The Oracle Of Dating

She makes a face. “For three forty-nine? Are you crazy?”

“Sometimes I think I’m heading there,” I mumble.

“Did you talk back to me?”

“Huh? Me? No.”

“Good!”

I scan the rest of her groceries, pack them and total it up. After I count back her change, she counts it again carefully, like she’s sure I shortchanged her. Then she picks up her bags and leaves.

Little does she know that I arranged for her canned goods to squash her bread. Ha! It’s a hollow revenge, really. But it’s all I’ve got.

Work is high up on my list of the worst places in the world to be, next to a holiday in Iraq or a hiking trip in the mountains of Afghanistan. Since my Web site is getting more hits these days, I hope my days of working here are numbered.

Mom thinks this job is teaching me a work ethic. It definitely is, but not the one she had in mind.

Everybody at Eddie’s Grocery is corrupt, from the price-gouging store manager to the cashiers and stock boys who give themselves five-finger discounts. My coworkers actually think I’m weird because I don’t steal. I tell them it’s nothing against them, I just have an unfortunate Christian morality complex.

Every single person at this store hates their job except Petie, a twenty-year-old with Down syndrome who helps out in the bakery. I think the manager actually gets money from some Community Living program to let Petie work here. It’s unbelievable, really. We should be paying Petie for being the only person to walk in with a smile on his face.

One time I dropped a comment in the Customers’ Views box. Instead of playing horrid elevator music, I suggested that we play motivational CDs, or lectures by Deepak Chopra or the Dalai Lama. My suggestion was not only ignored, but the music was switched to elevator versions of Clay Aiken’s songs the next week. Coincidence?

The only people I pity more than the staff are the customers. It’s impossible to find anything here, and if you can find it, you can’t reach it. The stock boys are mostly too short to reach up and help. In fact, the only tall person in the store is Afrim, a six-foot-four beanpole from Kosovo who works in the deli. He’s very protective of his meats (especially the Eastern European varieties), so unless you’re the manager, you’ll never get Afrim out from behind the counter.

Eddie’s is the worst for old people. Lots of them are frail and use their shopping carts as walkers. I consider myself the self-appointed helper of the aged. I make a point of knowing where the All-Bran is, the Ovaltine, the prunes and the denture cream.

One customer in particular got me onto the helping-old-people bandwagon. Her name is Lucy Ball—yes, it’s true. She turned eighty-nine in August. She’s less than five feet tall and doesn’t mind that I call her Short Stuff. She’s got a husband at home who had a stroke last year, so poor Lucy’s in charge of keeping the house running. It isn’t easy when you’re hunched over like she is. I always help her by double-bagging everything, triple-bagging the meats, waiting patiently while she counts her pennies and just generally being nice to her. She told me I’m her favorite cashier, which doesn’t say a lot considering the other cashiers here (well, except for Ryan), but it still makes me feel good. I know she means it because she’ll go in my lineup even if it’s the longest.

Yep, Lucy is a breath of fresh air in the hellish inferno of my workplace.

Half the customers here are escaped convicts or certified weirdos. Like the crazy cat lady who only buys three things: soda crackers, milk and cat food. And when I say cat food, I mean, like, seventy cans. She does this every week. I wonder how many cats (or cat ladies) it takes to eat all that.

And Mom wonders why I complain about this job.

Yeah, working at the Hellhole shows me how important it is to get an education. If I don’t, I might have to work at a place like this my whole life. That’s the best work-ethic lesson Mom could hope for.

“IT’S GOT SOME POTENTIAL,” Jared says of my latest sketch. He’s been trying to help me lately, or so it seems. I think he finds my attempts at drawing entertaining. Like right now, he’s biting his lip to keep from laughing. “The head’s too big for the body, though.”

I shouldn’t be putting up with him, but I’m keeping him around in the event he can actually help me. Also, he smells good.

“Why couldn’t I just use that photo of the Afghan girl? This one is so … blah.”

“I thought you wanted to start off playing ‘Chopsticks’ instead of Mozart.”

“Okay, fine. How do I get the head the right size?”

“Why don’t you just measure it?”

I do, and within a few minutes I produce a fairly accurate head. Now I have to sketch the tall supermodel body. Jared’s right that the picture is simple, though I have an aversion to drawing unnaturally skinny women.

“So, how’d you end up at this school?” I ask. He’s one of the few new kids this year.

His eyes narrow a fraction. At least I think they do. His face doesn’t give much away. “This school had a space.”

“Where were you before?”

“Sunset Park.”

“I hear Sunset Park can be pretty rough.”

“It’s different.”

I decide to pursue a different line of questioning. “You’re a senior, right? I saw you were in grade twelve English.”

“Are you stalking me, Kayla?”

I feel myself blush. “I’m just observant.”

“Yeah, I’m a senior.”

Well, that explains why he’s old enough to shave. Suddenly I wonder if he has hair on his chest, or if he’s like Case Study No. 2 who had, like, three hairs.

Realizing that I’m staring at his chest, I look up.

“Are you a fan?” he asks.

“Huh?”

“You’re funny, you know that? I’m asking if you like them.”

Oh, he means the band Three Days Grace. He’s wearing a black T-shirt with the band’s name and the words Animal I Have Become.

“I’m not a fan. Not really.”

“What do you listen to? Miley Cyrus?”

Coming from him, I know that’s an insult. “Yeah, definitely,” I say with a straight face. “But the Jonas Brothers are even better.”

Jared makes a gagging noise, and I laugh.

“Truth is, I mostly listen to Top 40 stuff, but not them. What about you?”

“Anything with a good tune and lyrics that mean something. You know, bands that actually write and play their own music. Not groups that recycle the same tunes over and over.”

“Do you play anything?”

“Guitar. I’m in a band called The Invisible. A couple of guys at this school are in it, too—Tom Leeson and Said Abdullah.”