sister was saying. “You know, baby-sitting, dog-walking, that kind of thing. Would it be all right if I put up an ad by the mailboxes?”
“If it’s all right with your parents it’s all right with me,” John replied.
“I might put one up, too,” I said casually.
Lexie glared at me, then turned back to John and rolled her eyes at him like I wasn’t standing right next to her with eyes of my own that could see her rolling eyes perfectly well. “I think it will be all right with Mom and Dad,” said Lexie, after an eight-second pause in the conversation. “I’ll check with them later, though, okay?”
“Okay,” John replied. “Good luck. Good luck to you, too, Pearl.”
“Thank you!” I said.
I followed Lexie to the elevator and we rode it to the second floor. Lexie hesitated outside the door of #2A, which is the first apartment I would have tried since, hello, it is #2A and it made sense to me to ring the doorbells in alphabetical order so you could keep track of where you had been. But Lexie decided to start with #2B, since she has a little crush on Mr. Berman, who lives in #2A. (Mr. Berman = handsome saxophone player, except for the mole on his eyelid.)
I was just thinking that maybe I should ring Mr. Berman’s bell (I could hear him practicing, so I knew he was home) when the door of #2B opened and a tiny old lady who I think is named Mrs. Ledbetter smiled up at Lexie.
“Hello, dear,” she said in that way old people have of saying “dear” when they’ve forgotten your name.
“Hi,” said Lexie. “Um, how are you?”
“Just fine, dear.”
I abandoned Mr. Berman’s door in order to hear how a job-hunting conversation should go.
“That’s wonderful,” said Lexie in a tone of voice I had never heard her use. “Well, I’m here because I’m looking for some jobs this summer—you know, so I won’t get bored or anything—and I was wondering if you had any work for me. I could water your plants if you’re going on vacation, or—” Here Lexie peered inside the apartment and she must have seen a cat because the next thing she said was, “Or come downstairs and feed your cat. I live in Seven F,” she reminded Mrs. Berman.
“So do I,” I said from behind Lexie.
“Are you both looking for work?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“But I’m fourteen and going into high school,” Lexie said. “Pearl here is only ten. Just so you know,” Lexie rushed on, “I’m old enough to baby-sit and pet-sit, and I can give violin lessons, and also I’m a capable tutor of basic math, algebra, French, and Spanish.”
“My,” said Mrs. Ledbetter. She turned to me. “And what can you do?”
I thought for a moment. “I can draw.”
Mrs. Ledbetter reached around Lexie and patted my hand. Then she turned back to my sister. “As a matter of fact,” she said, “I’m going to be away the week after next, and I’d love to hire you to take care of Percy and water the plants. I’ll give you the key to my mailbox, too, so you can bring the mail upstairs.”
I don’t know what the proper reaction to a job offer is, but Lexie just smiled and said, “Thank you.” Then she pulled a pad of paper out of her pocket, made some notes on it, and asked Mrs. Ledbetter for her phone number. “I’ll be in touch in the next day or two to firm things up,” she added.
At #2C no one answered the bell. At #2D Mr. and Mrs. Baxter came hurrying through their door before Lexie could even ring the bell, saying that they were both late for work, which they certainly must have been since it was almost ten o’clock.
“I’ll come back,” Lexie called after them as they ran down the hall. “I was just wondering if you needed to hire me for anything. I can walk dogs and baby-sit—”
“Great! We need a sitter! I’ll call you tonight,” said Mrs. Baxter as the elevator doors opened. “Hi, Pearl,” she added. “Nice to see you.” And the doors closed.
This was pretty much the way the rest of the morning went. Lexie offered her services to our neighbors, and our neighbors smiled fondly at me and then asked Lexie if she could fit baby-sitting into her schedule. Or plant watering or grocery shopping or helping their children brush up on their arithmetic before school started again. Lexie asked for information and took notes and gave out her cell phone number.
“Would you like my number?” I asked Mr. Horowitz, who was a professor who had not been fired, and who had just offered Lexie the job of cleaning out his storage unit in the basement.
Mr. Horowitz looked confused. “I don’t think I’ll need it, will I?”
“Of course not!” said Lexie, laughing her fake adult laugh.
We had worked our way through the apartments on the sixth floor when I remembered something. “Hey, Lexie,” I said, “you never went to Mr. Berman’s apartment.”
“Well, I didn’t want to disturb his practicing. I’ll go back some other time.” Lexie stepped onto the elevator and pushed the button for our own floor.
We had to be a little careful on our floor because of course we didn’t want Mom or Dad to see us. Lexie glanced at our door, then rang the bell at #7D, which used to be Justine’s apartment. A couple with a baby named Matthew had moved into it a few months after Justine’s family had moved out. That had been disappointing since I had been hoping for a girl neighbor my age, not a boy neighbor in diapers. Lexie had immediately begun sitting for Matthew.
“Good morning!” said Lexie brightly when Mrs. Harmer answered the door, Matthew riding on her hip. “I’m just here to let you know that I’m available not only for babysitting but to do other jobs or chores. I can organ
ize things, run errands, whatever you need.”
“And I can—” I started to say, but at that very moment the elastic band under my chin finally broke and the Easter hat blasted off of my head and hit Etienne in the face as he stepped out of the service elevator.
Etienne rubbed his eye, which had instantly turned red, Lexie looked more appalled than I had ever seen her, and Mrs. Harmer began to laugh.
“Pearl,” said Lexie warningly.
“I’m sorry, Etienne. It was an accident. Here.” I handed him a tissue from the pocket of my pink skirt. Etienne held it to his eye as I ran to our apartment. Lexie had had enough of me.
* * *
I spent the afternoon in my room, working on my scrapbook, trying not to picture JBIII falling down on the dock at Camp Merrimac, and wondering how many more jobs Lexie had lined up. I found out at dinner.
“Mom, Dad,” said Lexie as she and I sat on the floor of the family room, leaning against the couch with bowls of spaghetti in our laps, “I have something to tell you.”
If I had said that, my parents would have looked at each other in alarm. But when Lexie said it, Dad just went, “Yes?”
“I didn’t think I should spend the rest of the summer lying around, so I decided to find some work.” Lexie set her bowl of pasta aside and reached for her notebook. “I talked to some of our neighbors today—”
“And she was not in a proper job-hunting outfit,” I interrupted.
“—and I lined up a few jobs,” Lexie continued as if I hadn’t said anything at all. She consulted the notebook. “Let’s see. I’m going to babysit for Matthew, Jude and Quinn, Trent, and the twins. And I’m going to pet-sit for Mrs. Ledbetter, clean out Mr. Horowitz’s storage unit, give a violin lesson to Mrs. Mott’s niece when she visits…” The list went on and on. “I’ll be earning my own money now.”
“Lexie, that’s wonderful!” exclaimed Mom.
“I’m so proud of you,” said Dad.
I didn’t add a compliment of my own. But I made a decision. The next morning I would go job hunting by myself. I would wear regular clothes, I would carry a notebook, and I would start off at Mr. Berman’s apartment, since Lexie still hadn’t found the nerve to go there. I realized that I needed to be clear about what I could offer to prospective clients, so as soon as we finished our floor-supper, I went to my room and sat at my desk with a blank piece of paper in front of me. At the top of the paper I wrote: Talents and Skills
I headed the list with: Art
I stared into space for a while. The very fact that I had to think for so long was humiliating. Finally I added Cat care to the list. I thought of Lexie’s skills. I couldn’t play an instrument. No one was going to hire a ten-year-old tutor, and most likely no one was going to trust me with the key to their apartment.
But you never knew.
18
VIII. My sister and I went job hunting.
A. Lexie got all the jobs.
B. I found out how it feels to be my father.
The next morning Lexie was out of bed at 8:00 and hurrying off to her first job by 8:45. She was supposed to be upstairs at the Petrowskis’ apartment at 9:00 and it would only take her approx. twenty seconds to get there, but Lexie said she wanted to make a good first impression by arriving early.
“I hope they’re dressed,” I called down the hall after her.
Lexie shot me an annoyed glance and stepped onto the elevator.
My sister’s first job was organizing the books in the Petrowskis’ shelf-filled living room. Their shelves start at the ceiling and go all the way to the floor, covering every inch of wall space in a very large room. And the books were all jumbled around (according to Lexie) and not in any particular order. The Petrowskis wanted them categorized and then arranged alphabetically according to the author’s last name.
This sounded like a hideous homework assignment to me, but Lexie had headed off with relish. She hoped to finish the job by 3:00 that afternoon when she had an appointment to baby-sit for Jude and Quinn Bissell on the tenth floor.
My sister would be earning money all day long.
I would be job hunting again.
As I had planned, I wore regular clothes—shorts, a T-shirt, and my sneakers—and I stuck a notebook and a pencil in my pocket. I still wasn’t sure what I could offer people, apart from my artistic talents and maybe cat care, but I hoped they would be able to think of some things.
I left the apartment at 9:00 and took the elevator to the second floor, where I rang the bell of #2A, even though I couldn’t hear any saxophone bleats coming from inside. Mr. Berman opened the door right away, though.
“Good morning, Pearl,” he said. “Isn’t this a surprise.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I just went, “Hi,” and tried not to stare at the mole on his eyelid.
“Can I help you with anything?” he asked.
I pulled the notebook out of my pocket. “I’m looking for work.” I paused. “I need money. Do you have any jobs for me?”
Mr. Berman stared off into space. “Well, I could use an apartment-sitter, but I think that’s a job for someone who’s a bit older. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “Thanks anyway.”
I skipped Mrs. Ledbetter’s apartment since she had already given her job to Lexie, rang the bell at #2C, where once again no one answered, and then rang the Baxters’ bell. Mrs. Baxter answered it in a hurry, stuffing her feet into high heels as she did so. She had probably gotten into trouble at her office for being so late the day before.
“I don’t want to keep you,” I said quickly, “but I was just wondering if you have any other baby-sitting jobs coming up. I’m available, too.”
“All right. And you’re how old?”
“Um, ten.”
“Hmm. Well, it’s just that the twins are only two years younger than you, honey. I think we need someone older.”
Someone like Lexie.
I nodded. “Okay. Thanks.”
I stuck to my plan of ringing doorbells in numerical and alphabetical order. Half an hour later, this is how many jobs I had lined up: zero. Here are the reasons no one wanted to hire me:
1. I was too young.
2. I couldn’t drive. (Lexie wouldn’t have gotten that job, either.)
3. I was too young.
4. I didn’t know French.
5. I wasn’t tall enough.
6. I was too young.
7. I couldn’t sew.
8. I didn’t have any computer skills.
9. I didn’t have a cell phone.
10. I was too young.
I considered telling people I would work for free, but that seemed as pathetic as my two-item Talents and Skills list.
I took the service elevator back to the seventh floor and sat in the hallway outside our apartment for a while. I thought about my father. Was this how he felt when he applied for a job and was told he didn’t have the right kind of experience? Or that somebody else had more experience or had taught at a bigger college or was older (or younger) than he was?
I had only been job hunting since yesterday and already I was frustrated and humiliated. My father had been job hunting for two months. Plus, he had a family he needed to help support. I just wanted to buy a hamster.
I rang a few more bells, got zero more jobs, and finally returned to our apartment at lunchtime. Dad was out somewhere. Mom was in her office with the door closed and an unfriendly DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging on the knob. And Bitey was asleep behind the couch and wouldn’t even flick an ear when I called to him.
I fixed a sandwich and ate it on the couch without dish towels or paper towels or even a napkin, since I was in a bad mood.
Also, I was lonely.
I missed Justine. I missed JBIII. I even missed Lexie. I had no human friends.
After lunch I made a flyer just like the one Lexie had made (once she had gotten permission from Mom and Dad). In fact, I copied Lexie’s flyer except for changing the word ?
??Lexie” to the word “Pearl.” And in the space in which my sister had listed her many, many skills I wrote:
At the bottom of the sheet I made tear-off phone-number tabs, which the number was different from Lexie’s, since my sister has her own personal cell phone and I don’t. I didn’t ask anyone at all for permission to make or hang the sign. I just tiptoed into the lobby, snuck over to the mailboxes while John was talking to the FedEx man, and hung my ad next to Lexie’s. I was too mad to care what anyone thought about this. Then I went back to my apartment to wait for the phone to start ringing. It rang three times that afternoon, and each time my mother answered it in her office and didn’t come out, so obviously no one was offering me any jobs. Just before dinner I checked my ad in the lobby. Maybe someone (and by someone I mean Lexie) had taken it down. But it was still hanging, and all the phone-number tabs were in place.
No one was interested in me. I was useless.
Plus, I was friendless.
And a little bored.
* * *
Being a working girl must have made Lexie feel unusually grown-up, because when we carried our plates of fried chicken and BASICS canned peas into the family room that evening, Lexie edged a couple of Dad’s piles of paper aside and sat at the table with our parents. I was the only one sitting on the floor surrounded by dish towels.
Mom and Dad and I dug into the chicken. Lexie sat primly in her chair.
Finally Mom said nervously, “Lexie? Why aren’t you eating?”
My sister began to smile. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a fistful of bills, and fanned them across the table.
Dad looked fondly at his older daughter. “Is that what you earned today?”
Lexie nodded.
“Goodness,” said my mother. “That’s quite a bit for your first day of work.”
Lexie nodded again and said in a fake shy voice, “It’s for you. For both of you. To help out.” She pushed it toward them.
My mother immediately burst into tears. Then she put her hand to her mouth as if pre-barf, but she removed it right away. “Oh, honey. That’s too generous.” Her words were all wobbly.