"McKenna get up.” A voice says close to my ear.

I groan and roll over in my bed; turning my back on the voice. I feel a hand on my shoulder, shaking me violently. I move away from the touch, and clench onto my pillow. “Go away.”

          “McKenna if you don’t get up right now, I’m leaving you.”

          “Go then.” I tell him, sleepily.

I hear his footsteps retreat, and then I spring up in the bed remembering that I have to go to work today. Ryder turns around as he reaches the door. “Better hurry. It’s 9:14.”

          “Thanks for waking me up.” I tell him.

          “Yeah.” He says, and then leaves the room, closing my door behind him.

I didn’t account on Ryder to waking me up, I actually have an alarm on my phone that I specifically entitled, ‘Work’, set for 9:00 so that I wouldn’t oversleep. I look around for my phone and find it on the floor. It must have fallen off the bed; and anyway it’s on silent. Well I feel smart.

I get out of the bed and stretch. I pull the silky pink sheet off the bed, throwing it on the floor; and then the comforter. I hate it when my bed’s not made. I always make it before I go anywhere. Even home in Texas. I guess it’s because when I was younger my mom used to make me make it; I guess it kinda just rubbed off on me. I spread the pink sheet out over it and then the duvet. I fluff the pillows, and fold the cover back at the top. A knock comes at my door a few minutes later, “9:26.”

          “Okay Ryder!” I call back through the door.

I go over to my desk where my uniform is neatly folded. I was gonna take a shower; but I don’t have time. I guess it’s a good thing I took one last night then. I take off my t-shirt and pull on a bra and then the light blue uniform shirt Helen gave me. It’s a bit roomy in the shirt; but it’ll work. I pull down the shorts I slept in and then pull on the khaki ones. I go to my closet where I’ve stored my shoes and slide my feet into a pair of black flip-flops.

I grab my toothbrush and leave my room going towards the bathroom. Ryder’s coming out with a towel wrapped around his waist and his brown hair damp. “Are you just now taking a shower?” I ask him, though it’s obvious.

          “Yeah; because unlike some people, I know how to take a short shower.” He says.

          “Hey I can take one, I just choose not to. Long baths relax me.”

          “Whatever.” Ryder retorts, walking towards me. Then he says, “You look like a camp counselor.”

          “Are camp counselor’s cute?” I ask putting my hands on my hips.

Ryder looks at me for a second before saying, “Some.” And then he goes into his room, leaving me with my thoughts.

He’s mysterious, that’s for sure. If I hadn’t known him since I was born, then he’d scare me. But since I have; he doesn’t. I go in the bathroom, and fan the steam caused by Ryder’s hot shower away. I grab the toothpaste, and squirt it out on my electric toothbrush. I turn it on, and let it vibrate for a minute before I start brushing my teeth. Two minutes later, I spit the toothpaste into the spacious sink, and grab a face towel from the closet. I wash my face, and then go back to my room. I sit down on my bed, and pick up my phone. It’s 9:30. I grab my hair brush and yank it through my hair and then pull it into a low ponytail.

Ryder comes in my room and says, “Ready?”

I nod, standing up, “I’m ready.” I look at his attire; trying to figure out what his mystery job is, but he’s wearing a white collared shirt, and a pair of dark wash jeans. “So you’re seriously not gonna tell me where you work?”

          “I work at the beach.”

          “Then why are you wearing that?” I ask.

          “Because I’m not going to work.”

          “Then where are you going?”

          “Why do you care so much?”

          “I don’t.” I assure him, “I’m just wondering.”

Ryder sighs, “To answer your question; I’m going to Shriner’s.”

I wrinkle my nose in confusion, “What’s Shriner’s?”

          “It’s a hospital for kids.”

          “But why?” I ask him.

Ryder turns around, beckoning for me to follow him. We go down the stairs; and I’m tempted to ask him again, but I don’t. We go out of the front door and Ryder locks it behind us. Then he hits a button, and the lights of a car come on. I turn towards it and see a black Toyota. “How come you have a car and Todd and Will have trucks?”

          “Because they wanted trucks and I wanted a car.” He says simply.

I get in Ryder’s car, and pull the seatbelt on. “So why are you going to Shriner’s?”

          “I like to visit them.”

          “Visit the kids in the hospital?”

Ryder nods as he backs out of the driveway. He puts the car in drive; heading towards L.A. As we approach a red light, Ryder looks over at me, “What?” He asks.

          “What, what?”

          “You’ve been staring at me for like five minutes.”

          “I’m just wondering why you’re going to Shriner’s.”

          “I just told you that I like to visit them.” He says nonchalantly.

          “But you’re all ya know, antisocial. And plus you said you don’t like people.”

          “I don’t like people.”

          “But th-“

          “You ask a lot of questions.” He tells me as the light turns green and goes through the light. A few minutes later; he pulls into a diner, and parks the car. He gets out; but I don’t. “You plan on staying in the car the whole time?”

          “It’s 9:45.” I tell him.

          “Fifteen minutes. The beach is like two minutes away.”

I sigh, but undo my seatbelt, “Okay.”

Ryder and I walk into the diner and order food. Ryder gets a lot of bacon and some pancakes, but I’m not that hungry so I get a sausage and a biscuit. We sit at a table across from each other and Ryder clears his throat. I look up at him and he says, “I like to visit the kids, because they’re not brats. They don’t care about things that normal kids care about; they care about going home and that’s it.”

          “What’s wrong with them? Like why are they in the hospital?” I ask him.

          “The L.A. one is for orthopedics.” He tells me as the food arrives.

          “What’s that?”

Ryder looks at me with his head cocked, and says, “You aren’t very smart are you?”

          “Shut up, I am smart.”

       “Well anyway orthopedics is like the study of the human musculoskeletal system. That’s your nervous system and stuff. But anyway most of the kids there are cripple, and they’re getting help. But they’re really cool.” He tells me. 

          “So you have like a soft spot for kids or something?”

          “Well I do have five younger siblings.”

          “So is it just kids there?”

          “It’s a children’s hospital.”

          “No, I mean like are there teenagers there?”

Ryder nods, “Yeah. There’s a few.”

          “And you visit them too?”

          “Uh huh.”

We eat in mostly silence for the next few minutes, and as I finish my sausage and biscuit, I wait patiently as Ryder finishes his food. “Could you not watch me eat? It’s creepy.”

          “Sorry.” I say, averting my attention down to my phone.

Soon after; Ryder finishes and it’s 9:53. “You better get me to work in the next seven minutes O’Connor.” I tell him as we stand up.

          “Calm down Bryant, I told you it was two minutes away.” He replies, as we leave the diner.

Ryder and I get back in his car, and he starts it up. True to his word; the beach is actually only about three minutes from the diner. He parks in the parking lot, and I look over at him, “Thanks.”

          “Yeah, sure.”

          “So are you coming to get me?”

          “Do I need to come get you?”

          “I get off at two.” I tell him.

          “I’ll be here.” He says.

          “Alright, well see you in a few hours.”

          “Bye.”

I get out of Ryder’s car and walk down the sandy terrain leading to the pier. I check my phone and see that it’s 9:58. I jog the rest of the way down to the pier and make it behind the door and onto the stool right on time. Helen comes strolling up right at 10:00.

          “I’m glad you aren’t like Todd; he wouldn’t be here for at least another twenty minutes. That boy is never on time.”

          “I didn’t wanna be late on my first day.” I explain.

          “You actually won’t be doing this all four hours.”

          “What do you mean?”

          “Cassidy who works over at the food stand has salmonella, so you’ll be over there for two hours and then back here for two.”

How ironic is it that the person who serves the food has salmonella? Very; I just hope she didn’t get the salmonella from the food here. “Uh, I can’t really cook.” I tell her.

          “You don’t need to cook. When a person comes up, you simply ask them what they want. There are not very many choices. There’s pickles, hot dogs, chips, candy, drinks, and nacho’s. For the pickle, you just pick it up with the tongs, and put it in the bag. Hot dog, you take the dog, put it in the bread. Chips, candy, and drinks are pretty self-explanatory. A for nacho’s you just put some chips in the bowl, push the yellow button on the machine for cheese; the brown for chili. Easy as pie.” She says.

          “Um okay. I’ll try to remember that.”

          “You’re going over there at 12. That’s when most of the people get hungry, and wanna eat. From 10-12 you’ll be here giving the people their prizes, and from 12-2 you’ll be over at the food station giving them food. Then you can go home.”

I nod, “Okay.” Sounds easy enough, I guess.

Helen walks away, and I plop back down on the stool and spin around in it half way. I do that for about ten minutes until I see a little boy coming over to the display.

          “Hi.” I say to him.

          “Hi.” He says, lowly. He reaches up and hands me his ticket slip. I read over it and see that he has 7,000 tickets.

I look down at the display, and look for the row for him. “Okay, you can get anything from one of these three rows.” I tell him.

The boy looks at the display for a long time before he picks something. “Can I have that bear?”

          “Sure.” I say, as I slide the door back, and pull it out for him. “It’s only 4,000.” I tell him. “Do you want something else?” The boy decided to get some kinda inflatable balloon type thing which is 3,000. I give him his things, and he walks off.

3,000 for a balloon thing might seem to be too much; but actually it isn’t. At the pier, there’s a plethora of games you can play. Each game gives out a slip good for up to 1,000 tickets. So in order to get 3,000 you only have to win three games. Pretty simple. So for the remainder of the two hours; a few kids come up, tell me what they want, and I give it to them. And then they leave. Like Todd said, easy money. But of course; I’m way nicer that Todd was.

Soon enough twelve o’clock comes and Helen comes back over. “Having fun?” She wonders.

I nod, “Yeah; it’s really easy.” I tell her.

          “Glad to hear that. Well it’s twelve and the lunch crowd is coming. You can head on over now.”

          “So what about that prize stand? Who’s gonna run it?” I ask, as I push the little gate open, walking through it.

Helen walks past me and sits down on the stool in which I was just on. “Me.”

          “Why can’t you just work at the food stand?”

          “Are you crazy? They’d kill me over there.”

          “You mean that figuratively, right?” I ask.

Helen hesitates for a moment before saying, “Yeah; sure. Now go. Remember; don’t keep them waiting too long!” She calls after me.

I walk over towards the concession stand, and go through the gate. It’s similar to the prize stand, but there’s food and drinks in here. I sit down on the stool, and pull my phone from my pocket. I look down and see I have a missed call from Hailey O’Connor. First, who gave that chick my number; and second why is she calling me? I hit the return call button, and put my phone up to my ear.

          “What?” Hailey answers on the second ring.

          “You called me; I’m just returning the call.” I say simply.

          “It was an accident; I have no reason to call you on purpose.”

          “Alright then.” I say, and before I can hang up, Hailey does.

I put my phone back in my pocket, and rest my arms on the table. I just don’t understand why Hailey hates me so much. I hate her too, but I only hate her because she hates me. Well aside from the whole ‘human torture’ thing when we were kids. I look up when I sense someone standing in front of me. I see two teenage boys standing in front of me. Two very hot teenage boys I might add.

          “Hey.” One guy says. I shall call him Hot guy #1.

          “Hi.” I reply, shielding my eyes from the sun.

          “You new here?”

          “I’m just filling in for Cassidy.” I explain.

Hot guy #2 licks his lips before saying, “So listen, me and my boy, Shawn, here are having a party tonight. You in?”

So apparently Hot guy #1’s name is Shawn. I don’t think Sarah and Uncle Ricky would really mind if I went to a party. It is summer after all. I clear my throat before closing one of my eyes as the sun flashes, “Okay, sure.”

Hot guy #2; who’s yet to introduce himself, looks at me and says, “You gotta napkin?”

Stupid question considering I work at a food booth for the time being; but I nod and give him a paper towel anyways. He pulls a pen from the pocket of his board shorts and writes something down on the napkin. Then he hands me the napkin, clicking the pen and sliding back in his pocket. I look away from Shawn and his friend, and avert my eyes to the thin paper before me. The handwriting on it is a bit sloppy but I can still read it. It says: Call me. 562-555-0100. -Matt.

So apparently Hot guy #2 is Matt. I look down at it for a few seconds longer before looking back up at Shawn and Matt. “So what time’s the party?”

Shawn says, “It starts at 10.”

          “And it’s where?”

Matt throws his head back, gesturing towards the beach. “Down there. So you coming?”

I nod, “Yeah; I’ll be there.”

          “Alright; come find me. Okay?” Matt says.

          “Sure.”

Matt and Shawn both stand there for a second before I clear my throat, “So do y’all wanna buy something?”

          “I see something I want but it isn’t on the menu.” Matt says. I raise my eyebrows and Shawn hits him in the back of his head.

          “Just something to drink.” Shawn says.

          “What kinda drink?”

          “Doesn’t matter.”

I randomly put my hand in the cooler, and pull out two drinks. Turns out to be a Dr. Pepper and a Sprite. Matt and Shawn pay for the drinks and then leave. I put the money in the register and close it. As the day passes by, Matt comes back many times, spending $20 in total. He lingers too long though; talking to me. And when the real lunch hour crowd hits; I have to make him go away, so I can get the people their stuff.

Finally after a day of exhaustion, 2:00 arrives. I tell Matt and Shawn goodbye, and sign out. I grab myself a drink-because Helen said that I could have whatever I wanted. I walk up the pier, heading towards the parking lot where Ryder should be. When I get there though; I’m not surprised when I don’t see his black Toyota. I decide to call him. I whip my phone out and dial his number which I got from Will.

          “Yeah.” He says, answering on the third ring.

          “Hey.” I say, balancing the phone between my shoulder and ear as I pop the tab on my drink. “Are you coming to get me?”

          “I’m on my way.” Ryder tells me and then hangs up.

Some people have just have no manners.

I think to myself as I put my phone down in my pocket.

About five minutes later; Ryder gets there, and I get into the front seat of his car, and pull the seatbelt on. Ryder greets me briefly, before pulling off, and heading towards the highway to Vernon.