Sometimes It Happens (9 page)

“More like slammed into the back of it without even looking,” Lacey says. She holds her phone out to me. “That’s Danielle Shapiro’s vacation house,” she says. “Isn’t it ridiculously ostentatious? I can’t believe she posted a picture of it.”

“Jesus,” Noah says. “Is your car wrecked?”

“No,” I say. “It’s just a little scratch. But that girl is freaking out about it for some reason.”

“She’s probably afraid you’re going to try and get revenge,” Noah says.

“Revenge for what?”

His eyes crinkle in the middle and get all serious, and suddenly, I feel nervous. Probably because I can tell I’m not going to want to hear whatever he’s about to say. Besides, “revenge” is one word I do not want to hear today. Like, at all. “Hannah, that was Jemima Marshall.”

“Yeah?” I ask. “So?”

“So you know she’s the one that was hooking up with Sebastian that night, right? In Jenna’s pool?”

I slide my head down onto my desk. Just when I thought this day couldn’t get any worse.

Honking. Outside my bedroom window. At five forty-five a.m. That’s, like, earlier than I get up for school. Well, not always. During the three-month period I was hoping Sebastian would ask me out, I got up at five every day. It took me a while to get ready: I had to shower, deep condition, shave my legs, blow-dry my hair, and then coordinate my purse with my outfit. I was always tired and broke due to the fact that I was getting no sleep and spending all my money on clothes and makeup. So eventually that madness had to stop.

Now I grab my bag, shove my feet into my black Sketchers, take one more look at myself in the mirror, and run out to the driveway.

“Hey,” I say, sliding into Noah’s beat-up old Corolla.

“Hi.” He indicates the cup holder between us, where there are three steaming cups of coffee. “I remembered that you like lattes,” he says as he pulls out of my driveway. “But I didn’t know how you take it, so I got you tons of Splenda
and sugar on the side. Oh, and there’s a bag of muffins in the back.”

“Muffins?” I ask, reaching behind me and grabbing the bag.

“Yeah,” Noah says, “Lacey likes to have muffins in the morning.”

“Perfect,” I say. “I’m starving.” I pull out a carrot muffin and take a bite, wondering how this whole thing happened. I mean, one minute I was sitting in the Laundromat, not sure I even had the mental capacity to wash my clothes, and the next I somehow had a job at Cooley’s. The whole thing was actually pretty painless when it comes to job interviews.

Not that I’ve had that many job interviews. In fact, I’ve had zero. But last year in Home and Careers we did a whole unit on how to act in an interview, and they made it seem super complicated, with all these smart things you were supposed to do, and we practiced questions like, “what makes you an ideal candidate for this job?” It was actually pretty pointless, since all the answers they told us to give were complete and total bullshit. Plus we had to role-play with other people, and it was hard to imagine that my partner, Kristin Wiggins, was some kind of high-powered executive interviewing me, since she’s a total alcoholic and I’d just seen her puking in the bushes outside of Jenna Lamacchia’s the day before.

Anyway, when it came to getting a job at Cooley’s, there
was hardly even any kind of formal interview. Noah and I just hung out at the diner that day, talking to Lacey, and eating fries until Cooley showed up about an hour later.

“This girl wants a job,” Noah said to Cooley. Which wasn’t exactly true, but I’d learned enough from my Home and Careers training to know better than to appear ambivalent.

“Hmm,” Cooley said, looking me up and down. He’s a huge man, at least six three, with a lot of chest hair and gold chains that he wears over an open white shirt and tight white pants. He’s very scary, because he looks like a drug lord or something. So even though I didn’t really want the job in the first place, I was nervous.

Cooley reached behind the counter and picked up two soda glasses. “You,” he said, pointing at me with one beefy finger. “Feel these with soda for Cooley.”

“Feel these with . . .”

“He means fill,” Noah whispered.

“Oh, okay.” I grabbed the two cups, put one under the Sprite, one under the Coke, held them there until they were full, and then put them on the counter. I thought about adding, “have a nice day” or “would you like fries with that?” to, like, be impressive and show him I was thinking ahead, but before I could, Cooley said, “You’re hired. You start Wednesday, six a.m.”

It was that easy.

Of course my mom was thrilled. She was, like, almost hyperventilating and kept beaming and telling me how amazing it was and how proud she was of me, and then she made me check my alarm clock five times since she was going to be at work when I left. And even though it was totally over-the-top, typical mother behavior, it actually made me feel kind of good.

But now, sitting next to Noah in the car and nibbling on my carrot muffin, I’m starting to get a little bit anxious. I try to calm myself down, but Cooley’s isn’t that far away, so by the time Noah pulls in a couple of minutes later, my stomach is still flipping all around.

“How do I look?” I ask him, smoothing down the khaki shorts and white Cooley’s T-shirt we have to wear.

“Like you’re going to have a great day,” he says. It’s super cheesy and he knows it, but it makes me feel better.

“What if I screw up?” I say. “Does anyone ever get fired from Cooley’s?”

“Hannah,” Noah says, turning off the car. “You’re going to be fine.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you passed the two-cup test.”

“The two-cup test?” I ask, pulling down the visor and smoothing my hair down in the mirror. I really should have gotten up earlier and put on makeup or something. How am I supposed to get good tips if I look like a mess?

“Yeah, in your interview? When Cooley asked you to get those two sodas?”

“That was a test?”

“Yeah,” he says. “If you fill the two glasses at the same time, you pass. If you fill them separately, you fail. It’s like an efficiency exam.”

“I had no idea,” I say. “Why didn’t you warn me about that?”

Noah grins. “I had to make you earn it at least a little bit.”

“Thanks,” I say and roll my eyes. “How nice of you to make me earn a job I didn’t want in the first place.”

“If you didn’t know it was a test,” Noah asks, “then why did you think you were hired?”

“I thought Cooley was just crazy.” I want to ask Noah if Cooley’s maybe a drug lord, but somehow that doesn’t seem appropriate. I swallow a big sip of coffee, take a deep breath, and then smooth my hair one more time.

“Hannah,” Noah says, reaching out and squeezing my shoulder. “You’re going to be fine, seriously. Come on, you can hang with me for the first half hour, and I’ll show you around.” He unbuckles his seatbelt and steps out of the car, and a second later, I follow him.

But as soon as we get inside, Lacey pops up from behind the counter, seemingly out of nowhere, then grabs my arm and pulls me into the bathroom, leaving Noah standing by the door, holding the bag of muffins and looking confused.

“What are you doing?” I ask. “Why are we—”

“Shhhh!” Lacey hisses. She pushes the bathroom door shut behind us, locks it, and then leans against it and presses her arms out to the side, like she’s afraid someone might follow us in. “Did you see that girl out there?” she asks.

“No.”

“You didn’t?”

“No. You didn’t give me a chance before you grabbed my arm and almost wrenched it out of its socket.” I rub my shoulder, which is all sore from her pulling on it.

“Sorry,” she says, looking sheepish. “But there’s a girl out there, a very horrible girl.” She wrinkles up her nose. “Her name’s Danielle, and she used to be my best friend, until she had sex with my boyfriend behind my back.”

“Ouch,” I say. At least Sebastian had the decency to hook up with some girl I didn’t know. Imagine if he’d hooked up with
Ava
? That would have been a huge disaster, much more so than him hooking up with some random sophomore with toned arms. Also, I’m kind of relieved that this has nothing to do with the spot behind Lacey’s ear. I am so much better at helping with relationship drama than I am with dermatalogolical conditions.

“I know,” she says. She studies her reflection in the mirror over the sink, which is super streaky. Someone really should clean in here. Hopefully that’s not the new person’s job. Not to sound snobby, but cleaning toilets on my summer vacation might be enough to really make me lose it. “So, anyway,”
Lacey says, whirling around, “you have to wait on her.”

“Who?”

“Danielle!” Lacey says, throwing her hands up in exasperation.

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“But I don’t know what I’m doing!” I just got here five seconds ago for God’s sake! I haven’t even had time to . . . I don’t know, whatever it is people do when they first get to work. Drink coffee, catch up on coworker gossip, ease into things.

“It’s not that hard,” Lacey says. She spins me around, puts her hands on my back, and starts pushing me toward the door. “Just go and write down what she wants, then take the ticket and stick it on the counter in the back, so Noah can make it.”

“But—”

“Please,” she says, her green eyes pleading. “I can’t go out there and face her! It might give me an anxiety attack, and I’m out of Xanax.”

Ugh. “Fine,” I say, sighing. “Whatever.” How hard can it be? Take the girl’s order, and give it to Noah to cook. Easy peasy, right? Lacey grins at me and hands me her order pad and a pen. I walk out of the bathroom and over to a table in the far corner of the diner, where a small blond girl is sitting. She’s wearing wire-rimmed glasses, and her hair is all messy. Traces of last night’s mascara are smudging her eyes. “Um, hello,” I say. “Welcome to Cooley’s Diner. My name is Hannah, may I please take your order?”

“I seriously doubt it,” she says, and looks me up and down in a really snotty way. “Where’s Lacey?”

“Lacey? Um . . . Lacey’s in the back, working on something.” A lie, but not really. I mean, Lacey
is
working on something—not coming out here and having to face Danielle.

“I want Lacey,” Danielle says, folding her hands on her menu and looking up at me expectantly.

“Yes, well, I’m Hannah and I’ll be happy to wait on you.” I poise my pen over my pad and give her my best smile. “Can I recommend the home fries? They’re our specialty.” I have no idea if that’s even true, but I have to say something. And home fries seem like a good bet. Diners are always known for their home fries, aren’t they?

“No,” she says, then closes her menu. “Lacey.”

Okay. Apparently now she’s not even talking in complete sentences. I contemplate going into the back and telling Lacey she has to come out here and wait on this girl. But then I glance over my shoulder and see Lacey peering out from the bathroom door, her eyes looking serious and scared. Then I remember what she said about having an anxiety attack, and how she freaked out over that tiny little mosquito bite/mole/freckle/whatever-the-hell-it-was behind her ear. Who knows what will happen if Danielle starts upsetting her? Lacey doesn’t seem like the type who should be out and about in the world without her Xanax.

So I turn back to Danielle and say, “Look, Lacey’s not
available. So you can either order, or get out of here.” I pick up her menu, like I’m going to take it back behind the counter. “What’s it going to be?” Her jaw drops open, like she can’t believe I’m speaking to her like that. (Which, let’s face it,
is
kind of unbelievable, especially since it’s my first day. I don’t think Cooley wants me talking to the customers like that, even if he is a drug lord.)

Danielle recovers quickly, and then says simply, “I guess I’ll get out of here.” She stands up, picks up the glass of water that’s sitting in front of her, and then very slowly and deliberately pours it on the table. “Oops, sorry about that.” She smiles sweetly, then turns around and leaves, the bells on the door tinkling as she walks out.

“Where’s she going?” Lacey asks, running out of the bathroom. She slides into the booth Danielle just left and peers out into the parking lot.

“She’s leaving,” I say. “I guess she didn’t want to order without you. And she spilled a whole glass of water all over the table. On purpose.”

“That little brat!” Lacey says. “I knew it! You wouldn’t believe what she—”

“Hello!” a middle-aged man in the corner yells. “I’ve been waiting for someone to take my order for fifteen minutes.” Lacey rolls her eyes, then shoves a pad in my hands. “Take it away,” she says.

So much for training.

The day flies by even though Cooley has us all working a double, so by the time seven o’clock rolls around, I’m exhausted.

“You guys go ahead,” Noah says, wiping down one of the booths and then flinging the rag over his shoulder. “I’ll stay and close up.”

“Are you serious?” Lacey asks, shaking her long red hair down and collapsing into one of the booths. “You’re going to stay and clean up? By yourself?” She bites her lip. “That’s awesome, but are you sure?”