The Awesome Girl's Guide to Dating Extraordinary Men (21 page)

Whenever I got a rejection e-mail for a job that paid more or sounded far more worthwhile than administering contracts at MTS Systems, I focused on how grateful I was to have a job at all in this economy, and used that gratitude to keep myself off the MTS roof.

In fact, that morning when I got a rejection e-mail from the grant-writing department of KPCC, one of Southern California’s National Public Radio affiliates, I held myself there as still as I could, clinging to my desk, willing myself to be grateful for the job I currently had as opposed to becoming overwhelmed by searching for a good job in a bad economy.

“Thursday,” a voice said above me. “Are you all right?”

I looked up to see my boss, Nancy, standing there. I realized then what I must have looked like, holding on to the edge of my desk, stiff as a stroke
victim. “I’m fine. I’m just …” I didn’t know how to finish that sentence, so I just said it again. “I’m fine.”

Her eyes softened, and she gave me the most gentle look. “Can I see you in my office?”

As it turned out, I would no longer have to actively resist the urge to throw myself off the MTS roof, because fifteen minutes later, I could no longer count myself as an employee of MTS Systems. There were lots of reasons for this layoff. My boss had been instructed to cut at least two contract administrators, and though I had done good enough work for the company, in her words, “You don’t seem enthusiastic to be here.”

No, I hadn’t been enthusiastic, not like my co-workers with their cheesy workplace banter, and their scene-by-scene reconstructions of the last episode of
Modern Family
, and their happy breakfasts in the lunchroom. I thought about chorizo and eggs as I packed up my desk in three boxes provided by MTS. I wondered what it tasted like. I had only eaten the fake kind. And by the time I was done collecting the contents of my desk into boxes, under my now-former boss’s awkward supervision, I had an official craving for meat.

A few minutes later, I thanked my boss for helping me carry my boxes out to the car and then went straight to In-N-Out, where I ordered a double-double cheeseburger. Being a vegetarian by inheritance was a little different than being a vegetarian by choice. Most of the time, I stuck to the diet I had grown up with, but I didn’t feel the need to resist the urge to eat meat. And on the rare occasion that I found myself craving meat, I had a hamburger. No biggie.

I hadn’t even tried to explain this reasoning to Caleb, who was a vegetarian by choice. He used words like “moral” and “equality” when talking about his college conversion from midwestern meat eater to a card-carrying member of PETA, which was why I stopped at a CVS and bought a travel bottle of mouthwash. I swished with it before making the trip upstairs with one of my boxes. But I needn’t have bothered. Caleb
had his headphones on and was deep in a project. He didn’t even hear me come in.

Risa called to invite me to Sharita’s place as I was making my way down the steps to get my second box. “That’s funny,” I said, after she admitted that she was staging an intervention. “But it’s not going to work. Sharita’s way too thick-headed.”

I got off the phone laughing, but soon the depression came back. Who gets laid off from her dead-end job? Where did I even go from here? And how was I going to tell Caleb I got fired and could no longer pay my half of the rent? Instead of returning to my car for the third box, I lay down and stared at the loft’s high ceiling, trying to find meaning in its exposed pipes.

I was sick of being grateful. Gratitude had gotten me nothing except two weeks’ severance. The image of Mike Barker driving away in his custom golf cart came back to me. If I hadn’t burnt that bridge I could call Mike now and see if he could get me a production assistant job or something. He could probably snap his fingers and get people jobs just like that. Why, oh why, had I been born a complete screwup?

And so on and so on until Caleb’s face appeared above me.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Hey,” I said, quickly pasting on a smile. “I thought you were working.”

“Bathroom break, but then when I was coming back, I saw you laying here with your eyes open. It sort of looked like you were dead.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, sitting up. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Are you okay?”

Just then the landline sounded, giving off the two short rings that meant someone was at the downstairs door and wanted to be buzzed up.

“Did you order a pizza?” I asked. Used to working on big projects alone, Caleb often ordered out without consulting with me first.

“No,” he said, looking over his shoulder at the retro eighties wall phone. “I’ll get it.”

“Hello?” he said after picking up the bright green receiver. Then: “Could you hold on?”

He called across the room, “It’s Sharita.”

SHARITA

I
can’t believe you didn’t come to my intervention,” I said when Thursday came down the metal stairs that led to the loft she was sharing with Caleb now. I hadn’t seen Thursday since December and I was surprised to see her dreadlocks were styled into wavy curls now. I felt a compliment tug at my tongue. Despite everything, I wanted to tell her she looked good, like I would have back when we were still best friends.

But then she said, “I don’t believe the intervention actually worked.”

“It didn’t work,” I informed her. “I’m still very much a child of God.”

“Then why are you here as opposed to at your Bible study?” she asked.

That stymied me for a second. When I had gotten Thursday’s new address from Risa and driven over here, it hadn’t occurred to me that I was skipping my Bible study to confront my trifling ex-friend.

But I reset and jabbed my finger at her. “You need to learn about a big thing called forgiveness. It was
one party
.”

“First of all, having this conversation with you really is the last thing I need today. Second of all, you can’t demand that somebody forgive you,” Thursday said, in that irritating, droll academic way of hers that she employed for fights. “Third of all, if I need to learn forgiveness, then you need to learn how to be a real friend first.”

“I am a real friend when it counts,” I said. “That’s what I don’t like about you. You don’t remember anything. If somebody doesn’t do exactly what you want them to do, when you want them to do it, then you go crazy on them. Just like with your father—”

I broke off, because even before Thursday’s eyes went cold, I knew that I shouldn’t have activated that minefield.

“Oh, what a surprise,” Thursday said, her voice as mocking as it could possibly get. “Sharita is taking the side of yet another black man over her
friends. In fact, Sharita is so conditioned to put men first that she can’t seem to see the pattern in her own behaviors.” Thursday broke off to glare at me. “Instead of fixing yourself, you’re over here, trying to convince me I’m the crazy one, when you’re the one who keeps on doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Well, you got your different results. You canceled on me one time too many and now we’re no longer friends.”

I saw red. Thursday was one of those black girls who hadn’t grown up with other black girls and therefore had never learned that you can’t say whatever you want to us. The only thing that kept me from snatching every last lock out of her fool head was the certainty that I would never make partner at my firm if I had an assault arrest on my record.

But even considering that outcome, I was extremely tempted to do it anyway. “You think you’re better than me because you’re dating a white boy?” I asked. “You’re just like those house slaves that lorded it over the field slaves because they were sleeping with the massa.”

Thursday rolled her eyes. “Oh my God, minoring in African-American studies doesn’t make you an expert on interracial relationships. And really, comparing my relationship to that of masters and slaves only makes everything coming out your mouth sound even more dumb. So I’m going to talk to you like you’re as stupid as you sound right now.”

Thursday said this next part really slowly, like she was talking to a child. “I don’t think I’m better than you because I’m in an interracial relationship. I think I’m better than you because I’m in a healthy and loving relationship with a man who is committed to me
and
because I maintain my friendships despite being in said relationship. Unlike you, who can’t even manage this task when you’re just hanging out with yet another trifling, no-good Negro.”

This time I had to control the impulse to straight-up kill Thursday. “You,” I informed Thursday, “are a siddity, racist, and ungrateful bitch. And I can’t even believe we were friends as long as we were. I must have been out of my dang mind.”

I considered myself a lady and tried not to call people out our names. But Thursday had pissed me off that bad.

Thursday jutted her chin out, still haughty as she could be. “Well, thank you for coming all the way over here. I’ve learned so much from your brilliant observations. Good night.”

She walked back up her stairs to her apartment, and though I should have felt righteous and vindicated, sadness overtook me as I got back into my Volkswagen Jetta, which I’d parked in the guest spot underneath the stairs. Was this really it? Were we ending our twelve-year friendship over one party?

My phone went off then and part of me hoped it was Thursday, calling to apologize.

But the caller ID lit up with my sister’s name. Nicole, who hadn’t bothered to do more than text message me since August and who was most likely calling to ask for money yet again.

I picked it up anyway, because at least Nicole was nice and would never accuse me of being stupid. But maybe I shouldn’t have, because my annoyance flared up all over again when Nicole said, “Shariiiita! I have a HUGE favor to ask of you.”

“Wow,” I said. “You couldn’t even say hello? The answer’s no, okay?”

“But you can’t say no,” Nicole said. “I really need my little sister.”

“I can and I am saying no because guess what? I’m not an ATM, Nic. I know you think I’m rich. But you don’t seem to realize that I have money because I work hard for it. And you don’t seem to appreciate that giving you money that you always promise to pay back but never do is not helping me maintain my wealth. In fact, you are bad for my wealth. And it would be different if you were really poor. But you have a weave that you manage to maintain even when you know your rent is due, so if you really need money, think about cutting back on your hair-salon bills. How about that? How about taking out the expensive weave that hasn’t gotten you any paid roles and using the money you save to pay your own dang rent as opposed to calling me every time you want a handout?”

There was a long moment of silence on the other end. But I refused to apologize. All people did was use me and then dump me when I didn’t do what they wanted me to do, and I was done apologizing.

“Sharita,” Nicole said, her tone quiet and much less upbeat now. “I wasn’t calling for a handout. I’m calling because I’ve been dating this really nice guy and he just asked me to marry him. I was hoping you would agree to be my maid of honor.”

The golden rule applies, especially when it comes to love. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. I can’t tell you how many clients I’ve had complain about what they’re getting, while refusing to give all of themselves.

—The Awesome Girl’s Guide to Dating Extraordinary Men
by Davie Farrell

SHARITA

N
icole was getting married. Nicole, who had majored in theater at Trinity College and had then decided, against my advice, to dig herself even further into the black hole of art by taking on major debt to go to Yale’s School of Drama. Nicole, who had insisted on pursuing acting despite having never been paid more than seventy-five bucks a performance to do so. Nicole, who couldn’t keep a day job. Nicole, who had dated one useless starving artist after another and squandered all of her brains on a career that did not want her. Nicole, who called her
little sister
every other month to borrow money, was getting married.

And the groom wasn’t another starving artist who could barely afford a five-minute wedding at city hall. No, she was marrying the director that had turned her down for the Verizon ad. A few weeks after passing on her for the commercial, he had called her up and asked her out.