by John Coy
* * *
AFTER DOWNING A COUPLE OF ADVIL, I closed the shades in my room and got into bed. My brain was bursting, but I wasn’t doing anything until I got some sleep. I charged my phone and set the alarm for three so I’d be gone before any of them got home.
I lay back and tried to push thoughts of Dad out of my mind. Selfish. He was the one being selfish by picking St. Luke’s and insisting I be a doctor. Of course I should have acted sooner, back when he had me apply to only one college, but I wasn’t ready then.
What are you going to do? What do you want to be? Everyone was asking the same questions, and I was sick of it and didn’t have answers.
There was one thing, though, that I was one hundred percent sure about. I knew what I didn’t want to be. I didn’t want to be anything like my dad.
RAYNE MAN
I MADE SURE I WAS OUT OF THE HOUSE before anyone else returned. My head still hurt as I walked downtown and replayed what had happened. Holy shit. Instead of going to college like my friends, I was looking for a job to pay rent at home. I’d thrown it all away, and for what?
Division Street, the center of downtown, was quiet as I crossed to Sam’s Pizza. “Do you have job applications?” I asked the woman at the counter as I inhaled the smell of melted cheese.
“Yep, they’re here somewhere.” She had gray streaks in her dark hair, which was pulled back with a red headband. “You can fill out one of these, but to be honest, we’re not hiring. Don’t get your hopes up.”
“It’s not worth it?”
“Go ahead; you never know when someone will split or end up in the psych ward.” She pushed me a pen. “It’s hot out there. What do you like to drink?”
“Sprite, thanks.”
She filled a plastic cup with ice while I started on the application. For employment history I listed last summer’s job bussing tables at the country club. Dad had made me do that to “learn the value of hard work,” and the place was full of his doctor friends who’d ask me about college. I definitely wasn’t going back there.
I went through the questions and paused when I came to Why do you want to work at Sam’s? I couldn’t write the truth about Dad, so I wrote that Sam’s had the best pizza in the world.
I sat back and slurped my Sprite. That answer wasn’t too bad.
The woman looked over my application and smiled. “I’m Sam. I’ll call if anything opens up.”
* * *
THE MARQUEE OF BUDGET CINEMA STUCK OUT OVER the sidewalk. I could collect tickets and put popcorn in tubs. I opened the door and felt the coolness. AC would be a plus. The person at the ticket booth wore a white short-sleeved shirt and a black bow tie, which was a definite drawback.
“Hey, who do I talk to about applying for a job?”
“Didn’t you just graduate?” The kid’s braces flashed.
“Yeah.”
“My sister did, too.”
Big deal, I thought, but then remembered. “You’re Teagan’s brother, right?”
“Yep.” He adjusted his bow tie. “They usually hire younger kids.”
“So it’s not worth applying.”
“Not really.” He shrugged like he was sympathetic.
“Where’s Teagan working this summer?”
“Lifeguarding at Lake Winona. Working on her tan.”
“Tell her hi from Cray.”
Zero for two. I thought about where friends were working. Some guys from the basketball team were counselors at a camp up by the Boundary Waters, but those jobs had been set up months ago. I walked past the post office. I could sort mail, even deliver it, but they didn’t hire people off the street. You probably had to take some kind of test, and they didn’t hire high school kids. But I wasn’t a high school kid anymore. I was a graduate. I was in between—too old for high school jobs, too young for adult jobs.
Then I realized I wasn’t looking for a summer job. I was looking for a real job. I couldn’t afford to pay for college on my own. Maybe if I held my ground for a year, my parents would give in and pay for me to go where I wanted. Maybe not. Whatever job I got might not be temporary. It could be my JOB for a long time.
Oh, God, that was too depressing to think about.
I kept hoping I’d see a sign: HELP WANTED, RECENT HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE, EXCELLENT PAY! That wasn’t happening. There weren’t many people walking around downtown on a Wednesday afternoon. That was part of the problem. Downtown Clairemont was dead.
If I wanted a job, I’d have to search online or go out to the mall, where more businesses were. I called Jett.
He picked up after the first ring. “Cray Man, what are you doing?”
“Looking for a job.” I kicked an empty Red Bull can into the street. “You want to run out to the mall?”
“Yeah, Nora’s scooping ice cream at Malley’s. I’ll shower and pick you up.”
“Not at my house. Meet me at the Edge Coffee Shop on Front Street.” I shoved my phone in my pocket. Jett had no idea that the reason I needed a job was because I wasn’t going to college. A tidal wave of panic smashed against me. Maybe Dad was right. Maybe at seventeen, I was ruining my life.
* * *
THE EDGE WAS A STATE UNIVERSITY HANGOUT WHERE people looked at their laptops and studied. I ordered an iced coffee from a guy with bushy sideburns. “Do you have any job openings?”
“Any experience working in a coffee shop?”
“No.”
“Then you wouldn’t have a chance.” He filled a cup with ice.
“If you can’t get a job without experience, how do you get experience in the first place?”
“One of life’s mysteries.” He poured my iced coffee. “You’ve got to find someone who’ll give you a break.”
“And they don’t do that here?”
“No, they require a year of coffee shop experience.”
I pulled bills out of my wallet. Nothing was working.
“Try Starbucks at the mall.” He handed me my change. “They hire without experience.”
“Thanks.” I dropped the coins into the tip jar. I wasn’t sure about applying at Starbucks. Making all those different drinks exactly the way people wanted seemed complicated.
I sat down in a cushy chair in the corner and sipped my coffee. Fortunately, I still had some money in savings that Grandpa Franklin had left me when he died. But it wasn’t close to enough to pay for college on my own. I desperately needed someone to hire me.
I scrolled through job sites on my phone but everything required experience. I didn’t have a car to get to the places that were farther away, either.
Across the room a girl with brown chopped-off hair sat by the window writing in a journal. Her hair stuck out at odd angles like she’d cut it with a Weedwacker. She wore red Chucks, tight army shorts, and a lime-green tank top without a bra. She stopped writing, put her pen in her mouth, and looked over at me.
I turned away quickly. When she started writing again, I resumed watching. She turned the page and her pen flew across the paper.
“Cray Man.” Jett came through the door. “Ready?”
“Yeah.” I stood and finished my coffee.
Jett turned toward the journal girl. “Hey, Rayne.”
“Jettster.” She closed her journal.
“You two know each other?” Jett pointed to me.
She smiled. “I don’t think so.” Despite her weird hair and odd clothes, she was pretty, even as she tried to hide it.
“Rayne, Cray.”
“Hey,” I said.
“I remember you.” She had large brown eyes with long, dark lashes. “We rode the same bus in sixth grade and you boys used to sit in back and make fun of the driver. You called him Captain Crunch and imitated his deep voice.”
“Wow, you’ve got a great memory.” I tried to hold her gaze, but that tank top made it hard.
“Rayne remembers everything,” Jett said.
She shook her head. “Some things I try to forget.”
I stared at her. H
er shy smile, that wild hair, her no-bra boldness. Who was she?
* * *
I CLIMBED INTO JETT’S OLD PICKUP. I wasn’t going to college and didn’t have a job, but I felt better. “How come I never saw Rayne around school?”
“She’s into art and took most of her classes at the university this year. She’s different.” Jett started the truck. “She never came to games or dances.”
“Why not?” I buckled my seat belt.
“Not into it.”
“She smart?”
“Super smart.” Jett looked over his shoulder and pulled out. “She saved me in English when I first moved here. I’d never had to work at my old school because teachers passed the jocks through. I asked Rayne for help because I sat next to her and she knew everything. I got an A in that class, and after that, teachers started treating me like I was smart.”
“Where’s she going to college?”
“I don’t think she’s going.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her.”
“Where’s she live?”
“Someplace downtown, I think.”
I couldn’t remember my sixth-grade bus route, and I certainly didn’t remember anybody like her.
“You’re asking a lot of questions.” Jett looked over at me. “Slow down, Rayne Man.”
I couldn’t. I kept thinking of her in that lime-green top.
HELP WANTED
I WENT UP AND DOWN THE MALL SEARCHING FOR HELP WANTED or POSITION AVAILABLE signs but didn’t find any.
Maybe I was too late. I should have started a month ago, but back then I didn’t know I was going to have to pay rent to live at home. At the bookstore, a woman with purple-framed glasses stared at a screen while a guy with dreadlocks stacked books. I could do that.
I cleared my throat. “I’m interested in applying for a job.”
“Go to our website,” the woman said without looking up.
“Are there any positions available?”
“No.”
The story was the same at the copy shop, the department store, the arcade, and the frozen yogurt stand. A couple of places gave me paper applications even though they didn’t have openings. I sat down at an orange table in the food court and filled them out, but even as I did, I knew it was useless. Nobody was going to look at them.
My head throbbed. I was so desperate that I went outside and crossed the street to a place I never dreamed I’d apply: McDonald’s.
“Hi, I’m interested in working here,” I said to a guy whose name tag read JAVON.
“I’ll get the manager.”
I focused on his teal-and-purple uniform. I’d hate wearing that, but I could deal with it until I got something better.
The manager, whose name tag read KEITH, marched up to the counter. He was about thirty and looked irritated, like I’d interrupted something important.
“You want to work here?” He had a buzz cut and a thin mustache.
“Yes, I’d like to apply.”
“Why do you want to work at McDonald’s?”
“Because I need a job.” His lips turned down, and I knew I’d answered wrong. “Because I think it’s a…” I couldn’t say what I really thought—that it was a place to work if you couldn’t get anything else. “Good place to eat,” I finished lamely. “It’s fast and convenient.”
He frowned like he was sucking on a piece of bitter fruit. “What kind of experience do you have in the food-service industry?”
The food-service industry! He acted like I wanted to run a McDonald’s, not wear a goofy uniform and put baskets of fries in hot oil.
“I have experience bussing tables at the country club.”
“Fill out an application online or grab one of those green forms.” He pointed to a display by the beverage station.
“You don’t have any openings now?”
“No.” He turned his back on me.
I picked up an application and sat at a table in front of a grinning Ronald McDonald. I started filling it out and got stuck on how I heard about “this employment opportunity.” I crumpled the paper and threw it in the trash. I couldn’t even get a job at McDonald’s.
Ronald McDonald kept grinning at me, so I gave him the finger and walked out.
* * *
“ANYBODY HIRE YOU?” Jett asked when I returned to Malley’s.
“Nope.”
“They don’t have openings here, but I could check at the law firm where I’m interning,” Nora said. She leaned over and wiped around the ice-cream tubs while Jett and I admired the number of buttons she’d left undone. “What kind of work are you interested in?”
“Anything. I need something right away, but I’d prefer not to wear a stupid uniform.”
She lifted her leg to show a blue stripe on her khaki shorts. “Like this.”
“No, that’s not bad.”
“A little lame,” Jett teased. “But you look great.”
Nora smiled as she packed napkins into a holder.
“You want to get some pizza?” Jett turned to me.
“Yeah, I’m starving.”
“Trust me, the pizza at the food court is terrible.” Nora made a face.
“Let’s run down to Sam’s,” Jett said. “How late do you work, Nora?”
“Until closing. Nine.”
“We’ll come back and pick you up.”
“Thanks.” Nora winked at him, so smoothly it didn’t even seem planned.
* * *
JETT AND I SLID INTO OUR FAVORITE BOOTH, but I didn’t see Sam anywhere. Jett was solidly built and a magnet for girls, and I was a tall, skinny virgin with big ears and a scar running from the corner of my eye toward my ear from an accident with a slide. We made an odd pair, but we’d been best friends since freshman year. I’d helped Jett adjust to a new school and we stayed tight even when he became a basketball star and I sat at the end of the bench.
“Large, extra cheese?” Jett asked.
“Yeah.” We didn’t need to look at the menu.
The server, probably a university student, pulled out her pad but didn’t have a pen and left to find one. Maybe she was one of the employees who would quit. That might be the only way I’d get a job.
The server came back and took our order. She wrote slowly and at the end added, “Two Cokes.”
“No, one Coke, one Sprite.” I could do this job better than she did.
Jett texted away on his phone. People always wanted to do stuff with him. I checked mine: nothing interesting. The waitress brought our drinks and two straws, but she set the Coke in front of me. I passed it to Jett and grabbed the Sprite so she’d see her mistake.
“I’ve got to get a job.” I unwrapped my straw. “My dad’s making me pay rent.”
“Why?”
I told him about Dad not paying for college unless I studied premed at St. Luke’s. And about deciding not to go.
Jett’s jaw dropped open. “What the hell, Cray? When were you going to tell me? That’s major-league crazy.”
“What I’m doing or what he’s doing?”
“Both. Can’t you go and study what you want?”
“No, my dad knows everybody up there. He’d choose my classes and keep track of everything.” I watched the waitress mix up another order.
“Can’t you apply somewhere else?”
“They wouldn’t pay for it, and there’s no way I’d qualify for financial aid with their income. I can’t afford college on my own.”
Jett slurped his Coke. “You can’t just take the money and run?”
“You know my dad. He controls everything. He’s not about to give me money and let me decide.” I slouched down in the booth. “Don’t tell anybody. I’m not ready to deal with it.”
“Okay. If I didn’t have a full ride to Duluth, my folks couldn’t afford college, but yours can. That’s so messed up. You should be going. What will you do?”
“I don’t know. Right now, I can’t go home without a
job.”
“You can stay at my house.” Jett held up his glass for a refill. “My folks are always cool with you staying over.”
“Thanks.” I texted Lansing to tell Mom and Dad since I didn’t want to get into it with them.
“I wish I knew someplace you could work,” Jett said.
Lansing texted back: r u really not going to St. L? Insane!
Just tell em. I turned off my phone. I didn’t want to talk to anybody in my family.
* * *
WHEN JETT AND I WALKED OUT, music was blaring from the courthouse square. A Brazilian band was playing, and the lead singer pleaded with people to dance. Most of the audience, which was mainly families with children and old people who’d brought their own camping chairs, declined.
The only people dancing were three little kids and a chubby guy with Down syndrome. He reminded me of my cousin Jacob as he bopped back and forth and didn’t care what anybody thought.
“Good dancing, Sean,” the woman beside us shouted. She had big glasses and sat next to two other people eating ice-cream bars.
The band jammed away despite the lack of dancers. I scanned the crowd but didn’t see anybody I knew. By the corner, a woman waited for customers at an ice-cream cart. I could do that, but business was slow so she probably wasn’t hiring somebody new.
In front of us, a couple of guys about Lansing’s age laughed.
“He looks like a robot.” The skinny one pointed at the man dancing.
“More like a retard,” the heavier one said.
I pushed him in the back.
“Hey, what are you doing?” He turned around.
“Watch your mouth.”
The heavier one looked like he was about to say something but then saw Jett.
“Let’s get ice cream.” His friend pulled him away.
“Like that guy should talk,” Jett said.
I thought about Jacob and how often he heard stupid stuff from people who were supposed to be smarter than he was. So many of them forgot that we all have our handicaps.
* * *
BACK AT JETT’S, we played Call of Duty and polished off a bag of Twix. His folks and younger sisters stayed upstairs, and Jett had the finished basement for his bedroom and an entertainment room with a mini fridge that his mom kept stocked. His house was a lot smaller than ours, but more comfortable, and his folks left us alone. At a quarter to nine, we went to get Nora.