Office Girl

by Joe Meno

  AND AFTERWARD.

  Pete dares to act like he does not know her and even ignores her when she tries to smile at him from across the aisle between the cubicles. There are only three other operators on at this time of night and what does he even care? But he won’t look at her and smile back, so screw it. People are just one big useless hassle.

  And so night after night, for another full week, she answers the telephone, which never stops ringing. And as she enters an order from Akron, Ohio—a podiatrist who needs a new set of crutches for a patient—she thinks, I don’t even like that guy Pete. Why do I keep doing things with people I don’t even like?

  And then it hits her. The podiatrist is asking how they can bill the patient’s insurance company and Odile is saying something in response but really she is thinking that she cares too much about what other people think. In fact, she will go so far as to give some guy she barely knows a handjob just so he’ll act as if he likes her, which is really no way to get through the world.

  When she looks up—another operator, a pimply, hyenafaced squirt by the name of Kurt, winks at her. She is momentarily appalled and then turns, peering over at Pete, who refuses to make eye contact with her. Kurt is now opening and closing his mouth, making little kissy sounds. Odile can feel her face go bright red. Kurt is jerking his hand up and down in the universal gesture for “handjob” and then Odile is standing, and then her face is going red, and then she is trying to run out but trips over the cord for the copy machine, and she falls against a cubicle, hitting her head, and everyone is staring, until she can grab her green parka and hurry through the glass office door.

  Now what?

  It’s almost one a.m. and the city doesn’t even look the same.

  She decides she has had enough of that job, of those particular people, and so she unlocks her bicycle and does not bother to let them know she has quit. And then she rides off. And the city is awful, there’s never anything pretty, even with all this snow.

  AND THE NEXT DAY SHE GETS A TELEPHONE CALL.

  From the guy she had been seeing a few months ago, Will, who says he’s been trying to get in touch and he explains how he’d like his pink T-shirt back. And so she says okay and he comes on over. Will’s gotten a goofy haircut, it’s longer in the back, and he’s growing one of those stupid ironic artist beards but he still looks pretty decent. And so she smiles and hands him his pink T-shirt, the one she stole from him, the one he made that says, I Love Soft Rock. It still smells exactly like him, like cigarettes and generic underarm deodorant. And also his dandruff shampoo, which she happens to know is what he uses for soap.

  “So how have you been?” he asks, and all of a sudden she sees what this is.

  “Did you come over here for your shirt or because you wanted to talk?”

  “Neither,” he says defensively. “Both. I just thought I’d stop by and see you. Or is that against the law?”

  “It’s not against the law,” she says, still suspicious.

  “How’s life?”

  “That’s the stupidest question I’ve ever heard.”

  “Sorry.” He smiles a little and then squints at her and asks, “So what have you been doing?”

  “I’ve been thinking of starting my own art movement.”

  “Really.”

  “It’s against anything popular. Even popular art.”

  “Wow. That sounds great.”

  “You are so full of it,” she says, even though both of them are smiling.

  “So are you still the world’s worst dancer?” he asks, and she laughs because it’s such a bold, ridiculous question, because he knows she thinks she is the best dancer of all time and she has no choice but to roll her eyes at him and then he walks over to the stereo and puts on a CD he brought and then puts his hands around her waist and they begin dancing and she asks, “Who is this?” and he says, “The Police,” and they dance some more, and it’s become an impromptu dance contest, and Will is a pretty decent dancer and he puts his mouth beside her ear and asks, “Are you still quiet in bed?” and then they are lying in her bed, and he is taking off her sweater and then pulling down her jeans, and she is not stopping him, and she can feel his stupid blond beard against her cheek and his hand making its way down the front of her underwear and she thinks, I wish the two of us could just go to sleep, and so she closes her eyes and begins to dream she is in some other place, some imaginary city, farther and farther and farther away from the hands and lips and faces of all other people. And, in the dark, the condom he puts on is pink.

  AND IT’S THE DAY AFTER THAT.

  And Odile finds out that her roommate Isobel has to get another abortion. It’s the second time it’s happened. Isobel comes in and sits down on Odile’s bed. Both of them are still in their striped pajamas, and together they stare down at the small white pregnancy test. There is something subtly terrifying about the pregnancy test’s impersonal mechanical shape and Odile can’t stop looking at it.

  “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit,” is all Isobel can manage to say.

  “Are you sure you did it right?” Odile asks.

  Isobel nods. Her face is wet with tears. Even now, even crying, Odile knows her roommate is probably a lot prettier.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. I just called the clinic. It’s two hundred and fifty dollars,” Isobel says. “I already made the appointment. It’s in three weeks. But I don’t have any money.”

  “Did you tell Edward yet?”

  “Not yet. He’s going to flip. I don’t know what we’re going to do. Neither one of us has any cash. He’s not even working right now. He’s just going to school.”

  Odile makes a sound then that’s somewhere between a yawn and a sigh.

  “Do you think you could ask your parents for it?” Isobel asks.

  Odile feels her face get red. “What? I couldn’t. They already … I just can’t.”

  Isobel nods. “Well, there’s no way I’m telling my folks. They took care of the last one. I’m really screwed.”

  Odile stands, walks across the room, and opens up a small white jewelry box. Inside the box is a mood ring, some jelly bracelets, a terrible necklace her ex-boyfriend Brandon once gave her that he got out of a toy machine at a supermarket, that’s shaped like a poodle, and two hundred and thirty-two dollars in wadded-up cash—it’s her part of the rent. And she counts the money, then again, and even though she doesn’t want to, she hands it over to Isobel.

  “I don’t want you to have to worry about this,” Odile says. “But I don’t want to have to go with you again. To the appointment, I mean. I just can’t. It was too weird last time.”

  “Okay, I’ll get Edward to.” Isobel stands to hug her. It is the first time they have hugged in a long time. Odile thinks it feels good. Isobel’s shoulders are firm and bony. “I’ll pay this back as soon as I can,” she says.

  Odile nods and watches her hurry out of the room. She hates how easy everything always is for Isobel, even something awful like this. She knows she is never going to see that money again, so why did she do it?

  And now she doesn’t have enough for rent, and now she doesn’t even have a job. And she is thinking about maybe moving back to Minneapolis or going out to New York, but she’s still on the lease here for one more month and even if she wanted to move now, she hasn’t got the money for it. And what is she going to do now? What would anyone do?

  MUZAK SUPPLY COMPANY.

  One of the first want-ads Odile sees is for a phone operator at Muzak Situations. Apparently it’s where dentists and insurance agents get their waiting room music, the kind of music that’s advertised on late-night television. It’s only a temporary job but promises to pay well. The ad stipulates that all potential applicants must have some customer service skills and a college degree. Why would someone need a college degree to answer the telephone? She does not have an actual college degree but the pay looks pretty decent and the fact that it is another night job seems like a
good idea, because she and Isobel always get on each other’s nerves.

  “Do you have any experience with customer service?” the interviewer, a nervous, overweight man with a droopy mustache, asks. The office is ramshackle, there are unpacked boxes everywhere, and it looks like what’s going on is slightly illegal. One of the lights in the small conference room keeps cutting out. And the interviewer is particularly sweaty.

  Odile looks across the faux-wood desk and nods. “Yes, I worked for a place in St. Paul for two years and that’s all I did. This last place, here, was telephone surveys. And then the other one,” she points at the line on her resume that mentions her short stint at the orthopedic company and the interviewer nods and asks, “Do you have a college degree or are you still in school?” and Odile asks, “Why?”

  “Because people who go to college are responsible. And they don’t turn out to be trouble.”

  Odile frowns, biting the corner of her mouth, and then lies, saying, “I’m finishing up right now, but don’t worry, it won’t interfere with work,” and the interviewer does not ask her to prove it. He hands her a sample script to take home to memorize and, moments later, the job is hers.

  You: Good evening, this is ______ with Muzak Situations. Thanks for calling. What can I help you with tonight?

  Caller: I’m interested in your Moonlight and Love two-CD set.

  You: Wonderful. That’s one of my favorites. Are you a fan of instrumental music?

  Caller: Yes, I am.

  You: I am too. Did you know we also offer a four-CD set of contemporary romance hits which I am able to offer to you as part of our special qualifying period for being a new customer?

  Caller: Tell me more.

  You: It’s called Modern Magic and it has some of today’s most romantic hits by some of the world’s best contemporary instrumental artists. It’s perfect for any home, office, or medical setting.

  Caller: Thanks, but I’m not interested.

  You: I can tell you’re having a hard time trying to decide. You can try out any one of our CD sets for thirty days and send it back postage paid if you decide that it’s not the best instrumental music you’ve ever heard.

  Caller: Wow, that sounds great.

  You: I thought you’d be interested. Now if I could just get your name, address, and credit card information …

  HELLO PAUL.

  Odile rides her bicycle through the evening, right in the middle of the gruesome glare of the stalled traffic, happy for the first time in a long while. She wants to call someone to tell them about her new job but does not know who would be happy for her, other than her mother, and she doesn’t want to tell her she has a new job because that will only make her worry and so she is stopping beside a phone booth and dialing Paul’s number, and later, if she doesn’t say anything stupid, they will meet and kiss in the backseat of a taxi and she will know even then that these moments, his gray scarf scratching her bare neck, his hands on the rumpled shoulders of her green coat, the taste of his mentholated aftershave on his throat, these moments are over before they even begin. And although she does not want to, she dials his number anyway, because in those frightful seconds, the city is just too big and too full of people to be alone.

  Hello, she says, once the individual sound of the numbers being dialed are done beeping. Paul? Are you there? Paul, are you there?

  THOUGH IT’S SNOWING AT TEN SECONDS AFTER EIGHT A.M.

  On that Monday at the end of January, Jack Blevins, a questionable young man of twenty-five, rides his blue bicycle beneath the flurry, with tape recorder in hand. The snow falls in dark wet flakes across his eyelashes as he listens for something interesting to record. But today there’s nothing. The buildings downtown have become a soft white blur while the rest of the city has gone silent. At the moment Jack is wearing his frayed blue winter hat, pulled tightly over his ears, the ball at the top bouncing back and forth; also the amateurishly repaired black plastic glasses which have been taped in two spots and are now fogged up with frost—the prescription for the glasses several years out of date—a gray winter jacket, and a red scarf which is fitted firmly over his nose and mouth. Beneath the gray coat is a black tie and a white dress shirt that’s two sizes too small. In his left hand, which is covered in a threadbare black glove, he holds the handlebars and does his best to steer the blue ten-speed through the snow; in his right hand, he holds the silver tape recorder, daring to record anything beautiful—the pneumatic hush of the chrome bus doors as they whisper shut, a murmuration of pigeons swooping overhead, the squeak of a wisecracking child walking along in green rubber boots. It’s still dark out, the sun reluctant to rise. Did he shave today? No. He did not. And his brown hair is falling in his eyes. And then he runs into a girl he knows—waiting at a bus stop on the corner of Damen, reading some French novel—and does what he has to to ignore her.

  BECAUSE TODAY HE DOESN’T WANT TO TALK TO ANYONE.

  He doesn’t want to have to explain to anyone about Elise and so he pedals on before the artless, shifting crowd of commuters downtown, all of the other office workers huddled beneath their unwound scarves and bulky winter coats, and then he circles around to record the sound of a pink balloon disappearing above an electronics store and almost falls off his bicycle doing it. People stare at him, wondering what it is he thinks he’s doing, watching him hold out the silver tape recorder, slush spinning from the bicycle chain, darkening the bottom of his gray corduroy pants. Ten seconds of the balloon hovering there and he says “A pink balloon” into the small circular microphone and then rides on.

  THE ASYMMETRY OF ADULTHOOD.

  At an earlier, perhaps less pathetic time in his life, Jack had been recognized as a boy who was terribly handsome, with a swath of dark hair sticking up along the back of his head, an expressive mouth with lips that were flattering but drew no attention to themselves, handsomely proportional ears, a nose that was neither snub nor Roman, and curious gray-green eyes, which no one else in the family possessed. But now, at the ripe old age of twenty-five, in the first flush of adulthood, a decided awkwardness has crept into the lines of his cheeks and forehead, and overall, the feeling one gets when looking into his face is that of an unquestionable anxiety. There is nothing the least bit remarkable about him; everything, including his facial features, is completely, hopelessly average. Watching him ride through the early-morning traffic, it’s as if this young man had not so long ago entered an age of dreaminess and confusion, and the features of his face only recently rearranged themselves to match. What is he doing with himself? Where is he headed in life? When, if ever, is he going to do something great? Is this, his average face, his lack of ambition, the reason Elise is going to Germany? He checks his calculator watch and sees he is going to be late again.

  BECAUSE AT THIS POINT IN LIFE JACK IS KNOWN FOR ONLY ONE THING.

  Jack is famous for having taken his testicles out at last month’s holiday party—taking his testicles out of his pants and putting them on the punch ladle, and then walking around the frolicking office, offering his testicles with the ladle, and pretending like nothing was the matter. There are now several descriptions of this incident in his personnel file. Although he was severely reprimanded the next day at the office, Jack did not feel bad. To be honest, this is what Jack has always done whenever he gets drunk. Ever since high school, even on the tennis team. When he drinks too much, he ends up taking his testicles out, which he knows is inappropriate and weird but always ends up happening.

  Maybe, he thinks, as he’s riding on through the snow, maybe this is why she’s leaving. Maybe she fell in love with me when we were kids. And now: and now: and now: we’re not kids anymore.

  AT THE EIGHT-THIRTY A.M. MEETING.

  It’s impossible to pay attention. Jack works in the production department of a medical advertising firm. It is not rewarding work. What he does is help sell drugs and medical products to people who sometimes do not need them, in advertisements like Prozac, Live Life Again and Your Replacement
Hip Could Be Better, by helping to build models and sets which are then photographed and made into glossy ads. Four years of art school and this is what he does. Today he is distracted by other things, big, big things. Someone across the table asks what kind of production budget they will need to build the set for the new aortic valve shoot and he is staring out the window at the snow and Mr. Munday calls his name and he nods and pushes his black glasses up the bridge of his nose and looks down at his notes and he murmurs the first number he sees and everyone is looking at him and Mr. Munday asks, “Jack, are you okay?” and Jack shakes his head and says, “No. Excuse me,” and then he stands, walking out of the conference room, and heads over to his desk. He opens his briefcase and finds the silver tape recorder inside. He hits rewind and then play and listens to the pink balloon hovering in the air. He hits rewind again and listens to it once more and it is like he is not there, at his desk, in the office, falling into his seat. And then the black telephone begins to ring. And he places it against his ear and is surprised at how cold it feels.

  “Hello,” he says. “Production department.”

  “Hi,” she says. “It’s me.”

  “Oh, hi,” startled all of a sudden.

  “Are you still going to go with me tonight?”