‘Summer jobs felt like a miracle to get back then; you had to start looking in April. Nobody else at the mall even called me back, so when the clinic called and offered me the job, even though I didn’t want it, I was happy’
-watching teenagers in the late nineties, Vivek Shraya desperately wanted to work at the mall. Anywhere at the mall. Except for maybe the only place that hired her. Here’s how the writer and artist’sI haven’t thought about this in so long – that’s how boring this boring job was. Edmonton, where I’m from, is a city of many malls, but “mine” was Bonnie Doon Mall. My dad would bring me to pick up my mom from work, and if we were early, we’d stop at Bonnie Doon for some reason or no reason at all.
She was this wonderful, surprising, strange lesbian whom I’d just met. She’d just come back from India and she had a shaved head, so she was like nobody else in Edmonton in 1999. I’d never even had my first kiss, but I knew she’d be it. She took me under her wing and said she’d teach me. But if I wanted my wild, coming-of-age, summer of queer love, I need to be around and nearby a lot.
I didn’t have to clean teeth or anything; I was just an office assistant. It was a full-time job; I just had to sit there answering the phone and calling people to remind them to come to the dentist. The night before, I would print out the next day’s schedules and pull out the files for those patients. That was the highlight of my whole day. The days were so long. The job itself wasn’t enjoyable or memorable in any way.
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