by Lisa Lim
Crunching on my romaine lettuce, I allow myself to enjoy the tartness of the cranberries and the crispness of the leafy greens while I reflect upon the rampant stigma associated with my job.
I wasn’t born yesterday. I’m fully aware that most people harbor a deep contempt and hatred toward customer service reps. But now that I’m on the other side of the invisible phone line, I understand. The pressure and stress that management puts on me to sell and keep my calls short, callers who yell at me because their world will end if their DSL service is down for ten seconds.
It often feels as if I’m being crushed and compressed from all sides. It takes a helluva lot to keep my composure, yet I always do my best. I am courteous, respectful and go above and beyond to be helpful, as long as the callers don’t make it obvious that they wish for me to die a slow and painful death.
There is bad customer service but there is also good customer service, and I have always prided myself on the latter. And with Uncle Stuart’s unprovoked attack, I feel marginalized, ostracized and victimized. Like I’m pushed against a wall.
I find myself in a situation where it’s me versus them. A customer service rep versus the haters.
Oh I know. I can be a tad bit dramatic and childish at times, but he started it! Plus, I feel this perverse need to defend myself, to defend the honor of customer service reps all around the world—in the States, in India, the Philippines, Botswana, Bolivia, Brazil, Malaysia, Russia, the Czech Republic.
I can’t let him get away with talking smack about my people.
As the Lord said to Moses and in the great words of Martin Luther King, “Let My People Go!”
Meanwhile, the tension at the table continues to crackle and mount. Projecting an image of unflappable calm, I raise my chin at my Quasimodo uncle. Acting like a true lady in the face of adversity, I say eloquently, “And you, Uncle Stuart, are one of those customers. And by that I mean brainless, idiotic, fart-brained fools who call in asking for help, yet think they know everything.”
Uncle Stuart is incandescent with rage. “How dare y—”
Mika cuts in, “If I may, Stuart?”
“What?” hisses Quasimodo.
Mika gives him a steady look. “Are you currently employed?”
“No!” he snaps. “I was laid off nine months ago and—”
Mika boldly interrupts, “And are you collecting unemployment?”
Something inaudible sputters out of Uncle Stuart’s mouth, which I take to mean a “Yes.”
Mika says in a measured voice, “Well Maddy and I have jobs and we’re not a burden on society.” He shrugs and continues, “No one wants to work at a call center. But some of us just wind up working there, and we try to make the best of it, and Maddy here surely has. She’s one of the nicest and brightest reps, and our callers love her.” He darts me a warm look and announces with great pride, “You may or may not know this, but Maddy recently got promoted.”
Uncle Stuart sneers scornfully, “Who the hell cares? I’d rather be unemployed for the rest of my life than work in a blasted call center. It is just beneath me.”
Mika clears his throat, then continues in a tone that is authoritative and borderline sexy, “Look, Stuart, I’m really sorry that you lost your job, but when you hit a rough patch, you can either choose to be humiliated, or you can choose to learn humility. Perhaps working at a call center would do you some good. You could use a little humility.”
Suddenly, my mom begins flapping and thrashing about in her chair. “Ackh, Kak, Kakh!”
I leap to my feet. “Mom, are you okay?”
“Achk! Kakh!” she hacks and sputters.
A gasp escapes the table as she continues to choke to death, right before our very eyes.
At once, I clap her hard on her back and a cranberry comes flying out of her mouth. It ricochets across the table, clunks onto the white china and spins like a dreidel.
Everyone stops and stares.
A lowly cranberry has never looked so mesmerizing.
“I-I’m fine,” my mom stammers and drains her glass of wine.
It pretty much goes downhill from there.
No one says a word for the rest of the meal; but there are plenty of pinched eyes, pained expressions and tightened lips.
And I know Aunt Benedicta is simply livid with me after my terse exchange with her Quasimodo husband. But try as she might to make a scowling Medusa face, she just looks...surprised.
Constance has her usual hateful smirk pasted on her panda bear face and Uncle Stuart’s Kim Chee expression remains unchanged. He is back to being a pickled cabbage, sulking with his pudgy arms crossed over his barrel chest, glaring at me with his crazy eyes.
How cute! My cross-eyed and cross-armed uncle.
Now all he needs to do is cross his legs and Voilà! He’ll have the whole look complete.
I blow out an explosive sigh and catch Mika’s eye.
He smiles broadly. Holding my gaze, he shoots me a look that says, ‘You go girl!’
I smile back at my comrade. “Mika, could you please pass me the gravy?”
“Of course,” he says evenly.
I reach for the gravy dish and our fingers lightly graze.
We exchange a lingering look, one that seems loaded with potential meaning. And for the rest of the meal, his eyes never leave mine. Sparks seem to be shooting in all directions, and I am no longer aware of my Quasi relatives. I am no longer aware of anyone but the two of us.
Half an hour later, I’m standing on the front lawn, watching Aunt Benedicta and her crazy clan drive off into the stark night.
My mom takes me by surprise when she says, “Sorry honey, I’m taking off too. I’ll see you tomorrow, ‘k love?”
I blink. “Tomorrow?”
“Yes, Kirk works in the ER and his shift ends at midnight.”
“Kirk? Mom, what happened to Vincent?”
“Oh, you were right,” she says with a tinkling laugh. “I am never dating an Ob-Gyn again.”
I stare after her open-mouthed as she slides into her Audi.
“See you kids tomorrow,” she hollers out the window. Then she toots the horn twice and zooms off.
Mika elbows me playfully. “Well that wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“I guess it could’ve been a lot worse. And by the way, thanks for standing up to Quasimodo. That took some kahunas.”
He shrugs it off. “Stuart sure is an interesting guy.” After a stretch of silence, he says, “So...what do you want to do now?”
Laughing somewhat deliriously, I manage, “Are you kidding me? After all that drama, I want to do nothing.”
“We can do nothing.” He clears his throat. “We’re all alone now in this big, empty house.”
“Want to go hang out in my room?” I hear myself saying.
Our eyes lock and I smile at him with the timeless mystery of a Venetian courtesan. A cortigiana onesta. At least that’s what I’m going for. For all I know, I probably exude the persona of a pariah dog in heat.
A faint smile passes over his face. “Sure,” he acquiesces.
I’m lying on my bed, pushed up on one elbow, watching Mika flip through my high school yearbook. My yearbook is scribbled with soppy sayings like: May your life be arithmetic. Joys added, Sorrows subtracted, Friends multiplied, Love undivided.
And I distinctly recall the naughty line that Garrett Jennsen penned in. Garrett is now a professional skateboarder, and I had the biggest crush on him my senior year. This is what he scrawled between the cracks of my yearbook, now riddled with a thousand creases: Cows moo, ducks quack, but I am the first to sign your crack.
Mika jerks his head up. “Who’s Garrett Jensen?” he asks in a sort of proprietorial tone.
“No one special,” I say simply.
“Humph,” he grunts and flips the page.
I cringe when he finds my picture.
Oh God. I look like the chief of the Nerd Herd.
Like most high school yearbooks, there’s a d
esignated spot for departing seniors to endow underclassmen with random nuggets of wisdom.
Mika reads the caption beneath my picture, “High school is like a lollipop; it sucks until it is gone.”
Smiling knowingly, he leafs through the pages. He stops when he arrives at the ‘Most Likely To’ page. I bury my head in my pillow. Oh no. He’s about to come across my embarrassing nomination. Peeking through my fingers, I quietly observe him.
His eyes skim the page, and they suddenly light up. He reads my blurb out loud, “Madison Lee, aka Word Girl—Most likely to be published.” A slow grin breaks over his face. “You were Word Girl?”
I burn with shame. “I know, doesn’t that spell geek all over? I’ll never live that one down.”
“I think it’s cute,” he says. “Okay, Word Girl, I have a question for you.”
I sit up straight. “Shoot.”
“Who versus whom? I’m never sure which word to use.”
I twist my lips. “Well, that’s a bit of a tricky one, since they’re both pronouns, but—”
“Well is it who do you love or whom do you love?”
“The Rolling Stones and Bo Diddley got it wrong. This may come as a surprise, but it’s whom do you love.”
He sidles closer until we’re just inches apart. Gazing into my eyes, he draws an imaginary line over my nose, traces my lips and looks at me as though memorizing my every feature. Touching his forehead to mine, he says in a low and intimate voice, “You.”
You...just one simple word, yet the tenderness in his voice is so overwhelming that I’m moved by his utter conviction.
Before I can react, he threads his fingers through my hair and pulls me into a warm and sensuous kiss.
Mmmm. Mika is such a good kisser. His lips are soft yet firm, and he varies the intensity and pressure…hungrily then gently, passionately then sweetly.
Somehow, some way, we manage to grope our way across my bed and slide under the cold sheets. He dips his head and seeks my lips, but I find myself yawning appallingly—long, drawn out yawns. Gosh. This is so embarrassing. As widespread lore has it, something in turkey induces sleepiness, and thanks to the hefty portions of bird I gobbled up at dinner time, my eyelids feel so heavy…
Exhaustion washes over and claims me.
I’m in the midst of another heavy yawn when Mika smiles and strokes my hair. “It’s okay…let’s just rest,” he says lovingly and drops a kiss on my forehead.
Lazily, I rest in the crook of his arm, snuggled under his chin. And for a long while I do not move, reveling in the joy of being close to him.
While the weather outside is soupy, we lie in my twin sized bed, our arms and limbs entwined. I listen to his deep and even breathing, feeling incredibly sated and content. Drowsy with love and drowsy with food, I succumb to a deep and delicious sleep.
Twenty Six
“It’s furr-reeeeeeezing,” I mutter under my frosty breath as the wind slams into my face. I can barely breathe.
It’s so cold that my eyes are watering and my nose won’t stop running. Another gust of wind whips into my face and my tears and snot freeze into icicles.
Winters here are notorious for being harsh. I hate the cold.
I’d take a summer scorcher over any wintery day.
This is Hell on earth! In Dante’s Inferno, the innermost circle of Hell is portrayed as a frozen lake of blood and guilt.
And Dante Alighieri is right! I truly believe that Heaven is a warm place and Hell is butt ass cold.
Despite living in Illinois for most of my life, I still cannot take the cold here. All winter long, I fuss and complain about how cold and miserable it is. And today is one of those days.
Today is my Dante’s Inferno.
“This is bone chilling furr-reeze.” My teeth chatter incessantly as we plow through the tundra.
My scarf is dancing hysterically in the wind. Leaves, litter and debris are twisting and turning violently. In the near distance, I can hear the incessant snapping of flags, thrashing wildly in the storm.
I want to be home right now. This was rather unexpected; the weatherman’s forecast was for a calm, twenty-degree winter day, just proving that the weathermen are as useless to me as a freezer in Antarctica. Their accuracy is almost 90% wrong.
We were hit by a freakish snowstorm as soon as we’d arrived at the Navy Pier. Seriously, we could not have picked a worse day to venture out on our first official date as a couple.
Yes, we are a couple! The cat and mouse game is over.
Since we’re on my home turf, I wanted to show Mika some of Chi-town’s popular attractions. The Navy Pier turns itself into a Winter Wonder Fest during the holiday season, and I thought it would be fun. It’s Chicago’s playground on Lake Michigan and boasts of good entertainment, an array of restaurants, and a fifteen story Ferris wheel that’s open year round.
I had it all planned out in my head. First, we were going to grab a bite to eat at the famous Billy Goat Tavern, immortalized in the SNL skit where a short order cook, played by John Belushi, yelled out, “Cheezborger! Cheezborger! Cheezborger! No fries—cheeps! No Pepsi—Coke!” That skit is classic. And even if you didn’t care for the whole Cheezborger shtick, it’s still something to be experienced. Nothing like a divey vintage diner that’s full of history and lore.
So much for that. The Billy Goat Tavern’s parking lot was full, forcing us to park miles away. Big, BIG mistake. In this hellish snowstorm, neither man nor goat could ever make it there alive.
Secondly, I envisioned the two of us strolling idyllically hand in hand, ice skating on the rink, going for romantic rides, kissing on the Ferris wheel.
So much for that. The Ferris wheel is closed.
Apparently, they’re open year round, weather permitting.
“It’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey,” Mika yells over the howling wind.
I nod, as I can no longer speak. My purple lips are frozen shut. Brrrrr. I don’t know about brass monkeys, but it sure feels like we’re in that documentary film The March of the Penguins.
Mika and I huddle close together like Emperor penguins, marching against the brutal wind.
We are one against the force of nature.
This feels like the harshest place on earth and I am seriously questioning my ability to survive in this inhospitable terrain.
Out of nowhere, a hurricane-like wind swooshes in and pummels me into a tree. I anchor myself to it for dear life and shoot Mika a tortured look.
I can tell by the look on his face that he’s suppressing an urge to laugh. Reaching for my hand, he firmly secures it and we break into a run, darting to the nearest safe haven, a place of impregnable safety—Starbucks.
At the register, I order a pumpkin spice latte and blueberry scone; Mika opts for a Christmas blend latte and chocolate cream cheese muffin.
We carry our treats to a dimly lit nook and begin defrosting.
I sip my latte, enjoying the feel of the creamy liquid trickling down my throat. Ahhh, it’s like fuel for my body.
Mika pinches part of my scone, and I steal little chunks of his chocolate muffin. I love the intimacy of sharing food.
I lean my elbows forward. “How’s my scone?”
“Very buttery, but I like it. And how’s my muffin?”
I pinch another bite. “Very chocolaty, but I love it.”
We share an easygoing banter, and I finally find the guts to broach the topic that’s been at the forefront of mind. There’s no easy way to say it, so I just blurt it out, “Mika, how come it took you so long to make your move on me?”
After a pensive pause, he says, “Two reasons. I’ve always felt that the best relationships always start out as great friendships.” Holding my gaze, he continues, “We were good friends.” He stops and smiles. “We are good friends, and I thought dating too soon might change things.”
I take a long sip of my latte. “So things have changed now. Is that bad?”
“No,” he says
at once. “But we’re starting out on something more substantial. I’ve gotten to know you so much better now, and I love everything about you, flaws and all.”
“Flaws?” I sit up straighter. “What kind of flaws?” I release a nervous laugh and brace myself.
“Well, you’d lose your head if it wasn’t screwed on tight.”
I fling a napkin at him playfully.
“It’s true.” He laughs. “You have these big, beautiful doe-like eyes. But babes, I’m afraid they’re just there for decoration only, you can’t see jack.”
I kick him under the table. “I can see!”
Unperturbed, my Shakespeare goes on professing, “I love how you’re firm and fragile, lovely and unapologetic.”
A warm glow envelops me. Mmm. I’m starting to like this.
“And I’ve been enchanted by your cute, sweet and shy persona since day one.”
Smiling, I take a healthy swallow of lukewarm latte. “What else?” I ask, fishing for more compliments.
“And my petal...” He strokes my cheek. “You may look like a delicate flower, but you’re as feisty as an old Ukrainian wife.”
I splutter coffee into my cup.
“An old Ukrainian wife?” I demand huffily.
He chortles. “They’re a force to be reckoned with. Haven’t you heard the joke about the old Ukrainian wife?”
“Nope,” I reply stonily.
He launches right into it, “An old Ukrainian man lies dying in his bed. Suddenly, he sniffs the sweet aroma of pierogi and—”
“Wait,” I cut in. “Do you like pierogi?”
“Nah. I’m not really a fan of boiled dumplings.”
“Okay. Continue,” I say with a flick of my wrist.
Mika’s voice is animated as he regales the story of The Old Ukrainian Wife. “And even though the old man is near death’s door, he musters all his remaining strength and crawls into the kitchen. There, he is beyond ecstatic to find three hundred of his favorite pierogi, spread out on the kitchen counter. It’s a feast for his eyes. He thinks to himself that either he’s died and gone to Heaven, or this is one final act of love from his loyal wife of sixty years, ensuring that he leaves this earth a happy man. The frail, old man gathers all his remaining strength and flings himself at the kitchen counter. With trembling hands, he reaches for a pierogi. He’s about to shove it into his drooling mouth, when all of a sudden KABAAAAM!”