On the Clock

The following is from Claire Baglin’s debut, On the Clock. Baglin was born in 1998 in Normandy, where her father labored in a factory and her mother was a social worker. Jordan Stump is a professor of French at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and has won the ALTA National Translation Award for Prose and the French-American Foundation Translation Prize.

The car slows down, my father hits the left blinker.

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At long last, after an hour of negotiations, the van drives through the entrance, circles the parking lot a few times, and pulls to a stop. My father’s keys are still in the Berlingo’s ignition when mama turns around to face us. She’s going to give us a warning, we’re going inside but this is a special occasion and just you make sure you don’t run, you don’t yell. The back door has already slid open, we’re outside, Nico is running, pulling his coat on one arm at a time. His shoelaces are undone, he untied them a few hours earlier, after the third highway rest stop. We have to hurry, before the parents change their minds, before they reconsider and come after us. The lamps seem to light up as we approach.

Very quickly, Nico leaves me far behind, I keep my eye on the door. My nose runs into my mouth, tears fill my ears. The glowing logo promises me they’re open, it reassures me. It says we’ll never let you down, we’ll always be here for you, everywhere. I place all my faith in that light, which flickers every now and then.

Nico climbs the steps, his right foot catches on the last one and his face crashes into the glass door. He’s laughing when I catch up with him, his nose flattened. The parents are still far behind us. Mama is untying the sleeves knotted around her waist to put on her cardigan. My father clicks the remote to lock the car doors, presses the button once, twice.

Nico shouts at them, hurry up hurry up, the fried smell comes to us through the door, the smell of celebration, the smell of the parents’ surrender.

—No, no, I know your chain best. I’ve never tried the others.

We go inside and things get complicated. Oof, the people. The lobby’s packed, we don’t know where to order. It’s a Sunday evening, end of the holiday. Mama says wait here but it’s too late, Nico’s already off. He worms his way through the crowd, shoves bodies aside with his little hands, collides with legs and dangling purses. Nico plunges into every gap and I follow after him, shrinking myself down to his size, knees bent, arms straight at my sides. I keep moving, but unlike him I apologize because we’re three years apart. Nico finds an empty space and leaps through it, breaking free of the crowd. The fluorescent lights shine down on him, at last he reaches the counter. They send him back to stand in line with his parents.

Think about what you want to order while you’re waiting. Nico kicks at balled-up napkins. Sometimes he gets too close to the couple in front of us, as if he’s hoping to change families, and mama’s fingernails claw him back. I stare gravely at the key chain on a backpack. My father’s unbuttoned his jacket, he kneads his cross-body bag and frets, I don’t see anything, where are the fries? is the price the one on the left or the one on the right? Mama looks around as if she’d lost someone. The corners of her mouth are scarlet from salty potato chips. When the key chain moves forward and I don’t she gives me a push with her right hand. On the wall I see the new sign forbidding smoking, I read it down to the tiny letters.

At the counter, a lady in a black cap asks four questions that my father answers, well what have you got? He turns to mama, who shrugs. Nico just smiles. Then my father prods me with a glance, I have to make up my mind. On the signs, the burgers and combo meals are all new to me, the drinks twinkle. My father repeats every question the cashier asks, drink? dessert? side? I end up with a kid’s meal and a glow-in-the-dark alien. Once we’re past the terror of ordering, Nico and I watch it all being made behind the counter, sometimes yelling out it’s that one, it’s that one, and finally my father’s turn comes. He says well, well, and ends up asking for fries. The cashier pounces, she’s going to eat him alive. She offers him the large Coke, the burger that’s perfect when you’re hungry, and my father answers how big is it? He tries to fend her off with his wallet, but how much does it cost? oh well, maybe not that then. The lady won’t let him go, if you have it as part of a combo, you’ll get it all for under ten euros. My father’s eyes widen, the burgers are glistening too brightly for him, he’s just about to surrender but makes one last stab at resistance, can I get the normal size?

Mama yawns and looks at her watch, which is running slow.

—You’re sure you can get up early? Your alarm clock’s going to work?

The boss asks three times, maybe four, and I find myself sincerely wondering. Will I really wake up, can I promise? The boss is sitting across from me with his thirty-something face and his discreet mustache, the kind they let you have in food service. He looks at me wryly, waiting for an unrehearsed answer. He wants to know who I am and what I’m prepared to do for the sake of being on time. He’s expecting me to talk about the honor of joining a team, about an interest in, about a talent for. On his sheet he’s started a list, four lines, that’s me. He’s added a new dash, I have to give him something, and just as I’m delivering an impassioned condemnation of sleep he tries to catch me off guard.

—Okay, so you don’t like sleeping in, but wouldn’t you like to go to the seaside this summer? Enjoy your vacation?

—Yes, we take holiday vouchers, monsieur.

Jérôme flashes a quick smile of relief and opens the zipper of his bag. For a moment he’d pictured the children in tears, his wife saying what’s your problem Jérôme, you could have asked earlier. He’d been dreading the return to the car, Nico threatening never to eat again as long as he lives and it’ll all be your fault, then exploding into sobs at the mere thought of going one more hour without food. He’d imagined driving in complete silence, not turning on the radio, which would be taken as nothing short of a provocation. The silence would have kept up all the way into the kitchen, the children would have gulped big glasses of water to choke down the broccoli, and that would forever be what disappointment tastes like for them.

Then Sylvie would have gone to sleep on the couch after finishing off the night like you finish off an animal at the end of its life, all right time for bed you have school tomorrow.

—What are you studying? So you’ll be leaving like everyone else when the fall semester starts, right?

The boss looks unhappy. When I answer, his smile comes back. At the top of his sheet, he writes mid-September and circles it twice. I’m not just dynamic, motivated, and adaptable like everyone else. Mid-September becomes my foremost quality. My application will go on the top of the pile, ahead of the wafflers, the ones who vaguely said they’d be leaving at the end of the summer vacation. I feel like the interview’s nearing its end, in a moment he’ll be putting a cap on my head and introducing me to my new colleagues, but I sense that convincing him will take one last touch. The pen he’s holding between his fingers spins around, counting down, and a family walks past our table, balancing trays. The children pop balloons and want to go on the slide. I play my last card.

—I have a driver’s license.

There! Let’s sit over there! The parents follow us to a high table in the middle of the restaurant. We toss our coats onto the stools and they fall off, we open the wrappers but mama stops us, wash your hands first. We run toward the last stop between us and bliss, mama manages to snag Nico by the sleeve. There’s nothing human about him anymore. His hair is spiky with static from the coat he’s just taken off, his cheeks are red, his shoelaces are still dragging and his sweater is on inside out and backwards, the tag glistening with spit. His face is one enormous disgruntlement, he’s wild, he’s sick of all this. In his eyes the nuggets he’s glimpsed are still gleaming. I push on the bathroom door and Nico holds it back with all his might, we yell because our voices echo. Mama holds the door behind us and turns back, sees my father starting in on his fries, the strap of his bag wrapped twice around his wrist. Nico’s already long gone, I rinse my hands and on my way out the door smacks into a potted plant, halfway knocks it over. Behind me mama gets mad as she does so often in public places, unbelievable, can’t you be just a little bit careful, bull in a china shop.

—I’d say my biggest weakness is I don’t have enough experience.

—Hang on, hang on. That’s not a weakness, everybody has to start somewhere, and we train you here. A weakness, give me a weakness, anything, just pick one. Are you impulsive? Do you have a temper?

—No, no.

—You’re not scared of Covid, or some other disease?

—No more likely to catch it here than anywhere else.

—Good answer. Are you the dreamy type, you tend to forget things?

—No, I mean not really.

—You’re not put off by certain chores? Would you mind taking out the trash?

—I do that every week at home.

—Some people think it’s disgusting.

—Not me.

—I’d understand if you did.

—Well, if I really think about it . . . No, that’s not a problem for me.

—So you don’t have any weaknesses, that’s what you’re saying? So you’re perfect, like me?

When we get back to him my father has already finished all his fries and mama notices, are you kidding me, hey watch out Nico, sleeve in the sauce. The straws are stuck through the center of the transparent lids, the Coke comes up and tickles our throats. My father starts in on his burger, don’t drink all the Coke, kiddos, you’ll spoil your appetite. Mama divides the sauces between the boxes, gets ketchup on her fingers. Nico starts to put the toy together, she stops him, you can play when you’re done eating. I keep quiet. A nugget on my tongue, I feel the breading fall apart, the sauce slip off and dissolve. Our hair shines under the ceiling lights, we have halos.

—Well, I won’t lie to you, I have a hundred applications on my desk, not to mention online, I haven’t even looked at those yet, and today I still have five more interviews after you.

The boss is about to ask what sets me apart, why should we take you over somebody else. It’s not enough to have a car, to live five minutes away, and to be staying on longer than the other applicants. You’ve also got to want the others to fail their interviews, you’ve got to want to take the job away from them.

I try to come up with a synonym for adaptable and I can’t find one. I can’t very well say multifunctional.

So, happy? The four of us are squeezed in around the table and every five minutes my father repeats, so, happy? We’re concentrating, do not disturb. The table is sticky, fingerprints, mayonnaise on the rim of the tray. Mama collects the detritus as we push the carcasses aside. My father’s telling a story, my first time at a fast-food place, this was back when I was still in technical school, we sucked pieces of ice up our straws and then blew out, sending them sliding down the aisles, good times. He replays his whole life, the orange walls of his kindergarten, detentions in junior high, his technical certification, clattering down the residence-hall stairs in Hérouville to call his parents from a phone booth, yelling into the receiver I want to come home, I can’t take it here. His mother is an hour away, tries to reassure him. Calm down now Jérôme, what are you talking about, no you’re not going to die, you’ll get your degree and then you’ll find some little job not too far from home, that’s all. Nico and I gasp in dismay when it’s all gone. We look in the bag for the stray fry, the nugget breading we try to pick up with a moist fingertip. So, happy?

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From On the Clock by Claire Baglin. Copyright 2022 by Claire Baglin, translation copyright 2025 by Jordan Stump. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing.