34. Cecelia
Three weeks later…
The temporary transfer to the Amarillo office was dragging out. They couldn’t seem to decide whether I was a permanent transfer or if I was simply there as a disciplinary action. And it was all the worse because, while I lived in their corporate apartment, I still paid rent in Dallas.
My life was on hold. Because I had no private time. Since I lived in their apartment, it meant I had to share when other people came to visit this branch of the office. I had my own room, but the bathroom was shared, as was the kitchen. Other people were messy, and they left the place a mess, like this was some kind of hotel. I was tired of cleaning up after people, especially after how much work it had been to get the place clean enough that I was willing to stay.
The Amarillo office was a bit better when it came to work. I wasn’t given any cases. Instead, I was given stacks of files with handwritten notes and told to do data entry. Fine. It’s actually what I thought I was going to be doing when they first hired me. I had a cubicle with walls that provided a modicum of privacy. That was an improvement over the Dallas office.
And I had a computer. Not the laptop I had originally been told I would have, but I was no longer a case manager, so it made sense. I didn’t need a laptop if all my work could be done from a desk. But I didn’t like the work, and it felt like everyone knew why I was there. I was treated like some pariah, unwanted, not trusted.
My fingers hurt, and I had started wearing wrist braces. All the transcription work was not being friendly to my wrists. Ten minutes after five, I signed off the server and shut my computer down. If I signed off the server five minutes earlier, someone would show up at my cube the next day and tell me how they really needed me to be a team player. It didn’t take long for me to figure out ‘team player’ was code speak for working longer than the time your job hours are for. Sign in five minutes early, don’t take a full hour for lunch, and stay at least ten minutes late.
Fine. I could play that game. They wanted about what looked like twenty extra minutes of work a day out of me. That added up to almost two free hours a week. Over the course of a year, that impacted my income a lot. I reclaimed my time. I didn’t sign off the server for coffee or bathroom breaks. At this point, if they fired me, I’d thank them.
After work, I headed to the local library. I didn’t have a computer to work on at the apartment, and even if I did, it would be a company machine. I didn’t want to use their equipment to look for a new job. And I didn’t want to do it while another company flunky was staying in the apartment.
So far, I was the only one who stayed more than one week in a row. I was beginning to wonder if my three roommates so far had really only been working in the local office for temporary reasons, or in town for meetings, or if they saw what was going on and left. I didn’t feel like I could leave without an escape plan.
I wanted to go back to Dallas. But I needed a job.
I got tacos from a local food truck. The food was good, and I ate there more than I cooked. There were better tacos in Dallas, but if I were going to miss anything from my time in Amarillo, it was going to be that food truck.
I ate in my car in the parking lot of the library. My stomach complained. It had been doing that more and more. I rummaged around and pulled out the bottle of Tums I”d started carrying in my tote bag. I looked at it as some kind of status symbol of what my life had become. I was so stressed, I had to carry antacids with me.
My stomach lurched again, and this time, I was out of the car and hurrying toward a garbage can. I lost my dinner. That had also been happening more and more. I needed to change something soon, or the stress was going to make me so sick, I’d have no choice.
I returned to my car, thankful everything was still there, even though I had left the door wide open. I opened the trunk and pulled out a warm bottle of water. I used it to wash my mouth out before I popped in the chalky antacids. My stomach complained, but I didn’t throw up this time.
I locked the car up and headed inside. I groaned with defeat. The bank of library computers was all full. I grabbed a romance novel from a display and found a nearby chair where I could stake out the computers. I was there for about an hour, and the book was just getting good when a computer opened up and I could sign up.
I kept the novel next to me so I would remember to check it out before I left. In the book, the sassy, quirky heroine ran her own business, and of course, the hot, shirtless yard guy working on her elderly neighbor’s house ended up being the neighbor’s hot grandson and the sassy heroine’s direct business competitor.
I couldn’t wait to see how they worked things out and realized they would be even more successful by merging the businesses. If only real life worked out so easily. I didn’t run a business, and I had a degree that was pretty much geared toward working in the public sector. But I wanted to afford rent and my car payments. That”s how I ended up with a private agency. They simply paid better.
The same three jobs that I applied for the previous week were recommended to me again. This was frustrating. I either was going to have to search for a job outside of my training and interests or I was going to have to consider locations other than Dallas.
I had spent my entire life looking forward to moving to Dallas when I grew up. I wanted to be in Dallas over any other city in Texas. I didn’t want to be anywhere else. I didn’t want to be in Amarillo. And I really didn’t want to relocate to Houston.
I spent as much time as I could on the computer before my stomach decided to betray me once more. I accepted defeat, checked out the book, and headed back to the apartment. There was some woman there who hadn’t been there earlier. Another new roomie.
She stepped out of my room. “You wouldn’t mind switching rooms with me, would you? This one is?—”
“What are you doing in my room?” I demanded.
“I was just looking around. They said another temp was staying here. But I like this room better,” she said, pointing into my bedroom.
I let out a long sigh.
“That’s my room. I’m not switching.”
“You aren’t very hospitable,” she complained.
I walked past her and into my room. “You’re right, I’m not. Complain to whoever you need to, but this is my room. I was here first, and I’ll be here after you leave.” I closed the door behind me.
I didn’t even get her name that first night. She watched TV entirely too loudly, but I had my revenge. The tacos I had for dinner staged another revolt, and I spent most of the night throwing up. I know she heard me because she complained about it.
In the morning, I texted my boss to explain why I would be late. Food poisoning. I waited until after my roommate left to shower and get ready for work. She left the bathroom a mess. Her makeup and feminine hygiene products were everywhere. She must have never lived with a roommate before.
So far, she was a nightmare, and I didn’t even know her name.
I tried to neatly move her things aside so I could use the sink. I didn’t want her blaming me if her makeup got ruined. I picked up the box of tampons and stopped. Tampons. How had I not needed to buy any of these since I had been in Amarillo?
I tried to calculate when my period was. I couldn’t remember last month. I thought I was due for one the week I moved. But… No, it was just stress messing with my body.
But I had been throwing up off and on for at least two weeks now. There was no way I kept getting food poisoning from the taco truck. Their food was too good. If it was bad, I wouldn’t crave it so much.
I set the box down on the counter.
I had cravings.
Oh, shit. I was going to need to be even later for work. I had to go buy a pregnancy test and cross my fingers that I failed it.