No plan.
No boyfriend.
No job.
And worst of all?
The food court was off-limits for the foreseeable future, so I couldn’t even wallow in our booth. It was perfectly situated, far away from the greasy fast-food grills but still in view of the special events stage where the Silver Strutters dazzled the lunchtime crowds. They were the best of the senior citizen aerobic dance troupes. I’d joke with Troy about the fierce competition among the various nursing homes, how the spryest octogenarian aerobicizers were actively recruited by coaches trying to lure them away from rival assisted-living facilities by offering artificial hip scholarships.
Troy and I had always had the best conversations in our booth. It was there, as we dipped spoons into chocolate-and-vanilla-swirled spires of Froyo, we had decided to attend different colleges in the same city. It was there, as we dunked cheese french fries into mini paper vats of ketchup, we had said things to each other like, “A relationship needs space to help it grow.”
Ha. I guess the best joke was on me.
I wandered the mall in a sort of fugue state. After drifting unconsciously around the alphabetized concourses for who knows how long, I found myself in front of Surf*Snow*Skate. As much as I hated Troy for letting Helen in on it, I couldn’t help but refer back to our teen-soap-opera hierarchy of employment prestige.
The 90210 Scale of
Parkway Center Mall Employment Awesomeness
1. THE DYLAN MCKAYS
These were the unquestionably coolest jobs requiring the least possible effort.
2. THE BRANDON WALSHES
These jobs also held a certain social cache but with just the faintest whiff of dorkiness that knocked them out of the top tier.
3. THE STEVE SANDERSES
These jobs weren’t looked down upon as hopelessly loserish, but were certainly scrubbier than 1 and 2 (see above). This category was dominated by virtually every job in the food court, including America’s Best Cookie.
4. THE DAVID SILVERS
These were sucky jobs at all the punny stores specializing in very specific and very boring things beloved by old farts: Feet First (orthopedic shoes), Sew Amazing! (fabrics), Deck the Walls (picture frames).
5. THE SAD, SAD SCOTT SCANLONS
The lowest of the low. Woolworths Pet Center dead guppy scooper-outer. Razzmatazz Family Restaurant balloon animal-maker/busboy. Trash can gum-scraper.
Surf*Snow*Skate was the Ultimate Dylan McKay.
The HELP WANTED in the window was not merely a sign.
It was the sign.
At Surf*Snow*Skate, I’d find redemption. I’d show Troy and Helen and everyone else, I deserved more than America’s Best Cookie. I was better than a scrubby Steve Sanders! I was Dylan McKay material!
I strutted into the store and found myself face-to-face with Slade Johnson and Bethany Darling. Voted Pineville High Class of 1991’s Best-Looking Guy and Girl, Slade and Bethany frustrated all fans of beautiful out-of-wedlock babies by rejecting the assumed inevitable and not coupling up. Bethany wore a pink push-up bikini top with high-waisted spandex bike shorts. Slade wore knee-length Jams, but his tank top was cut low around the armpits, almost down to his waist. He was exposing as much suntanned skin as she was, and I was sort of impressed by the store’s equal-opportunity, all-genders approach to sex as a sales tactic.
“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.
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.
“You’re loitering.”
The Asian guy in the Sam Goody tee was technically correct. I was standing aimlessly with no intention to buy. But I also wasn’t bothering anybody either. Except, evidently, him.
“You’re loitering,” Sam Goody repeated. “If you step inside, another one of our sales associates can provide you with all the Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch merchandise your heart desires.”
With his pompadour, rockabilly boots, and black jeans rolled just so, there was no question who had put the Morrissey poster in the window. Maybe he knew why it had been removed.
“For your information,” I said, “I came here looking for Morrissey…”
Sam Goody spasmed with laughter.
“Oh, because you’re so deep?” he asked facetiously. “Because you’re so dark?”
“I am deep!” I protested. “I am dark!”
This only made Sam Goody laugh harder. He removed his thick-rimmed specs and wiped away pretend tears.
“Let me guess,” he said. “There’s a boy you like who doesn’t like you back. Boo-hoo-hoo!”
How did he know? Was the rejection written on my face? Had Troy turned me into such a plainly pathetic cliché? I had no time to ask because Sam Goody wasn’t finished mocking me yet. He was about to use the lyrics to one of my favorite songs against me.
“So you go home and you cry and you want to die?”
No ride.
So I couldn’t go home.
No plan.
No boyfriend.
No job.
Suddenly everything I didn’t want to think about was all I could think about. How dare this smirky jerk weaponize “How Soon Is Now?” to such devastating effect?
I refused to cry. And I didn’t want to die.
But as Sam Goody was my unwitting witness, I wasn’t too far off.