Excerpt from Landscape with Invisible Hand by M.T. Anderson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

A guy in a business suit turned around. "We're all waiting," he said.

"Oh, no, I'm not getting broth," said my mother, laughing stiffly. "I've applied for a job. I'm just waiting to ask her if I got it."

He smiled. "Yeah," he said, "all of us are waiting to hear about the job."

I looked carefully at the other people in line. Several of them had extra résumés pinched in their fingers.

"Hey!" the broth girl shouted to all of us. "I told you guys! Get out of here! I'm picking someone tonight! Case closed. Stop all asking me!"

We looked at each other sheepishly. The line started to disperse, except a couple of people who actually wanted the bouillon and bread special.

The business suit guy was walking with us across the parking lot. "I can't believe this," he said. "I used to have a team of eleven working for me."

"Flexibility is really important right now," said my mother. "I was reading an article about how this is a great time for innovation. This is the moment for entrepreneurs."

"I actually had an administrative assistant," suit guy said. "I would give her Post-it notes with stuff I wanted her to do written on them." He held out a finger. "Here, Becky. Could you do this for me? Done."

I suspected he was trying to impress us. I wondered if there had been any Becky.

"The important thing," said my mother, "is to stay positive."

"You betcha," said suit guy dismally. "You have an extra résumé?"

"Sure. I always bring one." She pulled it out of her purse. "My son's an artist. He helped me pick the fonts."

Suit guy scanned the page. "See, this looks great. It looks perfect," he said. "What's the fucking world coming to?"

"I read an article that said that all it takes is just one good idea."

"Yeah. I like how you've formatted your skill set."

"We just have to stay positive and keep networking."

"Networking is the magic word."

We walked around the corner. We were out of sight of Heather's Bucket of Broth. That's when suit guy threw my mother against the wall.

"Listen, bitch," he said. "You're not applying for that soup job. It's mine. I have your fucking address now, and if I see you working there next week, I'm going to come over and burn your motherfucking house down." He threw the résumé into the air. "With your fucking shitty artist son still inside. Got it?" He stalked off.

The résumé spun and plunged to the ground.

We both were shaking. "I should have punched him," I said. "I can't believe it! I didn't even think of punching him! He attacked you!"

My mother steadied herself. "It was a surprise."

"I'm as tall as him."

"It was a surprise, honey. I should have punched him, too."

Now that it was over, my adrenaline was cresting. "I'm going to find him!" I said. "We have to find him! We'll call the police."

"I'm not backing out of the soup job if they give it to me," said my mother. Her voice quavered.

Throughout the evening, she kept on saying, "I'm not backing out." I think she was convincing herself. "I have a forty/sixty chance of getting that job, and I'm not backing out."

"If you get it," I said, "I'll walk you to your shifts when I'm not in school."

"I still have mace. Unless it expired. Does it expire?"

It didn't matter. My mom didn't get the job. She never heard back from Heather. A week later we passed the broth shack, and there was a sixty-year-old woman working there, hard as nails, dishing out consommé.

My House in Winter

I remember the neighborhood when it looked good. People still made their yards look like something from an ad for minivans, life insurance, or weed killer. Now the neighborhood was a mess. It wasn't just that people had to get most of what they owned by scavenging. It was also that people had lost hope. Everyone spent their days trying to figure out how to get stuff for their family to eat.

Landscape with Invisible Hand Copyright © 2017 by M.T. Anderson. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA.