I start by pulling the place up on Instagram. I don’t know how long they’ve been around, but the place looks a little old-timey, with lines of moss along the outside, and there’s a little patio café, so I can hopefully get some free coffee once I work there.

The place is called Sur La Page Books, and I type it into Google to look for any obvious scandals or life-threatening standoffs. Once they clear that, I decide to give them a call and see if they hire teenagers.

The phone rings a couple of times and a deep voice comes through on the other end with, “Hi, what can I do for you?”

Which seems like a wanting introduction, but I say, “Hi, I was wondering if you might be accepting job applications?”

“Um, yeah, sure, I guess,” the guy says. “I don’t know what the official process is. Just gimme a minute.”

I stand by as the guy puts the phone down, the sound of footsteps and muffled chatter drifting through. A few moments pass before he comes back and says, “Hey, sorry, so we actually don’t take applications, but if you wanna come in later, you can do an interview.”

“Later? As in today?”

“Yeah, can you do one p.m.?”

I glance at the clock on my phone. It’s just after noon. I don’t have the fare for a ride, but it’s probably only about a twenty-minute walk, so if I leave soon, I can get there on time. I mean, this is a pretty sudden offer, and I’d take it as a sign if I ever saw one.

“Sure,” I say.

“Cool. I’ll let her know you’re coming.”

The line dies before I can ask who she is and what exactly I should be wearing to such an interview, but it’s fine. If Fate is pushing me to get this job, then I might as well go with the flow and check it out.

I don’t own anything remotely dressy since my wardrobe renovations, but I fake it—somewhat clean black jeans, a T-shirt under a vest. I’ve never done a job interview before, and all I’ve really got for reference is Queer Eye, but I also don’t have a whole lot to work with, so I cut my losses and move on. Then I pull up a résumé I made in my computer class freshman year, change the contact info, and print it out before racing out the door.

It takes me a half hour to walk to the bookstore, and I’m sure that has very little to do with the fact that I’m extremely out of shape. It looks like it did in the Instagram photos, except it’s a bit bigger in person, stuck between two vacant retail spots that look like they’ve been that way for a long time.