Along for the Ride (8 page)

‘Oh, right,’ Leah said. She pushed back from the counter, hopping up on the one behind her, and folded her long legs. ‘Well, maybe now our checks won’t bounce.’

‘No kidding,’ Esther said. Her pigtails were gone, her hair loose and topped with an army-style cap, which she was wearing with a black sundress, a denim jacket thrown over it, and flip-flops. ‘I mean, I love Heidi. But getting paid at the ATM is kind of sketchy.’

‘You did get paid, though. Heidi’s a good boss; it was an honest mistake,’ Maggie said. Now she was making a studied point of not looking at me as she hit a button on the register, then pulled out a stack of bills, straightening them. Again, she was dressed in pink – both her shirt and flip-flops – and I wondered if this was some kind of signature thing with her. I bet it was. ‘Anyway, someone’s supposed to show her around.’

‘Who?’ Leah asked. ‘Heidi?’

‘No.’ Maggie shut the drawer, then looked at me. A moment later, Leah and Esther both followed suit. Clearly, I’d reached the end of that plank. Nothing to do but jump.

‘Auden,’ I said.

A pause. Then Leah pushed herself off the counter, dropping her feet to the floor with a
clunk
. ‘Come on,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘The office is this way.’

I could feel the other girls watching me as I followed her past a couple of racks of jeans, a shoe display, and a clearance section to a narrow hallway. ‘That’s the bathroom,’ she said, nodding at a door on the left. ‘Not for customer use, ever, it’s the rule. And here’s the office. Stand back, the door kind of sticks.’

She reached for the knob, then pushed herself against it. A second later, I heard a
pop!
and it swung open.

The first thing I saw was pink. All four walls were painted a rosy, almost bubble-gummy shade of Maggie’s favorite color. What wasn’t pink (which, at first glance, didn’t seem like much) was orange. Adding to the insanity, the very small space was jammed with all kinds of girly little touches: pink stacking bins, a Hello Kitty pencil cup, a bowl filled entirely with lipsticks and lip glosses. Even the filing cabinets – the filing cabinets! – had pink and orange labels, and a pink feather boa was stretched out over across the top of them.

‘Wow,’ I said, unable to keep my silence.

‘I know,’ Leah agreed. ‘It’s like being in a Starburst box. So, the safe is under the desk, the checkbook lives in the second left-hand drawer, when it’s here, and all the invoices go under the bear.’

‘The bear?’

She stepped inside the room, walked to the desk, and picked up a little stuffed pink bear. Wearing an orange hat. ‘Here,’ she said, pointing to the stack of paper beneath him. ‘Don’t ask me, it was like that when I got hired. Any questions?’

Of course, I had several, but none she could answer. ‘No. Thanks.’

‘Sure thing. Just holler if you need us.’ She stepped past me, back into the hallway, where I was still standing, having not yet had the strength to actually venture inside. I heard her take a few steps before she said, ‘And, Auden?’

I turned, facing her. ‘Yeah?’

She glanced over her shoulder, then took one step back toward me. ‘Don’t worry about Maggie. She’s just… emotional. She’ll get over it.’

‘Oh,’ I said, wondering how, exactly, I was supposed to respond to this. Even I knew better than to talk about one girl with another one, especially if they were friends. ‘Right.’

She nodded, then walked away, back to the register, where Esther and Maggie were now bent over a box, sticking price tags onto sunglasses. As she approached, they glanced up at her, then easily adjusted themselves, making room for her to join them.

I looked back into the pink room, and for some reason thought of my mother, if only because she was the only person I knew who would have had more trouble entering it than I did. I could just imagine her face, how her eyes would narrow in disgust, the heavy, through-the-nostril sigh that would speak louder than the words that followed it. ‘It’s like a womb in here!’ she’d groan. ‘An environment totally ruled by gender stereotypes and expectations, as pathetic as those who chose to inhabit it.’

Exactly, I thought. Then I went inside.

Heidi’s office might have been over the top, but her books were actually in pretty good shape. When I’d worked for my mom’s accountant the summer before, I’d seen some crazy bookkeeping methods. There were people who came in with registers where entire months’ worth of checks were missing, others who only seemed to keep their receipts on match-books or napkins. Heidi’s stuff was organized, her files made sense, and there were only a few discrepancies, all of which had happened in the last ten months or so. Maybe this shouldn’t have been a surprise to me, considering what my dad had said about her business background. But it was.

Not shocking was the fact that at first, the office was completely distracting. I actually felt a little nauseated, sitting there, a condition exacerbated when I turned on the desk lamp, which had an orange shade and made everything seem even more radioactive. But after a few minutes with the calculator and the checkbook, it all just kind of fell away. I hadn’t realized how much I missed the simplicity of a project of numbers, how things just made sense in sums and division. No emotion, no complications. Just digits on-screen, lining up in perfect sequence.

I was so immersed, in fact, that at first I didn’t even hear the music coming from the store behind me. It was only when it suddenly got very loud, like someone had twisted the volume from the lowest to highest setting, that it broke through the tax forms I was looking at and got my attention.

I looked at the clock – it was 9:01 – then pushed my chair back and eased the door open. Out in the hallway, the music was positively deafening, some disco song with a fast beat, a girl’s voice chanting some lyrics about a summer crush over it. I was wondering if maybe they were having some issue with the stereo system when I saw Esther suddenly go shimmying past the jeans display, her arms waving over her head. She was followed, moments later, by Leah, doing a slow, hip-swiveling move, and then Maggie, bouncing on her tiptoes. It was like a conga line of three, passing quickly, then gone.

I took another step forward, leaning out a bit more into the store. I couldn’t see any customers, although the boardwalk looked crowded, lots of people passing by. I’d just decided to go back to the office and wait for the silence to return when Esther popped up from behind the bathing-suit rack, this time doing a step-slide, step-slide move, her hair swinging out to the side. She reached out a hand to Leah, pulling her into view, then spinning her out and back toward her as they both laughed. Then they split, and Maggie moved in between them, shaking her hips as they circled around her, still dancing.

I didn’t realize I was standing there just staring at them until Esther saw me. ‘Hey,’ she called out. Her cheeks were flushed. ‘It’s the nine o’clock dance. Come on.’

Instinctively, I shook my head. ‘No thanks.’

‘You can’t say no,’ Leah yelled as she grabbed Maggie’s hand, then spun her out and back again. ‘Employee participation is mandatory.’

Then I quit, I thought, but already they were moving on, back to the conga line, this time with Maggie in the lead, bouncing up and down, Esther snapping her fingers behind her. Leah, bringing up the rear, glanced back at me one last time. When I didn’t say or do anything, she just shrugged, following the others as they wound around the displays, and headed toward the door.

I went back to the office, sitting down at the desk. I was sure they thought I was a total stick-in-the-mud, not that I cared. It was just like all the activities I’d walked past at my old schools during lunch – fake sumo wrestling, pie-eating contests, mass games of Twister on the quad – always wondering how, exactly, you did stuff like that. Maybe if you’d done it as a kid, it was all nostalgia, and that was the appeal. But I hadn’t. It was all new to me, and therefore more intimidating than anything else.

I picked up my pen, going back to my 1099s. A moment later, the music stopped, as suddenly as it had begun. Another hour passed, in the silence of numbers, and then there was a tap on the door.

‘Closing time,’ Esther said as she came in behind me, a bank bag in one hand. ‘Can I get in the safe?’

I pushed out my chair, making room as she dropped down to a squat, sticking the key she was holding into the lock. I watched as she put the bag in, then swung the door shut before pushing herself up again.

‘We’ll be out of here in about ten minutes,’ she told me, brushing off her knees. ‘You coming with us, or staying late?’

I wanted to tell her that, to me, after ten wasn’t late. But I knew she wasn’t really looking to make conversation, so I said, ‘I’m almost done.’

‘Cool. Just come out front and we can lock up when we’re all out.’

I nodded. She left the door open behind her, so as I finished up the last few things I had going, I could hear her and Maggie and Leah, out by the register chattering.

‘Where did these Skittles come from?’ Esther asked.

‘Where do you think?’ Leah told her.

‘Really.’ I could tell by her voice, slightly teasing, that Esther was smiling. ‘So, Mags. More candy from Adam, huh?’

Maggie sighed. ‘I told you guys, it means nothing. He’s a store-goer, just like all those boys.’

‘That may be true,’ Leah said, ‘but just because he goes to the store doesn’t mean he has to buy something for you every time.’

‘He doesn’t do it every time,’ Maggie grumbled.

‘Sure seems like it,’ Esther said. ‘And with a store-goer boy, that is the first sign, anyway. It’s how you know.’

‘True,’ Leah agreed.

‘Not true,’ Maggie said. ‘It’s just candy. Stop reading so much into it. You guys are ridiculous.’

I could second that. It amazed me that they’d been together all night, and yet they still, seemingly, had something to talk about. Even if it was, predictably, candy and boys.

When I came out, they were all by the front door, waiting for me. ‘I understand if you don’t want to get involved with him,’ Leah was saying. ‘I mean, he is a high school boy.’

‘He graduated just like we did, Leah,’ Esther told her.

‘True. But he’s not a college boy yet. There’s a big difference in that one summer.’

‘How would you know? You refuse to date anyone
but
college guys.’

‘Why does that bother you so much? I mean, in college, we’ll all be dating college boys anyway. So what’s the harm in starting early?’

‘It’s not that it’s harmful,’ Esther replied as we all filed out, Maggie swinging the door shut and pulling out her keys. ‘I just think that maybe you missed something, you know, by refusing to date anyone your own age.’

‘What would I have missed?’

‘I don’t know.’ Esther shrugged. ‘There is something kind of nice about having the age thing in common.’

‘Says the person who hasn’t dated in over a year,’ Leah said.

‘I’m choosy,’ Esther told her.

‘Picky,’ Maggie said. ‘Nobody is good enough for you.’

‘I have high standards. It’s better than dating just anyone.’

There was a sudden, awkward pause, noticeable enough that even I felt it. Maggie, putting her keys in the door, stiffened. Esther said, ‘Oh, Mags. You know I didn’t mean Jake.’

‘Okay, okay,’ Maggie said, shaking her off. ‘Let’s not even talk about it.’

This wouldn’t be easy, though, as I realized when I looked to my right, to the bike shop, where I saw the curly-headed guy, sitting on a bike and talking to two boys I didn’t recognize. Right behind him, pulling a jacket over his shoulders, was Jake. When he turned, he looked right at me.

Great, I thought, hurriedly turning my back, which left me facing Esther and Leah, who were trying to decide where to go from here. ‘There’s always the Tip,’ Esther was saying. ‘I heard something about a keg there tonight.’

‘I am so tired of the sand and flat beer.’ Leah groaned. ‘Let’s go to a club or something.’

‘You’re the only one with an ID, remember?’

‘I can get you guys in.’

‘You always say that,’ Esther told her. ‘You never can. Mags, what do you want to do?’

Maggie shrugged, dropping her keys into the bag she had slung over her shoulder. ‘I don’t care,’ she said. ‘I might just go home.’

Leah shot a glance at Jake, then at me. ‘Nonsense. Let’s at least –’

This thought was interrupted by the curly-headed guy, who suddenly rode up right beside us, braking to a stop with a screech. ‘Ladies,’ he said. Leah rolled her eyes. ‘Anyone want a ride to the jump park?’

‘Oh, God help us,’ Leah said. ‘Please, no more nights involving bicycles. What are we, twelve?’

‘They’re not just
bicycles
,’ the guy said, offended. ‘How can you even say that?’

‘Easily,’ she replied. ‘And anyway, Adam –’

‘I’ll go,’ Maggie said, interrupting her. Adam smiled, then sat back on his seat as she climbed onto the handlebars, arranging her purse in her lap. ‘What?’ she said to Leah, who sighed. ‘It’s better than some club.’

‘No,’ Leah said flatly, ‘it really isn’t.’

‘Oh, lighten up,’ Adam told her as he pushed off the boardwalk, starting to pedal. Maggie leaned back, closing her eyes, and then they were on their way, the other guys on bikes in front of the shop following behind them. Leah shook her head, annoyed, but allowed Esther to link her arm in hers as they brought up the rear on foot. Which left just me and Jake.

I tried to turn and start for home, but no luck. Two steps in and he was beside me. ‘So,’ he said, ‘what was all that about the other night, anyway? You took off awfully fast.’

He was too everything: too confident, standing too close, wanting too much. I said, ‘It wasn’t about anything.’

‘Oh,’ he said, his voice low, ‘I think it was. And could still be. You want to take a walk, or something?’

It was all I could do not to cringe. I’d already regretted what we’d done, and that was before he was Maggie’s ex and Eli’s brother. And how strange was it that I, who wanted to know as little as possible about anything here, now knew all this?

‘Look,’ I said to him. ‘What happened the other night was a mistake, okay?’