Pink Slip Party Page 13

  “Not so fast, Romeo,” I say.

  “Right, you’re right,” Kyle says. “We should probably wait the required three days between dates, and pretend we’re too busy to actually see one another for another week.”

  “Oh, definitely,” I say. “And then I’ll have to put you off for another week, and then maybe we can meet for coffee.”

  “Coffee? Hold the phone, you’re moving way too fast for me. Next, you’ll want to pick out the first names of our children.”

  I laugh. Kyle is fun to flirt with. I suppose he’s had lots of practice. Immediately, I shoo this thought out of my head.

  “What are you doing Saturday?” he asks me.

  “Wow. You skipped right over the casual weeknights and went right for the Saturday date — that’s brave,” I say.

  “You don’t win big unless you risk big,” he says.

  I smile at this.

  “Saturday is Dad’s annual Spring Barbeque,” I tell Kyle. “Did you forget?”

  “D’oh,” Kyle curses. “How could I forget enough charred meat to feed a third-world country?”

  Dad hosts his annual Spring Week barbeque on the first Saturday in April, which he does every year no matter how cold it is. Dad loves to grill meat, and does so almost every other Saturday from April to October. The first week in April, however, is second only to the Fourth of July in sheer amount of food basted, grilled, and eaten.

  “I’ll see you there?” I ask him.

  “Most definitely,” Kyle says. “Can I offer you a ride? I promise to be on my best behavior.”

  “If by best behavior you mean you’re going to try to grope me, then I accept your offer of a ride.”

  Kyle laughs.

  “You’re on,” he says.

  I hang up the phone and sigh. This crush stuff feels pretty good, I decide. I’m not even too bothered by the incessant squeaking coming from my bedsprings in the next room, since Missy and Ron act like they’re Serta mattress testers on a marathon mission.

  I’m distracted from the merciless grinding of my bedsprings by the unexpected arrival of Steph.

  “I’ve been evicted!” she cries into the intercom.

  When she arrives on my landing, she’s winded, but manages to tell me her sad story. Her lease is up, and her landlord, being cunning and determined to find a way to get Steph out so she can raise her Wrigleyville rent thirty percent, checks Steph’s credit history.

  “Well, she found out I’m jobless, and that’s it — no lease renewal,” Steph says, wiping at her eyes.

  I give her a hug. I understand her pain. And, while I know I’ll probably regret it, I hear the words come out of my mouth anyway.

  “Why don’t you stay here?” I ask. “You can sleep in my room, or on the couch for a few days.”

  Immediately Steph stops crying. “Really?”

  “Really,” I say.

  “I was hoping you’d say that,” Steph cries. She disappears down my staircase and comes back again carrying two suitcases. “You’re the best!” she says, giving me an air kiss on the cheek.

  “You brought over your suitcases?”

  “Well, if you didn’t invite me to stay, what kind of friend would you be anyway? And I make it a rule not to keep crappy friends.”

  “I suppose I should take that as a compliment,” I say. “I don’t suppose you have anything to contribute to the rent?”

  “No, but I do have a fabulous shoe collection. You want to borrow any of them, you let me know.”

  “Steph, I wear a seven. You wear a nine.”

  “Right, well. Purses then. Borrow away!”

  “Thanks,” I mutter, but Steph misses the sarcasm.

  Not ten minutes later, there’s another buzz at my apartment’s buzzer.

  I look out my front window and see Ferguson standing on the stoop.

  “Great,” I say. “What am I supposed to tell him?”

  “Pretend we’re not home,” Steph says behind me. Ferguson looks up, catches me in the window, and waves.

  “Too late,” I say. I buzz him up, and Ferguson wanders into the apartment looking sheepish.

  “Hi girls, I just wondered if maybe I left my keycard here the other night?”

  Ron pops out of Missy’s bedroom at that moment wearing nothing but a towel.

  “Ferg!” he cries, seeing Ferguson. “What’s up, dude? Want to smoke a bowl?”

  “Well, I don’t know.” Ferguson hesitates.

  “Come on, stay awhile,” Ron insists, acting like he owns my place. I’m too busy trying to avoid looking at Ron’s pale chest to argue too fiercely.

  “OK,” Ferguson agrees.

  Missy comes out of the bedroom, too, wearing what looks suspiciously like one of my missing Gap shirts.

  “Is that my shirt?” I ask her.

  “No,” she snaps indignantly, as if I’d accused her of hoarding Pop Tarts (which I did a couple of days ago).

  “I think that’s my shirt,” I say.

  “You’re crazy,” she tells me, cuddling up to Ron, who is fashioning a bong out of tin foil and one of my nice Crate & Barrel bud vases.

  After an hour of smoking, Ferguson starts telling us how much he loves us.

  “Really, I love you guys,” he says over and over again.

  Missy rolls her eyes. Ron slaps Ferguson hard on the back. “You have to respect a man who isn’t afraid of his emotions,” he says.

  “Maximum Office sucks,” Ferguson says suddenly.

  Missy, Steph, and I look at him, then each other. By all accounts, Ferguson was a company man. No one ever heard him say a bad thing about Maximum Office, ever.

  “What do you mean?” Missy asks, carefully neutral.

  “We’re having more layoffs this month,” Ferguson says, his voice dropping to an exaggerated whisper. “And, this time, they’re going to throw in a couple of managers so it looks good. Well, let’s just say that in three weeks, I’ll be looking for a new job.”

  This news would’ve made me ecstatic six weeks ago. Now, I’m just numb to it. Nobody deserves a layoff. Well, no one except maybe Mike.

  Steph and Missy exchange a glance.

  “Why don’t we tell him our plan?” Steph asks.

  “I don’t know,” Missy says.

  “Come on, he can help us,” Steph says.

  Missy considers this a moment, then she gets up, walks to her bedroom, and comes back carrying several rolled-up blueprints under her arm.

  “You guys aren’t seriously going to do this,” I say. I thought they’d abandoned the Maximum Office break-in plan.

  “You can’t be serious,” I say.

  “As a heartbeat,” she says.

  “You mean ‘heart attack,’ ” I correct.

  “Whatever,” she says.

  “What’s all this?” Ferguson asks, as he takes in the blueprints and our guilty faces.

  I expect Ferguson to leap up and call the police, or worse, for an entire SWAT team to descend upon my apartment because he’s secretly wearing a wire. I wait one or two beats, but I don’t hear urgent footsteps on the stairs or police helicopters overhead. Instead, a giant smile breaks out across Ferguson’s face.

  “I love you guys. Did I mention how much I love you guys?” He beams, and attempts to hug each one of us. Ron and Steph are the only two who let him.

  Days blur together like pregnant pauses in soap opera dialogue, and Ferguson rarely leaves my apartment, except to fetch clothes from home. When I ask him about his job, he snorts. “I’m using up my sick days before they steal them from me.”

  No one seems to really want to leave my apartment — it’s like a Roach Motel. Missy has moved ahead with her plan of breaking into Maximum Office, even though it is becoming increasingly clear that she has no idea how to accomplish her objective. She constantly argues with Ferguson about how to read the blueprint, the pair continually confusing air ducts with hallways.

  Steph, who’s painted and repainted her toenails, chips in now and again
about what she thinks they should do to the executives when they get into the email system. So far, firing them and then sending their wives copies of their expense reports seem to be at the top of the list.

  Ferguson, whose pot intake has severely weakened his dieting willpower, consumes all the carbohydrates in my apartment, including an entire loaf of bread.

  My apartment, thanks to Ron and Ferguson, now perpetually smells like feet.

  Luckily, I have Kyle to think about as a happy distraction. I am trying to soak up this beginning stage — this flirty-talk stage, which has added a whole new dimension to the relationship. A nice one, in my opinion. Steph, who can only be distracted from Maximum Office planning for brief intervals, offers to help me pick out what to wear. Her suggestions pretty much revolve around wearing something with a plunging neckline.

  “You forget I don’t have cleavage,” I tell her.

  “Men don’t care,” she says. “All they want to see is a little bit of boob. They don’t care if they’re squashed together or not.”

  “Great,” I say.

  I don’t think this approach will work with Kyle. For one thing, I’ve known him too long, and he’s likely to call me on it by suggesting I look like J. Lo in Versace, or worse, Lil’ Kim at practically any awards show.

  For another, I don’t want a cheap one-night stand with Kyle. I want more than that, because for the first time I realize he’s got Potential. He’s smart, funny, and sexy. I wonder what it would be like if we started seriously dating, and why I hadn’t really allowed myself the luxury of considering him before.

  Think of the benefits: for one, he already knows I’m crazy, so there would be no surprises later. Two, he’s already met and impressed my parents, and has not been scared off by them. Three, I know, deep down, that he is one of the Good Guys.

  “Oh, dear, somebody’s got a bad case of smit,” Steph observes, as I try on and then discard the fifth outfit I’ve pulled from my closet. Everything is either too obviously trying (like my power suit) or too horribly frumpy. Since being laid off, my closet seems to have lost any trendy clothes it had.

  “I am not smitten,” I say.

  “Any girl who tries on more than six outfits is smitten,” Steph says, as I angrily discard the sixth on my bed.

  “If I had money, I’d buy a new outfit,” I say.

  “That’s the second sign of smit,” Steph says.

  “I am not,” I say, but my voice lacks conviction.

  “Why don’t you wear those dark low-waisted jeans?” Steph points to the back of my closet.

  “Serious plumber’s butt,” I say. When I sit down in them, they might as well be at my knees for the coverage they give.

  “Hey, whatever cleavage you got, flaunt it, baby,” Steph jokes.

  I snort. “I hardly think butt cleavage is the way to win Kyle.”

  “You’d be surprised what guys go for,” Steph advises. “Wear those jeans and these boots,” she says, picking up my kitten-heeled boots. “And this,” she adds, holding up a black V-neck sweater.

  “If I wear these, it means I can’t sit down in view of anyone,” I say.

  “Sitting down is overrated,” Steph says.

  Kyle calls while I am still in the shower, and Missy takes a message. Apparently, something came up and he can’t give me a ride to my parents’ house.

  “Did he say why?” I ask Missy, feeling a tiny stab of disappointment.

  “What do I look like — your social secretary?” she spits.

  “What did he sound like?” Steph prods, attempting to help.

  “He sounded like a guy who was calling to say he can’t pick you up,” Missy says.

  “That is totally unhelpful,” I say.

  “I was aiming for rude, but I’ll take unhelpful,” Missy says.

  “Don’t jump to conclusions,” Steph orders me, when she sees my mind working. “You’ve known this guy forever, right? He’s probably just gotten a flat tire or something.”

  Or something, I think.

  With some trepidation, I take the train wearing my super low-riding jeans and manage to arrive at my parents’ house early. This is a first.

  I barely make it through the front door before Dad is handing me a giant platter of raw meat, because he is barbequing enough sausage for a third-world country. I scan the living room, but there’s no sign of Kyle. Just Todd and Deena, who are cuddled up together on Mom’s couch. No matter how early I am, I can never beat Todd.

  Seeing Deena is a shock. Usually, between my birthday dinner and Dad’s spring barbeque, Todd’s changed girlfriends three or four times.

  “Nice jeans!” coos Deena. Since she is wearing what looks suspiciously like sprayed-on black spandex pants, I am not sure whether or not to take this as a compliment.

  “Have you heard from Kyle?” I ask Todd, trying to be nonchalant, but failing. I still can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong.

  “He had something he had to do.” Todd shrugs. “He may be here later.”

  “What was he doing?” I ask.

  Todd gives me a funny look. “Why do you care? And why are you all dressed up all of a sudden?”

  “I am not dressed up,” I say.

  “Jane, I’d say these days if you shower that’s dressing up,” Todd teases. “Actually coordinating an outfit that hasn’t been sitting on the floor of your closet for days constitutes formal wear.”

  “Very funny,” I say.

  Mom interrupts before I can say more.

  “Jane? Can you help me in the kitchen?” Mom asks, raising her eyebrows in the secret signal that she has news to tell me.

  “It’s your Dad,” Mom says, surprising me in the kitchen. “He’s officially been laid off.”

  I say nothing for several seconds.

  “Well, you know they were cutting back his hours,” Mom tells me. “And, well, they finally just cut them back to zero.”

  “When?”

  “Last week.”

  “Last week!” I cry, sounding outraged like Todd. “How come nobody told me?”

  “Well, I tried to call,” Mom starts. “But no one seems to be answering your phone.”

  “How is he taking it?”

  “Not well, so be extra nice to him, OK?”

  Being extra nice to Dad is difficult, because he has had a few beers and is ranting about the fact that he wouldn’t be out of work except for the bad foreign policy decisions of Bill Clinton.

  “We should never have gone into Somalia,” Dad says, while flipping burgers. He is wearing a NRA T-shirt that says “From My Cold Dead Hand.”

  “That’s when our economy went south.”

  “Dad, there’s no way you can blame your unemployment on Bill Clinton,” I say.

  “Oh, you just watch me,” he says.

  I sigh, and glance out to the front yard, hoping to catch a glimpse of Kyle’s car.

  “What you need to do, Dad, is get your resume on Monster and Hotjobs,” Todd advises. Leave it to Todd to start in with the suggestions before Dad gets his first unemployment check.

  “That’s a waste of time,” Dad tells Todd. “Most jobs aren’t advertised. It’s all who you know.”

  This should be interesting — watching my brother going head-to-head with my dad in a career advice-giving contest. Neither one would ever admit to not knowing everything there is to know about everything.

  “But I’m thinking maybe I’ll let your mom earn the bread around here for a little while,” Dad says, suddenly. “I could get used to this women’s lib stuff.”

  Dad is the only person I know under the age of seventy who uses “women’s lib” seriously in conversation.

  “Or maybe your mom and I can move into that grand apartment of yours,” Dad tells me. “Lord knows you have enough space in there.”

  Dad is surprisingly upbeat about his situation, and I think it’s because he hasn’t yet made a trip to the unemployment office.

  “Everybody have a seat,” Mom declares
, when Dad finishes grilling. I keep nervously checking the front door, thinking maybe our doorbell is broken.

  “Jane, why aren’t you sitting?” Mom asks me, as I stand in the corner of the kitchen eating off my plate.

  “I just prefer to stand,” I say.

  “Come on, sit,” Dad commands.

  Reluctantly, I take a seat at the far end of the table, with my back to the wall. I try to pull my sweater down over the back of my jeans, but it’s short by about two inches. I can feel a breeze.

  “So, Jane, have you heard from Cook4U? I can’t get a straight answer on what they’re doing with that graphic design position,” Mom says.

  “Er,” I say. “Well, they probably just decided not to hire anyone and didn’t say anything.”

  “It’s weird. Cheryl won’t even talk to me about it,” Mom says.

  I am saved by the sound of Kyle’s car in our driveway. I only just manage not to bolt to the door like I’m ten again. I beat Mom to the door by a half second.

  Kyle has on his scarf, and he doesn’t make a move to come inside. Behind him, his car is still running.

  “I wanted to come by and say hello, but I can’t stay,” he says in a rush.

  He looks like he’d rather be anywhere than on my mom’s stoop, and I am struck by the awful thought that he wants to avoid me. He won’t even look in my direction, instead staring over my shoulder to my mom, standing behind me.

  “Oh, nonsense. Come in and get something to eat,” Mom says.

  “No, really, I’ve got someone in the car,” he says.

  I am trying to see who it is sitting in Kyle’s passenger seat, but the glare from the windshield makes that impossible.

  “Bring your friend in, too,” Mom says congenially. “Come on, one minute won’t kill you.” Mom, ever the good hostess, gives the car a welcome wave.

  Just then, as we watch, the passenger door of Kyle’s car opens, and out comes a long, slinky leg. Shiny brown shoulder-length hair follows, then the perfect 36 C boobs, an impossibly small waist, and perfectly rounded hips complete the picture. Nobody looks that much like Catherine Zeta Jones except Caroline. As in Caroline, Kyle’s girlfriend for three years who ran off to Australia one summer with only a phone call as explanation. Caroline, as in the same woman Kyle thought he might marry. Caroline, his ex who’s supposed to be halfway around the world, but isn’t because she’s standing in my parents’ driveway.