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I let it slide for a bit, but what with this being a four-hour tripI’m not totally sold on having an uncomfortable silence for literally all of it. “No seriously, actually what.”
“I was actually maybe thinking of going into”—she waves a hand—“y’know,this.”
“You want to be a white van woman?”
She looks at me like I’m the absolute worst. “Events.”
“Oh. Right. How’ll that work then?”
“There’s courses you can do. It’s—I don’t know, it’s just been interesting. More interesting than hair or bathrooms.”
To be fair, it probably is. Though I’m not sure you need to work that hard to be more interesting than bathrooms. “Well, I’d hire you,” I say in my best supporting-the-ambitions-of-the-youngs voice.
She’s quiet again. “Funny you should say that.”
“I’d hire youif I had something needed doing. Which I don’t.”
“No, but, like, I might need references. Especially because if I drop out of what I’m doing right now, I look sort of like a quitter.”
“So what, you want me to write something saying, I don’t know,under my watchful eye, Tiffany has discovered her true passion for events planning and management and I believe she will be an asset to the field.”
“Forget it, I’ll ask Claire.”
“Truly, never has an event been so planned as this event was planned, 'twas a revelation.”
“Fuck off, Sam.”
I flick a disapproving glance towards her for the half-second it’s not totally irresponsible to take my eyes off the road. “Still your boss, remember.”
“Yeah, but you weren’t very good at it.”
“Excuse me, I was amazing.”
She squirms a little in her seat. “You were fine. But…look, banter aside you’re not going to fire me or refuse to write me a reference or anything, are you?”
“No.” Though I’m worried now. Which is silly because what Tiff thinks of me really shouldn’t matter on account of how she’s a teenager who worked for me in a job I’ve already quit.
“Well, you were fine, but you were always—don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you weren’t like New Enthusiastic Chris. I’d havehatedit if you were one of thosehey, let’s all be super jazzed to be working for the Splashes-ampersand-Snuggles family. But you were always a bit…I don’t know, checked out?”
“Checked out?”
She nods. “Yeah.”
“Checked out how?”
For a moment she doesn’t say anything, which feels very concerning, like she’s building up to the kind of devastating burn that only a fundamentally well-intentioned teenager can deliver. “There’s relaxed,” she says at last, “and then there’s nihilistic.”
“Excuse me,” I tell her, “I’m not nihilistic. I’m extremely cheerful.”
“So are death row inmates.”
“No, they’re not.”
“Yes, they are.”
I risk another half-second glare. “Met a lot, have you?”
“I’ve seen documentaries. Point is you were always really nice, but it always felt like you were nice because you knew that deep down the whole world was a joke with death as the punch line.”
