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one that means fast forward? Do all Soda Star employees get off on hearing themselves talk?
Finally I reach Ronald Newman’s voice mail.
In my frantic attempt to come across as utterly cheerful and imperturbable, I end up sounding pathetically desperate. “This is Sunny Langstein calling? I just wanted to catch up and make sure all the papers are in order? I gave notice here so I’m all set to start in two and a half weeks? Looking forward to hearing from you?” And then I repeat my home number, office number and cell number. Twice.
When I arrive at my office on Thursday morning, Liza is sitting cross-legged on my desk. “Guess what!” she says, patting her stomach. I’m not sure if she’s talking to me or to the baby.
“What?”
“I found your replacement. She’s fabulous. She has no work experience, but just finished her MBA. An MBA! I’ve always wanted someone with an MBA to work for me. Isn’t that exciting?”
“Exciting,” I say, and flip the power button on my computer.
“And she can start on Monday, giving you five days overlap to train her. Isn’t that fabulous?”
“Fabulous,” I say somewhat warily. A small pang tweaks through my body, like I swallowed water too fast and it went down the wrong pipe. How did she find someone so quickly?
Am I that replaceable?
I call in for my home messages. The message on my machine from Jocelyn tells me that she has great news:
“My niece just got evicted from her apartment last week—well, that’s not the great part of course, no one likes getting evicted—but she wants to move in by October fifteenth! So you’re off the hook for half of October’s rent, which I know will please you. But you have to move out by the fourteenth, okay? Isn’t that perfect timing!”
I call Ronald again. I don’t want to leave a message, again, so I hang up on his voice mail. And then I call my home answering service, again, and my cell answering service, in case Ronald is too dim-witted to realize that during working hours I am at the office.
“You have no new messages you big, fat, pathetic, jobless loser.”
I repeat this process at eleven. And at two. And at 2:30. At 3:30. At 4:00. At 4:15. At 4:21 my heart is beating louder than call waiting and I can’t take it anymore. I leave another message.
What’s his problem? I’ve always gotten anything I applied for. I had a full scholarship to the University of Florida. I was assistant head of swimming at camp. The youngest assistant manager at Panda. I was voted treasurer of my high school student body. My boyfriend wants me to move in with him, dammit.
“Sunny,” Liza points her pointy, pregnant head into my office. “Tomorrow, can you start writing up descriptions for everything you do?”
“What?”
“For the new MBA. It would help if she had To-Do lists. If you could write out everything you do and how you do it, that would be fabulous. Thanks.”
Great. Like I have nothing else to worry about. I’m going home.
That night I dream about sitting at the diner and Ronald picking hamburger meat with fat fingers out of the space between his two front teeth. He’s telling me that he’s decided to hire Liza’s unborn child instead of me.
I wake up hot and cold and sweaty, tangled in my clean cotton sheets. It’s 4:00 a.m. I can’t fall back asleep, so instead I shower and go to work.
I compose the list of things the MBA should do, and then at eight close my door and begin my morning ritual of calling Ronald.
“Ronald Newman speaking.”
My mouth is immediately zapped of all moisture. He’s alive! He’s alive!
Why didn’t he call me if he wasn’t dead?
“Hi, Ronald,” I say, wishing I had a glass of water nearby. What’s wrong with my mouth? “Sorry to bother you? It’s Sunny Langstein calling? How are you?” Must stop talking in question format.
Silence. Why is there silence?
“Sunny,” he says slowly. “I’ve been meaning to (ahem) call you—” Why the ahem? No one likes an ahem. “I have some bad news I’m afraid.”
Bad news? No one likes bad news.
“It’s very unfortunate, but we found a candidate with more New York experience.”
“More what?”
“More New York experience. Someone more familiar with the bars, the concert venues, the retail stores, the arenas. Television contacts. You don’t have any contacts here, Sunny. We need someone with a higher profile. What would you be bringing to the table?”
My new business experience in the soda industry? “I…um…didn’t you already offer me the job?”
“Like I said, the news is unfortunate. My secretary was supposed to call you and send you a fruit basket. Should I assume you never received it?”
What stupid fruit basket? “Why were you interviewing other candidates after you offered me the job?”
“You can never give up on finding the perfect candidate,” he says. I wish I’d received the fruit basket. I wish he was in the same room as me. Then I’d hurl an apple at him.
“I hope this hasn’t caused any inconveniences,” he says.
I have no job and no place to live, but what inconvenience? “Oh, oh, none at all,” I say in a singsong tone.
He doesn’t sense my sarcasm. “You never know, we could have another opening any day. Why don’t you give me a call once you’ve settled in the city?”
I am not going to cry. “Uh-huh,” I say, then add “’Bye.” I hang up. Rage and frustration and disappointment and what-a-fucking-asshole overwhelm me, and I sink into my fabulous swivel chair that now belongs to the fabulous MBA. I stand up and stand directly behind the closed door because it’s the blind spot, the one corner of personal space in the entire office where no one can see in. No job. No apartment. What am I going to do? I lean against my in-case umbrella and tears spill down my cheeks like rain.
5
The Wonder Years
This is the history of my parents: Father is in business school. Mother is a nurse. Father is Jewish. Mother is Catholic. Father meets Mother in Brooklyn. Father and Mother fall in love. Mother gets pregnant. Father proposes marriage but insists Mother convert, otherwise Father’s children will not be Jewish. Being Jewish is very important to Father because it’s important to Father’s parents. Father’s father, Daniel, died five years ago and Father promised he would marry Jewish woman. Mother cares more about Father than she does about religion so she agrees. Mother’s parents do not agree. Mother’s parents are horrified that daughter is pregnant and converting and tells Mother to never return home again. Mother converts. Process is far more strenuous than Mother imagined. Mother marries Father anyway. Father gets offered high-paying consultant job in Fort Lauderdale. Mother and Father move to Florida. Mother has baby girl, names her Dana, after Father’s father. Mother wants to return to work but has difficulty finding new nursing job with baby at home. Father becomes increasingly distant. Father’s job requires much traveling. Mother tries to have another child. Gets pregnant. Miscarries. Gets pregnant again. Miscarries again. Gets depressed. Gets pregnant again. Carries to term. Mother sees baby as shining light in marriage and names baby Sunny. Sings “You Light Up My Life” to rock baby to sleep. Father leaves Mother for secretary. Mother’s older daughter doesn’t understand where Daddy is and sits on the porch stairs waiting for him to come home. Mother puts three-year-old back to bed and explains to ten-year-old again. Mother gets sick. Mother doesn’t tell children that she is sick, but instead calls her own parents who she hasn’t spoken to in ten years and begs them to come take care of them.