Party Girl_ A Novel - Anna David [39]
Janet is a scum-sucking whore for telling on me, I think. I don’t say anything.
“What were you thinking?” Brian asks but it’s the very definition of a rhetorical question because it’s perfectly obvious he’s made up his mind about me and nothing I have to say will make a damn bit of difference. I’m feeling light-headed and sort of confused. Am I being fired? I wonder but then tell myself, I can’t be fired because this job is the only thing I have. I have no friends. No boyfriend. No family here. Nothing. And this is a town that forgets about people who have nothing.
This is just a warning, my head tells me. If I was going to be fired, they would be really nice and apologetic and tell me they were sorry things didn’t work out. People feel bad when they fire you.
I force myself to tune into what Brian is saying.
“—one thing if it was just a drug problem—”
A drug problem? I think. Christ. I need a pick-me-up one damn day and suddenly I have a “drug problem”?
“—but we’ve given you, frankly, more chances than you deserve—”
More chances than I deserve? I think. How the hell should they know what I deserve?
“—attitude problem—”
Now that was something I’d been told since I could remember. Whenever I got upset when I was little and cried, my dad would laugh and call me his “little actress.” He’d call me a petulant princess, and Mom, thrilled to see her always-depressed husband actually smiling, would laugh, too. There were entire car trips to Tahoe where I’d be crying and my parents would be laughing at me. Later, Dad would summarize the incident by saying that it all started because I had an attitude problem.
Focus on what Brian is saying, I tell myself, before it’s too late.
I look up and concentrate very hard on not crying. Brian seems to have stopped talking. I notice that Robert’s lips are moving but it’s very hard for my brain to comprehend the fact that he’s talking to me because of his utter focus on a piece of lint on the ground. But when I tune in completely, there’s no mistaking his words and what they mean.
“We’d like you out of here within the hour.”
I nod, and somehow make it out of his office without allowing even one droplet to leave my eye.
The next thing I know, I’m at my desk, packing my files into a box someone had placed next to my chair. Christ, had the entire office been told I was going to be fired before I even knew?
As I copy all my files, delete everything else on the hard drive, and take pictures and notes off the cubicle walls, I marvel at the fact that not one of the spineless assholes I work with is going to come over and tell me they’re sorry and what’s happening isn’t fair, the way they did when this nerdy guy, Raoul, was fired a few months ago. It’s true that I wasn’t exactly friends with any of them—Brian was actually the only person I really talked to here—but you’d think that an iota of human compassion might penetrate one of their superficial hearts. What do they think, that getting fired is contagious? I wonder as I grab unused notebooks, packs of Post-it notes, and packets of Uniball pens, and toss them in my to-go box. Consider this my severance package, I silently tell the halls of Absolutely Fabulous as I pick up the box. The coke I’ve been ingesting over the past twenty-four hours has definitely drained from my system, leaving me depleted and dry, but my desire to get the fuck out of this building somehow overrides my comedown. I make my way to the elevator, pray not to run into Stephanie, and eventually make it to my car, where I collapse in hysterical sobs.
Then I remember that Brian and Robert or anyone else from Absolutely Fabulous could come down to the garage and see me like this, so I force myself to get it together enough to drive. Somehow I make it home, where I walk inside and straight to bed.
11
“It’s completely unfair,” I say to Mom. “I mean, I could probably sue them for wrongful termination.” I don’t mention anything about the coke, because I don’t see how it’s any of her business, and just tell her I was fired