In less than forty minutes, she was on her bike, heading to the local drugstore, which had advertised for a sales clerk. Full time, minimum wage.
Inside the bright store, with its array of colorful shelving, she paused and looked around. At the nearest cash register, a heavyset woman with a beehive-like gray pile of hair stood, talking on her cell phone.
Lexi went to the checkout line and stood there.
“You buying something, hon?” the woman said, lowering the phone just a little.
“I’m here for the job.”
“Oh.” The woman bent forward, pressed one scythelike red fingernail to the store intercom, and said, “Manager to register one, please.” Then she smiled at Lexi, straightened, and went back to her phone conversation.
“Thank you,” Lexi said, although the woman wasn’t listening.
Lexi saw the manager approach register one. He was a tall, thin man, very Ichabod Crane–y, with a nose like an eagle’s beak and spiny eyebrows that grew wild as blackberry bushes.
She moved toward him confidently, extended her hand. “Hello, sir. I’m Alexa Baill. I’ve come to apply for the clerk position.”
He shook her hand. “Follow me.”
She followed him back into a small, windowless office that was stacked high with cardboard boxes. He sat behind the metal desk and pointed to a stool in the corner.
She dragged the stool over to the desk and sat down, feeling a little conspicuous on the perch.
“Do you have a résumé?”
Lexi felt her cheeks heat up. “No. It’s a sales clerk job, right? In high school, I worked at Amoré, the ice cream shop. I’m good with money and even better with people. I’m a good employee, and I can work any shift. I could get you some recommendations.”
“When did you work at Amoré?”
“From 2002 to 2004. I … quit in June, after I graduated from high school.”
He wrote something down on a piece of paper that looked like an application. “And you’re home from college now? Is this a summer job for you?”
“No. I’m looking for full-time employment.”
He looked up sharply. His thick eyebrows veed together. “You went to Pine Island High?”
“Yes.”
“Most local kids don’t work here full-time. Where have you worked since high school?”
Lexi swallowed hard. “Part-time in a library.”
“What library?”
She let out a quiet breath and lost her good posture. “Purdy.”
“You don’t mean—”
“The prison. I’ve been in prison for a few years. But now I’m out, and I’ll be a good employee. I guarantee you that.” She was speaking, but it was useless. She saw the way his face shuttered at the word prison, the way he wouldn’t meet her gaze now.
“All right, then,” he said, giving her his first smile—and it was pure fiction. “I’ll contact you when we’ve made our decision.”
“That means no job,” she said, sliding off the stool.
“It means I’ll contact you if we want to hire you.”
“Yeah.” She tried to stay optimistic; it was only the first of many potential jobs. Maybe other employers would be more liberal minded. “So, do you want my phone number?”
He looked at her finally. “You can give it to me if you want.”
She wanted to tell him no way and walk out with some stitch of dignity, but she had Grace to consider, so she wrote down her phone number and left the drugstore’s bright interior. Outside, she opened her newspaper and found the next opening. A waitress position at Esmerelda’s Mexican Kitchen.
For the rest of the afternoon, Lexi tried to believe in herself, even as one job after another evaporated in front of her. Most of the available positions were part-time, without benefits. She lost track of the times some employer had mentioned the economy as her enemy. Apparently she’d gone to prison in good times and come out in bad. Minimum wage was less than nine dollars an hour. That gave her maybe fifteen hundred dollars a month income, before taxes; well over half would go to rent.