Here's how I don't get the job.

     I don't get the job by bluffing my way through interviews and fluffing my resume. Things like 'expert grocery bagger', 'coupon scanner extraordinaire', 'exceptionally good at picking up singles from a stack of bills — doesn't even need to lick his fingers' don't exactly sell the way I expect. And okay, every once in a while I need to moisten the tip. The tip of my finger, that is. God, that sounds like an innuendo. Completely not an innuendo. Unless the hiring manager finds that stuff kind of funny?

     As it turns out, the cold hard truth of zero job experience and complicated school schedule don't open a lot of professional doors for me. Desperation had led me to my local grocery store, and every fast-food joint in a fifteen-mile radius of my home, to no avail. So I'm starting senior year utterly broke and completely jobless.

     Probably it doesn't help that on the first Monday back, Halston, Grace, and I head uptown to buy lunch and catch up in the ways texting all summer has failed.

     Halston fondly reminisces about her campers, while Grace enthralls us with tales of her romantic misadventures. I mostly lament my mom's sudden, vehement interest in long distance colleges between large bites of my even larger burrito. Last spring, she and I had agreed that I would stay local. But now that applications have to go in, she's dropping hints left and right for schools that are across the country, and even wants me to apply to at least three of her choice.

     "She clearly wants to get rid of you," Grace says with a laugh. "And she's not being very subtle." She stretches her legs in front of her, long and lean from cheerleading, and still a shade darker than her normally deep tone from her summer in Jamaica.

     "Yeah, and she's not really giving me a choice, either. Since she's paying for my applications," I complain as I roll up the sleeves of my shirt. The summers bleeding into the fall, the way it often does in Aurora, and my school's uniform feels more stifling than ever. "Thus," I proclaim. "Why I need a job. I may have to start stripping."

     "Ooh, I'm down," Grace responds with a suggestive lift of her brows. She pats her stomach through her school vest. "Probably going to have cut down on our chipotle binges, though."

     "As if you two could ever," Halston remarks, amusedly. Grace makes a disbelieving sound, and I laugh. The reality is, there's not a place in Aurora that I could get away with working a G-string and a pole. And, anyway, my mom would disown me for even enthusing the idea. Not that I really am, I suppose.

     "Hey," Halston says suddenly. I look up at her questioningly. "What about that place? Did you apply there?" She gestures with her chin in the direction of what used to be Flow Yoga. The place had closed at the beginning of the summer, but had been empty till, well, now. It looks like someone has not only rented the place, but is just about ready to open.

     "Is that a coffee shop?" I ask.

     "Looks like it could be pastries?" Halston responds.

     Grace isn't paying attention, careening back in her chair, head tipped toward the sun like she needs the Vitamin D to re-juice her soul. A group of boys walking by, dressed in the same uniforms as us, check her out, but Grace is uncaring. She's cheer captain so she can have pretty much anyone she wants but she's also devastatingly beautiful, so she can have anyone she wants. Which is why she usually wants the people who don't want her. There aren't many left.

     "Yeah, but they're not even open yet," I say eyes scanning over the storefront. There's a Coming Soon! sign in the window, with a cupcake drawn next to it. A cupcake bakery? Doesn't sound like the place for me. I lack certain skills necessary to do anything productive in a kitchen — which is to say I lack any and all skills that would assist in even the simplest of cooking tasks.

     "Exactly, so they probably haven't hired anybody, yet."

     Grace opens her eyes long enough to roll them. "Just put in an application. It'll make Halston happy."

     Halston scoffs. "You keep complaining about having no money and needing a job. Well, this could be your chance."

     I hesitate but Grace isn't having it, pushing my chair with her foot. "Go. We'll wait here."

     "You know food is supposed to make you less cranky," I say as I stand up, adjusting my sweater vest. Grace waves her hand at me.

     "I have a good feeling about this one," Halston says as she smiles, encouragingly.

     "You have a good feeling about everything," Grace retorts her tone towing the line. Halston's expression sours, only for a minute, before it smooths to blank. I glance between the two of them, wondering if I should say something or keep my mouth shut.

     I only mediate when I absolutely have to, otherwise, I try my best to stay out of their quarrels. I'm not entirely sure what they can be fighting about already, since Halston just got home. It's not even that they seem actively angry with each other, more hissy than anything. Like something is festering between them but instead of addressing it they're going to passive aggressively skirt around it.

     In keeping with my staying neutral, I don't ask. I turn and start across the street. The stores up some from the courtyard we were sitting in. I take my time walking up, somehow nervous about this even though I don't really care whether it pans out or not. I hesitate at the door, watching an older woman move boxes behind the counter. I take a breath and hold it as I push the door open, hoping to calm my nerves.

     What furniture is out, tables and chairs, has all been pushed to the center of the room, and the walls smell of fresh paint. The owner has managed to get a bell hung over the door, too.

     The woman looks up when it jingles and smiles at me. "Hello there!"

     "Uh, hi," I respond unsurely. "I uhm — my name's Calvin. Cas, actually. I go to school a few blocks down and I was just, uh, up here for lunch and saw this place. And, well, I just wanted to know if you were hiring and if I could put in an application? That is if you are. Hiring, I mean." I touch the back of my neck because I need to do something with my hands.

     She grins wider, if that's even possible. She has a pretty big smile to begin with; its youthful in comparison to the rest of her. "Honey, do you have any idea what you'd be applying for? What this place even is?"

     "Uhm, some sort of pastry shop?" She laughs at me. I press my lips together, thinking. With more conviction than I'm expecting, I say, "I'm willing to do anything, really. Whatever you need. And what I don't know, I'll learn. And what I lack in experience I'll make up for in, uhm, you know, enthusiasm."

     She stares at me, amused, and while I wasn't really interested in getting this job, another loss would suck. "You're on your lunch period, aren't ya'?"

     Confused with where she's going with her line of questioning, I nod my head. "Yes ma'am."

     Her smile wavers, slightly, a twitch in the corner like she wants to smile but has forgotten she already is. "So why don't you come back this evening, after you get out of school? I'll have some paperwork for you to fill out to get you hired. Semantics, really. Just have to have them on record."

     "Hired?" I blurt, surprised. "I'm hired. Just like that?"

     She shrugs her shoulders with a soft laugh. "Just like that."

     "Okay, wow, uhm. After school. Right, so, I have swim practice till five today. I can be here at five-thirty?"

     "Alrighty, I'll see you then."

     Still mildly shocked by how this proceeded, I back-pedal to the door but then stop, asking, "So is that what this place is? A pastry shop?"

     "Cupcakes and coffee, sweetheart."

     Cupcakes and coffee, I think. Easy enough.

     When I get back to Halston and Grace, they are painfully silent. The kind of silent that suggests they weren't always, but that they conveniently fell silent when I arrived. "So?" Halston prompts like nothing about their silence is unusual.

     "I think I just got a job," I tell her, smiling. "I'm not entirely sure what just happened, honestly."

     Halston laughs, clapping her hands. "Did I not tell you?"

     "So what, they just hired you like that?" Grace asks, tone sort of disbelieving.

     "Yeah, pretty much," I say with a shrug. "I've got to go back after practice to fill out paperwork. I'm not entirely sure what I'll be doing. But any experience is better than none at this point."

     "I've got a good feeling about this," Halston says grinning. "I think this will be good for you."

     "Positive Halston strikes again," Grace deadpans.

     I open my mouth to address whatever is going on between them but one glance at my phone tells me we've got to start walking back if we're going to make it before first bell. I'll give them a few more days to work it out, I decide. Before I'll step in.