Champagne Life

by Nicole Bradshaw

  Why was he even still thinking about it?

  There it was. Paoli Pike, the turn-off to his old restaurant. Maybe he’d pop in and see how the guys were doing. He started to turn his car onto the exit ramp, but couldn’t do it. He stepped on the accelerator and kept straight. He was less than ten minutes from his house when his cell rang.

  “Yo’, man. How you doin’?”

  It was M.J.

  “I’m good, man,” DeShaun said. “How you been?”

  “Ah, man, you know Old Man Stiles. If it ain’t one thing, it’s another. He’s yelling at everybody, accusing them of stealing.”

  “Still?”

  “Yeah. He even fired Scott.”

  “You serious?”

  “Yup, and you know Scott was the only guy that kissed that old fart’s ass,” M.J. said. “So, how’s my girl, Mimi?”

  “She’s good.”

  “Did that catering gig work out for you?”

  “It’s in the works,” DeShaun lied. He didn’t want to tell him he had absolutely no prospects on the horizon.

  “Good. Maybe when you get that job, you can hook me up.”

  “Sure.”

  “Oh, the reason I’m calling is because Fancy Nancy has been asking about you.”

  “Who?”

  M.J. had a nickname for all the usual partygoers. Some lady with a big butt who flirted with everyone, male or female, M.J. called Apple Bottom Tart. There was a short, stocky guy with a bald head M.J. nicknamed “The Penguin.” DeShaun had no idea who Fancy Nancy was.

  “Jackie, Olivia, man, I forget her name,” M.J. said. “It’s that woman with the dark hair married to the gun dealer.”

  “Jenn Herjavec?”

  “Yeah! That’s her.”

  “What’s she sayin’?”

  “Every time she comes in here with Mr. Megabucks, she asks where you are. Now see, I could’ve picked up where you left off,” M.J. said, laughing. “But, noooo, she only asks about you.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know. She gave me her number to give to you. She claims you’re supposed to work a surprise party in her honor. My question is, if it’s a surprise party, how she know about it?”

  DeShaun completely forgot about the surprise party Mr. Herjavec had asked him to service. That would be a good gig for decent money. “She leave a number?”

  “Five-five-five-three-four-five-three.”

  “You memorized her number?”

  “Hey, Mrs. Megabucks is looking good lately. If you can’t tap that, I wanted to be there to help out.”

  DeShaun reached into the glove box, grabbed a worn napkin and a pen and wrote down the number. “And for your information I’m supposed to be working a party for them next week. No tapping here.”

  “An intimate party for two?”

  “You always have to take it there, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do,” M.J. said proudly. “It’s what I do.”

  Naomi

  I woke up again at eleven o’clock in the morning. After DeShaun left, I went into the kitchen and whipped up a fresh batch of chocolate chunk cookie dough, but, by the time I was ready to pop them into the oven, I had lost the feeling. Instead, I stashed the bowl in the back of the fridge and headed upstairs for a quick nap.

  That quick nap lasted three hours.

  While still in bed, I reached up and extended my fingers and toes, stretching each limb to capacity. I felt like I had a bad hangover, the kind you got after mixing liquors all night long. My head ached, my body hurt, but mostly, my spirit was damaged. A month ago we were late on one or two bills simply because we hadn’t gotten around to paying them. Now, we were late because we couldn’t pay them.

  DeShaun wasn’t back yet, and I hadn’t felt like making the hike down the few blocks needed to make the call to McIntyre and Roth and Associates to find out if I got the job. Part of me didn’t want to make that call. If I didn’t get the job, there went the last bit of hope I had left. On the other hand, if I did get the job, that meant DeShaun and I could stay afloat and stop this sinking ship from crashing to the bottom of the ocean. The best-case scenario; DeShaun would walk through the front door with a secured job and McIntyre and Roth would inform me I start early next week. That little bit of hope prompted me to roll out of bed and make that call.

  I picked up the house phone, hoping for a tiny miracle. Nope. Still dead.

  Earlier, before DeShaun had left, he kept reassuring me everything would be okay, stating, “We’re smart people. Everything will work out.” While lying in bed, I believed him. The minute I stepped out from the comfort of my bed sheets, that security blanket DeShaun fitted me with had been pulled off.

  I went to the refrigerator and opened it up. Besides three Kaliks, a half crate of eggs and the cookie dough I’d stashed in the back earlier, the fridge was empty. I slammed it shut. My head was beginning to hurt again.

  “You can do this,” I told myself. “Something good will happen today.” But they were only words I couldn’t force myself to believe.

  I lugged my body to the bathroom and opened up the medicine cabinet. I grabbed the bottle of aspirin, which may or may not have been expired. It took at least four tries before I was able to pry open the childproof cap. It was empty. I chucked it across the bathroom floor, where it bounced off the toilet and landed in the tub. I thought back to my senior year in college when I wrote a dissertation on the struggle and plights of African Americans in the United States. When I first started researching, I couldn’t understand how people in the ghetto allowed themselves to live like that. My paper took the position that we are not a product of our circumstances and that we were the ones in control of our situation.

  I didn’t understand. I had never been in that position.

  Most of those people I researched and wrote about, had great jobs one day, and the next day, found themselves slipping further into poverty. Once you reached the last rung on the ladder, you looked up and then down, realizing it was much less of a fight to hit the ground than it was to climb all those rungs to reach the top again. That’s where I was—on that last rung, with one foot on the ground. What was my next move?

  Early last week, I had taken the train into Philly and applied for food stamps. I had to admit, it was the most demoralizing thing I had ever gone through. After filling out tons of paperwork, I stood in a line a mile long. Two hours later, when I finally reached the clerk, who was smacking on her gum, she stamped my paperwork and told me, “We’ll be in touch.” I’d give them another day or two before I phoned them since the number I left was shut off.

  Later that same day, I made the trek over to the unemployment office in downtown Philly. After giving them some information and filling out yet more forms, they too told me, “We’ll be in touch.” The office called later that week, when our phone was still on, telling me my application had been denied because of the reason for the termination.

  I splashed a handful of cold water on my face and glanced up in the mirror. I had dark patches under my eyes and my skin had a dull, greenish tint to it. My hair hadn’t been wrapped or combed in days and was a mess. Within the last week, I had lost some weight. Of course, I lost weight. We didn’t have a crumb of food in the refrigerator!

  At first, I didn’t care that I got fired. I figured I would find another job right away.

  Mistake number one.

  My second blunder was not kicking the crap out of Jeremy for his big mouth, causing me to lose that bullshit job in the first place. If I ever saw him again, I would take my fist and jam it down his throat without hesitation. In fact, if I had a friggin’ working phone, I would call him and cuss him out. I would go down there and slap him around a couple of times, him and his bitch auntie manager, who came up in that place smelling like fried catfish every day.

  Screw wasting energy and calling McIntyre and Roth—a job I probably didn’t get anyway. I decided to get dressed and go down to the bank. I was going to tell off all o
f those motherfuckers for trying to destroy my life over some crappy job. I was going down there all right, but first I had to take a shower. The last thing I wanted for them to see was me defeated and broken with stinky, mussed-up hair.

  As I turned the faucet and stepped under the hot streaming water, I wondered if this was how those people that went postal at their jobs started their day.

  Naomi

  I was standing in front of the bank, but a funny thing happened on the bus ride down here. I wasn’t angry anymore. This wasn’t the right job for me. If I hadn’t been fired, I probably would have stayed in that position, miserable, for the rest of my days. Jeremy did me a favor.

  I turned around, about to leave, and bumped right into Jeremy. He stood there with several shopping bags in his hands, smiling at me.

  Honestly, my first instinct was to slap the taste out of his mouth, and ten seconds ago, I probably would have. Instead, I cocked my head to the side and asked, “What are you doing here at this hour?” I looked down at his jeans and T-shirt. “And why are you dressed like that?”

  “I tried to call you,” he said. “When I heard you got fired, I was pissed.”

  “What do you mean? I thought you were the one who said something about my interview. And then you were the only one who saw me drink the beer—the beer that you gave me.”

  “I never said anything. I swear.”

  “How did your aunt find out then?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. It could’ve been anybody. You know people are always listening in on conversations in the back room. It could’ve been Deb from the Lower Merion branch—she was there.”

  “Come to think of it,” I said, “She was at the restaurant with Bob from accounts, remember?”

  “There you go.”

  “You never answered my question,” I said.

  “What question?”

  “Why are you here now, dressed like that?”

  “I quit. I was so sick of that place and then when you left—” His voice dropped off. “You were the only sane person in that hell hole.”

  “Thanks, I think.”

  “I’m here to pick up my last check.”

  “Oh.”

  He looked down at my jeans, T-shirt and studded flip-flops. “What about you?”

  I couldn’t tell him that I was down here to slap the crap out of him, so I opted for another story. “I was actually picking up my last check as well, but then, I remembered your aunt said it would be in the mail.”

  “Oh, okay. Did you get it?”

  “The check?”

  “The job,” he said. “The interview you went on that got you fired?”

  My gaze fell to a jagged chip on the concrete sidewalk. “Oh, that one. Yeah, I got it,” I lied, kicking away a chipped piece of stone. “Yeah, it’s an accounting-type thing, more money, closer to home.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Let’s go to lunch to celebrate.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Oh, come on. We’re not going to be seeing each other anymore. You can at least have one last lunch with me.”

  I thought about the six dollars and change in my purse. “I really can’t.”

  “It’s my treat. One last time.”

  I checked my watch. It was after two. DeShaun probably wasn’t home yet anyway, plus, I hadn’t eaten anything today. My head wasn’t pounding like it had been earlier, but I still had a droning stab in my temples. Hopefully, a quick bite would help.

  We walked two blocks to the deli.

  “I’m taking some time off from job hunting,” he told me after we were seated. “It’s not going to be easy, but I’ve got some money saved up so I decided to go back to school to get my engineering degree.” He nodded toward the two brown bags he placed in the chair next to him. “That’s what those are, school books. The bank was only supposed to be temporary anyway.”

  “Wow! That sounds great.”

  A server walked up to our table, placed two glasses of water in front of us and then, took a step back. She reached into the apron fastened around her waist and produced a pad and a half a pencil.

  “Ready to order?” she asked, cheerily.

  “We haven’t gotten menus yet,” Jeremy said.

  “Oh, sorry.” The server reached around and grabbed two menus from the table behind her. She handed one to me and slid one across the table to Jeremy. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Jeremy looked up from his menu. “So tell me about your new job. Did you start yet? Is it a big company? What will you do in your new position?”

  The waitress returned. “Ready to order yet?”

  Jeremy gave me a quick glance. I pulled the menu up in front of my face to keep from laughing.

  “I’ll have the garden salad,” I told the waitress.

  She jotted that down. “What dressing?”

  “Ranch.”

  “Would you like bread with that?”

  “No, thank you.”

  Jeremy closed his menu and handed it back to the waitress. “And I’ll have the BLT sandwich, extra mayo.”

  When she finished jotting down our orders, she turned and walked away.

  Jeremy looked at me. “Why are you laughing?”

  “You know why,” I said. “The last time we ate here you were ready to ream into our server about being over eager. This one was kind of pushy and you kept it cool.”

  “I don’t have time or energy to be letting these people get on my nerves anymore.” He took a sip of his water. “So anyway, finish telling me about your job.”

  We were surprised when the waitress returned with our lunches so soon. She set the BLT in front of me and the salad in front of Jeremy. When she left, we traded plates.

  “Anyway,” he said, pulling up a slice of bread from his sandwich and sprinkling salt and pepper onto the plump beefsteak tomato. “Give me all the details about your new position. You’re probably making more money and less crap work. And you don’t have to deal with irate customers anymore.” He took a huge bite. A glob of mayo dropped from the sandwich and landed in the middle of the pile of chips on his plate.

  I took a small bite from my salad. “What would you like to know?” Good thing I wasn’t all that hungry. The lettuce lay wilted on the plate and the ranch dressing tasted like straight mayonnaise. My stomach turned, but I couldn’t tell if it was due to the unsavory salad or the fact that I had been feeling this way since leaving the house this morning. Maybe it was a combination of both.

  “When do you start your new gig? What will you be doing?” He took another huge bite. There went half the sandwich. “Sorry to be so greedy, but I haven’t eaten since yesterday and I’m starved.” With his mouth full, he shoved in another bite. “Go ahead, finish what you were saying.”

  “Well,” I began, “I start in about two weeks and—”

  What the hell was I doing? Why was I lying?

  I set down my fork. “I’m not starting in two weeks,” I blurted out. “I don’t even know if I got the stupid job. I haven’t heard from the company.”

  “Really?”

  If I was putting it out there, I might as well put it all on the table. “One more thing. I wasn’t coming down here to pick up my check. I was headed down here to cuss you out.”

  “Me? What did I do?”

  “I thought you were the one that got me fired,” I said. “I thought it was you who told about the beer we both had. I also thought it was you who ran your big mouth about my interview.”

  He set down the rest of his sandwich and sat back in the chair. “You can’t pin that mess on me. I didn’t even know about your interview.”

  “I thought you eavesdropped and heard me talking about it on the phone in the back room and then ran to tell your auntie to get me fired.”

  “You were doing a lot of thinking, weren’t you? And even if that was the case, why would I want to get you fired?”

  I felt the heat rush up t
o my cheeks. I wished I hadn’t said anything at all.

  “I thought you were angry because I turned you down.” There. I said it.

  “You honestly thought I would do something like that because you wouldn’t go out with me?”

  “Let’s be fair here. You were this jerk who wouldn’t quit with the passes.”

  “I wasn’t trying to get with you, not really. I knew you were married, so I didn’t really expect anything. Besides, here’s a little something you might not know,” he leaned over the table and whispered, “I’m not into married women.” He took a sip of his water. He looked me dead in the face and didn’t cut his gaze once. “If you felt that way, I apologize. I obviously gave you the impression that I’m a douche.”

  He was being sincere and I appreciated that. “It’s my fault, too. I guess I always assumed the worst about you, when, in actuality, you’re not that bad.”

  “I gotta say,” he began. “It still kind of hurts that you thought I would get you fired, and especially for something like that. Honestly, Naomi, I like you. You’re cool people. Ever since you set me straight that day at lunch, I thought we were good. Guess I was wrong.”

  “It’s not all your fault, Jeremy. I suppose I needed someone to blame for all this mess.”

  “What mess?”

  I shook my head, not wanting to get into it again. “Let’s just say I’ve had better days.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Actually there is.”

  He raised his brow. “Yeah?”

  “You’re not working now, right?”

  He nodded.

  “So please tell me how are you making it, financially?”

  “Well, there’s just me. My one-bedroom apartment is only five-eighty a month. My car ain’t great, but it’s paid for. I don’t have credit cards or student loans. Plus, when I worked at the bank, I was able to save money. I have six months’ salary in my account. No stress. I’ll probably get a part-time job if I need it, but for now I’m good. Need to know anything else?”

  “Nah. Sorry if I was being so nosy, but I was just wondering. I do appreciate the lunch, but I have to get home.”