Reminders of Him(16)

I’ve been to six different places trying to find a job, and it isn’t even ten in the morning yet. They’ve all gone the same. They give me an application. Ask me about my experience. I have to tell them I have none. I have to tell them why.

Then they apologize, but not before looking me up and down. I know what they’re thinking. It’s the same thing my landlord, Ruth, said when she saw me for the first time. “Didn’t expect you to look like this.”

People think women who go to prison have a certain look. That we’re a certain way. But we’re mothers, wives, daughters, humans.

And all we want is to just catch one fucking break.

Just one.

The seventh place I try is a grocery store. It’s a little farther from my apartment than I’d like, almost two and a half miles, but I’ve exhausted everything else between this store and my apartment.

I’m sweating when I enter the store, so I freshen up in the bathroom. I’m washing my hands in the sink when a short woman with silky black hair enters the bathroom. She doesn’t go into a stall. She just leans against the wall and closes her eyes. She has a name badge on: AMY.

When she opens her eyes, she notices I’m staring at her shoes. She’s wearing a pair of moccasins with white and red beads in the shape of a circle on top of them.

“You like?” she asks, lifting her foot and tilting it from one side to the other.

“Yeah. They’re beautiful.”

“My grandmother makes them. We’re supposed to wear sneakers here, but the general manager has never said anything about my shoes. I think he’s scared of me.”

I look down at my muddy sneakers. I recoil at the sight of them. I didn’t realize I was walking around with such dirty shoes.

I can’t apply for a job like this. I take one of them off and start washing it in the sink.

“I’m hiding,” the woman says. “I don’t normally hang out in bathrooms, but there’s an old lady in the store who always complains about everything, and I’m honestly just not in the mood for her bullshit today. I have a two-year-old and she didn’t sleep all night and I really wanted to call in sick today, but I’m the shift manager, and shift managers don’t call in sick. We show up.”

“And hide in bathrooms.”

She grins. “Exactly.”

I switch shoes and start washing the other one. I have a lump in my throat when I say, “Are you guys hiring? I’m looking for a job.”

“Yeah, but it’s probably not anything you’re interested in.”

She must not see the desperation on my face. “What are you hiring for?”

“Grocery bagger. It’s not full time, but we usually leave those spots open for teenagers with special needs.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t want to take a job away from anyone.”

“No, it’s not that,” she says. “We just don’t have many applicants because of the low hours, but we really are in need of part-time help. It’s about twenty hours a week.”

That won’t even pay rent, but if I worked hard enough, I could possibly work my way into a different position. “I can do it until someone with special needs applies. I could really use the money.”

Amy looks me up and down. “Why are you so desperate? The pay is shit.”

I put my shoe back on. “I, um . . .” I tie my shoe, stalling the inevitable admission. “I just got out of prison.” I say it fast and confidently, like it doesn’t bother me as much as it does. “But I’m not . . . I can do this. I won’t let you down and I won’t be any trouble.”

Amy laughs. It’s a loud laugh, but when I don’t laugh with her, she folds her arms over her chest and tilts her head. “Oh, shit. You’re serious?”

I nod. “Yeah. But if it’s against policy, I totally get it. It’s not a big deal.”

She waves a flippant hand. “Eh, we don’t really have a policy. We aren’t a chain—we can hire whoever we want. To be honest, I’m obsessed with Orange Is the New Black, so if you’ll promise to let me know which parts of the show are bullshit, I’ll give you an application.”

I could cry. Instead, I fake a smile. “I’ve heard so many jokes about that show. I guess I need to watch it.”

Amy rolls her head. “Yes. Yes, yes. Best show, best cast; come with me.”

I follow her to the customer service desk at the front of the store. She digs around in a drawer and finds an application, then hands it to me along with a pen. “If you fill it out while you’re here, I can get you in for Monday orientation.”

I take the application from her, and I want to thank her, I want to hug her, I want to tell her she’s changing my life. But I just smile and quietly take my application to a bench by the front door.

I fill out my full name but put quotation marks around my middle name, so they’ll know to call me Nicole. I can’t be wearing a name tag that says KENNA in this town. Someone will recognize it. Then they’ll gossip.

I get halfway through the first page when I’m interrupted.

“Hey.”

My fingers clench the pen tightly when I hear his voice. I slowly lift my head, and Ledger is standing in front of me with a grocery cart full of about a dozen packs of Gatorade.