The American and The Brit: Unsolicited Advice

by K A Young

  “Right you are! Now read me a couple more then we’ll get to answering these. But first let’s check out the website.”

  “Good idea.” As the page loaded my eyes went wide with amazement. We had our own dedicated blog. The cartoon characters they’d used for us were a dead ringer for Phoebe and me. I was becoming completely inspired now. “Look at that,” Phoebe remarked in awe. “It’s amazing. We are The American and The Brit.”

  ~ ~ ~

  The morning flew by and before we knew it Chrissi popped her head in to let us know lunch time was upon us. “Lizbeth, Phoebe, if y’all don’t need anything I’ll take my lunch now.”

  Phoebe shrugged so I smiled back at Chrissi. “No, we’re good for now. You go ahead and take your lunch but before you go could you tell me when they expect the first issue to go out?”

  “I beg your pardon? Issue?” Chrissi appeared puzzled and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why.

  Phoebe spoke up “She means when are we expected to have responses to these questions?”

  "Oh, not until next Monday. John thought y’all would need some time to go through the emails and decide which you’d use.” She glanced at her watch. “I should be back in an hour.” And she was gone.

  “Aren’t they going to print the issues like in the newspapers at home?” Lizbeth looked over at me.

  “I told you, everything is going green. Hardly anyone gets the paper anymore. You can read it online. We are publishing virtually, not in ink.” Phoebe had mentioned something about this going green business over the weekend but for some reason I just assumed our articles would go to print. The disappointment on my face must have been obvious. “I’m sorry, Liz. That’s just the way it is here in the US. There are only a couple of major papers nationwide and even they offer their issues for online subscriptions.”

  “I just had my hopes up for us to be Agony Aunts printed in the paper like I read back home.” I felt ridiculous feeling sad about it.

  “No one would buy the paper, so you see this is better. We have more chance of people reading us online than we ever would in an old paper anyway. We need to attract more readers to keep this job, right?” I nodded and Phoebe smiled and tried to help me understand. I guess she was right; if we were going to make it here in the US we had to go about it the way it works here. Phoebe was up and over at my desk now. “Let’s go to lunch too.”

  I tried to smile, not feeling a bit better. For the first time since arriving here in the US I was beginning to feel out of my element. I’d been the picture of calm up to this moment, well, mostly anyway, and now my heart pounded out of my chest as I thought about the day’s events. From Phoebe’s intestinal problems to now only having a week to actually figure out this insane job. It was all too much and I started to hyperventilate. "What is wrong with us? Why can't we do anything normal? Why does everything have to be this complicated?" I paced around the office while I asked rhetorical questions and threw my arms in the air. "You're right, Phoebs. We can't do this. Let's do a runner." I was all set to sprint through the offices and dive headfirst into Wilf.

  "No!" was all Phoebe said and it sounded just like my mother. I came to an abrupt halt and stared at her. "No!" she said again, this time with more determination, then walked over and slapped me right across the face. "Lizbeth Bates, you settle your ass down, young lady. We will get through this.” I stood there gaping at her. “Now we are going out to get some lunch and I don’t want to hear another word of your whining!”

  "Me again." Chrissi was back in the doorway with an odd look on her face that told us she’d just witnessed our entire embarrassing ordeal.

  Thankfully I came to my senses. "Jeez, stop doing that or I'll have a heart attack before the day is out," I shrieked and clutched my chest while staring directly at her. My moods swung like a pendulum.

  “You guys are a riot,” Chrissi laughed. “I just wanted to mention that there will be a lunch meeting tomorrow so don’t schedule anything.” She waltzed out the door.

  “We can do this?” I asked Phoebe.

  “Sure we can. We can do whatever we want—we’re The American and The Brit. With a few ciders in us I’m sure we’ll come up with brilliant stuff to write.”

  I nodded in agreement and was thankful we’d been provided with laptops instead of desktops. She and I walked out of the office and as we started to load into Wilf I shouted, “You hit me!”

  She started laughing. “I know. I always wanted to try that. It was just like in the movies.”

  “Sleep with one eye open, Phoebs. Payback’s a bitch!” Her cackles died in her throat as I crawled through to the passenger’s side, feeling smug that I’d shut her up.

  Phoebe

  Don’t Mess With the Girls

  Liz and I sat in the back of a Taco Bell parking lot eating our bean burrito value meals. “Pass me some more hot sauce, Liz.” She dug into the bag and handed me a packet. “Tell me again why you wanted to eat in the car instead of going inside.”

  “Because,” Liz began and took a sip of her Dr. Pepper. “We are two professional women—”

  “Well, we play them on T.V.,” I interjected, snickering to myself as I squirted the remainder of the hot sauce on what was left of my burrito.

  She rolled her eyes, not seeing the humor. “We are professional women who are dressed in our best clothes. We aren’t going to sit inside a greasy fast food joint.”

  “Oh no, Miss Posh—eating beside a smelly dumpster inside Wilf is much classier. It’s so hot in here my ass cheeks are sweating.” She’d had me pull around to the back of the building near the dumpster. Now I knew why.

  “Maybe you’ll lose a little mass back there,” she smirked.

  I started to snap back but decided that made a lot of sense, sweating off the pounds. “Maybe.”

  “Are you sure you should be eating beans?” Liz asked with a look of concern on her face.

  “I’m hungry, Liz!” I retorted in angst.

  “Fine. Be a fart arse. But how do you expect us to get any dates with you smelling like sewage?”

  That got my attention. “Fine. I’ll just eat the chips. You could have said something before I ordered.” My poor burrito was now crumbled in the paper in my hands. I chucked it into the bag.

  She chuckled, having a laugh at my expense then sighed, “We have to get a better car.” She took another bite of her burrito, and as she did beans squirted out the bottom of it, splattering onto her top. “Oh no!” she wailed. As we both stared in horror at the giant red sauce stain on her left breast she shouted, “Help me!”

  Immediately I rushed into action. I grabbed a stack of napkins and started blotting the stain on her boob, remembering that blotting was better than wiping. Just then a couple of guys in a pickup truck pulled into the spot next to us. This wasn’t working. “I have some hand sanitizer somewhere.” I dug deep into my purse. “Booyah!” I shouted and began squirting it onto the napkin and went to work removing the stain again.

  Liz was bawling openly now. “Can this day get any worse?” Then it did. The assholes in the truck next to us started shouting rude and obscene comments at us. “Let’s get out of here.”

  With the feeling of desperation I started Wilf, then attempted to put him in drive and get the hell out of there. Unfortunately the asshats thwarted my plan by getting out of the truck and planted themselves in front of us making faces that I expect were supposed to be sexual but were way off the mark, followed by smooching and sucking noises. The idiots kept egging each other on. “Come on out here baby and let a real man handle those puppies,” Asshat Number One cooed.

  “Back up, back up!” Liz demanded. I didn’t. Not because I didn’t want to. It was that we were backed up directly against a curb and without a substantial gain of speed Wilf would never clear it.

  “Yeah, there’s two of us and two of you. That’s an even number,” Genius Asshat Number Two spat. Then they started with hip thrusts and it was just too much. You know how you hear of
women having a moment in time where the sensible part inside their brains just shuts off? Until this moment I’d never understood it. My hand rested on the key for a moment before I turned off Wilf and removed the keys from the ignition.

  “I have a better idea on how to deal with these asinine bastards,” I gritted out.

  “Phoebe, what are you doing now?” Liz blubbered, extremely alarmed.

  Without another word I got out of Wilf with a callous smile on my face that I hoped they perceived as sex appeal. Asshat Number Two, dressed in ratty jeans and a backward trucker hat started laughing. Asshat Number One just looked shocked that I was walking toward them. They must never receive any response to their horrendous display of lewdness. As I walked right up to Asshat Number Two I clenched my hand into a tight fist, making sure my key was positioned correctly between my fingers, the way I saw the chick on Snapped do before I hauled off and punched him right in the face. I caught him right below the left eye with my key. Pain radiated in my hand and down my arm and I let out a screech from hell.

  “What the fuck?” the other guy in the painter’s coveralls shouted. He placed a dirty painters rag against his buddy’s injured cheek that was now bleeding profusely.

  “She stabbed me, man! The bitch stabbed me!” Served him right. If I hadn’t been in so much pain I would have enjoyed this moment immensely.

  The next thing I knew Liz, armed with an umbrella, was in my face shouting, “Did he hurt you?” Before I could answer she went all Kill Bill and started whaling on them with her umbrella while screaming like a banshee.

  “You both are batshit crazy!” They actually ran to their truck and hauled ass out of there, leaving Liz and me standing in the middle of the Taco Bell parking lot looking like asylum escapees.

  We stood there chests heaving, me with my hand clutched to my chest and Liz still holding onto the now broken umbrella. “How’s your hand?” Liz asked with a slight whimper.

  I examined my injured appendage that was already beginning to turn an odd shade of pink I replied, “It’s fine—bruised a bit though. You’d never know a human face could be so hard. I always imagined that if I punched someone’s face it would give. So not the case in my experience.” She snickered as I commented, “You really did a number on those two. I’m impressed.”

  “Yeah, I think I shit myself a little,” she announced tentatively.

  That’s when we lost it. Again. We were laughing so hard we had to hobble inside the Taco Bell for fear of wetting ourselves. “You don’t think they’ll call the police, do you?” Liz asked as we washed our hands in the ladies’ room.

  “Oh hell no. Two backwoods bubbas like that are too proud to do anything like contacting the police. They’re more worried about losing their man card—and believe me, they would. They’d get harassed beyond embarrassment by their buddies for getting their asses handed to them by two chicks.” I laughed.

  “Really?” She looked surprised.

  “Yep, gotta love the South!” I beamed at her.

  “Oh, I do!” She beamed right back.

  Lizbeth

  Act Your Age Liz, Not Your Shoe Size

  We sat in the boardroom with eleven other people waiting for John Thomas to join us. We had been introduced to them on the day we came in for our interview but I couldn't for the life of me remember any of their names. Phoebe was eating a pastry that she had swiped from the trolley this morning. I couldn't even look at them; my stomach was like a washing machine on full spin. I should have learned by now that consuming copious amounts of alcohol does not indeed drown your sorrows; it just buries them in a shallow grave with a few inches of soil that can easily be pushed through at any time. I could feel that soil tremble now and attempted to put this moment to memory. Everyone around the large oval table was in full blown conversation with each other, which was a huge relief as they weren't talking to us. Phoebe was in a world of her own enjoying the cinnamon pastry, crumbs down her jacket and not an inch of fear etched on her face. If she was faking it she had an excellent poker face that I envied. The bruise on her hand was starting to show, but we’d plastered it in make-up before we left home this morning. As I looked back around the table, trying my old people watching skills to lighten my mood, I got nothing. Absolutely nothing, I couldn't even find any of them amusing. The clock on the wall above the door seemed extra loud and the constant tick-tock, tick-tock had me distracted for all of one and a half minutes. I stared at my coffee and considered sliding slowly off my chair and hiding under the table until the meeting was over. They hadn't acknowledged us; they wouldn't miss us. A second later I’d scooted my chair back to take a look under the table contemplating if my plan was plausible, when the audible screech that emerged from the chair while doing so caused all eyes to land on me.

  Wide-eyed and mouth gaping, for some God awful reason I mentioned in an adenoidal tone, "Lovely weather today, isn't it?" Weather? My first words to the peers in a meeting were about the stupid weather? No one answered, they just carried on with their own conversations and I looked at Phoebe. She looked up at the ceiling and tried not to laugh. My eyes were drawn back to the clock and I counted the seconds down until John entered and the room fell silent.

  "Good afternoon, everyone, this won't take long. You all remember Phoebe and Lizbeth?" Eyes were back on us and I shot a look at Phoebe who was smiling like a Cheshire Cat with a huge flake of pastry plastered to her front tooth. I kicked her under the table and she yelped. "I received a call from Anderson last night..." My mouth went dry. "Our first installment of The American and The Brit goes out on Monday and we're all excited to read it." I managed a nod as Phoebe was rubbed her leg. The rest of the meeting was a blur and I was thankful we didn't have to speak, although my stomach had growled several times and gained the attention of the big burly man who was seated next to me.

  ~ ~ ~

  Back in our office I slumped in my chair. Phoebe had gone back to the pastry trolley to grab a few more. Then I thought of something that would cheer me up. It always did because deep down I was really a five-year-old child. I raced over to Phoebe's desk and crawled into the leg well, waiting for her return.

  "Liz, are you there?" I could see her legs but she couldn't see me. I started to snicker, knowing she hated to be scared. Then another pair of legs entered the room. Shit, John Thomas!

  "I was hoping to grab a meeting with you both before I head to my office," John announced.

  "Of course. I'm not sure where Lizbeth is though. Would you like to wait? I'm sure she won't be long. She can't have gone far. Please, take my seat." Nononono. My heart was in my mouth and I was praying he was too busy to wait. Then my stomach growled—no, roared! I closed my eyes and wished that the floor would open up and swallow me whole.

  "No, you sit down. I'll wait for a few minutes." There is a God. Sighing a silent sigh of relief I managed to relax a little. Scrunching myself into an even smaller ball I held my breath. I can do this for a few more minutes. What had I been thinking? I wasn’t a child any longer, why did I have to behave like one? I smacked my forehead, then instantly regretted it because it made a weird sound and it hurt like hell.

  Phoebe sat down and pulled her chair under way too fast and hard. I expelled the air I'd been holding after she kneed me in the face and she screamed. "Mother humper! What the fu..." I did not find this at all funny as I'd planned. I was mortified. Phoebe stared at me in disbelief and I buried my face in my hands, shaking my head.

  John Thomas came over to the desk and asked, “Is everything all right?” I cringed and waited for Phoebe to reply. Please God, don’t let her rat me out! This is something I may never recover from.

  Phoebe, being the true professional of getting out of ridiculous situations explained to my great relief, “It’s nothing, John. Clumsy me, I banged my knee on the desk.” She gave me a sharp kick to drive home the fact that I'm a raving lunatic. At this moment in time I completely agreed and wouldn't have batted an eyelid if the men in white coats marched in and
hauled me away.

  After a few minutes had passed with Phoebe participating in idle chit-chat, I started getting a cramp in my foot. "You've gotta be kidding me," I said under my breath. My toes were starting to splay out and my hand couldn't reach them. The pain brought tears to my eyes and I knew my mascara was a goner.

  Phoebe walked around to the other side of the desk, “John, Liz must have been held up. Her mom hasn’t been feeling well so she must be on a call with her. I can give you a ring when she returns if you’d like. We don’t want to take up too much of your time. I know what a busy man you are.” I could hear the smile on Phoebe’s lips as she spoke. She was working her charm on the boss.

  "Yes, that might be best.” I could hear him extricating himself from the chair and then rap his knuckles on the desk, evoking a jump from me in response. “No, you know what? I'll just pop back in later, Phoebe—I do have another meeting in five minutes." And then he left, closing the door behind him.

  "You prize moron!" Phoebe scolded as she came back around the desk and allowed me to fall out onto my back. Before I could say a word she continued, "We're onto a good thing here. I really believe we can do this." The tears flowed from embarrassment and cramp pain. "Oh God, did I hurt you?" I thought about that for a second, thinking if I told her she had she would forgive me and she would help fend off the loony bin men. But I couldn't do it. I was a prize moron with a degree in stupidity.

  "No, I've got a cramp," I said while pouting. She helped me up and sat me on her chair before grabbing a tissue and wiping my smeared mascara from my cheeks. "I'm sorry. I lost the plot for awhile, but I'm back now and I promise I won't have any more episodes."

  "That's a lie. The two of us have at least four episodes a day." She smiled and I knew I was forgiven. "Here." She handed me a pastry. "Eat before you collapse. We're writing our first batch of replies today. I'm excited." She genuinely looked thrilled and that stirred a little excitement in me too.