The New Me Page 2

  I fix my packets, stare at the wall, and go home ten minutes before 5:00.

  * * *

  • • •

  At home, I make brussels sprouts for dinner. They’re covered in olive oil and likely too much vinegar, but the hissing sound, the fanfare of it all, sounds good. Real home cooking. I’m watching TV on the laptop for company, as usual, and I think about how much I don’t really like TV. Don’t really think of myself as a TV person. I imagine that one day I’ll listen to music while I make dinner, an act that feels very healthy and stable when I think about it, but for now I still need the TV. I know that Forensic Files is propaganda for the Justice Department, like all of these crime shows are, and that they instill a weird deference to authority and a childish fear of the other, and that TV in general messes with your perception of time and influences your desires and gives you unattainable expectations for life, but I still can’t make it through the night without it. It’s okay for me to watch TV because I’m aware of what’s really going on. I take it one step further, recognizing that that last idea is wrong. Recognition is not the first step to change. Not in my experience, anyway.

  chapter 3

  Karen thought, yeah sure, the new girl can talk, and she owns a skirt and knows how to use a computer, but there was something really not clicking about it, something a little off-putting about her.

  She’d asked Millie not to stay until 5:30 (as originally planned) just so she could check her internet search history before closing the showroom. The search history was surprisingly normal. Household organizing tips, a few searches for designers that the showroom represented, recipes, low-cost clothing, news articles, a calculator.

  The temp agency had said that Millie was one of their best workers, but the temp agency didn’t really seem to understand that Lisa Hopper had an image to maintain, and that this was a social and creative position. That the applicant would need to be above and beyond. It was a two-month temp-to-perm job, but Karen knew she wouldn’t be asking Millie to stay on.

  When Millie walked up to Karen’s desk each morning, just to give a monotone and strange hello, Karen wanted to say something about how it wasn’t necessary to do that, but of course she couldn’t, that would be rude, so Karen just widened her eyes a little, as if incredulous, nodded, said hello, and then her mind would turn to what it might take, budget-wise, to replace her quickly and efficiently.

  For temp-to-hire positions, this particular agency took a half-up-front finder’s fee for placements, which was refundable if there was an immediately obvious mismatch within the first seven days of employment, but Millie had been employed for twelve days, and Karen didn’t notice that she’d missed the deadline until two days ago, which was already three days too late to get the money back (or to transfer it to another placement through the agency, which she would have been open to at first—and which actually made the arrangement seem risk-free when they entered into it, but which now seemed fucked up and annoying, because to be quite honest, if Millie was one of their best workers, she seriously questioned the agency’s judgment).

  Karen had a meeting planned with Lisa, the CEO, who would be in town soon, and who she wanted to impress. Her plan, initially, was to impress Lisa by replacing Agnes, the niece of one of the designers, and Millie’s predecessor. Agnes was in retrospect a good fit, but too chatty, too confident, and a little too young. She had abruptly quit with a face-scratchingly obnoxious resignation letter about how she had come to realize that she needed to pursue her dreams of becoming a textile designer in New York, and had accepted a slot in the MFA program at Pratt, and that she hoped to have the opportunity to work with Lisa Hopper again in the future—overly gracious, implying that when they saw her again she would be bigger and better than what she was now, bigger and better than what they all were now.

  Everyone had been very impressed when Karen arranged for a replacement through a temp agency, and she was happy to be able to play it cool. It was easy to imagine becoming executive assistant within a few years, and then by the time she was forty, being in an even better position within the company—or a similar company.

  She had a business administration degree from Kalamazoo College and had started at Lisa Hopper as an intern and worked her way up, and she had picked up a lot of the business on the job. She even decorated her own apartment using learned principles and was thinking about, after a few tweaks, submitting photos to Apartment Therapy. It would be nice if someone in the office accidentally discovered it online, and mentioned it, and she could play it off, but she was also open to the idea of going to Lisa directly and sharing the link. As long as she could figure out a way to do it where it didn’t seem like she was angling to get a designer job, because she was more interested in running the showroom than she was in working with clients. Lisa was based in New York, but that only meant, even more, that she needed strong support here in Chicago.

  Karen could go to Holly, the current executive assistant in Chicago, to air her misgivings about Millie, but she really wanted to be able to phrase it properly and to present a few solutions.

  Karen was looking into getting an intern from the Art Institute or Columbia, which would be free but would require site visits from the schools and extra paperwork, which Lisa and Holly might not be open to. The other problem with an intern would be that Karen couldn’t ask them to come in for a forty-hour week, which was what was needed for the phones, but maybe they could find someone to intern over the winter break, just to buy time and make back the money they’d lost on the temp.

  Karen had paid $1,500 up-front to place Millie, and they were paying the agency $20 hourly, which seemed high for someone to sit around and answer phones.

  If they went down to, say, $15 an hour for the reception assistant, it would take just under a month to recoup the $1,500 finder’s fee. Karen knew the art schools took longer winter breaks, so this could work out perfectly. Three weeks of an intern, during which time they could find a suitable replacement at $15 an hour.

  The real problem was that she couldn’t wait too long to present this idea to Lisa, but she didn’t want to do it via email, and she probably should go through Holly to get things solidified sooner rather than later, so they didn’t somehow get stuck, contractually, with adding Millie to payroll.

  The best would be if she was a no-show, which would put her in violation of her contract.

  Another option would be to say that the position was superfluous, and that Lisa could save money by having the calls routed to Karen’s desk. But that would demean Karen’s position and make it harder for her to move forward with special projects.

  Holly came in and said hey, and Karen stood up and said hello.

  Millie breezed in five minutes later, ten minutes late, and gave Karen a weird smile and wave, and when Millie said “hello” it sounded like a piece of phlegm got caught in her throat, and the second half of her greeting was silent, just “he—” and a mouthed “llo.” Karen smiled and nodded, then looked down at her notebook. Wheels turning.

  chapter 4

  There’s a nightmare familiarity every morning when I wake. The quality of the light, sort of grayish-dim, the stiff feeling of my body, the smell, part dirty clothing, part cooking oil, part garbage, part incense. I’m reminded of how afraid I am to die, and how every morning is just one more used-up day.

  I lie in bed for twenty minutes, feeling this, then make myself coffee and get dressed, no shower. Soon enough, I’m on the train again, and the feeling has somewhat faded. It’s been replaced with hostility.

  I walk past Karen’s desk, and I smile and wave and say hello, unable to differentiate this greeting from all of the other greetings from the past weeks.

  There’s a lot of repetition in my life. No real routine or narrative, just a lot of repetition, and before I know it, I’m sitting in the break room drinking a cup of coffee (it doesn’t taste good) and staring at my phone again, scrolling, w
aiting for the motivation to get up and go to my desk.

  I think I’m drawn to temp work for the slight atmospheric changes. The new offices and coworkers provide a nice illusion of variety. Like how people switch out their cats’ wet food from Chicken and Liver to Sea Bass, but in the end, it’s all just flavored anus.

  Two of the designers are rehashing what I imagine is an old conversation. The taller of the two is talking about toxic friendships and friend breakups, when to ease out and when to draw the line. The shorter one nods and gives a choral “Yeah” from time to time.

  They’re complaining about how they don’t have any time, so busy, too busy for bullshit. “I don’t know, she’s having major troubles right now, and she feels like her mom isn’t respecting her choices or her boundaries, and her mom keeps meddling, and I’m sympathetic of course, but I’m just so sick of hearing about it, but obviously I can’t tell her that directly, because that’s excessively harsh, and I don’t want to be an asshole.”

  Another “Yeah” followed by a “totally know what you mean.”

  “I’m in a place in my life where I want to be around people who have their shit together and people who are going to help me grow. I’m at my limit, and honestly if you can’t stand up to your own mother, you probably aren’t bringing that much to the table for me anyway.”

  The choral girl laughs and says, “Right?”

  I note this woman’s shape-shifting performance. How by saying a thing, she becomes it. As she complains about how boring it is to hear her friend complain about her mother, as she goes into detail, masterfully reenacting specific boring conversations (both between her and her friend, and her friend and her friend’s mother), she is essentially becoming them both, becoming the boredom she claims to want to remove from her life and mind, but which have complete control of her, and she doesn’t notice that by saying “I don’t like this” over and over she is just drawing herself closer to it, essentially becoming her friend and subjecting us all to what she claims to hate.

  I think this must be quite common, and I think this woman must be an idiot, and I think I should stand up and go to my desk, but I stay here, thinking about this woman’s friend’s mother, and how, despite this woman using words that indicate she has spent time researching relationships on the internet (primary friend, boundaries, toxic, etc.), she seems to have no grasp of what is going on in her own mind, and how her thoughts and actions are affecting her experiences and, likely, her relationships.

  My stomach growls, and I decide that maybe she is aware but can’t help herself. There are things we all know we shouldn’t do but do regardless. She might think that venting will help her find the relief and clarity she needs to move forward toward some lame ideal.

  I must be glaring, because, out of the corner of my eye, I see Karen looking at me. She’s mixing her yogurt with a spoon and doesn’t break eye contact when I glance over. I’m startled, and I stand too fast and knock over the plastic chair, and I say, “Oh my gosh!”

  Half of the women ignore me, but some of them smile, and one of them says, “Ugh, fuck these chairs.” And then they all talk about the chairs and how much they hate them. I right the chair and apologize, smiling, charmingly shy. I apologize again and it goes unacknowledged, except for by Karen, who says, with no warmth, that it’s okay.

  I put my headphones in my coat pocket in the coat closet, and I can feel the crumbs lining my pockets, not to paint myself too pathetically. There are certain circumstances where that would be preferable. Crumbs in the pockets used to be a statement, if I recall, about my nonconformity. Yes, and how perfectly all those decisions worked out for me. How blissfully free and off the grid or whatever I am.

  I open up my email, see that I have three unread messages, and go through the normal emotional fanfare, thinking in rapid flashes something like “you’re going to prison” or “you’re going to die” or “everybody hates you.”

  The band of my skirt cuts into my empty gut. I listen to two designers talk about pedometers, and my palms become wet.

  After all that drama, the contents are almost a disappointment. I am eligible for a mild discount at the Container Store, among other things.

  When the phone rings, I jump. I attempt to transfer the call and wait for the person to call back and tell me it didn’t work.

  It should be easier to feel good.

  I open an incognito window and do some research and learn that what makes most people happy is to be in touch with friends and family.

  I used to have a boyfriend, James, who came as a package-set with a nice, respectable gaggle of buddies, who I hated. There was some kind of burbling, unaddressed hostility coursing through me in those days (oh how the times have changed). I admit that I was occasionally rude to his friends, occasionally I was a little too much (his words) at home and in public. Maybe a little self-centered. Back then, a sense of something more—like Oh, there must be something more!—was always nagging at me, like I was waiting, like my situation and my relationships were unimportant because of their seeming transience.

  I text my friend Sarah to see if she’d like to get a drink.

  I hear one of the designers talking to a client on the phone, trying to schedule something. There’s a lot of bold laughter, loud friendly sentences. She is presenting herself as a mixture of accommodating (“Well, that’s completely up to you, Linda”) and urgent (“Let’s not wait too much longer on the Emery order, shipping takes forever”). I anticipate a dramatic sigh, possibly a “Jesus Christ,” when she hangs up.

  chapter 5

  Sarah and I met at a house party two months after James and I broke up and three months after my job as a glorified spell-checker at the Art Institute ended on “mutual terms.” She talks too much, almost constantly, needlessly repeating herself. Sometimes I try to interject, but it’s useless. She thinks I don’t hear her, or she knows I hear her but thinks my reactions are inadequate, so she tries a second time, saying the same phrase again, but faster or louder, which is something I do, too, when I’m drunk or bored, which I guess she often is when she’s around me.

  I’m a very good judge of character, I think. Sometimes it takes two encounters, because my mood shifts, or other people’s moods shift, but I knew who Sarah was, despite her attempts to guide me, from our first meeting. She told me she didn’t like drama and confrontation, which was an obvious tell, a “red flag” if you care about shit like that, which usually I don’t. I knew that if I tacitly allowed her to dominate the conversation, it would addict her to my company and lead her to flatter me by texting me and contacting me frequently, which would make me feel safe, an insider to a small group. It was perfect for both of us, I imagine. What I was looking for at the time we met was anyone, any body, to fill my time on nights and weekends.

  These days, I’m finding our dynamic very boring, and as I walk to the bar to meet her, with all these thoughts on my mind, the past, the present, all the decisions I’ve made, all the decisions that have been made for me, I’m finding it hard to conjure social excitement.

  To keep my thoughts from coming, I think, Oh, whatever, as loud as I can, three times, and shake my head and shoulders.

  I get to the bar, and Sarah is there.

  I say, “Hey, how’s it going?”

  She doesn’t stand up and give me a hug or anything, just puts her phone down and says, “Hey.”

  She runs her hands through her hair and sighs, acting self-important, playing a part, the hard worker, defeated by circumstance, a gentle soul misunderstood in the hard world. I know I’m about to hear some long-winded tale about how hard it is to work a real full-time job.

  We order the special. It’s a “mystery beer” with a shot of “mystery whiskey.” The bartender calls us girls. There’s a plaque behind the bar that reads “How much madder could your wife get? HAVE ANOTHER BEER.”

  We sit back down at our table, and I say,
“Cheers,” and then, “How was your day?”

  Sarah says, “Just fucking ridiculous.”

  Her boss is making her send out a newsletter that inadvertently sexualizes a teen from their after-school program. The boss won’t listen to Sarah’s well-reasoned pitches for altering the text, all is doomed, and the anecdote blossoms and unfolds into a company-wide conspiracy where Sarah is the central victim. It’s boring, a long one, so I’m shaky on the details.

  “Wow,” I say.

  “I mean, it’s whatever,” says Sarah. “Do you want another beer?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I say.

  “You can get the next round,” she says. I nod.

  She returns with the beers, and I ask, to punish myself by prolonging the topic, “Did you get your boss to change the newsletter?”

  “No,” says Sarah.

  “That’s a bummer,” I say.

  “Yeah, it’s fine. My name isn’t on it. This is just what she does, though, she’s completely clueless.”

  I feel myself winding up to give her deflating advice. My forte.

  “Can you go to HR? It seems like there are a lot of things going on in your office that are inappropriate.”

  She has one of her easily interpretable facial spasms. My advice has offended her, as usual.

  “Yeah, I really don’t know what good that would do,” she says.

  “Maybe just having it on record would make you feel like you had more control of the situation. If enough people went to HR . . .”

  This time it’s the lip. The fishhook of disgust. Her eyes fix on a spot above my head. “I don’t know, I’ll figure it out. It’s just really stressful.”

  I turn the conversation to my job, where things are less operatic but very likely more depressing. I tell her that I feel like my life is completely meaningless and empty.