by Halle Butler
“Sir, I assure you I signed a HIPAA confidentiality form when I was hired, and I take my job very seriously, and I would not betray your privacy, sir.”
“How do I know you’re not lying? Listen, missy, I want to talk to Dr. Schraeder right now, or I’m going to hang up.”
“Sir, please calm down. Dr. Schraeder is not in the office today. I promise you the best way to get in touch with her is to leave a detailed message with me.”
“Well, how are you going to relay the message to her? I want you to give me her cell phone number.”
“Sir, I’m sorry, but I’m not allowed to give out any of her personal contact information.”
“If I hang up, I’m going to call back and get you fired.”
Jillian wished he would, and almost said, “Oh, go ahead, whatever, please just do it.”
“Sir, could I please have your name and telephone number?”
“I already gave you my name. You should have my telephone number there in my chart.”
“Sir, I apologize, but I don’t recall your name.”
“You say you’re the manager? Well, this office is damned, then. What kind of a secretary doesn’t take notes during a phone call?”
“Sir, I am not a secretary, I am an office assistant, and the office manager.”
The man hung up.
That was it.
“No, I’m sorry, I don’t remember talking to anyone like that. I’m sorry, I’m sure I would have let you know if I spoke with someone who got that upset.”
Or, “Sir, no, I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve spoken before. The office manager? I don’t think we even have an office manager.”
The mantra was something about keeping up appearances and believing that God would make things right again and that you shouldn’t be upset or act like anything is wrong because that might bring someone else down or make them upset. It was about acting like you were already in the place you wanted to be in or something. She couldn’t remember the exact line, but the sentiment of it came back to her, flooded her with the approximation of its meaning (vivid, this feeling, clear and strong, but impossible to pin down, you know, just like God was, so that was okay and was a comfort) and then suddenly she knew everything would be okay. She addressed the grating feeling in her soul and told it (her soul) that this feeling would not be around for long, or forever, and that things would be back and up and in working order in a jiff.
She almost vomited.
Megan came back in with a cup of coffee.
“Hey,” she said.
“There were no calls while you were out,” said Jillian.
“Okay,” said Megan.
Later on in the day, near the end of the day, Jillian said, “Oh, hey, Megan, I just wanted you to know that I’m going to be out of the office on the thirty-first, okay?”
“Uh, yeah, that’s fine.”
“Because I have a court date.”
“Okay.”
“It’s for child support payments. I’m going to see if I can get my ex to start helping me out with day care and stuff. It’s eight hundred dollars a month, can you believe that?”
“Uh, no, wow, that’s more than twice my rent.”
“It’s absurd. And with all of the toys and clothes and stuff, and things for the dog, it really adds up, you know?”
“Yeah, I guess so. That’s just one of the reasons I’m glad I don’t have pets or children.”
“Yeah, what are the other reasons?” asked Jillian. There was heat in her voice.
“Time. Also time. And, uh, I guess the idea of being pregnant and having a baby grosses me out.”
Megan shifted uncomfortably in her chair.
“Oh, no, it’s wonderful! It’s hard, but it’s so great. You’ll be a great mom someday, just you wait.”
What does she think she’s saying to me? thought Megan. Megan wanted to stand up and hysterectomize herself with the letter opener while screaming and then throw her uterus at the wall above Jillian’s desk just to show Jillian how wrong she was about that.
“Yeah, I don’t think I ever want children,” said Megan.
“Awww,” said Jillian.
Do you pity me? thought Megan. You pity me? She tried to rein herself in.
“Hey, what kind of coffee’d you get?”
“It’s just black coffee,” said Megan.
“Ugh! Gross! Ha ha, you don’t like to get anything sweet in your coffee?”
“No, I think cream and sugar in coffee is gross.”
What a stupid, predictable conversation.
But Jillian thought maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea, asking her ex for some money.
The next day, Jillian said, “Doctor, can I talk to you for a sec?”
“Uh, sure, said Dr. Billings.
“I’m going to be out of the office next Tuesday, it’s unavoidable.”
“Sure, that’s fine with me.”
“I have a court date,” said Jillian.
“Okay,” said Dr. Billings.
“It’s for child support.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to tell Dr. Schraeder, too, I just thought you’d like to know, because sometimes I answer your phone calls when Megan is busy with something else.”
“Yeah, Jillian, it’s fine.”
“Okay, good.”
Megan heard this and thought it was a dig. Dr. Schraeder came in an hour later and Jillian gave her the same spiel.
“Yeah, whatever,” said Dr. Schraeder. “Whatever you need to do.”
Jillian smiled and walked back to her desk.
Ugh, thought Megan.
The doctors started seeing patients.
“I’m going to make reminder calls for tomorrow,” said Megan.
“All righty,” said Jillian.
Megan started making the calls.
What if I called him right now? thought Jillian. That might not be such a bad idea, you know. She’s making calls, I could just call him right now real quick.
She got an electric feeling when she thought to call him, like maybe this time it would go okay. He was the last person she’d had sex with. But she’d had enough sex, that wasn’t what the feeling was about.
Oh, man, what a crazy idea. Her heart started going crazy, and she got an adrenaline rush. Everyone in the waiting room was taken care of, and Megan was on the phone. She could stick the call in real quick. She didn’t have the energy to call him at night, and also she had to watch out for the dog and the kid at night. There was something neutral and encouraging about the office. She held the phone, her cell phone, out in front of her and almost started laughing that low, barking laugh again, like vomit-laughing, while she looked at her phone and thought about calling.
No matter that she’d deleted his phone number from her contacts three years ago, those numbers were burned in her brain and they would never leave. Sometimes she thought she’d see those numbers on her death bed while she was going over all the stuff that had made up her life, but that was stupid.
Abruptly, she dialed his number and slapped the phone to her cheek.
His voicemail.
“Hey, it’s me, Jillian. I just had a couple of quick questions about Adam, like, an update or something, so give me a call when you get this. Okay, thanks.”
She hung up, set the ringer to vibrate, and put the phone in her pocket. The way she said the message was okay. It sounded nice and like she wasn’t a crazy lady, but it had come out too fast. He’ll just think I’m in the middle of something and that I figured he’d have his voicemail on. He’ll think I’m busy and that’s why I was talking so fast.
She tried to do some work, but she knew he’d call back, since it had been almost a year since she’d called him. She knew that when she called him too much he was unlikely to respond, bu
t she knew, she really knew, that since she hadn’t been abusing their connection—you know, Adam—that he would probably call her back.
No, he would definitely call her back, since she hadn’t been calling him all the time. It had been a year, and she deserved to be called back.
He called back. Her phone started vibrating while she was thinking. It was a bad sign that he’d called back so quickly.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” he said.
“I guess I had some questions about Adam.”
“Yeah, I got your message.”
“Well, so, here’s the thing. My car is damaged from a deer accident, and I don’t have enough money to get my car fixed and pay for Adam’s day care this month. And, also, I work in the city, so I’ve been taking the train to work and a woman from my church has been driving him to day care, and so I really do need my car.”
The guy sighed on the other line and said, “I told you a long time ago that I didn’t have any money, and if the reason you wanted to have this kid was to get money from me, it wasn’t going to work, Jillian. Don’t you remember that?”
“Yeah, I remember. I guess I just thought you might be interested in the welfare of your son.”
“Well, I just don’t have anything.”
Jillian began to feel that rage again that she got when she talked to him. Somehow she always forgot about it. That feeling like she just wanted to get her hands on him and sink her fingers into his skin and pop out his eyeballs and mash his genitals and rip off his fingers and shove them up his nose and into his brain to try to get him to be a decent person and act like they had some kind of humane, caring understanding.
“So what am I supposed to do, leave him at home all day? Bring him to work? Or should I just take him out back and shoot him in the face with a shotgun?” she asked.
“I don’t understand why you’re getting so emotional, Jillian. Nothing has changed. Nothing in our agreement has changed.”
“But don’t you care at all?”
“This isn’t about whether or not I care. I wish you wouldn’t make this about that. I wish you wouldn’t attack me in this way, it’s not fun. I called you back because I thought you were trying to be friends with me, and I was interested in that.”
“You know, I am interested in that. I would like for us to get along, but right now I just . . .”
“I really don’t think you’re ready for friendship. Every time you talk to me, it’s some demand. Don’t you see why I wouldn’t want to be around that? We don’t know each other well enough for me to put up with that.”
Jillian wanted to start crying or screaming, but unfortunately she couldn’t do either.
“I just thought you would like an opportunity to help out your son,” said Jillian.
“No, that’s not what’s going on here. You want me to pay to fix your car.”
Megan couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation, but she knew Jillian was talking to her ex and therefore she knew (by the nature of their conversation) that Jillian did not in fact have a child-support court date next week.
“Which I believe proves, not that you care,” she said later that night to Randy, “that she is a hysterical, pathological liar.”
“Okay,” said Randy. “But I still don’t see why you care so much.”
“I care so much, Randy, because the way this woman behaves is completely disgusting.”
“Yeah, well, so she lied. So what? She’s embarrassed. She doesn’t want her employers and coworkers to think she’s a criminal. I get that. I understand it.”
“Yeah, okay. But I guess what I haven’t been able to communicate is, I mean, I get why she wouldn’t want to be thought of as a criminal, but I think she does want to get caught. Either that or she’s just a total moron. Why would she wait until after telling everyone that she had a child-support court date to call her ex and ask him for money? And loudly. There’s a lot at stake. She lied to get codeine, too, and she’s been taking it at work.”
“I don’t understand why you care,” said Randy.
“It’s disturbing, that’s why! Because she does these elaborate performances, like chewing her ex out and asking for painkillers, but on the other hand she acts like no one is watching. That’s it. Everything with her is an act, but she behaves like her acts are invisible to everyone.”
“Ah, if only she knew,” said Randy. He cleaned some crap from underneath his toenail.
“She’s practically shitting on the floor,” said Megan.
“Mmm-hm,” said Randy.
“It’s like, don’t you finish concocting worlds like that when you’re fifteen?”
“What worlds?” Randy asked. He was thinking about how much longer he and Megan would stay together.
“The parallel worlds in which the lies aren’t lies,” said Megan. “It’s like, I remember I didn’t do some project on dinosaurs or whatever in sixth grade, so a week after it was due, I broke into my science teacher’s room and stuck my paper into the stack of graded papers. And then I convinced myself that she must have just overlooked it, and practiced how I would say ‘that’s strange, I wonder why you didn’t grade it?’ That’s what Jillian is doing, but she’s not a child. She has a child, and it’s terrifying to think of her in charge of something that fragile when she’s living in a delusional reality!”
“What happened with the dinosaur paper?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Megan. “I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter.” She picked up her beer and drank from it.
2
Jillian went into the bathroom that night and sat on the floor and cried while she listened to the radio. When the commercials came on, she felt self-conscious and had to stop crying for a second, but then when the music came back on she cried again. She did this for twenty minutes. The bathroom smelled like dog urine.
* * *
• • •
Amanda was at home, thinking about sending Megan an email.
The email would say something like, “I’m sorry we got into a fight, but I don’t take back anything I said, because I really do think you have a huge problem that you need to snap out of or you’re going to find yourself without any friends someday very soon.”
But then she found herself saying things like, “Or has that day already come?” out loud to herself in her bedroom in a gravelly voice, and found herself cocking her head to the side and furrowing her brows while she said more things like, “I mean, who do you think you are?” so she decided maybe she wasn’t ready to write Megan an email, and she didn’t want to do it if her heart wasn’t in it.
She couldn’t stop thinking about Megan, it was becoming kind of an obsession. To be fair, a part-time obsession. She didn’t lose sleep over it or skip work because of it, but still. When her mind had a free moment to wander, and there were a surprising number of those in the day, it went to Megan, and Amanda replayed the fight they’d had, and she replayed her victory over Megan, and that only fueled her thirst for another victory. She wanted to reform Megan, get her to stop whining and get a better job and be more friendly. Maybe get her out of the house? Maybe her relationship was bad? Maybe they could start jogging together?
Probably not.
And why hadn’t Megan written to apologize for being a dick? And blah-de-blah and on and on.
* * *
• • •
Jillian wiped her face and left the bathroom to make dinner. She made a Healthy Choice microwave dinner for herself, something with chicken, and made a child’s microwave dinner for Adam, something with mac and cheese. After dinner, Jillian poured herself two bowls of cereal. She sat in front of the TV and she didn’t have any money, and the dog and Adam had no idea that meant they didn’t have any money, either. It was weird to look around and see nice carpet, a kid, and a dog, all in the glow of a TV, and to have a full stomach, but t
o know she had no money. Maybe she would start smoking again. She got up from the chair and got an oatmeal cream pie from the cupboard and ate it in the kitchen, threw away the wrapper, poured herself a glass of D milk, and went back to her chair.
The next morning, Elena drove to Jillian’s house listening to Christian rock and feeling happily superior. That was the only reason she did this, and she was old enough to be honest with herself about it. She was a hardened older lady, and she knew she helped Jillian because it gave her pleasure to have Jillian on the end of her hook and at her mercy. It gave her pleasure, also, to witness Jillian’s life, which she had heard about in great (if muddled) detail at church healing groups, which she often led. Jillian’s life was shitty, and Jillian didn’t know how to improve it because she was too stupid.
Elena was old enough not to lie to herself about the way she really felt about things.
Jillian was the kind of person who went for the short fix instead of the long fix. She knew nothing about sacrifice and never would, and it was a pleasure for Elena to watch Jillian fail, because Jillian’s way of life stood in opposition to Elena’s. It wasn’t that Elena didn’t want two cookies and a bag of chips with lunch, just to grab an obvious example of something symptomatic, but she knew it would rot her body, so she abstained. Elena delighted to hear Jillian talk about her plans to diet, because she knew that Jillian was too weak and was all talk. That was another thing that Elena wasn’t, and that was all talk. If she wanted to volunteer at a homeless center, she did it. She forwent the “Oh, how nice of you”s she knew she’d get if she told her friends as soon as the idea came into her head, and the reward for this tight-lippedness was a solid, sturdy respect that was given to a woman who was so humble and selfless that she didn’t even ask for congratulations, but just went out to the homeless center and volunteered.
Elena noticed that she smelled like Woolite. Jillian will smell like baby burp, even though she doesn’t have a baby, thought Elena.
Elena drove with nice posture. She parked, she got out of the car, she walked up the stairs, and she made no plans. With an upper hand like Elena’s, there was no need to rehearse. Not with someone like Jillian, at least. It was like talking to a filth-covered child.
