Random (Going the Distance) (3 page)

Unfortunately, the gas needle is just this side of red. If I’m going to look for work today—and that is what
has
to happen—I need gas. I’ve saved some points from the grocery store and can get twenty cents off per gallon, so I pull up to the pump, trying to calculate how much I can get by with.

The trouble is not knowing when there will be any more cash in my pocket. If I have to, I can take the bus. Meanwhile I put in two gallons, enough for fifty miles of running around town, and tuck the remaining $37 back in my pocket.

Home doesn’t look like much outside—it’s a tiny mother-in-law house tucked behind a bigger house in a neighborhood that’s gone industrial over the past couple of decades. An apartment block sits to the south, two houses and then a car lot to the north. I drive in from the alley and park. Electra, my neighbor to the front, isn’t out in her garden right now, but I hear her radio playing the blues.

I unlock my front door and slip inside to a narrow series of rooms, living room in the middle, bedroom to the right, kitchen and tiny bathroom to the left. Every inch of it is covered in this old pine paneling that’s rich and golden, and it looks like a cabin to me, like a place you would go on vacation by a lake, maybe.

It’s cool and bright, sunlight falling through some antique lace curtains Henry found at a flea market. Plants everywhere, on shelves and windowsills and little tables. I don’t have a ton of furniture—only the bed and dresser I brought with me, a kitchen table with two chairs, and a couch Henry also found. It’s dark blue and very comfortable, and I covered the worn seat with a bright paisley tablecloth I found at a garage sale.

That’s where I fall now, onto my couch in my own house, where everything is clean and orderly, and it all smells of plants breathing and lavender and my own soap.

My sanctuary.

I have to keep it. No matter what.

Chapter FOUR

A
fter a long nap and a shower to wash away the craziness of the day, I realize I still haven’t called my boyfriend Rick. It’s nearly two—he should be up by now. Sometimes the band stays up all night practicing for a gig like the one they have tonight, which is a big deal. Or at least they say they’re rehearsing. Sometimes it seems like a lot of partying and a little playing.

But as he always says, he’s young, just now twenty-two. There’s time to figure life out.

I flip open my phone, and on the top of the screen is Tyler’s number. His ocean eyes flash across my imagination, and I think of the way his beautiful lips smiled ever so slightly, mostly on one side. A quiver of awareness coils down my spine, pooling at the small of my back.

Guiltily, I push the vision away. Punch in Rick’s number.

He answers on the third ring, his voice sleepy and sexy. “Hey, babe. I was just thinking about you.”

“Were you?”

“Yeah. I wish you were here in bed with me.” I can hear the smile in his voice. “Want to come over?”

He lives in a house with the band, four guys, and none of them clean the place or wash dishes. Ever. I’m pretty sure nobody has vacuumed the entire time they’ve lived there. “Maybe if you hire a cleaning crew.”

He laughs. “What’s up?”

“Well, before you hear it on the news, I wanted to tell you that some old guy drove a car through the front of the restaurant.”

“What? Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Amazingly, I’m fine. Almost nobody got hurt, except Virginia and a couple of people with minor injuries.” My chest aches as I think about my friend. “Virginia is hurt pretty bad, though.”

“That sucks. I’m sorry.” I hear him light something in the background—a cigarette, a joint, not sure. “Do you want me to come over?” He holds his breath slightly. A joint, then.

“No, thanks. I have to go look for work.”

“You don’t have to do it today. You could give yourself one day off.”

“No, I’ll just worry about it. The sooner I get started, the sooner I’ll have a new job.”

“All right. What time do you want me to pick you up tonight?”

I’ve been up since four. The band will play until midnight. I’m wiped out from everything that’s happened. But the gig is important to him, a new club, and he wants me there. “Seven?”

“I’ll be there. Can you wear the red halter?”

“Sure.” He’ll want my hair down, too, and my low cut jeans that show a little belly. The girls with the boys in the band have to look good.

When I hang up, I have to toss through my closet to figure out what to wear to the Musical Spoon. I’ve only been there a couple of times. It’s close to a private, super expensive college downtown, and students drink coffee there, along with people who live in the lofts and little apartments in the city center.

I don’t have a lot of clothes for things like this, really. I take out my best jeans, and pair them with a green-and-blue-print peasant blouse with short sleeves, but that looks too casual. The last option is a sundress that’s been around for a couple of summers but still looks okay. I dither over shoes—flat sandals look too casual, but I can’t think of anyone who ever wore high heels in that place. Tennis shoes? The pair I’ve been wearing to work every day are pretty battered. I dig out a pair of clogs, but when I put them on, they just look sad.

It makes me feel so anxious that my stomach is upset. This is always the big problem—never having the right stuff to wear. I have work clothes and ordinary clothes and sexy tops for when I go listen to Rick’s band.

I don’t have
ordinary-good clothes
or
apply-for-work clothes
or
going-out-to-dinner clothes.
I stare critically at myself in the mirror, wishing for a magic wand to make me look exactly right for the part of server at the Musical Spoon.

On the mirror of my dresser is a picture of my mom. It’s just before she met my dad, and she’s sitting on a beach in New Zealand, long-legged and tan in a tiny bikini. Her hair, like mine, is long and blonde, and she’s laughing and beautiful. My dad walked up right after he took that picture and asked her to go to the movies with him.

Just be yourself.

That was her advice to me whenever I felt shy, which was a lot. Serving has helped, because you have to be friendly and talk to strangers all the time, but I can still feel paralyzed when I have to do something new like this.

Bottom line is, I need a new job. I kick off the clogs and slip into the flat sandals. My feet are tan, and the sandals look pretty. It’s a boho look, which might not be hipster enough for the Spoon, but it’s what I’ve got. I leave my hair loose and stick a comb in my pocket.

In the car, I blast P!nk to give myself some courage and watch the mileage to the restaurant. It’s just over five miles, 5.4. Walkable if I had to, but I couldn’t do it both ways. The buses run downtown, so that’s an option, too.

Gas is the pain in my ass lately. The price is so unreliable, day to day, that it’s hard to budget. I had to pay nearly four bucks a gallon the other day, and my old Kia is pretty efficient, but still—that’s a lot of money. The car, like my phone, belonged to my mother. I like to think she’s with me, too, that when I’m driving, she’s in the passenger seat.

There’s a parking spot at a meter right in front of the Spoon, and I do wonder how we park—is there employee parking? I can’t be paying $6 or $8 a shift in one of the garages. For today I plunk some quarters in the meter. A guy in a plaid shirt and black horn rimmed glasses is smoking a joint against the wall, watching me. He just stares, doesn’t smile, and it makes me nervous all over again. Humming “
you are perfect
” under my breath, I push inside.

It’s a little dark, so I have to stand there for a couple of seconds, blinking. The air smells of sugar and cloves and something I think might be patchouli, like it’s a coffee shop from some other time. When I blink away the sun spots I can see that it’s not busy at all—there are a couple of tables of single people drinking tea and beer, working at laptops; a young guy at the bar; and two women by the window in deep conversation over a pot of tea. The pot is big and fat, painted ceramic, the tea cups mismatched. The floors are wooden, worn smooth, and books line the walls. I want to take every single one of them off the shelves to read, or at least leaf through them. There are old books with weathered spines, yellowed paperbacks, tall books and short ones, red, blue, brown; some I guess are probably leather. Classics and science fiction from the sixties and romances from the eighties, and everything else in between. I once read a whole, admittedly tiny, novel here in one afternoon, a sad story about a woman who wanted to be an artist and had to get married instead.

“Can I help you?”

The bartender is in her mid-twenties, with short, dyed black hair and studs through her lower lip on both sides. Her striped t-shirt dress fits her closely, outlining a long, lean body.

“I…um…” I step up to the bar. “I came to apply for a job.”

“You can do that online, you know.”

As if everybody has a computer. “Yeah,” I say. “Well, I’m here.”

Her eyes are long and black with heavy lashes. She blinks slowly. “We don’t really have any openings right now.”

“Tyler sent me.”

Those eyes narrow slightly. “You’re the one from that shitty diner over on Platte?”

I flush. “Um, yeah. An old man drove through the front door this morning, and now I need a job. Tyler was there and suggested I come over here.”

With a crisp, annoyed gesture, she pulls a tablet from beneath the bar and rips a printed application off. She slaps it down. “I guess you probably need a pen.”

“Nope.” I pull mine out of my pocket and wave it in the air. I grab the application. “Is it okay if I sit over by the wall there?”

She just shrugs.

It’s the usual application and takes about three minutes to fill it out. I’m just starting to wonder if I should ask for Tyler or the manager or something when Tyler comes out of the kitchen with a clipboard in his hands.

The sight of him slams me hard. In just a few hours I’ve forgotten how
hot
he is, how the details—those cheekbones, the thick straightness of his hair, the bright-colored eyes—add up to something way more than the parts. That doesn’t even get to his shoulders, his thighs, the way he moves, like he’s gliding through the air.

I can tell the exact second he spies me. It’s like he steps into a column of light—his whole face brightens. His eyes spark, his lips curl into a smile, even his cheeks look happier. He detours from the direction he’d been going and walks over to me. “You came!”

A bubbling excitement spills though me like champagne. My mouth spreads into a grin without me knowing it would, and I have trouble not looking sparkly-happy myself. I find myself caught in his intense, focused gaze, helpless, like he’s a magician who has cast a spell over me. “I need a job pretty bad.”

“I’m glad,” he says, and keeps looking at me. “I mean, not glad that you need a job, but—well, glad you’re here. Really glad. After a second, he knocks on the table. “Right. Let me get the manager.”

“Okay.” I watch him walk away, and for the first time notice he has the best ass I’ve seen in a long time, high and lean and muscular. It’s hard not to stare.

Then I hear my thoughts, and I’m a little shocked at myself. I mean, I do have a boyfriend. Sometimes lately he’s not a great boyfriend, but still… We’ve been together almost two years. That’s not nothing.

I see the bartender giving me the evil eye, her arms crossed. Will it be worth it to work here with somebody who hated me the second I came in the door? And the tips won’t be as good. She might call Billy’s a shitty little diner, but I was making good money.

A young guy, no older than Tyler, comes out. “Hi,” he says. “I’m Sam, the manager.”

I stand up. He has a head of curly hair and a goatee, and together they make him look like one of the Three Musketeers, which is to say I can smile easily. He offers his hand, and I shake it, knowing I can do this right because Henry made me practice, over and over, until I have a strong, easy grip. He said it shows confidence, and I know it makes me feel confident right now.

“How’re you holding up? Tyler told me what happened. That had to be pretty horrific.”

The sound of breaking glass echoes in my ears. “Yeah, it was pretty crazy.”

“Sit down. Let’s chat.”

I fold my hands, waiting as he scans the application. “You’ve been working a long time.”

“Since I was twelve.”

He nods. Reads the rest of it, puts it down. “Tell me about yourself.”

I hate this question. I frown.

“What do you like to do?”

“Read.” I look at the books on the walls, and the hunger to devour every single one rises up in me again. But that’s boring. “Dance, listen to music.” I don’t add the last one, garden, because that’s about as boring as it gets, at least for other people.

“Have you traveled?”

“No. I was born in New Zealand, though. I lived there until I was six. Does that count?”

“New Zealand, cool! I’d love to go there. Do you remember it?”

“Some.” Wisps of it float across the screen of my mind, blue water and green hillsides, sunshine pouring down like liquid. “My dad still lives there.” Not that we’ve had any conversations in a long time. Like eleven years or so, since my mom got remarried.

“I envy you.” He eyes me, glances over to the bar, leans forward. “Here’s the deal, Jessie.”

“Jess, please.”

“Okay, Jess. I have somebody who’s quitting. Her husband is Army and they’re moving to Georgia, but I’m not sure when.
She’s
not sure when. So it could be a few days, it could be a few weeks, I don’t know. I’m being honest with you here. I’d love to hire you—Tyler says you’re a great server—and, I don’t mind saying, you’re pretty and the customers like that.”

I half-smile. “Thanks.”

“But honestly, you might want to keep looking for something else.

There’s a sting of tears in the back of my throat, but I don’t let them show. I’m going to have to keep applying, keep showing up in strange new places to ask for work, and it just sounds exhausting.