Sad Janet

by Lucie Britsch

  The pharma bro is genuinely happy I’m going to stay over. I don’t tell him it’s so I can look through his stuff while he’s asleep.

  It came to me two drinks in, when my brain was still focused on Christmas, that this guy might have a file on me. He works for the drug company, after all; he’s supposed to be monitoring us. Who knows what they know? Maybe I’ll even find some dirt on Karen.

  I don’t find anything interesting. The only thing I find is his notebook, the one he pretends to be writing in when he’s observing us. When I saw that, I remember thinking, Wow, this is some old-school shit, and being impressed. For all I knew he was recording everything we said. But when I open it, it’s just ideas for a sitcom he’s writing. I only know because of one note in the margin: like 30 Rock but at a drug company. I desperately want to add my own notes.

  He has books at least, so I know he isn’t a psychopath. I argued about this with the boyfriend. Mein Kampf is a book, he’d say, what if someone had that? At least they’re reading, I’d say. I would argue anything with him for arguments’ sake. But this guy has books I like, love even, old Stephen King novels, Philip K. Dick, a fucking Margaret Atwood even, and there is no Hemingway or Kerouac, no red flags. There is a Screenwriting for Dummies book, and I like that he knows what he is.

  I flip open his laptop, but there’s nothing on it, not even porn. This guy is weird. I guess he doesn’t bring his work home with him, unless you count me.

  The whole time I’m creeping around his apartment, his dog, a giant bulldog, is snoring away, like I could murder them both and they wouldn’t even care.

  His dog is pretty great. It didn’t whine outside the door while we were screwing. I don’t think it’s because he’s used to his master bringing women home; we’re probably just not that interesting.

  I like the pharma guy’s bathroom. It’s way cleaner than mine—cleaner than my whole apartment—so I keep going back there to admire it. He even has a plastic turtle that lives by the tub. Says a lot about him, probably—that he has a kid, maybe, or at least was a kid himself. Maybe that’s what’s missing in my life. Maybe if I got a little plastic turtle it would make me smile when I saw it by the tub. Not now, obviously; if I saw it I’d just think of the time I slept with the weird pharma guy. Which, to be honest, was a little bit like sleeping with my professor, because those meetings are basically school.

  I am too tired for all these thoughts.

  When I get back into bed, I tell him that turtles almost don’t have a nose. What? he says. I think he’s hoping I’ll either grab his cock and say, Ready to go again, or start getting dressed awkwardly and make my excuses and leave.

  No, I’m the girl who sleeps with you and then tells you turtle facts.

  And they look pissed off about it, I say. Almost not having a nose, that is.

  I’m sure they have noses, he says.

  It’s barely anything, though, I say.

  What turtles have you been hanging out with? he says, still hoping this is foreplay.

  Just that one in your bathroom recently, I say.

  The plastic one?

  Yes, I say, wondering if I’d missed a live one.

  The one with a tiny nose? he says, not knowing me well enough to know I don’t do cute.

  So you did notice! I say.

  Not really, he says.

  He goes to pee and is gone way longer than it takes to pee—long enough to escape through the window, maybe, if it wasn’t his place.

  I think about stealing the turtle. Not to put in my own bathroom, because of the PTSD it might cause. Maybe to give it to one of the dogs at the shelter to rip to shreds. It would be poetic. A choking hazard, but poetic. While I was at it, I could steal his towels. We always need old towels to wrap up one sorry thing or another.

  He eventually comes back. I sniff him to check he hasn’t showered, because if a guy needs to shower immediately after sleeping with you, he’s a creepy jerk who doesn’t deserve your stink on him anyway. I don’t shower enough, mind you. I’m fully aware of that. Most of the time, these days, it doesn’t matter.

  I’ll shower for Santa, if it comes to that, but I’m not shaving my legs.

  What was that? he says, and I don’t know if he means the conversation or the sex or if he heard someone break in. His dog is still asleep on the couch.

  I don’t know, I tell him. I talk a lot of shit.

  Then he says he’s not sure his friends would like me. Like I had any intention of meeting his friends. I tell him it’s fine because I don’t like his friends.

  Right, you only like dogs, he says, like he doesn’t believe anyone who says that. Which is surprising, as he has a great dog, so he should know that’s a thing.

  It always amazes me that there are people who have dogs but aren’t really into them. Sometimes I think the reason I don’t have one is that I’d never need anything else again. I would basically be married to a dog, and when one day that dog died, I’d have to kill myself and leave instructions for our ashes to be combined. It would be awkward for my family.

  Sometimes, when I’m at someone else’s house, I think about murdering them a little, just so I could live in their house. Like taking over their lives: This is where I live now, this is who I am now.

  This guy I wouldn’t even have to murder. I could just live in his bathroom. It’s really nice. I have eaten many a good sandwich in many a shittier bathroom. They must pay him a lot. All the money is in drugs now. Everyone wants to be medicated. All those sci-fi writers I love predicted it, but no one did a damn thing to stop it.

  I feel like I need to get more from this little encounter. I’m sure I had an agenda before I started drinking, and it wasn’t just to get my rocks off. I gave up a part of myself for whatever this is, and I want something in return.

  Is there really a Hanukkah pill? I ask him.

  Yes, he says. I’m Jewish.

  Holy shit! I say, and I’m not even trying to be funny.

  Everyone’s sad, Janet, he says, not just you. He missed the opportunity to say Not just Jew, which is pretty sad.

  How much money is my doctor getting paid to push these pills? I ask. I need to know just how evil Big Dick Pharma really are. I mean, I know, but I want to hear it quantified.

  A lot, he says.

  Hmm, I say, still fishing. Can you find out the name of the first Janet for me? I ask, forgetting he doesn’t know what that means. He looks at me quizzically.

  The woman this pill was invented for, I say.

  Oh right, he says, sure. I’ll see what I can find out.

  I don’t say it’s important to me, but he knows it must be.

  And then all at once I realize I’m too sober for this and I need to leave. It’s like my mother has stormed in and opened the curtains and the brightest sunlight ever is pouring in and she’s staring at us in bed and his limp dick is just lying there trying not to look at her.

  This was all a big mistake.

  Sometimes I get desperate to get out, like I’m missing something urgent elsewhere, like I just need to remind myself that my legs work and I can go if I want. This happens even though, the minute I’m out there, someone does something to piss me off and I start wishing I was back inside. In this second, I want to be outside. Outside this room, outside this apartment, but back in my body, which is something I rarely feel.

  I tell him I have to go to work.

  He asks me how that is, work. Same shit different dog, I say, and he thinks I’m hilarious, which is better than broken, although I can be both.

  I’m almost free when he says he’ll see me next week, and I remember the meetings, and I realize that I’ve just made everything weird. Sure, I say, and I leave.

  * * *

  As soon as I’m outside his apartment, with him still ten feet away, I cut it all out of me. Him, the sex, all of it. It’s the
only way I can keep going. Don’t look back, Janet, I tell myself daily, though I’m not really looking forward either. I’m sidestepping like some weird, uncertain crab that doesn’t really know how to be a crab. Am I doing this right?

  The sex wasn’t bad. Even he wasn’t that bad. It’s me that’s bad. Bad Janet.

  I’m glad he doesn’t have my number so he can’t text me anything gross, like I really like you Janet.

  When I see him again, I’m pretending this whole thing never happened.

  * * *

  The next day at work, I feel like Debs knows I had sex and is disgusted with me.

  Rough night? she says when I roll up a little late, my hair greasier than normal, my eyes crustier. She can’t see I’m wearing the same clothes as yesterday, thanks to my giant coat, but she knows.

  I nod, grimace, look away.

  Well, as long as someone’s getting some, she says, and Melissa’s ears prick up and suddenly there she is and I can’t deal with her today.

  * * *

  This new pill is terribly exciting to everyone in my life but me. People love a novelty, especially at Christmas. Everyone wants to know if they work. I don’t go around asking people if their meds work; I can usually tell without asking. But people love to tell you what works and what doesn’t anyway, like they get a bonus for recruiting a friend, probably because they do get a bonus for recruiting a friend.

  As I’m putting my stuff away, my phone rings. It’s Emma, calling from Ibiza. Emma, my version of a childhood sweetheart, the one I pictured myself growing old with, comparing chin hairs with, my one that got away.

  Emma knows the pills have begun. She wants to know if they work.

  I only talk to her a few times a year now and suddenly all she wants to talk about is these pills. She’s all about the drugs now that she lives on a party island. The rest of the time we email and text like normal people, but sometimes it’s good to hear her voice to reassure me that she’s not a ghost.

  Emma was the first person I told about the pill. It finally happened, I texted her, they made a Christmas pill. To which she replied, Wtf, email me, my phone is literally melting. I wanted to reply, Well that’s your own fault running away to a party island, which is not a thing, but I just said, k.

  I sat up late writing her a long weird email, because that’s our relationship now. The pharma bros made a Christmas pill! I wrote, keeping it upbeat to keep her attention from wandering.

  Emma doesn’t read the news, or anything anymore. She used to, but she’s trying to live on the surface now with the shiny people, and the news only bums her out. Her whole life now is trying not to get bummed out.

  I told her everything that happened with the boyfriend and my mother and my doctor, trying not to use too many swear words and exclamation marks. I threw in a general rant about the state of the world, so she knew I was still me, and at the end I rewarded her with news about a cute puppy I rehomed. That’s a trick I learned a long time ago: When you sense that people are losing interest, just mention a puppy you rescued. It brings them right back.

  The other day I saw some guy vomit out of his nose, she emailed back. It reminded me of you at school. Which was sweet, I guess.

  But do they work? she shouts now. She shouts everything now, because where she lives there’s always an intense throbbing beat surrounding her. I’m doing what I need to do, she told me when she left for Ibiza, and I thought, Me too. We all do things to make life bearable. Hers was to leave. Mine was to hide in the woods with a bunch of dogs. Our relationship now is just shouting at each other, affectionately, from a great distance.

  Yes, they work, I tell her, but I don’t sound too sure. This is what they tell us to say if anyone asks. They also tell you that for weeks you might feel nothing, but then I’m used to that.

  They wouldn’t be on the market if they didn’t work, I tell her, but we both know that’s not true.

  I tell her they do what all antidepressants do, they take the edge off. Enough that you don’t want to stab your mother or sibling with a fork at Christmas dinner. Enough that you don’t have to eat with plastic cutlery.

  Your mother must be pleased, she says.

  You know my mother, I say.

  Will it make you fat? she says, because she thinks in bikinis now.

  I tell her it might make you want to eat a shitload. Maybe that’s what actually makes you more tolerant of other people, not the drugs at all.

  Right, she says. You get so bloated and sleepy that you don’t mind that someone has put a hat on you and is singing at you and there are children climbing all over you. You just sit there and take it, as long as the cookies and eggnog keep coming.

  Emma has been to my house at Christmas, so she knows how it is. My mum puts on a show and you just have to let it happen to you. Christmas for Emma now is something she used to do but can’t remember why. Something she did in another life.

  How is this thing supposed to work, anyway? she says.

  How does it work? I say, incredulous. They’ve worked out the chemical formula for holiday-specific depression. Has she really not seen it on TV?

  No, I don’t see much TV, Janet, she says.

  Well, the internet, then! It’s all over the internet.

  Well, I mostly look at Instagram. Is it on that?

  Probably, I say. I don’t look at Instagram. Afraid I might see a glimpse of actual hell, or my mum.

  Trying to talk to people about important things feels impossible, like there’s a disconnect between my brain and my mouth. Like words don’t mean anything anymore, because they don’t.

  I realize that I might have lost Emma with the phrase chemical formula. She doesn’t do math anymore. So I try another tack. It’s about the feelings, I say, hoping she still has them. The pill’s all about what happens in your brain when it starts feeling like Christmas.

  Like Santa and Rudolph and shit? she says.

  Close enough, I say. So, this pill produces those effects in the body, apparently.

  It’s almost nine thirty, time for our daily check-in with Debs. I have to go to a meeting, I tell Emma, pretending I’m someone who has meetings now when really we’ll just be huddling round a space heater in a damp office trying not to die of hypothermia arguing about who gets to pick which radio station we listen to.

  You really have to go? she says, knowing how much I hate having to be anywhere.

  Yep, I say. I try to be there on time, otherwise Debs has a fit.

  So you’re a new woman now the boyfriend is gone, she says.

  Basically, I say.

  She asks what I’m reading, which is our version of phone sex. I tell her the last ten books I’ve read, of which she has heard of zero.

  You read too much, she says. My mother always says the same thing, like when I was seventeen and I read somewhere that women are twice as likely to be medicated as men.

  You don’t read enough, I tell Emma. Same thing I tell everyone.

  I’ve read enough, she says.

  They’re still making books, you know. New ones every year.

  I know, she says. You just told me a bunch.

  I miss you, I say.

  I know, she says.

  So you’re really doing this? she says, trying to keep me on the phone. I mean, I don’t blame you. Christmas is fucking hard. You should see how many people come here every winter just to escape it.

  Not everybody can just run away to Ibiza, I say, but it’s not true. It’s just not everybody wants to. As an example, I don’t want to.

  I tell her I slept with the pharma guy. But don’t worry, it’s over, I add pathetically.

  Why do you always do that? she says.

  I don’t know, I say, but I do know. I wanted to be the one in control. I wanted to be the one making the first move, taking someone home. I wasn’t going to be one of
those girls who got fucked. I wanted to do the fucking.

  You would have too, I say. Because she’s the same way. She wants to make her own mistakes, not have anyone make them for her.

  Probably, she says.

  I really want things to not be about boys for once, I say. Or worse, men.

  It doesn’t matter, she says, they think it’s about them no matter what.

  I tell her I miss her again.

  I guess I got tempted by the easy option, I tell her. Like daughter, like mother.

  Then she lectures me on how antidepressants are not the easy option for a lot of people and I remember that she’s always been smarter than me, and tanner now, and wears a bikini, even though her thighs rub, and she doesn’t give a fuck about any of it.

  Or you could just forget about Christmas, she says, and we laugh so hard, because how could anyone? It’s easy for her to say, though, sitting up in her ivory lifeguard tower. She’s forgotten about normal life. If you run away to live on a party island I can’t even pronounce, where it’s hot and loud and everyone is so dehydrated and off their tits all the time that no one knows what day it is—sure, then, I can see how it might be easy to forget about Christmas.

  Do they even have Christmas there? I ask. I picture a DJ shouting, It’s Christmas! and the crowd goes wild, the same way they do when he says, It’s Tuesday! or I found my car keys!

  It’s like diets, she says, and I think about her in her bikini and I think about myself in my giant coat and boots and I laugh because together we almost make a person.

  Huh? I say. How?

  Once you say, Fuck it, you lose weight, she says. This immediately gets me worried that she’s lost weight. She was perfect as she was, and I never think that about any humans, only dogs. Of course she’s lost weight, I think; she’s been spending every day dancing and shouting and swimming in the ocean and eating nothing but exotic fruit platters.