Chapter 25 Lorna Is Seventeen
Mr. cho is the first person to trust lorna to do a job. She applied for dozens before he hired her, and she has worked for him for six months now. She comes in after school and always asks for weekend shifts. The more she is at work, and not at home, the better.
Mr. Cho likes an industrious student. He is half her size and thin as a pencil.
He has a loyal fan base for his eclectic Cho’s Drugstore.
It has everything—it’s a pharmacy but also a kids’ toy store, a hardware store, and a bookstore.
The crown jewel is the soda fountain with the Formica bar top and the five red leather stools mounted to the ground.
Mr. Cho allows all employees to have an ice cream cone at the end of their shift.
Lorna loves working here. She loves the people who come in every day.
She loves stocking shelves (it’s oddly satisfying to see a tidy row of products).
She mostly loves chatting with Mr. Cho. He is an immigrant, and he says he came to America with only ten dollars in his pocket.
He gives her life advice: Obey all traffic laws.
Always be kind. Don’t let others create expectations for your life, because this is the only life you’ll have.
Work hard and play hard. Always leave some money in the bank.
He likes to ask her about her future. Where will she go to college? What will she study? He seems genuinely interested in her when Lorna can’t seem to interest anyone at home.
But then again, there is only her mother and sister to be interested now, and how could they find the time?
Kristen has been in and out of treatment.
The last go was bookended by two arrests, one for possession of marijuana and the other for vandalism.
She is sober now, having promised Lorna once again that she has stopped for good.
She is working in a fast-food chicken restaurant and comes home from her shift smelling like fried chicken.
Lorna thinks Kristen has worked at every fast-food joint in town.
Mom’s office administration job pays for Kristen’s bail and court fines. When she’s not working, she is arguing with Kristen. Mom thinks Kristen should go back to school. Kristen has only a GED, and Mom says she’ll never have a life outside of minimum-wage jobs without a better education.
“Maybe I will go back,” Kristen says. “I always wanted to be a lawyer.”
News to Lorna. Kristen has wanted to be, in no particular order, a dancer, an actor, a movie director, a teacher, a police officer.
“Are you ridiculing me with that?” Mom asks. She looks tired all the time now. Dark circles are a permanent part of her eyes.
“How is that ridicule?” Kristen asks.
“Because you will never be a lawyer, Kristen. You have to have a college degree for that, a law degree—”
“So what? That’s what I want to do!” Kristen shouts.
“Stop it,” Mom snaps. “Just go get a trade certificate so you at least make enough to live on your own.”
Kristen digs in. Kristen always digs in. “No thanks. I think I’ll stick to chicken. You obviously don’t think I’m capable of much else.”
“Well, are you? Because the only thing I’ve ever seen you determined to do is get high. You sure don’t help with any bills around here.”
“How am I supposed to do that with a minimum-wage job?”
And round they go.
Mr. Cho fills a void in Lorna—he is the parent she wishes she had.
He encourages her, and he applauds her. He gave her a full week off with pay when Nana died.
When she came back to work, he had convinced the other staff to chip in and buy her flowers.
She put them on the small bar behind the soda counter and grinned at them all day.
It’s not long before Mr. Cho begins to trust Lorna to close up at night.
After he’s finished all the accounting and paperwork, he leaves Lorna to sweep the floors and restock the toilet paper in the bathrooms and put items abandoned at the cashier counter back where they belong.
She clocks out on her own and leaves through the front door, always careful to lock it.
If she ever forgets, Mr. Cho says, she should not worry.
He has a camera and his daughter, Candy, lives two blocks away.
She monitors it. If Lorna ever needs anything, Candy will be there within a few minutes.
One night when Lorna is working late, Mom sends Kristen to pick her up.
Kristen has been hanging around Lorna lately.
She says she is “totally sober” and “totally bored.” Lorna knows enough to know that “sober” and “not using” are two different things to Kristen, and while she believes Kristen when she says she isn’t using—she always wants to believe her—she doesn’t know if she’s truly sober.
That is, if she’s truly committed to it.
But Kristen does seem different to Lorna. More like the Kristen of old, the sister she laughed with, who would fix her hair, who would help her choose the right clothes to wear. “You would dress like a caveman if I weren’t here to help you,” Kristen likes to say.
Lorna thinks she’s probably right.
They talk about work and the people they work with. They make up superlatives for them. “Most Likely to Marry for Money,” Kristen says of a coworker. “Most Likely to Call Off Work,” Lorna says of her coworker. They giggle over TV dinners and choose more superlatives for everyone on the street.
Lorna enjoys Kristen’s company again. It feels like it has been forever since they were just sisters without extenuating issues, and they fall easily into the habit of being together.
Kristen has been on her best behavior, coming home after work, not disappearing. Even trying to get along with Mom.
Mr. Cho has a rule that no friends are allowed in the store after hours, but he never said anything about sisters.
Kristen sits on a red stool, twirling around, talking on the phone to someone about her favorite ice cream flavors while Lorna sweeps.
When Lorna goes into the bathrooms to replenish the toilet paper, she can hear Kristen still talking to someone, and when she comes out, Kristen is still on the red stool.
“Let’s drive through Whataburger,” she says. “I’m starving.”
“Okay,” Lorna says. “I just have to clock out and turn off the lights.” She makes one last sweep of the aisles and goes to the back and clocks out, then turns out the lights as she heads to the front glass doors.
Kristen trails behind her. But as Lorna reaches the door, she sees someone walking up. It’s a police officer.
“Shit,” Kristen says. “Are there cameras?”
“What?” Lorna asks, confused by her question.
Kristen bumps into her, knocking against her purse. She grabs Lorna’s arm and squeezes. “Listen, Lolo, if they pop me, I’ll go back to jail. I’ll lose my probation. You’re a minor.”
“ What? ” Lorna’s brain is not working, other than to sound alarms. She can’t understand why the cop is reaching for the door, gesturing for her to open it, or why Kristen is talking about jail.
“Just be cool,” Kristen says.
Lorna opens the door and the cop walks in. She sees two more cops walking up to the door behind him. “What’s wrong?” she asks.
“You tell me,” the cop says. “Empty the contents of your purses. Both of you.”
Lorna does, of course, because she is a rule follower. She dumps everything right there on the checkout counter. And then everything happens so fast. She watches with amazement as makeup and jewelry with tags on them spill out of her purse.
“Oh my God, Lorna. What were you thinking?” Kristen says behind her. Nothing falls out of Kristen’s purse but some cigarettes and some wadded-up dollar bills.
“Wait,” Lorna says, trying desperately to make sense of this. But by the time she pieces it together, the cuffs are on her and she’s been arrested for shoplifting.
Later, she is released on her own recognizance, and Kristen is waiting for her on the street, smoking a cigarette. When she sees Lorna, she drops it and grinds it out with her heel. “Don’t be mad,” she says, reaching for Lorna. “I could have done time for that.”
Lorna twists out of her reach. She is in such a full-on rage she can’t even speak.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” Kristen says. “When you turn eighteen, it will fall off your record. No one cares—everyone shoplifts as a teen.”
“No, Kristen, not everyone,” Lorna bites out, her voice shaking. “And I care. I care, Kristen!”
It is a huge deal, of course. Lorna is fired from her job by a very weary-looking Mr. Cho.
His daughter had called the police after seeing something on the camera.
Lorna tries to explain she didn’t do it, but the camera angle was not great, and the items were in her purse.
She is kicked off the volleyball team before the tournament season even begins.
She is assessed fines, which means all the money she has saved working is now going to a court.
At home, Kristen is contrite and keeps reminding Lorna that it could have been worse, that it was just a Class C misdemeanor, which will fall off her record when she turns eighteen.
When Lorna does not tell Kristen it’s okay, it’s fine, Kristen gets angry.
“This is no big deal, Lorna,” she snaps.
“It’s only a problem because you are making it a problem. ”
Lorna is stunned. “Are you kidding me right now? I let down the one person in my life who believes in me.”
“Who?” Kristen asks. “Mom? Believe me, she thinks her precious Lolo can do no harm.”
“Not Mom. Mr. Cho.”
Kristen rolls her eyes. “Dramatic much?”
“You are unbelievable,” Lorna says, and she goes to her room and slams the door. And then she does something she has never done in her whole life: She puts her fist through the Sheetrock and breaks her little finger in the process.