Chap­ter 2

When you live in your car, you have to keep things sim­ple. You’re not going to be host­ing any major gath­er­ings, for one thing. No wine and cheese par­ties, no pok­er nights. That’s fine, because I don’t have any­one I want to see. The big­ger prob­lem is where to take a show­er. Three days after I was evict­ed from my stu­dio, which was three weeks after I got fired from my job, I dis­cov­ered a rest stop that had show­ers. I almost cried with joy when I saw it. Yes, the show­ers have very lit­tle pri­va­cy and smell faint­ly of human waste, but at that point, I was des­per­ate to be clean.

Now I’m enjoy­ing my lunch in the back seat of the car. I do have a hot plate that I can plug into the cig­a­rette lighter for spe­cial occa­sions, but most­ly I eat sand­wich­es. Lots and lots of sand­wich­es. I’ve got a cool­er where I store the cold cuts and cheese, and I’ve got a loaf of white bread—ninety-nine cents at the super­mar­ket. And then snacks, of course. Bags of chips. Crack­ers with peanut but­ter. Twinkies. The unhealthy options are end­less.

Today I’m eat­ing ham and Amer­i­can cheese, with a dol­lop of may­on­naise. With every bite I take, I try not to think about how sick I am of sand­wich­es.

After I’ve forced down half my sand­wich, my phone rings in my pock­et. I have one of those pre­paid flip phones that peo­ple only use if they’re going to com­mit a crime or else they’ve trav­eled back fif­teen years in the past. But I need a phone and this is all I can afford.

“Wil­helmi­na Cal­loway?” a woman’s clipped voice says on the oth­er line.

I wince at the use of my full name. Wil­helmi­na was my father’s moth­er, who is long gone. I don’t know what sort of psy­chopaths would name their child Wil­helmi­na, but I don’t speak to my par­ents any­more (and like­wise, they don’t speak to me), so it’s a lit­tle late to ask. Any­way, I’ve always just been Mil­lie, and I try to cor­rect peo­ple as quick­ly as I can. But I get the feel­ing that who­ev­er is call­ing me isn’t some­body I’m going to be on a first-name basis with any­time soon. “Yes…?”

“Ms. Cal­loway,” the woman says. “This is Don­na Stan­ton from Munch Burg­ers.”

Oh right. Munch Burgers—the greasy fast-food joint that grant­ed me an inter­view a few days ago. I would be flip­ping burg­ers or else man­ning the cash reg­is­ter. But if I worked hard, there was some oppor­tu­ni­ty for advance­ment. And bet­ter yet, an oppor­tu­ni­ty to have enough mon­ey to move out of my car.

Of course, the job I real­ly would’ve loved was at the Win­ches­ter house­hold. But it’s been a whole week since I met with Nina Win­ches­ter. It’s safe to say I didn’t get my dream job.

“I just want­ed to let you know,” Ms. Stan­ton goes on, “that we have already filled the posi­tion at Munch Burg­ers. But we wish you luck with your job search.”

The ham and Amer­i­can cheese in my stom­ach churn. I had read online that Munch Burg­ers didn’t have very strict hir­ing prac­tices. That even if I had a record, I might have a chance. This is the last inter­view I’ve man­aged to book, ever since Mrs. Win­ches­ter failed to call me back—and I’m des­per­ate. I can’t eat one more sand­wich in my car. I just can’t.

“Ms. Stan­ton,” I blurt out. “I’m just won­der­ing if you might be able to hire me at any oth­er loca­tion. I’m a real­ly hard work­er. I’m very reli­able. I always…”

I stop talk­ing. She’s already hung up.

I clutch my sand­wich in my right hand as I grip my phone in my left. This is hope­less. Nobody wants to hire me. Every poten­tial employ­er looks at me in the exact same way. All I want is a fresh start. I’ll work my butt off if I have to. I’ll do what­ev­er it takes.

I fight back tears, although I don’t know why I’m both­er­ing. Nobody will see me cry­ing in the back­seat of my Nis­san. There isn’t any­body who cares about me any­more. My par­ents wiped their hands of me more than ten years ago.

My phone rings again, star­tling me out of my pity par­ty. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand and click the green but­ton to take the call.

“Hel­lo?” I croak.

“Hi? Is this Mil­lie?”

The voice sounds vague­ly famil­iar. I squeeze the phone to my ear, my heart leap­ing. “Yes…”

“This is Nina Win­ches­ter. You inter­viewed with me last week?”

“Oh.” I bite down hard on my low­er lip. Why is she call­ing back now? I assumed she had already hired some­body and decid­ed not to inform me. “Yes, of course.”

“So if you’re inter­est­ed, we would be delight­ed to offer you the job.”

I feel a rush of blood to my head that makes me almost dizzy. We would be delight­ed to offer you the job. Is she seri­ous? It was con­ceiv­able that Munch Burg­ers might hire me, but it seemed out­right impos­si­ble that a woman like Nina Win­ches­ter might invite me into her home. To live.

Is it pos­si­ble she didn’t check my ref­er­ences? Didn’t do a sim­ple back­ground check? Maybe she’s just so busy, she nev­er got around to it. Maybe she’s one of those women who prides her­self on gut feel­ings.

“Mil­lie? Are you there?”

I real­ize I’ve been com­plete­ly silent on the oth­er line. I’m that stunned. “Yes. I’m here.”

“So are you inter­est­ed in the posi­tion?”

“I am.” I’m try­ing not to sound too ridicu­lous­ly eager. “I def­i­nite­ly am. I would love to work for you.”

“Work with me,” Nina cor­rects me.

I let out a stran­gled laugh. “Right. Of course.”

“So when can you start?”

“Um, when would you like me to start?”

“As soon as pos­si­ble!” I’m jeal­ous of Nina’s easy laugh that sounds so dif­fer­ent from my own. If only I could snap my fin­gers and trade places with her. “We have a ton of laun­dry that needs fold­ing!”

I swal­low. “How about tomor­row?”

“That would be won­der­ful! But don’t you need time to get your stuff packed?”

I don’t want to tell her that every­thing I own is already in the trunk of my car. “I’m a fast pack­er.”