Buzzfeed, Boys, Black Magic

the excellent news

Rafi wanted to carpool, but instead I followed him in my own car.

            I pulled in the spot next to his Civic. As I stepped out into the humid heat of the Wendy's parking lot, he punched the air.

"Bumper buddies," he sing-sang.

I couldn't help but smile.

He was such a happy soul. He was sunlight. He was the center of the entire sky.

I was going to be sick.

We ordered square-shaped hamburgers and fries and slid into a red booth in the sunny end of the restaurant. The place had retro diner vibes. I felt like I was in an early Radiohead music video you can't find on YouTube anymore. It seemed as though at any moment a car bomb could go off.

"So, let's start with excellent news part one." Rafi dunked a fry into my ketchup. "There's an entry level engineering job opening at S. Schwartz."

"S. Schwartz?" The green-roofed building down the road from my old middle school. Once, when I was in seventh grade, the wood-shop room caught on fire and we were evacuated to S. Schwartz. On the rainy half-mile walk there, I remember having a conversation with an old classmate about the existence of guardian angels. She believed in them, and I only wished I did.

"Their North American headquarters. My Aunt works HR there. She's always talked about how great the culture and benefits are."

"So," I was hit by a wave of hope, "are you thinking about applying there or something?"

"It's aerospace engineering," he shook his head. "S. Schwartz is an aerospace company."

"Ok?" I said.

"Well, it's not SpaceX, but it would be a very good start. At least to figure out what engineering jobs are actually like." Rafi pulled up the job post on his phone, and I realized, all at once, that he thought this would be a very good start for me.

"Wait," I said, "I'm not qualified for this-"

"You are qualified for this," Rafi said. "I compared your resume to the post. You already hit like, eighty percent of the requirements."

"That's only eighty percent," I said.

"Right," he smiled a confused smile. "You're qualified. They know they aren't going to get everything they ask for in the post."

"I mean," I eyed the green S. Schwartz logo on the page header and thought about angels and fire. Rafi laid a warm hand on my wrist.

"You don't know if you want to go to grad school, but you do know you want a better job, right?" His voice was soft and sweet.

"Right," I said. I couldn't disagree with him.

"So, the only way forward is to get a better job. If you realize you hate engineering, you can always go to grad school later, when you've saved up more money. So you'd apply, right?"

"I don't know," I said.

"Ugh," Rafi slouched backwards into his seat. "I knew you'd say that."

"Well," I said. I watched him smirk.

"So don't be mad," Rafi said. "I filled out an application for you and sent it in."

"What?"    

            "Don't worry, I didn't write a cover letter for you or anything," his eyes widened with sincerity, "I just plopped your name and phone number and email address in the form fields and attached the resume we worked on together and BOOM."

             I couldn't believe him.

  "Are you mad?" He pursed his lips and squinted and lifted his eyebrows. He looked guilty, despite himself.

I couldn't be mad. When I told him this, his face broke into that giant, kid-ish grin of his.

By then, we'd finished our lunches. I got up to dump my burger wrapper and turn in my tray. Rafi followed me to the trash can.

"If you want," he said, "I can email your resume to my aunt. Just to make sure your resume gets in front of the people who need to see it."

"That sounds like nepotism," I cringed.

"It's cool," Rafi held up hands, "if you're not comfortable with that, I won't do it. Just thought I would offer you a chance to play all the cards in your hand."

We walked out of the Wendy's and were greeted again with hot summer air.

"All the cards in my hand," I repeated, amused. "It's a garbage hand."

"Not at all." He said. Something in his tone caught my eye. I looked up at him. "You've got a lot of aces," he said. "More than you think you do."

By then, we had gotten to our cars.

He leaned against the passenger side of his car as I stood by the driver's side of mine. There was soft, barely-palpable breeze that lifted up just a few of his curls. He looked at me for what seemed like a long time. His eyelids were heavier than usual. I didn't know if he was going to kiss me. I hoped he would.

"So, I didn't tell you excellent news part two," he finally said.

I admired the curve of his full lips. The cupid's bow. The white glow of his teeth.

"I got a call from California this morning. The MMJ company wants to hire me. They're going to fly me out on Friday."

My vision blurred. My face stung. Janice had been right, all along. This was the eclipse.