You Dropped a Blonde on Me Read online

“To work here? Why?”

  Apparently, incredulous was the name of the game today. “Well, yeah. Because there’s nothing I want more than to wear that red gingham-checked apron and a hat with a big yellow beak. I probably don’t want to breathe as much as I want to wear that outfit. It’s a longing I can’t quite describe, but one that I absolutely have to pursue in order to find total fulfillment.”

  The look he gave her was blank. Astonished, too, but mostly blank. “I’ll see if Mr. Herrera’s in.”

  “Thanks,” she looked at his name tag, “Carlo. I’ll wait over by the condiments.”

  Ducking out of the short line, Maxine backed away from the counter to give herself a good view of the private offices through the kitchen. Mr. Herrera wasn’t getting away today. Not if she had to tie him down with the strings of his gingham apron and make him hire her.

  By all that was minimum wage, come the time when she left this fast food joint of batter-dipped sin and fried iniquity, she’d have a job, and she’d wear the ridiculous uniform, hat and all, with pride—because she needed the money.

  Needed.

  From the corner of her eye, Maxine caught Mr. Herrera, day manager of the Cluck-Cluck Palace in small-town Riverbend, New Jersey, exit 98 off the Garden State Parkway, attempting escape via the rear door. Silly man. He’d never be quick enough for her and her desperation, not even with her in three-inch stilettos. The clack of her frantic heels resonated on the tiled floor when she made a break through the lunch crowd to head him off at the pass.

  She caught him just as he was about to push his way out the door and into the humid heat of the day by placing a non-confrontational hand on his bicep. “Mr. Herrera. I’m so disappointed. All I want to do is make nice with you so you’ll hire me, and you run away at every opportunity like I’m the reincarnation of Jeffrey Dahmer. Why is that?”

  He winced, toying with his gingham-checked necktie. “Because you’ve been in here every day for the last week, and if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times—your application has to be processed through headquarters.”

  Maxine gave him a glossy-lipped pout. That used to work on almost everyone who had testosterone and walked upright. Or it had. Okay, so it wasn’t the glossy-lipped pout of twenty, but these lips, the forty-year-old ones, still totally untouched by Botox, were in damn fine shape for their age.

  Thus, she willed them to bedazzle her prey. “Oh, c’mon. You know that’s not true. Gabriella over there filled out an application on the same day I did. I know she did because she liked my bracelet and I told her if she had some cold hard cash, any cash, I’d fork it over free and clear. All this while she was in the process of filling out the same application I did. You hired her. Now look, she’s a chicken-frying engineer, and I still haven’t been called for an interview.”

  He grunted with a grimace.

  “So did she have to go through the same process as I do, or am I being discriminated against because I’m forty and you don’t think I’d be willing to work the hours these poor kids do for minimum wage?” She played the “forty” card extra loud, making several heads in the dining area turn. “Because you’d be wrong.” Way wrong.

  He blustered, frowning so that his bushy eyebrows scrunched together. “That’s not it at all, Ms. Cambridge.”

  Max fought for a centered calm. Her hysteria would only incite anxiousness that, in turn, would evoke rambling sentences she couldn’t control once she got wound up. “Then what is it? Look, I’m willing to work any hours you’ll give me. I’m willing to do all the dirty work you need done. I’ll scrub toilets, sinks, refill ketchup bottles, shred lettuce—”

  “Our lettuce comes already shredded.”

  How helpful. “Whatever. The point is, I’m all in. Just give me a chance,” she begged, her hand suddenly around his arm. Before she knew it, what was originally planned as a subtle, dignified nudge for employment became a hostage situation, if the way she was gripping his arm with firm fingers was any indication. Desperation had its blatant nuances. “Please.”

  Rolling his shoulders in discomfort, he pulled away from her grip like she was The Claw. “I can’t help you. We don’t have a position available right now.” He stood his ground, for which she’d show admiration by way of a polite golf clap if it wasn’t for the fact that she and Connor would end up drinking her mother’s till dry very shortly if she didn’t find some kind of steady paycheck.

  One deep cleansing breath later, Max’s eyes searched his behind his oval frames. She could do this. Whatever it took. “Please. Look, I’m begging you, okay? I need a job. I’m sure you hear a hundred sob stories a day with the economy in the shitty state it’s in, but I’m not kidding when I tell you I just need one person to give me a chance. Just a little break. I know I’m not sixteen anymore, and if I needed reminding, I’d just have to ask the hundred other places like this that I’ve applied to to tell me so. I get it. I know I have no experience in fast food. Believe me, I know. I have no experience in selling condoms either, but you can bet I’d do it if it meant I could earn a buck hawking ribbed ticklers. Well, that is, if the manager at Condoms on the Go-Go would have let me. But he said I had no experience in condoms. I say, hah! What does he know? I know condoms. I’ve used them plenty in my time. But that’s beside the point. So tell me something, because you seem like a guy who’s in the know—how the flip can I get some of this experience if no one will hire me?” Her voice had risen, pitchy and anxious, and her hand was right back at desperation, clinging to poor deer-in-the-headlights Mr. Herrera.

  There was a long pause before he spoke. Clearly, he sought to measure his response to her impassioned request. “Ms. Cambridge, can I ask you something? I mean, if it’s not too personal.”

  She automatically looked down at her perky breasts, floating just beneath her open-collared silk shirt. “You want to know if these are real, don’t you?” Everybody did, and she’d answer if it meant a job.

  He cleared his throat, giving a stern shake of his head, looking anywhere but at her frisky décolletage. “Oh, no. No, no, no. I would never . . . I’m just curious about your—well, why someone like you needs a job here? Aren’t you the lady who used to do the commercials for Cambridge Automobiles? You know, ‘Put your seat—’”

  “ ‘In something sweet,’ ” Maxine finished. Her face flushed a hundred shades of deep red. Why, why, why had she jumped straight to the boob question? “Yeah, that was me.” And now it wasn’t. Because she wasn’t twenty-five anymore, and her husband didn’t want her anymore, and she’d been traded in.

  “And you drive a fancy car, and you wear fancy clothes . . .”

  It was always like this when she showed up in Connor’s car or someone recognized her. Max plucked at her white suit jacket. “I’m dressed like this because I just left my lawyer’s office—which, FYI, was a complete waste of gas money I didn’t have, and the car’s my kid’s. I borrowed it from him so I could go see my 1-800-dial-divorce lawyer for him to tell me I’m defining broke in a whole new way, then swing by here so you could tell me you won’t hire me. My son’s car’s one of the few things my soon-to-be ex didn’t take from us, but don’t hold your breath for me, because I’m sure he’ll want that back, too.” She finished by clamping her mouth shut. Truly, it was the only way to stop the train wreck her big mouth had become.

  Yet for a mere moment, Maxine found the sympathy she’d hoped to tap into written on his chubby, moon-shaped face. He was waffling. Perfect. “Ah, messy divorce?”

  Messy had levels. Her divorce was at DEFCON 5. “You’re understating it. That’s very kind. I don’t want to get too personal and scare you off by divulging too much so you’ll only end up uncomfortable, but here’s where I’m at. You in?” If she could just make one person understand how close she was to welfare by telling them how she’d been bamboozled, then pride could go eff itself.

  Mr. Herrera nodded his reluctant consent. “Do I have a choice?”

  “Not if you hope to leave here uns
carred.” Maxine clutched his arm again, pushing her back into the glass exit door for leverage.

  He scanned the top of the dining area over the top of her head. “Then of course. Do divulge.” He sighed.

  So she did. “Okay, so in a nutshell, this is the skinny, and I’m telling you this because I want you to really understand why I harass you every day. It’s a lot. Sure you’re up to it?”

  His feet shuffled.

  Shit, she’d given him an out.

  “Forget I asked. Just listen. I am going through a divorce. It’s been hell. No, it’s worse than hell—it’s hell times eight gotrillion. I was married to a very wealthy man who’s redefined the phrase ‘ironclad prenuptial.’ I had no idea anything was wrong with my marriage until I found out, quite by accident and by some jackass’s mistake in the society pages, that I was soon going to be anything but Mrs. Finley Cambridge. Okay, that’s not one hundred percent true. There were indiscretions . . . But I thought we were back on track. Wait, maybe I did have a suspicion or two—make that ten, but that wasn’t really clear until I had some distance and hindsight. Oh, if I could only tell you the kind of hindsight I’ve been blessed with.” Maxine paused, sucking in some chicken-fried air and clenching her jaw so she wouldn’t burst out into big, fat, girlie tears.

  “Anyway, I have no money. None. Nothing. I know you’re probably thinking, nothing? Yeah, sure. A major player like Finley Cambridge left his wife of twenty years with nothing. C’mon. You must have something. Like a severance package for time served. Hush money, maybe? That’s exactly what you’re thinking, right?”

  Mr. Herrera winced his agreement with a slow nod.

  Maxine clucked her tongue. “Yeah, that’s what everyone thinks. But I swear to you, Mr. Herrera, I have squat. When I found out about my husband’s wandering wanker, I left. I just didn’t know I’d left-left. Everything. I also didn’t know when I left that I’d never see my house, my car, my personal Pilates instructor again, forever. Those ridiculous luxuries aside, I thought we’d get a normal divorce. The one where you and your kid have a place to live and food on the table, because your pending ex is rich and owns half of New York, New Jersey, and parts of Connecticut. So he has cash to spare, and even if it meant downsizing our lifestyle, and me going back to school to get a decent job because I’m no slacker, I still believed he’d do the right thing. I was, according to my dial-a-lawyer, delusional. If you were me, wouldn’t you have made the same crazy assumption?”

  Mr. Herrera’s brow furrowed. “Assumptions can be troublesome.”

  “If you only knew the half of it. So since this nightmare began eight months, four days, and thirty-six hours ago, I’ve been trying to get on my feet. I’ve applied for forty-two and a half jobs. I say half because I’ll do almost anything to earn a living, but there’ll be no mechanically separating chickens for this girl. I left that interview halfway through it in defense of chickens everywhere. I’ve been turned down for every single position I’ve applied for in the town of Riverbend—which, if you were wondering, doesn’t have a whole lot in the way of industry. So here I am. Penniless. Jobless. Pride-less. And that’s why I come in here every day, Mr. Herrera, because I need a job. I need just one person to give me a chance. Kids come and go in these places when a taste for a change and a position at Hot Topic comes along. I can promise you that’s not me. I’m reliable, honest, and hardworking. I’ll work whatever hours you have—I’ll work the graveyard shift. There were two positions available last week. Gabriella got one. That means one’s still up for grabs. I just need you to please reconsider hiring me. Please.”

  The manager’s face changed, and her rising anxiety gave way to the tiniest bit of hope. If she could just get her foot in the door . . .

  But hope, much like her dye job, was fleeting.

  A loud bang on the door behind her made them both jump, thus freeing Mr. Herrera from her WrestleMania-like grip.

  Maxine gasped when she caught a familiar face pressed against the glass door with a head that wore the prized Cluck-Cluck Palace’s beak hat. “You hired him? He’s who got my job, isn’t he?” she accused, her eyes flashing in the manager’s direction.

  Be it frustration, exhaustion, or maybe utter and complete loss of all rationale, her nut officially flipped. It’d been a long time coming, filled with endless hours of poring over the want ads, being rejected time after time for jobs even her own kid wouldn’t apply for. The sheer terror she felt each and every time she realized that she and Connor had far less than a pot to piss in.

  The anxiety-riddled nights spent sleeping upright in her mother’s armchair while she hatched and re-hatched ways to find work. The moments of startling clarity when she was constantly walloped over the head with her stupidity and the fact that she was nothing more than a dried-up ex-beauty queen who’d gone almost directly from high school and the Miss Riverbend Auto and Glass pageant to marriage and a man who was twenty years older than her.

  For sure, she was long overdue for a breakdown. That it was a beaked hat and a gingham-checked apron that sent her into the abyss would surely be cause for some major regret.

  Later.

  Maxine gripped the door’s handle and stuck her tongue out at Phillip—the other kid who’d filled out an application with her and Gabriella, daring him to fight his way into the store she should be working in.

  Phillip yanked back, his freckled face confused and red from the cloying heat.

  “Mrs. Cambridge! You can’t keep a customer from entering the store. If you don’t leave, I’m going to have to call the authorities!” Mr. Herrera whisper-yelled, trying to pry her fingers from the handle.

  Oh, no, brotha. No way was this kid—this child who needed a job like he needed an eyelift—getting her job. Goddamn it, he didn’t need a job. But by all that was holy, she did. Mental flashes of her and Connor staple-gunning boxes together on the side of the road to create living space sent her panic into four-wheel drive.

  Gritting her teeth, Max flapped one hand at Mr. Herrera and flattened herself against the door. “He’s not a customer. He’s an employee! An employee who has my job!” Swatting at his large hands, Maxine clung to the handle while Phillip yanked harder. She dug her heels in, wild-eyed and panting. “Nooooooooooooooo!”

  But as a tag team, Mr. Herrera and Phillip were a force she couldn’t reckon with. The door buckled, ripping from her sweaty fingers as Phillip gave one last tug, rocketing her out onto the manicured grass by the sidewalk, and him right where he wanted to be. Inside the Cluck-Cluck Palace. Her nylons caught on a neatly trimmed boxwood hedge, tearing a long line from her ankle to her thigh.

  Both Phillip and Mr. Herrera burst out behind her, grunting and panting.

  The humidity was thick, clinging to her stupid suit and plastering her silk shirt to her clammy skin. The blazing sun beat down on the top of her head, leaving her dizzy and almost breathless. Almost. She wasn’t done. Not yet. “You,” she pointed a shaking finger at Phillip. “You stole my job and my damned hat. You Cluck-Cluck Palace—”

  “Max? Max Henderson?”

  The air from her seething bubble of anger deflated with a metaphorical hiss. She’d been made. Oh, Jesus. Please, please, please, God, if you’re good, and gracious enough to forgive my complete lack of socially acceptable behavior, when I turn around, don’t let it be an associate of Finley’s. Or worse a parent of one of Connor’s classmates. But hold on. Maybe there was salvation. No one from her once elite lifestyle called her Max . . .

  Maxine swung around and squinted into the glare of the mid-afternoon sun. She cocked her head in the direction of a tall man wearing low-slung jeans and an exceptionally white T-shirt.

  “Campbell. Campbell Barker. Remember? We graduated together. Class of 1987.”

  She teetered on her heels, gathering her purse tight to her chest as he moved closer. Campbell . . . She couldn’t recall a Campbell.

  Mr. Herrera tapped her on the shoulder. “I think I’m going to have to ask you to leave the
Cluck-Cluck Palace’s premises now, Mrs. Cambridge, and please, do us all a favor. Stay. Away. Or I’ll be forced to call the authorities after today.” The irony of him asking a Cambridge to leave the premises might have had her in a fit of slaphappy giggles, if not for the fact that a hunky man in sun-washed jeans that molded to hard thighs was upon her.

  Campbell’s tall, bulky frame covered the distance between them in two strides, and he looked to Mr. Herrera and that wee suck-up Phillip with a question in his blue eyes. “Everything okay?”

  Catching sight of him up close, Maxine swooned a little. Not only was he blessedly blocking the sun from frying her eyeballs but the scent of his freshly laundered T-shirt invaded her nostrils, so comforting and clean it brought hot tears to her tired eyes.

  His eyes, deep blue and thickly fringed with short lashes, were laced with concern and caught hers. “Max? Is everything all right?”

  Weary from battle, Maxine finally found her voice. “Everything’s . . . it’s fine. I’m sorry, Mr. Herrera—for my behavior.” And she was, but not so contrite that she didn’t have a little fight left in her. Especially considering the fact that she was leaving yet another fast food restaurant sans employment. “But I’m telling you, you’ll regret hiring him.” She narrowed her eyes in the skinny, undeserving Phillip’s direction. “And not me.”

  “Now, Mrs. Cambridge—”

  But Campbell cut him off with a raised eyebrow. “Are you telling me he wouldn’t hire you? You? Max Henderson—prom queen, voted most popular, and head cheerleader of the Riverbend Rams?”

  Well, when it was put like that . . . But she got the playful irony in his husky tone and decided to go along. Giving Campbell her best sad face, she nodded. “Yeah. I’m too old for the Cluck-Cluck Palace.”

  “I said nothing of the sort,” Mr. Herrera’s face, dotted with sweat, puffed out in indignation.

  “No, that’s true,” Maxine defended him. “Not in so many words, but it was implied when you hired him and not me.” So, huh on you.