The Throwaway Year (5 page)

She snorted.
“
Back
in condition?”

“Well
, runner’s condition.” He pressed stop on the treadmill and hopped off.

“I was just kidding
Todd. Don’t stop running,” she huffed breathlessly as she continued pedaling. “You’re giving me motivation to keep pushing it. Notice that I passed the thirty minute point?”

He looked at the time on her bike and smiled.
“Damn girl – you go!”

She smiled proudly.

“Ten more minutes and then you can stop.”

“Wha-?”

“You can do it, Hayden. That will put you at forty-five minutes.”

She would throw up before she got to
45 minutes… but she didn’t. With pride, she climbed off the bike ten minutes later while Todd gave her a loud applause.

“Hayden
, do you realize that you can now ride a bike non-stop for twelve full miles?”

Her hands were resting on her bent knees as she tried to find her breath.
She watched fat drops of sweat hit the floor with a soft yet repetitive
ping
. She lifted her head to look at him, causing the rivulets of sweat to run down her neck.  “What’s a Zombie Run?”

“Come
on; let’s walk before you tighten up.” As they made a circuit around the gym, Todd explained that each fall his fire department hosted a 50K marathon where the participants dressed as zombies.

“
Fifty K?”

“That’s just over
thirty-one miles.” His head snapped back around to her. “You know what Hayden, you should join it.”

She made a rude noise with her mouth.

“No, seriously. You just did twelve miles without stopping.”

“But I was riding
a bike-”

“It doesn’t matter.
It’s still cardio.”

She gave him a doubtful look.
“I don’t think I can run for thirty-one miles.”

“Not even if zombies were chasing you?”

She smiled.

Todd stopped walking and gave her a serious look.
“Hayden… I don’t mean to pry but… well; you don’t seem to take much pride in your accomplishments.” Hayden’s mouth opened to protest, but Todd stopped her. “I know you’re working hard and really pushing yourself, but do you realize the great strides that you’ve made in the last two months?”

She looked at him with confusion.
“I’m still shaped exactly the same, even if I have lost a couple of pounds.”

He shook his head.
“You’re a work in progress, but you’re not the same.  You can do forty-five minutes of cardio, and that’s nothing to sneeze at. Look, I would never suggest you do something that I knew you couldn’t. I believe that I can get you in condition to run a fifty K.”

She considered his words and thought about how she could now walk up the four flights of stairs to her job each morning without breathing
hard. Also, how she had tightened the drawstring on her workout pants to keep them from dropping down her smaller hips.

“Okay,” she said slowly.
The idea of running a marathon—hell just running in general, scared her, but… “Yeah, I’ll try it.”

He smiled and clapped her on her shoulder.
“Awesome. We’ll start training at our next session.”

Hayden dragged ass into her second job later that evening, grateful that she would be sitting for the next four hours.
This was her third day as a Telemarketer and she had yet to sell one ad.  Yet at least she now understood some things better. The entire room was split into sales teams; hers seeming to be a band of misfits that all of the other teams had probably rejected like the kids in school that no one picked to be on their dodge ball team.

They consisted of Pam, who hadn’t said more then ten words to her all week.
She smoked in excess and Hayden was happy that there was a policy that all smoking had to be done in the canteen, which meant that Pam had to leave the area every half an hour to feed her nicotine addiction.  Next on her team was the rude guy with the neat desk.

From what
Hayden could make out, his name was Brian, although Pam was the only one who had called him by his name.  Pam had actually said “Brine” like he was something she soaked a turkey in. This was Covington, Kentucky though, so the room was filled with varying forms of countrified and Mid-Western dialects.

T
hen there was Marcus, an older Black man that smoked weed in his car during his breaks and lunch. He would always give himself away by returning with red eyes and singing doo-wop songs, or blasting jokes that made no sense. Last was Abdullah, who was of some unidentifiable race and who had an unidentifiable accent. He complained all the time and smelled funny.

Well
, she was sure that they had some equally unappealing thoughts about her;
the new hire… you know the pig-faced Black lady with freckles.
Or maybe they laughed at her fruitless attempts to make a sale, stumbling over her words and getting hung up on while she was in the middle of a sentence. It didn’t matter what anyone else thought though. She had decided that she would keep to herself during her four-hour shift and had made no attempts to be friendly with anyone here. This was a throwaway year and nothing that happened during it would mean anything except getting right with herself.

She placed her purse into her desk drawer before noticing that all of the sales had been removed from the mock up cover on her team’s clipboard.
She glanced at the open phonebook on Pam’s desk. As usual Pam was off in the canteen smoking and drinking coffee. They had apparently finished Detroit and were now working Kansas City. Someone had placed a new phonebook on her uncluttered desk and she smiled. Yes, a fresh start with a new book!

Hayden stiffened her resolve as she sat down and studied her copy of the yellow pages sheathed in the previous years vinyl cover.
She was going to make a sale if it killed her because there was no way that she would allow Pam to out sale her with her hacker’s cough that marked the end of nearly every one of her sentences. Besides, no one was following the stupid script that she had been given, so why should she?

Hayden looked at the ads that had previously sold coming up with a great idea.
She would start calling them. They had already purchased, right? Chances were they would be interested again, and at the very least they would be an easy sale.

There was a 5x9 ad that took up a huge amount of space on the back cover.
She would get 30% commission from each sale… that would net her $156 for selling just that one ad. Hayden picked up her telephone, checking the time difference and decided that it wasn’t too late to call these businesses.

“Hello, this is Hayden Michaels of Fox Vinyl and Map Ads.
May I speak to the person in charge of your advertisements?”

The man who answered indicated he was in charge of marketing and advertisement.
Hayden explained that his automotive company had advertised on the city’s vinyl phonebook cover the year before and she was interested in whether he would like to advertise again. 

“Is this with the Chamber of Commerce?”

“Uh… no,” she responded.

“Well
, we’re working with the Chamber this year-”

“Oh well
you know Fox Vinyl has exclusive access to vinyl covers in your area. Anyone who scans the phonebook looking for automotive repairs will see your glossy ad right there before they even open the book.”

“Well…”

“Also, you have one of the better spots on the cover which we did save for your company. We just began our new campaign and I would hate to see it go to one of your competitors.” Hayden held her breath and crossed her fingers…
and
toes.
Please, please, please…

“Hmmm…
Well, how much is it?”

“It’s
five-hundred and twenty dollars, which will get you a full year of advertisement, your name and logo in color with space for your phone and fax numbers, as well as your hours of operation and a line or two that you can use to indicate any other message.”

“Five hundred and twenty bucks.
Hmmm…”

“Yes
sir. And because you advertised with us last year I can… throw in a hundred and fifty ink pens with your name and logo.” Nervous beads of sweat popped up on her head.

“Well
, people are always walking away with our pens… Alright Miss Michaels, you have yourself a deal.”

Hayden had to resist jumping up on her desktop and doing the cabbage patch dance or the Icky Shuffle.
She wasn’t going to act like a novice by sounding all happy about it over the phone so she calmed herself and finished taking his information.

“I’ll send the information right over to the printers and we will email you the proof.
Thank you Mr. Lange.”

After hanging up the phone Hayden leaned back in her chair and smiled. She jumped up and walked to the board where she placed her initials H.M. in the 5X9 area.

One hundred and fifty six bucks was hers. Now to sell another-

“Whoa
, whoa, whoa!” Abdullah jumped to his feet and rushed to the board. He stared at it and then at Hayden with eyes ready to explode from his face.

“You stole my ad!” He yelled.

She gave him a surprised look. “What? I did not…” Her face burned in embarrassment when everyone’s eyes moved to them. What was this crazy man talking about? She gestured to the board. “There is nothing written on the board-”

“But it’s a re-run!”

Abdullah’s face darkened in fury as the blood rushed to it. He was just her height and had thin black hair and a perpetually greasy sheen to his tanned face. His button down shirt was rolled up to his elbows and his collar was opened exposing a puff of black chest hair. He pointed an angry finger at her and for a moment Hayden thought he intended to hit her.

“Re-run?” s
he asked weakly. What in the hell was a re-run? “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t know-”

He rolled his eyes and threw his hands into the air.
“So now you’re going to play innocent, and act like you didn’t know?” His loud angry voice boomed through the room.

“Abdullah,” c
ame a sharp voice. “That’s enough.” They both turned and she expected to see Mr. Fox, but it was Brian/Brine. He was covering the mouthpiece of his phone and glaring at Abdullah, gesturing with his other hand for him to go away, back to his desk or out the door, but away from the work area. He quickly returned to his caller. “Yes, Mr. Stanley, I’m still here. Yes, sorry about that…uh…”

Abdullah raised his hands imploringly to all the onlookers, his anger not yet abated although he did lower his voice.
“This always happens every time Fox hires another pretty girl. They prance in here thinking that just because they flash a big smile or bat their eyes while they are stealing your sale that you’re supposed to just roll over and say, ‘oh, it’s okay.’ No! I’m not going to be a fool and give up my commission!”

His dark eyes flashed at her again.
“I don’t care if you sold it or not, it’s my commission and I’m taking it!” He then turned and stormed back to his desk, muttering under his breath.

Hayden didn’t know what to say.
She began to shake in a rage that was laced with embarrassment and outrage that some man would holler at her over a simple mistake. She wanted to tell him to take his little commission and shove it and then she wanted to run out the door, jump in her car and… wait… did he just call her pretty?
This happens every time Fox hires another pretty girl
… What in the hell?  Was he blind?

Her heartbeat slowed as she contemplated the hidden meaning behind his words.
Maybe he was just trying to soften the blow of his—no that wasn’t it; he wasn’t trying to soften anything. He was really pissed.

Hayden’s own anger slowly began to diffuse
, and she turned to go back to her desk. That was when she met Pam’s eyes. The older woman quickly looked away, but not before Hayden saw the smug look on her face. Immediately, she knew that Pam had intentionally done this.

That was it! She was going to…

“Hey.”

Her head swung over to Brian—or Brine, whatever his name was. His hand covered the mouthpiece of his phone, his brow still pulled into a deep frown. Crap, was he going to lay into her too? His customer had probably overheard the entire altercation, but it wasn’t her fault if he lost his sale!

“Look, I didn’t know about the re-runs-”

“Come over here. And bring your chair.”

She hesitated.
“Why?”

“So I can teach you how to sale vinyl.”
He then quickly moved his hand from the mouthpiece and continued talking to his customer in an animated, cheerful voice that didn’t match the expression on his face.  After another pause, Hayden got her chair and moved it in front of his desk.

T
hen she sat down and waited quietly for him to finish his call. He watched her as he talked to his customer. He sure did stare a lot. It unsettled her, or maybe it wasn’t the staring as much as it was his big grey eyes that held an open expression. He was like a curious toddler taking in something new and interesting.