What Happened After

Chapter 3

"If you can't make sandwiches then you probably shouldn't have even made it this far in life." 

Chapter 3.

     A few days into the school year, I got a job.

     An accidental one, but a job no less. I had promised my parents a few weeks before leaving for school that I would try to find one once I got there. It would ease their minds a little bit, knowing that I wasn’t just lying cooped up in my room like I had all summer. I didn’t expect to find one so quickly, though.

     I was out with Anna; she was showing me around the city and all her favorite shops. She told me that I should never shop name brand anything. That the best shops were the little ones tucked in between the big ones and if I wanted to be “cool” or “unique” in any way, this was my only option. It was such a Lauren thing to say.

     Anyway, apparently the name brand thing applied to food too, if you could refer to common chain restaurants as ‘name brand.’ We ended up eating at some tiny sandwich shop next to an American Apparel. Anna made a show of shielding her eyes as we passed by the clothing store. I was in the middle of my HPB—honey-peanut-butter-banana sandwich—when I noticed the Help Wanted sign up near the register. Anna caught me eyeing the sign and seemingly read my mind when she spoke up. “Yo!” she called to the boy working the counter. “You hiring?”

     Counter Boy looked at her for a moment, before sliding his gaze to the sign, which was clearly in Anna’s field of vision, then back to her face. “Yeah…” he started.

     “Well you gonna give my friend here a job or what?” Now I was staring at her as well.

     “Anna,” I started, “You can’t just do things like that, you probably scared him. She’s just kidding!” I called that last part back to the counter. She nodded back at the counter and shook her head.

     “Nuh-uh. Look at the kid. He’s totally down.” I glanced over at Counter Boy and, sure enough, he looked crazy-relieved that it was me who wanted a job and not Anna. She could be a little over-bearing at times, and I could see his concern with having her as a coworker.

     “Y-yeah,” he stammered, flustered. “I’ll call my boss if you sincerely want it. I’ll tell you right now though, he’s been looking for a while and he’s getting pretty desperate. You don’t look like a serial killer or an otherwise less-than-decent employee, so basically if you want it, it’s yours.”

     So Counter Boy, whose name turned out to be Taryn, went to the back room to, I assume, call his boss, and when he came back out, I had a job. “Can you start Monday?”

     Wow. I had never worked a day in my life, because honestly, I had never had to, but if finding a job was this easy, I couldn’t imagine why I didn’t do it more often. “Yeah, Monday’s fine.” It was currently Thursday, so I had one last weekend free.

     “Cool. So just come in around nine or so, and we’ll work out your schedule from there. I promise, it’s literally the easiest job ever. If you can’t make sandwiches then you probably shouldn’t have even made it this far in life.” I chuckled.

     “Yeah, no, I’m great at sandwiches. Nine sounds good. I’ll see you then!” As I turned to leave, Anna was there behind me, staring intently. She widened her eyes and nudged her head in Counter Boy’s direction. “Oh, right!” I cried, turning quickly back around to face him. “I forgot. My name is Rayn. It’s probably best to know basic information like this before you let me behind the counter, yeah?”

     “Taryn,” he said, grinning. “Good to meet you, Rayn. I’ll let the boss know you have a name, and I’ll see you Monday.” With that, he swiped the dish towel he had resting on his shoulder back onto the counter to continue wiping it down.