Confessions of a Call Center Gal: a novel

by Lisa Lim

  Despite our best efforts, Kars and I are hopeless at cleaning. Sporadically, we leave our crap lying all around the apartment, and things just end up staying wherever they land. Sometimes I tidy up and other times Kars will, and the only time our messy apartment becomes an issue is when we have guests over.

  Like today.

  Newspapers, books and bras are strewn everywhere. Yes—bras. Our living space is littered with bras. Demi cups, full coverage, wireless, T-shirt bras, strapless, convertibles, racer-backs, multi-ways, shelf bras, built in bras, peepholes, push-ups, front closures, water bras, sports bras (even though neither of us play any sports).

  But I can explain. When Karsynn watches TV, she insists on going bra-less. It’s her firm belief that the brassiere underwires restrict her blood circulation.

  Karsynn’s bijongas are rather small—34AA, or poached eggs as she calls them—and she is certain that if she goes braless, her Berthas will start sprouting again. And that’s not all. She claims that going braless lowers her breast cancer risk.

  When I scoffed at that idea, Kars whipped out some medical study and paraded it in my face in mock reproof. So now I am a born again braless believer, and will admit to going braless on occasion, usually in the privacy of my own apartment.

  Karsynn shimmies by and performs her magical bra maneuver trick. She reaches under the back of her shirt, unhooks her bra, wriggles down the straps, yanks it out of one sleeve and yells, “Presto!” all with one hand.

  After performing her Harry Houdini trick, she carefully sets her bra on the arm of the sofa, and that is where it shall stay for months on end, or until it’s laundry time.

  Hastily, I grab all her bras, including the black Wonder Bra she’d just plunked down and chuck everything into her bedroom.

  “Wonder Bra,” Karsynn frets, “I love it and I hate it. When I take it off, I wonder where my boobs went.”

  I bubble with laughter. “Let’s be thankful that men don’t wear Wonder Briefs.”

  In preparation for Mika’s arrival, I morph into the Tasmanian Devil and whirl around, full steam ahead, tearing through the living room, flinging books and several more bras into our bedrooms.

  Then I lug out my dependable Dyson and begin industriously vacuuming away. Wheezing, panting and slightly spinning, I’m still in my SpongeBob T-shirt and yoga pants when I hear a rap on the door. Meanwhile, Kars is sulking in front of the TV because I forced her to put on a bra. “If I get breast cancer, it’ll be all your fault,” she grumbles.

  Swinging open the door, I find Mika hovering in the hallway, his long and lean figure filling the space.

  “Come on in,” I say pleasantly.

  He steps in and promptly removes his shoes. He is fully aware of our house rule: shoes off as soon as you enter.

  “Yo, Mika!” Kars hollers from the sofa. “Thanks for the pesto pizza! Best pizza I’ve had in a long, long time.”

  “Anytime,” he says. “As long as Maddy keeps on tutoring me, I’ll buy you pizza.”

  Karsynn gives him two thumbs up and returns her gaze to the telly.

  Mika perches on the arm of the sofa. “What are you watching?”

  “The US Open,” mutters Kars. “Nadal versus Federer.”

  “You play tennis?” he asks, eyes on the tube.

  “No,” she grunts. “I just like watching Rafa’s solid butt fly across the court.”

  Mika bites back a smile. “Nadal looks unstoppable today.”

  Kars is in a deep trance. “Male tennis players should wear shorts that are the same length as female tennis players’…”

  “Okay. Let’s sit over here, Mika.” I steer him in the direction of the kitchen table.

  Mika sits precariously on a rickety fold-up chair, and I settle down on the wobbly chair across from him.

  I assume my favorite sitting position—Buddha-style.

  His gaze travels across the room. “Your place looks great. I haven’t seen it since I helped you girls move in.”

  “Well we’ve put up more stuff. Just some random things we picked up at IKEA…a bunch of Österbymo picture frames and colorful FÅBORG rugs to brighten up the place,” I flex my mindless knowledge of IKEA’s all-Swedish product names.

  His gaze rests on a picture of me and Kars, swimming in our oversized XXL, bright red Bucky Badger sweatshirts.

  “I didn’t know you and Kars went to the same U.”

  “Oh, me and Kars go way back.”

  Kars yells, “And the Badgers always beat the Gophers.”

  Mika shoots me a quizzical look.

  “Football. Wisconsin Badgers and the Minnesota Gophers,” I explain. “What’s your school’s mascot?”

  “Benny the Bengal, who just so happens to look like Tony the Tiger.” He retrieves a stack of papers from his backpack.

  I wait for him to slide it over, but he stalls.

  “I finished reading Pillars and I took the initiative to get another book,” he says, exceedingly pleased with himself.

  “Cool! What book?”

  He yanks it out of his bag and holds it up for my inspection.

  “Marley and Me,” I read the title out loud. “Marley and Me?” I repeat, this time gasping in surprise. “I thought you only liked reading books on war, history, and all that manly sorta stuff.”

  “Hey! Marley and Me is manly. Have you read it?”

  “No,” I admit. “But I’ve seen the movie and I was bawling—”

  “Wait! Don’t tell me! I haven’t seen the movie but the book is really good so far.” He winks. “Okay dawg?”

  Merrily, I burst into song, “Hot dog, hot dog, hot diggity dog.”

  He smiles and reminisces, “That dog in the book, Marley, he reminds me of my dog Lola. She was this lumbering oaf with two left feet, always slipping, sliding, falling on her face. And she had these dopey eyes that sucked you right in.”

  “Awww,” I gush, uncrossing my legs and crossing them back again. “Let me guess, was she a Lab?”

  “No, she was an Airedale Terrier, and she was the perfect guard dog,” he says with pride.

  “Huh…how?” My eyes pop open in surprise, half-wondering how Goofy made a great guard dog.

  “She foamed at the mouth so much that strangers mistook her for having rabies, and they were terrified of her.” He smiles with satisfaction. After a pause, his expression softens. “Lola was the best dog ever. No dog can ever replace her. Not even close.”

  “Mika, are you crying?” I ask in a teasing voice.

  He brandishes a tough exterior. “Only onions make me cry.” Then he turns the tables on me. “Did you have any pets?”

  “I wish...” I sigh out loud. “But I’m allergic to dogs, cats, any animal with fur, so I wasn’t allowed to have pets.” After a slight beat, I say with attempted bravado, “But it’s okay…my dad more than made up for it.”

  Mika’s face is alight with interest.

  Smiling briefly at the memory, I continue, “When my dad was still around, we went camping a lot in the summer time, and he caught me plenty of lizards.”

  “Pet lizards?” he exclaims with amusement.

  “Sagebrush lizards,” I say dreamily. “Somehow, some way, he’d always managed to scavenge up a sagebrush lizard for me. And when he’d drop that lizard into my arms, I’d hold it close to my heart and coddle it like it was my baby, like it was the most precious thing on earth.”

  “Your dad sounds like a cool guy.”

  “He was the best!”

  Mika stares at me for the longest time, and then he says with some hesitation, “You said your dad was the best. Is he not around anymore?”

  “No. He passed away a few years ago...”

  “I’m sorry…”

  I look him flush in the face briefly, and lower my gaze. “When my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer, he was a fighter. He never wanted anyone to feel sorry for him. No matter how sick the chemo made him, he soldiered on every day. But when his oncologist deemed his cancer terminal, h
e accepted it. You know, he was okay with it. Many people don’t know this, but lung cancer is one of the most fatal forms of cancer. It has a very poor prognosis and it is very hard to treat.” After a sharp intake of breath, I continue unsteadily, “He had stage three lung cancer and died within ten months of his diagnosis.”

  “It must have been hard for you,” says Mika gently.

  I twist my fingers together. “I was knocked down.”

  My dad was everything to me; he was the raw earth beneath my feet. He was my north, my south, my east and my west; and when he passed, I found myself lost. My beloved compass could guide me no more.

  The look Mika gives me is one of warmth and understanding, with no trace of pity whatsoever. Leveling my gaze with his, I smile at him with misty eyes. “When my dad found out that he only had months to live, he wanted us to have good, happy memories. With his insistence, we hopped into our RV and drove all across the country, to Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, Grand Canyon, the Arches in Moab, all the Utah national parks, the Redwood forest, Yosemite, Sequoia. We camped, we had fun, we ate at all the best restaurants, and he caught me plenty more lizards.”

  Mika’s eyes embrace mine with an unutterable tenderness.

  “Okay.” I clear my throat. “Let’s start this time, for real.”

  We go back to our normal routine. I edit. Mika reads. And in five minutes, I am done editing. This is getting to be pointless. Stealing a glance at Mika, I see that he’s totally engrossed in his book. Seeing no sense in ending our ‘tutoring’ session so soon, I reach for the Tribune and begin leafing through it.

  Mika’s gaze snaps up in surprise. “I don’t see much of that anymore—people reading the papers.”

  “What can I say? I’m an old fashioned sort of gal.”

  “Wait!” he exclaims. “You read the Chicago Tribune?”

  “Uh-huh. I have a subscription. Home delivered, seven days a week for only $2.75 per week. I also subscribe to the Idaho State Journal. Gotta support the local papers too, you know.”

  “But why? When you can read the news online for free.”

  I leaf briskly to the next page. “Online news sites leave out so many good stories. Stories they deem un-newsworthy.” I pull out the travel section. “But newspapers always give me a little bit of everything; stories about my backyard, my town, my community. Oh and I love the comic strips; plus there’s just something about the feel of the pages on my fingertips…the smell of fresh ink in the morning.”

  Kars hollers from the sofa, “I haven’t read a newspaper in ten years! I just take out the coupons and give them to my mom.”

  Mika darts me a playful look. “I know. Newspapers and Bruce Springsteen? I think somebody is stuck in the past.”

  I am about to broach the subject on Springsteen, that while I may admire his no frills, no pretense approach to his music, I am simply not a fan. His music, more specifically his voice, just does not do anything for me. He sounds like a severely constipated heavy smoker.

  But I get sidetracked when Karsynn taunts, “And Maddy also loves to wear grand-maww clothes.”

  “Vintage!” I cry defiantly. “Haven’t you guys ever heard of the term oldies but goodies?” I huff with annoyance.

  Unperturbed, Karsynn and Mika carry on discussing me as if I were an inanimate object. After enduring several more minutes of their relentless teasing, Karsynn goes back to the telly, Mika goes back to his book, and I go back to my newspaper.

  And in the background, I hear Rafael Nadal grunting his way through what I am sure is an epic match.

  Fifteen

  New hires, aka newbies or spring chickens, are forced to work the holidays in this call center. Everything here goes by seniority and since I was hired in October, I am basically at the bottom of the cesspool. Which sucks, because I had to work on Thanksgiving and today, I am forced to work on Christmas! The day our Savior was born. It’s blasphemous, sacrilegious, heinous and atrocious.

  But then again, what am I griping about? I’m not even religious. I’d say I’m more spiritual than religious, and when I say that, people often ask me, “Well what the hell does that mean?”

  To me it means that while I believe in God, I don’t necessarily subscribe to any religious doctrines or to organized religion. But I digress. Truth of the matter is, I am just peeved that I have to work on a holiday. On the bright side, my best buddies are also working alongside me on this abomination.

  “Psssssssssst. What you got there, Ingeborg?” I catch a whiff of alcohol as she sashays by holding a Hello Kitty water bottle.

  “Sssshhhhhhhh, don’t tell anyone. It iz vodka, not vater,” she whispers conspiratorially.

  Kars and I raise our Snapple bottles in silent salute, the very ones we filled with some cheap red wine called Fat Bastard.

  We bought it at the liquor store for only twelve bucks a pop; and it is seriously the best wine you can purchase at that price.

  “Cheers! We’ve got some wine ourselves.” Kars clinks her Snapple bottle with mine and we slosh back our wine.

  “Salud,” says Ingeborg and knocks back her vodka. “It iz nice you zitting by us today Karzynn.”

  Karsynn so happens to be sitting in the cubicle next to me; Truong has a ton of seniority so that lucky duck has the day off. Nearly all of the cubicles are empty since only a handful of us are working today. The only supervisor in charge is Dawson Darling, and he is a man who lives up to his good name, the antithesis of Hillary the Giant Not Ready Nazi. Suffice it to say, he’s super laid back and we love him to death.

  Ingeborg takes another swig. “Tee-hee-hee, isn’t this vild?”

  Kars and I chug down our Fat Bastard in acknowledgement.

  “Ingeborg, I just love your accent,” I say with utmost sincerity. “I’m going to start talking like you tonight.”

  Ingeborg shrugs. “Go ahead, I am horn-nerd.”

  Eyeballing Kars, I say in a grave and serious tone, “Kars—vat vud you like to do zoonight?”

  “Vat-evahh, Mazziee,” she manages between sputters; and for some odd reason, this strikes us as hilarious. We find ourselves hooting hysterically like a pair or hyenas.

  It must be the alcohol. It’s really not that funny, yet we’re still laughing and convulsing so hard, our sides are splitting.

  To celebrate Christmas, Karsynn and I shared three bottles of Fat Bastard right before coming into work, so we’re undeniably a little buzzed now. But we didn’t drink and drive. Being the responsible citizens that we are, we took a cab to work as a Christmas present to ourselves.

  Mika appears to be the only sober one around. Striding over, he grins at us with frank amusement. “You girls are hammered; I can smell the alcohol from a mile away.”

  It doesn’t take long for Mika to notice my choice of attire. And when he does, he stands stock still with a deer-in-the-headlights sort of look. “Nice sweater, Maddy,” he says in an unnatural and stilted voice. Then he turns to Kars and manages an uneven smile. “Um, you too, Kars.”

  And the more Mika stares, the more his face contorts. I watch it go through several alarming transformations. Eventually, he turns to me, as if hoping I’d offer some sort of explanation for this colossal calamity.

  “It’s Ugly Christmas Sweater Day,” I announce gaily.

  And much to my surprise, tracking down an ugly Christmas sweater proved to be a challenging task. Goodwill and Salvation Army were completely sold out! They’ve become such a popular fad that they’re selling on eBay for fifty bucks a pop. And I refuse to pay more than five dollars for an ugly Christmas sweater.

  Luckily for us, Karsynn’s grandma Dottie keeps a closet full of ugly Christmas sweaters. Dottie happens to be quintessentially quirky, but I find her absolutely adorable.

  Last Sunday, we dropped by Dottie’s condo and found her curled up on the sofa, numbing herself with a bottle of Southern Comfort. And she was snugly swathed in a Snuggie, looking like she was wearing a robe backwards.

  The Snuggie is quite p
ossibly the dumbest invention ever, yet at the same time, super ingenious! Hell, I wish I came up with the Snuggie. It’s a commercial hit and I’d be laughing all the way to the bank.

  Dottie was simply over the moon to see us. And while I tactfully avoided any reference to her Snuggie, Kars blurted, “Granny, what’s up with that big cape you’re wearing? You look like Darth Vader.”

  And without missing a beat, Dottie said in a deep baritone-d James Earl Jones voice, “Luke, I am your father.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. Ninety year old Dottie was a Stars Wars buff.

  Then Kars burbled, “You look like a member of an evil cult.”

  At that, Dottie became visibly affronted. Apparently Dottie was a devout Catholic, and she fully resented the ‘cult’ reference.

  I shot Kars a quelling look, but she bungled on, “Do you have any ugly Christmas sweaters we can borrow?”

  Dottie placed one hand over her bosom and bristled crossly, “I happen to love my Snuggie. And young lady, if a sweater looked ugly to me, I would never buy it.”

  I immediately jumped in, attempting to defuse the situation. “Dottie, pay no attention to Kars. That Snuggie looks so cute on you. You err...look like you’re in a church choir. And I’m sure nothing you own is ugly, but would you happen to have any festive holiday sweaters we could borrow?” I beamed beatifically.

  “Why of course I do, sugar,” cooed Dottie, her ruffled feathers soothed. “Upsy daisy, here I go.” She struggled to her feet. “Stay right here girls. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

  When Dottie was out of earshot, I raised my chin at Kars and said smugly, “See! That’s how it’s done!”

  And that’s how we scored our ugly Christmas sweaters, the ones we’re proudly sporting right this very minute.

  Still a bit shell-shocked, Mika looks like he has no idea what to make out of our Christmas montage of holiday hideousness.

  “Mika, you be the judge. Who has the uglier sweater, me or Kars?” I strike a pretty pose in my garish cable knit sweater, featuring a purplish Santa of questionable ethnicity.

  Hmm, maybe he is more of a mulberry magenta.