I dodge cars to cross the street with my black hair flying behind me like a wind-ripped pirate’s flag. Even before the pandemic started, I didn’t like spending money to have it cut. Before I set foot inside, I pull it back into a bun. My mask is a bandana secured over my nose and mouth with a hair tie.
I refuse to let this situation grind me down. There is always a path forward. I just have to keep trying until I find it.
“What can I get you?” asks the barista. He’s about my age, with a scruffy beard sticking out around his mask and a black band T-shirt covered by a gray apron. I could fit in here, I think.
“Do you have any day-old pastries?” I ask. I’m not sure I can deal with another rejection on an empty stomach, so I pay for my stale croissant and small cup of coffee and take them into the courtyard. I eat in small bites, trying to make a snack into a meal. I have no weight to lose. I am five-foot-seven and a hundred and ten pounds. My breasts and hips have become suggestions with skin over them. The coffee helps to quell my hunger.
Now that I’ve eaten, my financial wherewithal is down to $16.32. I toss my paper bag and empty cup into the trash and return to the counter, where I drop the thirty-two cents into the tip jar. It isn’t much but, I know I’m not the only person suffering financially. Even small amounts add up over the course of a shift, so I contribute what little I can.
“Excuse me,” I ask the guy working there. “Are you hiring?”
He looks me up and down. I am wearing a black tank top and cutoff jeans. A tattoo is visible on my exposed arm. On my feet are secondhand black boots that are a half-size too large. I stand straight and try to look reliable.
“Hang on.” He gives me a form to fill out. I stick it inside a printed circular to keep the breeze from bending it and take it out to my vehicle, where I know I have a pen. I fish one out of my backpack and start writing.
In the address line, I put the street number of the local community center. It’s where I bathe and get water every day—close enough. Hopefully they won’t recognize it until I have a chance to get hired and impress them.
Under references, I list my last employer. The owner of an upscale salon claimed she was doing me a service by giving me a “paid” internship—one that required me to spend eight hours a day on-site. She charged clients a hundred and twenty dollars an hour for each massage, paid me a dollar more than minimum wage plus tips, and still expected me to fold towels or wash people’s hair without compensation during my so-called downtime. On a good day, I’d go home to my van, exhausted, with a whopping ninety bucks in my pocket.
When the pandemic hit, she fired me immediately. That bitch had the nerve to tell me about how she was terrified she wouldn’t be able to keep her vacation home if she didn’t cut costs.
As a homeless person, I was not exactly sympathetic.
But she didn’t know that about me. She didn’t know about my plans, nor would she have cared if I’d bothered to tell her anything about my struggles. I kept quiet and tried to file for unemployment, only to find that she’d screwed me that way, too, by classifying me as a contractor.
Lesson learned—dreaming big is for people with things like families and houses and college degrees. Not for me.
I return the neatly completed, uncreased application to the counter and stand there flipping through the circular while he takes it to the manager in the back. I know there’s almost no chance that I’ll be offered an interview on the spot, but I wait anyway. Hope is a persistent little weed, and hard to root out no matter how many times you’re disappointed. Besides, I don’t mind taking the opportunity to juice up my phone and sit in the air conditioning.
I spend several minutes circling potential jobs before I spot one that stops me cold.
Live-in massage therapist wanted. Must be certified & provide own supplies. Housing and stipend paid. 555-555-5555.
It’s a better deal than the rich bitch offered me at her spa. Maybe it isn’t much to hope for, but like I said—hope is hard to kill.
I compose a message on my cracked phone, hoping I don’t misspell anything. I can’t see half the words through the spider web of broken glass. At least it still works, mostly.
“Thanks,” the counter clerk says. “The manager will give you a call if there’s any jobs.”
If there’s any jobs. Of course, there won’t be an opening. The state is going into lockdown at midnight. He must have thought I was a complete fool.
I want my thirty-two cents back.
“Could’ve saved me the trouble of filling it out,” I mutter to myself. I unplug my phone and head back to my van. There’s a bench seat that folds flat so I can sleep at night and a sunroof for ventilation. I have a camp stove, matches, and a five-gallon stash of water. It’s gotten me through four months of homelessness while working full-time, but it’s no way to quarantine. I rip off my bandana mask and toss it on the console.
My butt vibrates before I can sit down.
If you’re interested in the job, send me your resume and a copy of your license.
Hm. It’s probably another scam like the place I just
