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five-year-old’s house, Mom. I don’t think there are many five-year-old perverts.”
    “It could be a pervert pretending to have a five-year-old.”
    I gave her a kiss on the cheek and did a little waltz around the kitchen. “Mom, go back to Facebook and don’t worry so much.”
    She smiled. “It’s my job to keep you safe.”
    “I’ll be safe. You should be happy I have a job, Mom.”
    “I’m pretty darn sure I could get you a job at the mall.”
    I hugged her. “This is a job
singing
.”
    “I just want to make sure this is legitimate. You have to be careful these days.”
    “It’s not a scam. It’s a national thing.” I grabbed abanana from the counter. “By the way, Fin is coming. We have to go over our scripts.”
    “I’m going to read up on this Get Happy thing. Did you clean your room?”
    “Yes, Mommy.” Calling her mommy usually put her in a good mood for some reason.
    “Did you do a thorough job?”
    “Thorough enough for me.”
    “Thorough enough for me?”
    “You don’t have to sleep there.”
    “Honey, if I go up there and discover that you didn’t do a good job …”
    “I’m going. I’m going.”

    I DECIDED THEN and there to stop thinking about the whole Keanu Choy thing. I didn’t have to prove who he was, because I knew I didn’t want to have anything to do with him. It didn’t matter if he was a hotshot scientist or a convict. Either way, he’d left us high and dry, and if he thought one little necklace was going to make me forgive and forget, he could just jump off his boat and get eaten by sharks. I had a job and I was going to earn money. I was going to buy myself a uke and live happily ever after.
    Fin came over, and we made hot chocolate and watched Get Happy videos on YouTube and read through our scripts like good little employees. The whole Get Happy enterprise was extremely corny, but it felt liberating to have something positive to focus on.
    I stood up and said in my new, giddy Get Happy voice: “Let’s be the best singing mermaid and pirate Joy Banks has ever seen. Let’s make Joy Banks so excited she barfs.”
    Some people hear other people’s words as conversation. Fin hears other people’s words as cues. He immediately launched into singing the Get Happy song. I joined in, and we sang and danced around my room like insane asylum inmates. Thankfully, Joy Banks was not there to witness it, because if she had, she probably would have fired us. With a smile, of course.

    Don’t send me pearls or shiny things
,
    Don’t give me any bling.
    I’m not a girl who likes the tangled strings of debt.
    Don’t give me gifts so I’ll forget
    Mistakes you made, you’ll lose that bet.
    My heart’s an iron fist inside my chest.
    Been giving it, giving it, giving it thought.…
    I will not be bought.
    I got tens and Benjamins
,
    Got ’em from the ATM.
    Money makes the world go round.
    Gotta have that ching, ching sound.
    If our roads should intersect
,
    Turn to the right, and I’ll go left
    Elect to swerve and let’s avoid the wreck.
    Don’t think I’ll behave the way
    You want me to. Don’t hold your breath.
    You’ll get depressed. I’m not some Juliet.
    I’ll buy dresses, feather beds
,
    A brand-new house of gingerbread.
    I’ll buy the dye and dye my hair bright red.
    Cash my checks and buy some leather
,
    Velvet gloves for colder weather.
    Buy some love for me and all my friends.
    No, no, no, no
,
    I’m not gonna owe you
,
    Not gonna owe you
,
    Not gonna owe you, oh …

7
TRAINING DAY
    M Y MOM INSISTED on driving me and Fin to the Get Happy office. The sun was out and it was abnormally warm — I mean take-your-coat-off warm — and most of the snow had melted.
    When we stopped to get Fin, his two little brothers were kicking the soccer ball around and his dad was outside, too, in his big green muddy boots, tossing small branches and twigs into a wheelbarrow. I rolled down my window.
    “Hi, Pat. Hey, Min darlin’. Congrats on your first real