Story of a Girl Read Online Free Page B

twenty-five-year-old guys whose primary transportation is a BMX bike.
    I stared through the grease-streaked window. “I don’t want to work in this hell-hole.”
    “Ask for the manager,” Lee said. “If they ask about cashier experience, tell them you always get good grades in math and you’re a fast learner.”
    “Now you’re the expert in getting jobs? All you ever do is babysit.”
    “I’m just saying that’s what
I’d
do.”
    Darren was always telling me that I should listen to Lee. She’s a good girl, he’d say.
    We went in. The place was always just this side of pitch-black. I don’t know if that was about creating “atmosphere” or about an unpaid electricity bill. Whatever it was, we stumbled around for ten seconds before our eyes adjusted. The only person inside as far as I could see was a lady with a bad perm, stocking the salad bar with slimy-looking kidney beans. “Hi,” I said, trying to sound perky and non-Deanna-like. “Is the manager here?”
    “Hold on.” She went into a back room and came out, a man following behind her. He was in his forties maybe, balding and thin, with a mustache. His handshake was strong, but not one of those bone-crushing shakes you get from some people who are trying to convince you of how confident they are.
    “Hello,” he said in a voice so deep I almost laughed. “I’m Michael.”
    “Hi. I’m here to drop off my job application?”
    “Great. Follow me.”
    I turned to Lee. “Be right back.”
    Michael led me to a booth, my shoes making gross sticking noises as we walked across the terminally unmopped floor around the salad bar. While Michael took a pair of glasses out of his shirt pocket, I quickly grabbed a napkin and swept it over the orange vinyl of the seat, just in case.
    “I should tell you,” Michael said, “business is a little slow these days. Since 9/11 and Enron and Iraq and all of the other bullshit — excuse me — this country has been through, it turns out pizza doesn’t hold the esteemed position in the family budget it once did.”
    I wanted to say that the slowdown probably had more to do with his crappy pizza and no-delivery policy than world politics, but since Picasso’s was probably my last resort I kept my mouth shut.
    He asked me a bunch of questions and then said, “Normally I only have two or three people working, including me. Things pick up a little in the summer and I like to have an extra person on board in case it gets busy.” He paused like I was supposed to react to that.
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Well, no one else has really applied. So.” He opened up his hands and shrugged.
    “What’s the pay?”
    “Everyone starts at minimum wage, but if you’re still around after two weeks, I bump you up fifty cents. You also get a free pizza for every shift you work.”
    Minimum wage. That was like, nothing. The pile of money I’d be able to throw onto Darren and Stacy’s bed shrunk in my mind. “How many hours a week can I get?”
    “I can give you about twenty-five right now. Maybe more if someone gets sick or we get busy.”
    It wasn’t exactly my dream job, but Michael seemed cool, like a regular no-b.s. kind of person.
    “Okay,” I said.
    “Okay? You want the job?”
    I nodded. “Sure.”
    Michael smiled. His teeth were yellowish, like maybe he smoked three packs a day or drank gallons of coffee.
    “Terrif.” He stood and shook my hand again. “Come in at six tomorrow and we’ll get you started. I’ll give you a Picasso’s shirt then. What are you, a small?”
    “Medium.”
    “Jeans are fine. Just make sure to put your hair back.”
    “Thank you,” I said. Michael disappeared into the back and I found Lee. “I got it.”
    “Yay!” I gave her a look and she changed her tone. “I mean, ‘Yay?’”
    “Not really. But that’s life.”
    “Do you get free pizza?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Sweet!”
    Stacy and my dad were arguing when I got home. They stood in the dim hall, my dad dripping wet in his robe,