Page 13 of Drawn Together
When she clears her throat to speak, I assume it’s about my caveman table ethics, but she murmurs a low question.
“Are you not working today?”
“Oh.” I straighten. “I am, but not until one.”
I try to take the morning shifts, because it’s nice to have my shift over so I can spend the whole afternoon on sketches without feeling the impending doom of walking into Nook and Cranny as my boss lets me know I am not doing the book displays right in the kids’ corner. Seven-inch ribbons every two feet, Flora. I love working there. It’s quiet and a great way to catch up on my reading and get access to new release ARC copies. And, I get to read books during story time to all theprecious little faces in our little nook. But Edith, at her four-foot-nothing stature, is someone that can haunt your nightmares.
“Are they hiring?”
“What?” I look up from the syrup I’ve been prodding my fork around in. “Who?”
“That bookstore you work at. Are they hiring?”
My eyebrows lift, and I shovel another bite of French Toast in. “Actually, they are.”
There are only three of us working there, since our last cashier had to leave on account of making horribly graphic fanfics about the rest of the staff. Mine, titled Wizard of Want, gained thousands of readers. It was both flattering and scarring.
I look up at her mid-chew, my right cheek poking out as if a golf ball sits in it.
“Do…do you know someone looking?”
Lennon shakes her head, pushing her plate out in front of her, like she needs to signal that she’s done—only three bites from an untouched plate. “I lost my job two weeks ago.”
“What?” My voice is shrill, and a woman two tables behind Lennon glances back at me with a scowl, and I lower my voice. She lost her job? Then, where does she go every day? What even was her job? How did she lose it? Questions are bouncing around my mind like the DVD logo hitting every edge of the TV, but never the corner. I would love nothing more than to have five minutes alone in Lennon’s headspace.
“Long story.” She waves a hand. "I missed this big event, and they called me to tell me I was fired."
I use all my brain cells to piece enough words together to make a sentence. “Um, well, I am— Oh boy.”
“So, can you get me an interview?”
Maybe I should have given it some thought. Maybe I should say I will see what I can do, or that I can give it a shot.
But I do neither of those. I blurt out the words, “Absolutely, of course,” as if I have an ounce of control in the job where I don’t know if the others working there even like me.
The other day, Edith saw me re-shelving some YA Sci-Fi fantasy, not knowing if it belonged in YA or Sci-Fi or fantasy, and when I landed with YA she shook her head and made a disapproving ‘mmm’ noise, before turning to the two other workers there and whispering something. I don’t enjoy jumping to conclusions, but I imagine the conversation was something like Flora is stupid. What a loser. I moved the book back to fantasy immediately.
“Cool, thanks.”
By the time we receive our checks—a strip of paper with lipstick stains in the corner—my plate is completely empty, and my mind is filled with a million more questions.
six
Wordoftheday:futurition
Definition:the state of being about to occur; the condition of something that is going to happen in the future
“We can’t. Not here.”
“Why not here?”
“Someone could walk in; someone could see us.”
“Isn’t that the best part?”
“But—”
“Don’t deny me, my heart. Not anymore. You must know what a desperate man looks like.”
