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I eye the impeccably dressed saleswoman, wondering what all Lex can get her to do. Report back on everything that’s happening here tonight? If so, Lex is gonna know I lied to her about who the outfits are for. She’ll know I lied, but not why I lied—to make her jealous. To seeifI could make her jealous. If Lex wasn’t jealous, why’d she throw away my gifts? But if she was jealous, why’d she give me the store’s address?
I don’t understand her. No one seems to. Which is exactly Lex’s goal I’m fucking sure.
So maybe she was jealous and that’s why she gave me the address, to throw me off. Too bad it’s not gonna work. I’m no hollow. I don’t just seek. I find.
Which reminds me…
“Ma? You got it?”
My mom sighs. “Of course I do. I left it in the car to keep it cold, so be sure to grab it when we’re done.” She takes Breckyn’s vacated seat beside me and pins me with a serious expression. “I wish you’d tell me who she is.”
“Who?” I play dumb.
“Whoever the flowers are for.”
I push out my bottom lip.
“Fine.” She laughs, throwing her hands up. “At least tell me something about your life. You keep too much to yourself.”
We sit in a long silence, neither of us wanting to expand on that.
Finally, I tell her, “I got a new job.”
“That’s all I get?”
“What else do you want to know?”
“How are you liking it so far? Is your boss nice?”
I can’t help but chuckle. No, Lex isn’t nice. She’s a nightmare and an unapologetic one at that. But in case the women working here know who my boss is, all I say is, “It’s a job.”
“Doing what?” Breckyn questions.
“Why?” I ask right back.
“No reason,” she’s just as quick to say.
“She hasn’t found anyone to shadow,” Charlie calls out.
Since Breckyn’s ignoring me now, I look to my mom for an explanation.
She shrugs, and says, “Career week. You remember?”
I do. I also remember spending the day I was supposed to shadow someone in a career I was interested in at my girlfriend’s apartment instead. She was a year ahead of me and had her own place, so it came down to following some asshole around all day who I’d never turn into or fuck around with my girl. I’m not saying I made the right decision, but I did pick up some lifelong skills that’ve served me well up to this point. Before that, I’d been eating pussy all wrong because I was always sneaking around with girls, needing to be quick and quiet. With no parents around to catch us though, that girl was vocal…about everything.
“What kind of career are you considering this year?” I ask my sister.
Each year, local high schools require their students to pick a different workforce pathway to research, that way they’re exposed to several options by the time they graduate and are more likely to know what they want to do for the rest of their lives. While freshmen, sophomores, and juniors just do reports, seniors actually have to go out into the world and shadow someone, hopefully after weeding out the careers they decided weren’t for them based on the previous years’ reports. The whole exercise is helpful but I still think seventeen and eighteen is too young to decide something so important. At any time, anything could happen and change the entire course of your life. No amount of research can prevent it or prepare you for it.
“Real estate analyst,” Breck says. “But so far nobody’s open to letting me shadow them. They’re scared to tell me their secrets I guess.”
Shit. That’s similar to what Lex does. And she’s an expert at not giving too much away.
Breckyn flops into a corner chair, huffing, “Shadowing is half the grade.”
“For the project or overall?”
Coming out from behind the curtain, Charlie answers me, saying, “For the project, but she’s acting like it’s for her overall grade.”
