Wonder When You’ll Miss Me by Amanda Davis Page A

“But there’s a waiting list for that, too.”
    No one hired me.
    Each application I filled out was drenched in so much hope that it affected my penmanship and infused my answers. I became better at filling out forms. Now under “position” at Ibarista’s Bakery, I wrote: Confectionery Technician . Under reason for leaving I wrote: Needed at home . I was learning that a manipulation of the facts was absolutely in order. No one needed to know anything else factual, for that matter. By the time I applied at the BumperLube to be an “appointment specialist,” I had worked myself into a lying lather, inventing jobs and skills and positions and amazing horizons of experience I had never even imagined possible. If I could leave and tackle the world on my own, what did I need with absolute truth? Truth was as malleable as time, it seemed to me, or fate. There was no reason to feel limited by the facts.
    Amy’s After School Care, Tino’s Pizzeria, Gino’s Pizzeria, Gino’s Pizzeria Two, the LeBlanc Restaurant, landscaping, managing the Treasure Chest Arcade—I even tried to get a paper route. My expectations had been low, then high, then desperate and all-encompassing. But I grew tired of smiling while people with jobs looked me up and down and tried to decide what I was worth.
    I began to doubt the plan.
    â€œWe could go see the guidance counselor,” the fat girl said. We were sitting on the low wall watching people change classes. The fat girl had cotton candy. The wind kept blowing her hair into it and she was absorbed by picking pink fluff from her long brown bangs.
    â€œI don’t want to see the guidance counselor,” I said. I knew I sounded pissy, but I also knew Mrs. Twine would just smile at me in that pitying way she had, and I’d feel even more hopeless and incapable.
    â€œShe might know something,” the fat girl said.
    I ignored her. Across from us I saw a cluster of boys collecting, their backs angled in a huddle. One of them looked over his shoulder at me and then quickly looked away.
    â€œLet’s go, Faith,” the fat girl said. Her voice was firm but urgent. I couldn’t quite breathe.
    â€œHey!” She yanked my elbow so that I nearly lost my balance. “Up. Now.”
    â€œO kay! ” I shook myself free and stomped off towards my locker. I resisted the urge to see if they watched.
    Â 
    Clark’s was a big fancy restaurant with brightly colored umbrellas hanging from the ceiling. All of the waitresses wore white shirts and identical neckties swimming with green and orange fish. It was a place I’d been taken for birthdays and I figured it would be a good place to work.
    I didn’t know what to wear, but the fat girl suggested black and white. “Dress like them and they’ll hire you,” she said. “Works every time.”
    â€œLike you’ve ever even been to a job interview,” I said.
    But in the end I listened to her and walked the whole way there in a pair of black jeans and one of my dad’s old white oxford shirts.
    The restaurant sat by itself surrounded by a parking lot. It looked dark inside and there weren’t many cars.
    â€œYou wait out here,” I said, but she just snorted and ignored me, following behind, sucking on a Popsicle.
    I pushed through the heavy wooden doors and stood blinking in the sudden darkness, waiting for my eyes to adjust. Near the entrance a perky brunette with inches of makeup watched me from a lectern. She smiled, then looked me up and down.
    â€œCan I help you?” she asked.
    Behind her, teams of white-shirted women lit candles all over the restaurant, each bending with a flame, then rising, pivoting, and bending again, like large, clumsy moths. Directly ahead, a tall guy with spiky red hair was wiping glasses with a rag and hanging them from a rack above his head. My courage began to falter.
    â€œUm, I was just