The bike wouldn’t turn over. I should have put that carburetor in. I started pushing. Maybe I should ride south and find my mom. No, then I’d be taking Meili’s advice to go to Florida. I ran it halfway across the parking lot and still nothing. What a nightmare. Goddamn, I wanted her to see me speed away. I wanted to end this conversation by roaring off. But, no, I was pathetically still there, too broke and incompetent to have a working bike.
I pushed farther so it was clear we were done talking, turned off the gas line, and tilted the bike, since it was probably flooded. I was wiping out the carb with my sleeve when I heard her behind me.
“May Lee,” she said. I ignored her. “It’s May Lee.”
I stopped working and turned around. “What?” Couldn’t I leave?
“M-E-I-L-I,” she said. “My name. ’S not Melissa. So you were right about the macaroni, too.”
Whoa. “You changed your name.”
“Not changed, exactly. A little alias. Temporary, I should think, but who’s to say?” She had her tobacco out, pinching and rolling. Not allowed on school grounds. “We totally blew it, right? ‘Melissa’ looks like ‘Meili’ on paper, but it sounds totally different, especially when you rednecks say it, it’s basically ‘Lissa,’ you know, which sounds nothing like Meili. ‘Hey, M’Lissa!’ It’s a completely different name and a crap one at that. Being called Lissa is like being named Mandy or Pony or Frosting or something.” That made me laugh. Dammit. “Except it’s not funny, not really, because it’s a huge fucking problem, and if my real name got out, I’d be … y’know … worse than in jail.”
“Because…”
She lit her cigarette and picked a piece of tobacco off her lip, which reminded me of girls who dip tobacco, a thing I always found attractive. “That’s just it, isn’t it? It’s a secret. Talking about why it’s a secret’s no different than telling the secret. But, on the positive, now we can both wreck each other’s lives. ’S nice, right?”
“Yes, it is, Meili.”
“Wow. OK. Shit.” She was wide-eyed. “That’s, um … wasn’t ready for that.” It was the first time I’d seen Meili thrown. And like every other time I’d see that expression, it had to do with this. With her name, her secret. Then it was gone. “Don’t ever fucking say that in public.”
“Got it. I’ll stick with Frosting.”
And right there, in the heat of the back parking lot on a Friday, stinking of gasoline, I stepped into Meili’s maze. Not sure I ever found my way out.
“Appreciate that.” She didn’t walk away.
I got on my bike.
“You’re a bit precious, aren’t you? Underneath it all,” she said.
Maybe, Meili. Maybe I am.
* * *
Over the weekend, I heard about a job. Family FunZone was hiring preseason workers to clean out the arcade and batting cages, prep the go-karts, and whatever else Big Don could think of. I’d done it two years ago and made decent money. It was also an audition for working there during the season—I hadn’t passed the audition, apparently—which was a sought-after job, not because of the pay (minimum wage) or the working conditions (harsh), but because you could give your friends free tokens and rides and generally treat your job as a chance to meet girls.
I needed money. I also needed to show my probation officer that I had applied for jobs, which I had been faking for two months.
It’s easy to see now that bringing Meili was a terrible idea. It’s like when I was in sixth grade, and Mitchell, this older kid who lived behind us, said: “Your mom’s boyfriend is a drug dealer.” Of course he was. And of course I knew it. I just didn’t know that I knew it.
“Family what?” Tuesday morning, Meili was searching through her bag before the bell rang.
“FunZone. It’s go-karts and arcades and stuff. They’re hiring people to get the place ready for summer.”
“And I’m coming along why, exactly?”
“Cause it’ll be fun,” I said with a fake grin. “Not really. But it might help me get the job.”
“Help you how?”
I didn’t want to say: because Don flirts with girls. And I didn’t want to say the real, real reason: because I am using any excuse to be close to you, to feel you pressed against me on my bike. “Cause then it’s two high-school kids looking for work, not a felon on probation who needs a favor.”
She squinted at me, then smiled. “Actually, it’s brilliant. I need the money. And it might could get my aunt off my back. If I tell her I’m applying for a job, she’ll stop panicking about the DJ thing. Apparently, in America, ‘DJ’ is a synonym for ‘Takes Date-Rape Drug and Loses Mind.’” The aide walked in and heard the last bit. Meili put on a huge smile and said, “And a good morning to you as well!”
* * *
“Don’t s’pose I can drive this time,” Meili said or asked.
We went right from school Thursday afternoon. If people weren’t already talking about Pyro and the Finger Breaker, they would start now. Pulling out of the school parking lot with a girl on my bike was an announcement.
“No,” I said, climbing on. “You’re not legal.”
“And you’ve got to look macho here at school, don’t you?” She said “macho” with a short A, like “satchel.” “Want me to cling to you like a little girl?”
Yes.
“Try not to fall off,” I said.
“I’m not getting paralyzed, OK, so—”
“I know, I know. If you fall off and get paralyzed, I’ll turn around and run you over repeatedly.”
She lit her cigarette. Still not allowed on school grounds.
“Horrid thing to joke about. I so appreciate that, Bug. As a thank-you, I’ll be super girly on the back of the bike. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
She was. And I did.
That’s Meili in a moment. I shock her with a joke the way she shocks everyone else. That makes her so happy she sarcastically acts girly “to please me,” but actually to mock me. But then I do like it. And she knows I like it. And she enjoys that. Plus a few more layers I’m not smart enough to understand.
“Girly enough?” she called out as we hit the pavement, hugging me tight.
Family FunZone was at an otherwise desolate crossroads on Route 12. It had expanded over the years: laser tag, mini golf, and, the real breakthrough, a liquor license and a beer garden. That made it a huge hit in Unionville: basically a bar with childcare. My mom would take me there and give me, like, a dollar twenty-five, telling me to bum tokens off my friends while she partied.
Riding into the dirt parking lot, overgrown with grass from the wet spring, I realized I desperately wanted this job, and for the whole summer, not just preseason. I would have money, something to tell my PO, and an actual social life. I got my hopes up.
I never knew with the fire. Did people hear about it? How big of a deal was it? Seen one way, burning a seven-year-old is no recommendation for working at an amusement park. Seen another way, being on probation is pretty common around here.
I got off the bike feeling positive. Meili would insulate me from my reputation. I could ride her charm to an opportunity, work my ass off, and earn the job.
Some older guys were already hired. I approached a guy power-washing the awnings. He saw me, but it took him a while to turn it off.
“Is Big Don around?” I asked.
“What do you need?”
“I’m here about a job.”
He looked at Meili and kept looking at her as he said, “He’s out. Should be back soon if you wanna wait.”
“Thanks, man,” I said, but he had already started the power washer.
We sat at a picnic table scarred by cigarette burns and carved names. She took out her tobacco, but I shook my head.
“Big Don doesn’t like smokers. They take too many breaks.”
“Do they? Good to know.” She put it back in her bag and looked around. “God, this place is amazing. To’ally American. This is what we picture you Americans doing:
you drive a huge pickup truck here and drink beer and shoot guns and race a go-kart, and then you get all rowdy and decide to invade a country or something.”
“Sometimes we invade first.”
“And celebrate here.”
“Yup.”
“Nice.” A long exhale. “So strange.”
“What’s that?” I childishly hoped she was about to confess feelings for me. Seriously? At Family FunZone in the middle of the day?
“I’ve been so many different places. Lived so many places. And every one of them is … permanent. People were living there, and they’re still living there. Like this place, it’s been here for ages, and it’ll be here forever. But I’m floating.” She reached instinctively for her tobacco, then remembered. “It’s like, what a hellhole, right? I would hate to spend my whole life here. I can’t believe people live their whole lives in this depressing place. Sorry, Unionville, no offense. But really.”
“None taken. Unless you’re saying I’m depressing because I spent my life here.”
“Your life isn’t over yet.”
“Depends who you ask.”
“Seriously, it’s not a place I want to live at all, and still, I’m sitting here”—she looked around and then at me—“jealous. I’m actually jealous you live here, and every year the FunHole opens up, and you go back, and it’s yours, you get to keep it. That’s the thing, you get to keep it, even … what?”
I was grinning. “Nothing.”
“No, what?”
“You said ‘FunHole.’”
“What is it?” She looked around. “FunZone? Sorry. Stupid name.” She switched to her bad Southern accent. “Ah’m een mah Fun Zown naow.”
“Stupid name, but don’t go around talking about your FunHole.”
“None of you blokes are getting near my FunHole. I don’t care how big this Big Don is, all my FunHoles are off-limits.” I laughed. Big Don’s SUV—not a pickup truck, for the record—pulled in. “D’you want this job?” Meili asked.
“I do.”
“Badly?”
“Very.”
“Right. I’m going to pull out all the stops, ’K? Don’t judge me.” She stood and shifted into a different body, all posture and alertness. “And I said ‘FunHole’ on purpose. I think I did anyway. So you were laughing at my joke, not at me. Probably.”
Big Don walked past, uh-huhing into his phone. He looked Meili up and down but didn’t stop. I would have waited meekly outside, but Meili went striding in after him, so I followed. The arcade was empty and windowless, more like a garage. The games were stored in shipping containers behind the mini golf. Rolling those huge machines over bumpy grass was one of the many sucky tasks of opening the FunZone.
Big Don leaned over a table covered with papers and tools and empty Big Gulps, his baggy no-name jeans sagging while I tried not to look. I was afraid Meili would be horrified by the place, but she was still at full attention, slight smile, bright eyes.
“Alright, yup,” was Don’s goodbye. He put the phone down and kept writing. After a long while, and without turning around, he said, “What can I do for you?”
“Hello,” Meili said brightly. “I’m Melissa Young, and this is Jason Wilder. We understand you’re hiring, and we are very interested in working at Family FunZone.”
“OK.” Don was still writing. He finally turned around and, pleased to be reminded that a cute girl was here, gave a half smile to Meili. “You know what the work is?”
“Yes, Jason worked here two years ago, isn’t that right?” She turned to me.
“Yeah,” I said. Don didn’t seem to remember.
Silence. Then Meili jumped back in. “He described the work in great detail, and we are both eager to start as soon as you might need us.”
“It’s dirty, sweaty work, sweetheart. Sure you’re interested?”
Sweetheart. I braced for Meili’s sarcastic comment.
“Don’t let my appearance fool you,” she said, smiling. “I’m stronger than most men.”
“It’s not like working the arcade,” he said, still talking only to her. “We aren’t hiring for the season yet. This is manual labor.”
“I was taught you get hired for one thing: to do exactly what you say you’ll do,” she said. “That is what I promise. When you see how dedicated and responsible we are, I have no doubt you’ll want us working here all season.”
“Where’d you get this one?” he asked me.
I didn’t even know how to answer that honestly, let alone how to answer it in the middle of begging an asshole for a job.
“Oh, she, uh…”
“I’m an exchange student,” Meili said, saving me.
“Where you from?” Don asked.
“Hong Kong.”
“I was gonna say China,” Don said.
“Right.”
“But you’re from Hong Kong.”
“It’s part of China, actually.”
“Is it? Why don’t you sound Chinese?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You look Chinese, but you sound like you’re from England.”
“Oh, right. At my school in Hong Kong, we learn English from British people. So we, you know, talk like them.”
Don looked at me. “You’d never expect that, would you? A British voice coming out of a Chinese face.”
Oh, shit. Here it comes. This is where Meili lays into him.
But she kept smiling, which she never did unless you made her laugh.
Don pointed vaguely at the table. “Write down your names and phone numbers. We’ll call if we need you.”
“Thank you, sir,” Meili said. “Any opportunity you give me will be hugely appreciated.”
Me.
He nodded with a quick “OK” and started looking through a pile on the desk. Meili took a notebook out of her bag and started writing.
Now came the part I hated. “Sir, I was wondering if you could sign this. It shows that I applied for a job, which I’m required to do because of a program I’m in.” Keep it vague. Could be vocational.
“Program?” he asked.
“It’s adjudication, something I’m required to do,” I said, hoping the term would be meaningless. I was an Adjudicated Juvenile Delinquent.
“Yeah, I heard you got in trouble. Pretty serious, huh?”
What do you say to that? “Yes” means you are in serious trouble. “No” means you don’t take it seriously.
“I made a mistake, and now I’m getting right.” I handed him the crumpled paper.
“Good luck with that,” he said, which sounded like: no job for you here. He scribbled a meaningless mark on the signature line. I could have done that.
These goddamn papers. So many people gave me papers, and the papers had all the power, told you who you were. Teachers, cops, social workers, lawyers, counselors. The people act powerful, but it’s the papers. Until the lawyer hands you the court order, he’s just a self-important prick with a bald spot. The paper makes him real. Paper says you owe money? Pay up. Paper says you threw the first punch? You did. Paper says you’re a screwup who has to apply for jobs or go to jail? Put on the SCREWUP hat, cause it’s true.
That’s why I’m writing things down. You think papers are truth? I’ll give you some damn papers. Here’s my overdue notice, assholes; here’s my summons.
“Name and phone number,” Meili said coldly, pushing the notebook on me, then turning brightly to Don. “Thank you so much for your time. I’m sure you must be busy. And we look forward to hearing from you.” She extended her hand.
Don looked confused, unanchored. He usually flirted from a position of power, leering at teenage girls who needed work. Meili was young and female, but not submissive.
“Yeah, fine,” he mumbled, shaking Meili’s hand and turning to walk out. He was back on the phone within five steps.
Meili had written MOTIVATED, HARDWORKING EMPLOYEES across the page, which seemed over the top. I put it on Don’s desk. Meili grabbed it and taped it
to the wall.
“Don’t get lost in the shuffle.” She looked around, testing to see how visible our names were, then moved them up to eye level.
We walked out into the blinding sun. Big Don, still on his phone, sped around on his mini-forklift, carrying a roll of fencing across the parking lot. Zooming around on the mini-fork was a favorite pastime of his, something he wrongly thought looked manly.
Back at the bike, Meili returned to her pre–job search self. “God, I want to put a cig in my Chinese face, but I s’pose I should wait, shouldn’t I? Can you believe he said that?”
“That was so creepy.”
“Right? Thank you.”
“The whole conversation was crazy,” I said. “What happened in there?”
“Honestly? Americans say stuff like that all the time.”
“But what happened with you?”
“Me?” She looked at me. “Oh, that’s called getting a job. I said: don’t judge me. I know what I’m doing.”
“Clearly.”
“Piss off. You likely ruined it with your little prison paper.”
“I had to get that signed,” I said.
“Right now? You needed it signed this minute?”
“Yeah, I have to show my PO.”
She shook her head and got out her tobacco, forgetting again. “You don’t mention it when you’re applying. Either he gives you the job, in which case you don’t need it, or he doesn’t, and you go back later and get him to sign. Ending a job interview by saying you’re a criminal and you’re only applying for the job because you’re required to? Ludicrous.”
Was that a job interview? “That’s not the only reason I’m applying.”
“But it sounds that way, doesn’t it? Every boss meets twenty people a day who want work, and you gave him a reason to cross you off the list. You have to give him reasons to put you at the top of the list.” She shook her head. “You didn’t even smile.”
“Why would I smile?”
“Because it makes people want to hire you.”
“Where do you get all this stuff?”
“What do you mean?”
“Smiling, and twenty people a day, and ‘the only job is doing what you say you’ll do.’”
She grinned. “That’s nice, isn’t it? That’s all my dad. He’s brilliant. I’ve seen him take complete country people, uneducated people, and train them up; like, three months after leaving their villages, they’re building managers, project managers. Swear, he should write a book.” She put the rolled cigarette behind her ear. “What?”
Wilder Page 6
