by Jeni Birr
CHAPTER 7
When we were looking for a house to move into in the Detroit area, the weirdest thing happened: our old house in Berkley was available, even though we’d only been gone about ten months. We loved this house and loved the idea of moving back in, so we called the landlords right away, who obviously, were thrilled to have us back. Remember how I said moving trucks are significantly cheaper to go north? We rented one for the way back and kept all of our crap we had purchased upon moving down. Eric drove the truck with his car on a trailer, and I drove my car and Apollo rode with me. Let me tell you, whoever thinks that dogs don’t remember things more than a few minutes is out of their mind because as soon as I got off the freeway, which was still a few miles from the house, Apollo flipped out. He knew exactly where we were, and where we were going and he was so excited. When we got there he ran around and around in crazy circles for what seemed like hours.
It was very strange for me though, moving back into the same house. The lady who rented it after we left never fully moved in. The landlords told us she had her bed propped up against the wall in the dining room. There was still a cabinet full of our groceries in the kitchen, boxes of my art supplies I had left in the garage, and our Christmas tree still in the basement. It was very surreal. It made me feel like Florida had all been a dream and didn’t really happen, and all the friends I had made, I didn’t really make. I remember calling Jamie that night and crying to her about the whole thing.
I had already lined up that I would be going back to Cosi, again. Yes, for the fourth time now. I was to be a salaried assistant manager now so I had to go through management training at the Birmingham store under Karen, the current Training General Manager in the Detroit market. I don’t know what kind of mafia connections this bitch had, or what kind of dirt she had on whom, but there was no reason whatsoever she should have still had a job the way she treated people. She hadn’t passed anyone through her training program in over a year, would scream at her associates, yell at her customers, wore blue jeans to work and flip flops around before open, which is against health code, and did all sorts of things other than work while she was on shift. She even pulled me off a shift once to go deliver a subpoena to her boyfriend’s brother because she needed someone he wouldn’t recognize. The questionable things Karen did are endless and I have no idea to this day why she hasn’t been fired, because I fully well know that higher-ups are aware. I am convinced the only reason she passed me through is because I had already been with the company for several years in the recent future, had worked with several of the managers still there, and had a reputation for basically being the best associate since sliced bread, so I’m sure Mike, my District Manager, made it clear to Karen that I was to pass. Andrea was not so lucky however.
Andrea was another of Karen’s trainees. She started only a week or two after I did, but brand new to the company. She had a hospitality degree from Michigan State and had managed a Jay Alexander’s for several years before coming to Cosi. I’m sure she knew more about managing a restaurant than I did. I remember when she was interviewing, Karen said some horrible things about her and I felt drawn to do anything I could to protect her from the evil that was Karen. We became very good friends and I did what I could, but ultimately, once Karen decides someone “can’t” do the job, they are let go. Karen didn’t train anymore after that though. They all got put with Amy and me at the Southfield location.
I loved Amy, my new boss once I was moved over to my permanent store. She was about my age and a lot of fun and we worked very well together. She was pregnant and I had to play full General Manager while she was out on maternity leave, which was not fun for me. Quiznos was small, and it was easy to be the GM. Cosi was a much bigger operation with a lot more processes and paperwork and the only good that came from those three horrible months of my life is that I was given permission to open Monday through Friday because that’s when we did the bulk of our business. My “assistant” was fresh out of training. I wasn’t even compensated any extra for playing GM for several months, and I wasn’t even asked if I wanted the job. At my initial meeting with Mike when I got back from Florida, he basically told me that’s what would be happening, but I didn’t feel like I had the option to request someone else step in. It wasn’t like it was something I couldn’t handle, but let’s just say it’s not something I would have wanted to do again, with that company anyway.
Over the course of the year after we got back, Eric and I continued to have problems. I missed Florida and wanted to go back, but he had hated the hot weather and the racism in the south, which I’ll give him. Detroit is a very mixed city and we have a lot of black friends, and mixed couple friends with beautiful mixed babies, but Florida is a little behind the times and I hear it’s much worse in other states. He didn’t think he could get his job back at Sawgrass, which is the only way he’d go with me. He became very distant and nasty at times. We fought a lot. We broke up and got back together twice in one month. He finally got a call from Sawgrass saying he was welcome back at any time, so we did what we had done two years prior, sold most of what we had and moved down in his dad’s minivan, and our two cars.
CHAPTER 8
This time we moved into an apartment in Ponte Vedra, that we really couldn’t afford, which meant that his commute was only about five minutes and mine was about forty five minutes, but I was just glad to be back. We were paying just as much for a third the square feet and the worst layout I’ve ever lived in, which I didn’t even realize was possible in a one bedroom apartment; but the grounds were beautiful, and the ocean was only a few blocks away. I could smell it from our balcony. Wayne had told me I could come back to Quiznos, but what he failed to mention was, it was just as a shift leader, there were no openings for a manager, and that meant a fair amount less money than I was expecting. His plan to supplement my income was to hire me as his little marketing wench for his smoked BBQ business that he was trying to get off the ground, but even after hours and hours of passing out fliers and telling people how delicious it was, without samples, no one wanted to order it, which was understandable. Problem was, we had agreed I’d be paid a percentage of every order that came in, and even 100% of zero is still zero.
When I learned that there was no management position available for me with Quiznos, I started interviewing with other restaurants. I knew my stuff, and by this point I knew how to interview and I was offered a management job with a Southern Mexican chain that hollers at you every time you walk in the door, but they were offering less than I wanted, I HATED the hours, and they couldn’t promise me I wouldn’t be put at the store on the opposite side of the city, which would be an hour commute, one way, so I turned it down. I also called every Panera Bread within the city to ask what the General Manager’s name was so I could send a personalized cover letter with a resume in hopes they would pass it on to their District Manager. I got a call one Saturday morning from Kenny, the GM of the beaches Panera Bread only five minutes from our apartment asking if I could come in for an interview in an hour. I had narrowed down that if I was going to be stuck in the restaurant industry for a while, Panera Bread was the company I wanted to be with, hence the bombing of the resumes. They are a large corporate national chain and ever expanding that understands their managers are going to work more hours than they’re scheduled, so they only schedule them for 45 hours, five days per week. I said absolutely and arrived five minutes early.
I thought the interview went great! He asked me about myself, what I was looking for in a company, obviously about my past work experiences, if I knew how to calculate food cost and balance a Profit and Loss statement, and then told me all about the company. If I hadn’t been sold before, I definitely was after this interview, especially when I called several days later to follow up at 1:55pm and the girl that answered the phone thought he was still there and then came back to say he must have slipped out the back door. Cosi managers had to get to the store at the same time to open, 5am, but I never left before
5pm, and that was a good day. I wanted in. He had said he would pass on my information to the district manager and recommend me, but I never got a call.
The whole time Eric was back in Florida with me he was trying to get funding to go to turf school. He had decided he really loved being on the golf course, but in order to move up in course maintenance, you need a degree in turf management. He applied for several student loans, but just kept getting rejected as his credit was not stellar in those days.
The fighting at home continued. One day in early November Eric asked me if I was happy. He was being very vague and awkward, but he ultimately got to the point that he was glad that I was happy, but that he was not, and he was going to go back to Michigan and that I was welcome to come, but he understood if I didn’t want to. I thought about it for a few days, but eventually I realized it was a long time coming and I gave him my blessing to go and try to find his happiness. He didn’t leave for almost two months, which was difficult. We weren’t really broken up because we were still sharing a bed, but we weren’t really still together because we knew he was leaving. The real kicker is that everything was in my name because I’d had the better credit. The apartment lease, my car loan which still had four years left on it that I hadn’t wanted to finance to begin with, a personal loan, a couple credit cards, a lot of bad financial decisions that I would like to have blamed on him, but I could have said no at any point. I had no idea how I was going to survive on what little I was making at Quiznos.
This is when I decided to become a stripper. I had a pole at home, had taken all of one pole dancing class, and knew I was pretty enough, and had a big ol’ round booty for a short white girl that got me hit on all the time. I went to the one club in Jacksonville we had gone to before on our debaucherous night out with Mike in the beginning, and asked if they were hiring, to which the bouncer said they were always looking for dancers. I met with the manager, who asked me to show him my stomach to prove I didn’t have stretch marks, and asked me to show him my tattoo, but didn’t think it would be a problem. We decided my name should be “Susie” and that I would start the next night. The next day I went to work at Quiznos, borrowed a pair of shoes from the girlfriend of one of my coworkers, who was quite conveniently a dancer, and my shoe size, and stopped at an adult shop and bought a white outfit for my first night as everyone kept calling me “the virgin” to the stage.
My dad always had this policy of lurking in the shadows of a new situation. He had taught me to find a corner and observe until I felt comfortable, and this is what I intended to do for the first few nights. The few girls that I met were actually really nice and very helpful and wished me luck, not what I was expecting at all as I’ve known some other girls that have worked in the clubs and told me horror stories, so I’m guessing I just got lucky. One girl was sitting off to the side and invited me to sit with her, so I did, and a couple guys came over and sat with us. When it was my turn to go up I asked the DJ if he had any Halestorm, and he seemed surprised that I knew who they were, and I danced to the song “I get off.” After that I even sold a dance to one of the guys that was sitting with us. As fate would have it though, the song that came on right as I was about to begin my dance was my song with Eric. You know how every couple has that one song that’s “their song?” Well, ours came on, and somehow I got through the dance, but once it was over, I thanked the man and barely made it to the bathroom before I broke down sobbing, which several of the other girls saw. I was so embarrassed I told the manager I felt dirty and didn’t think I could do it, to which he kindly asked me to tip out the DJ and security and that I could go. I still left with about fifty dollars, and that was after only three hours of not even trying, so I feel like had I stuck with it, I could have been taking home over five a night. But I also had this feeling I might come to loathe men altogether, and I didn’t want that, so I just never went back, or to any other club like I had originally planned.
I called my dad in tears and told him the whole story because my dad and I could talk like that. I told him everything. He had already known Eric was about to leave, and he was still in Gainesville, Florida at this point, but he explained he’d been thinking about it, and how would I feel about him moving back to Jacksonville, and getting the three of us back in one house; him, me, and my brother, who was now staying with him since graduating. I liked this idea. I had always relied on the men in my life to take care of me, and this situation was no different. I wanted my dad to move back to Jacksonville and save me. This was the plan for a while.
My apartment had a very strict policy about breaking leases, but it turned out, they also now owned a complex on Southside with “studio” apartments that were hundreds of dollars a month cheaper, and I could transfer my lease over there for a minimal transfer fee. This would put me only twenty minutes from work, and I would have my own place, for the first time in my life. This terrified me. It was quite literally keeping me awake at night, the fear of living alone, and so I knew it was something I needed to do. And fortunately, I got promoted to Assistant Manager with Quiznos, so I got a raise, and was much closer to being able to support myself. My good friend, Rachel, was also looking to leave her job as the shot girl at a gay bar in Riverside, so she passed it off to me. This was another of my favorite jobs. I never felt like going because I had already worked all day, but every Friday night I would show up just before ten, the fabulous bartender would mix me a couple pitchers of brightly colored concoctions that I would pour into test tubes and sell for $2 each. The bar got one dollar, and I got one dollar, and I got to keep all my tips so I rarely left with less than $100 in four hours. This was enough that I could budget accordingly and make it through on my own.
I remember the day he left was Sunday, December 20, 2009, very early in the morning. I got up to see him off, but was so numb I didn’t even cry. An hour later I went in and worked a full Sunday shift. It wasn’t until I was getting off at about 3:00pm when Rachel and her friend, Nicky, came to visit me at work to see how I was doing that I just broke down. I wept like a baby in Rachel’s arms. I really and truly believed that this was it and I would never see or hear from him again. I went to Sneakers after work, but even that just made me miss him more because it was “our” bar, and everyone there was “our” friends, so I just went home and called Leah and cried to her for probably two hours before eventually falling asleep.
The next few days are kind of a blur, but I remember going to my Dad’s for Christmas. My mother also drove down from Savannah and my dad’s mother came up from her place in Leeseburgh, Florida, which is about an hour outside of Orlando. Christmas was a Friday this year and it was supposed to be my first night of work at the club, but thankfully my boss told me to enjoy my Christmas with my family. The plan was for my mother to follow me back to my apartment the next day, stay one night, and then leave the next morning to go back to Savannah. When she pulled a giant suitcase out of her trunk though, I learned that she was actually planning to stay the whole week and help me move into my studio the following weekend. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I didn’t need her, because honestly, I was still terrified of living alone.
I was aching inside from the loss of Eric’s presence, and I did something rather stupid, but got very lucky, for lack of a better cliché. I had posted an ad on Craigslist in the “casual encounters” section. I had hundreds of responses, but the one I chose lived over in the Mayport area. We used fake names and emailed back and forth a few times before scheduling his place (because I didn’t need some stranger knowing where I lived) the day after Christmas. I let Andrea know what I was doing, the address that I was going to, and that if I didn’t call her within four hours to call the authorities in Jacksonville and send them to his house because I was probably dead or tied up in the basement, or likely elsewhere because Florida houses didn’t have basements. Fortunately, I called her in less than four hours in tears because I didn’t feel any better and I still missed Eric terribly. She was just glad I was still alive.
My dad and my brother came up on New Year’s Eve to help me move into my studio across town. They got into a hit and run accident on the way though because apparently some scumbags were running from the police and broadsided my dad’s Saturn running up onto the curb and then came back down in the street in front of him but he only caught the first three letters of the plate and I don’t think they ever caught the guys. I remember he called to say they were going to be late and sounded so apologetic, and I was just glad they were okay! I really wouldn’t have even needed him to help me move if it weren’t for the couch and the dresser my mother wasn’t strong enough to help me carry down the stairs.
At the new apartment, one of the neighbors came over to introduce herself while we were moving in. Her name was Carol and her little orange dog was Pumpkin. She was a very kind elderly woman and said if I ever needed anything, she was right in the next building over. I would see her from time to time and we would wave hello.
We spent the day moving and that night my dad, brother and I went to Sneakers to ring in the New Year: 2010. I remember what I posted to my Facebook status that night: “2009 was by far the most physically, mentally, emotionally and financially exhausting year of my life; so all I have to say to you 2010 is: bring it!”
This, was a colossal mistake.
CHAPTER 9