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grandmother’s name. Or, My parents named me after Stella McCartney. It didn’t feel right to lie to a woman with such a sincere face. And the more lies I told, the harder it would be to keep everything straight in my head. So I settled on “You must be Dixie Jo. Thanks for the interview.”
    “Have you worked in food service before?” she asked, leading me across the dining area and through a pair of swinging double doors. The white-tiled kitchen gleamed, and smelled as clean as a bar of soap. I counted one woman chopping heads of lettuce, another slicing and battering onions, and a guy my age unloading an oversize, steam-spewing dishwasher. The air was already hot, their faces flushed.
    Dixie Jo signaled for me to take a seat in a small office off the kitchen.
    “I haven’t.” I sat in the chair across the desk from hers, deciding now wasn’t the time to tell her I’d never had a job. “But I’m a fast learner, and I’m a people person.” And I love AC.
    “Can you work nights?”
    “All but Friday.” I still hadn’t heard from Chet about the softball league, but I hoped it would work out. For one thing, I needed something to do on the weekends. For another, I could see myself hanging out with Chet for the summer. Annoying cowboy attributes aside, he had a good sense of humor and wasn’t as backwoods as some of the people I’d seen in town. And if I was being completely honest, he wasn’t the worst to look at, either.
    “How many hours are you hoping for?”
    “As many as you’ll give me.”
    “I’m looking to hire someone part-time, twenty hours a week. You’d be responsible for some food prep, like milk shakes and adding the right dressing to our stock salads. But the primary duties of a carhop are taking orders from curbside customers, sending the orders to the cooks, and taking the food out when it’s ready.”
    “I can handle that.”
    “The nice thing about sitting smack-dab on the street corner is that we’ve got the parking spaces all down the left side of the building. Customers pull in and they don’t have to leave their car to get food. We serve anywhere from twenty to fifty cars a night.” She smiled slyly. “They don’t take up tables in the dining area and there’s no cleanup. Best of both worlds. Can you start tonight, Stella?”
    I blinked. “Are you offering me the job?”
    “If you want it.”
    It was an easy decision. Time away from Carmina, AC, and a little spending money? I smiled brightly. “You’ve got yourself a new carhop.”
    Dixie Jo rose from behind the desk. “Be here tonight at four thirty. It’ll give you a chance to get the swing of things before the crowds arrive. I pay every other Friday. Still on board?”
    “Definitely.”
    “Then we’ll see you tonight, Stella.” With a smile, she signaled me to see myself out.
    I was halfway across the kitchen when I backtracked and poked my head through her door. “One more thing. Is there a uniform?”
    She snapped her fingers. “Almost forgot. The new ones just came in. The old ones were pink-and-white-striped dresses with a lace hem. Reminded me of something Dolly Parton would’ve worn on tour in 1981. If you swing by the Salvation Army, they’re selling them for ten apiece.” She rifled through one of the boxes stacked along the back wall and held up a faux leather black skirt and fitted camo top.
    “Better?” She arched her brows, asking my opinion.
    I laughed. “You have to ask?”
    “Top has to be tucked in for safety purposes, but you can wear whatever closed-toe footwear you choose. What size would you like?”
    I took a medium and walked out with a bounce in my step. As far as job interviews went, I was 1–0.
    *  *  *
    Outside, Carmina’s beach cruiser was gone.
    I glanced both ways down the street. A few cars rolled along the brick streets of Thunder Basin’s downtown, but the sidewalks were empty. No guilty-looking pedestrians making a break for it with an eyesore of a bike. So