Sad Janet

by Lucie Britsch

  Maybe, I say, hopefully.

  * * *

  That next weekend I go over to my parents’ to do some laundry, which I hardly ever do, but really I’m checking up on my father. I find him in the kitchen making the cake.

  Felt like it? I say, kissing his floury forehead.

  Not really, he grumbles, but your mother was nagging.

  He did feel something, though, whether he liked it or not. I start to feel something too—only it’s the opposite of festive, it’s the desire to flee, to abandon them all. It’s not their fault, it’s just who I am. It wasn’t their fault, it was never that bad living in their house, but live in someone else’s domain for too long, and you’re bound to suffocate eventually. I wasn’t the daughter they wanted, in the same way they weren’t the people they thought they’d turn out to be. Their solution was to put on a huge song-and-dance for the holidays and hope it was enough to convince everyone otherwise. Mine was to flee.

  * * *

  Week four of my meeting. You’d think I’d know people’s names now, but I don’t. I know Karen, and I know the pharma guy who likes his balls squeezed. That’s about it.

  Unless there’s a war or an apocalypse, Christmas is happening, but even then, it would find a way. It’s like Japanese knotweed, which we have at the shelter. It’s the least of our worries, until it tries to strangle a dog.

  The purpose of these meetings is supposed to be to give us a place to share our experiences, but really they’re a way for the pharma guys to monitor us. They want to know the pills are working and not doing any weird shit they shouldn’t be. We’re constantly being encouraged to report any negative side effects because they don’t want a lawsuit, but I’m pretty sure they’re going to get one anyway. Not from me, though. I could turn blue, or wake up and not feel my legs, and I’d still keep it to myself.

  There’s a girl at my meeting who thinks everything is a side effect of the pills. It’s exhausting but also amusing. She might be the only reason I keep going. She’s told us all several things that she’s also told the drug company—probably weeping into the phone in the middle of the night, after she got no joy from telling her mum and cat and the spider that lives in her shower, which she keeps there just to give her an audience. If she ever invites me over, I’ll pretend I need to pee so that I can go in and free that spider.

  Last week, she told the whole meeting that she thought her socks felt scratchier than normal. We all had to hear about her usual experience of socks, then her current experience, which was less than satisfactory. I offered that I was a fan of no socks at all, which didn’t help, but then I wasn’t trying to.

  The week before that, she told us that she thought the blue M&M’s tasted like the red ones now. Which she illustrated by bringing in a load so that we could watch her eat them and pull a face. She didn’t even offer us any.

  This week she tells us they’ve changed her hair dye, but she thinks it’s Santa’s Little Helper that’s changing her color, not the dye, and she wants one of us to go to the drugstore with her to check. No one offers. Instead we just slump down into our chairs and look at our phones, wondering if there are any drugs whose side effects include making her disappear.

  Karen is very tolerant of this girl—of me too, for that matter. I think that’s why they hired her.

  Sometimes I want to know more about Karen. I picture us in a bar one night. So, what’s your story? I say. What makes Karen Karen? I am very drunk and maybe have my arm around her. She thinks maybe I’m coming on to her, and maybe I am. I’m lonely too, Karen, I might say. I know she’s here for the money, but I suspect it’s also for the company.

  As for the pharma guy? He seems totally indifferent. Every time I glance over in his direction, he’s looking at me.

  * * *

  I don’t think the people at my meeting want to make friends, particularly. It’s almost enough to make me want to make friends with them.

  I get the impression they want to come here without anyone seeing them, and then go back to being invisible as soon as Karen says we’re done. They aren’t bad, as people go, but it’s still weird to think of seeing one of them outside of group.

  A week or two ago I did see one of them—Carl, I want to say?—in a store. We just pretended we hadn’t seen each other. It was perfect. I’ve gotten in trouble in the past for doing that, because most people don’t like it. Most people need acknowledging. I’m not so fussed.

  Is that one of your friends from your meetings? Debs joked once when we stopped for gas and some creepy dude in a bandana said hi to me.

  Probably, I said, but he wasn’t. I couldn’t be in a room with anyone in a bandana.

  When I was little, I loved to lie awake and hear life going on around me. My folks watching Law & Order and rowing about something I’d done. The woman next door stumbling in after another bad date. A bar down the road. The distant sound of the highway. The sounds of other people allowed to stay up late and live exciting nighttime lives, as I saw them. One day that will be me, I thought. I’m still listening to life going on around me, but now I want them all to shut the fuck up so I can sleep.

  Another girl at the meeting keeps saying she feels worse than ever. The pills are never going to work for me, she says. She wants to stop taking them. Karen reminds her it takes a few weeks. I don’t say anything. But I’m tempted to corner her, later, and tell her that she should definitely stop taking them, that I’ve heard they make you really fat. I want to see what happens if you stop taking them.

  Karen just keeps saying it’ll take time and distracting us with stupid questions. What’s your favorite holiday movie? she says, and all the bros say, Die Hard and all the girls say, Love Actually. I tell them mine is Santa Paws 4: The Revenge, but they don’t seem aware of it, maybe because I made it up.

  Afterward, the pharma guy corners me.

  I split up with my fiancée, he says.

  Why? I say. I almost mention something about her legs, but give me some credit.

  She wanted me to get rid of my dog, he says.

  How about I take your dog and you keep the fiancée, I want to say.

  Well, that’s up to you, I say instead.

  * * *

  Melissa makes us hang lights in the office, and we know she’s building up to us getting a tree. I get the impression that, before we came along, Debs barely acknowledged that other people existed in the world, let alone that they celebrate Christmas. When you’re knee-deep in dog shit, it’s hard to remember what time of year it is.

  Melissa wants us to let her play Christmas music, but we like the radio. That way we’ll know when there’s an apocalypse. Please, god, let there be an apocalypse.

  The theatrics of the season have started. It reminds me of my childhood, when I had to get on the Christmas train or get out of the way. I always opted for getting run over.

  The lights are pretty, but they always are, it’s not their fault. I’d love someone to switch me on like that and watch me be just what I was meant to be.

  I’m standing there, looking at the lights with a funny expression, thinking about being a light and not a Janet, when Debs walks by.

  She looks at me like, You’re so fucking weird, Janet.

  I make a face like, What can you do? I’m trying.

  20

  Debs tells her kids they should write letters to Mrs. Claus instead of Santa. That she’s the one who should get the milk and cookies, because she obviously does all the hard work while her fat husband gets all the credit. Every Christmas movie they try to watch, she switches it off, wants to know when Mrs. Claus is going to leave that jackass, maybe run off with an elf, where’s that movie? They snicker at her calling Santa a jackass, but they’re used to it. I almost want to go see Santa at the mall with them, just to see if they tell him what their mum said.

  The kids tell me they can’t bring their friends home over th
e holidays. They say Debs is trying to ruin Christmas with her feminism, only they’re too little to say things right, so it comes out as fenemism.

  I like it that her kids think I don’t feel the same way their mother does. I’m plenty feminist, but if I was their mother, I wouldn’t ruin them in exactly the same way. Christmas does funny things to people—softens them—but not Debs. I’m half expecting her to wait up for Santa herself, shotgun ready.

  * * *

  On the first of December, I get mauled by a dog. Mauled again, that is, and this time bad enough to need stitches. There’s no audience this time, thank fuck. Better us than some kid, Debs always says, and I know she’s right, but the pain in my arm is insane.

  The dog responsible is Jasper. He’s a pain in my ass—he’s my Janet. He’s a German shepherd, though, and Debs will not allow anyone to trash-talk a German shepherd. He could bite my arm clean off and she’d say, What did you do, Janet? If Debs won the lottery, she’d tell us all to fuck off and retire to her own little German shepherd sanctuary, only none of the dogs would be up for adoption, they’d all be her babies and sleep in her bed.

  This time, when I got mauled, for some unknown reason Melissa calls my mum and tells her to meet us at the hospital. I think it’s because she knows there’s no one else in my life anymore, so it makes me doubly mad. Once we find one another, the three of us just stand there agog, like we’ve just won the shittiest contest.

  As soon as my mother’s distracted by some woman with a crying baby—probably trying to steal it—I turn to Melissa. I’m a grown-ass woman, Melissa, why did you call my mum? Before she can answer me, my mum is back and talking. She talks constantly. Visit her house and she’s already there in the drive when you pull up, talking before you get out of the car. When you leave, she’ll be back outside, still talking.

  You’re a grown woman, Janet, why did you call your mother about this? she says.

  We both look at Melissa, who’s standing there smiling like she’s just reunited a mother with her lost daughter.

  I think we’re done here, a nurse says, handing me some aftercare stuff I already have at home because this has happened before and will happen again. Maybe next time we can invite a new boyfriend, or my dad.

  I’m supposed to be getting my hair done, my mother says—to Melissa, I think, because she knows I don’t care about those things. I need to go gift shopping, she says, and I’m looking for the exit. For your father, she says, knowing that’s how to get me.

  Yes, I say. Fine, I say. She is silent, but I know she is shocked.

  She doesn’t say, It’s Christmas, Janet, because she knows she’s not allowed to bug me about it yet. I have a few weeks before the madness kicks in.

  I’m sure she drove home screaming.

  When we get back, Debs is pissed.

  Did you really all need to go? she says, looking at Melissa. She even invited my mum! I tell her. For fuck’s sake, Melissa, what’s wrong with you? she says. I feel bad for Melissa then, because there isn’t really much wrong with her. It’s the rest of us.

  * * *

  It’s week five of my meeting. I know because people keep reminding me Christmas is coming, like it’s something bad and I’d better hide. Only this year I promised I wouldn’t.

  It’s the most wonderful time of the year, apparently, but when you work at a dog shelter it’s hard to tell. Melissa has started humming carols nonstop; she tried singing them out loud, but we put a stop to that. So she settles for humming while she cleans up dog vomit. When we open to the public, everything has to be super clean and shiny and happy. This is a problem, but we know it’s necessary if we’re going to find homes for any dogs.

  Sales is a huge part of my job, and I’m not good at it, but I still shift as many dogs as Melissa. She’s so aggressive, most people leave wanting a cat. When people come, I’m supposed to greet them and show them around, like it’s a store, try to get them to take a dog home with them, but I’m not great at people, so I mostly hide in the storeroom. I give all my dogs a pep talk before we open, encouraging them to sell themselves. It’s hard to tell them not to bark at strange men, though, when I want to myself.

  There’s a warning on the staff room whiteboard reminding us that we must leave no dog turds visible to the public. As if ours are magical dogs who don’t shit. I think if you want a dog you have to know you’re going to have to pick up a lot of shit. For that matter, you should know that one day that dog will die and you’ll need to come on back for another. I’m under strict orders from Debs to not mention dying in front of the customers, though, so they’re on their own.

  When we open for the public, any dogs who can’t control their bowels or bark too aggressively are kept in their stalls. This only makes them extra stressed, which means we have extra shit to deal with. Sometimes we manage to get some unlucky volunteer to take them for a really long walk. I always hope they slip their collars and escape. I would.

  Whenever we think we’re on top of things, a litter of puppies comes in and fucks us over because they take so much work. They make Christmas harder, because people want puppies as gifts and we always tell them no. If you really want one, we tell them, come back after Christmas. Inevitably, they go and buy one from some janky breeder—and then we get that puppy too, when they realize it’s wrong in the head.

  The last thing I want to deal with today is a pile of puppies, but what do you know. This lot was found in a trash bag, apparently, which is nice. We have no space, but Debs takes them, and soon we’re turning the office into a puppy pen.

  Puppies have this smell. It’s like all known bodily fluids mixed together and then left out in the sun. It’s soft and hard, like sex and death. It’s like babies, I guess. Puppies smell of life. It’s somehow both disgusting and irresistible. We all get excited when we get a new lot—even me—because we’ve forgotten what hard work they are. Even Debs, the only person deader inside than me, gets excited for a millisecond before she remembers the horror, the horror! It’s also impossible to keep her kids from falling in love with them all before she breaks their hearts by telling them they can’t keep any of them.

  The thing about puppies is, they can be little shits. They look cute, but until you’ve been in a room alone with a dozen of them all skidding around in their own mess, trying to clamber up your leg, biting and scratching you with their little razor teeth and nails, you have no idea. There’s a desperation in them, a vulnerability, like they want to claw their way inside you, because out here is some messed-up shit.

  I can relate.

  Once, when I was mad at the boyfriend about something, I told him we had some puppies at the shelter and he should come by and play with them. They ripped him to shreds.

  Puppies do get homes quickly, though—because every idiot loves a puppy—which just makes me feel bad for the old-timers. I always want to tell the dog-shoppers, Listen, if you want something that’ll poop on you and bite you, look no further than Grandpa over here. The old-timers are my favorite. If they’re missing a limb or eye, even better. These are my people. They are the reason I get up every morning, even if they barely know I’m there.

  Still, puppies are a welcome distraction when Christmas has its hands round our throats. You will give in, Janet, it says, pushing harder, and I can feel myself letting go. And then a puppy scratches me in the eye and I’m back in the room.

  * * *

  I never want to go to my meetings, but I really don’t want to go tonight. The puppies have taken every last bit of energy I had.

  I thought I would have given in to it all by now, a little, but I haven’t. The more the holiday pressure mounts, the more I resist.

  It doesn’t help that my mum texted me yesterday to ask how it was going. I made it quite clear from the start that she wasn’t allowed to bug me about these pills, but she couldn’t help herself. She even asked if I’d met anyone special. I was tempted to
tell her about the pharma guy, but I knew she’d just say, Oh, Janet, why do you always have to complicate things?, and I’d say, because it’s what I do best.

  I hate that the meetings aren’t so bad. I’ve become great at just shutting down when I get there, and when I get out I feel good because I’ve done something I fear. I’m like a dog, more scared of you than you are of me.

  But tonight I don’t want to go. I just want to go home, eat my body weight in potatoes and butter, and pass out. Who needs drugs when there are potatoes? I take extra long finishing my jobs at work, and Debs finds me brushing a dog within an inch of its life.

  Death by brushing, that’s a new one, she says, leaning on the kennel door. Haven’t you got that thing of yours tonight?

  I do, I say.

  Well, I can’t tell you where to go, she says, but you can’t stay here. She takes the brush away from me and pushes me out of the kennel.

  We walk up to the office. I can see she wants to lock up and get on with her evening, but she doesn’t quite say goodbye.

  So, how’s that going? she asks.

  Well, I say, how would you like to be forced to spend time with a group of miserable fucks who’re supposed to be people like you? I’m hoping she’ll understand—the whole reason we’re both here is that the only people we like are dogs—but no such luck, because it’s late and she’s tired and her kids need feeding and she hasn’t got the mindspace right now for anything else.

  I’m not your mum, Janet, she says, but I’d just keep at it if I were you. We all need to get on with our lives.

  I want to cry. I want to cry and follow her inside her house like a puppy and curl up by her feet while she does her mum duties, and maybe later when she’s done she might stroke the soft spot behind my ears and it might be okay for us all.