Jasmine Zumideh Needs a Win by Susan Azim Boyer

Author:Susan Azim Boyer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

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My shift at Hot Dog on a Stick will be the respite I need from the emotional turmoil of the election. There’s something about the aroma of deep-fried party batter. If they had a Scratch & Sniff for happiness, it would smell like party batter. And hand-stomping the lemonade can be super cathartic. I’ll have time to think about what to do next.

Mike hasn’t called by the time I leave for my shift. Who knows if he’ll even be at the dance on Saturday?

Row after row of palm trees sprout out of concrete center islands on my drive in. They stay evergreen till their fronds shrivel up and dry. A dingy, fall haze hangs just above the horizon. I have to get the hell out of here.

When I get to the mall, every other column throughout the lower level has been wrapped with giant yellow ribbons. A banner that reads IN SUPPORT OF OUR HOSTAGES, WHO ARE REALLY OUR HEROES is draped across the overhang above the escalator.

There is just no escaping it.

Why did the students have to seize the embassy right when I decide to run for senior class president? I could have waged a clean campaign instead of rolling around in the mud with Kyle and Patty.

This day will be redeemed if Sam Goody has any copies of the new Specials record. Every time I stop by, it’s sold out.

Of course, they don’t. However, in addition to the hundred thousand copies of ABBA’s Greatest Hits Vol. 2, they do have a VHS tape of All the President’s Men. Now I won’t have to read the book. I don’t have time.

I get to work with minutes to spare and punch in.

Donna’s already there, dipping dogs. “Do you want to dip the cheese or stomp lemonade?”

“Lemonade.”

“I’ll take the register.”

She dips the last dog and wipes her hands while I pick up the hand stomper.

“Did you see all the yellow ribbons?” Donna asks. “They’re for our hostages.”

“I know,” I say, stomping the lemons with particular gusto.

She opens the register and counts the dollar bills. “My dad says Carter should invade I-ran.”

“Maybe Carter should make your dad secretary of state,” I snap.

She throws me a dirty look that mutates into a manufactured smile when a harried mom and her daughter approach.

The rest of my shift is a disaster. I burn a batch of cheese sticks and spill a tray of lemonade on a poor, unsuspecting family of four.

But the cherry on top of this shit sundae is when Fake Burt Reynolds stops by at the end of the night. He leans against the counter while I close out the register. “You see all the yellow ribbons?”

Donna hands me his mall employee courtesy cup of lemonade and goes back to cleanup.

“They’re really cool,” I say, jamming the straw into his cup. “Here.”

He takes a sip. “Those students, they’re like animals, man. Have you seen ’em? They’re all hairy, like apes.”

Meanwhile, his five o’clock shadow must show up by noon.

“They’re not even civilized.

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