Chapter 9

                                    

                                          
I regret curling my hair, the humid June heat is already straightening it and it hangs down my back, hot and heavy. I should have pulled it back in a braid, or at least a ponytail. I know that the makeup I carefully applied this morning is probably smudged. The blouse that I took my time choosing sticks to my back from perspiration. Today is not going as I expected it too.
I thought that finding a job would be easy. I was wrong. I only came across two places that seemed to be hiring so far. The grocery store and a diner. Either were promising. Apparently at the ripe age of fifteen I should have a lot more job experience.
I about decide to give up and go home, when I spot a help wanted sign in the bowling alley window. Unfortunately, it's right next to a closed sign. I try the door anyway and it's unlocked. Pushing the door open I step inside, feeling a little like Alice when she dropped down the rabbit hole.
All the lights are dim and I walk further in. There's a girl behind the counter, a book open in front of her.
"We're closed," she says without bothering to look up.
"I'm here about the job," I reply timidly, realizing that I might have made a mistake by just walking in.
"We're still closed." She shuts the book she's reading and looks at me, arching a perfectly sculpted eyebrow.
I feel unnerved under her stare and shuffle my feet. She has to be in her late teens or early twenties, around Darry's age and in a way she reminds me of Darry. The way she can seem to intimidate me with just one look.
"The door was unlocked," I say lamely, pointing towards the front.
"Well, if you can read the help wanted sign then I'm sure you were able to read the closed sign, am I right?"
Before I can answer a man comes out of the back. "Annie, have you seen the-" He stops short when he sees me. "We're closed."
"I told her," The girl Annie says.
"She told me," I confirm in a small voice.
"She's here about the job," Annie offers.
"How'd she get in?" The man, who was around my fathers age, well the age my father would have been anyway, asks.
Annie rests her chin in the palm of her hand, with a thoughtful look on her face. "Maybe she's a ghost and can go through walls?"
I bite down hard on my lower lip to keep from smiling.
"Or maybe," The man counters. "Someone didn't lock the door."
Annie nods slowly. "Both are plausible, I suppose."
The man let out a long sigh and turns to me. "You're here about the job?"
"Yes sir," I murmur, still feeling a little nervous.
"Well, since you're already here, I guess it wouldn't hurt to go ahead and fill out an application." He reaches under the counter and pulls out a sheet of paper and hands it to me along with a pen. "Go on and sit at one of the tables."
I give him a grateful smile and go to sit down, afraid that he might change his mind. I quickly jot down my name, date of birth, address, and phone number, using my best hand writing. I can't fill in much else since all the other blank fillings are related to past job experience. I put down babysitting and leave it at that.
I walk back up to the front and hand it back over. Putting on a pair of glasses, he scans over it. "Babysitting, huh?" I smile politely and nod.
"Cassie Curtis," He reads out loud. "Any relation to Darry Curtis?"