Permanent Record Chapter 1 I don''t care what any of the assholes I live with tell you. I don''t work at a bodega. It''s a health food store. Says right there on the sign: M&A JUICE BAR DELI ORGANIC GROCERY CORP. Whatever. It''s implied. In any case, it''s well lit, huge by New York standards, with a battalion of Vitamix blenders right up front--4K worth at least. Plus, we sell every type of rich-people fetish food.
Are you in the market for organic, non-sulfur-treated goji berries at eighteen bucks a bag? We got you. Gluten-free, sugar-free, dye-free cake for your non-immunized kid''s next birthday? Yep. We even have cake mix with gluten that''s just as expensive because it''s ironic. See, we''re fancy, not at all a bodega, never mind that we''re open twenty-four hours a day, are owned by no-nonsense Koreans, and have a deli cat named Gusto. I''m telling you: Not. A. Bodega. Still, I just wish the damn health food store were a little closer to my apartment.
Especially when the windchill mauls your face-meat to ribbons. I slide my MetroCard smoothly--quickly--bracing for the clang, that hip check of an expired pass, but the turnstile clicks me through. The reader flashes EXP 2/13. Great, so my card''s dying right at the stroke of midnight on the day I was born--Valentine''s Day. Good thing I''m not extremely superstitious and prone to crippling anxiety. (I am.) A can of Red Bull skitters on the tracks as a rat scurries past it. The fingers on my right hand are numb enough that watching them load up the shitty video on my phone is an out-of-body experience, as if I''m watching over someone else''s shoulder.
How I got into Columbia with a free ride! I should shove my dead hand into my pocket, but I can''t. I have to know how she did it. Because here''s how I''m sick (everyone''s sick in their own special way; the variety on the flavors of crazy is pretty endless, but me?): I''m convinced that the next video in the autoplay is the answer. That it''ll be the antidote to my entire life. I believe (but would never admit) that watching the impossibly attractive, gap-toothed Black British chick reveal how she Instagram modeled her way into Columbia with a full scholarship will make that shit happen to me. As if reality is a Japanese horror movie where you watch the crackly footage to become the next chosen one. That is, as soon as this thirteen-minute portal to a better me would hurry up and buffer in this tundra. College.
Any talk of it makes my blood pressure spike. It''s just one topic among many that I don''t broach with my mom, who is Asian--Korean, specifically. South Korean if you''re asking. A human woman who moved to America when she was nine to improve her station in life. The way she tells it though, it wasn''t her benevolent, Virginia-based aunt to whom she owes her success. It''s sheer determination and a seemingly inexhaustible reserve of rage that''s responsible for her becoming a doctor. Mom wanted it that bad. And it''s with the same single-minded grit that she despises my job.
How it looks. The optics. The melanin of it. She doesn''t care if I''m working at a bodega, a health food store, or as a mustachioed oyster shucker in the finest farm-to-table restaurant in Manhattan. She doesn''t want me anywhere in the service industry. Not even a little. She didn''t move seven thousand miles to put herself through college and then med school to become an anesthesiologist at New York-Presbyterian for her firstborn to work in what she calls a first-generation job. My dad, who''s Pakistani and was born in Jersey (he''ll say Jersey when you ask him and not Princeton, which is more accurate), doesn''t care so much.
Despite his engineering degree from Princeton, he''s the chillest patriarch in the world. Seriously, he makes weed seem high-strung. He''s Muslim-ish, but doesn''t pray five times a day because he meditates constantly with this app that''s free with ads. He doesn''t eat pork, but he says it''s for the same reason he doesn''t eat octopus, because pigs are smart and experience fear. He''ll get Filet-O-Fish at McDonald''s, not because it''s halal but because that''s what he''d get when he was a kid, and he drinks hard cider and takes Baileys in his tea at Christmastime, which is not only haram but weirdly basic. In short, my dad''s a total ABCD. American-born confused desi. By his own admission.
Born and raised on the East Coast, his dad, my dada abu, moved in the seventies to be a humanities professor. It was a huge deal, a massive point of pride for his family who were textile workers in Lahore. Everything was going according to plan until my dad forwent grad school to work at a video-game start-up and then married my mom. We''ve drifted from that side of the family. Ever since auntie Naz, my dad''s little sister, moved to literal Tasmania ten years ago. But the main reason dad doesn''t care what job I have as long as I''m "following my dreams" (believe me, his words) is that I could work at NASA and people will still think I work in the service industry. In fact, me and my dad have talked about how, in most chain stores, randos assume we work there. It never fails.
I know that if I pull up to CVS in a polo shirt, even if it''s that Ralph Lauren Snow Beach drip, more than one person will have the audacity to ask me where the vitamins are or how late we''re open. It''s amazing when you think about it. How racism is a wave and a particle since we also get followed around in stores as if we''re going to steal something. I guess shoplifting''s an inside job? Train. Thank god. I snag a seat. My phone rings in my hand. Unavailable caller ID.
Except I know exactly who it is. Anyone with enough juice to either have an unavailable come up or one of those 1-800 numbers that''s suspiciously catchy--like 882-8888--that''s a bill collector. Especially if they''re calling around dinnertime. I check my bank balance on my phone. Between credit cards, student loans, and rent, the situation is dire. Only one of the car doors opens at my stop. Typical. Shit.
I''m late. My breath puffs out in cartoon clouds as I bolt down the platform and up the stairs. I didn''t mean to be late. I never mean to be late. "Ayo!" a kid in a red parka yells as I dash by. "Swipe me in, man." "Please," I snap at the twerp, but double back anyway. I haul ass down Seventh, fling open the plastic-screened door, pop a grape into my mouth from the cooler, then immediately regret it since the store''s a panopticon and Mr.
Kim''s got CCTV eyes everywhere. Plus, I probably gave myself E. coli since I didn''t wash my subway hands. "Hey, Tina." Tina immediately checks the clock on the wall behind the register and shoots me the wild stink eye. "Come on," I wheedle. "I''m four minutes late." Tina''s five foot even, with a photographic memory for numbers and grudges.
Her baby hair''s unruly, which is a good indicator of her mood, and there are dark smudges under her eyes. There was a time when she was fanatic about her red MAC lipstick. "It''s Ruby Wooooooo," she''d coo in her high-pitched voice when customers remarked on it, but that was before morning sickness took her out. She sucks her teeth at me and goes back for her coat. Ever since she got pregnant, Tina acts like she''s my boss. Only last summer we were for real friends. We went to the beach. It wasn''t a date-date, but we brought a cooler out to the Rockaways and had spaghetti with salami, which Tina said was traditional Dominican beach food.
We washed it down with neon-blue nutcrackers with unicorn stickers on the plastic bottles, which of course is the traditional New York beach drink. Then we passed out cold until a gang of seagulls tried to steal our gigantic bag of Herr''s Honey Cheese Curls so I threw a Timb at them, which let me tell you doesn''t get any more New York as a beach activity. In any event, I miss that Tina. I get why she can''t act all silly with me anymore, but it sucks. I take my time making my way to the counter, plucking the twelve-dollar pint of grass-fed Australian yogurt from the popcorn display, returning it to the fridge. As well as the nine-dollar matcha pound cake that''s strayed over by the teas. I make a big show of my conscientiousness. Tina''s not having any of it.
"You''re supposed to be here fifteen minutes before for put-backs, so you''re nineteen minutes late, Pab." Tina pulls her gloves on so angrily she shoves two fingers in one slot. "Ay," I tell her, ripping off my beanie. "I already saved the company, like, twenty dollars in twenty seconds." I nod over to the coolers. "That''s two hours of work basically." I''m wearing my XXXL hoodie, which signals the cusp of a laundry cycle. It barely fits under my coat, so I flap my sleeves to free my arms.
"Come on, T," I plead. "How are you going to stay mad at a man with seasonal affective disorder? You know my people ain''t built for these climates." Tina''s about ready to kill me. "I''m sorry." I shove my coat under the counter and nudge her, but she''s activated the launch sequence. "You always do that, try to charm your way out of situations with that hair." She stabs the air between us, on her tiptoes since I''m a foot taller. "And that face.
" Stab, stab. "I''m tired of it!" She cuts her eyes at me dramatically and raises her red-gloved palm. "That shit doesn''t work on me anymore." Not to be a d.