On the Verge (12 page)

“I love everything he represents. For the first time ever, I am in love with a man and at the same time in love with his politics.”
Wow! I am speechless. I cannot even imagine answering my sister in one of my two tried and true ways (sounds in the affirmation or disgusted agreement in case you forgot), I guess it’s best to ignore her. I see Lacey Matthews striding over to my desk.

“Listen, Monica, I have to go. I have someone at my desk.” Lacey is already mouthing something to me. She is blind to the phone at my ear.

“Okay, Eve, I want to talk to you soon, honey. I want to find out about your apartment. I miss you. I love you.” Not only is my sister a big time sap, I’m starting to think she’s bipolar.

“Me, too. ’Bye.” I hang up and turn to Lacey. She’s got a yucky crease between her eyebrows. “My sister.”

“Still no computer.” Lacey is not taking the sister excuse, she is just not having it. “This is getting ridiculous.”

At some point during Lacey’s
brief
tenure, she stopped seeing me as the departmental assistant and began to view me as her own personal secretary. I think I should start being less efficient.

“I think you might have to wait until tomorrow. It’s already 4:30. I seriously doubt they’re going to come up now.”

“Well, I don’t want to have another day like this tomorrow. Can you have them up here first thing in the morning?”

“It’s not something I control. I have already called them four times today. You see how much it did.” In reality, it was only twice, but she’ll never know.

“Maybe you’re not being aggressive enough.” Is she out of her bird? My expression must register, because she starts one of those phony office apologies that people give when they are totally insulting, but can’t afford to offend you. “I mean, maybe they just can’t recognize the importance of it. After all, I am wasting money and productivity. It’s a big deal.”

I am starting to sense that to Lacey everything (with the exception of indoor canine urination) is a big deal. Hasn’t she ever had a first day before? First days are all about bumming around trying to figure out your place and getting a feel for the environment. Not much work gets done on first days. They aren’t supposed to. In fact, first days are suspiciously similar to my job.

“Well,” I say, trying to remain cheery (she is really testing my new stance on positivity), “if you want to give them a call, you certainly can.”

“Well, I don’t know if I would have the impact you would.” I thought I was just accused of not being aggressive enough.

“So, what would you like me to do?” Lacey looks like a little
girl who has to go to the bathroom, except her face is too put together. She twists a little and fidgets.

“Can you call them again, please?”

“Oh, sure.” Just go away. She stands there waiting for me to call. “Now?”

“If you could.” She smiles. Jesus. I dial Tabitha’s number. She can tell it’s me from her caller ID.

“Hey, Eve.”

“Um, hi, my name is Eve Vitali. I’ve called several times today about getting a computer for Lacey Matthews.”

“Is that the bitch with the pooch?”

“That’s right. Well no one has yet come up to install her computer.”

“What is this? Is she right there?”

“Yes, and I mean basically Ms. Matthews has been stagnant all day. It is really a waste of her tremendous talent.” I smile at Lacey and nod. We are on the same side.

“Mother of God.”

“I mean she can’t write without her computer.”

“Why don’t you tell her to go fuck herself.”

“Oh, I’ve already tried that, but I still haven’t gotten a response.”

“This woman is going to kill you. You shouldn’t even indulge these sick fantasies.”

“Yes, I know that. Do you have a supervisor I could talk to?”

“Why, am I not being helpful enough?”

“Oh, he left already.”

“Why would you assume that he was a guy? See how sexism is ingrained?”

“You know that’s exactly what someone I spoke to earlier said—it usually takes a day to process.” Now Lacey is enjoying cheering me on. She is mouthing something to me about deadlines. “I mean, really, she is on a deadline. This
is
a magazine company.”

“Nice touch. She’s used to the sound of her clock ticking. This, too, shall pass.”

“Yeah, well what do you expect her to do?”

“Maybe get laid instead of walking her barbaric dog, so she can get off your back. It might work wonders.”

“I’m not even sure that would do it.”

“Most likely not, but I think you can be a little snottier. Show me who’s the boss.”

“Yes, I understand and I want you to know how imperative it is that we get this computer as soon as possible.”

“You know, next she’ll need help wiping her ass.”

“I’m certain that would be the next step.”

“There you go. Keep that witch tone going.”

“Now give me the absolute latest it will be installed. This woman needs to start cranking.”

“That’s not all she needs.”

“Okay, we definitely need to have it before then. I don’t want to have to get our supervisors involved in this.”

“Oh, no, anything but that.” Tabitha uses this Southern accent and I almost lose it.

“Okay, so I have your word? What’s your name?”

“What are you going to do, ho? Call my supervisor? Haven’t I been helpful? Haven’t I bent over backward? You want my name? Okay, fine. Zeke.”

“Great, Luis. Thanks for all your help.”

“Fuck you.”

“Oh, you, too. Thanks again.” We hang up. I smile at Lacey. She seems genuinely impressed. I hope I haven’t started a trend of doing her dirty work for her.

“Thanks, Eve. So what did they say?” Lacey thinks that if she uses my name I will think she sees me as a person, not just someone to literally piss on.

“Well, Lacey, they think tomorrow afternoon, Wednesday the absolute latest. It’s a mess down there. He told me about all these people they had to service first. Totally unorganized. I suggest you bring in your laptop, just in case.” Lacey sighs.

“Well, okay. Listen, Eve, I really appreciate it.” She switches into some phony British accent like that is supposed to be friendly or something. It’s stupid.

“Fine, Lacey, anytime.” I wave her off. Don’t give me too much praise.

Moments later the computer guys show up and ask me who needs their computer set up. There’s two ways to play this. I can freak out because I insisted to Lacey that they were backed up or I can make it my moment. The danger is that Lacey will think her nagging is ultimately responsible and she will continue to hound me whenever she needs something done and that will, as my sweet grandmother would say, “drive me to an early grave.” I don’t want to start that trend. I stride over to Lacey’s desk with the computer guys in tow.

“Look who’s here, apparently the person I spoke to was misinformed. They were already on their way, because of all my earlier harassment.”

“Oh, how wonderful!” Lacey looks like she is going to have an orgasm. I flit back to my desk and call Tabitha.

“Stellar performance.”

“I do my best. The computer guys came to put a muzzle on her.”

“Now wasn’t that quick turnaround? You see the speed in which I operate.”

Lacey comes to me before she leaves. She gushes with thanks and tells me she is so glad she got so much accomplished on the first day. Of course it’s never enough. “So what about the other supplies?”

“At least two days.”

“Of course we thought that about the computer.” I am definitely going to sit on the other supplies for at least a week if they come in before that. I should try not to do my job too well. “Well, have a good night.”

“You have a great night.”

It’s not easy to be positive on Mondays.

When I get home Roseanne is sitting on the couch in her sweats watching Jerry Springer in his fourth run today. I don’t ask her if she’s seen the first three. The house smells good though, like food. She must’ve gotten up off the couch at some point.

“How was your day?”

“Well, no sign of our furry tenants. I watched a lot of talk shows. Made mango-glazed pork chops and garlic mashed potatoes for dinner. Joined a gym, well actually I signed us both up for one. It’s right on 8th.”

“A gym? How much?”

“A few hundred down usually, but it was two for one so it’s like one hundred and change for each of us. Then it’s seventy.”

“More?”

“A month.” I am certain she is going off the deep end.

“Roseanne, I really don’t have that kind of money right now. I wish you discussed this with me first.” Is everyone in cahoots to drive any positive thoughts from my head? Remain calm. Smile and nod.

“Eve, our fitness is important. There’ll always be a tomorrow. We need to start now.”

“What is that? Is that in the ad? Where are you getting this? I like being unfit. I drink too much to be fit. So do you.”

“That’s why we have to do this. If we are going to enlarge our livers we have to enlarge our muscles, too.” She is undoubtedly reading too many pamphlets.

“Well, fitness is expensive, Ro, and I prefer to spend my money on my vices. Besides, how are we going to afford this?”

“I got a job.” What? “Yep.” She gets up and goes into the kitchen. I follow her and watch her pour wine, then put our feast on the plates. She has set our tiny kitchen table, so we can actually eat in our kitchen. Just like the ad.

“So we’re celebrating.”

“Yes—” she takes a sip of wine “—we are celebrating fitness.”

“No, your job. Aren’t you excited about your job?”

“Well, I guess. It’s in some boring old firm. Don’t you get all out of hand, it’s very, and I mean very, low level.”

“How did you get it?”

“I answered an ad. I suspect they just wanted a woman, but I got it.”

“That’s fabulous.” I hold my glass up to her to toast. She clinks mine, reluctantly. “What’s wrong? Not enough salary?”

“Actually, it’s more than I ever dreamed of. They pay lots in New York. I don’t know, though, I mean, do I want to sit around and play with numbers all day?”

“I could never understand how you did it in school. Those classes were awful.”

“Yeah and I was so jealous of you when you got out of that major. I figured I was good at it so it would have to get better, but it didn’t fascinate me like your job fascinates you.”

“My job does not fascinate me. Not in the least.”

“You get into it—and you yourself said it’s a foot in the door. Plus the things you want to do are more exciting.”

“If I could figure out what it was. I question that ‘foot in the door’ stuff. The good thing about all those business people at school was that they seemed to have a definite plan. There’s something calming about that. I mean you graduate from college with your business-related major, you line up a job for September, you travel, getting it out of your system, and then boom you’re on a track to success, to all those attainable American things. Shit! One talk with my sister and this is how I start to think.”

“No, you’re absolutely right. But I don’t know if I want that. I
don’t want it to be predictable. I want something, I don’t know. I guess it is nice to have your life planned, but when the actual life is so boring and has to be lived in uncomfortable hell it isn’t as cool.”

“But it is good. You got a job.”

“I guess.”

“How’s the salary?”

“45.” I think I’m going to choke on my pork chop. Can she mean forty-five thousand? “But, Eve, they’re buying my life from me.”

“Well, at least for a good price.”

When we finish eating I do the dishes. It’s a familiar college pattern, she cooks, I clean up. It’s only eight o’clock, I feel like there is so much more time left in the evening. We decide to walk down into the village.

Then we visit Adrian. It’s just 9:30 and I still can’t get over all the time we have in a day. We walk up 8th Avenue and ogle all the pretty boys. Adrian’s friend Cliff is visiting. I think there’s something up between them, but whenever I try to get Adrian’s attention to mouth stuff to him, he looks confused. We convince Roseanne to have a drink, although she vows that she is totally revamping now that we have joined a gym.

“C’mon, hon, just a drink.” Adrian is already up and in the kitchen. I follow him.

“What’s the deal with Cliff?”

“He’s a total Rice Queen, not into my occidental stuff. Did you hear who Miss Thing was going out with tonight?” Adrian does a mock salute and says, “Frankfurter.”

“Johann? No, sir.”

“Yeah, she just called. He invited her out for a late dinner. She had tried you at your place. She assumed you were out running with Roseanne. That girl has issues.”

“Shit. She’s going out with him to help Roseanne get a job. Rosie just got one.”

Adrian assures me that these small acts of generosity are something we should try to encourage in Tabitha. I know he’s right, although I am concerned that she will hold this, too, against Roseanne.

We drink at Adrian’s for a while. I suspect Cliff may like him, despite what Adrian said. If I was a gay man, I definitely would. I may, despite my hetero state, have a crush on him anyway. (It’ll
be fine, I’m used to disappointment.) Cliff doesn’t leave when we do. Adrian walks us down.

“I think you might just get some booty,” I say as I kiss him.

“We’ll see about that.” He kisses Roseanne. “Take care, ladies. My love to the mouse.”

We walk back to our place. I look up at it from the street. I find my main worry is that someone will break in and take my stuff. Monica would have a field day with the fact that my material belongings are my most important concern.

“Eve, do you think I’ve got the New York Kiss down?” What is she talking about? “You know, everyone in New York seems to kiss each other. Sometimes. I mean you never can tell. The other night at the bar you kissed the bartender. You didn’t kiss Brad’s friend. You kissed Brad. We both just kissed Adrian. Sometimes you kiss Tabitha. You never kiss me. What’s the story?”

“Wow! I didn’t realize you were keeping such good tabs on who I was kissing. I guess it’s just like a regular kiss, there’s no hard and fast rule. Just whenever. Like a handshake or something. No rules. I mean, I guess you go with the other person.”