Pretty in Plaid: A Life, A Witch, and a Wardrobe

by Jen Lancaster

  I want this position. I want this life. I want clouds. I want river. I want my apron neatly folded up, forgotten in a drawer in the kitchen. And I’ll do my best to charm and cajole and say all the right things in my fight to get it.

  I’m told I’m up against another candidate who lives in California. She flew herself out on her own dime for the interview. Honey, if you have the means to buy your own plane ticket, that simply proves you’re not nearly as desperate for this job as I am. Heck, I had to borrow money from my mom to pay for parking and a full tank of gas.

  My phone rings and I am on from the second I pick up the receiver. Everyone on the team seems funny and nice, except for one guy named Chuck, who grills me on why I’d want to work at an insurance company when I majored in political science.

  Pfft. I can give you 24,000 good reasons, pal.

  At no point do I mention the college placement office has no openings for political science grads. No one knows this is my only shot right now.

  I do my best to demonstrate my affability133 and my problem-solving skills. I try to smile so hard they feel it through the phone line. I pull out every stop.

  An hour after my team chat, Jill calls to offer me the position.

  I got it!

  A real job in a Chicago skyscraper right on the river! From my first interview! Me, Jen Lancaster, Queen of the C students! My Hire me vibes worked!

  I flop down on the mattress in the corner of my dingy studio apartment and try to wrap my mind around the news. I’m going to be a professional. The white-collar (gold-piped) world just invited me to join their ranks. I’m shocked. I’m awed. Part of me believed I’d have to wait tables for the rest of my life but I guess not.

  Wow . . . no more aprons. No more black Reeboks and health-department-mandated ponytails and clear nail polish. No more balancing heavy trays full of filthy dishes on my shoulder or hitting the panic button when I get seated with four new tables at once. No more being screamed at for accidentally bringing ranch and not bleu cheese dressing because it looks exactly alike and I can’t smell the difference and no one will let me stir in a drop of blue food coloring even though I guarantee it would distinguish them nicely.134

  Sure, I won’t end the day with a handful of cash. On the other hand, I won’t have to play rent roulette because these checks will be consistent. How much I make won’t depend on the weather or what ballgame is being played across town or if O. J. Simpson takes off in a white Bronco and my tables never turn the whole night because everyone’s glued to the television you can only see in my section.135

  I’m not going to end the workday smelling of French fries and the fish special.136 I’ll probably never have to brush bacon bits out of my hair or soak my bra to remove iced tea stains again. If a co-worker propositions me, I can take it up with Human Resources. I won’t have to pretend to flirt back because if I don’t, he’ll “forget” to cook the well-done steak for table nineteen. And I’ll never have a customer accuse me of being “unfriendly” again.137

  I’m so excited that I don’t mind having to start work the Monday after my Friday graduation because my official salary is $24,500. I am going to be so fucking rich! It’s all swimmin’ pools and movie stars from here on out.

  Just the Fax, Ma’am

  (Navy Suit, Part Two)

  “I can’t believe you’re graduating. I can’t believe it!” My mother has a tendency to say everything twice when she’s excited, which isn’t annoying at all.138

  It’s the night of my ceremony and I’m dining at the restaurant where I worked my last shift yesterday. Walking in here wearing a dress and not an apron tonight has been surreal. I’m seated at a prime table in the back with Fletch, my best friend Andy, and my parents. I specifically requested we sit as far away from the fireplace as possible. Even when it’s July and eighty-five degrees outside, patrons can’t see a hearth without wanting the accompanying fire, so that section is perpetually stifling. I tell customers, “Yeah, I can turn on the gas and light the fire, but I’m going to sweat in your food.” They laugh, but I’m never kidding.

  Tonight, I’m uncomfortable for an entirely different reason. Mom is all sausage-eyed on her second glass of Harveys Bristol Cream and she’s already starting to gush and hold my hand. I am having none of it.

  “My baby! You came out of my body! My baby! I can’t believe my baby is graduating from college!” she enthuses.

  For the record? I have never been her baby. In fact, I reject the notion of coming out of her body. I prefer to believe I was hatched, or perhaps purchased.

  My father sips his Johnnie Walker Black neat and stifles an eye roll. “Well, you did have eleven years to get used to the idea, Julia.”

  Andy’s all done up in a pastel pink T-shirt and unstructured linen jacket. Sure, it’s 1996, and yes, he’s totally channeling Don Johnson. Andy tends to find a look and stick with it, which I imagine makes shopping easier.139 He nudges my dad. “That reminds me. Ron, you owe me a five spot.” Dad takes the money out of the same thick brown leather wallet he’s had my entire life and they shake hands.

  “What was that for?” I ask. “You’re not actually paying him for all the smokes, are you?” Andy brings a couple of extra packs of Marlboro Lights every time he visits because my father is the ultimate mooch. Dad smoked regularly until the late eighties, but none of us knew it because he never actually bought them for himself. I question his rationale here. Cancer can’t catch you if there’s no paper trail?

  “Andy won the over-under spread on your graduation date,” Dad tells me.

  I turn to Fletch. “Do you believe this shit?”

  Fletch is all dapper in his interview suit. He shakes his head. “I don’t.”

  I feel vindicated by his support. I can always count on Fletch. He’s my rock, my fortress, my strength. “Thank you, honey.”

  Fletch places his arm around me. “Yep, I had you down for twelve.”

  My dining companions laugh appreciatively and before I can remind them exactly who got a 4.0 this semester,140 my friend Meghan comes around with a whipped-cream-topped shot glass. This is the fifth round I’ve received tonight. My buddies in the restaurant aren’t congratulating me so much as trying to see how liquored up they can get me before I cross the stage to pick up my diploma.

  Oh, no. I’ve had eleven years to make a drunken ass out of myself on this campus. Tonight merits sobriety.

  I’ve passed every shot to the guys. So far they’ve all been lemon drops or kamikazes, made with clear liquors. Neither of them wants the frothy combination of Baileys and Cool Whip comingling with their beers.

  “What is that?” my mom asks, trying to focus. She’s a little slurry, too. This aggravates me. How much money could I have saved over the years if I’d have inherited the kind of system that got buzzed on two small girly drinks? I try to ignore her question but she pokes me and asks again.

  Wearily, I reply, “It’s a shot.”

  “What kind?”

  “It’s just a shot.”

  “Why was Meghan giggling when she brought it?” Ha, ha, ha, yes, you’re hilarious, Meghan. Serve me a b-l-o-w j-o-b right in front of my parents, why don’t you?

  “Don’t worry about it,” I say dismissively.

  “What’s it called?” she persists. Sometimes it feels like my mom is a humiliation-seeking missile. She rejects the fact that I’m modest and that we’re not best friends. She’s always trying to nudge me outside of my comfort zone so we can be closer, but all this does is push me further away. If I had a dollar for every time she tried to engage me in a conversation about sex, I wouldn’t have to worry about taking a professional job.

  My friend Andy senses my discomfort at this line of questioning. And then exploits it. “It’s called a blow job, Julie.”

  Everyone cracks up, except for me, because I’m too busy dying ten million embarrassed deaths. Eventually our entrées come and provide a needed distraction. The shot continues to sit next to my glass of iced tea, i
ts fake whipped cream remaining erect as we eat. Or, in my mother’s case, drinks and forgets to eat—as she’s also wont to do when she’s excited—and pesters me with questions.

  “Why is it called a blow job?”

  This? Right here? Is why I’ve been so anxious to move to Chicago. I hiss, “It just is.” At this point, Meghan delivers another one. Hate.

  “They call it that because of how you drink it. See, you’re not allowed to use your hands; you have to use your mouth.” Andy goes on to explain every intimate detail of how to deep throat the shot while I excuse myself to hit the washroom. I’m not sure why I’m surprised. He, too, enjoys watching me squirm. One time on a ski trip Andy spent half an hour engaging my mother in conversation about how porn stars keep their lipstick perfect during, um, action scenes.141

  I stop in the bar and demand that everyone stop sending me shots, and by the time I return to my table, there are three more waiting for me.

  I am getting all new friends the minute I hit Chicago.

  Andy’s been goading my mother to down the shot the whole time I’ve been yelling at bartenders. As soon as I sit down, my mother positions the glass, throws her shoulders forward and clasps her fingers behind her back, and then goes for it. Andy cheers, Fletch chokes, and my father signals for the check.

  “Was it good for you, Julie?” Andy asks. I am so going to call Tubbs right now and we are both going to slap the Don Johnson-y stubble right off his face.

  My mom wipes the excess whipped cream with a napkin. “Not bad!”

  Just when I think the evening can’t get any more mortifying, my mother leans in and conspiratorially whispers, “But I’ve had the real thing.”

  Were I to even contemplate what she may have meant by this statement, I’d curl up in the fetal position and rock back and forth for the remainder of my life. As it is, I spend the rest of my graduation night suffering from hysterical deafness.142

  Fletch works in a call center doing benefits administration for a consulting company. Much of his job entails listening to retirees call him with pension questions while they’re on the toilet. Who knew seniors were such multitaskers? This isn’t exactly where he pictured himself after graduation. He hates what he’s doing. At least once a day he has to explain to a recent widow that her spouse elected the higher benefit rate, meaning he’d get more cash while alive, but the second he passed away, his pension ended. Fletch says at first it was heartbreaking, but four months into the job, he’s just mad that none of the widows read the paperwork they had to sign when their husbands elected this option in the first place. Every time his callers flush, a piece of his compassion goes down the u-bend, too.

  His shifts rotate at the call center. Sometimes he goes in at seven a.m., but this week he’s on the ten a.m. crew, so he’s still asleep while I get ready for my first big day. Probably a good thing, too. I’ve been driving him nuts for the past twenty-four hours rehashing exactly how I take the Metra commuter rail to get to the city to get to the office. I already have the train schedule memorized. I figure I live a ten-minute drive away from the station, so I plan to leave forty-five minutes early. Can’t be too careful, right?

  I’m so tense when I get down to my car that I’m trembling while I wipe the dew from my windshield. I adjust my mirrors and double-check everything in my Always Prepared tote bag—keys to this apartment plus the one I still have at school because I couldn’t get out of my lease, two shades of lipstick, extra sunglasses, pressed powder, a tube of concealer, a book, a magazine in case I finish the book, a bagged lunch, salt and pepper in case there isn’t any in the lunchroom, pepper spray, peppermints, a train schedule, a second train schedule, a third train schedule in case anything unfortunate happens to the first two train schedules, cream and black and neutral pantyhose, clear nail polish in case I run all three extra pairs, an umbrella, mittens in case of a cold snap, socks in case I lose the mittens, a sewing kit, Band-Aids, tampons, a pen, a pencil and a legal pad in case they don’t have any in the office, a framed picture of my parents’ dog Nixon because I love him, and one extra brass-anchor button in case anything pops off my stupid navy suit. Okay, I’m ready.

  I turn on the car and drive out of our apartment complex. Then I drive back in because I realize I forgot to lock the front door. When I get back in the apartment, I notice my wallet lying on the counter next to the fruit bowl. Dumbass. How would I have paid for my train ticket without it? Spare socks? I smooth my navy skirt over my ass-belly, kiss Fletch good-bye again, and dash back to my car.

  While driving toward the train station I miss my exit the first pass because I take the sign too literally. Well, what the hell am I supposed to think? It reads: Arlington Park, Next Right. In my mind this means: Not This Right Right Here in Front of You, But the Right Right after It Because We Said Next Right and Not This Right, Which Is How They Would Do It in Indiana so as Not to Confuse the New Residents.

  Wrong. Stupid Illinois sign.

  I double back around and get on the highway again. I only have fifteen minutes left and my stomach is balled up in a fist of apprehension. A few minutes later, I see my train station looming in the distance. I let out a sigh of relief. All I have to do now is cross the street, park the car, and try to not walk in front of the train. Mission accomplished.

  And that’s when I hear an odd thunking noise.

  Thunk. Thunk. Thunk thunk thunk.

  This cannot be good news.

  I pull into the gas station across from the train station and inspect my tires. Of course I have a flat. Of course I do.

  I don’t have a cell phone so I can’t call Fletch. And I am not about to be late for my very first day of work. I don’t want to start off my professional career being that girl, you know, the one who’s always having some sort of crisis. Like so much so that you get weary even talking to her because something disastrous is always happening and it’s never her fault and you just want to shake her and say, “Rise to the fucking occasion for once, why don’t you?”

  In a moment of stress-induced clarity, I realize I’m at a gas station and they probably have the know-how to fix a tire. I step inside, explain the situation, and drop off my keys. Problem solved. I even have enough time to grab a coffee and a bagel with flavored cream cheese143 before my train comes.

  I feel like such a tourist on my First Official Commute into the city. Everyone else on the train is reading or sleeping or listening to Walkmans.144 Me? I gawp openmouthed the whole way, especially when the skyline comes into view.

  I get turned around when it’s time to exit the train. Fortunately, since I’ve been spying on everyone, I realize the lady sitting in front of me is reading an e-mail sent from someone at my new company. We must be going to the same place, so I stick close behind her as we leave the Metra station and walk up the hill on Washington Street.

  I am smack in the center of hundreds of people carrying briefcases on their way to their various office buildings. The sidewalk is full of folks in business suits . . . and some of them are even uglier than mine. Sweet.

  As I stand by the revolving door to my new office, and thus new life, I can’t believe I’m here.

  I can’t believe no one’s going to yell at me today for bringing them ranch and not bleu cheese.

  I can’t believe I’m going to be a part of this big, bustling business world.

  I can’t believe how lucky I am.

  I can’t believe how unprepared I am.

  I have eleven years of college under my blue bisecting waistband. I can detail every issue that divides the Hutus from the Tut-sis. I can write a thirty-page paper on how to better involve Interpol in the fight against terrorism. I can speak in Venn diagrams. I can hold an intelligent discussion about modern playwrights from Ibsen to the absurdists. I can get a 4.0 while working full-time at a crappy restaurant. And in softer, less academic skills, I can talk three different West Lafayette police officers into not arresting me the night I run around campus in a big, borrowed, swoopy black coat p
retending I’m Batman. I can buy groceries for the week on twenty dollars. I can make my cat Bones walk on a leash.

  I cannot, however, send a fax.

  Which is the only thing my job requires me to do at this moment.

  How did I spend eleven years in academia and never learn how to use a fax machine? Or begin an e-mail? Or operate the collate feature on the Xerox machine? Or transfer a call? Or create an Excel spreadsheet?

  I’m standing here eyeing the fax machine, a lump of dread roiling in my stomach alongside four foam cups of black coffee because I’m too shy to ask where they keep the cream and sugar. There are only twenty buttons or so, but there may as well be a million. What do I do here? Should I pick up the phone and then dial? And where does the paper go? Right-side up or upside down? And how will the people on the other side know I’ve sent them a fax? Do I call them? But how? I only have their fax number!

  As I vacillate,145 one of my coworkers comes up behind me with a stack of documents in her hands. In a flash of unexpected brilliance, I say, “You know what? I’m not quite ready. You go ahead.” Then I pretend to shuffle my papers while I surreptitiously write down every step she takes.146

  When it’s my turn, I feed in the paper and push buttons, following each step to the letter and . . . success!

  I faxed!

  I am a faxer!

  Fax this, bitches!

  Feeling the warm glow of my first victory, I wander into the copy room. Someone’s bound to collate something soon. And I intend to watch.

  After I get over my initial fear of office machines, I find the business world is different than I expected. I thought it would be all vicious and dog-eat-dog, but it’s not. My professors were wrong when they said corporate America was far more challenging than academia. Sure, folks work more than three hours a day and don’t get summers off, but other than that it’s kind of easy.