Present Day


    Las Vegas


    Iclench the pink note in my fist, not sure if I should feel relieved or panicked. I can’t believe they still give out pink slips. A termination email, sure. But an actual pink carbon copy form dismissing me from my position as a policy service representative isical. It’s fine. I hate this call center anyway. The job was cruel and unusual punishment. I will miss the benefits, though. Not a lot ofpanies are handing out medical and dental coverage on your first day.


    Fuck. I touch my cheek.


    And, of course, the minute I lose my dental insurance is when my tooth starts to hurt again. What a coincidence.


    I thought I’d need more time to clean out my cubicle. My coworkers have mini cacti, colorful pen holders, or little cubbies that hold their books, keys, and lip balms. Anything to make these nd partitions feel a little morefortable during our ten-hour shifts. All I have to clean up are a few Proids, a <span id="page_20">magazine, and the Luna bars I buy from the vending machine each day. I don’t know why I keep buying them. I don’t eat them.


    Sighing, I unpin the few pictures I have thumbtacked into the built-in corkboard on the wall of my cubicle. One is of my dad and my old pit bull, Boggle. The next is of me and my best friends, Finn and Avery, sharing an amusinglyrge cheeseburger at a local restaurant that was featured in Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. That was a good day. I am blessed with a cousin who is my best friend and his sweet fiancée, who has never onceined about me being their constant third wheel.


    Not that I should be third-wheeling. I’m in a rtionship. But I’m aware it’s a little weird that I’m morefortable around Finn and Avery than on my own with my boyfriend. n is nice, but he reminds me of school. Good for me, but goddamn, am I reluctant to go some days. I know how that sounds, but I’m twenty-seven now. I’m trying to choose grown-up things.


    I unpin thest photograph—me and my mom posing at the Grand Canyon. A stranger took this picture for us. We’re wearing matching sunsses. My hair was still vibrantly dyed at the time. In the picture, I’mughing and my mom is pretending to lick my purple hair because she always said it made me look like a popsicle.


    She’s going to be furious that I got fired today. Mom stuck her neck out to get me this job. But between training and three weeks on the call floor, Isted almost three months. That’s…something. Right?


    “Lennox!” Ites out more like a shriek than anything else. I know who it is, but I don’t see Brooke. Leaning backward, I look up and down the row of cubicles. “Unbelievable.” She continues her bellyaching again from an unknown location.


    “Where are you?” I ask, mostly to myself.


    I flip my small, empty metal trash can over and hoist myself up to peer over the sea of cubicles. Ah, there she is. I see the red-knotted bun on the top of her head weaving through the rows.


    The massive customer service floor is so poorly designed. I can’t believe this ce passed a fire inspection. Brooke’s desk is in what can only be described as a dead-end cul-de-sac. She has to maneuver through aplex rat maze to get to the break room, elevators, exit, or her work bestie’s desk. If this building were to spontaneously burst into mes, half the policy reps on this floor would for sure be goners. Had I been given a proper exit interview, it would’ve been one of my manyints about this job.


    But Imitted the ultimate crime. Grounds for immediate dismissal. There was no exit interview, no severance, no mercy. All I did was hang up on a customer.


    When Brooke finally reaches my cubicle, she’s panting. Her headset is still fastened to her head, the input cord dangling like a ne. “Fired?” she asks.


    I nod solemnly, yet I’m wearing a small grin.


    She huffs out, “Let’s ditch this bitch. I’m going with you.”


    Myugh is half-hearted. “How’d you find out?”


    “Thepany chat. All of a sudden, your username is gone, and your email is no longer active.” Her big eyes are bewildered, like it’s so shocking that someone got fired. Peoplee and go daily—it’s a massive call center for auto insurance. At least once a day, someone loses their shit and storms out with their middle fingers in the air. Out loud, we cheer for them. In silence, we envy them. There’s freedom right through the ss front doors. The only reason we’re all trapped is because the pay is so damn good.


    “I’m already deleted? Damn, that was fast,” I mutter.


    The call that ended my short-lived career at Advantage Insurance was barely an hour ago. The very minute I hung up on <span id="page_22">that old asshole, I got an instant message from my boss: Meet me in Conference Room A. Now, please.


    “Fuck ’em. Fuck this ce. Like I said, I’m going with you.”


    I click my tongue. “I appreciate the solidarity, but you know you can’t do that. You’re so close.”


    Brooke’s been here for six months longer than me. She’s near her assistant manager promotion. That’s the dream. Serve your time on the phones, get promoted, and be a manager; then, you never have to take customer service calls again. For the go-getters, it takes about a year. If you can survive that hecious year of verbalshings and abuse, all of your dreams cane true… If your dreams are middle management at an insurancepany, that is.


    Brooke wraps her arms around me and squeezes firmly. I wheeze as I hug her back. Her bubblegum-sweet body spray is so strong my eyes are watering. She must’ve spritzed recently.


    “This ce is going to suck without you.”


    “Agreed,” Beth says, popping up from her cubicle in front of me.


    “Sorry,” I say, lowering my voice. “Are we being too loud?”


    Beth, another one of my favorite people at this dreary ce, points to her headset. “Nah, I’ve got this fucker on hold. He was rude, now he can wait. I’m escting him over to sales for a new policy…” She smiles deviously. “In about fifteen more minutes.”


    “Won’t that screw with your metrics, Goody Two-shoes?” Brooke asks her, pointing to the giant electric sign mounted on the front wall of the floor. “You’re top five on the leaderboard.”


    Another joyous aspect of this job is that they publicly grade us. I suppose Advantage Insurance thinks a little healthypetition is motivational, not demeaning. They ster our names on the digital sign that is constantly ranking us by call metrics such as efficiency, first-call resolution, and customer satisfaction surveys. Only the top thirty reps are disyed at one <span id="page_23">time. My name’s been up there only once, and it was very short-lived. Probably a fluke.


    Beth shrugs. “I’ll drop a few ranks to punish this one. Real piece of work. He’s trying to put his girlfriend on a secret policy that his wife can’t ess. I told him we could only add a driver if they were living in the same household. Then, he asked me if I was dumb enough to think he had his wife and girlfriend living under the same roof.”


    Brooke grits her teeth and seethes. “Why are men so open about being pieces of shit? I can’t even—” She stops and exhales deeply before closing her eyes. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she mumbles, “Happy ce…happy ce…happy ce.”


    Poor Brooke was recently cheated on. It was the main topic of many of our break room rants. Men. In a show of solidarity, I join in the disgruntled monologues. I’ve dated my fair share of jerks, but right now, I’m with a good guy. n is a textbook gentleman. He’s just a little matter-of-fact. He’d never cheat on me. He’d just end things, wait the appropriate amount of time before dating again, then move forward. Why do I assume that? Quite literally because we had that conversation.


    One time in bed, right after sex—and I’m talking cuddling, with our sweaty bodies still glued to each other—n asked what the appropriate amount of time was that couples should wait to date new people after breaking up. I probably should’ve asked him why the hell he was thinking about breaking up while I was still naked in his arms, but I was caught off guard. He said we should wait at least a month for a fling but three months for anything serious. I went with it. My actual answer was “When I felt like it,” but that sounded a little sassy for such a vulnerable conversation.


    I’ll admit, him nning our potential breakup over pillow talk isn’t exactly romantic, but I appreciated the honesty. My past rtionships, while far more passionate, were vtile, to <span id="page_24">say the least. They always ended the same way—me getting cheated on, a week of gnarly hangovers, and dying my hair a new color.


    I no longer want men who get drunk off belly shots from a stripper’s navel. I want the guy who’s sober at eight o’clock in the morning because he has a job. I don’t want to spend all day distracting myself so I’m not the girl who waits by the phone. I just want the guy who calls. No more Pop-Tarts. These days, I’m buying Luna Bars. So, I consider it a good thing that n wears khakis with pocket protectors. Even if pocket protectors are the least sexy thing on the.


    n’s safe.


    We dated casually for a year before we officially became boyfriend and girlfriend. After almost two years of knowing the man, he still opens doors for me and pulls out chairs. Every time I see him, the first thing he does ispliment me. He takes me out to expensive restaurants that I know he can’t afford. And when I try to order something small to be considerate, he insists I get the steak, a fancy cocktail, and dessert. He’s good to me. So, I ignore the fact that we have about as much sexual chemistry as two puffer fish. That’s what kissing him feels like sometimes. Two people puckering their lips and bumping into each other face first. I swear he still gets a little startled whenever I slip him tongue.


    “Oh, look at that. He dropped off the call,” Beth singsongs as she pulls off her headset. “I wonder if his wife came home. Dickhead.”


    “All right,” I grumble as I tuck my pictures into my purse. “Who wants an ergonomic standing desk? My cubicle is officially up for grabs.”


    “I would, but I have to stay close to my pod,” Brooke grumbles. “Pod,” she reiterates. “Like we’re a freaking team of orcas. They are really pushing the team camaraderietely.”


    I smirk at her. “Probably because turnover is expensive, and they don’t have enough reps as it is.”


    They both frown, but Beth is the one to speak up. “We’ll miss you. Let’s do drinks on Friday on the Strip. That new club, Ventura? The minute we’re off work, okay? We’lle get you.”


    I nod. “Okay. Sounds good.”


    It’s a nice sentiment, but it probably won’t happen. We’re always making big ns and then bailing because a long week at this ce sucks the life out of us. Lately, on the weekends, I stay in, watching movies until I fall asleep. n works nights and weekends, so I usually pal around at Finn and Avery’s ce. They never make me feel unwee. Unless they’re itching to have loud, wild sex. I can usually tell when their game of footsie on the couch is getting a little too intense, and then I see myself out.


    “Babes, get back to work before you guys get fired too.” I blow a kiss to my friends. “See you on the other side.”Belongs to (N)?vel/Drama.Org.


    “Let us know what sunshine looks like, okay? And fresh water and real food,” Brooke says from behind me. “We’re going to miss you here on death row.”


    I’mughing at her dramatic sarcasm all the way to the building’s front lobby. I say bye to the receptionist and tell her to have a great day like nothing’s wrong and I’m simply at the end of my shift. I won’t lie, there’s a little pep in my step. You know a job isn’t right for you when you’re now officially broke with no insurance and no other job prospects…yet you still feel ted.


    But the jolly feeling of relief quickly dissipates when I see my mother waiting for me right outside the building. Her arms are crossed, wrinkling her neat, blue blouse. Her dark gray dress pants hemmed just above the ankle show off her pointed ck heels. She’s tapping her foot, her obvious tell when she’s trying to control her temper.


    It brings me right back to high school when I was constantly in trouble. Whenever I’d get C’s in school…foot tapping. The time she caught me sneaking back into my bedroom after a boy dropped me off at one in the morning…foot tapping. The time I clipped the curb in her car and busted her front driver’s side tire…very aggressive foot tapping.


    “Where’s your stuff?” Mom asks, her lips barely moving.


    I tap my satchel. “Right here.”


    “They’re not going to let you back in the building, Lennox. You need to take all of your belongings.” Mom is a director on the sales side of Advantage Insurance. I wonder how she found out. Gossip moves like wildfire in a call center. Someone probably tipped her off the moment I disappeared from thepany instant message directory.


    “I realize, Mom. I did. I didn’t have much here.”


    She exhales dramatically. “I can take an early lunch. Do you want to talk about it? Maybe over some Subway?”


    I cinch one eye closed and shake my head at her. “Don’t try to butter me up with a footlong Italian B.M.T. with all the fixings, extra pickles, mayo, and the special vinaigrette. I know you just want to lecture me about getting fired.”


    She raises her eyebrows at my response. “I do. But that description was quite specific. Sounds like you want a sandwich.”


    I raise my eyebrows right back at her. “Are you paying?”


    “Sure,” she says.


    “Can we skip the lecture?”


    “No,” she snaps.


    But my stomach grumbles right on cue. “Fine. Sandwich and lecture, then. Your car or mine?”


    Mom scoffs. “I’m not getting into that metal death trap you call a vehicle. I don’t even like my baby driving in that thing. I <span id="page_27">thought this job was going to get you a little closer to a down payment on something safer.”


    We turn left, heading toward the dedicated parking spaces. All directors get a special spot with their initials spray-painted on a parking block.


    “What happened, Lennox? I thought the job was going well.”


    “I hung up on a customer,” I answer simply. “They fired me. That’s it. There’s no big story. I broke a rule, then I paid the price.” I keep my eyes down on my ballet ts. The soles are so worn I can feel the cold concrete on my feet. Vegas is never freezing, but in December, the air is brisk enough to cool the sidewalks.


    “I understand why you were fired. I’m asking what possessed you to hang up on a customer. It’s literally the first thing they teach you in training. Advantage’s only deal breaker. Simeon Walters from my sales team all but cussed a customer out over the phone. I wrote him up. But did he get fired? No. Because he didn’t hang up.”


    “Mom,” I say, halting in ce. “What’s your point?”


    She doubles back to face me, hands on her hips, challenge in her eyes. Her foot goes back to tapping. “My point is, you’re incredibly smart, Lennox. This was deliberate. You wanted to get fired.”


    Is that true? Possibly.


    “N-O-E-L.” I say the letters individually.


    “What?” she asks.


    “How would you pronounce that?”


    She narrows her eyes but ys along. “No-Elle.”


    “Right.” I agree with a quick nod. “That’s what I said when the caller script came in. ‘Good afternoon, am I speaking with Mr. Noel?’” I mimic, in my customer service agent voice. “I was wrong. It was pronounced ‘Noll,’ like rhymes with toll.”


    “Lennox, where are we going with this?”


    “Well, I apologized for mispronouncing his name, corrected myself, and asked how I could help him with his policy.”


    “Okay…”


    “Then he proceeded to call me an illiterate, uneducated cunt, and told me to use whatever few brain cells I had to transfer him to someone who spoke English. I had his policy details in front of me. He’s seventy-two years old.”


    Mom’s jaw drops. “That was unnecessary of him.”


    “No, Mom,” I grumble. “It was actually very necessary. It helped me pull my head out of my ass. I’m not going to spend one more minute at a job that cares more about metrics than their employees getting bullied and harassed. It’s not only today. I have a dozen stories just like it. Every single day, I’m getting metaphorically spit on and pped in the face. I’ll work the long hours. I’lle in on weekends. I’ll even scrub toilets. But I’m not going to work a job where I’m not respected like a goddamn human being should be.”


    Mom’s arms are still tightly crossed around her chest, but at least her foot stops tapping. “Lennox, as your mother, I want to crawl through that phone, grab that man’s cane, and beat him with it. But?—”


    “Always a but?—”


    “Also, as your mother, I am supposed to teach you about life. Yes, people can be awful. And I’m sorry, but you have to be more resilient than that. You can’t win every battle. That man is vile, but who is standing here without a job right now? I mean, did you get your tooth looked at yet? It’s been bothering you for months. And you’re twenty-seven, old enough where you need an annual pap smear and breast exam. You have to start thinking about saving for retirement. Social security isn’t going to do a damn thing for you by the time you can withdraw. You need to buy a car that doesn’t look like it could shatter from a light breeze. Lennox, you’re floating through life. Pitching in at <span id="page_29">Finn’s studio, these bartending jobs, dog walking…they are not real careers. I am so afraid you’re going to end up like your father.”


    “Happy?” I ask with a heavy dose of snark.


    Mom frowns. “Lost. Broke. Feeling guilty. With a wife who has to work overtime every single week to pay off his astronomical debt. I want to buy you a car, but I can’t afford to. Because of your father’s mistakes, I can’t help my baby when she needs it the most. It kills him, and it kills me. Don’t end up like us. Grow up, sweetheart.”


    If my mom were a crier, I’m sure she’d be in tears. But she’s not. I think I saw her shed one single tear in my entire life. It was when our house got repoed after my dad lost his job and was cklisted from the finance industry. It was a downward spiral from there with his hobby-esque coping mechanism. He didn’t go back to making money, just spending money we didn’t have. We lost my childhood home. We lost everything.


    “Why didn’t you get divorced?” I ask point nk.


    “Lennox.”


    “What? I just mean on paper, not actually breaking up. Dad said divorce would’ve given you a fresh start from his record. Why didn’t you?”


    Mom shakes her head like my question is silly. “Honey, marriage is so much more than paperwork. I’mmitted to your father—his mistakes, his burdens, his pain. They are mine as well. I’m not going to walk away from mymitment just because it’s financially convenient to do so. I didn’t marry your father for what he could give me. I married him because I love him… Also, a little bit for his body, because your dad”—Mom breathes out a low whistle— “is sexy.” She pumps her eyebrows twice.


    I glower at her as she snickers at my difort. “I would endure a lobotomy to unhear that.”


    “Oh,e on,” she teases, “every kid wants cool parents who still have the hots for each other.”


    “I assure you they don’t.”


    This is the problem. My parents are too happily married, even through the wreckage of my dad’s career. My wildly unrealistic expectation of men is because of my stupid parents and their ridiculously healthy marriage. I me my mother one thousand percent for all of my breakups. She’s the one who taught me to walk away at the first sign of disrespect, never forgive a cheater, and not tolerate a man who constantly talks over me.


    It’s worth mentioning that she loves n. On more than one asion she’s forwarded me articles for beautiful, budget-friendly weddings for the money-conscious bride. If only she knew money wasn’t the thing holding me back from officiallymitting to n.


    “You’re a better woman than me,” I tell her. “I would’ve had serious doubts about my marriage the time Dad took up breeding Yorkie-doodles.”


    Mom rolls her eyes. “Yorkipoos,” she corrects. “I never thought I could hate puppies, but my house will forever smell like dog shit now.”


    Iugh. “Mom, look, don’t worry about me. I’ll find something. Another grown-up job, with benefits.”


    She blows out a sharp breath and rxes her shoulders. “Okay. Come on,” she says, throwing her head back and gesturing to her car. “I want a double chocte cookie.”


    “Weak order. Everyone knows the raspberry cheesecake cookies are where it’s at.”


    “Bleh.” She leads the way to her SUV. “It’s chocte or nothing. Fruit doesn’t belong in cookies.”


    “Hey, Mom?”


    “Yes?


    “You could be a real jerk right now. You got me this job, and I blew it. But thank you for not making my bad day even worse.”


    She stands in front of me, cing her palm against my cheek. I nuzzle into her hand. She still smells like the same spicy, floral perfume she’s worn for as long as I can remember. “An old man called you a cunt, sweetheart. I think you’ve taken enough crap today.”


    Iugh. Damn straight. At least it’s a fresh start.


    Hopefully, it’s going to get easier from here.