Jillian Read online

  Megan’s cut was starting to scab, but the scab was still thin and new—that kind of yellow, crystallized pus, like dried snot or eye-crap. It cracked a little when Megan put weight on it.

  “It’s going to be so great. I can’t wait for summer. I’m gonna work from home, and I’m gonna have a dog on a leash and my baby’s hand in mine,” said Jillian. Megan glanced over her shoulder and confirmed that, yes, Jillian did have a faraway look on her face.

  “Yep. This summer’s gonna be the best,” said Megan.

  Megan started filing the images from the colonoscopies performed the day before. The large volume of documents suggested a kind of drive-through approach to the procedures that Megan found tactless. The images in the folder were the same as they always were. Each patient was represented by a grid of two-by-two-inch photographs of twisting, ribbed tunnels, which were sometimes pink and slick, but sometimes filled with crust, sludge, blood, or little hangy-balls of bowel skin. The one thing she never saw in any of these photos was waste, but sometimes she came across a report with no images and the ghastly description “patient failed to empty completely, reschedule procedure.”

  “Hi,” said Jillian. “I’m calling about the software package I saw on your website. . . . Yuh-huh. Yeah, I’m really, um, really interested in it. Yes, ma’am, I am starting my own coding business. Yes, ma’am, medical coding. Yes, I will. Okay. You want me to give you my number?”

  Jillian hung up the phone and sighed, thrilled. “Oh, dude, Megan, this is going to be so awesome!”

  “Huh?” said Megan.

  Jillian gasped. “Oh, I almost forgot! We have twelve patients this afternoon, so get ready! I made up some new registration forms.” Megan could feel that Jillian was approaching her.

  Jillian opened a manila folder under Megan’s face and said, “It’s basically the same as the last one, except for here.” She double-tapped. Jillian’s fingers seemed to get a great sensory thrill from paper, judging by the way they touched it.

  “And this is the new confidentiality agreement.”

  “I got it, Jillian,” said Megan. “Thank you. Thank you for doing this.”

  “Oh, and since you were late again today, I took your missed calls. You had lots. Let me get those notes for you.”

  “Thank you very much,” said Megan.

  The doctors arrived ten minutes later, and Megan gave them both a curt, nonverbal greeting. Jillian showed them both the dog.

  Later, Jillian received a phone call. Megan observed an immediate shift in tone. Her ears perked.

  “No, I’m sorry but that’s not fair,” said Jillian. “It’s not fair, and it’s incorrect.” Pause. “No.”

  Megan shifted the weight off her left butt cheek and jiggled her mouse, miming work, but alert to the conversation.

  “They told me I didn’t need to pay it.” Jillian paused. “Well, I lost their name, this was three years ago.”

  Ah, the fabled “they.” Megan smiled.

  “No, I didn’t get it in writing. Well, I guess I’m a trusting person.” Pause. “Ma’am, I feel like it’s very inappropriate for you to contact me at my place of work. I can give you a fax number where you can send me more information, and I will look into it.”

  Megan knew what that really meant.

  “What? You expect me to pay you nine dollars to send me a form that I’m going to use to pay you two hundred dollars?” Jillian made choking and scoffing noises while she listened to the person on the other end and Megan’s black heart swelled with glee.

  “I really feel like you’re taking advantage of me right now and, ma’am, I have a child to take care of and I’m about to get a dog and I have too many expenses right now to pay you nine dollars, let alone two hundred dollars.”

  Jillian was becoming clearly angry.

  “I am unable to pay over the phone, but I can send you a money order at my earliest convenience. No, I don’t have a credit card. No. No, I don’t have a debit card. I don’t have a checking account.” Pause. “Well, you know what, someone was stealing my identity so that’s why I don’t have one anymore. Yes, I got that taken care of. I will try to send you that money order as soon as I can, but I think you’re being very unfair and rude. Yes, ma’am.”

  Jillian let out a stifled scream at the phone after she hung it up, then laughed and said, “My car.”

  “Hmm?” said Megan.

  “I got a ticket last night for running a red light on my way home and I, you know, didn’t have my license on me, so the cop looked me up in his thingy, and it turned out I have an unpaid fine from an accident I had three years ago. I got bad injuries. Apparently, my license has been suspended for three years, and now I have to pay this frickin’ fine.”

  “Geez,” said Megan.

  “Yeah. I’m not even supposed to be driving right now, so I have to be real careful on my way home.”

  “Yeah, make sure to be real careful,” said Megan.

  The patients started coming in.

  Jillian said “Noooo problem!” a lot.

  Megan said “Sure” a lot.

  During downtime Jillian would look at the internet, but sometimes she would just sit and stare at the wall.

  2

  Jillian sat at her desk practicing visualizations, as had been suggested to her by a few members of her church group. When someone opened the door, she thought “Action!” and then her face would become bright and her voice would flow easily out of her mouth and she could say “Oh, hi, how are you?” as if she had no real problems of her own. This ticket thing would not do. That stupid woman at the court office telling her she had to pay nine dollars to get a special form to attach to the money order to get the hold taken off her license. I spent nine dollars on lunch today, she thought. I’m not going to spend nine dollars on a piece of paper. And Miss Prissy Prim Tight Lips Megan over there on the other side of the office, what was her problem? But I will have that dog, she said to herself, because the dog was part of the visualization she was doing. Where do you want to see yourself in half a year? In half a year I want to see myself walking down the sidewalk with this internet dog, Carla. Carla would be an okay name. Walking down the sidewalk with Carla, the dog of the day, practically a famous dog. How silly. But this dog was essential, and this dog cost as much as the fine she had to pay as a result of an accident she’d been seriously injured in, and the court should pay her, in her opinion, not the other way around.

  For the visualizations, she knew she was supposed to pick something that went good with her personality, so that’s why the dog made sense. She was a mother, a nurturer. Also, being a mother meant you had a kid to entertain, which meant you had to give it something to play with, which was why (another reason why) the dog made sense. And she lived outside the city, in an apartment, yes, but still outside the city, and she’d heard city dogs weren’t that happy. She knew she wasn’t going to pick something like “become a rock star in half a year” even though she’d had a pretty good voice as a kid—ha ha!—and kind of a rock star’s appetites, if you know what I mean. And that would be a good reason to not pick rock star, too. That was her old life and personality. Now she was MOM and WORKER (not just worker, but office manager, since Miss Tight Lips had no interest in advancement, it seemed) and a dog would suit her just fine, so she would get Carla, and a month from now that dog would be frolicking in the medians at the end of her leash.

  She would not use a choke collar, obviously.

  The workday ended, and Jillian drove home quickly, but still carefully, in her beige four-door sedan because, on one hand, she needed to get to her home phone before the Humane Society closed, but on the other hand she knew she didn’t have any more gimmes.

  Her car had little piles of white paper coffee cups and magazines that had been stepped on and twisted into spirals. Everything was covered in a layer of crushed Apple Jacks. Some books lay on their s
pines or sides or wherever they landed, books about confidence and stuff, which she knew were super corny, but helped her out and helped her stay on track. Jillian felt like she was gliding home in a star craft, she was so excited. She glided into the day-care parking lot and landed her craft in the spot just next to the handicapped spot, swooped through the doors, and looked through that teeming mass of children to find hers, that little halfie. Half hers, you know.

  “Hey, Barb!” said Jillian to the day-care teacher.

  “Adam!” shouted Barb, and then Adam walked casually out of a little plastic house.

  At home, Jillian handed Adam the remote and said, “Now, you sit in here. Mommy’s gotta go do something.”

  “Can we eat soon?” asked Adam.

  “Oh yeah, dinner’s soon, just watch your show for a second.” It was a documentary about baby animals that Adam seemed to like.

  Jillian walked to the kitchen, picked up the cordless, picked up the laptop, walked to her bedroom, and shut the door. It was so exciting, ugh! She dialed the Humane Society and looked at the picture of Carla. The phone rang twice before it was answered. Each step was a thrill.

  “Hi!” said Jillian. “I’m calling to inquire about the dog on your website named Carla, the special needs dog?”

  “Oooohh, I’m sorry, but Carla was adopted yesterday.”

  “Oh, really? Are you sure? Because she’s still up on your web page.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. Every time we put up one of those photos the dogs get adopted almost the same day. It really makes people fall in love, I guess.”

  “Yeah, I guess it does,” said Jillian. “Well, maybe you should take it down so you don’t give a misrepresentation of the dogs you actually do have.”

  “We have a lot of wonderful dogs in right now. All the time, in fact. Do you want to know our hours?”

  “No, not really, I only wanted Carla.”

  “Are you sure? Carla’s not our only special needs dog, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Okay, well, please keep us in mind,” said the woman.

  “Bye.”

  Jillian clicked the end button on the cordless and sat on the edge of her bed for a second. Then she put a pillow to her face and screamed “fuck” three times.

  She set the pillow down, punched it twice, and then said “Mommy’s all right!” and went back to the living room.

  3

  “And my boss was like, ‘We have to get this,’” said Carrie. “So we walked up to the guy and my boss was like, ‘I’ll give you fifty dollars for that llama,’ and he did it.”

  “Oh my god, that’s hilarious,” said Jessica. “Steve, check out this llama at Carrie’s desk.” Jessica handed the phone to Steve. Everyone was smiling.

  “That’s a life-size llama,” said Steve.

  “We had to carry it back to our office on the bus,” said Carrie. “It almost didn’t fit through the door, that’s how big it was. We almost hit the bus driver in the face with it, that’s how big it was.” A few people laughed. Carrie reached out for the phone. “Here.” She flipped to the next picture. “That’s how big it is.” The photo showed Carrie and the llama, Carrie with her arm around the llama, Carrie wearing glasses and grinning, the llama looking dingy and staring with its dead eyes at the camera, the two of them in Carrie’s well-lit office.

  “Oh my god, you look so tiny next to that llama,” said Jessica.

  Peering over Bill’s shoulder, Megan could see that Carrie had lots of nice plants in her office.

  “I’m so lucky. I love my boss and I love my office,” said Carrie, reaching again for her phone. She gave the photo of herself a little smile before putting it away.

  Megan looked across the party and saw Randy by the bathroom. She was trapped between Jessica and a coffee table. To get to Randy would require her to either step over the coffee table or ask Jessica to press herself against the wall, and Jessica looked like she was having a nice time.

  “Well,” said Carrie. “I have some cool news.”

  It would be rude to interrupt Jessica’s good time.

  “You know that magazine Dale Carnegie? They’re doing a thirty under thirty thing next issue.”

  And it would really look like she was a wild animal or something if she tried to climb over the table. And plus her ass still hurt, so it wouldn’t be graceful. She’d have to limp her way out of the corner.

  “Do we know any of the thirty under thirty?” Bill asked.

  “I’ll say,” said Carrie. She was being cheeky.

  A girl named Annie walked up to their small group and said, “Hey! Sorry, I was eavesdropping. Is it you? Are you one of the thirty under thirty?”

  Carrie nodded.

  Megan reached into her purse and took out another beer, her third. The sound of the tab cracking was, she thought, a nice contribution. Cheers! She drank very quickly.

  Annie took out a cigarette and said, “That’s awesome.” Annie and Megan had met before. Megan cleared her throat.

  “Hey, Annie, can I have one of those?” she asked.

  “Oh, sure,” said Annie.

  “Randy has mine. I can pay you back later.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about it. Really.”

  Annie passed her a Camel and then held out her pink lighter, already lit. Megan had to dip her head into the middle of the conversation, which had stopped, maybe pointedly, to light her smoke out of Annie’s hand. Megan straightened, leaving behind a plume of smoke.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “It’s cool. I feel like I haven’t seen you in a while, Megan. What have you been up to?” asked Annie.

  Everyone was still being quiet and staring, which didn’t really feel polite.

  “Well, I cut my ass on a knife in the kitchen sink.”

  It was uncomfortable to have four people looking at her and listening to what she was saying. She took a drink of beer while Annie laughed a little and said, “What?”

  “I fell in the sink on a knife and cut my ass.”

  “Oh my god, are you all right?”

  “Sure,” said Megan.

  “Did you have to go to the doctor?”

  “Nah,” said Megan. “Now that it’s over, it’s kind of funny.”

  “Hmm,” said Annie. Her face communicated that she didn’t really think it was that funny.

  “Hey,” said Megan, looking at Jessica. “Could I get by you? I have to pee.”

  “Okay, sure.”

  “Thanks for the cigarette,” Megan said to Annie. Annie forced a smile and waved.

  On her way to the bathroom, Megan stopped by Randy. She whispered, “Carrie can roll it up and stick it in her prim little asshole.”

  “Jesus Christ,” said Randy. Prim little asshole.

  There was a line for the bathroom.

  The tall guy in front of her said, “So you’re in the line, too, huh?”

  “Yeah,” said Megan. She covered her mouth to burp and opened another beer.

  “Sucks. This always happens at these things,” said the guy.

  “Yeah, well. It’s an apartment. They don’t usually have more than one bathroom.”

  “You want to come in with me? I could pee in the tub if you really need to go.”

  “No, I’m good, thanks,” said Megan.

  “Hey, man, I was just offering, okay?”

  “Yeah, I know, it’s fine.”

  “You don’t have to act like an asshole about it.”

  “Well, I don’t really think I’m being an asshole. I just don’t, uh, I don’t really have to go that bad.”

  “Then why are you in the bathroom line? There are people who actually have to go, you know.”

  Megan looked behind her and saw no one.

  “I just think
I can wait, that’s all.”

  “What kind of accent is that?” asked the guy.

  “What do you mean? I don’t have an accent.”

  “Yes you do. Are you a liar?”

  “I mean . . . I’m from Michigan.”

  “You have a foreign accent,” said the guy, and then the bathroom door opened. “Ladies first.”

  “No, really, go ahead,” said Megan. “Allow me to do this one thing for you.” The guy snorted. He was in and out in a minute, he didn’t wash his hands. When he got out of the bathroom, he held the door open for her and bowed a little.

  Megan locked the door behind her, washed her hands, then pulled down her pants. There were no leaks on the bandage and she decided to leave it alone. She pulled her pants back up, finished her beer, and looked at herself in the mirror.

  “Hello,” she said to herself before leaving. “Hello, darling.”

  Amanda, a familiar face from school, was in the kitchen looking in the refrigerator.

  “Hey, familiar face, I have beer,” said Megan.

  “Phew!” said Amanda. Amanda was nice to Megan and she had an unpretentious look. Amanda was low-medium pretty, less pretty than Megan, which put Megan at ease, but more attractive than Megan because she bothered to groom herself. Megan observed that Amanda’s level of grooming was not too high, though, and then she felt guilty for gauging her comfort with Amanda by such idiotic standards. Megan reached into her purse and handed Amanda a beer.

  “How many beers do you have in there?”

  Megan looked in her bag and said, “Used to be twenty-four, but now I’m not sure.”

  “Ha ha ha, you’re nuts.”

  “Oh, I’m nuts,” said Megan. “I’m a regular nut.”

  “So, what’s up? How’s work?”

  “Work is . . . I spend thirty-two hours a week with a woman who isn’t allowed to cut her hangnails for religious reasons. Vanity or something. We listen to light Christian rock together all day. She forwards me photo threads of baby animals with affirmations at the bottom and she belches all the time.”