Jolene rushed out of the bar as fast as she could. Her feet were itching to break out in a dance that she always did when something good fell her way. Since not a lot of good happened to her in life, she didn’t get to dance often.
She’d been going around downtown trying to find places to drop her resume off or fill out applications. She didn’t have a lot of experience in anything other than manual labor jobs or the hospitality industry. It wasn’t for everyone, but it was for her.
Not the glamorous life she always thought she’d have, but wanting something and having it were two different things. She learned a long time ago to accept what she had and make the best of it. It’s what her parents did and she knew no other way.
She made her way to her roommate’s car the same time that April was opening the driver’s door. “Did you find anything?” Jolene asked her.
“No. I just filled out a few applications. How about you?”
“I just got hired full-time. I think full-time. He said he could swing me full-time since he was going to hire a bunch of part-timers, so yeah.” And at that moment in the back parking lot, she did a little Irish jig.
“Where?” April asked, climbing into the car, starting it, and rubbing her hands together. The beginning of November was brisk in Charlotte.
“A new bar that’s opening. Fierce.” She wasn’t going to tell April that she’d been watching the progress for weeks now. How the bar was taking on a new life, and if there was one thing Jolene loved it was a transformation. Or rather something coming to life. Yeah. That was it. Coming to life all nice and pretty and trying to reinvent itself into something better. She knew that well too.
“Oh,” April said. “For a second I was going to run over too and apply, but I don’t want to work in a bar.”
Jolene bit back the urge to laugh at April’s scrunched up nose. “He’s looking for more people. He asked if I knew anyone,” Jolene said, but she knew April wouldn’t consider it. She wasn’t the waitressing type. She got flustered easily.
“No. I’m good though. I’ll keep checking at the retail stores around. I stopped at a few offices too to see if they had any receptionist positions. I could handle just answering phones and patching people through.”
“You’ll find something better. Don’t worry,” Jolene said.
The two of them only worked part-time. Both of them scraping by as best they could. Neither of them wanted a third roommate right now for their two-bedroom apartment, so they decided weeks ago to start job hunting with a vengeance.
They both thought they’d easily find a job with the holiday season approaching and businesses getting busier, but found they were a little late to the party. Most had those positions filled. And most were temporary when neither of them wanted that either.
“I’m sure you will. Gavin did ask me if I could cook.” Jolene paused when April started to laugh. “Yeah, I did the same thing, but he was serious. Guess he was looking for someone in the kitchen too. You cook good. Do you want to go talk to him?”
“No,” April said. “Too much pressure. I like to cook at home, but not like that. I’d freak out and slow everything up.”
Jolene knew that was the truth, but didn’t want to admit it to her best friend. “I’m sure you’ll find something. The good part is I’ll be making more and we’ll be okay for a while.”
“I’m still scraping by for my half though,” April said, looking a little miserable.
“I’ve got your back. No worries. We’re in this together, remember?” She’d never let April down. She’d never leave her on her own with no lifeline. She remembered that feeling all too well when she was younger.
“Yeah. I just wish I had your outlook on life. I never thought it’d be this hard.”
Jolene put her hand on her friend’s between them on the seat. “It’ll get better; you just need to stay positive.”
“I hope so.”
She’d been telling herself for years that if you wanted to get anywhere in life you had to buckle down and do it yourself. No one was going to hand anything over to you. Not on a silver platter, not even a paper plate. Not in her life.
“I know so,” she said. One of them had to be upbeat and it always seemed to fall on Jolene. Of course she’d spent most of her life being positive when others weren’t.
Her parents had immigrated here from Ireland when she was just a baby. Neither her mother nor her father had a lot of education and both took any manual labor job they could. She’d heard the stories.
No employers wanted to take a chance on them. No one wanted to give them an opportunity for a better life, assigning them the most menial jobs and lowest pay. Because her parents were desperate they took what they could get.
Then add two more kids to the mix and life was just plain hard. But it was still better than where they were before, from what her parents had told her, so she held onto that. She remembered the nights when food was scarce on the table, just some bread with butter on it and a glass of milk.
They weren’t citizens, they didn’t get government help. She wasn’t sure if her parents would have even accepted it, but would have liked to think so back then. That their pride would have been pushed aside for food in their bellies when their paychecks ran out just covering the bills for their small apartment.
When she was old enough to get a job, she did. Giving half her money to her parents to help with the bills. She never realized they’d taken that money and set it aside for her, so when she graduated from high school she had a nice chunk to start her life.
She’d taken that money and moved out, finding someone who wanted a roommate. It was one less mouth for her parents to feed, and they didn’t argue for her to stay so she knew it was the right decision.
For the past six years, she’d worked all sorts of different jobs. Manufacturing, cleaning, office positions, retail. You name it, she did it or tried it. She’d do it for a period of time to get the bills paid, but she couldn’t see herself standing in front of an assembly line her whole life. Nor could she sit behind a desk.
She needed people. She needed to move. Getting a job as a waitress was perfect for her. The faster and friendlier she was, the more tips she got. Pretty soon she was making almost as much as a full-time manufacturing job and all she was doing was working three nights a week...as long as those nights included Friday and Saturday.
But lately bills were adding up and it just wasn’t enough. Full-time, even if it wasn’t all nights, would help out her and April’s situation. She didn’t want to live like her parents, but at the moment she was looking it straight in the eye.
The last thing she’d do would be to let April know her fears. No, she had to keep her best friend going and if that meant putting up a good front, then she would.
Poor April. The two of them had been close friends in high school. April had gone to college but then dropped out when she met a guy. He’d taken care of her and told her she could work part-time, so she did, liking life in the slow lane. April didn’t want to worry about anything like schedules and bills.
But when April’s boyfriend said he was done and she needed to move out, she didn’t have anywhere to go. Her parents told her she’d made her decisions and she couldn’t come home. They’d lectured her enough about poor choices, but she’d never listened, they’d said.
So Jolene did what any friend would, and said, “You can share my room with me. It will help with the costs.”
Living the way she did as a kid, wishing that someone helped her or her parents out made her decide to always help others. She was a firm believer in karma and that someday any good she did for someone in need might come back to her in some shape or form.
When April found her own job and wanted her own room, the two of them moved to a bigger place. That was a year ago. April just struggled to keep a job though.
“I feel really bad,” April said. “I don’t want you to feel like you need to support me.”
“I’m not supporting you,” Jolene said. “I’m saving us from being evicted.”
“I don’t want us to get evicted,” April screeched.
“Sorry,” Jolene said. “Bad joke.” You’d think April would be used to her sense of humor by now. “Relax. Let’s go to the mall and you can fill out some applications there.”
“That sounds like fun,” April said. “You know I like shopping. Maybe I can get a job in a department store.”
“Then that is where we’ll head to first,” she said.
April smiled now. “I wish I was more like you.”
“No, you don’t,” she said back, laughing.