Love and Other Things I'm Bad At (9 page)

9/20

Thyme sat down next to me on the quad today. Her tirade went something like this:

“I’m transferring. This place is a joke! Do you know there’s only one women’s studies course available next semester for freshpeople? I can’t believe I didn’t look into this before I got here. I just
assumed
. They told me the department needs more professors but there’s a hiring freeze. So then I tried to find my adviser, but he changed his office hours, so I sat outside in the hall waiting for like an hour before someone bothered to tell me he wasn’t coming in. They just want their paycheck and that’s it. And the way they turned your work-study job from a law apprenticeship into groveling for money? It’s unforgivable.”

Why does she have to be so negative all the time? Why does she say out loud the things I’m thinking and trying to avoid?

“Thanks a lot,” I told Thyme. “You really depressed the hell out of me.” I got up and started to walk away.

She ran after me and apologized, then dragged me into the student center and insisted on buying me a smoothie. It was too runny and not cold enough and made with Kool-Aid and canned-tasting fruit instead of fresh frozen, but I didn’t bother going into it. What’s that saying about learning to accept the things you can’t change? One of those 12 steps Beth hopped through on her way to becoming unaddicted to cigarettes. So I’ll never have a good smoothie again. So . . . that’s okay. I guess.

Then I thought, maybe it
isn’t
okay. Maybe it
can
be changed. Screw acceptance. I’d get a business loan, open my own health food store, since there are a grand total of zero here. Or wait—Gerry, my old boss, was always talking about expanding. Gerry loved me. He could open a Truth or Dairy here, in Wauzataukie. I could manage it!

I called him as soon as I got back tonight from groveling for money. Now I’m groveling for a job. He wasn’t in, but I left a message. It’s just so obvious I don’t belong at BF. I belong at a place like T or D.

9/21

Talked to Gerry today. It was so good to hear his voice. And that really almost freaks me out.

“Courtney! My favorite former employee!” he said when he answered the phone. Well, after he got past his trademark “Truth or Dairy, this is Gerry!” He gets so excited about it, like he’s the first person who’s ever rhymed before. Like he hasn’t made the
same
rhyme year after year, day after day.

I told him how much I missed working with him and how working for BF was awful and then I begged him to think about opening a new store here. “There’s nothing in town anything like T or D, you’d make so much money, and—”

“I don’t know, Courtney.” He was completely dragging his Birkenstocked feet.

“Come on, Gerry. We’ll call it Truth or Dairyland! Or American Truth, or America’s Dairyland!” I said. Total on-the-spot-new-state brainstorm.

Gerry wasn’t impressed. He told me that sounded like a course title I must be taking. “Sorry, Courtney. But I really don’t have the capital to expand right now. And even if I did . . . as much as I respect and trust you, Courtney, uh, Wauzataukie, Wisconsin, would not be my first choice.” He made it sound like this town is a bad place or something just because of its tongue-twister name. “There are still Colorado cities I want to conquer. Wait, conquer isn’t the right word, it’s too violent. I’d never go in with the idea of starting anything. I don’t want a smoothie war on my hands.” He started laughing. “That would be quite a sticky mess!”

“My
life
is a sticky mess!” I interrupted him. “I’m working for a corporate giant that chews up local competition and spits it out. They’re like the Microsoft of bagel makers!”

“Oh. How unfortunate.”

I started crying. In front of
Gerry
. (Okay, not in front technically, but close enough to be humiliating.) I told him all the problems I’d been having with the manager and how she kept comparing me to this “problem employee.”

“Don’t put up with that—quit!” Gerry said. “Isn’t that what you usually do when you’re trying to prove a point?” He reminded me of how I’d quit twice last fall when I was going through what he calls my “unstable senior-year period.” (Once a guidance counselor, always insane.)

“I can’t quit,” I said, ignoring the way he was typecasting me as a quitter. “There aren’t any other jobs here. That’s why I’m asking you to create one.”

“Sorry. I just can’t,” he said. He sounded really sincere about it. “I need to keep the business close to home.”

Home. Yeah, I’ve heard of that place.

Then the conversation took a really weird turn.

“While I have you on the phone, Courtney, have you heard what happened to Beth?”

“No,” I said slowly. I hadn’t talked to her or gotten an email in the last week. “Why?”

“Well, she and your brother . . . they apparently got into a fight yesterday,” Gerry said. “And Beth went out and bought some cigarettes on her way into work. And she was lighting one while she was driving, and I think a cell phone was involved, and, well—she crashed her car into the sign here.”

The Shops at Canyon Boulevard sign? I couldn’t believe it. Why hadn’t she told me? Called me in a panic? “Was she hurt?” I asked.

“No, not at all. But her parents are positively livid,” Gerry said. “And the strip mall advisory board is none too happy with her. Business is down since yesterday. They want her banned from parking in our lot.”

“That’s ridiculous! Everyone has accidents,” I said.

“Yes. But not everyone jumps out of their car and starts yelling at the sign in front of valuable patrons,” Gerry said.

Beth sounds really stressed out. I have
got
to get in touch with her. Maybe she will transfer here after all.

9/22

Talked to Beth. She told me what happened and we laughed for a really long time. She said she went on a rant because she was mad at having to make that turn in all the traffic and the person behind her honked at her, etc. I could just picture it all
so
clearly
. I probably would have been in the car with her, but then, if I had, she wouldn’t have been smoking or talking on the phone, so maybe not. Anyway, she’s fine, except that Gerry is asking her to go door-to-door and apologize to all the other businesses in the strip mall for her behavior.

She threw out the cigarettes as soon as it happened, and then called Bryan and they made up and life is hunky-dory and non-smoking again. She said she tried to call me but didn’t get me, so she called Grant instead, and he calmed her down. Superior boyfriend even helps my friends.

Thyme and I went to the campus co-op house tonight for dinner. They were having an open house to recruit new members. We had to pay, but assumed we’d get awesome organic food. Probably our expectations were unreasonable. We’re never going back.

Most disgusting meal ever. Mishmash of mush and tofu. Flavorless. Shapeless. Looked like prison food. Inedible.

Then afterward they said they had room for only
one
new member, so all the people there who were interested needed to write an essay with an application fee and then have an interview and then cook for all the existing members, just to get in so they could eat more crappy meals.

Thyme and I left before dessert. We were laughing so hard and still so hungry that she took me out for dinner at Koffee Kitchen. Drank too much coffee and now can’t sleep.

Wonder what Grant is doing tonight. Probably has more fun things to do on Friday nights. Probably out.

Just called him, and his roommate said he hadn’t seen him since 2.

Since 2? But it’s 11 there. Doesn’t he at least need to come home and, I don’t know,
call me
?

9/23

Work this morning was very strange. Jennifer kept talking about an exciting new menu addition, but wouldn’t say what it actually was. She said we all needed to be “on board” for the “Bagle Brainstorm” that was coming our way on Monday.

Mark rolled his eyes. “We’re so thrilled. What now? Blue cheese bagels?” I looked at his name tag. He had recently punched out a new one on the label maker, so it now said Marc.

“How about blue cheese and blueberry?” Ben asked.

“Or could we get goat cheese involved somehow?” I asked.

Jennifer shook her head. “You guys are
so
weird. Just be ready, that’s all I’m saying. And what’s with that?” She pointed to Mark/Marc’s new name tag.

“It’s called a name change,” Marc said. “I’m exploring my identity. Do you
mind
?”

“No, but don’t do it on company time,” Jennifer said.

After work, I met Thyme back at the dorm. Mary Jo was hanging out with Kirsten in their room, so Thyme and I stayed in my room. Very awkward. The 4 of us kept running back and forth to get stuff we all wanted. Reminded me of a fight I got into at a sleepover at Beth’s house in junior high. We divided into 2 parties, except I left my sleeping bag, backpack, etc., in the wrong room. Ended up having to apologize just to get my pajamas. Why didn’t I just go home? Not sure.

9/24

Shocking development at Badicals meeting today! We were all supposed to discuss ways to fight the college initials, or at least the chanting of them at football games. I didn’t really have any big ideas, but since the major concept was mine, I didn’t feel too much pressure. Thyme was going to do a presentation on how the school could easily become known as Feminist Falls or something like that (sounds like a product advertised by mothers and daughters); she was trying to come up with alternative names but had some really bad ones like that.

Anyway, we trekked into the meeting and this guy was already talking, doing his presentation. It was Wittenauer, the milk-hormone protester and champion fund-raiser! He’s trying to undermine, change, revolutionize the place while simultaneously getting people to send in huge checks.

Wittenauer agrees with my idea to change the school name. He’s also protesting the mascot, for promoting cruelty to corn and veggies in general. He said that to use their image to promote the college is just wrong.

“Okay, but not as bad as using an animal,” I said. “Like the CU Buffaloes, when they run Ralphie out onto the field, or Cam the Ram at CSU—”

Everyone jumped all over me! They had like a dozen prepared arguments to shoot me down with. “It’s
exactly
as bad!” Wittenauer started describing all the things that are done to harm defenseless crops—and defenseless mascots. I was wondering how he knew so much about it, and asked if he was an Ag major.

“No,” he said, and his face got all red. “I’m Corny.”

Agh! Top school fund-raiser is top Badical and also school mascot.

Corny believes in change from within. Which is why he’s the mascot while simultaneously protesting the idea of the mascot. But no one can know Wittenauer is the mascot because “the position is secret and it’s a Cornwall Falls tradition and only the people in this room know it’s me,” he insisted. “I only reveal my identity here because I think I can help our cause while remaining anonymous. The mascot gets chosen by the previous mascot by getting tapped on the shoulder. Nothing is ever spoken.”

Wait a second, I thought. He tapped me on the shoulder at that outdoor party. Did that mean . . . ? But no, he’s only a junior. I refuse the position anyway.

Afterward, Thyme and I went downstairs to play pool. Saw those guys who think Thyme’s name is hilarious. When they saw us, one of them said, “Hey, look, it’s Parsley and Sage!”

Thyme said she’s heard this her whole life, and she’s learned to just ignore it. But I couldn’t ignore it because at first they were actually really funny. They kept calling me Oregano and the Un-named Spice Girl.

But then they totally turned on me and said, “Where did you go to high school again? Rutting Elk?” “No, I think it was Molting Elk,” another one said.

“Bugling Elk,” I said.

They started to make fun of it even more, and this weird feeling came over me, a feeling I’d only had a few times before, and usually only at assemblies or while signing yearbooks: intense pride in high school. Best place ever. Should never have left it and come to this place where guys roam student union looking for girls to pick on. I was V.P. there. I was
somebody
. I didn’t hang around pool tables getting insulted by freshman boys in matching baseball caps.

Just wait until I change the school’s name and their dumb caps are like
null and void
.

9/25

Why does everything have to happen at once? Just when I thought I was getting settled here, finding friends, feeling at home, blah blah blah,
wham!
How about
this
to ruin your life, Courtney?

Bagle Brainstorm: Bagle Finagle’s meat license or whatever they needed finally came through. Now we don’t just sell cold-cut sandwiches, which, okay, weren’t that great to begin with. But now we’re going to sell Bratwurst Bites, Bacon Bacles, Brat-in-a-Blanket, Knockwurst Knots, Sausage Snaps, ugh, all variation on the same theme, weird meats inside bagels.

Hello? Isn’t one of the really great qualities about bagels that they
don’t
have meat inside them???

And if that wasn’t bad enough, Jennifer announced that she was putting me in charge of the “New Product Team.”

“But I’m a vegetarian,” I said. “Can’t I be in charge of chopping the non-meat items? What about salad in a blanket?”

“Where does the dressing go?” Jennifer asked.

“In the blanket,” I said.

“No way. Too soggy,” she said.

She has an answer for everything.

“Courtney, life is change. You either accept that and move on, or, well, I don’t know. Here.” She handed me my new apron. Which says in big letters:

Knock knock
! (
right
across the chest)

Who’s there?

Knockwurst knots!

I am supposed to wear this thing? And have people ask about my “knock knock” apron? The humiliation is going to be endless.

Jennifer only put me in charge because she knows I’d hate it and is trying to break my will, like something out of that Paul Newman movie involving a prisoner and eggs and a chain gang, only I’m not in “the hole,” I’m in “the hell” of promoting pork-filled dough.

“Courtney, we’ve got to compete. We need to stay competitive. Brat Wurstenburger really cuts into our lunch business,” Jennifer said, “and market studies in other Bagle Finagles show that there’s a real need for these lunch items.”

“But that place has been here for a hundred years. You’re the one who’s trying to cut into their business!” Found myself in the incredibly awkward position of standing up for Brat Wurstenburger. Grandpa might be proud, but my self-esteem was crumbling to the ground.

“I’m going to quit,” I told Marc when the meeting broke up and we were standing there holding our new
brown
aprons.

“So am I,” Marc said. “I refuse to wear this . . . this . . . whatever.” His apron said
Make my BLT on a bacle!
in big yellow letters.

“This is just her shameless attempt to like . . . dominate me,” I said. “And she wants me to quit. But you know what? I’m not going to give her the satisfaction.”

“Yeah. Neither am I,” said Marc. And he grabbed the label maker and started making another new name tag for himself. At least I thought it was for him. Then he handed me the label. “Sucker.”