give her the name. It felt low stakes, to use it on a coffee barista who seemed more in tune with the local bands than the national news.
“Looking for a job?” She passes me my drip coffee, the cheapest item on the menu.
“Sort of,” I say, handing her two dollars.
She raises her eyebrows as she gives me my change. “You either are or you aren’t.”
“I am.” I turn away from her, doctoring my coffee with enough cream and sugar to fill me up for a few hours. I don’t know how to tell her that I’m desperate for work, that I’m terrified I will run out of money and be stuck here forever.
“I work part-time for a caterer,” she says, wiping down the counter next to the coffee machine. “He’s always looking for extra people to be servers. You interested?”
I hesitate, trying to decide whether I have the nerve to say yes or not.
She glances at me and continues her cleaning. “It pays twenty dollars an hour. And”—she gives me a sly grin—“he pays under the table.”
I take a sip of coffee, feeling the hot liquid scald the back of my throat. “He would hire someone he never met?”
“He’s actually desperate for bodies. He’s got a huge party this weekend and two of his servers flaked because they have some kind of sorority meeting.” She rolls her eyes and tosses the rag into the sink behind her. “If it goes well, it could be a regular thing.”
I’ve organized hundreds of catered events—both big and small—and wonder what it would feel like to work behind the scenes. To be one of the anonymous people I barely noticed when I was hosting an event. “What would I have to do?”
“Set tables. Carry trays of food. Smile at bad jokes. And clean everything up. The event begins at seven, but we start at four. Meet me here on Saturday at three thirty. Wear black pants and a white top.”
I quickly do the math. Twenty dollars an hour, under the table, will earn me close to two hundred dollars for one night’s work.
“Okay,” I say.
“My name’s Kelly,” she says, holding her hand out to shake. Her grip is firm and cool.
“Nice to meet you, Kelly. And thanks.”
She smiles. “No thanks necessary. You seem like someone who could use a break. I know a little something about that.”
Before I can say anything else, she passes through the swinging doors into the back and I’m left standing there, amazed at my good fortune.
* * *
It’s only seven in the morning, and the idea of going straight back to Eva’s and hiding out for the rest of the day makes me feel twitchy. So instead, I walk across campus and over to Telegraph Avenue. I stand outside the student union, watching people move through the intersection and toward wherever it is they’re going, unaware of how lucky they are to have the privilege of easy conversation with others. To debate, or laugh together at a joke. To share a meal, and maybe later, a pillow. And I feel the tug to be one of them, just for a little while.
I cross the street, keeping my head angled down and my hands shoved deep into Eva’s coat pockets. Around me, panhandlers ask for money, people try to hand me flyers advertising bands, but I shake my head and keep walking.
I catch flashes of my reflection in shop windows as I walk, and I stop in front of a clothing store and stare at myself. With my short blond hair poking out of the bottom of my cap and Eva’s coat, it’s like looking at a ghost. People swirl on the sidewalk behind me—laughing students, homeless people, aging hippies—but all I see are strangers I can never know. I will never have the freedom to sit down and open myself up to someone else, never be able to talk freely about my mother and Violet, about who I am and where I’m from. This is the life I have ahead of me. Always being alert. Aware. Holding the most important parts of myself back.
I wait for a large group of students heading back toward campus and join them, walking close enough to give myself the illusion that I’m a part of them. That I’m not stranded in this new life alone. I follow them across the busy street that borders campus, peeling off as they make their way into the student union. I can walk among them, but I