47

H. inched her way down the broken wooden planks of the pier. The maritime district offices were way at the end.

So, H. thought. It's a test. If you want a job in sweet solitude, you have to fight your way through huge crowds.

She smiled at the irony, elbowing past Sloan's finest collection of gaudy. The ice cream, video games, hawkers and shops kept on coming.

"Waaah," came a voice. It was a crying child.

Oh no, H. thought. Not now.

She had 45 minutes to get her body the very short distance remaining between the top of the pier and the bottom.

She looked down.

"Waaaaaaaaa" said the child. A little girl of about three.

"Are you lost?" H. asked.

"Waaaaaaaaa," the girl nodded yes.

"What's your name, honey?"

The little girl said her name was Meredith.

What do I do now, H. wondered. I don't think they have one PA system for the whole entire pier.

H. waited several precious minutes to make sure the child's parents wouldn't arrive from around a corner. When they didn't appear, she decided.

"Come on, honey," she said. "We'd better get you to the lost kid office."

They walked down the pier. They passed styrofoam junk shops and rattling metal lattice works.

H. accidentally bumped someone.

"Hey!"

"Ah, I'm sorry!" she said. She turned to look. "Chip!"

"Hmmmm," Chip said. "Hi, H."

"Oh god, Chip, I can't talk right now I'm afraid, because, " she chuckled. "Not only is my interview in just a few minutes but this little girl lost her parents and --"

"Yours is tomorrow," Chip said.

"What?"

"Yours is tomorrow."

"Mine is tomorrow?"

"Mine is today, it's in a half an hour."

"All right, look, " H. said. "I can't think about it until I get this little girl to the lost and found. Do you know where it is?"

Chip shook his head grimly.

"Okay, see you later!" she shouted, clutching Meredith's hand.

Wolfgang Puck's Loyd box shook Chip by the shoulders after H. was safely out of earshot.

"I need her out!"

H. traversed rows of taffy. She reached a part of the pier that was covered over. The architecture was stylized, it was all arches and stucco and white bricks. She walked into a gift shop.

"Excuse me," she said.

A teenager nodded.

"Do you know where the lost and found is? This girl lost her parents."

"Yes," said the teenager. "It's right above us. Go back outside, there's a staircase just right of this shop. Go upstairs, you can't miss it."

"Thank you," H. said. She walked up the steps, holding Meredith's hand.

"Pier Administration," read the sign on the door. The door was closed but the door wasn't locked. The lights were on inside. H. turned the knob.

"May I help you?" said a woman at a reception desk.

"Hi, this little girl has lost her mommy and daddy. Her name is Meredith."

"Ohh!" said the woman. "Did you lose your parents, honey?"

Meredith nodded sniffing.

"This is the place," said the woman to H.

"Is this the, um, the central office?"

"Yes, it is. Her parents haven't come yet, but when they do ..."

H. turned around. The knob on the door was turning.

"Mommy!" Meredith shouted.

A couple walked in, looking scared and rattled.

"Oh baby!" shouted Meredith's mom. She was crying. "Oh Merry!"

Meredith's parents both hugged her at once.

The lady at the desk smiled, stood up and hugged Meredith's mother.

"Good ... good job," the lady told H. "It was good timing and everything."

There was laughter too.

"Thank you!" Meredith's mom said to H. "Thank you! Oh god!"

"You're welcome," H. said. "I'm so relieved."

"Would you like to have lunch with us?" Meredith's dad said.

"I ... oh my gosh!" H. said. "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm supposed to have an interview with the Maritime District! I'm probably late! I'm sorry, I have to run!"

The pier-administration lady laughed. "Hold on a second. Let me call them for you."

"Oh!"

"I know everyone who works out there."

H. smiled, getting a hint that the woman would say nice things about her.

"Hi, Betty? This is Letty, in Pier Administration?"

She told the story of the lost child and of H.'s heroic behavior.

"Mm hm. Okay," Letty finished the call. "Well, Betty Tines, at Lighthouse, is expecting you and she says, no problem!"

H. laughed, giddy. "Oh god, thank you so much."

"Bye bye!" Meredith said.

Hugs all around, and H. was down the steps and out past the tackle shop to Lighthouse.

An old man at the tackle shop turned around.

"Yours is tomorrow," he said.

"What?" H. said.

"Yours is tomorrow."

H. walked more quickly and finally reached the Lighthouse office. She opened the door.

"Hi. H.?"

"Yes," H. said. "Nice to meet you."

"Betty Tines," the woman said. She smiled. "Letty told me you did your good deed for the day!"

"Yes," H. smiled. "Poor thing, she was wandering around and crying and-"

"Was it H.? Just H.?"

"That's right," H. said.

"You're a mononym?"

H. nodded.

Betty frowned. "I'm sorry," Betty said. "If I had known you were a mononym I would have told you sooner. Mononyms are not eligible for Lighthouse work."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm sorry, but you aren't qualified for Lighthouse work."

"That's ridiculous. That's discrimination."

Betty was silent a minute. "Well," she said, "you're welcome to take it up with an attorney."

"An attorney?"

Betty nodded.

"You know," H. said, "That is really disgusting. You can't do that. You're not allowed to do that!"

H. looked around. She felt intimidated. The wall had a couple of grease spots on it. She suddenly felt scared, as though the end of the pier was its own country, or the Florida Keys, fifty miles from the nearest police station.

"This is still America, I'm assuming?" she asked. "You've heard of a little thing called due process?"

She hoped Betty wouldn't actually call her bluff.

"How brave are you?" Betty asked. "Are you willing to find out?"

"Wow!" H. said. "I feel like I just stumbled into the dark ages!"

"We're the maritime district," Betty said. "You want to fight us, you try it."

Betty Tines held up H.'s job application, brandished it.

"Are you threatening me?" She was astonished the conversation could be going so weird and so wrong.

"You know, just please stop for a minute? Why are we talking about this? I'm here because I'm interested in the lighthouse. Doesn't that mean anything? Why do you care so much whether I have two names? I want to help boats, I want to help the boats when it's nighttime and they--"

She choked up.

"I have another appointment at three-thirty," Betty said. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave pretty soon."

H. turned around. She felt very unhappy. With her head down, she opened the door of Lighthouse and took a long look, down the long pier, back to the tackle shop, back to the administration building, back to the salt water taffy and the rubes and the shills and the grease, the quarters, and the parking lot.

She looked down, at the water.

"I am calling my lawyer," H. said.

"Go ahead," Betty said.

"You won't let me even try out? It's not like you have to hire me."

"We don't even have to interview you," Betty said. "I didn't even have to give you a reason if I didn't want to. I'm telling you as a courtesy because I could have saved you the trip. We don't hire mononyms."

"You're not allowed to do this," H. said. "It would be one thing if it was germaine to the ... okay."

She strode off.

At the tackle shop, there was no one outside. I must have imagined the old man going in, she thought. Maybe I even imagined I saw Chip. Surely I didn't imagine I found the little girl?

Somewhere, a magic box was putting together pop-beads, working out a clear, unencumbered path to Switzerland.

"I need H. to not get the job," the box told Puck. "I need Chip to get the job."

"I don't see the connection," Puck said. "How does that get you to Switzerland any faster?"

The box sighed. "If I were to take all the reasons and all the steps and lay them all out for you, the flow chart would fill up this whole entire room. Do you really want to hear them all?"

"Uh, no," Puck said. "I don't."