Good Vibrations

by Elizabeth Parrish

  “I was thinking that February 21st would work for me,” I replied, sullenly.

  That would give me almost a month to create and circulate my resume. A month should be plenty of time to find the job of my dreams, right? After all, who doesn’t want to hire an English major with office administrative experience?

  Now all I had to do was figure out what I was actually interested in doing for the rest of my life. Given how well things had been going so far, how hard could that be?

  “Alright then, perhaps you could prepare a short letter to that effect and drop it off with me at your convenience so that I have it for my records. I’ll let you announce your decision to the rest of the staff if you prefer. Also, I do still have your bonus cheque for last year. Hopefully it adequately reflects your contribution to the office for that period,” Maggie noted self-righteously as she brusquely handed me an envelope.

  I certainly was hoping so as well, particularly in light of the recent dramatic downturn in my short term financial outlook. However, the miniscule amounts I had received in previous years left me with serious doubts.

  Knowing that I would probably be stuck using her as a reference, I did my best to keep any bitterness out of my voice as I replied, “Yes, I think my previous bonuses have always accurately reflected how my contribution to the office has been valued.”

  With that, I picked myself up and hustled out of the office as quickly as I could before I completely lost my composure. The moment I was free of Maggie’s little house of horrors, I tore open the envelope and I quickly figured out why Veronica had looked so stunned as she had walked back to her desk.

  For once, Maggie had loosened her vice like grip on her purse strings.

  I had tears in my eyes as I headed off down the hall to tell Veronica the news of my imminent departure, but the ability to loosen VISA’s vise-like grip on my bank account certainly helped to soften the blow.

  How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself – Anais Nin

  28. I texted Jonathan shortly after departing from Maggie’s office, hoping that he might be available to console me over drinks later that night. Part of me was hoping that he might be able to lend a hand with another issue I had been having lately as Thumper had been getting a workout as of late and I was craving the feel of a real man.

  Unfortunately, I was doomed to be disappointed on every level as Jonathan replied back that he was working on a deal which could go late into the night, but that he would call me as soon as he could.

  So, instead of talking out my problems with Jonathan, I instead found myself seated at the counter of Elyse’s bar where I managed to keep up a very animated, yet strangely one-sided, conversation with my wine glass.

  Apparently listening to my tale of woe was thirsty work as my audience developed the unfortunate habit of running dry on several occasions during the course of my rambling monologue.

  During an interlude in my one woman show, Elyse popped over and, having noticed the perpetually parched state of my drinking companion throughout the course of the night, shot me a concerned glance before whispering confidentially to me, “So, I was just chatting with Terry, and he mentioned that he could find room in the schedule for you to serve here if you’re interested. You’ll just give him a couple of weeks’ notice so that he can work you into the schedule.”

  Terry was Elyse’s manager and I had probably met him on more than a dozen occasions since Elyse had starting working at the bar.

  Every time we had chatted in the past, he had eyed me up and down like he was sizing up a cut of choice steak. Then again, as a bar manager, his discerning eye probably helped to keep the tips rolling in and I wasn’t in a position to be picky about my employment opportunities.

  “That’s so fantastic! Thanks Elyse, I owe you babe,” I said, reaching over to give her a hug across the bar.

  Elyse continued on, saying, “No worries, it’s the least I could do for you considering how many times you’ve helped me out. But that’s not even the best news I have for you. Do you see the blond guy with the pink socks sitting directly behind you?”

  The, now wobbling, room made turning around casually to take a look more of a challenge than I had expected, but I eventually managed to follow her gaze to a slim, metro looking guy that clearly knew how to dress.

  “I know I mentioned that Thumper needs new batteries, but I’m really not in the market right now. Besides, he’s a bit petit for my tastes. I might break him,” I giggled to Elyse.

  “No silly girl, I’m not even sure which way he goes to be honest, but that’s not the point. He’s friends with one of my ex’s and I know that he’s in publishing. I told him about you and I mentioned that you were an English major and that you might be looking for a career change. What do you think?”

  I think that attempting to chat with a potential employer after the day I’ve had, and with this amount of liquor in me, was a recipe for disaster!

  “I think that’s really sweet of you to look out for me, but I look like a wreck and I’ve been downing pinot like my plane’s going down. I feel like a publisher might look down on me if I’m slurring whatever inappropriate words come shooting out of my mouth,” I replied, vaguely foreseeing a potential tragedy in the making.

  “Don’t worry about it. You look great and the liquor will keep you from getting nervous. Come on, I’ll take his drink over and introduce you,” she retorted, grabbing me under the arm and towing me behind her.

  “Nigel,” Elyse said, touching his shoulder lightly as we arrived at his table. “This is Anna, my eloquent, hard working, and eager to learn room-mate.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I said, missing his hand entirely on my first attempt before firmly clasping his hand in mine on my second attempt.

  “The pleasure’s all mine. I’ll have to chastise Elyse when she comes back for neglecting to mention that you’re also quite stunning. Would you like to join me for a drink?” he asked, as he politely pulled out a chair for me.

  “Okay, maybe just for one drink,” I replied, as I attempted to sit down whilst feverishly wishing that the chair would stop swaying quite so much.

  I was silently praying that Nigel was just being a gentleman as he slid my chair in for me, catching me gracefully and just in the nick of time.

  “So Elyse tells me that you’re pondering a career change?” Nigel casually inquired as he signalled his waitress for another glass of wine.

  For a little guy, he was pretty cute. Well defined jaw line with a little bit of well manicured scruff on his chin. I couldn’t help thinking that he had grown it either to make himself look like less of a baby face or to prove that he could, but either way, it worked pretty well for him.

  He also had a set of vivid, piercing blue eyes that appeared to be quite attentive to every curve that I had showing. However, his beautifully cut charcoal suit, the handkerchief in his pocket in the perfect complimentary shade of pink, and the slight lisp in his voice, all left me with the same sense of curiosity that Elyse had alluded to earlier.

  “Yes, I think I’ve gone as far as I can in my current role and I’m definitely open to trying new positions, err, a new position,” I stammered, blushing badly enough that I probably matched the color of my pinot noir.

  I don’t know how I let Elyse convince me that this was a good idea.

  “So, what sort of position are you looking to get yourself into?” Nigel inquired, unable to completely contain a grin that had stretched across his face after my verbal faux pas.

  Interesting question and if Jonathan doesn’t put out soon, or if I have any more of that wine, I’m going to be pretty open to suggestions.

  “Well, I have my B.A. and I majored in English, so I would love to find a role where I can put my degree to use. I’ve really been feeling like I’m lacking stimulation lately,” I responded, doing my best not to slur my words (which was rather difficult as my tongue felt like it had recently u
ndergone a growth spurt).

  Actually I’m pretty open to any sort of stimulation that doesn’t require batteries since, given the recent revisions to my budget, even those might soon be beyond my reach.

  “So, you’re looking to find something that can inject a sense of fulfillment into your life?” he asked, gazing at me with an amused expression which may or may not have also contained a hint of interest that went beyond the purely professional.

  I’m reasonably sure that anything that gets inserted in the near future is going feel awfully fulfilling.

  “I guess I’m hoping to find a career that I can really immerse myself in and a role that allows me to grow as a person. I want to feel like I’m making a meaningful contribution. I don’t want to feel like I can just be tossed aside,” I replied, flailing an arm to the side for emphasis.

  “I can certainly relate to that,” Nigel sympathized as he discretely pushed the wine glasses out of my arm’s swing path.

  “I started off in the mail room of a major publishing house in New York and I worked my way up doing any job that I could get my hands on before I came out here and started my own company,” he continued.

  A hint of a lisp had crept up again during his story, causing a unfortunate image to pop into my head as I pondered just what kind of jobs he might have got his hands on in order to get ahead.

  I still hadn’t quite figured out if his attentiveness towards me was platonic or perhaps something more but both my curiosity, and my confusion, were growing.

  “That’s fantastic! It must be so nice not having to answer to anyone else. I would love to have the opportunity to learn from someone like you. Do you know if you have any openings I might be appropriate for?” I inquired as I glanced at him, jutting my chest out ever so slightly, just in case…

  “I do appreciate your enthusiasm and I always enjoy having someone under me that’s open to learning new things,” he responded with a twinkle in his eye.

  After mulling over my inquiry for a moment, he continued, “I’ll have to check with our human resources manager but I think we still have an opening in our publicity department for a junior publicity specialist. Why don’t you send me a copy of your resume tomorrow and I’ll give some thought as to whether your skills match with what I’m looking for,” he concluded with a trace of a grin.

  I really needed to have to chat with Elyse after this and get some more dirt on this guy, because I could not for the life of me figure out where his interest in my lay.

  That being said, a job in a publicity department sounded amazing regardless of whether he was interested in my abilities or my assets.

  I just hoped that I wasn’t going to regret my performance tonight when I sobered up tomorrow morning...

  The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true – James Cabell

  29. The next morning, I awoke to find my eyes plastered shut from dehydration and my arms unable or unwilling to either turn off the alarm, or to at least hurl it far enough from me that I could go back to sleep.

  As I lay there motionless with my head throbbing violently, I tried to recall minor details from the day before such as whether I had quit or been fired from my job, whether I was once again employed as a waitress, and exactly how badly I had embarrassed myself with the cute little publisher that was likely my only hopef for a real career, I wondered to myself; does life get any better than this?

  Twenty minutes later, as I gently swayed to and fro in front of my bathroom mirror, my eyes barely opened wide enough to allow me to gaze in horror at the tangles of hair shooting in every direction, it slowly dawned on me that things could indeed be worse as some of the details from the previous night began flooding back to me including my unsuccessful attempts at shaking Nigel’s hand and some of my stellar verbal miscues.

  I may have blacked out briefly whilst in the midst of my preparations, but ever the glutton for punishment, at some indeterminate point later in the day; I arrived back at my desk.

  Let’s face it, checking a clock at that point was not going to improve my mood and I was pretty sure that Maggie wasn’t going to help me out and fire someone who had been dumb enough to resign when a severance package had likely only been seconds away.

  Veronica looked up at me with a startled expression on her face as I sat down with a thud, “Wow, what happened to you last night? You look like you didn’t sleep a wink. Were you up worrying about finding a new job?”

  My hair was still sopping wet and my makeup was nowhere in sight so Veronica’s concern at my appearance may have been understandable.

  I had told her about what had transpired in my review with Maggie before I had left yesterday and we had both been pretty crushed about my impending departure.

  This job may not have been too exciting but how many people get to work next to one of their best friends every day?

  “I’m not sure if sleep is the right verb, but I’m pretty sure that I passed out at some point,” I murmured softly, as I reached for a bottle of extra strength Tylenol.

  “Elyse invited me out to her bar last night to cheer me up but she didn’t tell me that she had arranged for a friend of hers who’s in publishing to come out and meet me. Anyway, we chatted about what he does and what sort of job I’m looking for and he mentioned that he might have a role in his publicity department. The job sounds perfect, but I did have some issues with minor little things like shaking his hand, sitting down and talking, so it’s possible that I might not have made the best first impression on him,” I morosely concluded as I said a short prayer that both my memories of last night, and the pounding in my head, might soon fade into oblivion; where they would undoubtedly be greeted by my current employment prospects.

  “You’re looking at this all wrong,” Veronica replied, giving my shoulder a squeeze.

  “Without even sending out a resume, you already managed to get a face to face interview for a job you actually want! Besides, if Elyse had told him about your situation and that you had just quit earlier that day, I’m sure that he must have understood why you might not have been at your best,” she added, doing her best to perk me up.

  “You were out drinking last night? Where was my invite?” Paul inquired innocently as he strolled over to our desks.

  “It must have gotten left on the copy room floor,” I retorted, acerbically.

  While I was well aware of my own culpability in the copy room transgression, the reality of having to go back to bartending until I found a real job was hitting home hard today.

  I was also more than a bit peeved that Paul had been the one to actually make the copy, and yet he apparently had made it through the incident relatively unscathed.

  Paul looked down sheepishly as he replied, “Yeah, I heard about that incident in my review too. Honestly, I tried to fall on my sword and own up to it, but I guess it didn’t do too much good. I honestly feel awful about the whole situation. I’m really going to miss having you around. I did get you a little something by way of an apology though,” he concluded as he produced a large, beautifully wrapped package.

  My anger briefly subsided at the sight of the parcel. Unemployed or not, what girl doesn’t like presents?

  I struggled with the wrapping paper for a moment; my curiosity piqued. As I began to tear the paper away in a slightly undignified display, I was soon able to see what lay inside. Looking up, I couldn’t help cracking a bit of a smile as I said, “Wow Paul, I can honestly say that you really shouldn’t have,” as I held up a framed copy of what appeared to be a very hairy man’s buttocks with the caption ‘Every life has its hairy moments. Just be glad that yours are only temporary.’

  “In case you’re thinking it’s not always the thought that counts, I also got you a gift card for Pacific Centre. I thought about giving you a coupon valid for a massage from me, but I figured maybe some other time?” he replied, looking at me optimistically, kind of like a puppy that’s made a mess of your nicest r
ug but then desperately wants to lick your face and get back in your good backs afterwards.