When Sherri walked into Derma-You’s waiting room she found it busy, full of women, most of them bent over clipboards and casting furtive glances around at the rest of the patients. She was shown by one of the smooth, ageless front desk employees to a small room in the back to meet Jan.

“We need someone to answer the phones, that sort of thing,” said Jan, launching right in. Apparently they weren’t going to sit around and engage in small talk. That was all right with Sherri. Small talk made her nervous, because she didn’t want to say the wrong thing. Jan could be in her fifties or in her thirties or her forties depending on how many of Derma-You’s services she had availed herself of. It was really hard to tell. Sherri tried to listen to her without staring too hard at her puffy lips.

“A lot of the job is answering phones,” said Jan. “Being the first face the patient sees, that sort of thing.”

“I’ve got a really good phone voice,” said Sherri, trying not to sound too eager.

“Eventually you’ll need to be trained in the billing system, which is sort of complicated.” Jan rustled the fake resumé, which had Sherri having had a number of clerical jobs in and around Columbus, Ohio. She furrowed her unfurrowable brow. “Have you ever worked in a medical office before?”

“Not specifically,” said Sherri. “But I’m a very fast learner.” That’s what the counselor had told her to say, and in fact it was true.

“Well, we’re extremely short-staffed right now,” said Jan. “We’re opening another branch in Woburn, and half of our front desk staff has had to go over there, so we’re scrambling. You can consider yourself hired.”

“Really?” It was that easy, to get a job?

“Really,” said Jan. She peered at Sherri’s face.

“What?” asked Sherri, putting a hand self-consciously to her cheek. The light was extremely bright in this office.

“You should stay out of the sun. You’ve got sunspots here”—Jan touched Sherri’s cheek along the top of her cheekbones—“and here.” The edge of her forehead. Sherri reared back; something had activated her “fight or flight” instinct.

“Sorry,” said Jan, lowering her hand. “I was just going to say, the lasers can do wonders with that. I didn’t mean to spook you.”

“You didn’t spook me,” said Sherri untruthfully.

“There’s no shame in wanting to improve yourself,” Jan said firmly. “That’s the most important thing you need to understand if you are going to work at Derma-You.”

“No! No, of course not,” said Sherri. “Of course there isn’t any shame in wanting to improve yourself.” If anybody in the place understood that, it was Sherri. If only there was a laser for the heart, thought Sherri. A filler for the soul.

They went over some specifics. Jan preferred to train new hires in the evening, when it was a bit quieter in the office. “Not that it’s ever really quiet,” she said, both proudly and ruefully. The office was open until nine three nights a week. Could Sherri come at six p.m. on the sixth of July, which was next Monday?

Yes, Sherri could come at six p.m. “How long will I stay that night?” she asked.

“A couple of hours,” said Jan. “Maybe longer.”

Sherri thought of Katie in the corner of the bedroom. Her heart started to beat faster. But she couldn’t not take the job. They had to eat; they had to pay the rent. “I’ll see you on the sixth,” she told Jan.

She made her way through the thrum of women seeking self-improvement: the women who felt no shame about their bodies and the women who obviously felt lots of shame. Once she was in her car she allowed herself a little whoop of joy. She had a job! She would get a paycheck and discounts on the lasering of sun spots! She, Sherri Griffin, would be a contributor to the economic wheels that powered the great state of Massachusetts.

Sherri decided she’d bring some sort of treat home for Katie to celebrate. Maybe some of those Angry Donuts from the shop on Winter Street. She hadn’t tried Angry Donuts yet—she didn’t know what the doughnuts were quite so angry about—but one of the moms had told her they were very good.

She found a parking spot near the shop, and when she got out of the car such a funny, unexpected thing happened. She wasn’t far from the river, and some of the scent had wafted her way. A pair of seagulls circled, letting out a mournful, delirious cry. From where she stood she could see the foot traffic and the bike traffic on the rail trail. It was all still so foreign to Sherri, the smells and the sounds and the very particular air of a New England summer. And at the same time, in some inexplicable way, she was starting to feel like she was home.

As it turned out, Angry Donuts sold out early most days and nothing was left for Sherri to buy. So after she picked Katie up at the knitting camp she took her to Mad Martha’s. They would celebrate Sherri’s new job!

Mad Martha’s was nothing more than a little cottage on Plum Island, really almost a shack, with just a few tables, the bigger of which patrons shared with other patrons whether they knew each other or not. Katie and Sherri were seated with a family of five on vacation from Durango, Colorado. The food was delectable, and the community table lent the whole experience a jolly, festive air. The Colorado family was chatty. Durango sounded lovely, with a famous railroad that wound through canyons and a national forest. Sherri put it immediately on her mental wish list of places to visit. The list was long and included India and Africa too. Realistically she probably wouldn’t get to any of those. Her pay at Derma-You was twenty dollars an hour, and she wasn’t even working full-time. The waiter was young and nice-looking, with beachy hair, a good tan, an easy smile. Sherri could tell that Katie was smitten, blushing faintly when she placed her order. Watch out for the good-looking ones, Sherri imagined telling her when she was a little older, in a few years’ time. I went for a good-looking one, and look what that got us.