Know Not Why: A Novel (2 page)

It’s weird that he’s running his parents’ dinky
craft store instead of playing at Carnegie Hall or curing cancer or
whatever. Arthur Kraft Jr. wasn’t the guy you’d vote Least Likely
To Succeed in the yearbook, y’know? It’s pretty sad, to be
honest.

“Heyyyy, man!” I exclaim as I step into his
office, figuring I can use our history to my advantage. “Haven’t
seen you in awhile! How’s it hangin’?”

“Just fine,” Arthur Jr. answers crisply.

“You still doing that … stuff you used to
do?”

“I’ll need you to be more specific.”

He stares at me, waiting. For specifics.

“Never mind,” I mumble.

I’m pretty sure he has no idea who I am.

“All right then,” he says, not even making the
slightest attempt to turn the moment any less awkward than it is,
and it’s here that I remember: this guy sucks. I’m pretty sure he
used to steal lunch money and shove kids into their lockers.
Terrorize the hallways, flanked by his first soprano bitch
posse.

“Have a seat,” he instructs me. Like I don’t
have any other options, just because I’m applying for a stupid job
at his stupid little sissy store.

My thoughts drift back downstairs, to Kristy –
Kristy
– and it gives me strength. So I do have a seat, and
it begins.

It’s like ten minutes of “it says here on your
résumé…” and “what would you say qualifies you to…” and I think I
talk my way through it pretty well. While I do, to power me
through, I pick out things that I hate about Arthur Kraft Jr. –
nay, Arthur Kraft
the Second
. He is, no doubt, the kind of
hoity-toity prick who would insist upon being a ‘the Second.’ He
has, like, woman eyelashes. But not the kind of eyelashes that any
woman can actually attain. They’re mascara commercial eyelashes,
the eyelashes you want but can never have. Amber likes to rant
about the injustice of that very thing, that random men get
bestowed with perfect eyelashes while she and all other females
have to battle lash curlers and mascara and still, still they never
look as good. Arthur Kraft Jr. has those eyelashes. Amber would
flippin’ hate this jerk. He is also really tall – well, a few
inches taller than me, which is
tall enough
, like, stop
growing, Godzilla – and really skinny. His hair is this sandy
blonde color, and it looks newly trimmed. Probably by Heather
Grimsby next door: it only makes sense that these two people who
both happen to really freakin’ suck would be united by some higher
power to form a Suck Alliance.

And he’s wearing an apron. It’s supposed to look
adorable and hand-crafted, like Grandma made it with love. It’s the
most depressing thing I’ve ever seen. He’s wearing a tie, too.
Underneath the apron. Like – give it up, man; are you fifty?

“Finally,” he says, “what prompted you to seek
work at Artie Kraft’s Arts ‘N Crafts, specifically?”

For a second, I imagine telling him the truth.
Maybe it’d be this moment of male bonding and solidarity, all,
‘Really, man, I’m just trying to get some action, you dig?’ (Not
that I’d say ‘you dig,’ who even does that?) I imagine him getting
all, like, ‘oh snap!’ and demanding a five.

But here’s the reality of the situation: Arthur
Kraft the Second would never say ‘oh snap!’. It’s the impossible
dream.

Instead, I say, “I really like the atmosphere of
the place. It seems like a great work environment, and it’s a nice,
timeless business. Like, you’ve got your iPads, you’ve got your
Wiis, but this is the kind of stuff that
endures
.” Whatever,
man, I can BS with the best of ‘em. English major power. “And
you’ve got, like, that new Holly’s that just opened, for example.
But it’s not the same. I think that this kind of thing – arts, and
crafts, and all – it’s supposed to be from the heart, you know? And
you’re just not going to get that with something that large-scale.
This, this is intimate. You guys
mean
it when you sell those
glue guns, and sequins. And I think that’s great. That’s something
I want to be a part of.”

Bshwinggg! As predicted, the Holly’s mention one
hundred percent melts his cold dead lame heart. He loves me! He
even looks like he’s about to smile. There is the slightest bit of
movement going on in the general left-corner-of-his-mouth area. Do
I sense a smile, Boss Man? Yeeeeah, that’s right, I thought s—

Smirk? What the hell?

Smirk?

“Kristy told you,” he surmises wryly, “how I
feel about Holly’s.”

“What? No.” But he’s rocking this keen,
discerning gaze, and it’s accentuated by his Glorious Eyelashes,
and I don’t know, man, I crumble a little. “She maybe mentioned
something.”

“Hmm,” he says.
Hmm.
Like that’s an
answer. That’s not even a word. That’s a frickin’ sound. A dog
could say ‘hmm.’

I am so ready to get out of here.

Fortunately, he seems to be thinking along the
same lines, because he stands up. “All right then. I think I’ve
heard everything I need to.”

“Cool,” I say, standing up too, and I stick my
right hand out. Custom dictates.

“No thank you,” Arthur Kraft the Second says,
squinting warily down at it. “I don’t think that will be necessary.
Or appropriate.”

“What?” I ask blankly.

“The –” He pauses. A frown creases his forehead
– he’s got a weird forehead, too, what a weirdo, how does he even
get up in the morning? – and he curls his fingers awkwardly into a
fist. Then he halfheartedly punches the air. It takes me a minute
to even figure out what he’s doing – like, what, did he think I was
going to
punch
him?

And then I get it.

“I wasn’t going to
fist bump
you,” I say,
offended at the realization. “I’ve been to job interviews before. I
know how to shake hands.”

“Ah.” He actually looks a little chagrined.
Haha! Yeah, that’s right, prepare to get put in your
place
,
bitch! This ain’t your momma’s arts and crafts store no more. (I
don’t know. I think he’s giving me mad cow disease or porphyria or
something, just with his general presence.)

“I can shake your hand, dude – sir.” Jesus, is
this my life? Calling Arthur Kraft the Second ‘sir’?

He stares down at my hand for a minute. Or,
well, a couple seconds. ‘A minute’ is exaggerating.

At first.

Seriously, he just keeps
staring
, like,
what, is he trying to sever it with the power of his mind? There’s
no way around it, this guy is weird.

“Unnecessary,” he determines. After eight years.
“I’ll contact you in a few days.”

“’kay,” I say uncomfortably. “Thanks.”

“Mmmhmm.” There he goes again. Jeez.
Words
, Encino Man. Words are the future.

Still, as I step out of the office, I’m feeling
good about this. By the time I head down the stairs, through the
supply closet, and back out into the store, I may have even
upgraded to great. Kristy beams at me from where she’s standing
with a customer, some kindly old lady who smiles too. See? This is
a positive environment. This is a badass place to be.
Besides, Kristy sees me being nice to old ladies? Huge turn-on,
right? Girls really like that kind of thing. Except Amber, who
won’t look at a guy twice unless he’s got a British accent and a
crazy-ass wife locked in the attic, or whatever, but she is clearly
abnormal.

“How’d it go?” Kristy asks, bouncing on over to
me.

“Good, I think.” I wisely decide to leave out
the Fist Bump That Wasn’t anecdote. It’s time to start burying that
memory.

“I really hope you get it,” she says, putting a
hand on my arm. Her fingernails are painted bright pink, and
physical contact? So not gonna complain.

“Thanks,” I say. “We’ll see what happens.”

What I really mean is ‘I’m gonna ride you more
times than the Matterhorn at Disneyland,’ because IT IS ON, but,
wow, in a
craft store
with an
old lady
like fifteen
feet away? Just – not the thing to be thinking. That, that’s in bad
taste.

Chapter Two

I get the job.

Not the accomplishment of a lifetime, but it
does the trick. The people around me are sent into a frenzy of
ecstasy. My mom makes a cake. A
cake
. My mom never bakes
when there’s not a birthday involved. Apparently my ability to get
a just-over-minimum-wage job that requires (basically) no skills is
about as miraculous as the occasion of my birth
.
Really, it
gets me feeling pretty crappy about myself. Do these people think
I’m totally useless?

I’m not, for the record. I’m useful all over the
place. I can figure out remote controls, no matter how many buttons
are on them, and most of the time I’m an excellent jar opener. I’m
a badass speller. I know how to use a semicolon. I’ve got
skills.

Anyway, I roll with it, because it seems to make
my mom happy. Ever since we lost my dad a couple years back, happy
hasn’t been her specialty. Besides, I’m not going to pitch a fit
about an opportunity to eat cake. That’d just be tacky.

So she makes me drag Amber and Mitch over for
dinner, and afterwards she busts out a bottle of champagne and the
cake and we all sit around and try to figure out what goes on at an
arts and crafts store. The cake isn’t really that impressive: it’s
just an out-of-the-box deal, but she writes ‘CONGRATS, HOWIE’ on it
in green icing, and that’s really cool of her, like, infinitely
cooler than necessary.

“You’re going to be forced to become a yarn
expert,” Amber predicts, obviously getting some sick pleasure out
of the idea.

“Captain Yarn,” Mitch contributes,
snickering.

“That’s brilliant, Mitchell,” Amber says,
rolling her eyes.

Mitch replies by dragging his finger along her
slice of cake and licking the frosting away with flourish. She
makes this disgusted noise, but keeps eating anyway. It’s fairly
standard Amber and Mitch interaction. When Mitch and I first got to
be buds a couple years ago, Amber couldn’t stand him. Maybe because
Mitch’s way of saying ‘hi, nice to meet you’ was to merrily throw
gummy worms at her. (Mitch is very good at junk food.) But she
warmed up to him after awhile, once she discovered that she could
lecture him and scowl disapprovingly and chastise him with his full
name all she wanted and he’d never really mind. This way, she has
an outlet for her inner bitch-snob, he has somebody to tease with
sugary snacks, and I don’t have to put up with having two best
friends who hate each other. All in all, it’s a pretty nice
deal.

“I think that it’s very sweet, this job,” Mom
says, tousling my hair affectionately-slash-mockingly. “My little
boy, getting in touch with his artistic side.”

“Yeah,” I say, “Just watch. Soon, I’ll be able
to scrapbook with the best of ‘em.”

“Captain Scrapbook,” Mitch says admiringly.

“Seriously?” Amber says to him.

My mom reaches over and squeezes my hand while
Amber and Mitch keep on squabbling. “I’m glad you’re doing
something new, hon. It’ll be nice to have something else going on
besides classes, hmm?”

She worries a lot about that. Like I’m not
living life enough, or whatever, because all I do is go to class
two nights a week, and the rest of my time is pretty much devoted
to watching reruns of whatever’s on TV. Because the thing is, it’s
not like I’m hurting for money. My mom doesn’t have any financial
trouble, between the life insurance after Dad and teaching at the
college and – I kid you not – writing romance novels under a
pseudonym (which I’m not gonna tell you, because you’ll find her
books on the shelf of any grocery store, and the fewer people that
know what manner of bosom-heaving freakytimes she’s capable of, the
better). I know it’s lame – something beyond lame, lame to the
highest power, lametacular to the max – to have my
mommy
pay
my living expenses when I’m twenty-frickin’-two, but I look at
where my life is right now, and I figure, what the hell. Besides,
she never complains about it, or even brings it up to me. And at
least I do my own laundry. Most of the time.

“Yeah,” I say to her, “it should be okay.”

I feel a little guilty as she grabs my plate and
puts another slice of cake onto it without me even having to ask.
What would my
mom
think if she knew the whole reason I was
doing this wasn’t to get a life, to take on some responsibility, to
go ‘Fine, this is what I’ve got, I’m gonna make the best of it’?
That I wasn’t exactly thinking with my head when I made this
decision? And the worst part is that I don’t think she’d be
horrified, or anything: she does write those books. She gets it.
Stuff’s gotta throb and heave and pulsate sometimes, it’s just the
way humans work. No, it’s worse than that: I’m pretty sure she’d
just feel guilty, like, terrible, like, ‘oh, if he’d gone to a
real
college he’d have a girlfriend like a normal boy his
age, I’m ruining his life, he’s going to die a withered old pervert
because I yanked him out of the real world and he never got to
develop any social skills.’ I know she goes off on those guilt
trips sometimes, so I try to seem content here. I don’t know if I
really succeed, but I do try.

I even sort of lie for her benefit. She likes to
think that I’ve got some secret buried
thing
for Amber, this
true latent love that I’ll realize sooner or later, and I don’t
contradict her because I think it makes her feel better to believe
it.

Honestly, I have wondered about it once or
twice. Just because, how convenient would that be? But I’ve tried
to look at Amber that way, and … nothing happens. She’s beautiful
and she’s brilliant, but whatever’s supposed to be there isn’t.
Plus, there’s her whole everlasting thing for my brother Dennis. If
I did like her, odds are it’d be pointless.

But whatever, it’s cool, I’ve got Kristy now.
Not that that’s going to be true love, but hey, close enough. Maybe
I’ll bring her over to meet my mom sometime. Not in a big This
Means Something way, but, ya know, casually. Just so Mom’ll feel
better about me and my prior lack of ladies.