Home > The Eighth Girl(8)

The Eighth Girl(8)
Author: Maxine Mei-Fung Chung

“Alexa!” My Reason sings through the crowd of people. A maroon beret placed on top of her neat Dorothy Parker bob. Her signature look, acquired two years ago when she started work at Jean&Co.—a clothing store for denim nuts, those who use a coat hanger to pull up zippers on the tightest of jeans.

Three hairy guys who appear to be in their late thirties look up and follow Ella with their eyes as she glides toward me. Watch her as she kisses me square on the mouth. She turns to the men, then drops the mint sweater seductively off her shoulder and smiles.

I spot a copy of Sartre’s Being and Nothingness resting on the table, obscured by women’s style magazines. Philosophy and fashion not the easiest of bedfellows, yet add a dash of art and it makes for a lively ménage à trois.

“Hey, Simone,” I say.

“Hey, Bangs,” Ella flirts.

I reach over and give Grace a hug. She looks up briefly from Snapchat, a yellowing zit on the end of her nose.

“Have you ordered?” I ask.

Ella gives her beret a little tweak. “Meh.” She shrugs, perching her oversize tortoiseshell sunglasses on her nose. “You order. We’ve had breakfast.”

“And it’s a rip-off,” Grace dares, adding: “Five quid for a smoothie!” which is rewarded by Ella’s curt grunt.

A waitress appears.

“Still deciding,” I say.

She sighs only slightly, but immediately I pick up on her irritation. A curl to her plum-tinted lip.

“Snotty cow.” Grace sneers at the waitress’s slim back.

“Shh!” Ella curbs.

“Well, she is! Did you see the way she looked at us?”

Ella picks at delinquent pills on Grace’s red sweater.

“I’ve been thinking,” she says, Grace nudging aside her plucking hand, “I wanna get a new job.”

“How come?” I ask.

“I’m broke,” she speaks bluntly. “It’s all right for you. You can leave Chen’s when your photography career takes off. You’ll be fine, and move on.”

“Move on?”

“To better things.”

“You’re being silly, Ella.”

“Pfft,” she rejects with a flick of her wrist. “Anyway, did you send your portfolio in for that job you wanted?”

“Yeah, I included those portraits of you that I took on the heath. Remember?”

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I remember. So what now?”

“I guess I just wait and see if I get an interview. It would be so amazing to work for Jack Carrasqueiro. You know, I even based part of my college thesis on his photography.”

“I’m sure you will,” she says, sulking. “You’ll probably get the job too. Then what will I do?”

Currently I work part-time in a Chinese takeaway on the Euston Road. I’d spotted the advertisement stuck down with two Band-Aids in a window veiled with a grubby curtain and several red paper lanterns while on my way to class my senior year.

Wanted: Person to work. Must be honest and able to add. Apply within.

I was both and needed some sort of income, so decided to give it a shot. My guess is that Mr. Chen took me on because I could (1) add, (2) look relatively honest (I smiled a lot), and (3) speak Mandarin.

Mr. Chen likes to cuss in his mother tongue. Finds it amusing when he hands curt customers their order calling them “greedy pig-swilling radish brains” or “stupid, ugly baboon breath” in Mandarin, all the while smiling and thanking them in pidgin English. I like Mr. Chen. He’s funny. And kind. Insists that I take food home after every shift: “You too thin, you like a stick. Stick insect!” he says, the comment not helped by the nuclear oral stench that radiates from all that raw garlic he insists on chewing. And while I don’t mind working at Mr. Chen’s and indulging his silliness and obsessions with the Queen, it’s my hope that I will eventually have a career in photography and get a job that I love. Indeed, a job that I’m actually good at. Also, Anna was insistent, come to think of it, that I get a “proper” job now that I’ve finished college. So when I saw the photographer’s assistant position with Jack, I applied and hoped for the best.

“Well?” Ella snaps again, defiant. “What about me?”

Grace looks up.

“We both know my mum can’t hold down full-time work,” she starts up again, “she isn’t capable. And I’m sick of having to pay the bills.”

I shrug, wishing Ella would stop being such a bitch, yet knowing Mrs. Colette’s depression has caused many an employer to relieve her of work in the past.

Ella lowers her voice. “So, I heard there’s a job going—”

“Where?” I say.

“The Electra.”

“Doing what, exactly?”

“Reception and bar work.”

“You’d be working with Shaun?”

“He was the one who told me about it. He said he’d put in a good word with his boss.”

“I don’t know. I think it’s a bad idea. Those kind of clubs, I’ve heard they treat the girls real bad and—”

“Listen,” she interrupts, “I’d only have to work two nights to make what I earn at Jean&Co. in a week.”

“But—”

“Two nights!” she insists. “And anyway, I’ve been thinking. I really want a place of my own. Somewhere small, but mine, with my things.”

Grace suddenly looks up.

“Don’t worry, you can always come stay with me.”

Grace smiles.

I take Ella’s hand, impressed by her ambition. The waitress returns.

“Can I get a green smoothie?” I ask.

She turns to Ella and Grace, pen midair.

“That’s all,” I say.

One of the three hairy guys next to us makes a sign for the bill. Noting their distraction, Ella lowers her glasses and, all of a sudden, releases an incredulous laugh for no apparent reason while curving her shoulder in their direction. The amorous performance takes me by surprise.

“Kill me now,” Grace says, hiding her face in her nail-bitten hands.

The guys look over. Bemused and intrigued, I think, with Ella’s outburst. I’ve no doubt that if Ella dropped her cool, her swag, she would still be left with pure, painless beauty, like the promises in Vogue. She removes her sunglasses and leans over.

“So. How’d it go with the shrink?” she whispers.

“Good,” I say. “I like him.”

“Is that a credential, that you like him?”

“Beats not liking him.”

“Is he cute?” she teases.

“He’s my shrink!”

The waitress arrives with my tall glass of goo, which I down in as few gulps as possible, knowing it’s good stuff, but all the same.

Ella pulls a wretched face.

“I hope you’re not gonna become one of those god-awful bores who only eats clean food and has her ass flushed every six months. What’s it called? Colonic, colonic irri—”

“Irrigation,” I say.

“See! You even know the name of it. Vrai?”

“True,” I reply, holding up Being and Nothingness. “But I’ll only stop being a god-awful bore if you leave your boyfriend Sartre at home and stop pretending to be all française.”

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