REBEL, a New Adult Romance Novel (The Rebel Series) (3 page)

As it is now, I’m the proud owner of a bucket of dented sheet metal that passed its prime about twenty years ago with nothing but bolts and scratched paint holding it all together.
 
The Beast has served its purpose of delivering my sorry ass from Point A to Point B for the past four years, but now it’s just an embarrassment.
 
I almost feel like a traitor to the car, saying that about her, but job hunting in this thing is going to make it even harder for me to find a way to support myself.
 
It’s bad enough that I truly
am
desperate, but worse that I look it, too.

Checking myself in the mirror, I see that things aren’t going much better for my face.
 
Bloodshot puffy eyes, mascara smears, and a swollen nose from all the crying have turned me into a run-down prostitute-looking mofo.
 
Goddamn.
 
What is wrong with me?
 
Who the hell gets a swollen nose from crying?
 
I shake my head in disgust as I turn the ignition key.
 
Time to get a grip and find a way to tide my life over until I can come up with a better plan.

The engine bubbles to life as only Beetle motors can.
 
Pulling out into the main road, The Beast and I head out into the wild blue yonder, otherwise known as The Mall.

CHAPTER FIVE

TWO HOURS LATER, I’VE LEARNED a couple very valuable lessons.
 
First, about how important it is to start job hunting before the end of the semester.
 
Pretty much every decent job at the mall and nearby restaurants is already taken by students staying over the summer.
 
And second, the fact that I have zero prior work experience nixes any chance I have to be hired at the couple businesses that are still hiring.
 
I have to leave this area of town and hunt somewhere else, because I’m liable to bitch-slap the next person who tells me I need job experience just to press buttons on a cash register.

The Beast and I head towards the seedier part of town.
 
I need a job and I need one fast, so I’m going to go into places that don’t give a shit about my blank resumé or about what I drive.
 
As long as I’m not selling the hootchie or giving it away in exchange for a room, I figure I’ll be all right.
 
I’m tough.
 
I can handle this.
 
I can handle anything.

First stop, Blue Star Pawn, the place that guarantees straight deals and the lowest prices in town…

The clerk’s gold tooth doesn’t impress me nearly as much as he thinks it does.
 
He’s giving me an eyeful of his horrifically misspent dental dollars, nodding his head as his gaze roams from my boobs to my hooch.
 
It’s awful just like that, but with his frizzy red hair, freckles, and thick yellow-blonde eyebrows, it feels like I’m being visually felt-up by a gangster Carrot Top.

So. Very. Wrong.

“Yo, up here, maybe?”
 
I wave at him to get his attention.

“Can I he’p you?” he asks, finally looking at my face.

“Uh, yeah, you can he’p me.
 
Or maybe I can he’p you.”

“Is that a fact?
 
I’m listenin’.”
 
He puts a toothpick in his mouth and twirls it around with his tongue.
 
I think it’s supposed to be sexy, but it borders on nauseating.
 
I’m seeing altogether too much of this man’s tongue, and I’m way too sober for that shit.

Shudder.

I look down at the glass display case in front of me to distract myself from telling him all about himself.
 
Great
.
 
There are hunting knives inside.
 
How am I going to stop thinking about stabbing him and putting him out of his misery now?

“I need a job,” I say, getting a grip on my homicidal thoughts.
 
“Are you hiring?”

He laughs.
 
He actually laughs right in my face.

“Hoo, boy, you funny,” he finally says when his lungs are done throwing mists of phlegm around the room.

“What’s so funny?” I ask, not a smile in sight.
 
“I don’t get it.”

“
You
what’s so funny, tha’s what.
 
All white bread in here tryin’ to ask me fo’ a job.
 
That’s good shit, that is.”
 
He takes the toothpick out and laughs some more.
 
I kind of wish he’d left the big splinter of wood there, so maybe he could inhale it into his nasty lungs.

“Did you seriously just call me white bread?
 
I thought that was only in the movies that people did that.”

“White. Bread.” He says it with his southern-fried accent seriously exaggerated, ignoring the fact that he’s just as white as I am. Whiter, actually.

“Like
Wonder Bread
, white,” he clarifies.
 
“Like I ain’t seen nothin’ that white outside-a one-a them mimes, yo.”

I laugh just because I’m so out in the weeds.
 
I don’t even think we’re from the same planet.
 
Right now, in this exact moment, I realize it’s highly possible that the shit in the movie
Men In Black
is totally real and that I just stumbled onto an alien’s home away from home.

Looking around, hoping not to see any otherworldly laser guns hidden away, I respond.
 
“I know you didn’t just call me a mime, dude.”
 
I look at him and see his expression hasn’t changed.
 
“That is so wrong.”
 
I hate mimes.
 
Being called a mime is like being called a straight up asshole in my book.

“Yeah, you like one-a them mimes.
 
With the face all painted white ’n shit.
 
Stumblin’ around all foolish an’ lost in a box.”

I cross my arms.
 
“What’s so foolish about being unemployed?”
 
I don’t want to work here anymore, not that I really did in the first place, but it’s the principle of the thing that keeps me here arguing with Cro-Magnon man.
 
I don’t like being drive-by mimed for no reason.
 
It sucks bad enough to be jobless, but there cannot possibly be anything worse than looking like a jobless mime.
 
I hate that this ginger-headed wannabe gangster sees
me
as lost.

He goes serious on me.
 
“What’s foolish is you bein’ in here at all.
 
What-choo doin’?
 
Checkin’ things out for the po-po?
 
Cuz I run a legitimate business up in here and I don’t appreciate you gettin’ all up on me like dat.”

Forget
Men In Black
.
 
I’m seriously in a Quentin Tarantino movie right now.
 
That’s the only explanation for what’s happening.
 
And for some reason, I can’t just walk away without saying anything.
 
Maybe I’ve finally snapped, the news of my father’s passing too much, or maybe it’s being insulted by a dude whose intelligence is one notch above brain dead that keeps me rolling.

In my temporarily demented mind, I consider that maybe this is how the great director picks his next star, by setting them up for a random punking-slash-audition.
 
And if I’m going to be a celebrity actress, I figure I should go all the way, with my game face on and everything.

What would Uma Thurman do right now?
I narrow my eyes and put a little swagger into my backwards walk towards the entrance to the pawn shop.
 
“Yeah, that’s right, home slice.
 
I’m undercover po-po, and this shit’s about to get real.”

“How real?” he asks, totally falling for my awesome.

“Reeeeal real.
 
Check this shit out.”
 
I do my best imitation of a mime stuck in a box.
 
I stop suddenly and stare him down.
 
“We got eyes on you, man.”
 
I point at him with my two fingers, squinting my eyes like Uma did in
Kill Bill
.
 
“We got … Eyes. On. You.”

I feel the door handle hit the middle of my back, just in time to save me from doing some seriously lame-ass karate moves.
 
I’m getting way too into this role.
 
I’ll definitely be getting a call-back if Quentin is anywhere around.

He yanks his toothpick out of his mouth and points it at me.
 
“Don’t you come back here, mime-girl, you hear!”

I shout as the door closes behind me.
 
“Oh, I’ll be back!
 
You can bet on that!”

I fast-walk to The Beast, figuring I have about fifteen seconds before he comes out and either offers me a job or shoots me in the back, neither of which scenario I find even remotely appealing.

CHAPTER SIX

NEXT STOP: THE WASH-N-Dry-N-Fold Laundromat.
 
It’s a mouthful of terrible business ideas, but there’s a sign in the window, one plaza over from Golden Tooth Pawn, saying that help is wanted.
 
I walk inside and inhale the scent of fabric softener sheets and hot dryers, my eyes scanning what will probably be my first real job place.

I nod in satisfaction.
 
I can totally handle this.
 
What will I have to do?
 
Stock the soap dispenser?
 
Put coins into little paper rolls?
 
Count the bills in the money changer?
 
Please
.
 
So easy.
 
I took accounting in college and I have more than half a brain.

I walk up to a round, short woman pulling some very large underpants out of the dryer.
 
I try to breathe through my mouth so I won’t inhale freshly-baked granny panties.
 
“Excuse me, ma’am … do you know where I can find the manager?”

She lifts an eyebrow at me but says nothing.
 
She commences the eight-part fold that will bring that sailboat underwear canvas down to a manageable size.

“Um … hello?
 
Do you know where the manager is?” I ask in a slightly louder voice. Maybe she’s hard of hearing from spending so much time in here. I’m going to have to buy some ear plugs if I’m going to work in this joint. I try not to sound irritated, but I’m still picturing myself as a mime and it’s not pretty.
 
Why is it that insults given by society’s rejects sting so much more than regular ones?

“
No comprendo
,” she finally says, turning her back to me.

“Well, fuck,” I say, mostly to myself.
 
“That’s mighty inconvenient.”

“Do you have laundry to do or you just in here harassing people?” asks a rough voice from the back of the room.
 
A tall, skinny guy is standing in the open door of what might be a back office.

Score.
 
Manager, twelve o’clock.

I walk over with purpose, my hand held out for a handshake like I’ve seen business people do all my life.
 
“Hello, are you the manager?
 
I’m Teagan Cross, and I’m here for the job you have advertised.”
 
I stop in front of him, my offer of friendship dangling in the air between us.

He looks at me, his face screwed up.
 
“Advertisement.
 
I didn’t leave no advertisement anywhere.”

This might be a trick.
 
I try not to let my annoyance show.
 
Maybe he’s testing me to see how I handle mentally handicapped customers.
 
Jerking my thumb towards the front window, I smile.
 
“Sign on the door there?
 
Help wanted it says …”

“That ain’t no advertisement.
 
It’s just a sign.”

I clear my throat to get control of my mouth.
 
This whole area of town has apparently been invaded by aliens who’ve watched way too many episodes of
Dukes of Hazzard
.

“My mistake.
 
I saw your
sign
out there and so here I am.
 
I’m ready for the job if you’re still hiring.”

“You want to work in a laundromat.”
 
He says it like a statement.

“That’s why I’m here, yeah.”
 
I resist the urge to cross my arms in front of me.
 
I’m just a little worried about what I might do if he calls me a mime.

“You speak Spanish?” he asks.

“No.”

“Russian?”

I half-laugh.
 
“No.
 
I speak English.
 
This
is
the United States, right?”

“Maybe.
 
But you gotta speak other languages if you want to work here.”

“Maybe this is the United States?
 
No, I’m pretty sure this
is
the United States.”
 
A multi-lingual laundromat employee?
 
I think not.
 
This guy’s just blowing me off.
 
I look around me to get my bearings.
 
“I didn’t get on a plane and fly to another country without realizing it, did I?”

“I guess you never heard of the great melting pot,” he says, a small smile quirking up the corner of his mouth.
 
“Guess they skipped that in your civics class.”

“They didn’t skip it.
 
I’ll have you know that I’m one semester away from graduating from UCLA, and I know plenty about the melting pot.”
 
Actually I don’t know that much about it, but he’ll never know.
 
I hate geography and I was never good at foreign languages.
 
I took French, but only because it was required, and I suck at it. I can only speak one sentence:
je vais à la plage
, which means
I’m going to the beach
.
 
Yeah, buddy.