“And so—” I tightened my jaw, “here we stand… thanks to my mom and her brilliant idea that we come to the Job Corps to find a job.” I wrinkled my nose. “Not only do half the people here scare me — and it smells in here — these are real full time jobs not just summer stuff for kids.”
Conor leaned past me, and reached toward the board. “What’s this?” He pulled off the card I’d read earlier. “This sounds promising. Wanted: Ages 14-18. Must be willing to work outdoors and enjoy camping. Room and board included.” He nudged my arm. “We like the outdoors. And we like to camp. Well, you’re more picky than I am. But… you’ve got to admit, it sounds interesting.”
I snatched the card away and pointed out the last sentence. “Room and board included? Conor, that means living some place. It doesn’t even say where, and can you see our parents agreeing to let the two of us go off somewhere where we’d be living all summer? Get real!”
He grabbed my jacket sleeve and dragged me toward a job counselor’s desk. “It can’t hurt to get all the information before giving up.” He made a rude noise with his lips. “It sounds like to me that you don’t even really want to find a job.”
He pushed me into the nearest seat, while I thought about pulling the chair he was about to sink into out from under him. Finally, he was started to get the real idea. Getting a full-time job was not how I really wanted to spend my summer.
“Yeah, well, if you like camping so much you could’ve applied for one of those summer camp jobs your dad kept telling you about. Let’s see, now, what’s that saying your dad keeps on about? Oh yeah, ‘once a Blazer always a Blazer’.”
He clapped the card on the desk, and gave the employment counselor a warm smile, but when he turned toward me, the smile faded while his eyes narrowed. “I’m not suicidal or certifiable. Blazers Boys’ camps are dangerous places, Benz. All those lack of brain cells and all that exploding testosterone? You’d be lucky to ever see me again alive.” His attention moved back to the counselor, his smile reappeared like the sun slipping out from behind a cloud. “So, tell us about this job.”
****
I gripped the phone and punched the last button, still confused why I was making the call. Much to my surprise, instead of my parents digging in their heels with arguments like, “we couldn’t let our darling daughter leave us, we’d miss her too much!” or “are you kidding? There’s bears and snakes out in the woods, you might get hurt.” Their response was more like, “Hmm, working out in the woods would be great for you! Call and check it out.”
Call and check it out. Setting my eyebrows low and glaring out at the world, I waited for the phone to connect. After just a half ring, a voice on the other end answered.
“Norman Schlemmer.” Norman’s slightly nasal tenor voice — not to mention his name — brought to mind a dark-headed, narrow shouldered man, wearing black thick-framed glasses, while sitting hunched at his messy desk.
“Uh, M-Mr. Sch-schlemmer.” I never did do well with calling people. “My name is Mercedes Bennion. I-I’m calling a-about the-uh—” I scanned the printout for the twentieth time since the job counselor gave it to me. “Youth Conservation Corps job that was listed with Job Corps?”
I heard his chair squeak, and I pictured him leaning back on an ancient wooden chair. “Yes, it starts next week and goes for ten weeks. We’re looking for someone willing to commit for that long.”
“I’m available, sir. I don’t have other plans this summer. “Blast it. No friends included me in water ski trips this year, no church rafting planned, no days at the local amusement park. All my usual summer activities seemed to have fizzled now that I was going to be a senior. Like everyone and everything I knew expected me to work! Sigh.
“The teams will be living at Brighton Ski Lodge.”
Ski lodge? I sat up straighter.
“We’ll mostly be working in Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons.”
Images of tall pines, steep granite walls, and the fast moving rivers which rushed through both canyons filled my mind. I loved Little Cottonwood. Dozens of family picnics, church overnights, and even youth group hikes had made me think of that canyon as mine. The idea of living at a ski resort for two and a half months tantalized my mind enough to make it buzz.
“You still interested?”
“Yes, sir.” Unbelievably, I actually was.
“Did they explain about the possible biology credit?”
Biology credit? I sat forward in my seat as my interest rose from 2.0 on the Richter scale to 8.5. I only needed a half more science credit to graduate. It didn’t matter what kind. Did he really mean there might be a chance I wouldn’t have to face more of our sparkling (not!), fascinating (read: boring), near-retirement science department? I held my breath. Maybe I’d misheard.