1
Personal Day
This story takes place before The Same Flesh.
“I think I’m going to take a personal day,” Jem said.
Morning light came in at a steep angle, leaving Tean’s face in shadow as he gathered coat, bag, and keys. He was opening drawers—probably looking for his wallet—as he asked, “Are you okay?”
“Oh yeah, fine, great.”
“You’re not sick?”
“Nope.” But maybe more explanation was required, so Jem said, “That’s why it’s a personal day. Not a sick day.”
Tean made a sound that might have been agreement.
“I’ve got plenty of hours saved up,” Jem said.
“Uh huh.”
“I can pick up around the house. Work on the job search a little. Things kind of slowed down after, well, everything around Christmas.”
Which, one, was putting it mildly; and two, was definitely undermined by the fact that Jem was in a hoodie and shorts, already stretched out on the couch, remote in hand.
But Tean only said, “Sure, babe.”
“I’ll take Scipio for a walk. Hey, maybe we’ll make cookies.”
Tean’s storm cloud of dark hair lifted, and dark eyes behind dark glasses settled on Jem with what was—sometimes, occasionally—unnerving focus. But after a moment, Tean’s face softened. “Jem, you don’t have to have a reason to take off. You work so hard. Relax. Enjoy your day.”
“I won’t enjoy it because I’ll know you still have to work.”
But he mostly said it because it sounded like one of those things good boyfriends said. Tean laughed, bent over the back of the couch to kiss him, and almost lost keys and wallet as he scrambled to keep his bag from sliding off his shoulder.
“Have a great day,” Tean said, still gathering himself as he headed for the door. “Do something fun.”
“Don’t work too hard. Don’t let a llama bite you, and don’t crawl up a giant spider web, and don’t look up any animals’ butts.”
“No promises,” Tean said as he let himself out.
A ribbon of morning light unrolled across the living room. And then it rolled up again, and Jem turned on the TV.
It was a personal injury lawyer, and she was wearing a super short skirt.
And after that, it was an old man skateboarding, but then he lost control of his skateboard, and it had something to do with a prescription for joint pain.
And after that, three commercials in a row wanted to tell him how to achieve better pooping.
“The sky’s the limit,” Jem said to Scipio. The Lab was halfway onto his back, and although he raised his head at the sound of Jem’s voice, he must have decided not to participate in this conversation because he immediately lay back down.
It wasn’t that Jem hated his job.
Well, he did.
But he had hated a lot of things in his life. And he’d still done them.
When he tried to come up with a list, though, it was harder than he thought.
Maybe he hated making lists. Maybe that was part of the problem.
If he’d sat up in bed that morning and said to Tean, Hey, listen, I’m starting to need a gummy every night because when I think about going into work, my chest gets tight, and my skin feels weird, and I roll around in bed all night, Tean would have said, Babe, I love you, quit that fucking job right now. Except Tean wouldn’t have said fuck.
It would have been that easy. No questions asked. No fight. No judgment. Because Tean did love him, and because Tean wanted him to be happy, and because Tean seriously believed that somehow Jem would eventually find something he was good at.
But Tean also believed in things like minimum payments on credit cards. And no matter how they sliced it, Jem needed to bring in some money if they were going to keep the house and the car and, you know, not eat cat food.
Scipio grunted, stretched, and managed to dig one paw into Jem’s side.
“I know,” Jem said as he wiggled to make more room. He stroked Scipio’s flank. “We’d never make you eat cat food.”
So, what do you do? You earn up enough personal time. And then you take a day. And it’s, like, a bonus. And you spend that day watching lady judges on TV be super mean to scumbags. And you go back to real life the next day because you have to take care of your family.
On TV, one of the lady judges in question was starting her show, and you could tell she’d had work done on everything from the ta-tas up.
Jem’s phone buzzed.
Chaquille’s name showed on the screen.
Which was maybe the perfect coincidence, because Jem was running low on gummies.
“What’s up?” Jem said as he answered.
“Hey,” Chaquille said, “you want to make some money?”