Chapter 12
Twelve
“The coast is clear,” Efraín announces ten minutes into our Tuesday morning gift shop shift. “You can take out your phone.”
The barn is a ghost town. Tuesdays are the museum’s slowest day, and the gift shop’s lucky to see a single sale in the first
hour. Now that we’re a few weeks into the summer, on a slow day with a skeleton crew, Anya trusts two newbies to run the gift
shop alone.
I should’ve been suspicious when Efraín offered to fold the new shipment of T-shirts before I could reach for the folding
board. He’s using it to shield his phone from prying eyes.
I’ve been itching to check my phone ever since the workday began because I have been waiting four days for a reply from Billy in HR.
But Efraín doesn’t know about my email. No one does. And while I’m waiting for official communiqués from HR, Efraín’s been blowing up my phone with texts to a new “Ride or Die” group chat, which Lola created a few nights ago.
It was a mash-up of gossip and memes from Lola, and the occasional scenic photo from Naomi, until this morning when Efraín
suggested that we hold a union meeting this week.
Every notification I received from the back seat of Ma’s Subaru set my blood boiling because they had me obsessing over all
the less savory reasons Billy might email me. Because if this were truly safe, Efraín wouldn’t have instructed everyone to
switch to an end-to-end encrypted messaging app for future union communications.
An invitation to a coup—a conspiracy, at best—and no one bothered to ask for my RSVP. It’s a foregone conclusion that no one
lucky enough to receive an exclusive invite to join Efraín’s merry band of troublemakers would ever turn him down.
Not that I’ve made up my mind to turn him down, but I have other things on my mind.
“You should check the chat,” Efraín says after I’ve logged into my sales account. “Lola’s worried you were abducted by aliens.
Naomi thinks you locked yourself in ‘the compartment,’ whatever that is.”
I bite my tongue to stop myself from reminding him that “The Compartment” is the fan-favorite, homoerotic bottle episode of
NS filmed entirely in the silo lavatory.
Instead, I say, “The shirts need to be tagged, too.”
“I can do it.” Honestly, if anyone’s been abducted by aliens, it’s Efraín, who has been almost chipper and surprisingly agreeable, except for his aversion to assembly lines. “But do you really think it matters whether we’re done in fifteen minutes or twenty?”
“Does your grand plan to improve working conditions start with sabotaging T-shirt sales?”
He huffs a laugh, as if I just cracked a joke. “There’s no reason to break our backs when we’re not going to see a customer
before noon.”
“Dan might come by.”
“Dan doesn’t care.”
“Ford would.”
“And you care what Ford thinks . . . why?”
I don’t care what Ford thinks, but I’d prefer to stay off his radar. After a dozen misgendering incidents, Ford’s never once apologized,
not even the time Stanley corrected him. It’s not that I want the apology so much as an acknowledgment that it was an accident.
“I care whether Ford tanks my chances at getting the internship or leading tours this summer instead of . . .”
“Instead of hawking useless consumer-bait clutter masquerading as commemorative memorabilia at an obscene markup?” Efraín
holds a shirt that reads: “Half-Lives Matter.”
I wince. “No, yeah, that’s offensive.”
“Congratulations, snowflake, for noticing.”
“Thank you, Snowball, for that high praise.”
Efraín’s brows furrow.
“Snowball as in—”
“Animal Farm, I know,” Efraín replies with a predictable eye roll. “Just seemed like a weird choice coming from you. Low-hanging fruit.”
I don’t know why I lowkey implied Efraín is a tankie, either; I know he’s not.
“You really should text proof of life, though.”
“They know I’m at work.”
“Didn’t stop me.”
“Yeah, because Lola’s your best friend.”
“She’s your friend, too.” He doesn’t look up from his folding.
I frown at him, the tag gun and sticker sheets still lying on the counter, and this whole bizarro conversation in which Efraín
expresses an interest in my social life rather than just crashing every facet of my academic and professional lives without
ever—well. Getting personal. “What makes you say that?”
He frowns at me like I’ve said something incredibly obtuse. “You guys have been hanging out, right?”
“Once,” I say, instinctively running my sweaty palms over my new-to-me corduroy khaki shorts. I would’ve thought the texture
would aggravate me, but it’s just the opposite. The worn corduroy is soft, the ridges pleasantly smooth against my hands.
They were the first shorts Lola suggested I try on, a size smaller and three inches shorter than any pair I would’ve picked on my own.
Lola practically squealed when she saw them on me, insisting that the slimmer fit worked while reassuring me that there was nothing scandalous about showing my kneecaps.
But one hour at Nine Lives doesn’t make us besties, and even if Lola’s and my friendship has leveled up, it doesn’t explain
why Efraín’s taking an interest.
After all, his messages to the group chat aren’t harmless memes, salacious gossip, or pretty pictures. Every notification
I checked before I clocked in was just him steering the conversation back to organizing; it was the most single-minded I’ve
ever seen him about scheduling.
But now, he’s doing work and cracking jokes and giving me the benefit of the doubt despite my dour mood, which isn’t about
him so much as my anxiety about an impending email notification.
Maybe I’m not being fair to Efraín, but he’s not being straight with me.
“You’re awfully obsessed with the chat this morning,” I observe. “Why don’t you just ask me what you really want to ask me?”
Efraín glances at me askance, a sly smile tugging at his lips. “Knowing you, you’ve already done your research. I bet you’ve
got all the organizing handbooks memorized,” he says, which is presumptuous but also weirdly complimentary. “So, you know
we’re not supposed to talk about baby socialist fight club on the clock.”
That’s why he wants me to check the chat here and now. We can avoid talking about specifics on the floor if I use our snazzy, secure e2e messaging system.
Once I’ve cracked the math, Efraín’s actual words catch up to me. “Sorry, ‘baby socialist fight club’?”
“That’s what Lola’s calling it, and we do need a code name.”
“How about literally anything else? Give me the day, and I’ll give you ten alternatives,” I blurt.
“I’ll give you until the first meeting,” Efraín says. “Just tell me which day works for you.”
No surprise Efraín’s willing to bend his own rules about security and best practices when he gets impatient—or hyperfocused.
I can see the shape of his obsession, just how fixated he is on organizing here. I still feel like I’m missing half the story—I
don’t know why this matters so much to him—though I can acknowledge that it does. He’s proved that through his actions.
But I can’t get past the fact that his biggest concern is organizing this covert union meeting, while I’m struggling to just
be here, doing this job, not knowing how many times I will be misgendered today. How will HR respond to my concerns? Will
my complaint affect my chances of getting the internship?
No matter how careful I am, this might all backfire catastrophically. I can’t afford to be reckless—not now.
Efraín deserves to know that. He’s waiting for me to tell him a day, and I just can’t.
“Listen, when I dyed my hair—” I clear my throat and keep my eyes on my own work. “Maybe I gave you the wrong impression,
but I’m not sure I can be part of your Three Musketeers operation.”
“Four,” Efraín says, clipped and rapier sharp.
“Pardon?” I ask, but I know what’s coming.
The bickering is automatic because we’ve done this so many times before. Any and every time he gives me the benefit of the
doubt, lets his guard down, and offers me a way in, I trip the wire; then Efraín flips the switch and shuts down.
Honestly? I probably deserve it.
“You said ‘Three Musketeers.’ There were four.”
I haven’t read Dumas since I was ten, but I know what he means. The “three” in Dumas’s Three Musketeers is a misnomer. Athos, Porthos, and Aramis may be the titular trio, but d’Artagnan is the protagonist, the hero who tells the story.
“I’m no d’Artagnan.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Thanks for that.”
“Sorry, were you waiting for me to disagree and soothe your conscience?” Efraín is staring at me with such intensity that I worry he’s trying to pull a Medusa act.
“I don’t get you. I thought you were relieved to hear we couldn’t get fired for organizing.
You should be on board with making your precious museum a better place when there’s no real risk to you. ”
I cross my arms over my chest, suddenly unbearably self-conscious. “No real risk? You said bosses don’t care what’s legal.”
“You really don’t get it, do you?”
“I get that that’s a rhetorical question,” I mutter.
Efraín isn’t folding anymore, just white-knuckling one of those borderline white supremacist T-shirts, which is, painfully
ironically, black. Darker fabric’s less likely to show wrinkles.
“Tell me,” I insist, resigned rather than angry. “What don’t I get, precisely?”
Efraín stares at me for a moment longer, fury pulling him taut, tense, poised to—
“You know what?” he snaps. “I can’t. Because I don’t know how to talk to you. I don’t know how to get through to you. Because whenever I talk about what’s right or fair or just . . . Your eyes don’t glaze over like other people’s; you just look like you want to give me some erudite lecture as cover
for an ad hominem attack about what a hypocrite I am for talking about ideas in the abstract. You say you want me to use proper nouns.”
I haven’t heard anyone talk about grammar with such derision since—well, the last time Efraín and I argued about nouns.