Neither she nor her mother brought up the college visits: nobody had the time or the energy to make them happen. She visited and applied only to Colby, her mother’s alma mater, and to UMass, and got into both. As Silk Stockings gained steam, her interest in college narrowed and narrowed until it was the size of a pinhole. In May she had taken a deep breath, called Colby, and given up her spot. Come September, she would head to Los Angeles, where Silk Stockings would be but the first step in making Alexa Thornhill a brand.
She had a few things to sort out, such as, where would she live in L.A.? How much money did she actually need to get started?When would she tell her mother that she wasn’t going to Colby? She’d confided rather ill-advisedly in Tyler, but she’d sworn him to secrecy. And she’d begun to mention her plans to move to L.A. casually in the occasional video (the one about understanding current market conditions, for example), aware, as any rising YouTuber was, of the possibility of the eyeballs of a talent scout coming to rest on her channel.
She turned off the camera and checked the comments and likes on her last video, about cryptocurrency, one of her more challenging endeavors. A few hundred comments, including the usual: people who liked her dress, people who didn’t like her dress, someone who thought there was too much of a glare coming in through the window, someone who saw fit to bash the person who complained about the glare, and so on and so forth. Not too many people had much to say about the actual content. Never mind: YouTube empires had been founded on less. She scrolled down until her eyes snagged on a comment fromjt76.This person had been popping up more and more in the comments, and always had something kind to say.
She thought ofjt76as a he, but of course it could be a lovesick lesbian or a transitioning teenager or a masquerading Mom Squad member. Maybejt76wasn’t even kind! Maybe he (or she) was from the SEC and was going to arrest her for some sort of violation she didn’t even know she’d committed.
This time it was:Really succinct explanation, I’ve never really understood this topic before! Thank you for condensing it so well!
At least somebody thought she was good at something. Even if nobody thought she was nice.
17.
The Squad
We’re not sure where you heard this, but honestly. Somebody told youEstherwould be the homecoming queen? No. Sorry. You’ve been misinformed. Esther was more like that girl who manages the boys’ teams instead of playing her own sport. You know that girl, right? Always walking around with a clipboard, telling people where they needed to be and what time the bus was leaving.Thatwas Esther. Homecoming queen? Please.
18.
Sherri
Sherri’s counselor had done a lot of legwork to help them settle into their new lives, greasing the wheels in important and invisible ways. Apparently the surf camp at the beginning of the summer was nearly impossible to get into without a lot of prior planning! And Katie had secured a spot. Now Katie was enrolled in a series of one-week camps through the Youth Services program in town (this week’s was Knitting for Preteens; Sherri had never learned to knit herself and was in awe of the collections of stitches Katie had been bringing home each day) and Sherri, also with the counselor’s help, had a job interview. Here she was at Derma-You, a medical spa in Danvers, interviewing with the office manager, a woman named Jan. Sherri was carrying her fake resumé in a new bag she’d bought for $29.99 at Marshalls. She thought it looked like it cost quite a bit more than that, though.
It had been a long time since Sherri had held a job. She’d stopped working after she and Bobby got married. She hadn’t exactly been changing the world; she’d been working as a receptionist at a hair salon and frankly had been happy to give it up and concentrate on getting pregnant, which took longer than she thought it would. Now, the prospect of a job interview filled her with equal parts terror and feverish, trembling excitement. She, Sherri Griffin, was going to reenter the work force!
When Sherri walked into Derma-You’s waiting room she found it busy, full of women, most of them bent over clipboards and casting furtive glances around at the rest of the patients. She was shown by one of the smooth, ageless front desk employees to a small room in the back to meet Jan.
“We need someone to answer the phones, that sort of thing,” said Jan, launching right in. Apparently they weren’t going to sit around and engage in small talk. That was all right with Sherri. Small talk made her nervous, because she didn’t want to say the wrong thing. Jan could be in her fifties or in her thirties or her forties depending on how many of Derma-You’s services she had availed herself of. It was really hard to tell. Sherri tried to listen to her without staring too hard at her puffy lips.
“A lot of the job is answering phones,” said Jan. “Being the first face the patient sees, that sort of thing.”
“I’ve got a really good phone voice,” said Sherri, trying not to sound too eager.
“Eventually you’ll need to be trained in the billing system, which is sort of complicated.” Jan rustled the fake resumé, which had Sherri having had a number of clerical jobs in and around Columbus, Ohio. She furrowed her unfurrowable brow. “Have you ever worked in a medical office before?”
“Not specifically,” said Sherri. “But I’m a very fast learner.” That’s what the counselor had told her to say, and in fact it was true.
“Well, we’re extremely short-staffed right now,” said Jan. “We’re opening another branch in Woburn, and half of our front desk staff has had to go over there, so we’re scrambling. You can consider yourself hired.”
“Really?” It was that easy, to get a job?
“Really,” said Jan. She peered at Sherri’s face.
“What?” asked Sherri, putting a hand self-consciously to her cheek. The light was extremely bright in this office.
“You should stay out of the sun. You’ve got sunspots here”—Jan touched Sherri’s cheek along the top of her cheekbones—“and here.” The edge of her forehead. Sherri reared back; something had activated her “fight or flight” instinct.
“Sorry,” said Jan, lowering her hand. “I was just going to say, the lasers can do wonders with that. I didn’t mean to spook you.”
“You didn’t spook me,” said Sherri untruthfully.
“There’s no shame in wanting to improve yourself,” Jan said firmly. “That’s the most important thing you need to understand if you are going to work at Derma-You.”
“No! No, of course not,” said Sherri. “Of course there isn’t any shame in wanting to improve yourself.” If anybody in the place understood that, it was Sherri.If only there was a laser for the heart,thought Sherri.A filler for the soul.
They went over some specifics. Jan preferred to train new hires in the evening, when it was a bit quieter in the office. “Not that it’s ever really quiet,” she said, both proudly and ruefully. The office was open until nine three nights a week. Could Sherri come at sixp.m.on the sixth of July, which was next Monday?
Yes, Sherri could come at sixp.m.“How long will I stay that night?” she asked.
