When You Reach Me

Things on a Slant

Our second week, Jimmy said we could start serving customers.

“But first you have to learn the V-cut,” he told us. “Very important.” Except he said “Velly important,” stretched his eyelids back with two fingers, and bowed down low—it was the classic fake-Chinese act. I had never seen a grown-up do it before. If Mom had been there, she would have whacked him on the head with a plastic tray.

“The V-what?” Colin said.

The V-cut was Jimmy’s special way of cutting the sandwich rolls. “Always a forty-five-degree angle,” he said. He was very serious about it, sawing down one side of the roll and then carefully sliding the knife out and inserting it in the other side.

The top of the bread was supposed to lift off in a perfect “V,” which was why Jimmy called it a V-cut. He gave us each a roll and watched while we tried it. Annemarie’s was perfect. Colin’s was passable. Mine was a disaster. When I lifted the top off, flaps of bread guts were hanging down, and Jimmy said it looked “unappealing.”

“You can use that for your own sandwich,” he said, making a face at my shredded roll. “Try again tomorrow.”

So Annemarie and Colin got to put on aprons, stand behind the counter, and help customers while I counted the bread order in the back and went to the A&P for napkins. Annemarie said later that Jimmy should talk, that he looked “unappealing” in his stretched-out white T-shirt with yellow underarm stains. That made me feel a little better, but not much.

As soon as Colin got his apron on, Jimmy started calling him “lady”—“Hey, lady, get some more mayo on there.” “Hey, lady, pass me those trays.” Colin just laughed, which is how Colin is.

Every day that week, I cut my roll as soon as I got to the store, and every day Jimmy shook his head no. Colin and Annemarie worked together behind the counter—Jimmy had started calling them the counter couple and making disgusting kissing noises at them when he walked by, which made Annemarie turn red, while Colin just smiled like a goofball.

Jimmy said that while I practiced my V-cut I could be in charge of hot chocolate. He used those Swiss Miss instant hot chocolate packets where you just add water. But no one ever ordered it. And I don’t think he really even looked at my rolls after the first couple of days. Anyway, they were only getting worse.