A Second Bite at the Apple by Dana Bate

didn’t move for anything today.”
    Great. First I lose my job, and now this guy wants to pay me in leftover bread. Newsflash: Flour and yeast will not pay my electricity bill.
    â€œI could use some extra help around the holidays, though,” he says. “If you help at Penn Quarter and Dupont this week, I’ll give you the standard hundred per market, plus the extra forty I owe you from today.”
    I clear my throat. When it comes to getting a job in the food world, working for a lunatic for three hundred dollars a week isn’t exactly what I had in mind. “Um . . . well . . .”
    â€œHey—if you don’t need the money, that’s fine by me. I’ll find someone who does.” He turns and throws his cashbox onto the passenger seat of the truck and then walks around the truck to the driver’s side.
    I curse myself for what I’m about to do and scurry after him. “Wait.”
    I don’t want to work for a chauvinistic misanthrope for, quite literally, crumbs. But I’m no fool. Three hundred dollars is better than zero dollars, and at this point, other than my severance, zero dollars is what I am currently making. I’m still playing catch-up from my oral surgery boondoggle, and my severance won’t last long enough to keep me in that apartment for more than a month or so. My parents are dealing with their own financial strains, so I can’t ask them for help. I could definitely use the extra cash, at least as a temporary stopgap.
    â€œI’m in,” I say. “I’ll see you on Thursday at Penn Quarter.”
    Rick sticks a cigarette in his mouth and lights it with a bright purple lighter. “Good. But you’d better not be late, or you’re finished. Got it?”
    I nod. Rick lets out a grunt and heaves himself into the driver’s seat. He slams the creaky door and fires up the motor, which sputters as he lowers his window.
    â€œOne freaking thirty,” he says, the cigarette dangling from his lips. “And not a minute later.”
    â€œGot it.”
    â€œAnd next time you see your blond friend, tell her she’d better get her ass here on time too.” He steps on the brake and pulls the truck into gear. “I don’t need this bullshit.”
    Then he raises the window, steps on the gas, and jerks the truck down Twenty-third Street.

CHAPTER 8
    Here’s a little truth bomb: I don’t need this bullshit either. What I need is a real job that pays more than three hundred dollars a week and doesn’t entail interacting with a chain-smoking lunatic who verbally molests every female he encounters.
    Unfortunately, such a job eludes me. Christmas and New Year’s pass, as does all of January, and all I have to show for it is some under-the-table cash from Rick the Prick and some new croissant-induced cellulite on my thighs. Everyone assured me no one hired around the holidays, so I understood when New Year’s came and went without any employment leads. But apparently no one is hiring after the holidays either, because now it’s February, and I still don’t have a job. Everyone has said the same thing, more or less:
    â€œNo open positions right now.”
    â€œNot hiring.”
    â€œBudget cuts.”
    â€œLooking for someone with more relevant experience.”
    Now nearly two months have passed since I lost my job at The Morning Show, and I’m basically in the same position I was on that snowy morning when Heidi got food poisoning, only now I’m well-versed in Rick’s panoply of baked goods and their corresponding price structure. Baby steps?
    If there is a small silver lining to my continued unemployment, it is that I have increased my hours at the farmers’ market, where I am surrounded by people who love growing and making food as much as I love eating, reading, and writing about it. Every market brings with it a new sensory adventure: the toothsome crunch of