The manager, who was named Chad, was the shape of a Russian nesting doll (one of the larger ones) and the color of Elmer’s Glue. His blond hair was stretched across his dome and his bulbous blue eyes bugged out of his head like he’d just seen a sexy cartoon lady. Chad settled in across from me, pursed his lips, and made them touch the bottom of his oblong nose.
“All right, then,” he said. “Okay, now. Sydney.”
“Yep.”
“You know that’s in Australia?”
“I’ve heard, yeah. That’s amazing.”
“Oh, sure. You betcha. Great city. Just, uh… just amazing.”
“Have you ever been there?”
“Nope. But I watch videos. It’s on my bucket list!” He chuckled, then shook his head as a wave of sadness washed over his face. “Oh, that bucket list. I got some things on there, let me tell ya. Yeah.” Chad seemed lost in thought.
“You okay?”
“Gimme a minute.” Chad took two. The interview was going well. “Soo…” he continued. “Why do you want to work at the Great American Cookie Factory?”
“’Cause I’ve heard it’s better than the Pretty Good American Cookie Factory.”
I kept my face completely straight. Chad blinked for a second, then burst out in a high-pitched giggle. “Hoo! That is funny. No seriously.”
I leaned across the table and looked him dead in his enlarged eyes. “Because I would kick ass at this, Chad. I would kick fucking ass.”
Thirty minutes later Chad offered me a starting position and ten to fifteen hours a week. It wasn’t much, but it was something. I could work Sundays and pick up the occasional shift after speech practice was over without too much trouble. I’d be clearing just over a hundred dollars a week. All I really needed to do was humble myself and sell some unreasonably large cookies.
A strange feeling settled over me: pride. I could do this. I could find my way in the world. I took a deep breath and smelled the expansive mall air.
“You know, if you need money, I can always give you some,” said Lakshmi, who had given me a ride to the Mall of America.
“That’s really awesome of you, but I think I need to do this.”
“We could say you’re on the payroll. Raise funds. Hell, we could do a GoFundMe page for this and set you up. ‘Secret Agent needs help taking down evil empire. Four thousand bucks.’”
I laughed. “Maybe we can save that for my special spy gadgets.”
“Hell yeah. You could have like a pen that shoots fire. Logan’s like, ‘Attractive girls do better in—aaaaaaah, my face, my beautiful face!’” Lakshmi mimed her face being melted off with flames.
“That might be a little too hard-core.”
“Then he could wear like a mask afterward. ‘Don’t debate me, I’m hideous!’”
Monday night was the quietest night at the Mall of America, but it was still packed with squads of suburbanites flitting from store to store. The buttery scent of popcorn hung in the air like a dream and the gleaming clothing stores beckoned to us. Kids stopped to gape at the tiny helicopter drones that hovered over our heads uselessly, dragging their annoyed parents toward the pop-up kiosks in the center of the halls.
We drifted too close to the center, and a chipper-looking man in a bow tie got in front of us, dubious-looking body lotion in hand.
“I bet you ladies would love to try this—”
“You don’t know me,” said Lakshmi, weaving around him and not breaking stride.
I snickered after we passed. “I want to be you when I grow up.”
“All it takes is realizing that your time and space is important. Like, I’m walking here, and you’re forcing yourself into my space. I don’t need you in my space. I didn’t ask you to get in my space. Do I have a look on my face that says I need to give you money for generic body lotion? No, I don’t. Fuck right off, sir.”
“That’s amazing.”
“If you want to really fit in on the speech team and be a winner, you need to have a take-no-shit attitude. That’s what people respect. Don’t ask for anything, demand everything. Imagine you have the confidence of a mediocre white man.” She laughed.
“That’s how I got a job!”
“See? Now you just need to figure out if you’re being paid less than the boys.”
“Huh.”
“Maybe wait for your second shift before diving into their books, though. I don’t know, I’ve never had a job, but I assume they frown on that sort of thing.”
My mind drifted to Elijah. It had been doing that on occasion, like a default setting that summoned an image of him into my consciousness. Those blue eyes. That mischievous smile, like he was laughing all the time.
And totally in love with Lakshmi.
“How come you aren’t like going out with anybody?”
She arched an eyebrow in my direction. “Um…’cause we’re in high school and the boys are stupid?”
“Right. But like… do you like anybody?”
“What are you getting at?”
“I’m not getting at anything.”
“I don’t like anybody right now,” she said, absently readjusting her ponytail. “I mean, there are like some straight guys who aren’t actively horrible, but they’re not exactly blowing up my phone.”
“Right. Never mind, then.”
We made our way down a long, grinding escalator to the central section of the mall, arriving at its pulsating Nickelodeon heart. The SpongeBob roller coaster loomed over us like a monument to underwater fun and evil at the same time.
It cost about eighty dollars to get in, but the border guard was a kid named Lewis and he knew me.
“I’m just here to see my mom,” I said.
“Word,” said Lakshmi.
“I like seeing your mom,” said Lewis.
“Shut the hell up,” I said.
Lakshmi gave me a subtle thumbs-up.
Mom was stationed at the front of a long, twisting line of kids. They had replaced the original Snoopy figurines with plaster SpongeBobs and piped in chattering SpongeBob-type noises to drive the children into a screeching frenzy by the time they reached the actual ride.
On the weekends the lines were thick with rage and exhaustion, but on a Monday night it wasn’t too bad. Still, Lakshmi moved past the kids with the kind of sweet decorum she used for everything in life—
“Official business,” she said, pushing past a group of eight-year-old girls. “Official SpongeBob business. Hey. Move.”
“You’re cutting!” complained one middle-schooler.
Wrong move, buddy.
Lakshmi turned on him. “I will cut you. You know that? You want to feel what that’s like? You see that girl over there?” She pointed at me. “Her dad’s in prison. So step aside, son.”
The kid stepped aside.
“You’re kind of like a superhero,” I said.
“I know.”
We found Mom at the front of the line. She was wearing her bright yellow SpongeBob shirt and yanking the pull-bar down around squirming kids. She’d give a thumbs-up, and then the teenager running the controls would flip a switch and send ten thousand volts of electricity through the electrified rails, shooting the kids into a spinning maelstrom of nightmares and happy underwater songs.
“Hey there!” she called out when she saw us. “I thought you hated this roller coaster.”
“I do hate this roller coaster. I was not lying.”
Lakshmi raised her hand. “I’ll take it for a spin.”
Another middle school boy complained behind her, and she turned to glare at him.
“What’s going on?” Mom said. “Is everything okay at school?”
“Yeah, um… I just wanted to let you know that I applied for a job.”
“What?” She blinked, confused, and pressed a button after a new group of swarming children made their way to the roller coaster. The car jerked like it had stuck its finger into a socket, and lurched forward. After that car left, another coaster surged to a stop.
“Yeah, I got a job at the Great American Cookie Factory. Felt like I could marry my two great interests in life: money and cookies.”
She was less than thrilled. “You just applied?”
“Like an hour ago. I got the job.”
“It was badass,” agreed Lakshmi. “I think she’s got management potential written all over her.”
“You didn’t think about talking to me beforehand?” asked my mom.
“No. I thought it would be like a cool thing—I could help out with money around the apartment, I mean, not a lot of money, ’cause it’s part-time, but this way Luke doesn’t have to move in.”
She opened her mouth to say something as the manager, a skinny white guy with gauged ears, hand tattoos, and a slightly more official SpongeBob uniform traipsed over. It was like he had an officer’s uniform for Star Trek. He was probably all of nineteen years old and bursting with stupid authority.
“All right, then,” he said, twisting his earlobes. “Let’s keep things moving, Brandi.”
“Absolutely,” she said.
“You are a valuable member of the SpongeBob Team,” he said, eyes squinting a bit. “But this is work time right now.”
“This is actually important, so if you could take it down a notch, that would be sweet,” said Lakshmi.
Mom cut in. “Sorry, sir, I’ll get on it. Guys, I gotta get back to work. We’ll talk about this at home.”
“What the hell?” I asked.
“You’ve got school, you’ve got extracurriculars, that’s what you should be focusing on right now.”
My stomach sank.
“I did this because I thought it would help.”
Skinny manager dude decided it was time to put the foot down. “Okay then, I’m going to say this a second time: If you’re having a personal conversation, it needs to be on personal time. I didn’t get to become assistant manager by letting things slide.”
Lakshmi turned to him and read his name tag. “Let me ask you something, Reggie. Do you ever worry that you’ve become a tool of the man?”
Reggie twisted his long earlobes again. “I’ve made my peace with it.”
“Guys,” said my mom. “You need to go. I’ll talk to you at home, Sydney.”
“Fine,” I growled, taking Lakshmi by the hand.