Pink Slip Party (14 page)

Ferguson hops off his bar stool in his eagerness to get our drinks and stumbles a little. He rounds the bar, waving his hands at the bartender.

“What are you doing?” I hiss at Steph.

“Catching flies,” she says, grinning into the face of Ferguson as he returns, cheeks pink with the exertion of getting the bartender’s attention.

I am silent for the next thirty minutes, watching Steph drape herself across Ferguson, who seems to actually think he has a chance at a threesome. He seems to have forgotten his many lectures on my bad attitude — in fact, he seems to have forgotten entirely that we were never friends.

“Jane, how many hobbits does it take to screw in a light-bulb?”

I roll my eyes. Steph gives my shin a soft kick under the bar.

“I don’t care,” I say.

“Come on, Jane. It’s a joke. Guess.”

“I really don’t care.”

“Well, think about it — I’m going to take a piss. I’ll be right back,” Ferguson says, hopping off his stool and weaving his way to the men’s room.

“Did you tell him we’re prostitutes now?” I ask Steph, watching his considerably slimmer figure disappear into a narrow hall at the end of the bar.

Steph ignores me. She’s too busy pouring my drink and hers into Ferguson’s glass.

“Hey!” I protest.

“We want him drunk, not us,” Steph snaps at me.

Ferguson emerges from the bathroom a few minutes later, his thinning hair coming off his head in small poufs.

“Ed!” shouts Steph suddenly, when he is inches from us. “Bet you can’t down that whole drink in one gulp.”

*   *   *

Within about two hours, he’s completely drunk. His alcohol tolerance is like a little girl’s. Another indicator of a seriously dismal social life.

“I’m sorry about how things happened, I am,” Ferguson is slurring. He is bleary-eyed and looking as if he might start crying. This is not what I need.

Suddenly, Ferguson reaches for me, and I think he is trying to grab my left boob, except what he’s really trying to do is give me a consoling hug, but my reflexes are too fast. I put the palm of my hand straight into his nose, sending him flying backward, the rest of his drink airbourne in a fountain above his head. I see him fall in slow motion, the fleshy part of the thin jowls under his chin flapping. He hits the ground with a solid thud, his head bouncing against the rubber mat on the bar floor. The glass tumbler falls down smack in the middle of his forehead, landing with a bone-thumping clunk.

He is out cold.

“Shit — what happened?” the bartender shouts from above my right shoulder. Steph is already on the ground, helping Ferguson sit up, even though he is unconscious, his head lolling.

“Too much to drink,” Steph calls to the bartender.

“Is he OK?” the bartender asks, sounding concerned. He is thinking liability. He is imagining a deposition where hostile lawyers ask him about overserving.

“Fine,” Steph and I both say at once.

“Maybe I should call an ambulance,” the bartender ventures.

“No, we’ve got him. We’ll take him,” Steph says. She already has one of Ferguson’s arms around her neck. She is motioning me with her head to get on the other side.

I shake my head.

“Jane!” Steph hisses at me. “NOW, Jane.”

Something in her voice convinces me that I’d better help. I crouch down and put Ferguson’s damp arm over my shoulder. I push up, but my legs are weak from excessive lack of exercise, and Ferguson hasn’t lost
that
much weight.

“Are you lifting? I don’t think you’re lifting,” Steph says, hauling up her half higher than mine. Ferguson’s head lolls forward and he grunts. Ferguson is coming to a little, his eyes fluttering.

“Come on, Ed, we’re going home,” Steph says, shaking her side a little. “Can you walk?”

Ferguson murmurs something incoherent, but he’s moving his feet, and some of the weight on my side lessens a bit.

“Come on, that’s it,” Steph says.

“Drive safe,” the bartender calls after us.

“What the fuck?” Missy cries from the window of Ron’s Impala. She is clearly mad, but not so outraged that she’ll actually get out of the car and confront us. She watches as we steer Ferguson to the back door and sink him inside the car, his head clipping the roof on his way down.

“What the fuck happened in there?” shouts Missy, swiveling her neck back around to face us.

“Jane knocked him out cold,” Steph says.

“Whoa, dude,” exclaims Ron.

“Just drive,” Steph spits. “I’ll follow you in Ferguson’s car.”

Ferguson’s head lolls back against the seat. He’s murmuring something about fried chicken.

We arrive back at my apartment, much against my will — I want to take Ferguson to Ron’s, but Missy says we have to make it look like Ferguson came home with us of his own will in case he presses kidnapping charges.

“Kidnapping?” I squeak.

“It probably won’t happen,” Missy shrugs. This does not make me feel better.

It is difficult getting Ferguson up the stairs, because he’s not quite all there, and so we all pitch in to help him up. Once we make it up the stairs, we drag Ferguson’s limp, breathing body to the couch. But before I can even catch my breath, Ron has his entire head inside my refrigerator. Apparently, committing a class A felony doesn’t make a dent in his appetite. He emerges with a loaf of bread, the last of my coldcuts, and a bottle of mustard. He proceeds to make a sandwich in his mouth by squirting in mustard, then shoving in a whole piece of bread and a slice of ham.

Ferguson, on our coach, groans.

“Well? Are you going to get his keycard?” Steph is looking at me expectantly.

“I’m not touching him,” I say, backing away with my hands in the air. The idea of fishing around in Ferguson’s pockets makes me queasy.

“Do I have to do everything?” Steph says, stomping forward. She stoops in front of the couch and begins searching Ferguson. She is elbow-deep in brown Sansabelt pants, but doesn’t even flinch in her methodical searching.

She comes up with his wallet, and hands it to Missy.

“I thought you were looking for keys,” I accuse, as I watch Missy take a twenty-dollar bill from the fold. She doesn’t answer me.

“It isn’t here,” Missy says, after dumping the contents of Ferguson’s wallet on my coffee table. “Keep looking,” she instructs Steph.

“Who buys this boy’s clothes?” Steph exclaims, wrinkling her nose. “You know he doesn’t have a bad body, really, but he needs someone to help him dress.”

“You have to be kidding, right?” I ask Steph. She doesn’t answer me.

“Here it is,” Steph says, pointing to a cord around his neck. He actually wears his keycard and ID badge around his neck when he isn’t at work. I don’t think I’ve seen anything so sad.

In one swift motion, Missy rips it from his neck.

“What the…?” Ferguson mumbles, coming around and squinting, trying to make out our faces. He lost his boxy glasses in the bar when he fell.

“He looks a lot better without his glasses,” Steph comments.

I give her a look. “What?” she asks, innocently.

“Huh? Where am I?” Ferguson mutters groggily.

“Where do you think you are?” Steph asks him.

“I don’t know.”

Missy flips on the television, to distract him.
Dude, Where’s My Car
is on.

“You are a wild man, dude,” Ron says, suddenly, slapping Ferguson on the shoulder. “Want some?” he says as he lights up a joint.

Ferguson, who is still dazed, takes it and drags deep.

“Sweet,” Ron says, nodding at him. Because I’ve had a long day, I even take one drag of the joint that Ron passes around.

When Missy and Steph push Ferguson out the door around midnight, I am too high to say anything.

After consuming every last Cheetoh in our apartment and downing three mustard sandwiches, I finally go to sleep on the couch in my clothes. Steph has passed out on the floor, and Ron, as usual, has snuck out the fire escape. I see he’s taken the unfinished sketches of his band’s CD cover with him. Typical move, so that he can claim later he doesn’t have to pay me the full fee.

To:
[email protected]
From: [email protected]
Date: March 16, 2002, 10:30
A.M.

Dear Ms. McGregor,

While we appreciate your enthusiasm for Nabisco products, we are afraid that we cannot send you free samples of all our products so that you can further your career as an Official Product Tester.

For your loyal patronage, we are including a coupon for twenty-five cents off a box of our popular Ritz Bits® crackers.

Good luck with your career!
Tom Haas
Product Development

9

I
come awake with a sensation of unprecedented dry mouth and a burning in my throat, and the memories of the night before come back in dizzying snippets. I can almost feel the brain cells I’ve lost, the mismatched synapses firing over dead nerves. There’s a dull ringing in my ears, and it takes me several moments to realize is actually the phone ringing.

“Sweetheart — I have the best news,” Mom says, breathless, into the receiver.

“I hope it’s not a blind date,” I say, thinking this, too, would be karma.

“Nope — even better,” she says. “I’ve got you an interview at my company.”

“When?” I ask. My call waiting beeps. “Mom? Let me call you back.”

“Is this Jane I am speaking with?” a woman asks me, sounding perky and entirely too smug. People with jobs generally do sound smug.

“This is Jane,” I say.

“Great — is now a good time? Am I interrupting anything?” She laughs after she says this, and I think she is making fun of me.

“I’m Cheryl Ladd and I work with Doris McGregor. She dropped your name and said you were quite talented. We searched our files and saw you sent us your resume a couple of weeks ago.”

“Oh?”

“In fact, the boys and I thought it was pretty funny. Your resume is quite interesting.” I do not know which one she has — but quite a few of them I’ve sent are a bit exaggerated.

She begins reading my resume aloud. “Worked as an assistant to Andy Warhol, developed the Pepsi logo…”

“Er, right,” I say. I must have been particularly bitter and dis-enchanted when I wrote that one.

“Well, we’re a dynamic, creative team, and we need creative people like you — who aren’t afraid to take risks.”

Cheryl is so peppy on the phone that I am having a hard time listening. I do not do well absorbing erratic inflections in tone.

“I know this is short notice, but are you available this afternoon? I’d love for you to meet the team.”

Against my better judgment, I leave Missy and Steph alone in my apartment with Ferguson’s key. With any luck, they will have decided that this whole breaking-into-Maximum-Office plan is ridiculous.

After I’ve showered and dressed, putting on my best wool suit and heels, I go to a small office building at the corner of Grand Avenue and Dearborn, feeling like I’m being set up on a blind date. The elevators open to a small, open, bare-floored office with bright blue walls, track lighting, and expensive, full-backed leather chairs. The cubes aren’t made of plywood but of Italian maple, and all the accents in the room are a cool stainless steel. All in all, the office space looks like it was designed by Swedish architects on speed. Everywhere there’s exposed wood, black, metal, and glass.

I take two steps into the office and am nearly beaned by an orange Nerf football that goes zipping by my head.

“Sorry,” says a hunky, dark-haired god who looks like he just walked out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog, complete with ruffled hair, coolly frayed khaki shorts and nicely tanned legs. He retrieves the football and then tosses it across the office to his friend, a guy with Buddy Holly glasses like the ones I’ve left at home and black spiky hair. From where I’m standing I can see into the kitchen and a great glassed-in refrigerator full of soda — brand-name soda. I didn’t think these offices existed anymore. I’d thought they’d all gone the way of tech portfolios — in a giant flaming crash. And suddenly I’m nervous, with the feeling you get when you see the date your friends set you up with is far, far better-looking than you are: you want him to love you, but if he doesn’t, you want him to have a fatal flaw, like an IQ of fifty.

I see Mom, who is sitting at a nice maple-wood cube in the corner of the room, and I wave. She waves back. I see she’s talking to another hunky guy — this one blond, in his thirties, and looking like a J. Crew model.

A perky woman with a sandy-haired bob and a turned-up nose comes up to me and grabs my elbow.

“You
must
be Jane. Oh, I’m so glad you made it.” She’s even more perky in person than on the phone. People this peppy always have something to hide — usually manic depression or some other kind of serious mental illness. Still, I look past it. Already, I know I want this job. I want to work in a place where Nerf games are condoned and encouraged. I want to sit in a cube with slick, Swedish furniture. “Can I get you a Coke? Chips? A bagel?” She’s cocking her head to one side like an airline stewardess.

“Uh, no thanks,” I say.

“Well, come on — let’s go to the fishbowl,” she says, hooking her arm through mine and steering me over to the conference room — a giant glassed-in structure in the middle of the open office space, the one with the track lighting and maple conference table.

Just as we sit down, there’s a hard thunk on the glass wall — it’s the Nerf football again and Abercrombie sends us an apologetic shrug, while Cheryl
tsks
at him, and gives him an exaggerated “you’ve been a naughty boy” face.

“Now,
Jane,”
Cheryl says, stretching my name out in five syllables in her sing-song voice, “Can I tell you how much we
love
Doris. I mean we
LOVE
Doris.”

“She’s like a
mother
figure for us,” Cheryl continues. Her nostrils flare out when she speaks, and her eyes bulge when she’s trying to be emphatic.