The Cell Phone Lot E-Book

Greta Gorsuch

• Herausgeber: Gemma Open Door for Literacy
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 45

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Jessica Vasquez had worked hard to get where she was. Though some in her family had despaired of her future, she put herself through cosmetology school and landed her dream job: overseeing the beauty department for a chain of drugstores. But her fortune abruptly changes. A manager's daughter, on a mission of her own, puts stolen makeup and perfume in Jessica's bag. The girl lies to her dad about what happened, and Jessica is fired. It seems that Jessica's life is over. But is it really? Needing to pay the bills, Jessica begins driving for a ridesharing company. It's scary at first, and she doesn't make a lot of money. But soon she gets the hang of it. Follow Jessica as her father and her new friends at the airport cell phone lot help her to find a new life--and, just maybe, get some of her old life back.

Leseprobe

Greta Gorsuch

The Cell Phone Lot

Greta Gorsuch has taught ESL/EFL and applied linguistics for more than thirty years in Japan, Vietnam, and the United States. Greta’s work has appeared in journals such as System, Reading in a Foreign Language, Language Teaching, Language Teaching Research, and TESL-EJ. She recently co-authored Second Language Course Evaluation and Second Language Testing for Student Evaluation and Classroom Research. She lives in beautiful wide West Texas and goes camping whenever she can.

First published by GemmaMedia in 2018.

GemmaMedia230 Commercial StreetBoston MA 02109 USA

www.gemmamedia.com

©2018 by Greta Gorsuch

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Printed in the United States of America978-1-936846-69-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Gorsuch, Greta, author.

Title: The cell phone lot / Greta Gorsuch.

Description: Boston MA : GemmaMedia, 2018. | Series: Gemma Open Door |

Identifiers: LCCN 2018034030 (print) | LCCN 2018035451 (ebook) | ISBN

9781936846702 (ebook) | ISBN 9781936846696

Classification: LCC PS3607.O77 (ebook) | LCC PS3607.O77 C45 2018 (print) |

DDC 813/.6--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018034030

Cover by Laura Shaw Design

Gemma’s Open Doors provide fresh stories, new ideas, and essential resources for young people and adults as they embrace the power of reading and the written word.

Brian BouldreySeries Editor

Open Door

Chapter One

Jessica’s life was over, and it was only ten in the morning. She sat there in her new red car. The car she saved months for. The car she borrowed money for. The red car with two doors and black seats. The red car with the endless speed. Her little Nissan 370Z.

Jessica didn’t start the car. She just sat and looked straight ahead. She could see the back of the Wintergreen Drug Store. There wasn’t much to see. The manager at Wintergreen made employees park in the back. Next to the dumpster.

The back of the Wintergreen Drug Store looked different from the front. At the entrance, the windows were large. You wanted to go inside. You could see so many bright things to buy. Candy, cosmetics, shampoo, T-shirts, and cards. In the back of the store, there was just the dumpster. And on this cold February day, the view looked dark and sad. The plain, windowless door was shut tight.

So Jessica sat, thinking that her life was over. She couldn’t believe it. What happened? Things were going so well. She had a job as the head of the beauty department at five Wintergreen stores. She worked hard to get the job. She went to cosmetology school. She spent a year studying skin care, makeup techniques, and business management. She graduated at the top of her class.

She interviewed at every department store and beauty salon in town. Her older brother, Brandon, said, “See, you messed up again. Why didn’t you go to college? No one’s going to pay you to do makeup.” But then she got a phone call from the manager of cosmetics for Wintergreen Drug Stores. It was a national chain! He invited Jessica to come to the headquarters for an interview.

Her father, Juan Vasquez, drove her the six hours to Dallas in his huge car. Jessica wanted to drive by herself. Since her mother had died two years earlier, her father had become very quiet. Still, he wanted to drive her to Dallas. He said so. And Jessica decided she wanted to spend time with him. It was a silent drive.

They got to Dallas. Jessica had her interview. And she got the job! She was the new beauty and cosmetics manager for Wintergreen Drug Stores in her hometown. When she told her father on the way home, he smiled.

“That’s great, Jessica, amor,” said Juan Vasquez.

Her brother and sister wouldn’t believe it when she told them about the job. Jessica was the middle child. She was the one who always messed up. She was the one who hadn’t gone to college. She was the one who smoked. Her mother, Victoria Vasquez, yelled at her at least once a week. “You should be in college! Become a lawyer! Become someone! Stop partying and start studying!” But Jessica spent her last two years of high school going to parties. She didn’t study. She found she enjoyed doing her friends’ hair. She tried new makeup techniques on them. Her mother just shook her head. Jessica would not be going to college.

When Jessica and her dad got home from Dallas, she called her younger sister, Veronica.

“I don’t believe it,” said Veronica.

Chapter Two

Jessica loved her job. For over a year, she worked at all five stores. She read about new makeup lines. She ordered makeup and bath products from the main office in Dallas. She decided how to display them in each store. She did makeovers for customers. One lady bought over a hundred dollars’ worth of cosmetics after a makeover. Jessica answered questions and made suggestions. She felt great about herself.