Pink Slip Party Page 3

  I sigh. There’s no arguing with Steph, especially when she’s off on a tangent.

  “So, what does that say about me if a guy who walks like a duck doesn’t want me?”

  “Oh, you’ve got it bad,” Steph says, exhaling loudly.

  “Tell me about it,” I say.

  “Can’t we just skip the part where you obsess about Mike and what you did to push him away when it’s obvious it has nothing to do with you because he’s the asshole?”

  “I wish we could,” I say. “But I’m afraid I’m going to have to wallow a bit.”

  “OK, but just humor me, all right? Tell me one thing that doesn’t have anything to do with Mike.”

  I think about this for a moment. “I ran into Missy the system administrator at the unemployment office,” I say.

  “You mean the same Missy who is rumored to have stolen two laptops, a stapler, and an executive’s ergonomic chair?”

  “Really?” I exclaim. If I’d known of her Maximum Office terrorist activities, maybe I wouldn’t have been so eager to give her the brush-off.

  “Well, that’s the rumor. But you know how these things get started. She probably just took the stapler.”

  “She’s looking for a roommate, believe it or not,” I say. “Now can we talk more about Mike?”

  “No,” Steph says, emphatically. “Tell me what’s happening on The View.”

  Star Jones is having a shoe confession. She has too many of them apparently (as if anyone could ever have too many shoes — the mere thought is preposterous).

  “Star Jones says she has too many shoes,” I tell Steph.

  “Ridiculous!” Steph says. “That’s practically sacrilegious. You could do her job. Have you thought of applying?”

  “I’ve got oily skin,” I say. “They’d need my weight in powder to get the shine off my forehead.”

  Everyone on The View has very matte make-up. I’ve abandoned make-up temporarily. It doesn’t go with flannel pajamas. And it’s just something else I have to wash off at night, when I’m rinsing off the stink of failure. These days, showering in general has become a low priority. I don’t see the need, and I am secretly wondering how long it will take before I start smelling like a sophisticated European.

  “So what are you going to do today? Besides burning Mike’s likeness in effigy?”

  “I’m going to do something more constructive. I’m going to wish myself some rent money.”

  “Can you wish me a smaller ass while you’re at it?”

  “I’ll give it a try,” I say. “By the way, do you know what the tenant laws are in Illinois? How long can you technically go without paying your rent before your landlord can have you forcibly removed?”

  “If you need a loan, you know I’m happy to give you a loan.”

  I’m tempted, but I can’t take Steph’s money. She’s got as much credit card debt as I do.

  “No, that’s OK,” I say. “I’m just going to squat.”

  My landlord is a Frenchman named Bob whose thickly accented English makes it sound like he is spitting rather than talking. He also yells, which can be frightening and intimidating, except that once, after he’d drunk quite a lot of vodka, he told me that he only did that because he hates being asked to repeat himself. Bob wears his bathrobe at all times, and showers about once a quarter. He has a perpetual five-o’clock shadow, even in midmorning, and he used to have a soft spot for my former roommate Karen, who moved out four months ago to live with her Almost-Fiancé, leaving me high and dry with rent to pay.

  Bob lives in the top floor apartment, and, as he’s averse to exercise, he rarely comes downstairs. I’m counting on his laziness to allow me a few days extra before he starts coming to look for his rent.

  The afternoon passes in a series of talk shows, starting with the high-end ones with B-list actors as guests, like The View, and ending with your low-grade circuses like Montel Williams.

  I realize that it’s been hours since I’ve left my couch, and I wonder how long it takes to develop couch sores, or for muscles to atrophy so completely that I won’t be able to walk to the bathroom unassisted. After that, I could be a guest on Maury Povich — the Sloth Girl — crippled from aggressive, reckless laziness.

  Maybe that’s my career calling — talk show guest. I imagine a line of T-shirts with Sloth Girl logos on them, a tell-all best seller about my downward spiral into catatonic laziness. I can see my brother Todd being interviewed on the Today show: “I tried to tell her to get a job but she wouldn’t listen — and now look at her — confined to her couch for life.”

  Because I realize that Maury Povich should not be my highest aspiration, I decide that it’s about time I do something constructive and deal with the bills from last month. I have sorted them into three piles: 1) bills I won’t ever pay; 2) bills I would pay if I had the money; and 3) bills that I am going to pretend I never got.

  I’m going to spend the entire day canceling services. This does not make me happy. This makes me feel poor.

  Digital cable. In Style magazine. Cell phone. People magazine. I say goodbye to them all.

  Digital cable is the worst. I wait online for a half hour to talk to a real person about disconnecting service.

  It’s insulting, really. They assume poor people have plenty of time to sit around listening to “Baby Got Back” — the Muzak flute version. Poor people’s time is not valuable. People of means wouldn’t sit on hold for twenty-eight minutes, waiting for their service to be disconnected. It’s what the companies count on.

  While I am on hold, I stare out my front window. I watch the old lady who lives on the first floor come out with her dog, a white, fluffy thing that’s about the size of a grapefruit. I’ve never formally introduced myself, but her mailbox says “Slatter.” She doesn’t pick up the dog’s poop like she’s supposed to. I’ve seen her kick dirty snow over it and move on.

  I watch as she makes her way straight over several big ice patches on the sidewalk. I guess that’s the kind of confidence you have when your health insurance is covered by Medicare.

  While still on hold, I tear myself away from the window and head to my refrigerator. I never thought of myself as a pig, but I’ve run through my gourmet groceries at a rapid clip. There are a few Diet Cokes, some wilted vegetables that I never cooked, some Brie, well-past-due milk, and two jars of expensive olives.

  The cable representative finally comes on the line. He sounds bored. I wonder how much he makes. I imagine myself sitting in a drab, gray cubicle, wearing a headset, and reading customer service speeches off a laminated index card. If I had that job, I’d be tempted to put on a thick Hungarian accent, or pretend not to know English.

  The customer service representative I talk to doesn’t have that kind of creativity. He tells me that even if I offered sexual favors, he wouldn’t be able to let me keep my cable free of charge. I’ve never run into a cable guy who was willing to be bribed. I’ve been spectacularly unlucky.

  I get teary over losing HBO, but he doesn’t seem to care. I’m sure he gets that a lot — people crying over lost cable.

  “Thank you for calling,” he says, but he sounds like he doesn’t mean it.

  * * *

  The cable goes out almost instantaneously, and I have to go back in my closet and dig out the antenna for my television. I hook it up, and find the television awash in static. I can receive four channels — CBS, NBC, ABC, and public broadcasting — but only if I attach a frightening amount of tin foil to the edges of the antenna. I mold it into the shape of Gerald Ford, but there’s still a double picture and passing moments of static. I vow, in Scarlett O’Hara fashion, that once I find a job, I will never be without cable again. As I’m waving my fist in the air, the phone rings.

  It’s Todd.

  “I’ve emailed you a notice of a job fair. Did you get it? Are you going to go?”

  On the Todd Spaz-o-meter, a scale of one to ten, the tightness and urgency in his voice only really ranks as a three.

/>   “Are they going to have clowns there? And cotton candy?”

  Todd does not laugh. He is missing the humor gene. He doesn’t know what’s funny. When he’s at the movies, or in a business meeting, he hangs back and waits for other people to laugh and then he joins in. It’s very sad.

  “No, Jane. They have recruiters and HR professionals there.”

  He seriously thinks I’m unfamiliar with what a job fair is.

  “Sounds like as much fun as an undertakers’ convention.”

  “Jane. Come on. Go. You can meet me for lunch. Come on, I’ll buy.”

  I pretend I’m choking from shock. “You’ll buy? Is this the seventh sign of the apocalypse?”

  Todd is notoriously cheap, like my dad. When the bill comes he’s always struck by a sudden case of alligator arms. They’re always too short to reach the bill.

  “Very funny,” Todd says.

  This is good. I am giddy. Any time I get an excuse to leave the apartment, I feel like celebrating.

  “But,” Todd says, rather sternly into the phone. “I’ll only pay if you update your resume.”

  “Todd,” I cry, my exuberance for seeing the outside world tempered by the fact that I have to do work to earn lunch. “That’s extortion.”

  “I know you won’t do it unless you’re bribed.”

  That much is true.

  “I’ve already updated my resume,” I lie.

  “I don’t mean copying someone’s resume from Monster and passing it off as your own.”

  Damn that Todd. Smarter than he looks.

  So. The resume.

  The resume is difficult because it requires a lot of imagination, creativity, and a propensity for outrageous, ambitious lies. The bigger they are, the more believable they are. Small ones are noticed right away.

  I boot up my computer, and pull up my resume. My last job description, before Maximum Office, was technically “part-time graphic designer who answered phones.” On my resume, however, I put “Director of Graphic Marketing and Chief Communications Coordinator, Midwest Division.”

  * * *

  I stare at my resume and wonder what I should say about Maximum Office. My official title was Design Specialist. This sounds impressive, but “specialist” means “cheap labor with little experience.” They might as well have called me Pawn. Or Plebe. Or Indentured Servant. Or, most accurate, Acceptable Loss.

  So. What. Am. I. To. Write.

  I like,

  Imperial Grand Duchess, Ruler of World, Worth Far More Than She Has Ever Been Paid, Supreme Being of Supernatural Intelligence and Artistic Creativity, Destined For Great Fame and Riches.

  This might be too much.

  I delete “Worth Far More Than She Has Ever Been Paid” — this sounds like I’ve settled for less than I deserve. CEOs and royalty never settle. Neither shall I.

  I spend another half hour before I am sucked back into the temptation of daytime television. Maury is having yet another round of Paternity Tests. I think he is trying to single-handedly subsidize the nation’s DNA labs.

  Those tests are a waste of time.

  The father is never the clean-cut guy with the regular paycheck, the khakis, and superior dental hygiene. It’s always the pimp with missing teeth who grabs his crotch and taunts the audience.

  It’s like watching a bad sitcom.

  The ending is always the same.

  As always, watching television sucks in time like a black hole. Everything in its immediate grip moves very slowly. Everything outside moves very, very fast. I like to think if I never left my couch, I’d live forever. I could watch everyone grow old outside my window. I’d stay exactly the same and wouldn’t age, like Dick Clark and Twinkies.

  When I look up again from the crotch-grabbing Neanderthal, I find that I have run out of time to shower (not that I would have had the motivation to do it even if I did have time).

  It is only Todd.

  And a career fair.

  I throw on a bandanna to cover my grease-slicked hair, and put on a moderately clean pair of crumpled pants I find in a heap on my closet floor.

  “What the hell are you wearing?” is the greeting I get from my brother Todd. Todd, predictably, has not come to lunch alone. He is with his sidekick, Kyle Burton. Kyle, who grew up next door, has known me since the days I used to run around wearing only the bottoms of my Wonder Woman Underoos. Not that I won’t still do that, but these days it requires quite a significant amount of alcohol.

  “I can’t afford drycleaning,” I say, by way of defense. I notice, rather belatedly, there is quite a large dust ball clinging to the hem of my pants.

  “Nice bandanna,” Kyle says, pointing to my head. “Going for the urban look?”

  “I’m thinking of forming my own gang,” I say.

  “The Packin’ Power Puff Girls?” he suggests.

  “That, or Barbie’s Bitches.”

  “Jane,” sighs Todd, who is shaking his head slowly back and forth. “Jane, you can’t go to the job fair looking like that.”

  “Todd, it’s not your problem,” I say, beginning to wonder if a free meal is worth all this hassle. A waiter plunks a menu in front of me, and I realize I’ve survived the day eating only olives.

  Kyle is smirking at me.

  “What?” I say, shooting him a dirty look.

  “Er, well,” Kyle says, clearly trying to hide a smile. “Your, uh, bandanna is crooked. It’s leaning quite dangerously to the left.”

  I reach up and give it a tug.

  “Your other left,” he says.

  I let Kyle’s insolence slide.

  Kyle — successful corporate attorney Kyle — recently suffered a serious relationship mishap, and therefore wins the Sympathy Vote.

  A year ago, Kyle was in a long-term, when-are-they-going-to-get-married relationship with a woman named Caroline who I never cared for, but could see her obvious attractions (the most obvious of which was that she looked like Catherine Zeta Jones). One day, however, Caroline decided she’d rather live in Sydney. Without Kyle. Since then, he’s been on permanent rebound, taking up with Todd in pursuing fake blondes half his age.

  Kyle, being steadfastly good-looking, too smart for his own good, and the owner of a black BMW, has been wildly successful in this quest for women with IQs in the two-digit range.

  I take satisfaction in the fact that I am one of only two people who know that when Kyle was nine, he once stuffed eleven Cheerios up his nose on a dare.

  “So?” Todd says, hand out palm up.

  I slap it, giving him five.

  “Your resume,” he grunts, rolling his eyes.

  Kyle, in the meantime, snatches it out of my other hand.

  “Hey,” I protest, weakly. I am trying to figure out if it would be bad if I had a two-martini lunch.

  “Since when did you graduate from Harvard?” Kyle asks me.

  “Can we order?” I ask, hiding behind my menu.

  I spend the entire lunch answering Todd’s rapid-fire career questions — and Kyle and he have quite a laugh at my expense reading over my resume. They don’t appreciate creative art, and I dismiss them.

  “I’m thinking I won’t get a new job. Do you know how much I can sell a kidney for?” I ask Todd.

  “Maybe $250,000 on the black market,” he says, seriously. Todd, being an actuary, is always putting values on things. He doesn’t see the joke in it.

  “You can’t be contemplating organ-selling already,” Kyle says. “You’ve only been laid off for a couple of weeks.”

  “You’re saying that because you think I’m fiscally responsible?”

  “Remember, Kyle, this is the girl who, when she was twenty-two, didn’t open her mailbox for six weeks for fear of seeing her MasterCard bill,” Todd says.

  “I was not afraid of my bill,” I say. “I was shooting for plausible deniability.”

  “Right, you thought if you didn’t see the bill you wouldn’t have to pay it,” Todd says. Todd gives me an affectionate shove
as he says this.

  “I don’t know what’s so crazy about that plan,” I say. “And, if I don’t get my unemployment check soon, I’ll have to put the Bill Avoidance plan into effect again.”

  “What about your Mystery Boyfriend? I bet he’d give you a loan,” Kyle says.

  Mystery Boyfriend is what Kyle and Todd call Mike because I refused to introduce them to him. For one thing, I knew they’d disapprove. It was a relationship that has Jerry Springer written all over it. If Todd knew about it, he’d feel the need to have a family intervention to talk about sexual harassment and the laundry list of reasons you shouldn’t date coworkers, especially when they’re in management. Todd is very overprotective, which is nice when you’re nine and being chased by a 150-pound-sixth grade bully. It’s not so nice when you’re twenty-eight and trying to have sex more than once a decade.

  “The Mystery Boyfriend dumped me,” I say, “so no, I’m not going to tell you about him.”

  “Ouch,” Todd says.

  “Sorry,” Kyle adds.

  “It’s OK,” I say. “I figure, if you’re going to lose your job, why not your boyfriend, too? Get all the sucker punches out of the way at once.”

  The bill comes, and Kyle reaches for it. Naturally, Todd — like Dad would — lets him pay without any protest.

  Todd does, however, do me the good service of drinking half my vodka martini on the grounds that I shouldn’t smell like booze at the job fair.

  I am not very marketable. I do not need anyone to tell me this. I am a creative person with an art degree who has worked at a number of thankless jobs, and even in the best of times, the art staff is expendable. I went to a headhunter’s office last week, and she had the audacity to snigger at my resume as she read it. The three most deadly words in the English language to a recruiter are Art Major and Unemployed.