Pink Slip Party (31 page)

“I’m over it now,” I say.

“Good,” he says.

We smile at each other.

Kyle reaches out and pushes some hair out of my eyes.

“So do you hate me or what?” he asks.

“Hate you? Why would I hate you?”

“You didn’t return any of my calls. Even when I came to your parents’ house, you couldn’t even look at me.”

“I thought you hated me. You clearly hated me first.”

“I never hated you. How could you think that? I may not have agreed with some of your choices, but Jane, I could never hate you. I’m crazy about you. You’ve got to see that.”

And at that moment, looking at Kyle’s earnest face, I believe him.

“So, what do we do now?” I ask.

“Really hot marathon sex?” he offers.

I bark a laugh. “Sounds like a good idea to me,” I say.

“Maybe later we can talk about the secret wife I have in Utah,” Kyle says, “and the two others in Ohio and Oregon.”

“There is no part of that that is funny,” I say, but I’m smiling.

Sex with Kyle is, hands down, the best I’ve ever had, which probably isn’t saying a lot (considering the likes of Ron). The addition of sex to the friendship is like discovering one of your oldest friends also happens to be fabulously wealthy. Kyle being great in bed is just one of life’s unexpected bonuses.

And it has taken me awhile to realize it, but Kyle is funny and entertaining and the only other person on the planet who is as much of a smartass as I am.

And he does seem to be crazy about me for some odd reason. I can’t tell why. Perhaps he’s secretly turned on by my thrilling life of crime.

“I’m going to have to go back to work sometime,” Kyle tells me.

We’re lying in his bedroom, having just finished eating pizza straight out of the box. Kyle has taken two sick days in a row, and we haven’t left his apartment during that time.

“Work is for suckers,” I say, resting my head on his chest.

“I think you’re on to something there,” Kyle says, wrapping me up again in his arms and rolling me over so I’m under him. Not working is so much better when you have someone really sexy and funny to do it with, I decide.

A week later, my mom starts crying tears of joy when I announce over pot roast at her new apartment that Kyle and I are dating.

“Mom, we’re just dating. We’re not engaged,” I say.

“I’m just so happy for you!” she says, squeezing me tight. She then proceeds to tell Kyle about how I’d had a crush on him for years and used to kiss his picture in the yearbook when I was seven and he was eleven. Kyle does not let me live this down for weeks afterward.

Mom announces shortly afterward that she’s gotten a promotion to Director of Content, and Dad takes a job at Wrigley Field selling peanuts. Dad says he’s always wanted to work at Wrigley Field. Mom claims he took on a job in concessions because he ruined all his white-collared shirts by putting them in the wash with one of his red socks.

“Your father will do anything — even work for peanuts — to get out of shopping for new clothes,” Mom says.

And while the two of them are not back together, and might not ever be, I take it as a positive sign that Mom is once again at least talking about Dad. And the two of them can increasingly stay in the same room for longer and longer spells without one or the other storming out. I attribute this to Dad’s growing library of self-help books.

Todd starts speaking to me a month later, and I tell him about Kyle and me being an item. I dread this moment because Todd can be overprotective at times, and he, like my dad, thinks that I am asexual and reproduce by spores.

He’s not angry as I suspected he would be. He’s not even surprised.

“I was wondering when you two were just going to go have sex and get it over with,” he says, shrugging.

“You’re not mad?” I ask.

“Why would I be mad? It’s a free country.”

Todd’s temporary brush with the law has made him far more open-minded and magnanimous. For six full weeks he’s resisted the need to give me advice, and he’s even made noise about possibly quitting his job and going to law school.

“Todd, I think you’re a whole new person,” I say. “Pretty soon, you’ll start donating money to the ACLU.”

“Let’s not go that far,” Todd says.

Steph calls me later to tell me that Ferguson has sold his story to NBC to make into a made-for-TV movie.

“He hasn’t even gone to trial yet,” I say.

“He’s probably going to settle the case soon,” Steph says. “Maximum Office can’t handle much more bad publicity. They have a merger to think about, and all. But guess who they think is going to play him? Just guess?”

“John Goodman?” I venture.

“No! Rob Lowe!” she exclaims.

I try to imagine Rob Lowe staring at a computer with a
Lord of the Rings
screensaver and chowing down Subway sandwiches. I fail.

“I always thought he looked like Rob Lowe,” Steph says. “Not to mention, I think I’ve found a new calling. Ferguson is hiring me to be his manager.”

“What else does he have going on besides the NBC deal?”

“Well, I’m talking to Subway right now, and maybe we’ll think about going on a speaking tour.”

“Steph, you’re insane, you know that?”

“I prefer to think of myself as inspired,” she says.

Later that same week, I’m walking a golden retriever, a poodle, and a Jack Russell terrier when I nearly collide with Ron. I haven’t seen him since the back of the squad car, and he looks almost dressed up, wearing pants with sewn hems, a shirt that doesn’t have holes in it, and mirrored sunglasses. Even his bleached blond hair looks properly highlighted and conditioned.

“Jane, I have been looking
all over
for you,” he says.

“Back away from me,” I say. “I don’t want to be arrested again.”

“I am SO sorry about that,” Ron says. “Really, I am. I feel terrible. Let me make it up to you.”

Ron pulls a wad of cash from his giant pocket. He counts out ten slightly soggy $100 bills.

“I can’t take your drug money,” I protest, trying to put up a noble fight.

“It’s not drug money, dude,” he says. “It’s royalty money and you earned it with your CD cover. Besides, I owe you bail money. The arrest
really
helped me start a buzz about Sink Gunk.”

I forgot that jail time usually improves record sales.

Ron’s band Sink Gunk, he tells me, has managed to make the Billboard Top 50 with their single, “Love Bites Like Drano,” and are soon to go on a national tour, hitting twenty-five major cities.

“Wow,” I say, taking the money and folding the bills into my pocket. “Nice work.”

“Have you heard from Missy?” Ron asks me.

“No,” I say.

“I heard from a friend of a friend that she moved to New Mexico. I think she’s starting her own cult or something. A commune of some kind.”

“She’s probably just looking for a new way to steal money,” I say.

“I think she was my soul mate,” Ron sighs.

I roll my eyes.

“Look, love is blind, dude, OK?”

“Whatever,” I say.

“Anyway, I also wanted to get your email address and phone number. There’s this graphic design guy who’s totally hot for your album cover, and he wants to talk to you about some other gig.”

I hug Ron.

“Hey, babe, I told you we’re just friends,” he says, putting up his hands.

“It’s not sexual,” I snap.

“Whatever you want to tell yourself, babe,” he says.

To:
[email protected]
From: Pierre and Friends Graphic Design
Sent: 06/01/02

Dear Jane,

I am a freelance designer who works for Millennium Records, the record company that signed Sink Gunk.

After looking at your design for Sink Gunk’s album cover, I’d like you to consider the possibility of interviewing for a graphic design position I have open in my firm.

If you’re interested, please fax me your resume and we can go from there.

Sincerely,
Pierre Lamont

23

T
here’s a message on Dad’s answering machine for me when I get home and I am momentarily frozen by the sound of a French accent. Thankfully, it isn’t Landlord Bob, who every now and again makes an appearance in my dreams wearing his pink bathrobe.

No, this is Pierre Lamont, art director, who wants to meet me for an interview that afternoon.

When I meet Pierre Lamont I notice two things right away: his permanent five o’clock shadow and the cigarette butt hanging from his lip. Immediately, he offers me one of his unfiltered cigarettes to smoke in his office, and I think I might have found my dream boss.

“You are good with lines,” he grunts. “I like a woman who knows her lines, eh?”

His accent is much softer than Landlord Bob’s, and I am relieved to find that not all Frenchmen shout.

“So, you up for some work, eh?” he asks me. “We do lots of CD covers zere, and concert posters and invitations — just a little bit of everyzing. I hope you like to be creative. We need creative work zere.”

I nod. So far, so good. I like the idea of working in a place where I can be creative, where I can do something more demanding than designing Post-it notes.

“So. Zere’s how it works, OK? I hire you for three months. I pay you, and if I like you, you get to stay on, OK?”

As I watch, Pierre stubs out his cigarette in a pile of wrinkled up pieces of paper, completely oblivious to any fire hazards, and immediately lights up another.

“I work by French hours here, so that’s thirty hours a week, no more,” he says. “Overtime is American, yes? We French work smart, not hard.”

I am liking him more and more already.

“If you are hired on permanently, you get insurance, 401k, and six weeks vacation a year.”

Pierre puffs on his cigarette, letting this sink in. I must look as shocked as I feel, because Pierre is quick to add, “I know vacation seems short, but after awhile, maybe we bump it up to eight weeks.”

Short? Six weeks is short? My hands are shaking from sheer excitement.

“And I don’t like working in August, yes? I go home to France in August.”

“I’d be happy to cover then,” I say.

“Cover?” Pierre coughs. Smoke comes out of his nose. “No need to cover. Office shuts down for August. But the bad thing is, you have to come to Paris for a couple of weeks so you can meet my partner.”

“So, let me get this straight,” I say. “If I work for you, I get to go to Paris. I get August off, and six additional weeks during the year?”

Pierre nods.

“But maybe we move that up to eight after you work here a while,” he says.

I am fighting the strong urge to leap over the desk and kiss him on the lips.

“When can I start?” I ask, almost too eagerly, like the kid who always knew all the answers in class.

“Eh, whenever you’d like.” He shrugs. “Two weeks? Three? I call you, yes?”

“You won’t regret it,” I say eagerly, like a college freshman, shaking his hand.

Two weeks later, I move out of my parents’ house and into my new, smaller, more financially responsible apartment. It doesn’t have its own washer and dryer. In fact, it’s more of a studio than a one-bedroom, but at this point, I have no furniture to put in it, anyway.

But I don’t care. If I’ve learned anything from the last six months, it’s that you can’t always control everything about your life, and that losing a job or your apartment isn’t the end of the world. Life goes on, and that’s a good thing.

Also, I’m trying to learn to be less critical. After all, hating things is a lot easier than admitting to what you like. And being critical of the whole world means, in most cases, being most critical of yourself. I’ve decided to give myself, and the world, a break for once. And no matter what, I’m never going to let work get so personal again. I’ve more than learned my lesson.

And, you can’t keep people out forever. Eventually, one or two of them might get in and hurt you, despite all your best efforts, and this is OK, too, because it’s better to put yourself out there and get hurt than to never take the chance at all.

Kyle has promised to rent a truck and take me “shopping” at the annual Clean-Up Week in Winnetka, which is when all the wealthy people put out furniture on the curb and everyone else snatches it up. It’s like a flea market, only it’s free, and the merchandise is all Room and Board and Restoration Hardware.

Kyle, in fact, has taken Ron’s place as the perennial squatter in my new digs, but I don’t mind, because Kyle insists on paying for take-out, since my new budget doesn’t allow for much eating out, digital cable, or buying any new clothes, shoes, or purses until I’m sixty-five. But it’s not all bad. There’s Kyle to keep me entertained, and besides, not having cable gives me more time to paint, which I love. Kyle has been my major subject for the most part, and he is now the star fixture in a new series of collage portraits I’m doing. I’ve even been thinking of trying to get a gallery show of my paintings, which just goes to show that being laid off and committing felonies can really inspire a person to get motivated, to have some real ambition.

In two months, I’m going to Paris, and Kyle has threatened to follow me to watch me paint. He has only one stipulation — that while I work I wear my Elvis Costello glasses and nothing else.

Up Close and Personal With the Author

WHAT IS THE INSPIRATION FOR
PINK SLIP PARTY?

Two years ago, several friends of mine suffered through some serious layoffs, and I wanted to write a book for them. Losing your job can feel like losing your identity. One day you’re a “consultant” or a “programmer” or a “publicist” and the next day, you’re “someone looking for a job.” It can change how you see yourself, and how other people see you. Also, I think next to love interests and friends, a job is a central focus of a twenty-or thirty-something’s life.