When My Heart Joins the Thousand(63)

The manager sits across from me at a small table in the mostly empty restaurant, looking over my answers. He has a little goatee and a pair of black-framed glasses that catch the light. “This is only part-time, you know,” he says, “and only for the holiday season. We need cashiers. You’ll have to work weekends, evenings.”

“My schedule is open.”

“Good. Aside from that, you know, just be fun, engage with the customers.”

Being fun is not my strong suit, but I nod anyway.

“I’ll just ask you a few questions. Pretty routine stuff,” he says, folding his pudgy, soft hands in front of him. “What does good customer service mean to you?”

To me? What a strange question. The definition of words is not up for negotiation. I roll my eyes toward the ceiling, thinking. “Customer service,” I say, “is a series of actions intended to enhance customer satisfaction before, during, and after a purchase. Good customer service would mean that these actions are completed successfully.”

“Uh-huh.” He clears his throat. “So what does that mean to you?”

I start to tug on my braid, then lower my hand. “I don’t understand.”

“How do you see yourself making customers happy? Giving them the Maxon’s experience?”

I blink a few times. A bead of cold sweat trickles down the center of my back. Already, I sense, I’m not doing very well.

“Uh . . . Miss?”

I close my eyes. “Wait.” Visualize a successful encounter.

About twenty seconds later, I open my eyes. “They come in and eat. They get precisely what they ordered. The steak fries are not soggy. The burger is cooked medium well, as they specified. They consider the prices reasonable. There are no surprises. They come to the register to pay. I ask them how their meal was. They say it was fine. I give them their change, and it’s correct. I say, ‘Have a nice day.’ They leave the restaurant.”

He stares at me for a moment, his mouth slightly open. “Okay. That was . . . very specific.” He clears his throat. “And, uh, what are some things you enjoy doing, in your free time?”

What does that have to do with being a cashier? “I like reading about quantum theory, playing Go, doing puzzles, and watching nature shows.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I like animals. Especially rabbits.” I know this isn’t what he wants to hear about, but I’m nervous now; it’s harder for me to think of appropriate things to say, so words just rush out of my mouth, like air rushing to fill a void. “One of the rarest species is the Sumatran striped rabbit. It’s nocturnal and very timid. The local people don’t have a name for it because they don’t even know it exists.”

“Okay. I think that’s all we need. We’ll keep your application on file.”

There’s a little twinge of panic in my chest. When people say that, what they mean is: We’re never going to call you. “Did I do something wrong.”

“Well . . .”

“I know I’m not good at interviews, but I can do the job, I promise. I can work any shifts you need. Give me a chance. Just one day.”

He shakes his head. “I’m sorry. It’s nothing personal. You’re just not what we’re looking for.”

I leave the restaurant.

This is nothing new, of course. All I want is a chance to work and be paid for that work, like the rest of the population. But I rarely get past the interview process.

As I drive back home, I play a Mozart CD.

It’s been speculated that Mozart had Asperger’s. Maybe he, too, had trouble expressing his thoughts, and music was the only way he could translate them into something the world could understand. Of course, there were times when he was quite clear. There’s a lesser-known canon called “Leck mich im Arsch” (translated, “Lick me in the ass”) whose lyrics consist of that phrase repeated over and over.

Once, in detention at my old grade school, I asked the teacher if I could play some Mozart while I did my homework. She said yes, and I played that canon on my CD player. And I didn’t get in trouble, because the teacher didn’t speak German.

Sometimes when I’m angry at the world, I play that song, and I feel a little bit better.

The sun sinks low in the sky, a tiny white circle burning through the clouds as I walk down the street, hands shoved deep into my pockets. A thin layer of sleet coats the pavement.

I pass a small red-and-yellow building with a fiberglass sculpture of a smiling rooster on the sign outside. CLUCKY’S CHICKEN, reads the sign. There’s a piece of poster board in the window, with the words NOW HIRING written in red marker.

I go in.

A few minutes later, I’m sitting at one of the crumb-covered tables in the lobby, filling out a simple one-page application. The manager, Linda—who has dark circles under her eyes and threads of gray in her hair—offers me an interview on the spot. She sits across from me at a table and looks over my experience. “A zoo, huh? Well, you’ll feel right at home here.” She laughs. I don’t understand the joke. “You got a car?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Can you start tonight? The cashier I had on schedule just quit, and no one’s available to take his shift, so I need someone to handle the dinner rush.”

My heartbeat quickens. This can’t be real. It seems too easy. “That—that sounds good.”