“Hold out your hand.”
“What the . . .” the man says as he obeys her command and lets her count twenty hundred-dollar bills into his palm.
“Let’s make it double your cost—three thousand dollars and zero questions,” Bethanie says handing over ten more bills. To me she says, “In the car.”
Like the stunned homeowner, I obey. She gets in, backs up to the street, and drives off, tires screeching.
“Let’s hope he didn’t get a chance to get my tag,” she says.
“What just happened?” I ask.
“I saved your butt.”
“And I’m grateful for it, but what’s up with the ATM inside your glove compartment?”
“You know what the best thing is about secrets? Well, the only good thing really,” she says, but doesn’t wait for me to answer. “When someone knows your secrets and you know theirs. It brings you closer together.”
It’s true. Anyone who keeps me from getting arrested, expelled, or getting killed by Lana is going to have my loyalty. That’s how MJ and I became friends. I mean, before we stopped being friends. But the stopping part was MJ’s doing, not mine.
“Now your mom won’t ever know about you driving without a license, and now you know I’m not really broke.”
“So why pretend to be?”
“Langdon doesn’t let anyone in after ninth grade and I really wanted to go there so I applied for the scholarship.”
“So are you not broke, or are you rich? There’s a big difference.”
What I really want to ask is why all the cash in the glove compartment. The only people I know who keep a stash like that are thieves, dealers, and people on the run from the cops. But the only people I know with real money got it illegally since I only know them from Lana’s cases, so my experience is limited.
“One secret at a time,” is all she says.
Chapter 8
To show her solidarity, or to prove we really are bonded after what happened at lunch, Bethanie gives Marco and me a ride to Mitchell Moving and Storage when Marco’s car refuses to start. We have to leave his ancient Pontiac Grand Prix in the student parking lot. During the long walk to her secret parking place, she explains the car to Marco using the rich-uncle storyline I’d inadvertently given her. The fact that I’m the only one she trusts with her secret life of bling may be something we can build a friendship on, unless it turns out she stole it all. She even wishes us luck before she drives away, leaving us to get home on our own. Good thing I have a bus pass.
From the outside, the place seems to be a big nondescript warehouse, but once we’re inside, the main lobby looks like it belongs in some office building downtown—cool and modern with lots of steel and glass. Marco and I are ten minutes early for our interview, so the receptionist hands us both a job application on a clipboard and asks us to have a seat, then disappears down a hall, leaving me completely alone with Marco for the first time since we met. I’ve had plenty of daydreams of what I’d do in this moment, but now that I have it, I can’t think of a word to say. So I study him like I do everyone else, and try to learn things about him I’m too nervous to ask. Like I noticed at lunch today he used his left hand to carry his tray to the table, but used his right hand to open his soda. Now he’s filling out the application with his left hand, but he took notes in French class with his right. He’s ambidextrous. This doesn’t reveal the secrets of his heart, but now I know something about him that I didn’t this morning.
I notice a faint tan line around his wrist, from something he wore recently when the summer sun made him darker, but not since school started because his wrists have always been bare. Believe me, I would have noticed. Times like this I wish my conversational skills were as subtle as my ability to watch people, but they aren’t, so I’m just out with it.
“You usually wear a bracelet. One too small for your wrist, probably.”
He looks up as though he’s already forgotten I was there. I guess he was really focused on that application.
“Not a bracelet, but one of those friendship things, you know—the kind someone makes you from yarn or something.”
Someone like who, I want to ask.
“How did you know that? I lost it right before I started Langdon.”
“I noticed you have a faint tan line there.”
“How do you know it wasn’t a watch?”
“See?” I just realize I’ve reached out and touched him where the bracelet used to be. My face grows hot and I pull my hand back. “The size of the band is uniform all around your wrist. No watch face. And the line is too thin to be a man’s watchband, anyway.”
“That’s crazy. You’re pretty observant.”
Now he thinks I’m a freak, one who stares at his wrists.
“I just pick up on things around me, that’s all.”
“Well, I don’t pick up on things like that. Most people don’t. But that’s cool, like ESP or something. Kind of special.”
I am the least special person I know, so I don’t know whether he’s trying to make me feel better about being a freak, or if he really believes what he’s saying. But the way he’s looking straight into me makes me know he believes it. He thinks I’m special.
“The clues are there for everyone to see, I just notice them when others don’t. More like being a detective than having ESP.”
“Well, however you do it, maybe you can help me solve the case of the missing friendship bracelet.” His phone beeps and he pulls it from his pocket, quickly reads a text, and puts it away again. “I need to find it soon because I’ve run out of excuses to give my girlfriend. That’s the umpteenth time she’s asked if I found it yet.”
Of course there’s a girlfriend. There always is. I don’t want him to see my disappointment, so I just go back to my application and hope he doesn’t notice I hadn’t even filled in my name yet because I was too busy checking him out.
After we finished the applications, Paulette, the office manager, shows us around the warehouse. I’m wondering how she can work around a bunch of guys all day wearing a low-cut slinky dress and still get respect, but somehow she does. Every guy we pass calls her Miss Paulette and shows great restraint by looking at her face and not her cleavage. There isn’t much to see on the tour—the storage area, the loading dock—all of it kind of dark and gloomy. The ceiling in the warehouse is so high that the lights up there don’t seem to make it down to ground level. It smells of wood palettes and diesel fuel. It’s hard to imagine Lissa or her brother anywhere near this place. I can see why Mr. Mitchell is so disappointed. He knows it ain’t ever gonna happen.
The interview turns out not to be one, really. Back at the administrative area, Paulette tells us we have the jobs and she wants to team us with an experienced mover. She makes a call and a minute later, a guy shows up at the door.
“Malcolm, I’d like you to meet Marco and Chantal, your new team. They’ll be starting with us this weekend.”
It’s an understatement to say Malcolm does not look thrilled to meet us. When Marco extends his hand, Malcolm just looks at it until Marco gives up. I guess Malcolm isn’t as impressed by formality as Mr. Mitchell. He greets my “Nice to meet you, call me Chanti” with silence. The only movement from him is his left hand. He has it down at his side, but he’s holding what looks like a ball of modeling clay or Play-Doh. He presses his thumb into it until it begins to squeeze through his fist, then shapes it into a ball again, all with one hand. He does this over and over. It reminds me of Lenny and his mouse in Of Mice and Men. Eeek.
“Malcolm’s a little quiet,” Paulette explains.
Malcolm’s also a little weird.
“He’s been with Mitchell’s for years, but just came back after a short break, right, Malcolm?”
“I liked my old team,” Malcolm says.
“We discussed that Malcolm. When you went . . . on your break, we had to team them with someone else. The world keeps spinning, you know.”
“Make that guy work with
these two. They’re just kids.”
“That’s why I’m putting them with you. With your experience, you can teach them to be quality Mitchell employees.”
I can see how Paulette got her job. Her customer-service skills are excellent. She probably never had to, but I’m sure she could talk down a meth-head who thinks his Tastee Treets value meal is out to get him. Of course, that may be what she’s doing right now. I’m beginning to think Malcolm’s break was at a rehab clinic or maybe one of those rest homes for people who just lose it one day while standing in line at the bank. At least I’ll always be in the van with Marco. If I had to ride around with this guy by myself, I’d just decide to stay broke.
Paulette’s still talking as though Malcolm is as enthusiastic as she is, instead of nuts.
“You’ll start with smaller jobs, like clearing out a kid’s bedroom for empty nesters or partial moves to a winter home. Since Marco is seventeen, he can only drive the small van, anyway—employment laws, you know. At sixteen, Chantal can’t drive at all.”
That works out great since I won’t actually be sixteen for a couple of months. One benefit of being the smartest kid in elementary school is being skipped a grade, which happened to me when I went from first to third. I’m a year younger than your average high school junior, but Paulette doesn’t need to know that yet. I fudged my age on my application, but I figure by the time Paulette learns my true age, I really will be sixteen and by then they’ll be so convinced I’m a model employee that it won’t matter I didn’t tell the whole truth. Or any of it.
“If you do a good job on those, we’ll put you on full-house moves with Malcolm as the team driver and supervisor. We get lots of those in the summer—you kids could make good money if you work full-time.”
She sends poor Marco away with rehab Malcolm so he can learn proper packing technique and get a uniform. A uniform ! First Tastee Treets, then Langdon. If I have to wear another uniform I will scream. It turns out I get a reprieve. I’m supposed to dress business casual, which I hope is nothing like Paulette’s outfit—a little too trendy and a whole lotta clingy for someone her age.
“You two might be our youngest employees yet,” Paulette says, looking over my application. “You must have really impressed Mr. Mitchell.”
Younger than you think, in my case.
“So what is the job exactly?” I ask, hoping I sound mature and businesslike.
“You’ll be the face of Mitchell Moving and Storage to our customers. First you’ll meet with them to assess the job—what they want moved, how they want it stored, what they want us to pack—that sort of thing. Do you have customer-service skills?”
“Definitely. I have worked in a retail environment where I assessed our customers’ needs and delivered the appropriate product in a timely fashion.”
See, that’s what you call embellishing. I was a cashier at the Tastee Treets, but I just made it sound better without really lying. As long as it doesn’t involve a cute boy, I can talk my way into, around, or out of anything. Like the time Crazy Moses came in ranting he was going to sue Tastee Treets, scaring the customers. He said whenever he walked in, he heard voices and they were driving him insane. Instead of telling him the boat had sailed on that one, or that the voices he heard were just the Muzak system, I told him if he heard the voices whenever I was at the counter, it was a code that I’d give him a free coffee. With my discount, it only cost me a buck or two a week. Since I quit, I wonder if Moses is now threatening to sue because he stopped getting free coffee.
“Wonderful,” Paulette is saying. “On moving day, you manage the move—make sure items are packed to our standards, keep the guys on schedule, and deal with any issues that may arise.”
Uh-oh. I detect some BS. “Issues?”
“Well, our clients are all high-end. They’re paying more for our services and they have . . . let’s just say they have high expectations. That’s where your customer-service skills, and a dose of maturity, will really help.”
Translation: rich people going off on me when we scuff their credenza. But I got this. At my old job, I had people going off all the time. Like I said before, I bet Paulette never had to deal with a meth-head coming off his high.
“Don’t worry. I’m used to working with challenging personalities.”
“I think you’ll do just fine, Chanti. I’ll go with you this weekend on your first project assessment. I’ll just need to get a copy of your driver’s license to file with your employment paperwork.”
“But I thought because of the law I was too young to drive at work.”
“You won’t be driving, but we need something on file for identification. Don’t you drive?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m an excellent driver, first in my driver’s education class.”
That doesn’t mean I have a license, though. In all my excitement about the new job, and slight fear of working with weird Malcolm, I’d forgotten I’d have to show proof of my age. I don’t even have my learner’s permit with me since Lana is holding it temporarily. I borrowed her car without permission a few weeks ago and she got a little ticked off about that. So I make a big show of looking in my wallet and being surprised not to find my license, but promise I’ll bring it with me Saturday. I just hope Lana will be so happy I found a job nowhere near our neighborhood that she’ll give me back my permit, and that I impress Paulette so much on Saturday that she won’t mind I tweaked my birth date.
Chapter 9
I’m hanging out with Tasha and Michelle after my interview, telling them about my new job. We’re in Michelle’s kitchen, which looks like the set of one of those cooking shows on cable and nothing like my kitchen. It’s the only room in the house that doesn’t have some kind of cross or Bible in it so it must be the only room Pastor Owens didn’t get a say about how to decorate.
Thanks to her mother working overtime all the time, every appliance is stainless steel—not the hodgepodge of mismatched appliances at my house, where Lana buys what’s cheap, not what coordinates well. There’s a block of knives on the counter that must be crazy expensive because no one in the house can touch them except Mrs. Owens. They even have a cappuccino maker. As you can imagine, Mrs. Owens is a great cook. She always leaves something good in the oven or refrigerator before she goes to her nurse job on the second shift. Michelle and I are fighting over who will get the last pork chop, and eventually I have to concede since it’s kind of her food. Okay, it is her food.
“But I’m a guest. A good hostess always lets the guest come first.”
“Since when are you a guest? Nobody invited you, or Tasha, for that matter. And Tasha had the nerve to bring her sister.”
“She’ll be in there glued to Nickelodeon for the next hour, like she’s not even here,” Tasha says. “I’m watching her tonight so I couldn’t leave her at home.”
“Y’all could have both stayed home instead of coming over here eating my food,” Michelle says. I notice her voice goes up an extra octave when she’s miffed. “Why don’t we ever go to your house, Chanti?”
“Her mother doesn’t like people visiting when she’s not home,” Tasha says.
“I’m starting to wonder if you even have a mother. Tasha, have you ever seen her?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen her. We have known each other since third grade.”
Yeah, and don’t you forget it, Squeak. She was my friend first, though I do appreciate your mother’s baked apples. Maybe I could get to like you after all.
“Well, she’s never home, to hear Chanti tell it. Even when her car is parked right there in front of the house.”
“She’s like Chanti. Not very social. And we don’t go over there because her mother can’t cook,” Tasha adds, helping herself to more macaroni and cheese.
That’s true, Lana is the worst cook, which is why I do most of the cooking, although my skills are limited to anything that comes from the store in a box, bag, or a frozen food container. Which is kind of sad since I love to eat. But the other proble
m with going to my house is Lana’s job. She keeps odd hours, but she’s at home as much as any working parent. I just can’t risk taking friends over there and walking in to find a gun on the dining-room table, or Lana coming out of her bedroom dressed for work, i.e. like a prostitute, because she didn’t know I had friends over. That would be pretty hard to explain. So I shut up about the pork chop and being a guest, and make do with more mac and cheese.
“Guess who got out of jail?” Tasha says, and like she always does when she asks you to guess something, she immediately follows with the answer. “Donnell Down-the-Street. He was out this morning. He came by to see Michelle just as we were leaving for school.”
“How’d he get out?” I ask, wondering if he broke out because I’m sure he was guilty of whatever they took him in for.
“Because he didn’t do it,” Michelle says, sounding convinced.
“He also claims he didn’t cheat on Michelle, and that you lied about seeing him and Rhonda Hodges making out at the movies,” Tasha says, adding, “He had some four-letter words for you Chanti.”
“Now why would I lie about that? Michelle, think about it. What would I gain from telling you your ex is a lying cheat?” I mean, other than a beat down for my trouble.
“Like Donnell said, you’re probably just mad because me and Tasha are girls now.”
“Chanti’s still my girl,” Tasha says, “but I’m beginning to think it may not be safe hanging around her with all these criminals on her case.”
“Donnell is not a criminal,” Michelle protests.
“Yeah, right,” Tasha says. “All I’m saying is Donnell and MJ are two people I don’t want to be on the bad side of.”
When I get home from eating all Michelle’s food, Lana surprises me with dinner.
“I made my famous tuna-artichoke-raisin casserole.”
My Own Worst Frenemy Page 6
