The Duet

by D'Angelo, Jennifer

  I won’t lie. For a moment, my mind was filled with X-rated visions of me giving Jay a nice parting gift before he got shipped out. I zoned out, and barely heard what he said.

  “I’m sorry, what? I thought you said you wanted to write to me.”

  “Yes. Like letters. We’re not allowed to use the internet or text or anything, but we’re supposed to write every day to someone we trust. It’s part of the treatment, I guess.”

  I was honestly speechless. And for me to not find my words… well, that was a pretty big deal. It almost never happened.

  “Never mind,” he said, starting to stand up. “It’s dumb, I’m sorry I asked.”

  “No! It’s not dumb.” I put my hand on his arm to stop him from leaving. Oh, snap. He really had nice arms. “Sit, please. It’s just… you took me by surprise is all. I… I mean… you trust me?”

  “I do.”

  “Why?”

  He leaned back against the seat cushion and rubbed his cheek again, something I was starting to think was a nervous gesture. “I don’t know. I think it’s just because we’re both friends with Cooper, and even though I don’t really know you that well, I feel like I do by extension of him.”

  I nodded. “Okay, I guess that makes sense.”

  “Anyway, I have no one else to ask, and it would be weird writing to Cooper. We’re not really the ‘share your deepest feelings’ kind of friends.”

  “So you’re gonna share all your deep feelings with me? In the letters?”

  “No! I mean, they don’t read them or anything. We can write whatever. Just as long as we do it every day, and to the same person.”

  “Can I write back? We can be like pen pals! It’ll be like Girl Scouts… I think. Well, I might’ve seen that in a movie or something. I never actually was in Girl Scouts, and I don’t think I’ve ever written anyone a letter. And mailed it. Huh.” I scratched my chin, suddenly very caught up in the thought that I had never written a letter. Weird.

  “You can’t write back.”

  I shook my head to clear it. “What?”

  “They don’t want anyone getting any negative influence from outside, and since they don’t monitor the content of the mail, they just don’t let us receive any.”

  “Oh.” My shoulders slumped. I was actually disappointed. “Well, sure. Yes, I’ll be your writ-ee or recipient or whatever you want to call it.”

  “Thanks, Izzy.”

  The sound of my name in his voice did funny things to my insides. I looked down and was surprised to see that my hand had never moved off his arm. I looked up hesitantly, kind of scared of what was waiting for me on his face, and when my eyes locked on his I knew I was right to be afraid.

  This boy was gonna crush my heart someday. I just had a feeling.

  6

  Dear Izzy,

  I’ve never written for anyone but myself before now. I’m supposed to write “with raw honesty”, but who is really capable of that? Besides, you’d probably never speak to me again if you know what was really inside my head.

  Anyway, the place is okay. I’ve only been here for one night, but it’ll be tolerable for six weeks. I guess it beats the alternative.

  I’ll write every day, but you don’t have to read these. I’m kind of glad you aren’t allowed to write back. It takes some of the pressure off. This way I can pretend to know your reaction.

  The assignment for today is to pick one thing we would change about ourselves going forward. It could be as obvious as laying off the drugs (you seriously wouldn’t believe some of the stories I’ve already heard in here), or not drinking anymore. Or it could be a little more intangible of a goal.

  Mine’s pretty simple. I’m gonna stop blaming my parents for all my shit. If I don’t, I will end up to be one miserable bastard. (okay, well more of a miserable bastard than I already am)

  Dr. Phil would be damn proud, don’t you think?

  Jay

  The warehouse job was going well. A month in and I didn’t have any complaints. Okay, maybe just one small complaint.

  “Izzy, get your sweet little ass over here!” Wayne yelled, from his position at the desk in front of all the security monitors.

  Wayne was my boss, and I had never seen another person get away with doing less work. I was also quite certain he had broken every sexual harassment law since I’d started. But he was relatively harmless, and I needed this job.

  I finished up the pallet I was shrink-wrapping and sauntered over; although saunter was a bit optimistic, since it was impossible to walk in a smooth manner while wearing the ridiculously starchy, polyester-type uniform we were required to wear. I never thought I’d see the day when steel-toed boots were the most comfy apparel on my body. It seemed to me that warehouse work should involve a broken-in pair of jeans, cotton t-shirt and hair pulled back out of your eyes. We weren’t exactly on display back here, and a happy employee that didn’t have to scratch her crotch or check that her boobs were still under the burlap sack called a shirt, was a productive employee.

  Yeah, well, I may have had two small complaints about the job.

  “Yes, Wayne,” I said like an obedient child. I was doing so much better with the eye-rolling thing. I felt a twitch in my brow as I struggled to control myself now. He was checking me over from head to foot. Nothing made a girl feel sexier than these uniforms. Team that up with your middle-aged, chain smoking, showers-once-a-week boss who likely still lives with his mother, and leers at you as if you were tonight’s dinner, and voila! I was so hot.

  I removed my hat, (oh, hadn’t I mentioned the cardboard-ish hat with the rubber band-like torture device to hold it in place?) reassembled my hair in a haphazard bun, and tucked it back under its hiding place.

  Wayne’s eyes popped wider. “Your hair is blue.”

  “You’re very observant.” Now I was bored. I’d rather shrink-wrap ten thousand pallets than have a conversation with this degenerate.

  He ducked his head and looked up at me from where he was sitting through thin, matted eyelashes. “I bet you’re a dynamo in the sack,” he said in a low voice.

  I smiled even as I swallowed back the bile in my throat. Being one of only three or four women in this job, I expected comments like this. But words weren’t the same as hands, and when his shot out and rested on my hip, I jerked back.

  “Hands off, Wayne,” I muttered so that only he could hear. There was no need to make a scene. As long as I made it clear that this wouldn’t be tolerated, he wouldn’t try to touch me again.

  “What did you want, Wayne?” I snapped my fingers in front of his face. “My eyes are up here.”

  He tipped his head to one side and smiled a toothy grin, and when I say toothy, I mean he was only missing two teeth. That I could notice. Oh, wait, no he was only missing one tooth. That other one was just so black, I didn’t see it at first.

  Wayne leaned back in his chair and stuck a toothpick in his mouth. I tried the power of positive thinking as I imagined him leaning too far back, toppling over and splitting his head open like a watermelon. I vaguely wondered if someone as dumb as Wayne would have visible signs of stupidity inside their head – like giant tattoos of question marks on their brain matter, or cockroaches in their skull.

  He stared at me for a minute longer, and just as I was beginning to squirm, he handed me a pile of pick tickets without a word. I snatched them from his hand and got back to work.

  Normally, Wayne just made a few off-color remarks and let me go about my business. But that afternoon, he was dogging me, and I could feel my self-control begin to slip as the day wore on. Twice he accidentally on purpose, brushed by me too close and jabbed a boob. Or maybe he hoped it was a boob, but he’d only gotten my sternum once and my ribcage the next.

  The man had probably never actually touched a real boob, so uniform aside, he wouldn’t know the difference.

  It was getting close to quitting time when the straw broke the camel’s back; or maybe I should say the steel toe broke the weas
el’s face.

  I was standing up on the ladder, reaching for a box, when I felt something stirring down there in my nether region. And I don’t mean the good kind of stirring; more like I was camping and a filthy garden snake had crawled up my pant leg. I glanced down and realized that Wayne had climbed up behind me – an absolute safety no-no, two people on a ladder – and had attached that claw he called a hand, right to my crotch. It was clamped on there good and tight, although thank the stars that fabric was so thick and unyielding, I could barely feel it.

  I saw a burst of fiery red and orange before my eyeballs. I even managed one good deep breath before I reacted, so you can’t say I didn’t think it through first.

  My left foot came deliberately off the rung of the ladder and I lifted it as far up as my position would allow. He never even saw it coming. That steel-toed boot came down so hard on his forehead, I felt the vibration in my leg. Fortunately for Wayne, my trajectory was off, or he might have ended up in the morgue instead of just on short-term disability. And I guess that was fortunate for me as well. Despite the fact that I had not been able to rid the world of such a worthless piece of shit as Wayne, I was not going to jail. In fact, the entire matter was quietly swept under the rug with the understanding that I would not sue the shit out of the conglomerate warehouse company for sexual battery.

  What a strange world.

  Anyway, I watched as Wayne floated down off the ladder – he was only three rungs up, so relax – and landed with a satisfying thud on the cold concrete floor. His forehead instantly knotted up and grew a softball sized lump.

  I hopped off the ladder, stripped off my uniform and hat, tossing them on the floor as I went. I may have even been humming a little as I sauntered – truly sauntered this time – right through that warehouse and out to my car. I was wearing nothing but a sports bra, boxer shorts and those ultra-comfort steel toed boots.

  7

  Dear Izzy,

  I remember one night listening to my father begging my mother to forgive him. I don’t just mean a simple, ‘Please forgive me’, I mean downright groveling, on his knees outside her locked bedroom door, whimpering. I can’t explain the shame I felt listening to a grown man that I had once looked up to, behaving like such a pussy.

  For a long while, even though I knew that the way they treated each other wasn’t healthy, I kept on telling myself that it was because they loved each other so much. Then I would swear on my life that I would never ever let anyone penetrate my heart that way. If love was like that, than I wanted no part of it. But now I realize that what my parents had wasn’t love at all. It was something ugly, maybe fear or even hate, but love does not ruin people like it did my parents. If it does, then we are all in big trouble.

  Jay

  I showed up at my new job feeling both superior for landing a job in a law firm, and wary of being hired by a law firm.

  I had spoken to the female half of the husband and wife legal team quite extensively over the last few days. The interviews were thorough, to say the least, but when she’d hired me sight unseen, I began to question the legal genius behind this particular outfit. As much as I needed to start working, I had asked her several times if she wanted to meet me in person. Not that I couldn’t do the work, but yuppie types like these tended to be uptight, and my aqua hair (I’d added a bit of green – too much free time on my hands between gigs) and my fashion choices could be a speed bump.

  Sure enough, Fancy Pants Intellectual Properties Lawyer did a spit take (literally – she sprayed coffee all over her desk) when I walked in. To her credit, she recovered quickly. To her husband’s credit, he barely noticed me at all.

  I had toned things down a bit. My hair was braided in two pigtails. My skirt was longer than usual, just a couple inches above the knee, and I’d gone with the solid dark green tights to match the plaid instead of the textured brighter one’s I had first put on. I didn’t have any shirts without slogans, so I went with an old CBGB t-shirt that wasn’t torn. I’d turned it inside out to hide the skull image, and topped it with a blazer I’d stolen from Cooper’s closet that morning. I didn’t have time or money to shop for shoes, so there wasn’t anything to be done about the boots, but I figured my feet would be tucked under a desk most of the day anyway.

  I was put right to work. In fact, I wasn’t even shown around or introduced to anyone else in the office. I would later find out that there were two paralegals, but I wouldn’t be there long enough to remember their names. I would also later stumble across the bathroom, which had become a necessity by about two in the afternoon.

  The office was bustling, but quiet. Nobody spoke unless they had to; phone calls were made in hushed tones. Both Mr. and Mrs. McDonald, as I was forced to call them, since using first names was a sign of disrespect, had private offices on opposite sides of the sprawling work space, and their doors were usually closed.

  “Isabel!” Mrs. McDonald barked, startling me from the task at hand (attempting to figure out the intricate filing system without asking any of my helpful co-workers for assistance).

  “It’s Izzy,” I said, though the look it garnered made me wish I didn’t.

  “Whatever.” She waved her hand in the air, and actually stuck her nose up in the air. Nice touch. “I need you to call American Express and dispute these charges.” She tossed a file at me and retreated to her office.

  There were six months of statements in the file, all of which had more lines highlighted than not. I felt like I was up for the challenge, so I went ahead and dialed the customer service number, anxious to kick a little ass. I hated these big corporations who tried to get away with billing innocent small businesses all kinds of erroneous charges, thinking they would just pay without question.

  I waited on hold, listening to an elevator version of a Rolling Stones song. Twenty minutes went by. Mrs. McDonald poked her head out of her office three times to check my progress. Finally, in the middle of a stirring rendition of Smoke On the Water (who picked this music?), I was rewarded with a live person.

  “Thank you for calling American Express Small Business, may I help you?” a bored voice said.

  I stopped scribbling senseless characters on my desk blotter, and spread the offending statements out in front of me. “Yes, thank you. I would like to dispute some charges. There’s quite a few, actually.” I smirked a little, loving the sound of my superior attitude coming across nicely.

  “May I have the account number please?”

  I read her the digits, squirming in my seat. When this bitch realized we were on to their little scheme, she would be much less bored. In fact, she might even lose her job simply for having the poor luck of answering this particular call.

  “And is this Veronica McDonald I am speaking with?” She still sounded like she might drop into a nap any minute.

  “No, this is her assistant. I would like to start with the statement dated January…”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. I do not show any authorized users on this account besides Ms. McDonald.”

  I was taken aback. “I’m not trying to use the card. I’m just calling to straighten out the bill.”

  “I am unable to speak with anyone regarding the account except for authorized users. Ma’am.”

  Cut it out with the ma’am. I didn’t like this woman. Not one bit. I didn’t even feel bad now if she was going to lose her job.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you today?”

  I thought of the amount of time I had to hold in order to get to this point, and all the crappy music I’d been subjected to during that wait, and I panicked. “Wait! Here is Mrs. McDonald now. Let me just put her on the phone.” I fumbled for the hold button, and waited a beat before picking back up.

  I made my voice sound firmer, more businesslike. In case they’d ever spoken to my boss before, they’d know she had a crisp demeanor.

  “This is Veronica McDonald,” I said, with a furtive glance toward the actual Veronica’s closed door.

  “
Ah, yes, Ms. McDonald. For security purposes, would you please verify the address associated with your account?”

  “Certainly,” I said, proud of myself for pulling off this farce. I rattled off the address printed on the statement, tapping my pencil eraser as I did.

  “Very good,” said the voice, sounding possibly less bored than she was earlier. “Now, for further security purposes, can you please verify the last four digits of the social security number.”

  “Sure,” I said, my pencil freezing in midair.

  “Okay.” Silence on the other end.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’m sorry. Go ahead with what?”

  “Give me the digits and I’ll verify if they’re the correct ones.” My palms were getting sweaty, and my pigtails were itching.

  “Ah, ma’am. I’m afraid I can’t do that. In order for us to proceed, I will need you to give me the last four digits of the social security number associated with this account.”

  “I don’t feel comfortable with that,” I said. I was starting to tire of this woman.

  “Well then I’m afraid I can’t help you. I need to confirm that this is indeed Veronica McDonald I am speaking to.”

  “But I’ve already confirmed that it is I. Why would I be calling about Veronica McDonald’s account if I wasn’t Veronica McDonald? What possible motivation would I have to dispute charges on an account other than my own?”

  I heard a click. For a moment I thought that bitch might’ve hung up on me. “Hello?” I said firmly, half hoping that she was gone.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry. I’m afraid I cannot proceed with this inquiry at this time. Perhaps you can call back another time when you have…”

  “Let me speak to a supervisor. This is an outrage! First you people allow dozens of fraudulent charges to appear on my account, then you refuse to help me rectify the situation.” I could do this. I was totally channeling my boss of just a few hours. I was a natural at this shit.