Page 116 of The Turning of the Tables

“Serious question,” she said, her expression suggesting the question was anything but.

“Yeah?” I asked, feeling the infectiousness of her smile pulling at the corners of my lips.

“Just how many of those muscles have you seen?”

I felt my whole neck turn red, and Quincy burst out laughing.

Of all themindless and asinine jobs I did at Hands and Paws, I minded stocking the food pantry shelves the least. I liked order, and being able to put the cans in neat rows with the labels facing out, organized by type of food—fruit, vegetables, beans, soups, meat and fish—at least satisfied that particular itch. It was helping people, too, which at least meant that it wasn’t pointless, even if a potato could do it.

After cans came boxes: stuffing, macaroni and cheese, crackers, pasta. Containers of cocoa, instant coffee, boxes of tea bags.

There were refrigerator cases, too, for things like milk and eggs and butter and cheese, although those were things that most people didn’t donate. Most people gave canned goods or boxed goods—even though we had signs and announcements on the website asking for things like juice, bread, dairy, and so on.

Hands and Paws also took clothing donations, shoes,and pretty much any kind of houseware you could think of—dishes, cookware, towels, bathroom shit, you name it. One of the biggest things Hands and Paws did, in addition to providing food and connecting shifters with employers willing to hire them, was working with low-income housing to provide low-rent apartments to homeless shifters, along with the basics that they needed to actually make (or remake) a life out of it.

I believed in what Hands and Paws did—really believed in it. They’d kept Noah and I off the streets, ensured we were fed, and gave us what we needed to make it on our own. When they needed volunteers for things like Thanksgiving or Christmas, I was here with Noah, happily doing whatever they needed. They got the clothes I hadn’t worn in two years, the kitchen stuff we hadn’t used, books we’d bought and weren’t going to read or read again.

But I didn’t like working here. And it had nothing to do with the people—who were perfectly nice—or the mission or even what I was doing. It had to do with what Iwasn’tdoing. I wasn’t doing the thing I’d trained to do—forensic science. Biochemistry. I was stocking shelves. It wasn’t like I thought I was too good to stock shelves, I just didn’twantto be stocking shelves. If I had to stock shelves, here was where I wanted to do it, but I actually wanted to be doing my real job.

The job that had fired me for being a shifter, which this job would never, ever do.

But every day that I put cans in rows or mopped a floor or helped carry furniture or boxes of stuff into a low-rent apartment set up for someone to start their life over, all I could think of was the fact that I desperately wanted to be doing something else.

31

ELLIOT CRANE

Do you know anything about interior design?

SETH MAYS

No…

Why?

I have been hired to make a dining set.

I was sent photos of various pieces to copy.

They are not even remotely the same

And I have no other instructions.

Did you ask them?

I was told to “do what feels right.”

That does not seem very helpful.

Not in the slightest.

So what thefuck do I do?

I am not the right person to ask.

Because I’m guessing that they’re paying you more than I’ve ever had in my bank account.

And I don’t know how rich people think.