Page 11 of Don't Cross Mo Ellery

But she’s not kidding. At all. She puts her hands on my shoulders and looks deep into my eyes. “What does the U stand for in UPGRADE?”

UPGRADE is her assertiveness program on social media, the one that took off and made her a full-time influencer. She helps people upgrade themselves is the whole idea. Simple. Brilliant. And Hannah has always given excellent advice, so it’s actually really cool that she gets to use her skills in this way. It’s just... it also feels weird that the advice she used to give me is now available to hundreds of thousands of fans. I mean, if I ask for her advice now, am I just one of her fans? You can’t be a groupie to your own best friend, right? Or can you?

No. I’m going to handle this my way. I shake my head and, only half joking, say, “Don’t you dare use your influencer powers on me—”

“Don’t be a stubborn baby,” she says. “What’s the U, Mo?”

“Understand What You Want,” I mutter.

“Check!Youwant a job. Now what’s the P?”

I sigh. “Pay Attention to Signs.”

She pulls the sign out of the lawn and holds it in the air triumphantly. “Here’s your sign, kiddo. Happy birthday!”

I read the sign again, each word a nail in the coffin of my soul.

Looking for flexible part-time work with health insurance?

Become a school crossing guard.

Start today.

Chapter 4

News flash: I am not good with either kids or traffic. And, as it turns out, kids plus traffic is the sum total of what crossing guards need to be good at.

I’ve been on the job for two weeks, and every day is a nightmare of screaming, sprinting kids and drivers with a fetish for kid-flattening.

“Heeeeey, buddy,” I say, as a kid approaches the corner. I say it the way you might talk to a horse, or a bear—the kinds of animals that can smell fear.

This kid can totally smell my fear.

He’s glaring at me and wielding his dinosaur lunch box like he might swing it at my head, but despite this, I squat down to his height, so he can see me as friendly and approachable. I smile like I’m not scared of getting brained by a lunch box. “How about today, let’s stop at the curb and wait for me to go out first, okay?”

The kid narrows his eyes at me. I narrow mine back.

“Don’t even think about it,” I say.

The little turd grins and then sprints at full tilt across the street,flipping off the drivers who, thankfully, for once, are actually paying attention and screech to a halt to avoid steamrolling him.

That’s it. I am going to get fired.Again.I have one job here and it is literally to not let anybody die, and it is exceedingly clear to me that sooner or later I am going to fail.

And look, I tried not to take this gig, I really did. Itriedto come up with my own solution and get a real job. But it turns out word travels fast when you show your (actual) ass in a client meeting. Chicago’s a small world when it comes to boutique marketing agencies, and the only thing Kendra loves more than work is work gossip. I figure everybody in the city knew my bra size by EOD.

At some point, I’ll need a new job, or even just an extra job, because this one pays peanuts and my savings, as previously indicated, are nil. But my first priority at the moment is insurance, because all these heart attacks aren’t going to pay for themselves. I don’t even have Chris to hand me paper bags anymore.

So here I am.

Standing on a street corner, wearing a neon traffic vest that very much does not match my fabulous business casual outfit and espadrilles—neither of which aretechnicallyregulation crossing guard attire, but I just can’t bring myself to wear the baby blue polo and knee-length navy shorts that make me look like a deranged mailman. Oh, and I’m holding a stop sign the size of the friggin’sun.

And that’s not even the worst of it. Kids flipping the bird at speeding SUVs are a minor annoyance compared to my new archnemesis.

AKA: Poodle Dude.

I don’t know his name, I just know that he drives a seafoam-green Kia Sportage and hasat leastthree standard poodles, because every time he drives past, there’s a poodle sticking a white, fluffy head out of each passenger window. He comes through my intersection every day at the same time, and every day he is somehow more pissed offthan the last. Best of all—he seems delightfully hell-bent on running me over.

Poodle Dude actuallyspeeds upwhen he sees me and then screams at me for being in his way.