Rags to Riches

I hate shopping. I fucking hate shopping. And now I have to go shopping for prissy clothes with Callie Seville. My new boss’ daughter. And what the fuck – I actually have a boss? I sure as hell hadn’t expected that any time soon. Especially not one that required me to wear really expensive, fancy ass clothing. How was I even going to do that?

Donovan and I ended up working it out that I would come from school to TechNet on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for an hour and a half, plus come with him to certain social events on the weekends. But how could I explain any of that to my parents? ’Mom, Dad, so I got this fancy job where I have to wear suits and designer clothes like that and makes me go to parties on the weekend. Oh, how did I get this job? Yeah, I tried to rob this CEO guy and he gave me a job instead of calling the cops.’ Something tells me that’s not the best idea.

Hiding the clothes wouldn’t really be all that difficult. My parents never go into my room anyways, so there’s not much work put into that one. It’s the part where I have to go straight from school to the business end of town. I can’t be seen in those kinds of clothes anywhere near the part of the city that my school is in, but I have to change into them before I get to TechNet. I haven’t the slightest idea how I’m going to pull that one off three days a week.

I mean, aren’t you not supposed to get suits and shit wrinkly? Like, you have to keep them flat and hung up, or something like that, I’m pretty sure. How in the holy hell is that going to work for me? It’s probably not, that’s how. Callie would have to help me figure that all out too, I guess.

In the meantime, I did have to find something to wear to “work” – if I could even call it that – Friday before our little shopping trip. I managed to inconspicuously raid my dad’s closet and find the old outfit he used to wear to job interviews, way back when. It didn’t fit me like it did him, but I also didn’t really look like a kid playing dress-up in his dad’s clothes. Since it was just a somewhat nice shirt and a pair of less than quality dress pants, I folded it all up as best I could and stuffed it in my backpack for the school day. Then I was able to duck in a fairly dark alley and quickly change into it before I rounded the corner and headed into the business district.

As I walked into the lobby, I looked for the shocked look on Eric’s face, but was disappointed when I saw the front desk empty of his snobby little body. Shaking my head, I just walked towards the elevators, feeling oddly dejected. ’Why do I get so much enjoyment from seeing that shit confused or angry?’

Being my first actual day there, Donovan didn’t actually have me doing much at all. He just sat me down and introduced me to the company, really. I also had to go over the employee handbook and sign a waiver saying that I had done so. That didn’t really take that long, but there was one thing that stuck out at me as I read it.

I was sitting at a small table in the corner of his office, reading over the fairly large booklet that he’d handed me about ten minutes prior. I’d gotten about half way through it at that point, and as my eyes scanned the “Employee Appearance Code” section, I looked up.

“Um, Donovan?” I called out, not wanting to bother him if he was doing something important.

“Yeah Kenny?” he answered instantly, his eyes snapping towards me from his computer screen.

“So in the dress code section here, it says, ’All employees with body modifications (ie. Tattoos, piercings, etc.) must cover any such modification in a reasonable manner while at work and/or any work related situations/events.’

“Woah, that’s about halfway through that monster. You’re that far already?”

I cocked an eyebrow at the question. “Uh, yeah, it’s not that hard of a read.”

“Shit, I had a hard time reading that thing,” Donovan said, laughing loudly. “You really are a smart kid, Kenny. Sometimes you throw me off guard by how sophisticated your vocabulary, and apparent reading skill, is. It’s pretty impressive.”

I inhaled slowly, trying to suppress my typical urge to snap. Normally, I would have gone straight for a defense mechanism and would have started a full on argument about how badly he was stereotyping me. But I was trying to learn to do that less, and I was able to count that moment as a small win. I simply replied with, “Yeah, I read a lot.”

“Anyways, your question – well, you didn’t exactly have a question. You just read me a section of the handbook. Did you have a question?”

“I mean, well, kind of,” I said, shrugging as I began pushing up the sleeve of my shirt. I showed him my right arm and meant to elaborate but was cut off.

“Oh! You have tattoos,” he mused, looking closer at the half-sleeve I was showing him.

“Yeah, and they’re not exactly easy to cover unless I wear long sleeves all the time. I guess my question is, what is “a reasonable manner” exactly?”

He examined my tattoos a little while longer before shrugging and saying, “Eh, as long as none of them are offensive in any way, I don’t see why you can’t show them. I think that rule is total bull, really, but I haven’t been able to change it, so we’re stuck with it. But you’re my personal intern and if I say you can have visible tattoos, then you can have visible tattoos.”

After that, Donovan actually asked me about my tattoos and I told him everything he wanted to know, albeit slightly confused as to why he was showing that much enthusiasm about tattoos. When he didn’t have any more questions, he went back to his work and I finished up reading the novel of an employee handbook. Once I signed the waiver, though, Donovan shrugged and said he was done with me for the day and that he would see me on Monday.

I texted Callie and told her that I got done early and that I would be waiting outside the building for her. Sooner than I’d figured, a sleek sliver car stopped right in front of me and the window rolled down, a mixture of thumping pop music and Callie’s voice floating out of it. “Get in loser, we’re going shopping.”

I chuckled and opened the door, ducking to get into the car. Closing the door behind me, I looked at Callie and shook my head. “I’m going to hope that was a quote of some sort and that you don’t actually think I’m a loser. Because that would be straight up mean, and I can’t see you being mean.”

She gasped, looking at me over her sunglasses. “You’ve never seen Mean Girls? Oh man, poor Kenny.”

I groaned at the mention of that movie. “I refuse to watch it. Everyone quotes it and I’m always lost, but I really hate movies like that, so I won’t watch it. And what even is this music you’re listening to?” I looked at the radio console as if that would give me the answer and listened to the song that she still had playing quite loudly. “Really? Backstreet Boys?”

She gasped again. “You take that back.”

“What?” I laughed.

“This is so not Backstreet Boys. Come on, this is NSync! They’re so much better than those other chumps.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at her reaction to my mistake. “What year is this? 2001? You’re lucky I even knew it was a boy band.”

“Ugh, whatever Kenny,” she said, laughing to show that she was still joking around.

For my sake, she turned the volume down – slightly – as she began what I hoped wasn’t too long of a drive. After a few minutes, I realized that Callie was trying to sing along to the music without me really noticing, which I thought was actually really cute.

I hadn’t really looked at her too thoroughly when I’d gotten into the car and was for some reason almost shocked to not see her in the school uniform she’d worn when we met. I figured since it was a school day that she’d still have it on when he went shopping. Instead of the plaid skirt and cardigan, she wore a simple blue and yellow striped sun-dress with gray tights and a pair of gray flat boots. Her hair was pulled back into a simple ponytail this time, but the natural waviness of her hair made it seem fancier than it might have otherwise. She looked really cute, actually, and I didn’t even realize that I had been starting until she looked at me out of the corner of her eye and made eye contact with me.

“Oh crap, you saw all that, didn’t you?”

“Saw all what?” I asked, honestly not realizing what she meant.

Red was creeping up her cheeks and she kept her eyes intently focused on the road in front of her. “All my stupid lip-singing just now.”

“It’s not stupid. I sing along to music I really like. Everyone does,” I chuckled, shrugging. “This isn’t exactly my favorite kind of music right now, but you like it, so I don’t mind it I guess. Who am I to stop you from singing? Go for it.”

She looked at me out of the corner of her eyes again and her expression read nice and loud, “Are you kidding me?” I nodded again as a way to urge her to continue.

Okay sure, I hated boy bands. But I know what it’s like to have a fairly embarrassing taste in music; you don’t get many chances to really enjoy it like you would want to because you’re afraid of getting judged harshly. So when you get those opportunities to really let loose with it, you take them. And that’s why I let Callie go all out and sing to her heart’s content as I sat there and wished we were listening to something else.