Chapter Twenty-Six
The call finally came at 11:00 a.m. on the second day. A.k.a. I had an entire day to stress about it, vow to apply at McDonald’s, contact everyone who’d advertised a room to rent at the café, return to the café periodically for coffee, which my new friend Sammy, still on roller skates, gave to me at the refill price after the first cup.
If there was a world record for number of times someone can check a phone in one twenty-four-hour period, I would hold that record. Hands down. At one point I went to pee in the café’s adorable all-genders bathroom and accidentally left my phone on the table. In the brief period between realizing this, finishing my business, zipping up, and washing my hands, I’d spun out this entire anxiety-riddled nightmare of my phone being stolen, and me having to email Vix that I no longer had that number, and someone else answering when Marlo Ramos called, but she’d think it was me, and they’d be unprofessional, and she’d take back her (maybe) job offer before she’d even talked to (the real) me.
When I returned to the table, my phone wasn’t there. Clearly I was about to lose a job I didn’t even have because like a dumbass, I’d left my phone on the table and—
“Hon, don’t be leaving things out, hmm?” Sammy said, and she dropped my phone beside my coffee cup as she skated past.
I clutched it to me. “Oh my god, you saved my life. Thanks, Sammy!”
She cackled as she glided into the back room.
In the name of distraction, I spent the day messing with my not-essay about falling in love with a dude whose life I ruined this one time. Obviously no one else could ever read it, not even Vix, because while the writing was genuinely fucking excellent, the topic was way too intimate. In the past I’d written only when I had that carrot dangling in front of me: Other people will read this and tell you it’s good . (Sure, a lot of people had gone out of their way to tell me I sucked, too, but if you only thought of that inevitable outcome when you were writing, you wouldn’t last long.)
But now, since literally no one else was going to read it, I was just tweaking it, like, for me. For my own enjoyment. To challenge myself to get it right, not to repeat words, vary up the rhythm of sentences so they harmonized.
When I got back to the motel room (checking for missed calls in the car, at red lights, after parking, and after getting inside), I indulged myself by reading all five thousand words of the now-finished piece aloud, which had always been the best way to fine-tune the language.
And it was good . Not that I could judge it objectively, but also, I knew when I’d phoned it in versus when I’d fucking nailed it, and this time? I’d nailed it.
I put one earbud in (so I’d hear my phone ring), turned the notifications and call volume all the way up, and went down to the pier, where I knew I could get a couple of street tacos and pretend I didn’t have a care in the world. And despite everything else, all the things that made my life way too stressful and complicated, it felt good to write again. To have fun with it. To just mess around with a sentence until I got it right without any deadline or external pressure.
Don’t get me wrong: I still desperately wanted outside validation. Like, I could send it to Vix. I didn’t think she’d judge me too harshly for having intense feelings for someone who probably was glad he’d finally gotten rid of me. But what was the point? Okay, sure, if I was pitching it, if I wanted her feedback on who was publishing this sort of work at my level (so, who was like Sports Now , but amateur league). But this wasn’t for publication; it was for me. So sending it to Vix would just be like asking for a pat on the head.
The only other person who would be allowed to know all the shit that had happened to me in those days at the cabin was Orion. Whose phone number I didn’t have. Ditto his email address.
Not that I would have sent it to him anyway. It was basically my heart and soul on the page, no defensive line to protect me, completely exposed to all insults, mockery, and derision. Maybe writers, like athletes, contained, inherent in their makeup, some indelible strain of pure masochism. Because I wouldn’t have sent it to Orion; of everyone on earth, he couldn’t know that I had foolishly fallen in love with him while he was busy either kissing or detesting me.
But part of me still sort of wanted to.
Tacos, walk on the beach in the wind, back to the room, where I read it one last time before falling asleep.
I still liked it. I was still proud of it.
Eleven in the morning. I was packing morosely. I’d heard back from a couple of the places I’d contacted and was set up to see two of them later in the afternoon. Only one of them had pictures, and they weren’t encouraging. But the price would be doable. Theoretically. If I got, you know, a full-time job. Or a couple of part-time jobs. Or a part-time gig with health insurance and started working for Uber or DoorDash on the side.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I muttered as I shoved my clothes into my duffel. “Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck—”
My phone rang. Even though I’d been waiting for it to do so for thirty-six hours, it scared the hell out of me. And, despite it being technologically impossible, my first half thought was Please say ORION brODERICK CALLING . Which it couldn’t. Because no such contact existed in my phone. And yet.
It wasn’t Orion. It was a local number. I forced myself to remember my name before answering. “Hello? Des Cleary here.”
“Des Cleary, the one and only,” said a musical voice. “You used to work for Vix Black?”
“I did, the last two years.”
“And she liked you! Wonders never cease.”
“Uhh.” I gulped. “Is that unusual?”
She, the one with the musical voice, laughed, and her laughter was almost startlingly guttural. “Aw, Vixie’s a pussycat as long as you don’t marry her. Then she’s a vicious tomcat with claws and fangs.”
“Uhh,” I repeated, totally not sure how to engage with this conversation without feeling super disloyal to someone I really liked.
“Oh, don’t be so serious, Des Cleary: Vix is one of my oldest friends, and I only made the mistake of marrying her once. Now.” Shuffling paper sounds. “You wrote the thing about Orion Broderick, right?”
I slumped. “Yes. I was a jackass.” Good job, peak selling yourself there, sonny boy, I could hear Vix admonishing me in my head.
“We’ve all done stupid shit, pal—you’re not the first. But then you’ve written this other thing for Vix, in which you demonstrate astonishing self-reflection.”
I could not possibly say “uhh” again. “I try.”
“Here’s what I’ve got for you, and it’s not going to sound great, probably, but anyone Vix thinks highly enough of to call me about is worth me trying to hook. I’ve got part-time jobs in every area of the stadium from concessions to janitorial to parking. You can take your pick of the entry-level positions. It’s a foot in the door. Then I’ve got, oh, say about ten hours a week in the offseason, going up to overtime when we’re playing; that’s all social media promotions bullshit. Is that something you can do with those magical fingers, Cleary?”
No woman had ever accused me of having magical fingers before. Uhh. Gulp. Blush. “I can do social media.”
She snorted. “You’re really inspiring a lot of confidence here, bubba. We’re moving into the season now, but it won’t really pick up until—hell, are we in May already?” She cursed, musically and thoroughly. “Crap, I thought I had another month, but here we fucking are. No matter. This is the job I’ve got in marketing right now, though there’s a lot of room for advancement, once you’re in. When can you start?”
“Immediately.”
“Good lad.”
The phrase, which no one had said to me since my dad died, got me right through the heart. Lucky for me, Marlo kept talking. Also lucky for me, she couldn’t see the way I had to blink away tears.
“Let’s get you started tomorrow—no—Monday. I’m gonna have you come in and do an orientation with one of the crew, and she’ll help you decide which of our illustrious service departments you want to work in. And there is some flexibility, but we don’t love new hires who want to switch jobs every few days. Cross-training, that’s different, and you can talk to MBS about that. You know where Cutting Edge Pharmaceuticals Stadium is?”
“Sure.” Was this going really fast, or was I just having a hard time tracking it?
“Well, forget what you know—you’re coming in the back way.” She proceeded to give me somewhat complicated directions through side streets—which I cleverly started writing down—with additional information on how to actually get into the stadium itself (“Go to Guard Gate Three or Guard Gate Nine, okay? If you go to any of the others, they’ll boot you out ...”), and where to go once I got inside. (“Mary-Bruce Santorini runs everything, only talk to her, and if anyone else gives you a hard time, drop my name and look confused, and they’ll send you along to MBS in a flash.”)
The entire conversation lasted under ten minutes. My phone said so. But in that ten minutes, I felt like I’d gone on a whirlwind journey from compliments to condescension to weird reminders of my dad.
And gotten, somehow, a job. Two jobs. Ish. I really could clean toilets if I wanted to.
I called the front desk and asked if I could keep the room for another night. I could, up to three more nights, but then I’d have to go because they were booked up due to some weird vampire conference in town. (I thought I’d heard wrong, but apparently it was a fan convention for a video game franchise I’d never heard of that had a Netflix show coming this summer. I decided I’d keep thinking of it as a “vampire conference” because it amused me.)
I took the three nights and rewrote all my notes so I’d be able to understand them later. Then, because I couldn’t help myself, I texted Vix. Did you just call your ex on my behalf? I’m honored.
She sent back: You better make me proud, kiddo . And a black heart emoji.
It took about five more minutes to unpack and plug my computer in again. Marlo Ramos hadn’t said anything about money, so I checked the stadium job listings for the basics, and yep, fifteen cents an hour over minimum wage, but insurance kicked in even for part-timers after thirty days, which was generous. I probably wouldn’t get nailed by the Obamacare police if I was uninsured for thirty days. Still needed a place to live. And what was I supposed to wear to this new job of which I knew nothing at all? Or barely anything.
Time to get some better clothes out of whatever bag I’d packed them into. A job. A job with someone who thought I could write. A job with, possibly, some opportunities to do more than just one thing. Room for advancement. That sounded ... something. Promising? Hopeful?
I didn’t want to invest any of my energy in hope, but I also couldn’t remain hopeless. After seeing two shared-housing listings (1. creepy straight people with four college students already renting rooms; 2. creepy straight people I suspected of secretly looking for a third to “spice up” their marriage), I hit up Café Canaltown. I’d made one more appointment, but I was feeling pretty down about it, though at least this one was in Canaltown, which cut down on the likelihood of straight people. Sammy, after gifting me a free coffee in celebration of the new job, asked where the room was. When I told her, she literally clapped her hands and assured me I’d really like the potential landlord.
And what do you know? I did. This sweet older guy and his little dog Higgins, with maybe the smallest in-law unit on earth—just enough space for a small bathroom, a twin bed in a corner, and a built-in storage unit where he told me a hot plate and a toaster oven would meet all my kitchen needs.
I took it.