Brittany Bends

by Grayson, Kristine

  The breath leaves my body. Seriously? I got a job on the first interview? Lise says that never happens. Eric told me to prepare for lots of people telling me I’m not right for the work. Mom said that if I didn’t get a job the first time out, I shouldn’t feel bad. Practicing job skills, including interviews and applications, is all that matters.

  “Brittany?” Mrs. Larson says. “Would you like to work here under those conditions?”

  “Yes!” I blurt. I have no idea what minimum wage is and I’m not sure what she means by stocking shelves. About the only thing I understand is the hours part, and that’s because Eric explained it to me as we looked over the job listings online. He told me I can’t have more than a part-time job (ten to twenty hours) because of school.

  Mrs. Larson extends her right hand. “Welcome aboard.”

  I know enough to shake her hand, but do I stand? What next?

  “We have some paperwork, and I’ll explain a few things,” she says, “and then we’ll figure out when to start your training. I hope that’s okay.”

  “It’s great,” I say. “It’s really great.”

  And it really, really is.

  THREE

  IT TAKES ANOTHER fifteen minutes to do all the paperwork (with Mrs. Larson hovering, and I honestly don’t mind, because I have no idea what any of this stuff is). Then she says there’s going to be more paperwork on my first day, and before I get there (that day) I need to ask Mom for all my identification, and do something about immigrant/visa/illegal alien stuff, just in case it applies.

  Like with most of this stuff, I have no idea what Mrs. Larson is talking about. I just sit in that uncomfortable chair with my purse hanging off my knee, balancing the clipboard on the other knee, and writing as best I can on these forms.

  The only thing I ask about is the illegal alien thing, because—hello!—aliens aren’t real, at least that we know about, and if they are, they’re not going to apply for jobs in a chain store in Superior, Wisconsin. I mean, even I know that.

  I’ve learned to ask my questions carefully. Like, “Why do I have to fill out a document about aliens?”

  Mrs. Larson doesn’t clear up my confusion. All she does is laugh nervously, and says, “Obviously, you’re not an illegal alien, Brittany, but the government requires documentation.”

  I nod, like I understand, but really, the more I learn about this government thing, the happier I am with the Powers That Be. They’re in charge of everything in the magic world, and they’re capricious as hell, and they include my stepmom Hera (although she doesn’t like to be called “Stepmom”) and my dad Zeus when he’s not being punished for violating rules, but even the Powers seem a lot more consistent and sensible than this government everyone talks about.

  But I’ve decided I’m just going to go along with all this stuff, and maybe do some reading or something until I can figure it all out. (My sister Tiffany would frown and shake her head at me if I told her about my plan to read stuff. Because she tried to get me and Crystal to read all the magic books in the library where we were stationed [imprisoned?] as Interim Fates. Me and Crystal were kinda mean to Tiff about all of that. We made Tiff read everything and just tell us about it.)

  Anyway, I finish the paperwork, shake Mrs. Larson’s hand (again) and finally manage to say thank you. I’m glad I did because Mom would’ve had my head (I love that expression, which is new to me!) if I had forgotten it.

  The old be-nice thing and all that.

  I head outside and the minute I walk through that door (and Mrs. Larson locks it behind me), I get hit with a blast of frigid air. The sky is darker than it was when I went in—not nighttime darker, but clouds-coming-in darker, and the air feels damp in addition to cold.

  I’m going to freeze my butt off just getting to the car.

  I slide the purse over my shoulder and hold the strap like Mom taught me when I first got here (just in case I get mugged or something. I don’t know), and step off the curb.

  I want to run to the Subway, but the high heels seem even more unstable than they did when I put them on. They make my entire legs wobble as I move. And my feet hurt. In fact, I can’t feel my toes any more.

  The wind comes up and blows my skirt every which way, like Marilyn Monroe’s in that famous photograph, and so now, I’m holding the skirt down and the purse and trying to keep my balance and I can’t find the dang car.

  I didn’t even think of Eric while I was inside. He said he had homework and he wanted to get home. He was the one who told me that the interview wouldn’t last more than fifteen minutes.

  I don’t have a watch, but I know the interview lasted longer than fifteen minutes.

  I reach the part of the parking lot where I last saw him, and the ugly rust-bucket car is nowhere in sight.

  My heart starts pounding hard again, and I’m shaking from the cold, and I’m not sure what to do. I don’t want to wander the parking lot, looking for him. I’ll freeze to death, I swear.

  And I don’t have a cell phone. Eric and Lise each have one that they pay for with their own money, and Mom and Dad have one each—not a smart phone, but a cheap no-frills version, because cell phones “can be expensive.”

  In fact, Crystal got me in trouble with Mom—the one and only time I’ve been in real trouble with Mom—because she (Crystal, not Mom) sent me and Tiff an iPhone and signed us up for some plan without our permission. Mom just about hit the roof.

  Mom sees cell phones, and she thinks about all the money flying out the door.

  As if the money was blowing around in this wind. I peer inside Subway, partly to see if Eric’s there, and partly to see if they have a pay phone. I do know Eric’s cell number. I learned that in self-defense, because when he’s doing something, he sometimes forgets what time it is.

  A horn honks behind me and I jump. My reaction is so violent, I wobble on my shoes (even though I’m not walking) and my right shoe topples, making my ankle bend in a way it’s not supposed to and scraping the side of my foot against the ground.

  I grab the restaurant door in front of me to keep from falling over. The glass feels like ice.

  And I thought my heart was pounding hard before. It’s just about ready to hammer its way out of my chest forever.

  “Hey!” That voice belongs to Eric. Then the horn honks again.

  I can see the ugly rust-bucket car reflected in the glass. Everyone inside Subway is looking at us.

  I lift my right foot and then set it down back on the sidewalk, properly, ignoring the brand-new ache in my ankle. I do test the stability of my foot first, and it seems like it’s working.

  I knew that mortals can hurt themselves doing the strangest things, but I hadn’t expected that a fall off my shoes would ache like that.

  I turn around slowly, keeping one hand out for balance.

  “Where were you?” I say, my voice trembling. I have never yelled at one of my Johnson siblings before, but I’m scared, I’m overwhelmed, I’m tired, and I’m really, really cold.

  “I went to get the car.” Eric leans over and pushes the passenger side door open. “I parked far away, like you wanted.”

  Normally, I would have blushed there—I just know it—because he did something I wanted him to and I yelled at him, but I think the cold broke my blushing mechanism.

  “Sorry,” I say and stagger to the car. My entire right leg aches, but I can put weight on my foot. That means it’s not broken.

  I learned that in August, when my little half sister Ingrid jumped out of a swing and landed wrong, breaking her leg. She just got out of her cast two weeks ago.

  I slide inside the passenger seat, and the smelly upholstery catches the dress. I hope it doesn’t rip. Lise would be so mad at me. But at least the car’s warm.

  I pull the door closed, put on the seatbelt, and then look at my ankle. The pantyhose is ripped, and there’s a big chalky mark on the side of the shoe. I hope it’ll rub off.

  There’s also a scrape on my ankle itself, and now that
I’ve noticed it, it’s started to sting.

  “What took so long?” Eric asks. “Were there other people applying?”

  I frown at him. How would I know that?

  He raises his eyebrows. He expects me to answer that stupid question.

  “No one else was applying,” I say. “I got the job and we had to fill out—”

  “You what?” Thank heavens we’re in the parking lot, because he swivels his whole body as he looks at me, which makes him turn the steering wheel toward me, which makes the car swing to the right, which makes it drive over three empty parking spaces before he hits the brake.

  If those spaces weren’t empty…

  I force myself to think about something else.

  “I got the job,” I repeat, a little softer. “Is that a problem?”

  He grins. “Hell, no, but wow. Just wow. Mom says there’s something magical about your family, but I didn’t think she meant it literally.”

  Now that I’m getting warm, my cheeks do heat up. I’m not supposed to talk about the magic at all. Ever.

  “Mom said that?”

  “Yeah, but she mostly says something about charisma. She didn’t say anything about luck.” He punches my arm gently. That’s Eric’s way of showing affection. “Go, you!”

  I bit my lower lip and say around the skin, “Thanks?”

  Fortunately, he still has his foot on the brake because he turns all the way toward me. The car rocks in the wind.

  “How come you’re not happy?” he asks. “Is it a lame job?”

  How do I know what kind of job it is? I haven’t started yet. But the first question…why am I not happy?

  I have no idea.

  I frown, thinking about how I feel. A little scared—no, a lotta scared. I have no idea what I’m getting into, and that always goes badly for me. And schedules, that’s going to be a problem. I’ll have to inconvenience everyone. And at minimum wage, I won’t be bringing millions into the household. Hell, I won’t even be bringing in thousands.

  “What’s wrong, Brit?” Eric asks gently, and he’s rarely gentle. “Is there something you don’t like about the job? Because you can say no.”

  I shake my head. I can feel tears threatening. I’m not going to cry in front of Eric, I’m not.

  I take a deep breath, and instead of holding back words, the breath seems to inspire them. I blurt,

  “It’s just that the last job I had, I screwed up so bad that I’m either a laughingstock at home or everyone hates me. Sometimes both. Me and my sisters, we were jokes and we didn’t even realize it.”

  One of the tears has escaped. I can see it on the lower lashes of my left eye, hovering there, threatening to fall down my cheek, on the side of my face that Eric can see no matter what.

  “I mean, that’s one of the reasons I’m here, because we screwed up so bad, and Daddy…”

  My voice trails off. I can’t talk about Daddy in a rational way with someone who knows nothing about magic.

  So I take another deep breath and this one calms me. Kinda.

  “What about your dad?” Eric asks, and that ruins my calm. I can’t talk about my dad. Not with him, not with anyone except Megan, my therapist, who flies in every Sunday to talk to me special. Mom won’t even talk about my dad.

  I shake my head and the dang tear wiggles, then topples off my lashes. It misses my cheek, though, and hits the back of my left hand, which, I just notice, is balled into a fist.

  “After that job,” I whisper, “they took everything away from me. My home, my sisters…” my magic… “everything, and now I’m here, and I don’t understand anything, and I’m about to start a new job, and what if I do the same thing? I don’t have anywhere else…”

  I can’t finish that sentence, because if I finish that sentence, I will cry.

  “Jeez,” Eric says. “Jeez. I had no idea.”

  He looks at me, and he sees how upset I am, and he finally reaches out an arm and pulls me into half a hug.

  The Johnson Family is pretty touchy-feely, but me and Eric haven’t been because, as Eric said to me the first time he refused to hug me, we’re not related at all and that just makes everything weird, right?

  I have no idea what the everything that is weird is, but he’s uncomfortable, which makes me uncomfortable, and right now (right then) I was all about disappearing into a corner.

  His arm is pretty tight around me, holding me against the scratchy wool of his plaid jacket (which smells faintly of wood smoke) and his hand pats my shoulder in this kinda there-there way.

  “I’m sorry,” I say into his jacket. “I’m sorry. I’m being a baby. I’m sorry.”

  “No,” he says. “God, if I were in your shoes, I’d be scared too.”

  He sounds uncertain, not like the Eric I know at all. Usually Eric sounds confident no matter what he’s talking about (whether he knows it in detail or not).

  Tears squeeze out of my eyes, no matter how hard I try to stop crying. I haven’t cried much since I got to the Johnson Family Manse. Not after the first week, when Ingrid (who is only eight) plopped down on my bed and said, “So what’s it like to be a drama queen?”

  I sniffle, and wish I had a tissue. I sit up and start to wipe my face with my bare hand, but Eric hands me three crumpled Subway napkins.

  “Have you told Mom?” he asks. He calls Mom “mom” even though she’s not his biological mom. She raised him from the age of three.

  I shake my head, and then I frown. “Told Mom what?”

  “About how scared you are?”

  I shake my head again, more firmly this time, because I really mean it now, and say, “She’s being just great. She has a lot to deal with and I don’t need to add to it.”

  “She loves you, you know,” he says.

  Tears start again. So what’s it like to be a drama queen? Awful. Just awful. Megan (my therapist) says I learned to cry so my sisters didn’t have to, and now it’s just a habit.

  I hate that habit. I hate hate hate it.

  I’m shaking my head at the tears, trying to convince them to go away.

  “She does,” Eric says.

  He must think I’m disagreeing about Mom loving me. I never doubted that. She just doesn’t understand me.

  “When she had to go to Greece every summer,” he says, “she was so nervous. She always wanted you here at home, but she told us that you were better off there, and when we asked to meet you, she said the whole family thing was too hard, and then she’d be excited and thrilled to go, and when she got home…”

  His voice trailed off. He shrugged one shoulder, then leaned toward the driver’s door and fished more napkins out of the pocket that Karl told him to use for maps.

  I swallow hard. “When she got home,” I prompt.

  “She’d go to her room for a day or two and cry,” he says to the floor.

  That stops me cold. Mom cries? I’ve never seen it. She’s always so strong. And she cried over me? Really?

  “You’re making that up,” I say before I can stop myself.

  He shakes his head. “I’m not.”

  Then he sits up and glares at me. “If you tell her I said anything, I’ll call you a dirty stupid liar.”

  He sounds nervous and childish. Eric never sounds childish either. His whole tone actually makes me want to smile, but I don’t because that might make him mad.

  “I won’t say anything,” I promise.

  He hands me more napkins. “Good,” he says.

  “How do you know she loves me?” I ask, because I can’t just leave it there. I mean, I’m a drama queen. (Megan told me to own that, and then change it. I’m still getting used to the owning part.) For all I know, being a drama queen is something you inherit like blue eyes and hair so blonde it’s almost white. So, Mom might be a drama queen, only with years more experience in controlling her drama queenness.

  Eric closes his eyes for a minute, and I recognize the expression. He doesn’t want to say anything, but I’ve backed him into a
corner, and what can he say? He’s going to answer me because he’s just that kind of guy.

  “Before you moved here, she talked about you all the time, and she’d say she wished we could meet you.” He shrugs again. “She hated that you weren’t allowed to come here. You weren’t, right?”

  I didn’t know that, but it makes sense. So I’m not going to contradict her without asking her, and I’m not going to tell Eric that I don’t know.

  I nod, and wipe at my left cheek. It’s really wet.

  “She’d tell stories about you,” he says, “and how pretty you are and how smart, and how she wished you could come home.”

  I was home, but I don’t say that.

  “She didn’t even have pictures of you, and I thought that was pretty weird, I’ve always thought that was pretty weird, but she’d say she forgot to take some, which I never believed, and…” his voice trails off. Then he sighs. “I’d ask about the pictures or someone else would and she’d leave the room or she’d tell us all to be really careful with, y’know, the kissing stuff, because you could end up in a tough situation.”

  “Yeah,” I say softly. “With a baby you don’t want.”

  He actually bounces on the seat. “She wanted you. Don’t you get it? She really wanted you. She still does. She was so excited you were coming home, finally. Jeez, give her credit.”

  I sniff, then blow my nose with one of the napkins. I have nowhere to put it, so I crumple it up and set it on the seat beside me.

  Then he peers at me. “Why couldn’t she take pictures?”

  Because cameras usually don’t work on Mount Olympus. That whole magic-technology thing.

  “What does Mom say?” I ask, hoping she had a lie at the ready.

  “She never said. Not ever.”

  I sigh. It sounds a little watery, but at least the tears aren’t pouring down my face any more.

  I guess lies will calm you down, at least a little bit.

  “My dad and his relatives,” my relatives, “they’re all pretty famous, and taking pictures of them would be like this revolutionary coup or something.”