Up & Out - Ariella Papa [66]
“Yeah, okay. Your mother says hello. Let us know. We’re here. Bye.” I’m certain my dad is glad to be done with this conversation. My father, who has been in debt forever and who drives a twelve-year-old car, is offering me help. They took out a second loan on their house when I got into college, and now I can’t even hold down a job.
“Have you been crying again?” Tommy asks when he comes home. He holds up a DVD. “I got Mad Max.”
“No,” I lie, sniffling. “It’s just the chili.”
I don’t go out on Thursday, just watch The View, cable and eat leftover chili. Veg-ing with TV and food is becoming a dangerous pattern.
On Friday, I sign my severance package and put it in the mailbox. I consider spitting on the mailbox, but that wouldn’t be ladylike, now would it? I call for unemployment. I’ll have to call every week to collect about $415. That’s about twenty-five rock shrimp tempura dishes and almost a third of what I used to make every week.
On Saturday Tommy and I go to the movies and it distracts me for a little while. Maybe I’ll spend the summer going to all the blockbusters….
I can’t fall asleep Saturday wondering if Tommy and I should just get back together and what that would mean exactly because we already live together and have been hanging out nonstop. He hasn’t had any of his friends over lately and I’m not sure if that’s out of respect for me and my constantly changing mood or if maybe he is thinking that we should get back together, too.
As far as I know, he hasn’t seen any other girls. Maybe I’ve ruined him for other women. Of course, I didn’t exactly tell him about Seamus, so maybe there are things I don’t know. But I did spend nights at Seamus’s apartment. Tommy hasn’t spent nights anywhere else. He is always around when I need him.
Maybe, I’m just a needy person. I know I’m not in any condition to be making decisions about our relationship and I’m thankful that Tommy is a decent-enough guy that he doesn’t manipulate the situation to get fabulous and confusing sex for himself.
I dream of Esme when I sleep. She doesn’t have glasses on and her eyes are red. She walks over to me and her sneakers fall off. I keep saying hi to her, but she doesn’t answer. John and Janice are behind her, shaking their heads, and Jen is hopping on one foot.
When Esme gets to me, she throws a bunch of money at me. I wake up.
What is she trying to tell me? That I shouldn’t have signed my severance agreement? That I should have initially gotten a better deal? What did I know? Back then, I would have paid to have my show on television. Maybe Esme thinks I only care about money.
I created her and now she was confusing me.
14
These Days
Restaurant Week comes to the city twice a year. I think of it like the first day of school. (Exciting, with an opportunity to wear some new clothes.) In theory, I am supposed to be able to go to many of the top restaurants in the city and pay a fraction of the price to sample the food and enjoy the ambience. It should be the best time of my life.
I think it’s all a conspiracy.
First of all, now that I’m unemployed, I can call to book a reservation often and immediately. At like nine o’clock on the day the listings come out I’m on the phone trying to procure lunch and dinner reservations that I can hand out to my friends like favors. They shouldn’t be booked so soon, but they are.
Second of all, I wind up spending more money on lunches and dinners for a week than I ever would if I just went out for a couple of nice dinners during the week at regular prices. I realize I can’t blame Restaurant Week for this, rather my own lack of self-control.
Third of all, many of the restaurants I want to go to for dinner only have lunch options.
“Actually, we are booked for the whole week,” says the hostess at Felidia when I ask to book lunch there on Wednesday.
“Sorry, I’m booked that night and to be quite honest for the whole week,” says the woman at One If by Land Two If by Sea. I know I shouldn’t even be trying to get a