My Ex-Life: A Novel

by Stephen McCauley

  “I’m sorry,” Mandy said.

  She was, too, at least in the sense that she could see Elaine was winding up for something, and she wasn’t much in the mood for a big confrontation today. If she was a failure at a job as idiotic as this one, it was proof that applying to colleges, never mind attending, was hopeless.

  Elaine turned away from the window to continue her rant. She was wearing a pair of sunglasses and a straw hat. These didn’t make her look “beachy” so much as “crazy.”

  “When the other one said the thing about the husband…”

  “I think that was Beth,” Mandy said.

  “Thank you. I’ll store away that vital information.”

  Elaine usually got testy when she’d been doing the books or when she’d come back from lunch with one of the other storeowners. She was skinny and high-strung like those women on TV who rarely eat and sneak bottles of wine into the trash in the morning. Mandy supposed the storeowners complained to one another about business and their pathetic employees. Also about short-term rentals. It was clear from the snippets she’d overheard that there was a group organized to try to limit or regulate them.

  The tone Elaine had used to burn Mandy with “vital information” was a combination of sarcasm and anger. Mandy had dubbed it “sarcanger.” The more time she spent in her little office calculating receipts and complaining about Airbnb, the sarcangrier she became.

  “When she made the comment about the husband, you should have directed her to the Beach Trees. You should have said, ‘Maybe your husband would like one of our Beach Trees. They’re our Signature Item this summer and they’re incredibly popular with men.’”

  Mandy said nothing. What was there to say? Despite the uptick in business, sales of the Beach Trees had not improved.

  “And I’ll tell you something else, Mandy,” Elaine said. She uttered her name dripping with sarcanger. “You’re not a team player. You’re wearing overalls and a flannel shirt. Who wears a flannel shirt to the beach? You have an attitude.”

  Technically speaking, didn’t everyone have an attitude?

  “You don’t have anything to say for yourself? You can’t help me understand why sales have been down this year over last year at this time by 42 percent?”

  “The economy?” Mandy asked.

  “You don’t think it has anything to do with the fact that you’re working here this year versus last year when Lizzy Croft worked here?”

  Lizzy Croft’s name came up frequently. She was a salesperson of almost mythic proportions who’d managed to sell out last year’s Signature Item—the T-Bag, some combination of T-shirt and tote bag—before the middle of August. Elaine had a picture of her on her desk, sitting behind the counter wearing a floral sundress, beaming. She’d gone on to a local business college, blah blah.

  “No theories?” Elaine said.

  “Do you really want me to tell you?” Mandy asked.

  Maybe she’d sounded more serious than she intended, but Elaine actually reeled back as if Mandy had thrown something at her. “Oh, indeed I do. I’m all ears.”

  Mandy recalled some of the things David had said about her essay in prompting her to rewrite. Too cluttered. Too crowded. She needed to edit and focus on a theme. She needed to be ruthlessly honest.

  “I think there’s too much in here,” Mandy said. “It’s hard to focus on any one thing because it’s so crowded. It might help to edit. Like maybe put out two or three of every item instead of ten and fifteen. And to be honest, and I know you won’t like this…”

  “No, no. Go right ahead. It’s only my store.”

  “To be honest, I’ve noticed that people don’t really look at the Beach Trees. When I mention them to people and they do look, they avoid that side of the store. So maybe it would be good to choose a different Signature Item?”

  “They avoid that side of the store? I don’t think so, Mandy. I think you’re making that up. You want to know what I think? I think they see a pouty, unenthusiastic girl dressed in overalls with an attitude and they walk out. Can you blame them?”

  That stung. It was one thing for Elaine to be upset and angry, but this was personal. Boss or not, it only seemed right to her that she stick up for herself.

  “The Beach Trees are ugly,” she said. “No one is going to buy them because they’re ugly and expensive.”

  Elaine composed herself and took off her sunglasses. This composure put Mandy on alert. She sensed that something bad was coming, and she had confirmation from David that she was a perceptive person.

  “I’ll tell you what’s ugly, Mandy. What’s ugly is your attitude. And if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s an attitude, not to mention an ugly attitude. You don’t know what it’s like to own a shop, do you? The responsibilities and the problems? The debt? At your age, you’ve had everything handed to you and you probably think it’s always going to be that way. Well let me be the first to tell you, good luck with that, Miss Mandy.”

  Elaine looked at her with contempt and calmly adjusted the straps on her sundress.

  “If you think I’m going to sit by and let an ugly attitude destroy my livelihood and my dreams, you have some growing up to do. I suggest you just pack up that notebook you’re always scribbling in when you should be dusting and … go.”

  Mandy had done her best to follow this rant, but she was confused. “Do you mean for the afternoon or are you firing me?”

  “You know something, Mandy, your life will be a lot better if you make a resolution today to stop playing the victim.”

  Mandy tried to process this piece of advice.

  “So you mean I should come back tomorrow?”

  “No, Mandy,” she said, the sarcanger back in her voice. “That’s precisely what I do not mean.”

  Mandy gathered from this that Elaine had just fired her, but for some reason didn’t want to use those words. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to respond since she’d never been in a situation like this, so she began to do as told and gather up her things. There would be explaining to do at home, especially to her father, who’d let her know that having a summer job was important and part of the deal for spending the summer in Beauport. On top of that, she had planned to help her mother out since she gathered from what she’d overheard that she needed to put together a big lump of cash for the house.

  As she packed up her belongings and put them into her backpack, she felt something she wouldn’t have thought possible—a little pang of nostalgia for the store with all its useless and ugly clutter. It was dark and relatively small, and perched as it was over the rocks in the middle of Perry Neck, it had become, she realized, a refuge of sorts. The likelihood of anyone she knew walking in was approximately the same as her being nominated for a Grammy. No one who lived in Beauport ever went out to the Neck, let alone shopped there. Why hadn’t she realized the unlikely appeal of the store sooner? Maybe she was doomed always to realize things only when it was too late.

  As she was heading to the door, Elaine popped out of her office and leaned against the doorjamb.

  “Mandy,” she said. “I just want you to know, sweetheart, that I don’t blame you for your behavior.”

  Mandy was about to point out that she’d just fired her for her behavior, but the “sweetheart” had come as such a shock, she forgot to say anything.

  “I know you’ve had a rough couple of years with your parents divorcing and all that.”

  “They’re not officially divorced yet.”

  “See, this is what I mean about your attitude, Mandy. I’m on your side, sweetie. Or I’m trying to be. Everyone knows your mother has issues, and that’s not your fault.”

  She went into her office and returned with money in her hand. “Here. Have a decent lunch or something.” She handed Mandy a twenty-dollar bill. “And please don’t put me in the awkward position of asking me for a letter of recommendation. It’s not going to happen.”

  Mandy looked at the money and then back at Elaine, but she was ha
ving trouble seeing her through tears. “I don’t need any recommendations from you,” she said. “Someone already offered me a job. And don’t talk about my mother. She’s a better person than you’ll ever be. And I don’t need your charity.” She took the twenty and hurled it onto the floor.

  At the door, she thought better of it, turned back and snatched up the rumpled bill. “But I’ll take it,” she said.

  24

  As soon as she stepped onto the street, Mandy had an urge to comment on the heat and humidity, just like every predictable customer that came into Beachy Keen. Unlike them, though, she had no one to say it to.

  Cars were not allowed out on Perry Neck, but the streets were packed with sweating people staggering along with stupefied expressions and limp hair, as if they were waiting to be herded to some cooler, happier place. She let herself be swept along by the crowd for a little while, just beginning to accept the fact that she’d lost her job and probably with good reason. She’d had a bad attitude about the store even before she was hired. She never said anything insulting to any of the customers, but maybe her feelings showed through.

  The only person who wouldn’t freak out and start accusing her was David, but she couldn’t call him. He had enough on his plate already, and he and her mother were going to a party at Amira’s house this afternoon. She wondered if drunk David would be as supportive.

  She broke away from the pack and headed off the Neck and toward the center of town. The Village Green, as Elaine had told her to call it because it sounded more quaint. Well, she had, even though the Village Green was more like a traffic island in the middle of two busy streets. There were a few benches there and a couple of planters that the garden club maintained annually until late August, at which point they gave up watering and let the geraniums and impatiens wither and die. There were a couple of suffering trees in the middle, too, so there was at least the hint of shade.

  As she was halfway across the street to the green, she saw that Lindsay was sitting on a bench there with a girl on either side of her. She couldn’t turn around because she’d get hit by a car, and besides, it would look too weird. With what seemed like telepathy, Lindsay looked up at that instant and made eye contact with her.

  It was obvious why Lindsay never called her anymore and didn’t answer her texts. The two other girls, both sitting up on the back of the bench, were popular. Lindsay was moving up the food chain. Michelle was a skinny blonde who was alleged to have “an amazing voice” and was treated like a reigning pop star whenever she sang at talent shows or in a school play. Mandy found her high, reedy vocals grating, but she did envy her ability to get up on stage and actually pull off a performance. Whether or not Michelle was a great singer, she had confidence, and when you came down to it, confidence might be the root of all talent. She had over ten thousand followers on Instagram, mostly because her family had vacationed in Lake Placid last summer, and Michelle had bumped into Lana Del Rey and her sister on the street and taken a series of photos with them that made it seem like they were best friends. Also because she was a vegan, even though at this moment she appeared to be eating frozen yogurt.

  The other girl was Wallis. As far as Mandy could tell, her popularity was based on the fact that she had an unusual name and was going to transfer to Buckingham Browne & Nichols for her senior year, a school where Mindy Kaling and the actor from Psycho had gone. She too had confidence, not about any particular talent but the fact that she thought she was better than everyone else in general.

  Lindsay waved, a little shyly, as Mandy stepped onto the green. All three girls were eating out of gigantic neon orange cups from the self-serve yogurt place around the corner. Michelle actually spoke to her. “Oh, Mandy. Great. You can take a picture of us. I want to get the sign for the candy store in the background.”

  As humiliating as it was to be asked to perform this service, it at least gave her something to do with her hands. As she was snapping the photo and Michelle and Wallis were draping themselves over the bench to look like models, she realized it was a lot less embarrassing to be on her side of the camera than in the middle of these two wannabes the way Lindsay was. She handed the camera back to Michelle. It was a Sony something or other that looked expensive, a toy she’d probably persuaded her parents to buy for her as an investment in her career in social media mediocrity.

  “You should get some of this,” Wallis said, holding up the cup. “The taro root is incredible.”

  “I’m not exactly hungry,” Mandy said.

  Michelle, who clearly had a complicated relationship with food, eyed her up and down suspiciously. “Aren’t you broiling in those clothes?” she asked.

  Mandy was still reeling from having been kicked out of the store by Elaine, and all of this struck her as irrelevant noise.

  “I just got fired,” she found herself replying.

  Lindsay, who was the first person Mandy had told when she got the job—way back when it seemed like they were friends—looked genuinely concerned. Poor Lindsay. Mandy had always had trouble controlling her temper around her, so she understood why she’d stopped returning her calls. What she didn’t understand was why she missed Lindsay more than she’d have guessed. “What are you going to do now?” she asked.

  “Maybe your mother can hire you to make beds or something,” Michelle said.

  So Lindsay had told them about the room-rental thing, even though Mandy had sworn her to secrecy.

  “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Mandy said. “I’m doing it for free anyway, why would she suddenly pay me?”

  “So why did you get fired?” Lindsay said.

  “No offense,” Wallis said, “but it’s not like it’s the most unimaginable thing in the world, Mandy getting fired.”

  Mandy knew this was intended as a blow, but she didn’t have the energy to be offended. “She said I have a bad attitude. I guess I do.”

  “What are you going to do about a job?” Lindsay said. “Your mother will kill you.”

  Lindsay’s mother was more the killer type; she kept a 24/7 watch on her daughter and monitored her every online search and phone call. She spent more time on the school portal than the teachers and knew every assignment and test score before her daughter did.

  “I have a couple of options,” Mandy said.

  “You should get an internship,” Michelle said. “That’s what we’re doing. It looks a lot better on your CV for colleges.”

  Mandy wondered if the “we” included Lindsay. Last she’d heard, Lindsay was working for minimum wage at the day care center a few towns over that her mother managed. It wasn’t exciting, but it was probably the perfect job for Lindsay since she claimed to be interested in education and had always been one of those girls who was destined to work with kids. It was impossible to imagine her doing anything else. People said she had a great understanding of children, but from what Mandy could tell, it was more that she had a great desire to remain one herself. Brett, Lindsay’s so-called boyfriend, admired this immaturity and the baby voice Lindsay sometimes lapsed into. Red flags!

  “What’s your internship?” she asked Michelle. She might have asked Wallis, but wasn’t all that interested.

  “I’m working at the music festival. Since I’m planning to go to Berklee College of Music, it’s great experience on my CV.”

  There was something embarrassing about the fact that Michelle had used the expression “CV” twice in the last few minutes. She could see Michelle sitting down at the kitchen table with her mother—a duplicate of Michelle, except worn, like a library copy of the Hunger Games trilogy—writing up this document and congratulating each other. Based on how she behaved in the audience of shows Michelle performed in, her mother was living through her daughter. At least Julie knew she and Mandy were different people.

  The three-week chamber music festival had a national reputation. The concerts were considered “serious,” a nice way of saying “boring.”

  “What do you do there?” Mandy ask
ed.

  “I work in the box office and sometimes in the gift shop.”

  “So it’s kind of like working in a store except you don’t get paid?”

  “Wow,” Wallis said. “You’re really negative, Mandy.”

  She got up to throw away her yogurt cup, and Michelle handed her hers. Mandy saw that it was still half full. Like exactly half full, as if her portion had been sliced with a knife, right down the middle. Since the yogurt came from a self-serve place, why not just put less in to begin with?

  Wallis turned to face them with her back against the trash barrel. She had an expression of cartoonish surprise on her face, eyes and mouth perfect circles, and she shook her hands as if she was trying to dry them. “Don’t look now,” she said, “but Craig Crespo’s van is headed this way.”

  Mandy felt a thump in her chest. She wasn’t sure if she was excited by this news or alarmed. She wasn’t thrilled that he was going to see her with these girls since the only real compliment he’d ever paid her was saying that she wasn’t like them.

  “Whoever gets the best shot of him gets to post it,” Michelle said.

  “Where?” Mandy asked.

  “There’s a Craig Crespo hashtag on Instagram,” Michelle said. “It’s hilarious.”

  Mandy doubted it was. In fact, she doubted Michelle thought it was because the way she said “hilarious” made it sound a lot more like “exciting” in a sexual way. She also said it as a reproach to Mandy, like she couldn’t possibly get how hilarious it was.

  As the van approached, Wallis and Michelle got their phones ready. To Lindsay’s credit, she didn’t. Mandy had an urge to duck, but then she remembered that she’d long ago decided that if you were going to do something, it was better to look as if you were proud of what you were doing.

  The van, which had once been white and was now a dusty shade of something else, sped past them and then, half a block away, stopped and began to back up. This produced a flurry of nervous excitement. Michelle and Wallis, who’d wandered to the edge of the green to get a photo, dashed back to the bench like children and pretended to be involved in their phones. The fact that Lindsay hadn’t played along made Mandy realize that no matter how annoying she could be, there was a reason they’d once been friends.