Pink Slip Party (25 page)

“So says you,” I say. “You’re not the one who had police hanging out at your apartment today.”

“Besides, Vishnu probably distracted them,” Steph says. “Did you give them our
Office Space
alibi?”

“No,” I say. “I didn’t think you were serious. I thought you were kidding.”

“Never mind,” Steph says quickly. “That probably doesn’t hurt us too badly.”

“You were
serious
about the
Office Space
alibi?” I ask, incredulous.

“Calm down,” Steph commands. “Do you watch
Law and Order?”

“No,” I say.

“What sort of unemployed person are you if you don’t at least watch one of the bazillion
Law and Order
reruns?” Steph doesn’t wait for me to answer.
“Anyway,
if you watched the show, you’d know that they always trick one person into informing on another. That’s how they win their cases.”

“How does that help us?”

“If you don’t crack, and I don’t crack, and Ferguson doesn’t crack, then we’re all set,” she says, matter-of-factly.

“You do realize how ridiculous you sound, don’t you?” I ask her. “You’re basing our defense on a TV show.”

“Just don’t panic, OK?”

I do panic, and I decide I need serious legal advice. It’s time to grovel and beg for Kyle’s forgiveness. Clearly, I am in the wrong.

A woman answers Kyle’s phone.

Surprised, I hang up.

Must have misdialed. I am careful this time with the numbers, punching them all deliberately.

She answers again.

“Who is this?” she demands, annoyed. Territorial. She sounds like a girlfriend, not a first date, or a one-night stand. She sounds comfortable answering Kyle’s phone. Possessive, even. She sounds like Caroline.

“Who is THIS?” she asks again, more insistent. Jealous, maybe? Suspicious?

I hang up without saying anything.

*   *   *

Two minutes later, I am in a cab going to Kyle’s apartment. I am going to get to the bottom of this. I’m not going to be a fool twice.

I buzz Kyle’s apartment, and the same female voice crackles over the intercom.

“WHO’S
there?” she barks, annoyed.

A Thai food delivery guy arrives at that moment, and hands me some menus. He buzzes the apartment below Kyle’s. When he slips into the building, I follow.

I bang on Kyle’s door, not thinking about anything except getting a hard look at who is on the other side. A woman answers, wearing cut-off sweats, with her hair up in a messy bun, youthful face completely without make-up. She looks like she lives there. She’s wearing a Northwestern University sweatshirt, and eating ice cream from a pint carton.

“You could’ve just left this on the door,” she says, grabbing a Thai restaurant menu from my hand and shutting the door in my face.

NASA
Johnson Space Center
Houston, TX 77058

Jane McGregor
3335 Kenmore Ave.
Chicago, IL 60657

May 10, 2002

Dear Ms. McGregor,

We’re afraid you do not qualify for employment as an astronaut with the NASA space program. While you may have earned a Quantum Physics degree from Harvard, we have other very strict requirements for astronauts, including:

• At least 1,000 hours pilot-in-command time in jet aircraft; flight test experience is highly desirable.
  
• Ability to pass a NASA Class I space physical, which is similar to a military or civilian Class I flight physical, and includes the following specific standards: for vision-distance visual acuity — 20/70 or better uncorrected, correctable to 20/20, each eye. For blood pressure — 140/90 measured in a sitting position.
  
• Height between 64 and 76 inches.
  

Competition for the astronaut program is fierce. We encourage you to try again after completing some of these requirements.

Best of luck,
Matt Toddson
NASA Hiring Official

18

I
have no idea what I’m supposed to do next. Call Kyle? Confront him? Discover that he isn’t one of the Good Guys after all, that he’s just one of the Mikes?

I can’t believe this is happening to me — again. I feel like my life is an endless loop — layoffs, cheating boyfriends, followed by more layoffs and more cheating boyfriends. Just what do I have to do to get a karmic break, anyway? I would’ve thought committing a felony in between might’ve broken that cycle.

Kyle saves me from having to make the decision by calling me first.

“Look, I want to apologize for my behavior the other night,” he starts. He’s talking about our Maximum Office fight.

“I don’t care,” I say. “I want to know why you lied to me.”

“Lied? What are you talking about?”

“I know you have a girl at your place. I saw her there,” I say.

“What are you doing? Spying on me?” Kyle asks, flabbergasted.

“Don’t change the subject. Who is she? Your other girlfriend? Your fiancée?” I feel the rising of the Ghost of Mike hovering above me in the room. The bitterness is coming through, and before I can stop it, it’s bubbling up, overflowing. I am turning into a one-woman Spanish Inquisition.

“Jane, calm down,” Kyle says, sternly. “If you’re talking about Laura, she’s my eighteen-year-old cousin. She’s staying with me for the weekend to scout out colleges.”

“She’s your cousin,” I scoff.

“You remember Laura. I think when you last saw her she had braces and her hair short.”

The anger fades away as I remember that he does have a cousin named Laura. A blond cousin I haven’t seen in years.

“Your cousin,” I spit, still not sure if I believe him.

“What? You’ve known me how long, and you think I’d be sleeping with another woman right under your nose? You think I’d start a new relationship with you — my best friend’s sister, when I wanted to play around with a
teenager?
Is that the kind of guy you take me for?”

I suddenly feel really stupid. I suddenly wish, more than anything, that I had a time machine and could jump back in time about ten minutes.

“I thought you knew me, Jane,” Kyle says, sounding sad. “But I don’t think you know me at all.”

The next thing I hear is a dial tone.

I’m beginning to feel like I am the opposite of King Midas. Everything I touch turns to shit.

I don’t need the confirmation, but Todd gives it to me anyway. It
is
Laura, Kyle’s cousin, who is staying at his place. A fact I would’ve known in advance if we hadn’t had the fight about Maximum Office, and if I’d just asked him rationally instead of ambushing him like some sort of crazed jealous woman.

Clearly, I need help.

Friday, I end up on the CTA headed to Evanston, where Mom insists I come for a family meal because I sound “down” on the phone. This is not an act. I am down. Between the police and Kyle and my lack of job prospects and the fact that I am flat broke, I am pretty down.

When I arrive home, the house is filled with smoke and Dad is thwacking the smoke alarm with a broom handle, using curse words he usually saves for December when he’s hanging up the colored lights on the roof.

“Dad? What the hell is going on? Where’s Mom?” I say, because the sight of my dad swinging a broom handle is a bit disconcerting.

“Your mother is working late,” Dad says, enunciating each syllable with exaggerated clarity. “She told me to put in the roast. Can you believe that?”

Dad says this as if Mom asked him to give up a kidney or sell his body on the street.

I wander into the kitchen, where smoke is billowing out of the oven. Mom’s roast is sitting on the oven rails, sans pan, which Dad thoughtfully left sitting on the counter. The bottom of the roast is blackened. The top is raw, and the drippings have coated the bottom of the oven in a black, chalky mess.

“Dad, you’re supposed to cook the roast in the pan,” I shout from the kitchen. He doesn’t respond. I hear the plastic of the smoke detector crack, and the sound of the plastic cover hitting the hallway floor.

I walk back into the hallway, but Dad has abandoned the broken smoke detector, leaving the broom handle lying against the wall and the smoke detector on the floor. He returns to his leather recliner and resumes watching
The O’Reilly Factor.

“Dad? What are we going to do about dinner?” I ask him, even as he’s fixated on the television.

“Here,” he says, digging around in his pocket and retrieving a crumpled ten dollar bill. “Go order a pizza.”

Dad has no idea how much things cost. He thinks a family of eight can eat happily on $5 a day.

Mom arrives home an hour later. She’s carrying two huge accordion files full of paper and a laptop bag, looking like the breadwinner she now is.

“Is something burning?” Mom asks me, nose in the air.

“Not exactly,” I say.

“Where’s your father?” she demands, after she sees the mess of the roast. Mom has that clipped tone she saves for serious arguments. Now, I suppose, would not be the best time to ask if I can move back into my old room.

*   *   *

The three of us eat pizza in relative silence. Mom is angry at Dad. I can tell because she is pretending he is not sitting at the other end of the table. She looks at me, but never at the other end to Dad. Dad has his head down as usual, hunched far over his dinner plate — the best angle at which to shove pizza in his mouth at light speed.

“The foundation is leaning again,” Mom says, to a spot somewhere over Dad’s head.

“Well, I can’t see how we can afford to fix it now,” Dad grumbles, between forkfuls.

“I think we should take out another home equity loan,” she says.

Dad just grunts.

“How’s your new roommate working out?” Mom asks me, ever the good hostess.

“That apartment,” Dad barks, immediately. “How many times do I have to tell you, you can’t afford that place?”

“Would you quit pestering the poor girl about her apartment?” Mom shouts, suddenly, from the far end of the table. Mom, who rarely raises her voice indoors, much less at the dinner table, causes us to jump. “She’s gotten a roommate. That shows fiscal responsibility.”

“Doris, she’s still living beyond her means, and if it had been up to me, we’d have taught our
children
the real
value
of money.”

Mom turns beet red.

“Since
when
did you care about
parenting?”
Mom’s voice is thunderous. “You couldn’t be bothered with even doing the
smallest
of things. I don’t see why
now
you’re taking such an interest. I was the one who raised our children.
Not
you.”

“Doris, I don’t think this is proper dinner conversation,” Dad says quietly. This is usually Mom’s cue to back down, recover her composure, and apologize for her outburst.

“That’s IT,” yells Mom, tossing down her linen napkin onto her piece of pizza. “I want a divorce.”

“Doris,” Dad says, unfazed. “I think you’d better calm down.”

“I’m tired of being calm,” Mom declares.

“Be reasonable, Doris,” Dad cautions.

“For once, I am, Dennis. I’m leaving.”

With that, Mom stomps up the stairs to the bedroom. I can hear her furiously opening and closing dresser drawers.

“Dad?” I question.

“Don’t worry,” Dad says, going back to eating. “She says she wants a divorce all the time now.”

“Don’t you think you should listen to her?”

“She’ll calm down.”

As Dad chews, Mom comes down the stairs dragging a large, wheeled suitcase behind her.

“I’m sorry you had to witness this, Jane,” she tells me before she makes her way out the back door.

Dad and I sit at the table, listening to her start up the engine of her Volvo station wagon. We hear her back out of the garage, and watch her lights go down the street.

“Does she always pack a bag, too?” I ask him.

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “That’s new.”

Bewildered and not sure what to do, I spend the night on the couch, waiting, I think, for Mom to return. She doesn’t.

Dad, who put on such a nonchalant front, becomes a bit more rattled in the morning, when it’s evident Mom stayed out for the night.

“She’ll come back,” he says, but with a little less confidence than the night before.

“Maybe you should try calling her sister’s,” I suggest.

“I will,” says Dad, who is clearly still in denial. “If she doesn’t call me in an hour or two, I will.”

I sigh and shake my head.

I call in sick to my temp job and wait most of the afternoon and into the night, but there’s still no sign of Mom. Not sure what else to do, I take the train back to my apartment, leaving Dad sitting by the phone in his recliner.

When I get to my apartment, it’s wall-to-wall people and there’s serious techno bass thudding from my old stereo, and someone has moved the furniture against the walls, and people are dancing in the middle of my living room. In my kitchen, there’s a beer keg, and the air is thick with pot smoke.

“RON!” I shout, enraged, pushing my way through the crowd of barely clad groupies that are gyrating to the sound of some awful dance music. I bump into Ganesha, who’s doing some sort of swirling circle of a dance on my ottoman.

“What are all these people doing here?” I shout at her. She shrugs.

“Record launch party,” she shouts back to me, “for Sink Gunk.”

I find Ron smoking a joint on my fire escape, talking to his bandmates, Russ and Joe.

“You have to get these people out of here,” I shout at Ron.

“Chill, Jane, geez,” he says. “It’s just a little party.”

“Ron, this is MY apartment. You have NO right to invite people over.”

Just then, I hear a crashing sound coming from my living room. It sounds suspiciously like someone broke my vintage porcelain cat clock.

“I think you all should leave,” I say.