3. this season is canceled
CHAPTER 3
THIS SEASON IS CANCELED
IVY
THE BEGINNING
Waiting is the worst part.
When the redundancies were announced, management promised it would be over in two weeks, as if ten days of stomach-churning anxiety was a blessing.
It’s not.
After six excruciating days, I’m pretty sure my stomach is eating itself.
“What if it’s me?” Emma asks over lunch on day seven. “Maybe the leadership team has it out for me after what happened with Richards.”
“It better not be you,” I say, pitchfork at the ready. If it is Emma, I’ll find that putrid rat bastard of an ex-boss she had and… well, I haven’t gotten that far, but it’ll be unpleasant.
Diana: The Musical unpleasant.
“If they call you, I’m marching in there and demanding they cut me instead.”
Emma sighs, looking around the cafeteria where unease has turned everyone into zombies who shuffle awkwardly around each other. “I don’t think it works like that.”
“I know, but you’ve worked so hard for this.”
“So have you,” she says.
Honestly? I’m not sure I have. At least, not in the “I want this so much, it’s all I live for” kind of way that Emma does. I’ve worked, and I’ve done my best, but at the end of the day, this is just a job.
Not my passion, not my purpose. A paycheck.
One I’d like to keep, sure, but nothing more.
Five percent of the workforce, they said. Seven hundred people. Just numbers casually listed. Not lives irrevocably changed.
Every minute of the day has become a waiting game, every phone call a jump scare. Going home isn’t even a relief, because all I can think about is how much money I haven’t saved and how long it’s been since I’ve updated my résumé.
Oh god, I’ll have to write a cover letter.
That’s actually worse than being unemployed.
I haven’t slept a wink all week, and sleep is my third favorite thing to do after kissing and reciting my villain monologue in the shower. I’ve heard the horror stories of the job market—hundreds of applications sent without a response, the terrible group interviews, the awful salary conditions. And to top it all off, I’ll disappoint my mom.
When the phone call finally does come, bright and early on day eight, my stomach cannonballs up out of my throat. Doesn’t leave a note, just “see ya, wouldn’t want to be ya” as I listen to the instructions I’m given.
Come to room 1105. Don’t pack up. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going.
It’s enough to knock anyone on their ass.
My heart is pounding so fast, I might be dying. Is that toast I can smell? My left arm isn’t tingling, but maybe that’s an old wives’ tale?
What do I have to show for it? All my years of clocking in, doing what I was told, following the rules… and for what?
In the end, it only takes a single phone call at nine a.m. on a Tuesday to drop the curtain on my time here at Helix.
Standing, I shoot a quick text off to Emma, because come on, “tell no one” clearly excludes my best friend.
What are they gonna do? Fire me harder? Please.
In some ways, it’s a relief. For one, it’s not Emma. Getting rid of the smartest person here is a bad decision even Helix would never make. But also, just between us, I’ve never really liked working here.
Document Control isn’t my dream job or my calling. Not the way it is for Emma. It’s the financial glue holding my life together, but isn’t that what any job is?
The meeting is quick. Just me, the CIO, and HR in a room.
It takes five minutes. They say their spiel—“The company is in a difficult position; we wish there was another option; blah, blah, blah”—but all I can picture is every bill piling up, one on top of the other, until I’m run out of my apartment by collectors.
This was meant to be my safety job. The one you take for security. That’s what mom said.
How do they sleep at night, affecting people’s lives like this? It’s not like profits are down. As we speak, it’s just gone up by my whole salary.
Oddly it’s the CIO who looks contrite. Mr. Fletcher, someone who must have had a part in this decision, still manages to sound like he means it when he says, “We’re sorry to see you go.”
Not sorry enough, apparently.
I sign the paperwork and walk out in a daze. As per instruction, I return my laptop and pack up my desk and get walked out of the building.
So, that’s it. Eight years of my life… over.
As soon as I’m home, I throw myself face-first on my bed. I can’t shake the feeling I should be in the office. That I’m slacking off. I didn’t even have a chance to reply to Tanisha with the supplier template or cancel my meetings or set an out-of-office.
I roll over, stare up at the ceiling, and pull my phone out.
Me: busy?
Emma: Unfortunately.
Emma: I miss you, though! Hutchinson is on slide 67 of 108… Swap places with me?
Me: ughhhhhh ever since he discovered podcasts, he’s become insufferable. I love you, but I’d rather gargle salt water.
Emma: So would I.
Emma: Wait
Emma: You’re offline. Is everything okay?
Emma: Give me two minutes. I’ll fake food poisoning and call you.
Me: no no no! I had to leave early. Will fill you in after work. Go get back to upstaging that airhead.
Emma: ILY. You’re a shining glimmer of a person.
My phone lands with a thud beside me. Okay, so now what?
I could clean. Wash my sheets—which I almost never have the time to do—or tidy up. There’s makeup scattered across my dresser from this morning and dishes in the sink from breakfast.
Really, I should be looking for another job. It’s barely noon. I haven’t updated my résumé in years, and there’s about to be a flood of competition in the job market.
The thought of it makes me want to crawl under the covers. And actually, why not? I don’t have anywhere to be.
I kick my shoes off, not caring where they land, and slip under the sheets while a wash of white noise settles in my ears. Reality lodged itself in my throat during that phone call, and now it’s slowly sinking into my gut.
Shit. I’m unemployed.
I’m going to have to take back all the whining I did when Mom guilted me into putting money into savings. Without it, I’d be…
A chill crawls down my spine.
Yeah, let’s not think about how bad it could have been. Heading up shit creek with one paddle is better than nothing.
I roll onto my side, listening to the way my eyelashes brush against the pillow with each blink. If Mom was here, she’d tell me not to get complacent. Get the ball rolling. Start applying now. The longer I wait, the more conspicuous the gap will look.
God… Eight years… Wrapped up in less time than an intermission.
Now I’m three years away from thirty— thirty!— and what do I have to show for it except a trauma response to spreadsheets?
At least I don’t have to worry about rent. Since the new landlord arrived, the entire building has rolled back to prewar prices. Any cheaper, and it’d be free. No one in the building knows why, but it’s been two years since the cuts, so we’re gatekeeping our good luck lest some jack-in-office bill us for the rest.
But it’s weird, right?
Who the hell buys a building and then lowers the rent for everybody?
A sucker is who. (Armando in 5F is convinced it’s a tax write-off for some exotic billionaire, and I’m not saying I believe him, but I do make sure to smile at every well-dressed stranger in hopes of getting swept up in an international love triangle).
It could turn out to be Dracula diversifying his assets, and I wouldn’t care. It saved Mrs. Moonsamy and her daughter from having to move across the country when she was between jobs last year, so whoever it was can’t be all bad.
And the best part of new ownership is easily Manny and his bar downstairs.
In the past two years, the Dapper Scoundrel has been the set piece for all my life crises. When I go to ground, I mean it literally, because the Scoundrel is six floors below me. That alone would automatically make it the best bar in town, but then there’s Manny, with his lilting English accent, model cheekbones, and goofy smiles, who pours the best French martini I’ve ever tasted.
It also helps that he lets me steal their Wi-Fi.
Borrow. I mean borrow.
* * *
On my first day of unemployment, Mom texts to ask how my week is going, and my gut twists so sharply with guilt that I can only manage a thumbs-up before I stuff my phone behind the sofa cushions and run to the bar. It takes two mojitos and a cosmo to untangle it again.
On day two, Emma comes over and makes me promise to use her as a work reference.
On day three, there’s Lincoln.