"So."
"So, what?"
"Does she know about us?"
"Of course."
"Is she jealous?"
"Maybe."
"What do you mean maybe?"
"Probably."
"I thought you guys only kissed that one time."
"Yeah, but I think she wanted more."
"Doesn't she have a serious boyfriend in college or something?
"Girlfriend. But she still tells everyone that she has a boyfriend."
"So she knows about us."
"Yeah. We've talked about stuff. And she flirts with me."
"Uh huh"
"I'm sorry, I should have told you all of this earlier, but it really doesn't even matter. I'm going to be friends with her. She's fucked up."
"How?"
"She stole stuff."
"Stole what?"
"From the store."
"No way."
"That's what's really pissing me off."
"Why?"
"She gave me such a hard time about what I did. Compared to her I didn't do anything."
"What did you do?"
"You know how she got me the job right? I didn't want to work at the camp again. I couldn't do that, so I begged her to get me a job at Geoffrey's."
"I didn't know that."
"She didn't tell you."
"I haven't talked to her yet."
"So what happened?"
"It was a couple of weeks after I got back. Holly's been working at Geoffrey's forever, so I went over there and filled out an application. She saw me in the store and pretended not to know me."
"Why?"
"She said that the store doesn't want friends working together, thinks they'll goof around and not do any work. But I already told the manager that I knew her."
"Did you say you were friends?"
"No. I said that we had some classes together in school but that we weren't friends. And she told me that she said the same thing to Marnie?"
"Marnie?"
"The manager."
"Oh."
"Then I had to meet with Shirley, this older lady that Holly says comes in only about once a week. She's the main boss. She manages all of the stores on the Island. So I had to meet with her. She was nice, but a little weird. Very businesslike."
"And..."
"I was hired. Holly worked the register most of the time and I was put upstairs mostly, in Juniors."
"That sucks."
"It was ok. Hardly any customers after June, but a lot last week."
"Why's that?"
"Back to school."
"Oh, right."
"And we pretended that we weren't good friends."
"Was it hard?"
"It was easy. She spent almost all of her breaks hanging out in the parking lot in the back of the store talking to her mother on her cell phone."
"What did you do?"
"I don't know. Different things. Mostly I hung out with the other girls in the break room...or ran across the street to the deli."
"She wasn't friends with everybody?"
"Barely talked to them. She's on the phone all the time, did you ever notice that? Mostly talking to her mother, sometimes to Todd, but mostly with her mother. Sometimes she would give me a ride home and talked while she was driving."
"She'll get a ticket now...you know that, right?"
"One time, on a busy Saturday afternoon, when it was so busy that even Beth was doing a cashier, Holly went home sick. It was so obvious that she was faking it. She said that she was having an allergic attack."
"From what?"
"Who knows? Dust, pollen...she sat in the break room sneezing and practically crying. Her mother came and picked her up."
"Typical."
"But anyway, she was stealing clothes from the store. Things she didn't even want."
"How did she do that?"
"I'm not sure. She wouldn't tell me. She had the tool to take the plastic tags off when she worked the register."
"She stole a lot of clothes?"
"A bunch. One time she gave me a ride home and showed me a pair of jeans she'd taken."
"And she never got caught?"
"Nope, she took a bunch of stuff. Probably a couple hundred dollars worth. That's why I'm so mad at her."
"For stealing?"
"Yeah, but then she got mad at me, which made me hate her even more."
"Why is she mad at you?"
"Well...today was the last day. And Shirley -- the old woman I was telling you about--came up to me and thanked me and said that she hoped I had fun."
"So..."
"It was in the middle of a really busy day. I was so tired, so I guess I didn't thank her back, barely even looked at her. And this pissed her off somehow."
"Did you thank her?"
"No. I should have, but I didn't. And then she goes off on me...telling me that good jobs are hard to come by and I should be a little more appreciative."
