"Steve?" I asked aloud, recognizing Rob's friend and Nicole's date from just a few weeks prior. "Is this for real?"

"Of course it's real," Steve snarled. "They're lying to us all. There's no way the earth could be flat! How else do you explain the horizon?" Or the fact that we fall down?"

"I'm not even gonna... nope..." I turned to the officer who was holding Steve cuffed and against the cop car.

"We're going to take him in for a drug test and some questioning. He caused quite a mess in there. I hope you guys are going to be alright," she said.

"Officer Bronson please just... take him away..."

"It's all a government conspiracy," Steve screeched. "They're fooling you all!"

I covered my ears and turned away, heading back into the building to evaluate our options. "Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today, I am wise, so I am changing myself," I recited aloud. "That's bullshit," I mumbled. "Nothing I do makes any difference." I was trying to change myself to make things better. I had come so far, from a poor, homeless on and off girl, to a nice college, and a decent job and yet... my life still was awful and the world still sucked. I wanted to prove that things could get better and yet... they really weren't. Were all my efforts to make the world a better place in vain?

"What's that from?" I twirled around ready to yell at the customer that we were closed, but instead found a young woman entering the room, pulling a mop and cart behind her.

"A movie, I think," I responded. "Are you new? I don't recognize you."

"Yeah, sort of. I'm Julie, usually a daytime custodian, when we don't have customers, but I like to hang around after my shift." She grinned at me, her teeth crooked and dirty, a smile I knew all too well.

"Well, normally I would tell you that it's definitely time to head home but seeing the state we're in," I gestured around at the chaotic disaster that was once a presentable space, "but we could use all the help we can get. Go get yourself clocked in and come back here if you'd like. If you're going to work extra, the least I can do is pay you for it."

"Ok thanks!" Julie waved. "Oh," she said, peeking her head back around the door. "By the way, I don't think you've got that quote quite right. When you really stop to think, that quote isn't really about changing the world, is it? It's about changing hearts, one at a time, starting with the only one you really have any control over: your own."

"Huh. Ok. Now go clock in," I told her, stopping to think and hard. It did make sense as, it's quite impossible to really love someone if you cannot even accept yourself. And yet... "Wait," I called out as the realization sunk in. "Just how old are you?"

"Oh uh... I'm eighteen," Julie replied, mopping the floor while I replaced and tidied up tables, one at a time.

"Are you really?" I asked, sensing her nervousness.

"Ok, fine... I'll be eighteen next week, I promise."

"You know we only hire for the cleaning jobs at eighteen and up right?"

"Uh huh."

"So, you lied," I declared.

"I mean... technically the guy interviewing me asked if I 'turned eighteen this year' which, yes, this is the year I turn eighteen, even though it hasn't happened yet..." The end of her sentence trickled off into nothingness under my stern gaze. "I just needed a job and I knew that this place pays really well," she started up again. This was true, we did pay our girls very well, though, Julie was only a cleaner, a custodian. "And so I thought that if I worked really hard and worked on my body that maybe I'd be able to become a stripper too. And make lots of money and finally be able to support myself and eat whatever I want. All while showing off my beautiful body to the world that I'm just so proud of."

"You... do know that I'm one of the managers, right?" I asked. "Meaning that you just told me that you tricked our staff and you're planning to do it again so, I really have no choice but to let you go now."

"Oh... oh my goodness, you're so beautiful I thought you were one of the strippers," Julie gushed.

"Nope. Manager and you are in deep trouble now." I put down my rag and glared at her. Julie trembled under my presence, yet she kept mopping. She was going to finish the job.

As I watched her clean I remembered her smile from earlier. Julie was a confident young woman who knew what she wanted in her life. So far, what I'd seen of her was a smart, confident, and dependable woman who yes, hadn't always been truthful, but that wasn't always possible to get what you needed in life. Sometimes a little lie to be able to even survive... maybe that wasn't that bad. Maybe... I even saw some of myself in her.

"Alright, I won't fire you," I decided, even though Julie hadn't said a word to protest. Her eyes lit up and sparkled like fireworks.

"Really? You won't! That's great!" She clapped her hands excitedly. "Thank you so much. I won't let you down uh..."

"Reina. And that's fantastic, however we've still got one problem. I'll let you finish cleaning for the night with the rest of us, but then you need to go and not come back until you are legally eighteen, ok? I can't risk loosing my job over you. I'll add a note in the books saying that you lost a family member and you'll be back on the job after the funeral, which has yet to be planned."

"You're literally the best, Reina," Julie shouted. "Oh, sorry," she lowered her voice when she saw other sleepy workers glaring at her. "But seriously," she continued, wrapping her arms around me. Thank you so much; you have no idea what this means to me."

"Of course, in order for the world to change for the better, one has to change their own heart first, right?"

"Right."