“It’s not the end of the world, okay?” Quin says. “You have options. You can stay here with…,” she lowers her voice, “the asscar driver …” Clearing her throat, she continues. “… For at least a few days, maybe more.” She looks over at Perry as he passes through the living room, but he shakes his head.
“I’m leaving,” he says, “moving out. You have the couch for two days, that’s it.” He disappears into his bedroom.
I swallow the fear down and let it marinate in my stomach. It joins the thrashing, seizuring butterflies that have been living in there for the past forty-eight hours. Ever since that first phone call, my life has gone very quickly down the tubes and into a hell of a sewer system. And let me tell you, it fucking stinks down here. The only good news I’ve had is that I had insurance on my demolished cell phone and Quin picked up the replacement for me today.
“Okay, so you have to move in with me. That’s it, done deal.” Quin folds her arms across her chest. She looks about twelve years old and I wish I could laugh at it, but I’m too depressed and scared about my future.
I sigh. “You know your mom already said no, and you have no room anyway.” Quin has lots of brothers and sisters and they’re up each other’s asses twenty-four-seven. No way could I survive in that place. I need some private space or I go batty.
That’s why Quin and I never roomed together. We spend way too much time being best friends as it is. When considering her many requests to room together, I always pictured waking up to find her spooning me or something. It’s not that she’s in love with me or anything, but she is somewhat overly touchy-feely, and I know for a fact she strangles about three pillows every night sleeping all tangled up with them. That’s why my answer was always hell-to-the-no-thank-you-no-offense-meant when she asked me to be her roomie.
My mom died when I was just a baby, and my dad is … or was … about as cold as they get. I guess he’s really cold now, being dead and all. I wish I could feel bad about that, about thinking these things about him, but we were never close. The only cuddles I’ve ever gotten have been from other guys or Quin, and all of those made me just a little bit uncomfortable.
“Well, what are you going to do, then?” she asks in a small voice. “I can’t just leave you here to sleep on the street.”
I shrug. “Maybe I’ll find a job. And an apartment.”
“Babe …,” she says, stroking my arm, “… I don’t mean to be a total killjoy, but you don’t even have a resumé. And apartment places don’t take people without jobs and without references or anything. You don’t even have deposit or rent money, which I totally don’t get since just two days ago you were flingin’ bling like it was going out of style, but whatever.”
I shrug her off. “Yeah. Thanks for the recap of my shit life. That was helpful.” I stand up, needing space, needing air, needing something that’s not in this apartment.
“Where are you going?” she asks, standing too.
I grab my keys off the ring by the door. “I have to go job hunting. I’ll see you later.”
“But I want to come with you!” she whines, grabbing her purse off the couch.
“Maybe next time,” I say, shutting the door behind me. I run to the car, crying as I go. I make sure to pull out of the parking lot and get down the street a little before I stop again and rest my head on the steering wheel.
If Quin sees me losing it like this she’ll have a stroke and force me to live in her garage or something. I might be poor as shit all of a sudden, after almost a lifetime of being the daughter of a wealthy Silicon Valley CEO, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still have some pride left. And I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to sponge off my best friend whose own family doesn’t have two pennies to rub together.
I cry for a while and then lean back in my seat, my fingers stroking the large, shiny steering wheel in front of me. Getting a vintage, beater ’68 Beetle had seemed so cool and kitschy at the time I bought it four years ago. Now it just feels stupid. If I had taken the Lexus my father had tried to push on me, at least I could have sold it and had some dough.
As it is now, I’m the proud owner of a bucket of dented sheet metal that passed its prime about twenty years ago with nothing but bolts and scratched paint holding it all together. The Beast has served its purpose of delivering my sorry ass from Point A to Point B for the past four years, but now it’s just an embarrassment. I almost feel like a traitor to the car, saying that about her, but job hunting in this thing is going to make it even harder for me to find a way to support myself. It’s bad enough that I truly am desperate, but worse that I look it, too.
Checking myself in the mirror, I see that things aren’t going much better for my face. Bloodshot puffy eyes, mascara smears, and a swollen nose from all the crying have turned me into a run-down prostitute-looking mofo. Goddamn. What is wrong with me? Who the hell gets a swollen nose from crying? I shake my head in disgust as I turn the ignition key. Time to get a grip and find a way to tide my life over until I can come up with a better plan.
The engine bubbles to life as only Beetle motors can. Pulling out into the main road, The Beast and I head out into the wild blue yonder, otherwise known as The Mall.
CHAPTER FIVE
TWO HOURS LATER, I’VE LEARNED a couple very valuable lessons. First, about how important it is to start job hunting before the end of the semester. Pretty much every decent job at the mall and nearby restaurants is already taken by students staying over the summer. And second, the fact that I have zero prior work experience nixes any chance I have to be hired at the couple businesses that are still hiring. I have to leave this area of town and hunt somewhere else, because I’m liable to bitch-slap the next person who tells me I need job experience just to press buttons on a cash register.
The Beast and I head towards the seedier part of town. I need a job and I need one fast, so I’m going to go into places that don’t give a shit about my blank resumé or about what I drive. As long as I’m not selling the hootchie or giving it away in exchange for a room, I figure I’ll be all right. I’m tough. I can handle this. I can handle anything.
First stop, Blue Star Pawn, the place that guarantees straight deals and the lowest prices in town…
The clerk’s gold tooth doesn’t impress me nearly as much as he thinks it does. He’s giving me an eyeful of his horrifically misspent dental dollars, nodding his head as his gaze roams from my boobs to my hooch. It’s awful just like that, but with his frizzy red hair, freckles, and thick yellow-blonde eyebrows, it feels like I’m being visually felt-up by a gangster Carrot Top.
So. Very. Wrong.
“Yo, up here, maybe?” I wave at him to get his attention.
“Can I he’p you?” he asks, finally looking at my face.
“Uh, yeah, you can he’p me. Or maybe I can he’p you.”
“Is that a fact? I’m listenin’.” He puts a toothpick in his mouth and twirls it around with his tongue. I think it’s supposed to be sexy, but it borders on nauseating. I’m seeing altogether too much of this man’s tongue, and I’m way too sober for that shit.
Shudder.
I look down at the glass display case in front of me to distract myself from telling him all about himself. Great. There are hunting knives inside. How am I going to stop thinking about stabbing him and putting him out of his misery now?
“I need a job,” I say, getting a grip on my homicidal thoughts. “Are you hiring?”
He laughs. He actually laughs right in my face.
“Hoo, boy, you funny,” he finally says when his lungs are done throwing mists of phlegm around the room.
“What’s so funny?” I ask, not a smile in sight. “I don’t get it.”
“You what’s so funny, tha’s what. All white bread in here tryin’ to ask me fo’ a job. That’s good shit, that is.” He takes the toothpick out and laughs some more. I kind of wish he’d left the big splinter of wood there, so maybe he could inhale it into his nasty lungs.
“Did
you seriously just call me white bread? I thought that was only in the movies that people did that.”
“White. Bread.” He says it with his southern-fried accent seriously exaggerated, ignoring the fact that he’s just as white as I am. Whiter, actually.
“Like Wonder Bread, white,” he clarifies. “Like I ain’t seen nothin’ that white outside-a one-a them mimes, yo.”
I laugh just because I’m so out in the weeds. I don’t even think we’re from the same planet. Right now, in this exact moment, I realize it’s highly possible that the shit in the movie Men In Black is totally real and that I just stumbled onto an alien’s home away from home.
Looking around, hoping not to see any otherworldly laser guns hidden away, I respond. “I know you didn’t just call me a mime, dude.” I look at him and see his expression hasn’t changed. “That is so wrong.” I hate mimes. Being called a mime is like being called a straight up asshole in my book.
“Yeah, you like one-a them mimes. With the face all painted white ’n shit. Stumblin’ around all foolish an’ lost in a box.”
I cross my arms. “What’s so foolish about being unemployed?” I don’t want to work here anymore, not that I really did in the first place, but it’s the principle of the thing that keeps me here arguing with Cro-Magnon man. I don’t like being drive-by mimed for no reason. It sucks bad enough to be jobless, but there cannot possibly be anything worse than looking like a jobless mime. I hate that this ginger-headed wannabe gangster sees me as lost.
He goes serious on me. “What’s foolish is you bein’ in here at all. What-choo doin’? Checkin’ things out for the po-po? Cuz I run a legitimate business up in here and I don’t appreciate you gettin’ all up on me like dat.”
Forget Men In Black. I’m seriously in a Quentin Tarantino movie right now. That’s the only explanation for what’s happening. And for some reason, I can’t just walk away without saying anything. Maybe I’ve finally snapped, the news of my father’s passing too much, or maybe it’s being insulted by a dude whose intelligence is one notch above brain dead that keeps me rolling.
In my temporarily demented mind, I consider that maybe this is how the great director picks his next star, by setting them up for a random punking-slash-audition. And if I’m going to be a celebrity actress, I figure I should go all the way, with my game face on and everything.
What would Uma Thurman do right now? I narrow my eyes and put a little swagger into my backwards walk towards the entrance to the pawn shop. “Yeah, that’s right, home slice. I’m undercover po-po, and this shit’s about to get real.”
“How real?” he asks, totally falling for my awesome.
“Reeeeal real. Check this shit out.” I do my best imitation of a mime stuck in a box. I stop suddenly and stare him down. “We got eyes on you, man.” I point at him with my two fingers, squinting my eyes like Uma did in Kill Bill. “We got … Eyes. On. You.”
I feel the door handle hit the middle of my back, just in time to save me from doing some seriously lame-ass karate moves. I’m getting way too into this role. I’ll definitely be getting a call-back if Quentin is anywhere around.
He yanks his toothpick out of his mouth and points it at me. “Don’t you come back here, mime-girl, you hear!”
I shout as the door closes behind me. “Oh, I’ll be back! You can bet on that!”
I fast-walk to The Beast, figuring I have about fifteen seconds before he comes out and either offers me a job or shoots me in the back, neither of which scenario I find even remotely appealing.
CHAPTER SIX
NEXT STOP: THE WASH-N-Dry-N-Fold Laundromat. It’s a mouthful of terrible business ideas, but there’s a sign in the window, one plaza over from Golden Tooth Pawn, saying that help is wanted. I walk inside and inhale the scent of fabric softener sheets and hot dryers, my eyes scanning what will probably be my first real job place.
I nod in satisfaction. I can totally handle this. What will I have to do? Stock the soap dispenser? Put coins into little paper rolls? Count the bills in the money changer? Please. So easy. I took accounting in college and I have more than half a brain.
I walk up to a round, short woman pulling some very large underpants out of the dryer. I try to breathe through my mouth so I won’t inhale freshly-baked granny panties. “Excuse me, ma’am … do you know where I can find the manager?”
She lifts an eyebrow at me but says nothing. She commences the eight-part fold that will bring that sailboat underwear canvas down to a manageable size.
“Um … hello? Do you know where the manager is?” I ask in a slightly louder voice. Maybe she’s hard of hearing from spending so much time in here. I’m going to have to buy some ear plugs if I’m going to work in this joint. I try not to sound irritated, but I’m still picturing myself as a mime and it’s not pretty. Why is it that insults given by society’s rejects sting so much more than regular ones?
“No comprendo,” she finally says, turning her back to me.
“Well, fuck,” I say, mostly to myself. “That’s mighty inconvenient.”
“Do you have laundry to do or you just in here harassing people?” asks a rough voice from the back of the room. A tall, skinny guy is standing in the open door of what might be a back office.
Score. Manager, twelve o’clock.
I walk over with purpose, my hand held out for a handshake like I’ve seen business people do all my life. “Hello, are you the manager? I’m Teagan Cross, and I’m here for the job you have advertised.” I stop in front of him, my offer of friendship dangling in the air between us.
He looks at me, his face screwed up. “Advertisement. I didn’t leave no advertisement anywhere.”
This might be a trick. I try not to let my annoyance show. Maybe he’s testing me to see how I handle mentally handicapped customers. Jerking my thumb towards the front window, I smile. “Sign on the door there? Help wanted it says …”
“That ain’t no advertisement. It’s just a sign.”
I clear my throat to get control of my mouth. This whole area of town has apparently been invaded by aliens who’ve watched way too many episodes of Dukes of Hazzard.
“My mistake. I saw your sign out there and so here I am. I’m ready for the job if you’re still hiring.”
“You want to work in a laundromat.” He says it like a statement.
“That’s why I’m here, yeah.” I resist the urge to cross my arms in front of me. I’m just a little worried about what I might do if he calls me a mime.
“You speak Spanish?” he asks.
“No.”
“Russian?”
I half-laugh. “No. I speak English. This is the United States, right?”
“Maybe. But you gotta speak other languages if you want to work here.”
“Maybe this is the United States? No, I’m pretty sure this is the United States.” A multi-lingual laundromat employee? I think not. This guy’s just blowing me off. I look around me to get my bearings. “I didn’t get on a plane and fly to another country without realizing it, did I?”
“I guess you never heard of the great melting pot,” he says, a small smile quirking up the corner of his mouth. “Guess they skipped that in your civics class.”
“They didn’t skip it. I’ll have you know that I’m one semester away from graduating from UCLA, and I know plenty about the melting pot.” Actually I don’t know that much about it, but he’ll never know. I hate geography and I was never good at foreign languages. I took French, but only because it was required, and I suck at it. I can only speak one sentence: je vais à la plage, which means I’m going to the beach. Yeah, buddy.
“Okay then, college girl, you know then that this particular neighborhood is populated mostly by immigrants. And they come from places where they don’t speak English, so if you want to work here, you have to be able to do the basic things … you know … like communicate.”
I snort. “Right. Like you speak Spanish.”
He looks over at the lady standing n
ear the dryer. “¿Cómo va todo por allí? ¿Necesitas ayuda plegado que la ropa? Tengo una niña con estudios universitarios dispuestos a ayudar por aquí.”
She cackles in response as my face flames red.
I jump back in, determined not to be the dumbest person in the room. “Yeah right. It’s not like you speak Russian or anything, though.”
He doesn’t even bat an eye before opening his mouth.“Vui predpolagaetse mnoga o chelovieke, s kotorim vui ni znakomui.”
Who’s the asshole in the room? Yeah. That’s me.
“I’m going to leave now.”
“Good luck with the job hunting.” He laughs as he draws back into his office and sits down in his squeaky chair.
I’m pretty sure my humiliation is complete as I walk away, but then I’m proven wrong when the round lady speaks up as I open the door to leave.
“Hasta la vista.”
My eyes cross with the effort of not replying out loud.
Yeah. Fuck you too, big-ass panty lady. The laundromat door hits me on the heel on the way out and causes me to trip my way across the sidewalk back to my Beetle.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THOROUGHLY DEMORALIZED, I GET INTO The Beast and just drive. I start crying again, but three blocks later make myself quit that crap. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let some alien assholes make me feel like a smeared street turd. I might have been raised in the lap of luxury most of my life, but that doesn’t mean I’ve internalized that stuff. I’m fully capable of working a job in this part of town and doing it well; I just need someone to give me a chance. Someone different. Someone who thinks outside the box. Someone who…
I leave off in mid-thought when I see the sign. Angels from up on high sing down at me in one giant harmonized chorus. Glory be. This has got to be the place for me.