Somebody Else's Sky (Something in the Way 2)

“How come I didn’t know about this?” Cathy asked.

“It was last minute. The hotel manager is an old friend and squeezed us in.” He put his arm around Lake and nodded at me. “You two’ll meet us there? Tiffany knows the way.”

As we got in the car, Tiffany sighed. “I don’t want to go.”

“We have to,” I said as I pulled onto Highway One.

I expected a rebuttal but got silence instead, which meant she was genuinely upset. I kept my left hand on the wheel and massaged her neck with my right. Touching her was becoming normal, automatic. I wasn’t all that affectionate by nature, but Tiffany loved when I was. When she wasn’t feeling well, a small touch went a long way. “Why don’t you want to go?”

“I’m tired. It was a long day at work. I just want to go home and be with you.”

“All right.” I slowed for a stoplight. “What’s the real reason?”

She looked over at me a few moments, then curled into the seat to face me, nuzzling my hand. “It’s just like a constant barrage.”

“What is?”

“All of it. I never made the regular honor roll, forget the principal one. Never had the grades to even apply to USC. Every time my parents make a huge deal of Lake’s success, it just feels like they’re pointing out everything I didn’t do.”

“You know they’re not,” I said. “They’re just proud of Lake and they aren’t thinking about how it might make you feel.”

“That’s almost worse,” she said. “It’s like I’m not even there.”

The light changed. I squeezed her shoulder and took my hand back to steer. “They’re just caught up in the moment. Your dad’s wanted this for so long.”

“Another assistant manager position opened up this week,” she admitted. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but . . .”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t want you to be disappointed if I didn’t get it.”

“I wouldn’t be disappointed as long as you tried. I bet there are a lot of people at the store who don’t even have the guts to do that.”

“Well, I might be one of them.” She sat up straighter. “I mean, why should I bother? They didn’t give it to me before, even though I’m one of the top salespeople in my department. They want to promote people who’re more qualified on paper so they can keep moving them up into corporate positions. It’s bullshit.”

I glanced over. “You’re one of the top salespeople? How come you never mentioned that?”

She shrugged. “Doesn’t sound like much compared to USC.”

“Your department’s got a lot of people in it,” I said, switching lanes. “Not only that, but it’s not a small thing to be good at sales. People pay a lot of money to master a skill like that.”

“It is hard,” she agreed, talking faster, “but I wouldn’t call it a skill. You just ask people about themselves and learn enough about the product to make it sound like you know what you’re talking about, and before you know it, the credit card is out.”

“Tiffany, taking people’s money is a skill, believe me.” I flipped on the blinker. “Could you imagine me selling anyone anything like that?”

Her laugh lightened the mood in the car. “I mean, there’s even more to it than that, I was just being sarcastic.” She gestured out the windshield at nothing. “Like, when I find the right outfit for someone’s weird body type, it feels like . . .”

“An accomplishment?” I asked.

“Yes! It feels good.”

Hearing the excitement in her voice caught me off guard. She rarely got worked up about her job, and her bad mood began to make a little more sense. If she said any of this to her dad, he’d probably undermine her achievement. “I’m taking you out to celebrate,” I said.

“Celebrate what?” she asked. “I don’t even know if I’ll get the job.”

“The salesperson thing. I’m telling you, it’s a big deal. Especially somewhere as big as Nordstrom.”

I didn’t have to look over to sense her smiling. “Listen to this. There’re people in the corporate office who get paid to shop. They travel around to designers and pick out the clothes and accessories we carry.”

“Sounds perfect for you.”

“I know, but I’d need a degree.”

I wanted to finish my twelve credits, but I couldn’t afford it, not right now. Tiffany might be able to qualify for a loan, though. “Maybe you could enroll somewhere in the fall. Not to make your dad happy, but because you want the promotion. Because you one day want to be that person who . . . shops for a living, Lord help us all.”

She grinned, tracing circles on the console. “I don’t know. It seems kind of impossible, but . . .”

“But what? Find out the requirements of those positions and see if there are any classes that match.”