Free Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum

and then I can need them. What I mean is, I’m flexible. I’m available any day after school and on weekends. I love books, I love your store, even its punny name, though I’m not sure about the exclamation point, and I just think this would be a good fit. Me. Here. I have a résumé if you need it.”
    I take out my pathetic résumé, which is filled with babysitting references and a short stint at Claire’s selling barrettes to snotty seven-year-olds and, of course, my illustrious two years at the Smoothie King. My after-school activities (yearbook, newspaper, photography club, Spanish club, poetry club), my GPA at FDR, and a short section titled Interests and Hobbies: Reading. Writing. Mourning. (Okay, that’s not on there, but it should be. I’m a champ at that.)
    I had to change the font to 16-point Courier so my résumé would take up a whole page.
    “Where do you go to school?”
    “Wood Valley?” I say it like a question. Damn you, nervous uptalking. “I mean, I’m a junior there? I just moved?”
    “My son is at Wood Valley too. He’s a senior. Do you know him? Liam Sandler?”
    “Sorry, I’m really new. I don’t know anyone yet.”
    “I like you,” she says, and her smile is the opposite of Coffee Guy’s. Reassuring, not self-affirming. “Let me talk to Liam. He’s been complaining that he wants more time off to practice with his band. If he wants to give up his hours, they’re all yours.”
    “Thanks so much. My number’s on there, so just call me. Whenever.” I’m hesitant to leave even though it’s obvious I should go. My fate is now tied to some Wood Valley senior who wants more time to bang on his drums. I hope he wants to practice every afternoon and every weekend.
    I want to move out of Rachel’s house and move in here, sleep under the stacks and make Cup-a-Soup from the water cooler in the corner. I want this gray-haired woman to talk books with me and help me with my homework. I want her to tell me I’ll do okay on the PSATs even though I don’t have a tutor twice a week like Theo does. I want her to tell me everything is going to be okay.
    And if not all that, I at least want her to give me a discount.
    I gather my books and walk toward the door, head down. Pull out my phone to text Scar.
    Me: Send positive vibes. Perfect bookstore=perfect job. Me want it badly.
    Scarlett: Better than making smoothies with your bff?
    Me: Not even close. But if I must be a loner, best to be surrounded by imaginary friends.
    Scarlett: Miss you, lady.
    Her words make me feel lighter, and I find myself smiling at my phone. I am not alone. Not really. Just geographically isolated.
    —
    Don’t walk and text.
That’s my first thought when I find myself on the floor of the bookstore, right on the threshold, holding my throbbing forehead. I see stars. Not the celebrity kind my dad promised when he tried to get me excited about moving to Los Angeles, but the cartoon kind that signal a concussion. I have no idea how I got here. Why it hurts to turn my head, or how my knees buckled, or why I feel perilously close to crying for about the millionth time since I moved to this place.
    “Are you okay?” a voice asks. I don’t look up, not yet, because I think if I move my head I might throw up, and that’s the only thing that could make this any worse. Humiliation has not kicked in, and I’d like to stave that off for as long as possible, not compound it. “I didn’t see you there.”
    “Clearly,” I say, and suddenly I’m eye to eye with a guy about my age, who has squatted down to check out the damage to my face. He has longish dirty-blond hair and dark brown eyes and a hint of a pimple on his chin. A much better-looking version of Adam Kravitz: the boy next door. Sweet and distracted and probably smart and kind to his mother and will grow up to invent something like Tumblr. The kind of guy you’d probably want to kiss—especially if he made you laugh—and whose hand you definitely wouldn’t