My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters (2 page)

The Look.

I flipped past the automotive, bookkeeping, casino, and construction jobs. "Here's something." I read it aloud (don't ask me why).

DRIVER. Local deliveries.
PT + some weekends.Clean
MVR. Competitive hourly
wage. Katie 555-4653.

"Jory
driving?
That's pretty hilarious." Finn strutted into the kitchen, texting one of his girl-fans, looking like he'd gotten all of my beauty sleep.

"Honey, you know"—Mom crinkled her nose—"I'm not so sure it's a good idea."

"Why? It was an
accident.
That's why they call them accidents!"

Dappled sunshine sparkled through the trees as I drove my mom's minivan down by the river looking for Flowers and Cakes by Katie. I made two wrong turns before I finally found the little pink and blue house near the McKinley Arts and Culture Center. It looked like something Hansel and Gretel would wander into, except it was in a rundown neighborhood, not a scary woods. I pulled up in front of an accountant's office a couple of buildings away; I didn't want anyone to see that I was parallel-parking challenged. After all, I
was
applying for a job in the driving industry.

I was still slightly shocked that Mom had let me drop her off at work early and borrow the minivan. Like I keep saying, it was an accident! I thought I was hitting the brakes, but I was hitting the gas instead. It was only in the movie-theater parking lot, and I totally blame the guy for looking like Tyler Briggs. Really, it was no big deal. Except that I lost my car. One little mistake and my car becomes too expensive to insure. (You'd think the Mercedes I hit would've had a sturdier bumper!) All I have left of my sweet-sixteen dream is the personalized license plate:
JORRIDE
. I also have to put up with the joy-ride jokes my dad makes every time I get behind the wheel—even when I drive up the hill to the grocery store or Starbucks.

Parallel parking in seven easy steps. In the middle of the steering wheel, I'd stuck the sticky note with the instructions I'd copied off the Internet. Usually it's pretty easy to avoid parallel parking in Reno, which is nice for those of us who'd failed that portion of our driving tests more than three times but fewer than five.

SIX EASY STEPS TO PARALLEL PARKING, JORY STYLE

1. Signal. (Of course!)

2. Make sure your back bumper is even with the other car's bumper. (Simple.)

3. Back up slowly, cranking the wheel toward the curb.
Lurch. (Slowly
being the key word.)

4. When your front door is even with the rear bumper, turn the wheel away from the curb. (No problem, unless your rear tire is stuck against the curb.
Scrape.
Ignore the violent beeping from the rear sensors Mom had installed just for you. Repeat steps 1 through 4. Again. Third time is the charm, or something. Maybe it's the fourth. Give yourself more space. Okay, try a different parking place—this one is cursed. Master steps 1 through 4.)

5. Slowly back into the space.

6. Straighten the wheel and center the car. You should be less than a foot from the curb.

It was only after I'd jumped out and clicked the locks that I noticed the minivan stuck far into the street; I also noticed that the car behind me had a nice paint job, so I just walked away.

"Okay, time to look calm, cool, and collected." I took in a big, deep breath like Hannah always does, but I still felt all twitchy. With a businesslike stride, I walked down the block to Flowers and Cakes by Katie.

My parents wanted me to get a job so I could learn to be responsible and all that blah, blah, blah. They thought I could buy another used car and pay for my own insurance. What they didn't realize was that I had another kind of insurance I wanted to purchase: I wanted to
ensure
I'd have a better life by buying a brand-new nose. If I got this job, I could become a member of the Nice Nose Club in time for senior year. All I needed was approximately five thousand dollars and two weeks of recovery time, according to all the new-nose sites on the Internet. If I used my own money, Mom couldn't say, "Absolutely not. You're beautiful just the way you are." (Her standard line whenever I mentioned plastic surgery.) She'd have to let me do it.

Super Schnozz would be defeated. One last sniffle, then bye-bye.

"Okay, focus," I told myself as I walked through the white gate to the bright green door. A little bell tinkled as I walked into every kid's fantasy world. Flowers, teddy bears, kittens, puppies, knickknacks, bubbling fountains, and balloons in all shapes and colors surrounded me; gauzy fairies hung from the ceiling, and silk flowers bunched together in painted vases on the floor; roses in a rainbow of colors decorated a glass case. The whole place smelled sweet and sugary, like someone had baked a million birthday cakes. (I guess they had.) I breathed in deeply, wondering if even the air had calories. Mom would
never
come into this place.

A woman came from the back through some swinging doors, wiping her hands on a towel. "What can I do for you?"

I noticed that her hair was tied up in a net, showing off her big brown eyes, sweet round face, and cute little pug nose. A white apron that said "Katie Bakes!" was tied around her plump waist. I figured that was the hazard of making cakes for a living. Or maybe the air
did
have calories.

"I'm here for the job interview." I tried not to do that nervous nose-touching thing that Megan says I do before every school presentation or even when a cute guy talks to me.

The lady cocked her head and looked at me. "The driver position?" She spoke slowly, as if I were kind of stupid and had walked into the wrong place to ask for a job.

"Yeah."
Way to sound confident.
I looked down at her scuffed-up loafers. She had a glob of pink frosting on her right foot.

"Well, okay." She sighed. "You're not exactly what I had in mind, but I guess you can apply."

I watched the frosting wobble on her foot as she walked toward the cash register at the front of the store. A bunch of helium balloons floated in a basket on the ceiling. I half wished I could take the whole strange collection of ladybugs, smiley faces, high-heeled shoes, turtles, dolphins, and miscellaneous
Happy
messages and float into the sky. What did she mean by "not exactly what I had in mind"? Had she been hoping for some gorgeous showgirl type who could dance and sing with the deliveries, and Super Schnozz didn't fit that image? She gave me the application, then went back to the kitchen.

The application had a bunch of little boxes for previous job experience. I tried to make myself sound impressive without really lying. I put down
pet sitter
because I once fed Hannah's cat when she went out of town.
Child care.
I counted back on my fingers. I've baby-sat occasionally since I was about eleven, if you count the times I kept an eye on the neighbor's baby while she mowed her lawn. That gave me six years of experience. But I didn't have any so-called delivery experience. (Though I did run up to Scolari's every time my mom forgot some strange ingredient necessary for her wacky diet of the week.) Technically, I delivered groceries. I printed
grocery deliveries
in the first box and wrote
Scolari's
in the next box that asked for location, but I skipped all the phone number and address stuff.

Now I needed something to give me a little edge. Something to show that I was good with people. But somehow
Spanish club member
didn't sound too impressive, plus I'd dropped out when I realized that no cute guys had signed up. Just that one freshman, but he'd been Finn's best friend in third grade and I'd watched him eat his boogers one too many times.

I thought about how Megan and I had stood at the bottom of the chairlift exit up at Mount Rose all last winter and greeted at least three cute guys (ones who were not wearing goggles, matching ski attire, or smoking) before each run. I wrote
greeter
in the first box, then
Mount Rose Ski Resort.
I added
volunteer position
in the salary box to show that I wasn't doing this just for the money, even though I totally was.

While I waited for Katie Bakes! to come back from the kitchen, I sat on the twirly chair by the cash register and spun from side to side as a pink bear with a white ribbon stared at me with complete disdain. The phone rang and Katie Bakes! bumped through the swinging doors.

"Flowers and Cakes by Katie," she answered in a singsong voice. "Mmm. Hmm. What's the address? Phone number?"

Something in the back started making a grinding noise followed by
whap, whap, whap, whap.
It sounded like some kind of heavyweight boxing match going on. Katie put her hand over the receiver and called to me, "Will you run and turn that mixer off?

"That does sound lovely," she said into the phone. "Would you like to include a message?" She motioned to me with her hand to hurry.

I pushed through the swinging doors to the kitchen.

In the center of an island countertop, a big mixer whacked at a huge lump of thick white frosting stuff. The mixer had levers and buttons. But which one made the thing stop? With a constantly dieting mother, I had absolutely zero baking experience. I panicked for a moment before reminding myself that I was applying for a driving position. I watched the white stuff roll in violent waves.
Rrrr. Rrrr. Rrrr.
The mixer sounded like an old car trying to start on a cold day.

Push a button,
I told myself, any
button.
I moved a lever forward and the mixer yowled, sending the white stuff swirling through the air like feathers during a pillow fight. Little bits thwacked me in the face and stuck to my clothes as I searched for the off button. Panicking, I flapped my arms around like a sick duck, then pulled another lever.

Bump. Bump. Thwack.
The top of the mixer bounced up and down in the bowl, sending bigger chunks soaring onto a long shelf filled with clean cake pans. And one cooling sheet cake. Very little was left in the mixing bowl; I reached up and tried to grab some of the larger hunks in midair. No luck.
Smack.
A chunk struck my cheek, sticking for a moment and then bouncing off my shoulder and onto the floor. Was I ruining some poor kid's birthday cake? White streaks covered the black marble counter like crazy zebra stripes.

Grrrr,
the machine growled.
Thump, thump, thump
went my racing heart, while the mixer went
whap, whap, whap,
smacking me with sugary globs. Finally I noticed a big red power button on the side. Duh. I'm such an idiot.

"I'll have it to you by three o'clock," I heard Katie's cheery voice say from the front. "Bye-bye."

Oh, God. What had I done now? The counter was covered with white formations that made it look like Mono Lake. I scooped a handful of the bits together and scrunched them into a ball that I used to try to pick up the other stuff, the way you use your gum to pick up the bits of a bubble that explodes all over your face. Except it takes much longer to clean up a kitchen.

My sneakers were sticky as I moved, quickly flinging the white stuff back into the bowl. Sweat poured from my armpits; I turned my face to avoid the blended odor of stinky gym locker and cupcakes. Unfortunately, the ceiling fan whirling above me did nothing to stop the burning in my cheeks. Can someone get fired before she even gets hired?

I was down on my hands and knees trying to pluck some of the stuff off the previously clean tiles when Katie pushed through the doors. Her mouth hung open. "How—"

"I accidentally turned it higher."
I'm
so
not getting this job.

"Great. I've had that ad in the paper for two weeks and the only person to apply is an accident-prone minor with extensive—what was it? Greeting experience?"

I looked down at her shoes. Only a greasy smudge remained of the pink frosting, but her shoes made a sucking sound as she shuffled her feet. I tried to take a deep, calming breath but instead made a strange wheezing sound.

"Do you often have these kinds of accidents?"

"No. No. I swear." Except for in sports, school stairwells, buffet lines, while talking to cute guys, and when driving in movie-theater parking lots.

"You
can
drive?"

As I nodded, I noticed a little white gob wiggling on the end of my nose. Looking down, I wiped my hands across my face. Sticky.

"You can drive a
van?
"

"Yes, I do deliveries in a van from the grocery store."

"For your mother, I imagine. Please don't tell me it's a minivan."

That nervous never-tell-a-lie feeling gurgled deep in my stomach. "Well, it is." I picked at a fleck of white stuff on my hand. "But it's practically all I've ever driven." When Mom actually lets me drive.

I watched Katie Bakes! smoosh a big white chunk with her foot. Accidentally, I might add. She threw her hands in the air. "I may be crazy, but you're hired. I need the help and I can't afford to pay the going rate. You okay with nine dollars an hour, plus occasional overtime?"

"Sounds great!" I smiled. Mentally I tried to multiply 72 times 5 divided into 5,000 to figure out how many weeks I'd need to work for el nose job.

"I've got help through the weekend. You can start Monday. Six o'clock sharp."

"It's a deal!" My hand stuck to hers after I shook it.

"You really know how to drive a van?"

"Uh-huh." I wished my voice sounded a tad more confident. And that I didn't have so much white stuff stuck in my hair. Or on my shirt. To avoid Katie's discerning gaze, I looked out the screen door.

I saw the van: a multicolored, custom-painted behemoth squatting in the driveway like a hideous floral toad, itty-bitty windows in the back, side mirrors like a semitrailer's. It made Mom's minivan look like a Porsche Roadster. Would I actually have to back the thing out of
that
skinny driveway?