Chapter 7: Part-Time
Simon made it to school with about ninety seconds to spare.
Meg was waiting at his locker, which had become a morning ritual neither of them had formally agreed to but both maintained without discussion. She handed him a coffee — black, no sugar, she'd learned — and fell into step beside him.
"I made a decision," Simon said.
"Good morning to you too."
"I'm getting a part-time job. After school."
Meg stopped walking. Simon took two more steps before he noticed and turned around.
She was looking at him with the expression of someone trying to reconcile two completely incompatible images. "You. A part-time job."
"Yes."
"Like — a regular job. With a name tag."
"Presumably."
She started walking again, catching up. "Why? I mean — I know why, but the racing—"
"The racing is two, maybe three nights a month when things are running well," Simon said. "Less when LAPD decides to crack down, which they do every couple months like clockwork. It's not stable income." He sipped the coffee. "And stable is what I need right now."
Meg was quiet for a moment. Then: "I changed my mind, by the way. About Columbia."
Simon looked at her.
"I was thinking California Institute of the Arts might be—"
"No." He said it flatly but not unkindly. "Meg. Columbia's journalism program is the best in the country and you know it. That's been your plan since middle school and it's the right plan. Don't adjust it for me."
"Dreams are allowed to change."
"Not because of logistics." He held the door to the building open. "You've got a year. Don't decide anything yet. Just — don't factor me into it in a way you'll regret."
Meg stepped through and gave him a look that meant the conversation wasn't over, just paused.
"Fine," she said. "Where are you applying to work?"
Simon reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded flyer. "Buy More. Over in Burbank. They're hiring part-time floor staff."
Meg took the flyer, looked at it. "The big electronics place by the mall?"
"That's the one."
"I'll come with you after school."
"You don't have to—"
"I know." She handed the flyer back. "I want to. We can get dinner after."
Simon pocketed it. "I'll make a reservation."
They drove separately after the final bell — Meg in her car, Simon in the truck — and met up in the parking lot of the Burbank shopping complex, a sprawling outdoor retail district anchored by a hardware superstore, a food court, two chain restaurants, and the Buy More, which occupied a big-box footprint at the end of the row and had a banner above the entrance advertising their current sale on home theater systems.
"I'll go in alone," Simon said, checking his reflection in the truck window.
"You look fine." Meg was already walking toward the entrance. "I'm coming."
He didn't argue.
The Buy More's interior was exactly what the exterior promised: wide aisles, aggressive lighting, the faint ambient hum of a hundred devices all running at once, and a floor staff that had achieved a collective energy level somewhere between mildly present and technically here.
Two employees near the television wall were having a conversation that had nothing to do with televisions. A third was reorganizing a display in a way that seemed designed primarily to kill time. A fourth was eating something behind a standing promotional banner.
Simon looked around, quietly satisfied. If this was the standard, a part-time employee who showed up and did the bare minimum would look like a model worker. A part-time employee who actually tried would be practically invisible in terms of management attention. Both outcomes worked for him.
"Simon."
Meg touched his arm. She was looking toward the center of the floor, at the Nerd Herd service desk — a circular counter in the middle of the store where a guy in a short-sleeved button-down and a clip-on tie was consulting a repair manual with the intensity of someone defusing something.
Simon looked.
Then he looked again.
"Huh," he said.
"You know him?"
"Yeah." Simon was already moving toward the desk. "Come on."
The guy at the counter looked up as they approached, already in customer service mode. "Hey, welcome in — what can I help you—"
He stopped.
Blinked.
"Chuck Bartowski," Simon said. "It's Simon. Simon Lewis."
Chuck Bartowski stared at him for a full two seconds with the expression of a man whose brain had just tried to process several things at once and was experiencing minor traffic. "Simon. Lewis. Yeah — yeah, of course, hi—"
He looked suddenly, inexplicably nervous. His eyes moved from Simon to Meg to somewhere behind them and then back to Simon.
"You — how are you, man, it's been—"
"A while," Simon agreed. "You okay? You look like you're expecting something bad to happen."
"What? No. I'm great. Everything's great." Chuck laughed — a little too quickly. "Just, you know. Busy. It's a busy — it's Tuesday. Tuesdays are—"
"I'll let you get back to it," Simon said, reading the room. "I'm actually here about the job posting. I'll track you down later."
"Sure. Yeah. Absolutely." Chuck pointed finger-guns at him — immediately seemed to regret the finger-guns — and then turned back to his repair manual with the focus of someone trying to disappear into furniture.
Meg leaned close to Simon as they walked away. "Is he always like that?"
"I genuinely don't know," Simon said. "We haven't talked in a few years."
The manager's office was in the back, past the returns desk and a bulletin board covered in laminated policy reminders that someone had clearly stopped reading. The door was open.
Behind the desk sat a heavyset man in a short-sleeved dress shirt, one hand on the computer mouse, the other wrapped around a large fountain drink. He looked up when Simon knocked.
"Help you?"
"My name's Simon Lewis. I'm a senior at Neptune High. I saw your posting for part-time floor staff."
The manager — his name badge read BIG MIKE in capital letters, which answered several questions and raised new ones — looked Simon up and down with the practiced speed of someone who had conducted approximately four hundred of these conversations.
"You can start tomorrow," Big Mike said. "Eight bucks an hour plus commission. Minimum four hours a shift, and don't go over eight days off in a month."
Simon paused. "That's — it?"
"That's it. You have a problem with the terms?"
"No sir." Simon processed the fact that he had just been hired in under forty-five seconds. "No problem at all."
"Good. Ask someone out front to show you where the vests are. And call me Big Mike — everybody does."
"Yes sir. Big Mike."
Meg was waiting by the main entrance, pretending to look at a display of Bluetooth speakers.
"Well?" she asked when she saw his face.
"Got it."
"Already?"
"He didn't even ask for a résumé."
Meg laughed. "Only you." She took his arm as they headed toward the exit. "How's the pay?"
"Eight an hour plus commission."
Her nose wrinkled. "That's not a lot."
"It's consistent." Simon pushed open the door. "That's what matters right now."
The racing was faster money, but it was also unpredictable money — feast or famine depending on how active LAPD was, whether the weather cooperated, whether the right people showed up to run against. The Buy More would put somewhere around fifteen hundred dollars a month into his account like clockwork, and clockwork was what he was building toward.
"You're practical to a fault sometimes," Meg said.
"I prefer 'realistic.'"
"Same thing."
"Different tone."
She bumped his shoulder and they walked across the parking lot toward their cars. The California afternoon light was doing what it did best — making everything look like it should be on a postcard.
"Mia's for coffee first?" Simon asked. "Then dinner."
"Where are we going for dinner?"
"71Above." He clicked the truck unlocked. "Made the reservation this morning."
Meg looked at him. "You made a reservation at 71Above and you're also getting a job at the Buy More on the same day."
"Full Tuesday."
She shook her head, but she was smiling. "Give me ten minutes ahead so I can change."
They took their time at Mia's — a soda each, a fruit cup, the specific comfortable slowness of people who had nowhere they needed to be for another two hours.
"You have a date tonight?" Mia guessed, looking at how little they'd ordered.
"71Above," Meg said, leaning into Simon's shoulder. "He made a reservation."
Mia smiled. "That place has incredible views. Have fun."
"We will." Meg was already visibly happy about it, the way she got happy about things she'd been looking forward to — not performing it, just feeling it.
Simon watched Mia refill their drinks and then said, without entirely planning to: "Mia. You remember Chuck Bartowski?"
The movement behind the counter slowed for just a fraction of a second. Then it resumed.
"Of course," Mia said. Her voice stayed even. "Why?"
"I ran into him today. At the Buy More in Burbank. He's working the Nerd Herd desk."
Mia set the soda bottle down. She was quiet for a moment. "How did he seem?"
Simon thought about it honestly. Nervous. Distracted. Like someone carrying something heavy and trying to make it look light. "Okay," he said. "A little off, maybe. But okay."
Mia nodded once. "Good." She picked up a towel and started wiping down the counter — her standard signal that a topic was closing. "That's good."
Simon and Meg exchanged a glance and left it alone.
Some things you could tell Mia Toretto. And some things you left where she put them.
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