MY LIFE AS A GIRL

The summer before Jaime is to leave Phoenix for Bryn Mawr, she decides to earn college money by working two waitress jobs: mornings at a greasy spoon and nights at an upscale hotel restaurant.   Her mother has a broken heart; her father is in jail awaiting his trial for embezzlement. She knows that college will deliver her into “the future,” but across her well-laid plans waltzes Buddy, a good-looking, good-for-nothing drifter who immediately begins a long and ardent campaign of seduction. Jaime gets over her initial distaste for him; she is both fascinated by him and by her reaction to him. Her life divides into three shifts—two waitressing, and one, late at night with Buddy, steeling herself against his doubtful charms. When she gives him his comeuppance instead of her virginity, the scene is more slapstick in tone than any preceding it; that’s surprising, given how deliberately Mosier underplays most of the details of Jaime’s life. Perplexing are pieces of high-gloss writing amid ordinary freshman angst and the sketchiness of the details surrounding Jaime’s father, which makes his troubles matter less to readers; compelling and astutely observed are Jaime’s feelings for Buddy, which range from roiling to distant and clinical. (Fiction. 13-15)