Pink Slip Party

by Cara Lockwood

  “And, three, Caroline and I are not back together.”

  Gap Customer Relations

  100 Gap Online Drive

  Grove City, Ohio 43123-8605

  Jane McGregor

  3335 Kenmore Ave.

  Chicago, IL 60657

  April 11, 2002

  Dear Ms. McGregor,

  While we are sorry that you have not been successful in your job application at our Gap stores, we can assure you that Gap does not discriminate against people who hold college degrees. Many of our employees have college degrees or are currently earning their college degrees, and we in no way discriminate against potential employees based on education level, race, age, religion, or creed.

  In regards to any other job application questions, I refer you to the individual store manager.

  Sincerely,

  Kelly Joy

  Gap Customer Service Representative

  P.S. I am afraid we do not offer special discounts to the unemployed.

  15

  What?” is all I can manage to say, because I think I have forgotten how to breathe. “What do you mean you and Caroline aren’t back together?”

  Kyle puts his hands on my arms and draws me closer to him.

  “She wanted to get back together,” Kyle says. “I didn’t.”

  “But she was draped all over you at the barbeque,” I say.

  “Well, that was before I told her we definitely weren’t getting back together,” he explains.

  “But why?” I can’t imagine Kyle not wanting to get back together with Caroline. She has a perfect body — everything about her, except her personality, is perfect.

  “Because she is self-absorbed and because she does take advantage of me, and because she only came back to me because she’s broke,” Kyle says. “I didn’t even know she was coming home. She called me from the airport because she didn’t have enough money for a cab and her parents weren’t home.”

  “But, I thought…”

  “And, most importantly, I didn’t get back together with her, because I’m crazy about you.” He pauses. “In fact, I think I’m in love with you.”

  My ears start ringing.

  “Love me?” I echo. “Love me as in love-me-like-a-sister love me, or love me as in I-want-to-see-you-naked love me?”

  “I definitely want to see you naked,” Kyle says.

  “So that speech I just gave…” I say.

  “Was totally pointless except that it told me you were crazy about me, too.”

  “Oh,” I say, feeling sheepish.

  “Jane, you’re the most dynamic and complicated and most contradictory woman I know,” he says. “And, if you weren’t so busy trying to build a wall around yourself so no one can hurt you, you’d realize I’ve had a crush on you for years.”

  I am stunned.

  “It’s your turn to say something,” Kyle says.

  “How about we stop talking?” I offer, pulling him closer for a kiss.

  About fifteen years of repressed attraction is unleashed in a wild, sweaty groping that amounts to us knocking down two pictures from his wall as we tumble into his bedroom.

  I pull away first. I am out of breath, my heart pounding wildly in my rib cage.

  “Are you sure you’re not just looking for an easy lay?” I joke.

  “You’re anything but easy,” he tells me.

  He presses me against the wall, kissing me as he undoes my shirt buttons, one by one. He runs his hands up my back, and down again, and I can think of nothing but what his hands feel like: strong, assured. I feel like eating him alive, and wonder why it is I’ve never been willing to admit how attractive he is, how perfect. He’s holding me now, holding me up, and I wrap my legs around his waist. We’re moving toward the bed as he whips away my shirt and tosses it on the ground behind us.

  It is much different than with Mike. Sex with Mike was awkward because I was always preoccupied with putting on a performance. It was what sex looks like under garish fluorescent lights. Sex with Kyle is shimmering and liquid, like the reflection of a swimming pool. I realize I’ve been afraid to go here because it means something different. It is not squalid sex with Ron. It is not scrapbook sex with Mike. It is something with higher stakes.

  I’m on my back and he’s kissing me, licking me, from my neck to my belly button, causing little shivers down my stomach. I have my hands on the zipper to his pants, and for a split second, I wonder what Todd is going to make of all this, and then I decide that I don’t care. All I care about is what’s going to happen next, because nothing in my mind is working except the most primal parts, and I don’t even have time to think about sucking in my stomach, or pushing out my chest, or worrying about my A cup demi-bra.

  Kyle reaches over to the nightstand for a condom, and I try not to think about all the other times he’s done that. I take it from his hand and put it on him myself with my mouth — a parlor trick I picked up in college. I only do this when I really want to impress somebody. It took months practicing on a zucchini to get it right.

  Kyle lets out a small laugh.

  “I can’t believe you just did that,” he says.

  “I bet you won’t believe a lot of things about me,” I say.

  “Tell me what you like,” he whispers in my ear, the first time a guy has been on the ball enough to actually ask.

  “Do you like this?” he asks, kissing me hard on the lips, flipping me over on my back. I murmur a yes.

  “And this?” Kyle’s fingers find me, and it seems like he’s got a few tricks of his own. He’s got me so worked up that I beg him not to stop, and he doesn’t, not until I’m so close I want to scream. That’s when he pushes inside, and it feels like it’s never felt. I can’t think of anything but how good it is. It’s the first time I don’t have to put on a show. Kyle is whispering in my ear about the things he wants to do to me. He only gets to the second before I’ve gone tumbling over the edge, a surprising rush so strong I can’t help but make noise. It’s the first time I’ve never had to fake it on the first go ’round.

  Afterward, Kyle cradles me in his arms, holds me close in a protective spoon and runs his hands over my body like he’s trying to store up information, his hands memorizing the curves.

  “I’ve had a crush on you since fifth grade.”

  “You did not,” I say.

  “I did. I thought you’d laugh at me if I told you.”

  “I would have,” I say.

  “I know,” he says. “I had to wait until your defenses were down. You are so rarely vulnerable.”

  “I had a crush on you when I was ten,” I admit.

  “You did?” Kyle sounds genuinely surprised.

  “And if you liked me for so long, why didn’t you say something?”

  “Well, you always had a boyfriend. I swear, you were always surrounded by boys.”

  “I hardly think so. You were the one who always had a girlfriend,” I say.

  “The point being, there was a serious lack of opportunity.”

  “So your plan of seduction was flaunting your old girlfriend and then almost getting me fired from my temp job?”

  “I wouldn’t call it a plan, exactly,” he tells me, kissing my nose.

  “You’re lucky I’m easily impressed,” I say.

  I fall asleep in Kyle’s giant king-size bed, and he cradles me and strokes my hair, and I feel funny and weird, and it’s been so long it takes me awhile to remember contentment.

  I come awake to the feeling of Kyle squeezing me close, and for the first time in months, I don’t seem to care about my joblessness. I don’t come awake seized with that familiar sense of doom. I feel, for once, optimistic. Maybe it’s the fact that Kyle’s kissing me, courageously unconcerned about morning breath. Or maybe it’s the fact that I’m kissing him back, and I know where this is headed, and it isn’t to awkward goodbyes and the avoidance of eye contact.

  Kyle sits up and stretches.

  “I’m going to make us coffee,” he
says. I watch him as he pulls up his boxers and pads softly to the front of his apartment. Yawning, I get up, taking most of the sheet with me.

  * * *

  Kyle insists on driving me to work, where I arrive wearing pretty much the same clothes (with a different shirt — one of Kyle’s) that I wore yesterday. And for once, I’m not worried that Kyle won’t call, or that someone at the office will talk about me.

  But the tranquil, lazy feeling of satisfaction doesn’t last.

  Waiting in my email inbox, like a land mine, is an email from Steph. Attached is an article from the Chicago Tribune.

  “Prank Gone Bad?” it reads. “Officials Investigating Break-In at Major Office Supplier.”

  I skim the article in a kind of panic.

  I see the words “vandalism,” “break-in,” and “police” and I nearly stop breathing. It says:

  Prank Gone Bad?

  Police believe two or more disgruntled employees of Maximum Office broke in, ransacked the employee files, and broke into the company’s email system.

  Several vice-presidents and other high-ranking managers of the company received email notices that claimed they had been fired. At least two weeks of high-ranking managerial pay, totaling somewhere in the neighborhood of $55,000, has been diverted from payroll and is currently missing.

  I can’t seem to breathe properly.

  Did Missy steal the payroll money?

  Of course she did.

  This whole prank was probably just an excuse for her to get into the system and then blame it on one of us.

  I keep reading.

  The break-in comes several months after a significant round of layoffs of nearly 1,000 employees, none of whom were in high-level managerial positions.

  Police say they have no suspects at this time, but are currently reviewing the roster of recently laid-off employees who may have had access to the company’s buildings.

  So far, officials say they don’t think the break-in will affect the planned merger with the number-two giant office supplier, Office Online, Inc.

  The police are probably at this moment figuring out that of all the disgruntled employees, I am the most disgruntled. I imagine they have already sent out a herd of black-suited federal agents, who at this very moment are probably interviewing Bob the Landlord, who will be telling them how he always suspected I was into something illegal, given my inability to pay the rent on time. I imagine Steph being interviewed, spewing expletives, and being carted off to jail in the backseat of an unmarked police car.

  I call Steph.

  “WHERE have you been?” she breathes at me.

  “Booking a one-way ticket to Mexico City,” I say.

  “Don’t even joke about that,” Steph says.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Just stick to the alibi Missy said to use.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You know, we were at home. We watched Office Space.”

  “I haven’t seen Office Space,” I say.

  “Who hasn’t seen Office Space?” she asks me.

  I ignore that. “Well, can you at least tell me what it’s about?”

  “Well, these guys get laid off and then they decide to steal from the company,” Steph says.

  I am silent for a beat or two. “You don’t see the irony there?”

  “What?” she asks.

  “Never mind,” I say. “What if that doesn’t work?”

  “I’d say we both need a good attorney, then,” she says.

  I call my own apartment, figuring that while Missy is probably still gone, I can at least tell Ron that there may be police coming to my apartment. That might entice him to leave and take his muses with him.

  Vishnu answers.

  “Is Ron there?” I ask her.

  There’s a clatter and the sound of grunting (she’s probably doing Downward Dog naked), and then Ron comes on the phone.

  “Yo,” he says.

  “Ron, it’s Jane. Listen to me very closely.”

  “Jane — DUDE, you won’t believe what’s happened.”

  “Are the police there?” I cry, panicking.

  “Police? No, no, no. Sink Gunk, DUDE. We’ve got our own single out. Like, we’re on the RADIO.”

  “Great, Ron. That’s just great. But I have something important to tell you.”

  “We’re going to be on the Crash and Burn soundtrack or something. It’s going to be wild.”

  “Ron. I have something important to tell you, OK? Let me talk for a second.”

  I finish explaining about the news article, and Ron doesn’t say anything for several long seconds. Then, he says, “Hey, on your way home can you pick up some nitrate-free lunch meat? We are like totally out of sandwich filler, dude.”

  “Ron. Did you hear a word I said?”

  “Ganesha wants turkey, but I’ll take ham or roast beef.”

  There’s no use trying to talk seriously to Ron about anything.

  When the police aren’t waiting for me when I get home, I manage to relax a little. Maybe they won’t find me. Maybe I’m so far down the list of the hundreds of disgruntled Maximum Office employees that they’ll give up interviewing people before they even reach me. Besides, Missy said it is a misdemeanor. I think about Mike’s file under my bed, but I still don’t know what I want to do with it, if anything.

  Because rationalization always has been one of my talents, I decide that maybe, for once, God will not punish me for wrong-doings.

  There’s a commotion on the stairwell, and I realize it’s Mrs. Slatter, because I can hear her lapdog yipping. I open up my door and peer down the stairwell in time to see Mrs. Slatter, wearing a nylon jogging suit made entirely of silver sequins.

  “How’d you do in Vegas?” I shout down at her. She looks up at me and squints through giant plastic sunglasses.

  She shrugs. “You win some, you lose some,” is all she says. I notice, however, that her dog is wearing a rhinestone collar, and mini star-shaped doggie sunglasses.

  Kyle calls around six, proving that he’s after more than a one-night stand.

  “I thought guys like you were supposed to wait three days before calling,” I say.

  “That’s far too predictable. I like to keep my women guessing.”

  “The sign of a true player,” I say.

  “Are you free tonight? Can I buy you dinner?”

  “Only if it’s incredibly expensive and you expect sex afterward.”

  “Naturally,” Kyle says, and I can tell he’s smiling.

  Citibank Financial Offices

  Customer Service

  Wilmington, Delaware 19801

  Jane McGregor

  3335 Kenmore Ave.

  Chicago, IL 60657

  May 6, 2002

  Dear Ms. McGregor,

  We are writing to inform you that you have exceeded your MasterCard credit limit by $338.09. Per the written agreement you signed with us, we will charge you $50 for exceeding your balance and another $50 in late fees.

  Please call our customer service line immediately to address your outstanding balance and late minimum payment. Failure to do so will require us to turn over your account to a collection agency.

  Sincerely,

  Jen Keith

  Citibank Customer Services Manager

  P.S. Per your inquiry, we are unable to accept the following in payment: human organs, sexual services, or indentured servitude.

  16

  What I feared would be a one-night stand with Kyle has turned into a month-long relationship. I have kept my temp job, miraculously, and a boyfriend for longer than four weeks. For the first time, I feel like my luck is changing. Either that, or I’m in the eye of the bad luck storm. It’s the latter, I discover, during a night when we’re eating pizza at Kyle’s and watching CNN, and a story about the Maximum Office break-in airs. Since when did misdemeanor trespassing merit national news coverage?

  “Oh yeah, I heard about that break-in,” Kyle says. “You kn
ow anything about that, Jane?”

  “Are you saying I did it? Because, I didn’t do it.”

  “I didn’t imply that you did.” Kyle looks at me strangely.

  “I mean, I wouldn’t do something like that,” I say.

  “What’s your problem?”

  “Nothing,” I say, too quickly.

  * * *

  “Calm down,” Steph commands after I call her the next morning. “First, nobody has even come looking for us, so I really doubt that they have any clue about who did this.”

  “We should all get our stories straight, just to be sure,” I say.

  The next afternoon, Ferguson, Steph, and I meet covertly away from any of our neighborhoods, in the Ennui coffee shop in Rogers Park. I take elaborate measures to make sure I’m not followed, including circling around the block twice because of a car parked out front that looks like a federal agent’s. I shouldn’t have bothered, because when I walk in, I see that Steph and Ferguson are sitting in a front-window seat.

  “Don’t you guys want to sit somewhere a little less obvious?” I ask.

  “Calm down,” Steph says. “Who’s going to see us?”