Free Sometimes It Happens by Lauren Barnholdt Page A

condition, shave my legs, blow-dry my hair, and then coordinate my purse with my outfit. I was always tired and broke due to the fact that I was getting no sleep and spending all my money on clothes and makeup. So eventually that madness had to stop.
    Now I grab my bag, shove my feet into my black Sketchers, take one more look at myself in the mirror, and run out to the driveway.
    “Hey,” I say, sliding into Noah’s beat-up old Corolla.
    “Hi.” He indicates the cup holder between us, where there are three steaming cups of coffee. “I remembered that you like lattes,” he says as he pulls out of my driveway. “But I didn’t know how you take it, so I got you tons of Splendaand sugar on the side. Oh, and there’s a bag of muffins in the back.”
    “Muffins?” I ask, reaching behind me and grabbing the bag.
    “Yeah,” Noah says, “Lacey likes to have muffins in the morning.”
    “Perfect,” I say. “I’m starving.” I pull out a carrot muffin and take a bite, wondering how this whole thing happened. I mean, one minute I was sitting in the Laundromat, not sure I even had the mental capacity to wash my clothes, and the next I somehow had a job at Cooley’s. The whole thing was actually pretty painless when it comes to job interviews.
    Not that I’ve had that many job interviews. In fact, I’ve had zero. But last year in Home and Careers we did a whole unit on how to act in an interview, and they made it seem super complicated, with all these smart things you were supposed to do, and we practiced questions like, “what makes you an ideal candidate for this job?” It was actually pretty pointless, since all the answers they told us to give were complete and total bullshit. Plus we had to role-play with other people, and it was hard to imagine that my partner, Kristin Wiggins, was some kind of high-powered executive interviewing me, since she’s a total alcoholic and I’d just seen her puking in the bushes outside of Jenna Lamacchia’s the day before.
    Anyway, when it came to getting a job at Cooley’s, therewas hardly even any kind of formal interview. Noah and I just hung out at the diner that day, talking to Lacey, and eating fries until Cooley showed up about an hour later.
    “This girl wants a job,” Noah said to Cooley. Which wasn’t exactly true, but I’d learned enough from my Home and Careers training to know better than to appear ambivalent.
    “Hmm,” Cooley said, looking me up and down. He’s a huge man, at least six three, with a lot of chest hair and gold chains that he wears over an open white shirt and tight white pants. He’s very scary, because he looks like a drug lord or something. So even though I didn’t really want the job in the first place, I was nervous.
    Cooley reached behind the counter and picked up two soda glasses. “You,” he said, pointing at me with one beefy finger. “Feel these with soda for Cooley.”
    “Feel these with . . .”
    “He means fill,” Noah whispered.
    “Oh, okay.” I grabbed the two cups, put one under the Sprite, one under the Coke, held them there until they were full, and then put them on the counter. I thought about adding, “have a nice day” or “would you like fries with that?” to, like, be impressive and show him I was thinking ahead, but before I could, Cooley said, “You’re hired. You start Wednesday, six a.m.”
    It was that easy.
    Of course my mom was thrilled. She was, like, almost hyperventilating and kept beaming and telling me how amazing it was and how proud she was of me, and then she made me check my alarm clock five times since she was going to be at work when I left. And even though it was totally over-the-top, typical mother behavior, it actually made me feel kind of good.
    But now, sitting next to Noah in the car and nibbling on my carrot muffin, I’m starting to get a little bit anxious. I try to calm myself down, but Cooley’s isn’t that far away, so by the time Noah pulls in a couple of minutes later,