The Hole We're In

by Gabrielle Zevin

  “I sometimes wish ...,” George began.

  “What?”

  George sighed. “I sometimes wish you’d never gone back to school.”

  “Well, there’s no point in wishing that now, is there?” Roger replied. “Good-bye, George.”

  He had always despised that about George. Her tendency to look backward. They had both made the decision for Roger to go back to school. It had been for both of them. It wasn’t his imagination. She had wanted, too. She had wanted more money. She had wanted a better life. Those things did not come without sacrifice.

  And besides, what would she have him do? Should he remain an assistant high school principal until he was in a hole six feet under? Roger had lived his whole life for other people. Wasn’t it good and fair and right that he finally take something for himself? Because Roger knew—he just knew—he had great things in him. He had a gosh darn opera in him if anyone would bother to open up their ears and hear it. And now, when he was so close to getting everything he’d always wanted (they’d always wanted), for George to express doubt just seemed plain wrong.

  He was still turning all of this over in his head when Carolyn returned from her evening out. Her dress was sparkly black and made the most of her figure. She smelled clean and sweet, like pine trees and lavender.

  “Are you all right?” Carolyn asked him.

  Her voice was so gentle that Roger was afraid he couldn’t answer without a mortifying deluge.

  Carolyn embraced him. “What is it? You can tell me.”

  “I have an opera within me,” he whispered.

  She didn’t ask for an explanation. She just laughed. “Of course you do. That’s why I chose you, Roger.”

  Roger liked her words. He liked having been chosen. And so he grabbed her breast.

  March

  BIRDMAN, KATHERINE C., is twenty-seven years old and has breast cancer. She’d like to freeze her eggs before beginning chemotherapy and requests that her health insurance provider, Human Wellness Partners, pay for 50 percent of the procedure.

  George rubber-stamped a red ink NO. She placed Birdman, Katherine C., in the OUTGOING bin.

  Orwell, Leroy B., is thirteen years old and his front adult teeth were knocked out in a car accident a year ago. He’d like dental implants now that he’s starting high–

  NO.

  Rothschild, Edna L., is eighty-four years old and would like to get a home health-care worker to come to her house three times a week so that she—

  NO.

  The official unofficial policy at Human Wellness Partners was to reject every “extraordinary” claim at least once. In George’s opinion, the definition of “extraordinary” was pretty darn ordinary insofar as she could easily imagine most of what was considered extraordinary happening to her or her children and she had never thought of herself as having a particularly vivid imagination.

  About two months ago, George’s responsibilities at HWP were augmented from data entry to actual insurance claims processing. “But I’m just a temp,” she had said at the time. “I don’t know anything medical.”

  “Do you know how to work a rubber stamp?”

  In this way, the matter had been decided.

  George went into the break room, which always smelled like microwave popcorn, though she’d never actually seen anyone eating microwave popcorn at HWP. Ellen, her one friend at HWP, was already there. Their work friendship was based on four factors: (1) identification: they were the same weight, more or less; (2) circumstance: they were the only temps on floor eight; (3) isolation: none of the perms would talk to them; and (4) like-mindedness: a shared appreciation for Orange Crush and Betsy Ross brownies from the snack machine. Ellen was twenty years younger than George and her dream was to open a knitting store. George knew this because on Ellen’s first day, last December, the girl had asked her, “What’s your dream?”

  “What do you mean?” George had replied.

  “Well, you can’t actually want to be a temp the rest of your life.”

  You can’t?

  “Me? What I want to do is open a knitting store. Like, I’d have ...” Then, she had gone on to describe the kind of high-end yarns she would stock (no synthetics!) and the space she would leave open for mother-daughter sewing circles and the shade of stain she wanted for the maple floors. Maybe a separate space for quilting? Though Ellen was not at all sure about the wisdom of inviting quilters at all—quilters, with their disorderly, patchwork existences, tended to attract a bad element.

  “My mother used to quilt,” George had said.

  “Oh, well, not your mother. It’s just my experience with quilters in general.”

  George hadn’t been offended. The truth was, her mother’s life had been patchwork—a series of piecemeal jobs and men and venues and choices. Naming her daughter for the state in which she’d been conceived. Leaving that same child to be raised by a series of increasingly distant relatives, who had usually made it clear that it would have been preferable for the pretty almond-eyed girl to die or disappear than to consume their precious food, clothing, air. Returning unexpectedly with a fixer of a husband who knew a thing or two about using a belt. But all this was beside the point.

  The more recent truth was this: George had been relieved—Ellen hadn’t really wanted to know about George’s dreams at all; the girl had only wanted to talk about her own.

  But the question had stuck with George. It occurred to her that she hadn’t had a dream for a very long time. She had dreams for her children, yes, but the only real dream she harbored for herself was to owe nothing to any one. She imagined writing checks that erased decades-old debts. She could feel the pen in her hand and the giddy, jaunty way she spelled out the numbers—the immature bubbles of a child who had just learned cursive. She imagined placing those checks in envelopes and the taste of the sealant on her tongue and going through an entire roll of American-flag stamps and her creditors opening those envelopes and shaking their heads and saying, rather paternally, “We never thought she’d make good. You done real well, Mrs. Georgia Pomeroy from Big Rock, Texas.” This was the most vivid and sweet dream George could conjure. The dream of zero.

  “Worst of the day?” Ellen asked George as she took out her knitting gear.

  “Girl wants to freeze her eggs before chemo.”

  Ellen nodded. Her knitting needles began to clack. “Aw, I got that beat. I got a kid with brain cancer. He’ll probably be dead before the parents figure out HWP won’t pay for the experimental treatment.”

  “Yeah, yours is better.”

  “So, you gotta pay up. You owe me a brownie, Mrs. Pomeroy.” On her way to the snack machine, George was suddenly overcome with heat and nausea. She ran over to the garbage can, but then the feeling subsided.

  “You OK?”

  “I think I’m getting the flu,” George said. “I feel all hot. And just weird, I guess.”

  “Menopause,” Ellen said decisively. “My mom started going through it last year. When was your last period?”

  “Oh!” George considered this question. “I’m not entirely sure.”

  “You need to go to the doctor,” Ellen said. “You need to get some hormones, pronto. You don’t want to start growing hair on your face or something.”

  No, George certainly did not want to have a beard and be fat at Helen’s wedding. She changed the subject. “What are you working on today?”

  A sweater, Ellen reported. Her college roommate was having a baby. “I’m using the most amazing blend of alpaca and cashmere,” she said. “I almost hate to think of my roommate’s dumb-ass baby throwing up all over it.”

  After making an appointment with Helen’s gynecologist for Friday morning, George went into her supervisor’s office to request the necessary time off. Yes, of course, it was fine. As a temp, George wouldn’t be paid, but it was fine, fine.

  Then, her supervisor did something rather extraordinary. He made her an offer. “How would you like to become a member of the HWP team?”<
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  “Huh?”

  “How’d you like to become perm, Georgia?”

  “Perm?” George squeaked.

  The supervisor’s name was Philip Throne. He had a BA from Dartmouth, an MBA from Wharton, and needless to say, this—a middle management position at a midsize Texas health insurance company—was not where he saw himself five years postcommencement. The best part of the job was the number of hours he could devote to looking at Internet porn. “You’re an awesome worker, George, and you’d basically be doing the same thing you’re doing now only you’d get a kick-ass benefits and retirement package. We’ve got a great dental/vision/ hearing plan, too. We’d give you Sylvia Klein’s old office on seven and the title of junior claims processor. So, what do you say?”

  George was so surprised by this turn of events that she had to sit down on Throne’s couch. She had long ago given up the idea of having a real job. The kind with an office with a door and a plastic sign on the window that read MRS. GEORGIA POMEROY and a pair of Hummels from home and pictures of her children (and grandchildren, if Helen should ever make any) and a shallow bowl of wrapped Brach’s peppermints on the MDF desk and a framed Thomas Kinkade lithograph on the wall and an ergonomic chair of her very, very own and a modicum of dignity and security, even if Roger never finished his PhD, and George herself—sans PhD, sans MA, sans BA even—having the power to start digging them out of the hole they were all in. It seemed like too much to even dream of.

  “Will there be any kind of pay increase?” George asked.

  “Well, not at first,” Throne explained. Because George had begun her employ with HWP as a temp, HWP would be responsible for paying George’s temp firm a finder’s fee, which amounted to a percentage of George’s new salary. The fee would be amortized over the first year of George’s work. George ran the numbers in her head: $37,500 minus the finders fee (20 percent) minus whatever benefits cost minus ... “I don’t think I can,” George said.

  Throne reminded her that she would be eligible for bonuses and pay raises if she accepted the new position.

  It made no difference, of course. George needed every penny she could squirrel away.

  “The pay cut would only be for a year, Georgia,” Throne said. “And it’s not really a pay cut, because you’d be accruing retirement benefits, too. Don’t you plan to retire someday?”

  George laughed, but Throne didn’t. “Oh,” she apologized, “you weren’t kidding.”

  * * *

  FRIDAY, GEORGE WENT to Helen’s gynecologist, which was located in the same medical complex that contained Helen’s office. After the appointment, George and Helen had lunch at the Fuddruckers next door. Neither woman was happy with the restaurant choice—George considered it rather pricey, and Helen considered it rather tacky. Both women lamented the lack of vegetarian choices, as the Fuddruckers menu consisted mainly of hamburgers. And George hated the name of the restaurant, too—the jokey, vile way it tried to get you to accidentally say a dirty word. But proximity won as it usually will. Helen ordered an iced tea (lemon, no sweetener), the Caribbean chicken salad (minus the chicken), and on the side, a loaded baked potato (minus the load). George ordered a vanilla milkshake and a side of onion rings. She had actually been pretty good about watching her weight in the months leading up to Helen’s wedding, but she felt like she needed a treat on this particular day.

  Predictably, Helen disapproved. “Mom, you’re gonna give yourself a heart attack if you keep eating like that.”

  After their beverages were served, Helen took a printout of her wedding spreadsheet from her purse. “So, this is what we have left to do,” Helen began. The list was exhaustive. George had seen it before, but she’d always managed not to consider it too closely, literally holding it at arm’s length while she barely let her eyes pass over it. With Helen going through it point by point, it was impossible to take this tack and George started to feel like she might throw up.

  “So, you’ll be glad to know I’ve finally got to the bottom of it,” Helen said.

  “The bottom of what?”

  “The red business,” Helen replied.

  George looked at Helen blankly.

  “The house!” And then Helen explained. “It was a mix-up. The paint we selected was number two-three-oh-two Candy Apple Red. The paint they used was number two-three-oh-one Caliente Red.”

  “Oh,” said George, taking a small sip of her milkshake.

  “The painter—Ramón somebody—told the company that he told you it was Caliente on the day, but I doubt it. He, like, barely speaks English. If he’d shown it to you and said Caliente, you would have said something. In any case, it’s their mistake and they’ll have to fix it.”

  George remembered the day the painters had come. She had thought he’d been talking about the weather, but it was somehow impossible to explain this to Helen. And the thought of spending more time at home (not working) with painters who would probably be pretty darn unhappy to be there was intolerable. So George lied: “I ... well, I’m kind of getting used to the color.”

  The waitress delivered Helen’s salad, which still had chicken in it. “This chicken salad wasn’t supposed to have chicken,” Helen informed the waitress.

  George marveled at how easy it was for Helen to complain. If it had been her salad, George would have just silently borne the chicken and picked out the pieces. She would have been afraid of people spitting in her food or something worse, but Helen obviously didn’t possess this fear. Her daughter was a bulldozer.

  “What, Mom?”

  “I was just saying, I think I’m kind of used to the color now. It’s faded in real nice, and I’d almost call it brick now, I really, really would.”

  “Mother, I cannot get married in a Caliente-color house. That just isn’t a question. It’s tacky. And when you and Daddy go to resell it, no one’s gonna want to buy it that way, trust me, so you might as well deal with it now. And it’s not what we paid for. And it’s their mistake. Why should we suffer for their mistake?”

  Helen’s argument was solid enough, and George wasn’t at all up to offering a rebuttal. Instead, she silently concocted two strategies for dealing with the house situation: (1) lie: about two weeks from now, tell Helen that the painters repainted the house, but don’t actually have anyone repaint the house, or (2) willfully evade: ignore Helen on the issue of the house until it was too late for anything to be done about it anyway. In any case, the only thing to be done at the moment was to placate Helen.

  “It’s good you got to the bottom of it, honey,” George said. “I never would have figured it out myself. You’ve turned into a real thorough young woman.”

  Helen’s eyes brightened a bit. All she ever wanted was for someone to appreciate her efforts. “Oh, it was no big deal,” she said. “How was the doctor?”

  “It was fine,” George said. She dipped an onion ring in the milkshake.

  “Forty-seven,” Helen sighed. “So, I guess I know about how old I’ll be when I get menopause.”

  Across the restaurant, a little boy threw a hamburger at his mother’s face. The mother wiped the ketchup, etcetera, off her brow, then put the hamburger back in the bun. George could read the woman’s lips: Now. You. Eat. It. “Well, you never know, Helen.”

  “But as a gauge,” Helen insisted. “If you started menopause at forty-seven, then I’ll probably start around then, too.”

  “Maybe.” George looked at her daughter, at her de-chickened, possibly sputum-coated chicken salad. “We aren’t exactly the same person, you know.”

  BACK AT THE office, there were several messages on George’s work voice mail: from the accountant at her church (“Just wondering if there might have been a bookkeeping error regarding yours and Roger’s tithe. Give a call.”); from Throne (about the job); from the phone company (the bill was overdue ... again); from the catering company for Helen’s wedding (needing the first third of the deposit, and a reminder that the second third was due in a week); from that awful Janet’s mot
her from the cheerleading team (wondering if George had the check for the wrapping paper despite the fact that Patsy hadn’t been on the team since October); and from Vincent (something about a settlement). She deleted all the messages, then headed for Throne’s office.

  “I’m going to need Monday off,” she said. “I have to go to the doctor again. But don’t worry, I’ll be back Tuesday.”

  “Hope nothing too serious,” Throne replied.

  “No.”

  “If you took the permanent job, you’d be getting paid for Monday,” he reminded her.

  “Yeah, about that. I can’t work it out. I wish I could, but I can’t. Thanks a lot for thinking of me, Mr. Throne. I really, really appreciate it.”

  MONDAY, GEORGE WENT to the doctor, and Tuesday, she was back at work as promised.

  Ellen set a brownie on George’s desk.

  “What’s this for?” George asked.

  “I’m going perm,” she said. “I know you turned down the job first, so I figured I owed you a brownie.”

  “What about your knitting shop?”

  Ellen shrugged. “Oh, I’ll still do that, too. One doesn’t exactly eliminate the other, you know.”

  “And the pay cut doesn’t bother you?” George asked.

  “I negotiated the temp agency down. It’s not that bad.”

  “Smart girl,” said George. She took the brownie out of the cellophane wrapper and split it in two, offering the larger piece to Ellen.

  “No thanks.” Ellen shook her head. “I’m trying to get my weight down before my health insurance exam. I’m psyched to finally be covered. It wouldn’t have been that big a thing for you, but not all of us have husbands with insurance, right? You know, reading about sick people all day was turning me into a total hypochondriac.”

  April

  THAT SPRING, THE song playing everywhere was “... Baby One More Time,” the elliptical debut of a seventeen-year-old pop tart, and one of the places it was playing was the Texas U pool where Patsy Pomeroy was teaching Harland Bright to swim.