It takes me two hours to get up the nerve to leave the house. I spend those two hours walking the perimeter of the small guest house, talking to myself, rubbing my arms, doing my breath balloons. Going out to the shop to ask about a job means talking. It means opening my mouth and hoping the right words come out. It means letting people look me over, cast their eyes up and down me and my weird overalls and long shirt, funny hair, all of it. Right? Isn’t that how job things go? You have to tell people where you’re from, where you worked, what you like to do, all that shit.
My answers: nowhere, nowhere, get messed up, and cutting.
That’s not going to go over well.
But the alternative is telling that fierce woman in the front house that I never went to find her friend, and maybe getting kicked out before Mikey gets back. The alternative is ending up right back where I was.
And I promised myself I would do better.
I finally get myself out of the fucking guest house by running out the front door and locking it before I give myself a chance to make another lap around the walls inside.
I find the shop easier than I thought I would. It’s called Swoon. It’s already late afternoon, and very hot. Through the glass window, I watch two girls in silver minidresses flit among the clothes racks, straightening hangers and laughing. Silver glitter sparkles on their eyelids; they have matching white bobs. This is a store where pretty, cool girls work, not scarred girls in overalls. I will not be getting a job here.
I look up and down the street. An Italian restaurant, a thrift store, a bookstore, the co-op, a fancy-looking café.
I don’t have a phone. How will someone call me if I fill out an application? And what about short sleeves? Waitresses are always wearing short sleeves. Who’s going to hire me with my arms the way they are? The hole in my stomach starts to grow. I’m in the middle of the breathing exercises when I hear a soft voice say, “Can I help you?”
Except for Ariel, I haven’t talked to anyone in four days. One of the glittery Swoon girls is standing at the door, peeking out.
“I was just…my friend…somebody told me you were hiring, but…” Gah, my voice. I sound so…timid.
She looks me up and down. “No offense, but we’re more vintage-y. You’re more…grunge-y. You know?”
I give her a look like, Yeah, I know, because we don’t have to pretend. These girls and me? We’re fucking miles apart in terms of our exterior maintenance. I move on.
“Do you…I mean, do you know of anything else around? Like, better suited to me, or something? I really need a job.”
She purses her mouth. “Mmm. Most everything cool is sealed up on the Avenue right now, I think. Hold on.” She shouts back into the store. “Darla! Kid out here’s looking for a job. You know anything?”
The other girl pokes her head out. I feel disoriented just looking at them, with their blinding white hair and lips and matching dresses.
Darla smiles. “Hey there.” Like her friend, she looks me up and down, but not in a bad way. They work in a cute vintage clothing store. I get it. They’re used to placing people by what they wear.
“Oh, yeah, you know what? Try Grit. It’s a coffeehouse up the street, next to the DQ. I think somebody quit yesterday. You look like total True Grit material. Ask for Riley.”
The other girl elbows Darla. “Riley. Oh, yeah. Riley West.” She draws it out like it tastes delicious in her mouth: Weessssst.
“Keep your panties on, Molly.”
Molly rolls her eyes at me. “Riley’s kind of hot,” she explains.
Darla says, “Kind of. On a good day. There aren’t many of those. Anyway, just tell him we sent you, okay? And buy a hat or something, girl. Your face is starting to get real pink.”
They laugh and retreat inside the store before I can ask about Riley, his hotness, or falling panties. I hope he’s having one of his good days, whatever that means.
I’m nervous walking up the street, psyching myself up to have to talk again. What if this doesn’t work out? I touch my face. Darla said I was getting pink. That’s just brilliant: a sunburn.
I get distracted, though, by the bright colors everywhere. The sides of buildings are blazing with murals: dancing skeletons in black top hats drink wine from jugs, their white bones loose and floppy. Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison look out over the street, the Beatles walk barefoot down a wall. Everywhere I look, I see something unusual and cool.
A bunch of boy punks in heavy leather gear are sprawled on the wooden benches in front of the Dairy Queen, nibbling sprinkled cones. There’s just one girl with them and she’s not eating, only smoking and picking her black nails. The boy punks eye me as I walk by.
Next door, several older men sit at wrought iron tables, staring down at square boards with perfectly round white and black stones. They chew their fingers and take slow sips from chipped white mugs. Behind the players, against a cloudy glass window, a blinking, slightly crooked neon sign spells out TRUE GRIT. Coffee urns and potted ferns on the inside window ledge peek through the lettering. The sad strains of music drifting from a speaker mounted above the window outside come to me gently: Van Morrison. Then we sat on our own star and dreamed of the way that we were / and the way that we wanted to be….
The screen door to the coffeehouse clatters shut behind a thinnish guy wearing an apron smeared with red sauce and grease. He lights a cigarette, his eyes moving over the game boards. Plumes of smoke billow in front of his face.
The music keeps me rooted to my spot on the sidewalk. My dad played this album over and over when I was little, sitting in the back room of the house on Hague Avenue the rocking chair creaking back and forth. It was a creamy clapboard house with a small, square backyard and a crumbling chimney. Listening to the music, I have a rush of longing for him that’s so strong I almost cry.
“Lost in the reveries, eh, love?” The voice is accented, light, and shakes me out of myself.
The men at the tables chuckle. The guy in the apron cocks his head at me. His face is crackly with stubble. Lines spider his eyes.
His attention takes me by surprise. His eyes are very dark, resting with curiosity on my face.
Something shifts inside me. It’s electrical, and golden. He sees this happening, or senses it, and his face breaks into a gigantic, shit-eating grin. My cheeks flood with red.
One of the boy punks yells, “He’s not really British!”
“Nah,” says a narrow-faced man at one of the tables, leaning his head in his palm. “He’s an all-American asshole, that’s for sure.”
“Aw.” The man in the apron grinds his cigarette out on the sidewalk. He speaks without the accent now, his voice lazy and pleased. He’s still got the grin. “Care for a coffee? Espresso? Bagel? Enchilada?” He sweeps an arm to the coffeehouse. He pronounces it en-hee-lada.
Checked shirt with silver buttons, bulge of the lighter in his pocket. He is a person entirely comfortable in his body. Why is he paying any attention to me?
“Cat’s got her tongue, Riley.” The girl punk’s got a crooked, glazed smile. I like her pink hair.
They are all terribly high. “She never met nobody famous before.”
Riley. Riley Wessssssst. The one who makes Molly-from-Swoon’s panties fall down. I can see why, kind of, now. This must be one of his “good days.”
“Semifamous,” another punk corrects, spitting on the ground.
“Semifamous locally,” one of the game players asserts, wagging a finger.
The girl punk cackles. “Semifamous locally in his head on this street.” The punks bark with laughter. The guy in the apron glowers at them good-naturedly.
A super-skinny boy punk says, “Riley, man, you look like shit, dude. You look old.”
I sneak a look at him. Riley. Maybe he hasn’t noticed how red my face is? It’s true; his face looks worn out, a little too pale. He glances at the punks dismissively. “I’m a good and goddamn twenty-seven, children, and nowheres near heaven, so don’t you worry none about me.” He lights another cigarette, twirling the gold lighter. When I raise my eyes to his, his face splits back into that wild grin.
And for some reason, I smile back, that electrical feeling fluttering inside me.
And now we’re smiling stupidly at each other. Or, Riley’s smiling at me like he might smile at anything with breasts, and I’m the one smiling stupidly because I’m a stupid jackass.
Because if he really knew me, if he could really see me, what would he think? Once when we went to the Grand Old Day Parade, hoping to scoop up fallen wallets and half-drunk beers, Dump made us stop to watch the dance team girls go by in their purple hot pants and spangly gold tops. Evan noticed me watching them, too. After a while, he said, “You’re kind of excellent-looking, Charlie, you know?” He grinned. “Under all that dirt and shit.”
I just looked at him, not knowing what to say. Before, Ellis was always the one who got noticed, for obvious reasons. And the boys I’d been with? There hadn’t been any need for sweet talk or flowers there. But what Evan said…made me feel kind of nice inside.
Dump glanced over at us. He scanned my face intently. “Yeah. You got good eyes. Really blue, like the ocean or something. You got nothing to worry about.”
Now Riley tilts his head at me. “Well, Strange Girl? You got something to say?”
That’s right. A job. I’m here to ask about a job.
I blurt it out. “Darla sent me. From Swoon. She said you might need somebody.”
“Darla knows me so well.” He smiles, blowing a smoke ring. “I need somebody, all right. I think you’ll do.”
The men at the tables snicker. I feel my face heat up again. “For a job. I need a damn job.”
“Oh, right, right, right. That. Now, see, I’m just a lackey here. My sister owns the joint, and she’s not back until day after tomorrow. I just don’t—”
“Gil quit,” says one of the players at the table. “Remember? The incident?”
Riley scoffs, “She doesn’t want to wash dishes.”
“Yes, I do,” I say quickly. “I do.”
Riley shakes his head. “You’d make more waiting tables somewhere.”
“No, I don’t like people. I don’t want to give them food.”
The men laugh and Riley smiles, stubbing out his cigarette. From inside, I hear “Riley! Riley! Order up! Where the fuck are you?”
“Looks like my time here is done. Gentlemen.” He salutes the players, then turns to me. “All right, Strange Girl. Come back tomorrow morning. Six a.m. No promises.”
He winks at me. “That’s how hearts get broken, you know. When you believe in promises.”
The green door slams behind him. I stand there, thinking (hoping?) the players, or the punks, or anyone, might talk to me, but no one does. They just go back to what they were doing before I showed up. I wonder if everyone at Creeley has forgotten me. I start walking home.
A job. Washing dishes. I breathe deeply. It’s something.
—
When I get back to Mikey’s, Ariel’s house is dark, so I decide to sit in the backyard for a little while. I find an extension cord and plug it into Mikey’s lone lamp, dragging it outside and setting it up on the dirt. I arrange my sketchbook and charcoals around me. I take off my boots and socks and wrinkle my nose at the smell. I’m now going on about a week without washing. No wonder everyone in the co-op was staring at me: I stink. I sniff my armpits. I’m going to have to take a shower. But not right now. I’ve lived for longer without washing.
From somewhere, not far away, comes the sound of guitars and drums, the noisy lurch and sudden silence of a band practicing.
I listen with my eyes closed, toes pushing into the sandy ground. The bass player frets and shifts, unsure of his fingers; the drummer is playing out of time. The singer is frustrated with everyone’s awkwardness. His voice cracks as he tries to hit notes, match the bridge. The band stops abruptly, the bass slyly petering out; the singer barks one two three and they leap in again, scrabbling to find each other in the noise. It makes me miss Mikey even more; he was always taking me and Ellis to see his band friends rehearse in garages and basements. It felt electric and real, watching a guy try to figure out a chord over and over, or a girl pounding away at the drums. Ellis always got bored pretty quickly and would take out her phone, but watching and listening as something was created could feed me for days.
In time, fingers and voices come together, the music happens; the song inside the music awakens.
Oh I don’t want to be
your charity case
I just want you to see
my for-real face
Can you do that for me?
It’ll take a minute or three
Oh, can you do that for me?
The faces of the day run through my brain, setting themselves up like dominos: the game-playing men, the punks with liquid eyes and chapped lips on the Dairy Queen benches, Riley at the coffeehouse, with his smeary apron and who-cares attitude.
At Creeley, we would be gathered in Rec at this time of night, a rustling scrum of girls with iPods and approved novels. I miss Louisa. Who is she talking to tonight, in the dark, in our room? Have I already been replaced?
The sound of my charcoal on the paper is like a dog quietly working at a door, its nails methodic and insistent.
My father’s face comes slowly as I draw. The shape of his large, dark eyes, his sand-colored hair. The shoulder bones I could feel through his T-shirt when I climbed on his lap. I wish I could remember the sound of his voice, but I can’t.
Sometimes he wouldn’t let me in the room where he rocked in the chair and so I sat outside with our rust-colored dog, burying my face in his fur, listening to Van Morrison through the door.
I wish I could remember what happened to our dog. One day he was there and then one day he wasn’t. Just like my father.
Where his teeth should be, I give him tiny, tiny pill bottles. I regret it instantly. It looks awkward and wrong.
He was smoke and despair. He had dark almond eyes that were kind. But when I looked closer, I saw something else, something quivering in the background.
Riley at the coffeehouse has those eyes, too. Just the thought of him makes my body flood with scary warmth.
When I sleep that night, though, I push thoughts of Riley away: it’s Mikey’s smell on the pillow and blanket that comforts me, like a promise, a tangible good thing that will happen soon. I fit myself against his blanket like it’s his body, filling my lungs with the scent of his sweat, the oils from his skin. I hold him to me as closely as I can. I can’t let him go.
