“Freudian slip?” I murmured to the empty car. I double-checked the address again and aimed toward China Basin, dreading my destination even as my car crept closer.
China Basin is built on a landfill, and People’s Pants seemed to be stocked with garments suitable for said landfill. I wound my way through racks and racks of polyester pants with permanent pleats, stretch pants in colors never found in nature, and heaps of velour track suits in cotton-candy colors, my heart sinking with each gruesome discovery. Though I had given myself a reasonably peppy self-talk in the car, I felt the betraying sting of tears starting to form behind my eyes as I approached the register. I clutched my briefcase a little harder and convinced myself that People’s Pants was a mere stepping stone. I might start as a floor manager or some kind of junior buyer, but before long the People’s Pants Corporation was bound to applaud my moxie, admire my swift organizational and people skills, and move me up to a position that I wouldn’t have to lie about at parties.
By the time I found the cash register, I was feeling quite good about eventually taking over as People’s Pants’ first female CEO. I put my hands on the counter and beamed at the young woman who was slouching behind it, picking at her cuticles. Her brilliant blue hair was done up in Medusa braids and her pale face was pierced everywhere that wasn’t covered with deathly white pancake makeup.
When she didn’t look up, I cleared my throat and repasted on my newly acquired corporate-friendly smile.
“Everything with a green label is two-for-one. Higher-priced item prevails,” Medusa braids said without looking up.
“Oh, no, I’m not a shopper.” I stood up a little straighter, held my briefcase close to my crisp white shirt. “I’m here for an interview. With Elizabeth?”
The human pincushion looked up slowly, revealing flat brown eyes lined with thick black pencil, making her look both whorish and sleep-deprived.
“You’re the new girl?” she asked.
“Well, no. Not yet. I just have an interview. Is Elizabeth here?” I looked at my watch. “I was supposed to meet her at—”
“You’re the new girl. I’m Avery. Here,” Avery leaned under the counter and tossed a blue smock at me. “This is yours.”
I glanced up and noticed that underneath the Dead Milkmen, Eat Your TV!, and A is for Anarchy buttons, Avery was wearing a similar smock over her black mesh shirt and just-past-her-butt-length plaid skirt. Her ensemble was completed with over-the-knee striped stockings and shoes with soles the size of loaves of bread. I estimated without them, she’d be about nose-height to me.
“So, I’m hired?” I asked.
Avery blew a bubble and snapped it, shrugged. “Guess so. Elizabeth had to study for a final. She told me to show you the ropes.”
“Oh, okay.”
Avery looked again at the smock in my hands.
“Right,” I said, dropping my briefcase and pulling the hideous thing over my head. Avery leaned forward and clipped a red plastic name tag to my smock. It read TRAINEE in big white letters.
“Excellent,” I muttered under my breath.
“Your breaks will be at ten and two, and you can take lunch from twelve to twelve-thirty. You need to vacate the break room between twelve-thirty and one o’clock because that’s my lunch and I have to meditate.”
Avery tried to pin me with a glare, the brown of her eyes picking up the faint sparkle of her heavy dark eyeliner. “Got it?”
“Sure.” I nodded, my eyes wandering to the hunk of quartz suspended from a leather tie around her neck. She fingered it, tapped it with her black-painted fingernails.
“Do you know about the healing power of crystals?” she asked me in her bored, nasally voice. “They are especially good for keeping away evil. There’s a lot of evil in this town, you know.”
You mean beyond the rows of size-twenty-four flower-printed rayon pants? I wanted to ask. Instead I said, “Evil, right. Noted.” And tried to keep a straight face.
Avery blinked at me. “You seem like someone who is closed to the occult. I can read your disbelief all around you; your aura is white, cloudy. You’re lacking a certain consciousness. You have mistrust. People like me”—she closed her bruised-looking eyelids—“are at one with all beings in all worlds.”
I thought of the hordes of centaurs, demons, vampires, zombies, dragons, and banshees I had processed in my time at the UDA. I thought of the blood bags in the office fridge, of my evenings spent chaining up Mr. Sampson before nightfall. I looked around the swarm of people’s pants, and wanted to cry.
Chapter Thirteen