Lakewood(7)

Lena kept her face blank, pleasant as she stood. The manager also stood and took a step backward.

“You are a very small person, you know that?”

“Oh. I thought five-foot-two was tall.”

“Whoever told you that was wrong.” His eyebrows were raised, as if he couldn’t believe she knew someone so stupid, or would be so simple as to believe that stupid person.

She nodded, reminding herself there was no point in trying to joke around with an old white man who thought you were an idiot.

On the walls were large prints of burritos in the style of different artists. An Andy Warhol screen print, Van Gogh’s sunflowers with burritos instead of flower petals, a Lichtenstein burrito that was crying a single tear, a burrito with Frida Kahlo flower crown and eyebrows that Lena thought someone would complain about within a day of the location opening. The space smelled good, like sautéed red onions and fresh dough, though the restaurant wouldn’t open for another few weeks.

“There’s no way you can be the burrito. But maybe you would be a good Ms. Blue Corn Chip. Smile, please.”

Lena bared her teeth.

“Bigger. People need to see you from their cars. Come on, I know you have it in you.”

Lena smiled.

“Smile like you’re looking at your best friend.”

She pictured an alligator plotting against her enemies. A large, openmouthed grin.

“People like to feel invited.” He gestured at her mouth. “Keep trying.”

She stretched her lips the widest they could go, knowing she was making more of a welcome-to-my-death-house face than a spend-all-your-money-on-these-burritos face. Her cheeks ached after 10 seconds of it. Lena held it another five, another 10, felt her cheeks trembling, and stopped.

“Your teeth are a nice shade of white,” the manager said. He wrote a note on his clipboard and underlined it. “We would only need you three days a week, during the first two months after the grand opening.”

The manager ran his fingers over his mustache. He tapped the side of his face, then spoke as if offering Lena a hundred-thousand-dollar salary with unlimited vacation time. “And if you do well at this and can prove that you’re reliable, we can talk about you moving up to the assembly line.”

“How much does being the chip pay?”

“Nine-twenty-five an hour. And if you make it to the assembly line, you’ll go up to nine-fifty.”

“I’ll take it,” Lena said. Money was money.

“We’ll call you,” the manager said.

Burrito Town was 10 minutes away from her mother’s house. The neighborhood was gentrifying. Office buildings, the historic old supermarket being turned into a canoe-and-worthless-nice-looking-leather-object store, and a log cabin placed on top of a high-rise. It was supposedly used as an Airbnb. Urban camping was apparently a thing. As Lena drove four blocks down, the barbecue restaurants and bookstores—new and old—were transformed into scorched and crumpling buildings. A group of white kids with video cameras and microphones were breaking into a Victorian home that had once been painted an incredible grape-soda-purple color. It was now patchy with brown spots, almost lavender from the sun.

Down the block was a park where kids she went to high school with spent their days, their skin already fading, their eyes dulling. At least three of them had already overdosed since graduation. Although, Lena knew, this was more of a statewide problem than just the city’s. The kids from Tanya’s rich-kid school were also starting to die. Open lots of land that were becoming meadow, some that were gardens. Lena drove past sudden stretches of a liquor store, a Church’s, apartments, the street with a legendary pothole that could swallow a whole tire, though that could be any street now that it was April.

It was the first no-coat-at-all day of the year and people were walking slow. Despite the interview, the warmth and how alive everything was made her heart rise with its spring joy. On her block there were buds on the trees. Kids on bikes. All the neighborhood aunties sipping decaf with their Bibles on their laps while gossiping. There was an empty chair at the table now, and it was somehow only nice to see that they still left space for Miss Toni, as if she was running late as usual.

Home was the only house on the block with no windows open, curtains drawn. Lena paused in her driveway to take a picture of the large oak tree in the front yard. She sent the picture to Kelly. They rarely texted in words but were having a conversation that darted between day-to-day pictures, selfies, and weird images from the internet. The last thing he had sent her was a GIF of a squirrel waterskiing.

Inside, Lena stepped immediately in what she hoped was spilled soup. She flipped on the lights. Yes, soup. Egg noodles and carrots and diced onions. Vomit was in the hallway between Lena’s bedroom and the bathroom. The smell was especially awful, a mixture of canned soup and illness. She ignored it and went on to her mother’s room.

Deziree was curled on the bed, a sleep mask over her eyes, one hand resting on her forehead. Her mother was shaking a little. Lena sighed, weighed whether or not to wake her.

Once a doctor had claimed that Deziree’s problems were psychological. Something terrible had happened to her, he speculated, and her body was working out the trauma. Therapy, some Lexapro, some exercise, she’ll be a new woman in six months. Another had said she just wanted attention. They had gone to a specialist, a woman who had to be booked eight months in advance, who was willing to acknowledge that she didn’t understand all the parts of Deziree’s illness, but that didn’t mean nothing was wrong. To make life easier, we have to agree there is no such thing as normal, the doctor had said while typing on her laptop. If you think too much about how things should be, you forget how they are.