“Hey!” I announced myself. “I’m here for the job!”
Bethany and Slade did double takes.
“Cassie Worthy?” Bethany squinted at me.
Slade didn’t take his eyes off me.
“Didn’t you like, almost die?” Bethany asked.
“I had the worst case of mono my doctor had ever seen,” I bragged. “But I’m totally fine now.”
“Totally,” said Slade. “Fine.”
“Well, the mono diet is amazing!” Bethany marveled. “You must’ve lost, like, twenty pounds.”
Leave it to Bethany to celebrate my involuntary starvation. I had to take her word for my weight loss because I never stepped on a scale. But I had noticed that my once-snug jeans now slipped past my hip bones. I also had hip bones for the first time in my teenage life, and my belt was cinched at a never-before-seen notch. It wouldn’t last long though. Unlike Bethany—whose entire diet consisted of cottage cheese and Diet Pepsi—I liked eating real food like a healthy human being.
“You just need a few hours in the tanning booth,” advised Slade.
Bethany nodded in agreement. The two of them were sculpted and bronzed to teenage perfection. Slade was undeniably great looking and totally deserved the yearbook superlative, but I’d never found him attractive. Slade was just so predictable with his handsomeness, the quintessence of every uncreative football-playing, homecoming queen–dating, keg-tapping high school stud stereotype. It’s as if he’d enrolled in a master class at the Cobra Kai Academy of Asshole Arts and Sciences but took it pass-fail because he couldn’t be bothered to put in the extra effort required for a unique spin on teenage cockiness.
“Oh! Okay! Thanks!” I said brightly. “So, you’re hiring?”
“We’re hiring,” Slade said.
“Yeah,” Bethany said, “but it’s, like, super competitive. We only take the best.”
No duh, I thought. That’s why it’s a Dylan McKay.
“We’ve got a few routine questions we ask all candidates.” Bethany pulled on the base of the platinum ponytail anchored high on her scalp. “It’s, like, a prescreening to see whether it’s even worth our time to give you an application.”
“Really? This sounds more complicated than getting into college…”
And as soon as I said it, I realized it was a mistake.
“Does that mean you’re only going to be here until September?” Bethany asked.
“Well…” I hedged. “Um…”
“It’s our busiest time of year,” Slade said. “She’d be a big help.”
“June and December are our busiest times of year,” Bethany corrected.
“Just ask her the questions!” Slade demanded, going full Cobra Kai. “And let the head honcho decide!”
“Fine,” Bethany said testily.
Now for the sake of accuracy, I wish I could provide the exact wording of the merciless quizzing that followed. At best, I can only provide a vague approximation that went something like this.
BETHANY: What are the pros and cons of a longboard versus a funboard for a beginner?
ME:?
BETHANY: What’s a goofy foot?
ME:??
BETHANY: Have you ever set foot on a surfboard, a snowboard, or a skateboard?
ME:???
“We can’t hire you.”
I hated the store.
I hated Slade and Bethany.
I hated Troy and Helen.
But I mostly hated myself for wanting the job so badly.
“You don’t know anything about surfing, snowboarding, or skating.”
See above for reference and trust that it was a million times worse than that. Bethany was right. I didn’t know anything about any of those things.
“I can learn!”
“I’ll teach her!” Then Slade got close enough that I could smell the coconut tanning oil that gave definition to the muscles in his shoulders, arms, and abdominals. “I’ll teach you everything I know.”
In two years of middle school and four years of high school, Slade had never, ever spoken to me. A peculiar sound escaped my lips that sounded strangely similar to … a giggle?
“Stop thinking with your wang for once,” Bethany snapped. “You’ll forget all about her as soon as the next set of tatas comes bouncing into the store.”
Slade slowly nodded. I couldn’t tell if he was agreeing with her or tracking the up-and-down tata bounce in his imagination. Either way was bad for me.
“Maybe try Sears?” Bethany adjusted the straps on her bikini top. “They look for your kind of knowledge of everything and nothing.”
“Sears?”
How dare she tell me to settle for a Steve Sanders! There were plenty of Dylan McKays that would be happy to have me. At the very least, I’d be willing to accept a solid offer from a Brandon Walsh but absolutely no lower than that. Sears was desperate, but I sure as hell wasn’t.
Not yet anyway.
I knocked over a revolving display of Oakleys on my way out. It was entirely an accident, but I didn’t apologize. I kept moving without looking back.
If I had Greek-myth Cassandra’s clairvoyance, I would’ve foreseen the next humiliating hours of my life. Please forgive me for bullet-pointing my embarrassment.
I couldn’t identify a single brand, shade, or formulation of foundation for sale at the Macy’s cosmetics counter, and I was shown a $25 bronzer highly recommended for brightening my pasty complexion, and perhaps I would be interested in purchasing a seven-piece Face for All Seasons Gift Set, which was on sale for the low, low price of $49.99 including the tote bag that came free with every Lancôme purchase, because with my warm undertones I was categorically a “spring” and I couldn’t help but consider what that meant on, like, an existential level because maybe my best season in life was already behind me.
The General Cinemas ticket-taker couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen a single film all summer, and when I blamed mono and tried to prove my love for the art form by recalling the last movie I’d watched in the theater, the first one that came to mind was Hudson Hawk, which was a piece of shit that I’d only agreed to see because Troy bribed me with popcorn and Jujyfruits and promised to come with me to see Thelma & Louise, which he never did and obviously never would.
When asked of my dishwashing experience, I very earnestly replied that I sometimes emptied the Kenmore at home without being asked and quickly followed up by inquiring about a hostess position that kept me far, far away from the kitchen and was therefore a better fit for my vegetarian lifestyle, and I was curtly informed that half a dozen shift leaders were already in line for that cushy job, and I’d have to work my way up the Ponderosa Steak & Ale organizational hierarchy from dishwasher to busser to food runner to server to shift leader, which could take years and I did not have that kind of time and also I was already nauseated by the smell of roasting animal flesh.
After the Ponderosa rejection, I circled back to the music store to worship at the altar of Morrissey. This, for anyone who knows anything about The Smiths front man turned solo artist, was counterintuitive at best and suicidal at worst. With legendarily morose songs like “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now,” the Moz was the go-to artist for wallowing in pain, not overcoming it. Perhaps it was for the best that the poster I had admired earlier had been removed from the display.