by D C Young
I mean, I had dealt with cancellations before, but with the reason being the restructuring of the resort, there was a fair bit of anger and animosity from some of the clients. For those who knew me too well to be angry at me, there was the never ending disappointment in their faces and voices. It was excruciating. Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, corporate parties, Sweet Sixteens and graduation parties… all cancelled. I made the best suggestions that I could to those who were at a loss coming up with an alternative venue. That made a great change in the general tone of things.
When the two and a half weeks were up, so was our time. My final paycheck, and even a couple hundred for ‘partial unemployment’, was in my bank account Friday morning. Suddenly, the doomsday thoughts of ‘what the hell am I gonna do now?’ came rushing through the floodgates. I pushed them aside and decided to first enjoy the weekend and put off tackling the bullshit until Monday.
As I did every Friday morning, which was my regular half day at work, I put the coffee pot on with a scoop of my favorite flavor of Eight O’ Clock coffee, put my shoes on and stepped out onto the porch to walk down to the little bakery on the corner. The owner, Maria, sold the most delicious samitas, conchas and donuts which she made fresh every day. My favorite combos were the folded egg and tomato samita with a chocolate hazelnut glazed donut and the avocado and basil samita with the strawberry shortcake concha.
As soon as I got to the corner of my block, and looked across the street at Maria’s, I knew something was wrong. There was no line. I checked my watch. It was 7:09 a.m., there should be at least a dozen people standing around chatting, waiting for her to serve the first set of orders she took at 7:00 a.m.
I crossed the street and took a closer look. There was a sign hanging in the window of the front door: CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. I took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. Hanging my head, I turned and walked back to the house.
The feeling that swept over me as I watched news show after news show that morning was close to panic. I could feel anxiety mounting in my chest. Several times I had to fight off the feeling of suffocation that threatened to grip my lungs and twist them closed like a vice. It was like I’d started Monday in the real world and at some point between going to bed and waking back up I had been transported to the Twilight Zone. Nothing seemed ‘normal’ anymore. That evening, in an effort to stem the isolation, I decided to take a walk around the neighborhood.
That was a mistake.
So many of the vibrant small businesses that made Myrtle Beach unique were being forced to cut back services and staff or close down all together. The ‘CLOSED’ signs in the doors were confirmation of that. ‘Until further notice’ they all said, and I wondered when exactly that would be? I turned along the boulevard and crossed the street, it was deserted. Usually by this time on a Friday evening, traffic would be mounting from weekenders coming to check into the seaside hotels. The tourists would be out, sun burnt and thirsty, looking for a bar to grab a bite to eat and throw back a dozen drinks or so.
I stepped on to the sandy beach and walked about ten yards. Suddenly there was a man shouting at me from across the beach. His hands were waving frantically above his head and he looked rather upset. Instinctively, I looked to the waves, shading my eyes with my hands, thinking someone must be drowning. I could hardly make out his words in the raging wind. Then I saw the red lettered sign posted on the Lifeguard notice board: NO LIFEGUARD ON DUTY. Defeated, I turned my back on the agitated man and walked back to the street.
When I got back to the house, I put a Marie Calendar macaroni and cheese dinner in the microwave and poured myself a tall glass of chardonnay which I took with me to my bedroom. My best friend’s sister was having a bridal shower the next day. Even though it had to be cancelled from the fabulous ballroom at the Astoria she had initially booked it at and relocated to her backyard, we were all still looking forward to it a great deal. I’d decided to wear a really cute romper I had bought at a boutique downtown a few weeks before the hotel closed and was busy trying to decide on a pair of shoes when the phone rang.
I scrambled up off the floor in front of the closet and snatched it off the bed. It was my best friend.
“Hey girl,” I said.
“Hey, girl,” she replied. “I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, but Clara has to cut down the shower guest list in order to compensate for the significantly less space she has in her backyard as compared to being at the hotel. Unfortunately she has to accommodate her bridesmaids, her Mom, sisters and her future in-laws before friends and other guests. So, that means she regretfully has to retract your invitation for tomorrow. I’m so sorry.”
“Awww. I understand, Maggie. It is what it is. To be honest, I was kind of waiting for this call ever since I had to cancel her booking last week. I’m just sorry she couldn’t find another venue in time.”
“Well, we all know it’s not your fault, It’s this damn downturn. I really hope the economy starts to make a recovery soon.”
“You and me both,” I replied half-heartedly. “Thanks for calling, Maggie. Love you, see you soon. Okay?”
I didn’t even wait for her to respond. I hit the red END button and threw the phone back onto the bed. Slowly, I lowered myself to the plush carpeted floor, put my head down and let the first tears roll down my face.
2. WHAT’S NORMAL AGAIN?
How a bite of pizza knocked me off my feet.
“… The biggest sufferer of this economic downturn has probably been the hospitality industry, the future of which is still undetermined. What is known is that the lack of domestic travel is ravaging hotels and attractions across the country. So far, the industry is reporting a 15% decline in reservations over the same period last year, coupled with a 5% cancellation rate for pre-booked travel arrangements.
“It’s absolutely imperative that, as an industry, we get ahead of this crisis, we must begin to think outside of the box and present innovative ideas which will generate revenue from untapped sources in order to keep this downturn in check. We all have to take a proactive approach to preserving our viability; we have a promise to keep to our shareholders and partners alike.
“Based on the recommendations we have received from the Economic Committee and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Board of Directors are implementing a structural change to some of the resorts in the chain. As of midnight tonight, the Astoria Myrtle Beach and three other of our major resort holdings will begin a restructuring exercise geared at converting the property into a luxury extended stay condominium style resort. Only essential departments will remain operational, and only certified employees of departments deemed convertible will remain operational on the site. All employees of departments which are no longer required will be notified by the Human Resources department and furnished with the appropriate documentation.”
I woke up in the middle of the night.
At first I wasn’t sure where I was. The room was pitch dark with only the slats of the window blinds slightly lit up from the street lights on the road outside. My eyes adjusted, and I realized I was still on the floor of my bedroom. That’s why everything seemed weird. I reached up for the bedside lamp and turned the switch; light flooded the room.
What the hell happened? I wondered.
My face was still wet with tears. Why? It was 11:00 p.m. Had I been crying in my sleep? Ugh!
Too much drama for my llama. What I needed was a hot bath, another glass of wine, comfy pjs and bed. Nope! Scratch the bed part… TV.
As my mind had been waking up from my nap on the carpet, tiny snippets of memories had come to my mind. I didn’t know if I was remembering a dream or if I was just remembering my childhood. Maybe it was both. I may have been dreaming of home, of when I was a child.
What I knew for sure is that it was Ringgold, Georgia that was on my mind. My hometown.
I got up and made my way to the kitchen. The now cold food still sat in the microwave… forgotten. I paused for a moment, trying to decide if I was hungry or
not. I was but I didn’t want macaroni and cheese from the microwave. I took a chance, picked up the phone and called the late night, delivery only pizza place across town.
As God is good, they actually answered and took my order. Twenty minutes later, I had a steaming hot pepperoni and pineapple pizza, a sausage calzone, Caesar salad and molten chocolate cake at the front door. The delivery man had set the food down on one of the chairs on my porch and was already all the way down the front steps. I came out holding a $5 bill for a tip and he stood there looking at me. For a few moments it felt like we were having some kind of Mexican standoff. The worst part was he looked at the money in my hand with a strange look on his face.
It was disbelief. I guess tips were drying up fast as people got more frugal with their money.
“Take the money, please. I really appreciate you coming out so late.”
A flash of gratitude came to his eyes. I cheered up. I raised my hand, holding the money out for him to take. He reached out and took it and held my hand briefly saying ‘Thank you’ several times. Then he retrieved my bags of food and handed them to me. I returned his ‘Thank you’ and went back inside. When I had closed the door, I watched through the window as he turned away and stuffed it in his pockets as he ran down the stairs back to his waiting vehicle.
Apparently, the economy was so bad that a $5 tip could evoke emotion from a seasoned pizza delivery guy.
Immediately, I wiped the thought from my mind. There was no need for me to start thinking like that. Or acting like that. Cynicism and meanness was not gonna get me through the fallout from this economic downturn. As I opened the pizza box and breathed in the steamy, delicious sweet and savory smell of the food, I knew that all I needed to do was be grateful they’d answered the phone at Harry’s Pizza.
I raised the first slice to my mouth and took a bite.
Suddenly, the pizza slice fell back into the box and I was on my knees in the kitchen. With a mouth full of pizza, I found myself literally floored. I put my hands to the sides of my head as a searing pain ran through my head. I saw bright white from behind my closed eyelids and a jolt of pain went through my head again. This time it ran down my spine. My teeth were clenched closed giving the half chewed pizza only one place to go. Luckily, I was able to swallow it without choking. As the next jolt went through my head and down my spine and it felt like it came out of my toes, I found myself thinking, ‘That’s some damn good pizza!’.
‘I’m dying!’ was my next thought.
When the pain was gone, I lay on the floor paralyzed, watching scenes from Ringgold, Georgia play before my eyes like a movie. Everything was so familiar. I was standing across the street looking at the leggy crepe myrtle trees that lined the paved driveway of my parent’s house on Azalea Drive. I started to cross the street but found I couldn’t step off the sidewalk. I made at least three tries but I stayed rooted to the ground watching and crying.
A little girl rode past the driveway on a pink bicycle. She turned to me and waved and rang her little bell. I waved back. She turned her head to watch where she was going and her blond curls fell loose from her helmet. I stepped from the pavement in her direction, no longer fixated on my house. I followed after the little girl, who stayed a little way ahead of me until she got to the end of the block and stopped. I watched her look left and thought from her profile how pretty she was. I wondered if I knew her or her parents, maybe? Was she someone I was supposed to remember from my hometown? When she turned her head to look right, her hair flashed in the sun again, but this time her blond hair was tufted together with bright red blood. The side of her face was distorted. I couldn’t make out whether she had been maimed or crushed or scraped, I just couldn’t make out her facial features anymore.
I screamed and screamed. Then I was on the floor of my kitchen in Myrtle Beach again, clutching my knees and shaking like a leaf.
Slowly, I sat up, not knowing what to think. I listened to the sounds of the house but heard nothing. Then, without even thinking about it, I jumped up and ran straight to the bathroom. I threw open the lid of the toilet, clutched the bowl and hurled up every bit of food and liquid in my stomach.
When the heaving had stopped, I wiped my mouth with a tissue and sat up with my back against the wall.
Okay… what the actual fuck was happening to me?
My stomach suddenly let out a huge roar. All that vomiting had emptied it and now there was a small uprising happening inside me. I did my best to put the Twilight Zone experience I’d had over my Harry’s Pizza aside, eat my dinner and settle down to watch some TV, but things got weirder and just kind of stayed that way.
Firstly, when I’d ordered all that food, I had planned to eat off it for at least all the next day since I no longer had a bridal shower to attend. So by the time I was scooping cold vanilla ice cream over the hot-out-of-the-microwave chocolate cake, I stopped and took a step back to look at my kitchen counter. In the span of three episodes of Chicago P.D., I had consumed the entire pizza, calzone and salad; now I was onto the cake.
I decided not to make it any more weird than it already was and just shut the fridge door, grabbed a spoon and headed back to the couch. All I could hope for was that I would fall asleep right there, praying for no more dreams or other episodes that would bring me to tears.
Whatever I did, I couldn’t shake the thoughts I’d been having of home… and of the beautiful little blonde girl.
3. SHOPPING FOR SUPPLIES
We’re not okay.
The next three weeks were loaded down with feelings of isolation, which began to turn into desperation. I watched a video on social media of a man who vaulted from several stories high in an apartment building. I think it was in New York. Reports said he’d become severely depressed under the stress of losing his job and falling into debt during the economic crisis.
Check in on your out-of-work friends, people. We’re NOT okay.
Looking at the situation from several steps back and a place of possibly better mental health, I could still relate. Joblessness was starting to get the better of me and warp my usually senselessly busy mind. I started having episodes of sudden rushes of memory… I would be doing something totally mindless or unrelated and suddenly be panicked when I remembered that somebody had booked conference room 12 for a champagne brunch that morning.
Ha! Some people have episodes of memory loss, but I’m over here spontaneously remembering shit. I told you people, we’re not okay.
The morning talk shows were flooded with stories about layoffs, shutdowns, political actions, unemployment crisis, stimulus programs, bailouts, and let’s not forget ECONOMIC DOWNTURN. Nobody wanted to call it a recession as yet; too communist of a statement, I guess. But the news shows also showed the people out on the march calling it exactly that and crying for the resurgence of commerce.
The economy had taken the worst toll known to our generation. Despite the bailouts of big businesses and the politicians scrambling to save some of the manufacturers that employed so many, what we the people were feeling the most was the tanking of the world economy. Small business would be a phrase from a dead forgotten language within a few months; large corporations were laying off workers and scaling back production daily.
Mostly, let’s not forget to mention the dwindling supermarket shopping crowd and staff. That was scary to me.
Coming from a rural mountain valley town, I’d more or less been raised to never have faith in an urban supply chain for essential items as that required one to have the money to purchase the merchandise. My mom grew a ten row garden growing in our suburban backyard all year round. Planting it and replanting it about four times a year based on season, grow time and what she needed in her pantry or freezer. She’d taught me how to parboil and freeze corn, peas and other vegetables, how to can almost anything including meat and simulating a root cellar in a kitchen cabinet.
At my house in Myrtle Beach, I had potted vegetable plants on my back porch. I’d canned the zucchini and sq
uash from the winter garden in January and was waiting on the first tomatoes, onions, corn, peppers, carrots and peas to do the same with.
The biggest need that presented itself almost immediately was for necessary items like toilet paper, bath soap and cleaning products. I laughed as I thought about it. My thoughts instinctively went to my bathroom. I’d gotten involved with a huge group of coupon ladies when I’d started working at the Astoria. They’d book a small conference room once a month to teach a coupon class, trade coupons and secret lists they kept of sale dates at certain stores. After about three months of religiously booking their events and always making sure they were well taken care of, they invited me to take their coupon class for free. I sat in on one and a couple hours later, POOF! I had a new hobby.
I’d always thought couponers were hoarders, but after a few months of actually doing it, I realized it was just strategic buying. Before the class, I would have wondered who needed six cases of 42 rolls of toilet paper? Then I realized a family of 4 could go through that in under a month!
At the time I had five other ladies working in my department at the hotel, all with families at home. So we started our own little coupon co-op. We were all way too busy with work to be able to shop more than once a week, so we divided the shopping. We would plan which item we wanted to catch on sale and assign a buyer who would take all our coupons and hit the sale hard until everyone’s order had been filled.
I had stocked up a three to six month supply of the most expensive items I used at home; toilet paper, paper towels, shower gel, shaving cream, razors, hand sanitizer, laundry detergent, fabric softener, dryer sheets and Lysol disinfecting cleaning supplies of all varieties.
Be prepared, people. The Scouts weren’t wrong on that one.
When the height of the crisis had hit, I would buy whatever I found on the shelf at the store and bring it home. I had retired and elderly neighbors, most of which couldn’t even leave the house to go shopping, much less scrape together the money for it when ‘living on a fixed income’ was quickly starting to mean ‘you’ll get your check when we can afford to send it to you’. Anytime I found some of those coveted items at the store, I’d take them to Mrs. Shapiro. She lived in a big white ranch style house in the middle of my block. Her house was as close to a senior center as you could get. All the older folks gathered there at some point during the week to play bridge or poker and have a little fresh air on her wraparound front porch. Mrs. Shapiro, or Betty as she insisted everyone call her, would lay out everything she’d collected during the week on her 12 person dining room table and leave a stack of brown paper grocery bags at one end. She would remind everyone to take whatever they needed before going home.