“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I agreed, “except study the wrong language in high school. And be born on the wrong side of the world.”
“That wasn’t your fault either,” Katya repeated, and I had to smile despite my depression.
“Of course not,” Adair agreed, blowing his brow-line with the fan.
“Geez, you guys. Lighten up. It’s just a job.” I said it like I meant it. And, I suppose, underneath it all, I really did. I knew I’d find another job. At least I was pretty sure I would. It wasn’t like there were a glut of country stations in New York City. None to be exact. The closest one was in New Jersey. Maybe they had an opening for a morning girl.
I shuddered a bit. Did any self-respecting New Yorker actually commute to Jersey to work?
I picked up the pace a bit. I needed my pulse rate up, a sheen of sweat on my skin. I needed to find the “zone.” I needed to forget my troubles for a few minutes at least. My friends ran silently beside me for several minutes, keeping pace easily, until finally Adair protested.
“Margo, honey, I bought this fan at the dime store. It doesn’t do high speed.”
“Sorry,” I muttered, slowing a bit to avoid being the sole cause of Adair’s profuse, fabric-dissolving perspiration.
For a moment I was distracted by the comical sight of my fan-toting friend. A small man in stature, only an inch taller than me, Adair was bigger than life in personality. He dressed to the nines even in the casual atmosphere at WKUP and made an entrance everywhere he went. Running in the park was occasion enough to demonstrate his fashion sense. Made the rest of us running in old T-shirts and no-name-brand shorts look bad.
“Hey, isn’t that Chris?”
I jerked my head in the direction Katya pointed. A group of people, including Chris and his business partner, Chip Xavier, surrounded a couple of hot-shot skateboarders doing their stuff. Probably testing out a new board for X-Treem Sports, the sporting goods store that Chris and Chip owned. They catered to the young and daring—or immature and stupid, in some cases—and frequently bought new, state-of-the-art equipment they’d tested for manufacturers before the rest of the country.
“Oh yummy. Let’s stop and say hi.” Adair dropped back a few paces to head in that direction.
“Keep running,” I snapped.
He huffed out a breath and sped up again.
“You don’t want to stop?” Katya asked, feigning innocence. At the same time, she moved around me to run beside Adair. She grabbed the fan out of his hand and began attempting to dry the sweat stains from her own T-shirt in case I changed my mind and agreed to circle back to say hello to Chris.
“No, I don’t want to see him yet. He doesn’t need to worry about my job.” How different that conversation with Chris would be compared to yesterday’s. “Besides, I’ve told you…you didn’t pass the stupid Kiss Test, so there’s no chance for you.”
“I was nervous!” Katya protested. “All I need is one more chance.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I replied. “The rule is ‘one kiss, one chance.’ It’s a dumb game anyway.” Chris was my best friend, and I’d defend him over just about anything except The Kiss Test. He’d developed it in high school—maybe even earlier. Chris claimed he could tell instantly if he was meant to be with a girl by kissing her. He administered the Kiss Test with the seriousness of a physician removing an appendix. If she passed, she was guaranteed at least one supposedly unforgettable night with “Extreme Treem.” And if, according to Chris, he felt nothing from the kiss, it didn’t matter how well they got along, how attractive the girl was or how much he liked her, she was out of the running.
Katya had been administered the Kiss Test two weeks ago and failed.
“Doesn’t sound like a dumb game to me,” Adair said, snatching the fan back from Katya, who was now sulking beside her roommate, who would no doubt soothe her later with Häagen-Dazs and Kahlua. “He just needs to give that Kiss Test to the right person.” He puckered his lips and made kissy noises. “He’s doling out those tests to the wrong people. No offense, honey.”
Katya glared at him and went back to pouting.
“Don’t even think about it,” I told Adair. “Stick to your own team.”
“Speaking of.” Adair’s entire demeanor suddenly changed. He tucked the fan away in his back pocket and stood taller. His hands immediately went to his hair, quickly patting it into place. “Incoming.”
Katya and I followed his fluttery-eyed gaze to where the Wide-Strider moved along the sidewalk, making his way to cross the running path. This guy never failed to get a laugh out of Kat and me, but Adair was totally smitten. At probably six-foot-ten, the guy was nearly skeletal, and usually wore a tan polyester suit with a black silk shirt and tie. His pasty white head was shaved bald, he wore ultra-mod shades no matter what the weather and carried a big black leather purse. Okay, it was probably a soft-sided briefcase, but it sure as heck looked like a man bag to me. To Adair, it was a sign that they walked on the same side of the fence.
The funniest part about this guy, though, was the way he walked, like an exaggerated member of Hitler’s SS—long, straight-legged strides, like his knees didn’t bend or he thought it might take less time to traverse the park if he took larger steps, his body bobbing up and down with each slow-mo stride. He never failed to crack us up. Even today.
As soon as the Wide-Strider passed us, Katya stopped running and mimicked his bobbing saunter.
“You stop that right now!” Adair scolded. “He may be our new roommate some day, if I can figure out how to meet him. I’ll run my own Kiss Test, and that Mr. Studly will be mine.”
Katya met my gaze behind Adair’s back and we both cracked up. Mr. Studly?
“He’d better not move in with us,” Katya said, when we finally stopped snickering and returned to running. “I don’t think I could ever look that guy in the face without laughing.”
“Humph,” Adair snorted.
“Well, back to a subject that makes some sense,” Katya began with a smirk. “Aren’t you going to tell Chris about being laid off, Margo?”
“Not yet. I’ll tell him Friday night over drinks.” We parted waters to pass a couple of dawdling walkers and met up again on the other side. “I’m not telling Kevin yet either.”
“You’re not?”
“No.” I’m not sure when I’d decided that, but the minute it was out of my mouth, I knew it was the right decision. “He’ll just try to micromanage my job search, which I don’t need.”
“How are you going to keep it from him?” Adair asked, apparently not angry at us any more for making fun of his dream man. “Won’t he notice when you don’t get out of bed and go to work every morning?”
“I have one more week left. By then I’ll have a job.” Hopefully. “Even a one-week reprieve from telling him is better than nothing.”
“What if he calls work and someone blows it?”
“He never calls work. He calls my cell.”
“What if he hears that the station’s been sold?”
“If he asks me point-blank if I lost my job, I’ll tell him. We have an honest relationship.”
“Dishonesty by omission is still dishonesty,” Adair said, with a slightly haughty look.
I returned it with a look of my own. “Oh, you mean like how you’ve omitted telling your parents you’re gay?”
He pinched his lips together and faced forward again. “That’s different.”
“Why? You don’t tell them because you don’t want them to try to run your life, right?” A raucous cheer went up from a group of Frisbee throwers playing in a grassy field, drawing our attention momentarily, just to make sure none of those deadly disks came in our direction. Katya still sported a scar on her forehead from a wayward Frisbee thrown while we were running last summer. “Same reason I’m not telling Kevin just yet. I wouldn’t be able to make a move without him analyzing it and trying to correct any tactical errors I might be making. I’m perfectly capable of gettin
g a job without his strategic help. I’ll add my Best Country DJ award to my résumé and have a job before my first unemployment check kicks in.”
All of a sudden I ground to a halt. My heart raced, and it wasn’t from the exercise.
I’d just thought of something.
Shit.
Adair looked back at me. “What’s wrong?”
I sped up to catch them again, my mind now racing nearly as fast as my heart. “I just realized something.”
“What?”
“Today’s Country Magazine is giving me this award. I have to go for an interview next month.”
“So? Isn’t that a good thing?”
“It is if I have a job. How am I going to explain to Today’s Country that I got fired the day after I won the award?”
“But you didn’t get fired!” Kat protested again.
“Do you think that matters? One of the qualifications for winning is that the jock has kept their job for three years. By the time of that interview, I won’t have a job. And even if I do get another job by then, it won’t be the same. Not the same station or the same listeners.”
The light dawned in Katya’s eyes, and for a brief moment she looked like she might cry for me. But she bucked up and braved on, obviously determined not to let me wallow in despair. “You’ll think of something, Margo. You always do. You’re not beaten until you say you’re beaten. And I would totally say you aren’t beaten.”
I wasn’t terribly reassured however. I’d been voted Best Country DJ by my listeners. Listeners who would no longer have me to listen to in another week. Suddenly, it all seemed even more bleak.
I, Margo June Gentry, Margo in the Morning, voted Best Country DJ by Today’s Country Magazine was soon to be unemployed. I didn’t even know how to wrap my mind around that.
Suddenly, my “perfect” little life didn’t seem so perfect any more.
Maybe my “lucky” Elvis bobblehead was defective.
***
After our run, I spent a few hours wandering around, mindless of my sweaty state. I left a message on Kevin’s voice mail to say I’d be late and not to wait dinner for me. I needed some time to myself, to remind myself that losing a job wasn’t the end of the world. Even when it was a job I loved and had worked really hard at for years. People lost jobs every day—and got new ones. I would just get a new one. No matter how few the opportunities seemed.
Nope, no more of that thinking, I told myself. It got me nowhere except depressed.
Pulling out my rhinestone-studded Elvis keychain, I unlocked our apartment door. Kevin had Kenny G on the stereo, but it seemed louder than usual. I pulled the door shut behind me and turned to find our apartment full of people. Suit and tie-wearing people. At least in the case of the men. The women had omitted the ties in favor of cleavage.
“Margo!” Kevin waved from across the room and made his way over to me. Still dressed for work, his Brooks Brothers suit sported nary a wrinkle. He had on a designer tie which, frankly, to me, looked like any other tie. I grew painfully aware I was wearing a pair of running shorts and a cut-off Hound Dog T-shirt, worn to softness and washed nearly threadbare, over a sports bra, and Reeboks.
Underdressed was an understatement.
I dumped the day pack carrying my work clothes on the floor in front of the hall closet and moved into the apartment.
“Surprise!” Kevin said when he reached my side. He kissed me quickly on the cheek, with a barely concealed flinch at what I’m sure was my vaguely ripe smell. “We decided to throw you a party to celebrate your little award.”
“Really?” I asked, trying to work up some enthusiasm. It had been nice, after all, for Kevin to think of me. I could ignore the “little award” comment.
I looked around the room, taking stock of our guests. Surprisingly, I didn’t recognize all the faces, or even most of them. One of them was Kramer Neuhalfen, or Newfoundland, or something like that. He was Kevin’s boss and greatly resembled a cousin of the Saint Bernard, heavy-jowled and saggy-skinned. Kevin’s secretary, Sally Stick-Up-The-Ass, was also here, champagne glass in hand, skirt hem crotch-high. She once informed me it was really sad I was forced to work with the less fortunate. When I asked what she meant, she pointed out it was quite obvious that only people of lesser intelligence, like the Beverly Hillbillies, listened to country music. She even offered to help me find a job at a classical station, if I thought it wouldn’t be too much of a reach for me.
Gee, that reminded me I no longer even worked for an “underprivileged” country radio station. I needed to find a job quickly so Sally didn’t offer to help me with the search. Yet another reason not to tell Kevin about my unemployed state.
I recognized a few other people from Kevin’s office. Most of whom I’d never been introduced to, but had passed in the hallway the few times I deigned to grace Neuhalfen and McMillan Accounting with my presence.
Odd thing was, no one in the room was a friend of mine. They were Kevin’s crowd.
“Did you invite Chris?” I asked, snagging a glass of champagne and taking a gulp. “Any of the gang coming?”
“Oh, no,” Kevin said, completely matter-of-factly. “I figured you see them all the time. You rarely get to socialize with these friends.”
Maybe because they weren’t my friends?
“Say,” Kevin said, slipping the champagne glass from my hand, “why don’t you go shower and change into something nicer before you join us? That way we’ll all be more comfortable.”
Kevin doesn’t rank very high in the tact department. But, I was a mess and I knew it, so I didn’t bother to call him on it. Besides, I’ve been known to voice my opinion a bit loudly at times, so I couldn’t really fault him for that.
“See you all in a bit.” I finger-waved at the room of virtual strangers and joined Elvis in the shower. One “Jailhouse Rock” and a side of “King Creole” later, I smelled better and actually felt better, too. However, I had no desire to join a room full of Kevin’s friends who couldn’t care less about my award. I’d rather curl up in bed with a good book—Elvis: The Fat Years, An Unauthorized Biography was waiting for me—and a cold beer, or maybe enjoy a rousing round of chase-Kevin-through-the-sheets to get my mind off my job.
Still, I did care about Kevin and the fact that he’d even thought about throwing a party for me. For that alone I’d buck up, smile and accept any bones thrown my way. I didn’t expect any, but I could enjoy the expensive champagne and the hors d’oeuvres Kevin undoubtedly had catered and delivered. That made the prospect of the rest of the evening much better. More food I didn’t have to cook. I’d just console myself with the fact that tomorrow night was Friday—my night with my friends. No suits allowed.
Dressed in a more acceptable pair of black slacks and a shimmery tank top, with my still-damp hair pulled back in a ponytail, I stepped barefoot into my bedroom.
“Elvis is dead, you know.”
I whirled to find Kevin’s boss standing before my Paint by Number Elvis portrait, the gift from my brother when I was eleven that instigated my whole Elvis infatuation. It was rather disconcerting to have Kramer’s large presence so close to my bed.
“Really?” I asked. I would have really played it up if one of my friends made a stupid comment like that, but I didn’t want to embarrass Kevin. So, I didn’t pretend to faint dead away with the horror of discovering my idol wasn’t really hidden away on the second floor of Graceland, wheelchair-bound in his old, deteriorated age, but alive nonetheless.
“Of course, he is,” Kramer continued, tugging at his collar to settle it between two thick folds of skin that made up Chin One and Chin Two. “They examined the body.”
“Actually, that’s a huge relief,” I said, planting a hand on his meaty back, directing him out of my bedroom where his presence was giving me the creeps. “Because my collection wouldn’t be worth nearly as much if Elvis was still alive.”
His brow wrinkled in thought as we left the room. “So it’s an investment, is it? A
ll this Elvis stuff?” He waved a heavy paw at the wall in our hallway, on which hung a framed, signed copy of the musical score from Blue Hawaii; a collage of seven original 1956 Elvis bubble-gum cards; a glass-front case containing a tube of Hound Dog Orange non-smear lipstick; a pen Elvis used to sign autographs at Graceland; and assorted photos, buttons, etc., that I’d collected over the years.
“Sure, it’s an investment,” I said, steering Kramer back out to the more public areas of our apartment. Only he would have the balls to walk, uninvited, into someone’s bedroom. Thank God I’d dressed before leaving the bathroom.
“Still damn weird if you ask me,” he said.
Good thing I hadn’t asked him.
We entered the living room again, and Kevin looked over at us in surprise and headed our way. From his concerned look, I got the impression he was worried I’d say something to his boss that I shouldn’t. I gratefully released Kramer’s arm, just as Kevin took mine, excused us and moved me into the kitchen.
“What were you doing with him?” he snapped.
“He was in our bedroom. While I was showering,” I hissed, pulling away from him and pouring myself a glass of water from the pitcher in the fridge. “Creep.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it. Probably just curious.”
I lowered the glass. “Do you go into people’s bedrooms without their permission? Out of curiosity?”
“Well, no, but…”
There wasn’t any way he could defend his boss. He’d been rude, and Kevin knew it. So, he tried diversionary tactics, slipping his arms around my waist and pulling me close.
“Forget about Kramer. Come out and enjoy the party, okay?”
I sighed and pasted on a smile. I should tell him the truth. “Kevin, by the way, I lost my job today.” But, I couldn’t do it. I really didn’t want him taking over my job search. I also didn’t want to disappoint him in front of his friends.
And I didn’t want his friends to think I was a loser.
I know, that’s crap. I shouldn’t care what they thought about me. And really, I didn’t. I cared what they thought about Kevin. I faced the fact a long time ago that Kevin can be rather shallow. Appearances mean a lot to him. The appearance of having a girlfriend who was now technically, if not yet effectively, unemployed wasn’t very flattering. Kevin had gone through a lot—okay, a little bit—of trouble to throw this party for me, and though he hadn’t invited any of my friends, he had invited his friends, which told me, in Kevin’s strange and sort of superficial way, he wanted me to be presentable to his friends and co-workers. I had to take him as he was.
The Kiss Test Page 3