Girl Mans Up

by M-E Girard

  My eyes go wide. The man shakes his head like Blake’s impossible, then he walks right to the back, disappearing through an employee-only door.

  “Thanks,” I tell her.

  “Mitch is cool.”

  “He’s your boss?”

  She nods.

  “I need to get a job. A real job.”

  “Oh—oh!” Blake says. “Hang on a minute.” She puts the store phone to her ear and dials. “Mitch! Can I talk to you for a second?” She hangs up and waves me away. “Go look at stuff. Come back when I signal you.”

  So I back step to the Xbox section, giving her my suspicious face. The tall Mitch guy comes out of the office and strolls over to Blake’s counter. He leans on one elbow while she does most of the talking. A twenty-something dude wearing a Gamer Depot tee enters the store from the mall and goes to take a spot behind the counter, so Blake and Mitch move down to the other end. It takes a couple minutes, then the Mitch guy gives a nod before heading over my way. He gives me a hitch of the chin before going back through the door he came out of. Blake waves me over.

  “Okay, I talked to him. If you’re up to going back there and talking to him, he’ll consider you for part time,” Blake says.

  “What? Work here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’d you manage that?”

  “I told him there are hardly any women in gaming, and by hiring another girl, he’s making a statement that girls are part of the gaming community and every bit as knowledgeable and skilled as dudes are,” she says. “I’m pretty sure he’s a feminist. So go back there and be righteous.”

  She pushes me over while I plant my feet down. “I don’t even have a résumé!”

  “It’s no big deal. I told him about you. If it works out, then you can send him your résumé. He prefers talking to people anyway.”

  “I can’t go in there. I’ll stutter and say dumb stuff.” I turn to meet her gaze.

  She fixes my collar and zips up my hoodie. “Come on, Pen. Do you know how many people want to work here?”

  I’m at the employee-only door, staring at it. Blake waits next to me. For a minute, I take a couple deep breaths and picture how I’m going to introduce myself—

  Hey, I’m Pen.

  Hello, I’m Pen.

  Good afternoon, sir, I’m Pen Oliveira.

  What’s going on, Mitch, my man?

  Before I can settle on something, Blake knocks on the door and takes off. The door opens.

  “Well, hello there. You must be Pen,” Mitch says.

  “Hi, yeah, sorry.”

  “Why are you apologizing?”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  He laughs and opens the door wider. “Come in.”

  It’s a tiny office with no windows, a desk, boxes, and a big metal safe. Mitch takes the nice-looking chair and pulls out the smaller one, motioning for me to sit. So I do.

  “Blake says you’re looking for a few hours a week.”

  “Yeah—yes.”

  “Have you been employed before?”

  “Not officially, but my brother has his own company—he’s a handyman—and I’ve put in hours working for him for the last two years.”

  Mitch nods, pulling a leg up to rest his ankle over the other knee, which is totally how I want to be sitting right now, but instead I’m doing Olivia’s proper-posture thing. My back hurts. “Blake says you’re willing to kill to work at the Gamer Depot. I don’t want you to murder anyone, though, are we clear?”

  “Very,” I say.

  “So why do you want to work here?”

  “Uh, well, I’m a gamer, so I think I could be useful for, like, questions. And also to sell things. And to, uh . . . look lively?”

  He laughs. “You’re a gamer, huh? Okay. Here’s a little scenario: a little old lady comes in looking for Mech-Soldier 3.0 for its solo offline campaign. What do you do?”

  “I’d tell her she was screwed—uh, in a professional manner—because that game was only released for online gameplay.”

  “And what if the little old lady said she doesn’t play multiplayer?”

  “I’d tell her to try War Zone 3. It’s not like she’ll be able to have the whole robotic-mechanical armor, but the gameplay is similar because they’re both shooters made by Shinewear, and, well, it’s a really good game with a pretty decent offline campaign.”

  “Do you know the difference between a debit card and a credit card?”

  “I think so.”

  “Do you know how to count?”

  “Yes.”

  “How high?”

  “Infinity. And there’s a calculator app on my phone.”

  He squints like he’s sizing me up. “What do you think of stealing?”

  “I think it’s evil.”

  He nods all serious, but there’s a smile in his eyes waiting to take over his face. “Do you think the Gamer Depot is the greatest store in the world?”

  “Totally.”

  “Are you prepared to abuse the employee discount?”

  That makes me smile wide, because I hadn’t even thought about that. “Yeah, for sure. It would be an honor.”

  “How do you feel about punctuality?”

  “I like it. I’m down with being on time.”

  He makes a considering face, staring at me for a minute before reaching for a form and a pen. “Fill this out. You mind if I call your brother for a reference?”

  “Nope,” I say, but I wonder if Johnny will know how to do a reference call. Maybe I should warn him first, except I don’t want to talk to him. I’ll text him.

  Mitch then tells me what he’ll need to set up direct deposit for my paychecks, which I think means I got the job. Then he goes through one of the boxes and comes out with a blue Gamer Depot T-shirt.

  “Something tells me you’re into shirts three sizes too big,” he says.

  I nod. “Thank you. Very much.”

  “I suppose you’d like Blake to be your trainer?”

  “That would be . . . cool.”

  He shakes his head. “That would be foolish. I can’t do that, but nice try, kid. How about Sunday, noon to six-ish, with Elliott.”

  “Elliott with the dreads?”

  “Is that his full name?” He smirks. “That would be the one.”

  “Cool.”

  “No screwing around. At the Gamer Depot, we work, we look lively, and we sell stuff.”

  “Got it.”

  He looks like the kind of dude who could’ve rocked a mustache and a top hat. “Any questions?”

  “Thank you,” I say. “Which I guess isn’t a question . . .”

  “Welcome to the team.”

  Just like that, I got a job. My parents are going to be pissed.

  LATER, BLAKE AND I are reclined on the carpeted basement floor, side by side, with our legs resting over the couch. The TV’s on the music channel and we’re watching it upside down. I shouldn’t be out this late, so it’s a good thing I don’t care about that anymore.

  “I can’t believe you got me a job,” I say. “Should we act like we’re just friends when we’re there?”

  “Why? Are we just friends?”

  “No. Hell no. I just don’t want it to cause problems.”

  “So what? You want to pretend we’re only friends so no one will think I like girls?”

  “But you don’t . . . like girls.”

  “I do, though. I like you.”

  It makes me turn my head to look at her. “People will wonder why you don’t have a boyfriend instead. A dude with a beard.”

  She pulls her legs up and swivels around until she’s sitting. I do the same, and we’re both cross-legged on the floor and facing each other. “Why do you think I like you?”

  I crinkle my forehead, filing through the possibilities. Then I shrug.

  She scowls. “Why do you like me then?”

  “Because you’re sweet, but you’re tough. And you’re funny. And you’re a gamer, plus you know your stuff. And
you don’t fall for bull. And you’re always upbeat and ready to kick butt.”

  She smiles and puts two fingers on my arm. But as soon as I smile back, she shakes it off. “But it can’t all be personality, right? It’s about looks, too. It’s always about looks.” At that, I make a face and she holds up a finger. “It’s not shallow to admit it’s all about looks, because it is. You can’t have the hots for someone that you don’t think is hot—doesn’t work.”

  I tip my head to the side, thinking about blind people all of a sudden, wondering how it could possibly be about looks for them. I snap out of it, then finally nod. “Okay, fine.”

  “So you think I’m hot,” she says.

  “You’re hot as hell. Your clothes, your face, your hair, your eyes—your eyes drive me nuts—and, well, your, um.” I point at her chest. “Those. I really like them—”

  She covers my mouth with her hand. “Stop!”

  “It’s true,” I mutter from behind her fingers.

  “Okay, so you think it’s not about looks on my end?” At my shrug, she sighs and scoots over to be right in front of me, no space between our legs. “Your hair? Yes, hot. Your clothes? Uh-huh—that silver chain is righteous, by the way. The way you smell, that men’s cologne? Oh my god, yes.” She curls her fingers around my shirt collar, and it makes me get chills. “The way you act, the way you walk—well, just everything.”

  “Everything?”

  She nods while she keeps fussing with my collar. “I guess for me, it’s that I like guys, but . . . I like when girls are being guys even more. Maybe that doesn’t make sense, but I don’t care.”

  My fingers tingle with the need to just grab her. “What do we do now?”

  “We make out hard-core, and for a long time. Right now, right here.”

  “See, that’s another thing I like about you: your balls. I hope I grow a pair as big as yours one day.”

  “It’ll never happen,” she says, pretending to cup two watermelons in front of her crotch. “Look how big these are, Pen. Huge.”

  Everything she said—it was so much. I shouldn’t be asking for more, but . . .

  “Blake?” I say, looking at the ceiling instead of her face. “Say I had a question to ask you and I was—”

  “Is this where you take an hour to ask me to be your girlfriend?” she says. I hold my hands out like, How did you know? “I’m impatient, okay? I know you like me. And I like you. So, yes. The answer is yes.”

  “Okay,” I say through a massive sigh. “Okay, awesome. I got a girlfriend and a job in the same day. I’m on a roll.”

  I am on a roll. I just hope it’s not the crash-and-burn kind.

  THIRTY-SIX

  ON SUNDAY, I LEARN THE LAYOUT OF THE STORE, and then I start my training on the register. Elliott’s super chill about it, but when the store phone rings, he catches me off guard by picking it up and passing it to me. I go “Hello?” then remember it’s not my cell so I rush into “Thank you for calling the Gamer Depot. How can I help you?” He laughs the whole time, but then says I did all right.

  On Tuesday, I get home from school to find Garrett’s rusted van parked at the curb and all the guys hanging out in Colby’s garage. The noises coming from their end are the same as the ones I hear at the mall, at the pizza place, at Walmart even. I dart up to my room. Blake’s meeting me at the library in a couple hours. She was all, “We cannot work at my house because you know what’ll happen.” She’s right, because what would happen is we’d either play video games all day, or we’d fool around all day. So I said, “No. I swear it won’t be like that. We’ll work.” But I was lying, and she knew it.

  So now I fix my hair, and spritz my cologne. The Turtles theme starts playing. I hop over my bed to find my cell.

  “Hi,” Olivia says. She sounds funny. There’s a woman yelling stuff in the background. “Um. Are you busy today?”

  “Is that your mom? Sounds like she’s losing it.”

  “She is. She . . . does that. I was wondering—if you’re not busy—if you’d want to, um, rescue me from this?”

  “Blake and I are going to the library in a couple hours to work on the project,” I say, slipping into my jeans. Her mom goes off about “lazy ladies” and “not in my house.” That kind of stuff makes me not be able to wait until I own a house so I can go off about what can and can’t be done in it. “Man, she sounds pissed. Listen, why don’t you come to the library with us?”

  “I don’t want to mess up your date,” she says.

  “It’s the library, Olivia.”

  Her mom launches into something that sounds like “work all week” and “Jin thinks he can just” and then Olivia goes, “Okay, yes. I will meet you at the library. Now?”

  “Uh . . . yeah, why not. I’m pretty much ready anyway.”

  We hang up, and I go to my closet for a shirt. Something’s not right.

  Stuff is missing. Some of my stuff is missing.

  I THROW ON MY black-and-red tee, except it’s not what I wanted to wear tonight. The shirt I want—Johnny’s old gray one with the chain design—isn’t here anymore. Neither is the white tee, or the yellow-black one. But the worst part is the white shoe box that’s not on the shelf anymore—my Ninja Turtles figures. I grab my phone and my bag, then head downstairs, where Mom is watching TV and knitting dishcloths.

  “Where’s my stuff, Ma?” I’m trying not to sound angry. I’m trying so hard.

  “I take João clothes to João.”

  “They were mine. He gave them to me.”

  She shrugs, not looking at me. “I don’t know. João say he want clothes, I get João clothes.”

  “He told you to come take them from my closet?”

  Another shrug; she turns up the Italian cooking show.

  “Where are my Turtles?”

  “I don’t know, the turtle.”

  “My Ninja Turtles, in the box. Where are they?”

  “I clean up. Too much the stuff. You no play with toys. You big girl. I give to Tia Val.”

  “What?” On purpose—this is all on purpose. “Mãe, what did you do with them?”

  She stays silent, pretending to pay deep attention to the show. I head for the basement, taking the stairs like some idiot asking for a broken leg, and I barge into the storage room. Still stacked on top of the cabinet are the two blond Barbies and the doll that pisses and craps itself. I pick the stack up and fly back upstairs, telling myself not to lose it over toys, telling myself to be cool.

  “I want my Turtles back. Where are they?”

  “You no talk to me like that. I no listen,” she says, not acknowledging the stuff in my hands. “No respeito, no listen.”

  I go to the kitchen, where a bunch of stuff is packed in boxes, like she went through some random late-October cleaning spree. There’s a bunch of useless house stuff in there, an old telephone that should really go into the garbage, mason jars, and at the side, my box of Turtles. I check inside, just to make sure they’re all still there. Then I shove the doll and the Barbies into Mom’s boxes. In the living room, she’s still pretending to be super interested in this lady plucking shrimps out of their shells.

  There are so many things I want to say. All a waste because we don’t speak the same damn language, and she doesn’t know how to listen anyway.

  “You don’t have respeito, Ma!” At that, she looks up at me and drops her knitting. “You stole my stuff—my Turtles. You went into my room and stole my things.”

  My mom doesn’t like me, that’s just the reality.

  She thinks everything about me is being done deliberately to screw with her, to make her look like a bad mother or something. It’s the reverse: she’s the one screwing with me on purpose, trying her best to make me look like the worst daughter ever.

  “No respeito,” I say.

  I shove the box into my bag, and it won’t zip up. My mom and her shocked expression are behind me.

  WAITING AROUND FOR BLAKE, Olivia and I hang out at one of the library desks,
looking through some encyclopedia about the French Revolution in the 1700s.

  “Why do you keep checking your phone?” Olivia asks. “It’s not . . . him, is it?”

  “Nah.” I shrug, putting my phone away. I sent Blake a text to warn her Olivia was going to be here, but now I’m wondering if I should’ve asked before inviting her.

  The idea of having to go home later—it just sucks.

  “Pen,” Olivia says, and she’s using her serious voice. “Thursday’s in two days. Two days.”

  “Yeah. But after that, you won’t be counting down to anything anymore.”

  She rubs her eyes. “You won’t either, I guess.”

  “I’ll be counting down to my first paycheck, then I’ll be taking that sucker to the flea market so I can get an NES,” I say, and she stares back like she’s not following. “I’m going to make you try Super Mario 2. It’s way better than the Atari—trust me.”

  All of a sudden, she’s slipping into my arms, and I’m not the huggy type unless it’s romantic, so I kind of sit there with my arms out and my eyes wide. But then I figure it’s rude to not at least do the arm thing when there’s a hug involved, so I put an arm around her shoulders.

  “If my girlfriend sees this, we’re going to be in trouble,” I mutter.

  “Pen?” she says from somewhere too close to my neck. “Why is your bag so big?”

  “That sounds like a creepy pickup line.” I glance around to make sure Blake’s not here yet. “It better not be.”

  “Your bag,” she says, pulling away from me and picking up my schoolbag by one of the straps.

  “Oh, because I had to take my Turtles with me.”

  “You have turtles in there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can I see?”

  I pull out the box and take its lid off.

  “Oh, they’re not real turtles.” She sounds relieved.

  “What the hell? You think I’d be walking around with live turtles in my backpack?”

  Her eyebrows go all pissy. “You’re the one who said she had turtles in her bag.”

  “Ninja Turtles, with a capital T.” I wave Leonardo around. “Action figures.”

  She picks Donatello up, my favorite Turtle. “He’s so cute.”