MIKE: Everything 50/50 sound good?
MIKE: We don’t have to get lawyers, do we? Lawyers suck.
MIKE: And I’ll pay for all the kids’ shit because I know they’re expensive.
MIKE: Can we split custody of Roscoe?
MIKE: Can we please not hate each other?
It will be amicable eventually. It will be okay eventually. But right now? It’s just really, really fucking sad.
JESSICA IS OUR “HUMAN RESOURCES” TEAM. BY THAT I mean, her business card reads “People Person,” and her qualifications for running an HR department are that she is a human and that Dale assumed she would be a very resourceful person. Most of her job description is having “one-on-ones” with the younger staff members and promising them ever-loftier job titles. At one point, all the VPs here at CoCo were under twenty-five years old. The other part of her job is exactly what’s happening here. Jessica fires people. Always in the conference room closest to the entrance. Always when the person has just arrived at work. Always—always—with a witness present.
I’m seething. It’s one thing to say you’re divorced; now I have to practice telling my mirror I am divorced and unemployed?
“What the fuck, Dale? You’re firing me?”
Dale looks as if he’s been fed a lemon. “What? Yuck, no! I hate that word! You’re being positively transitioned, Amy.”
“What do those words even mean, Dale?” I’m going to make this smarmy little dink say it.
“It means that you used to have a job here, and we’re so grateful for the many ways you’ve contributed to our company, and now . . . we are so grateful, we are . . . positively transitioning you somewhere else. Home. So you can just, do your thing.”
“You’re firing me.”
“Amy, you haven’t even been coming to work!”
“I’m part-time!” I remind him.
“Okay, but you only came in once this week. That’s less than part-time.”
I’d only come in once this week, yes, but that’s because it’s only Tuesday. Isn’t it? Oh. Shit. It’s not Tuesday. It’s Friday. I had only come in once this week. And I don’t remember checking my email, either.
“Look,” I reason, “I have been slacking off. Sure. But Tessa took two weeks off when Jon Snow died on Game of Thrones and he’s a fictional person, so . . . can’t you let this slide?”
Dale winced. “You know I’m not caught up on Game of Thrones, Amy. And besides, I already sent out an email telling everyone you were being positively transitioned so I can’t take it back or I’d look stupid. Jessica has your severance info.”
Jessica, who has been sitting here silently with a pasted-on smile, just nods. A small gift bag has materialized on the table, next to the folder.
“Just, sign these?” She wasn’t asking a question, she just always sounded like she was. “And . . . the team wanted you to have this special gift?”
I scrawl my name at the places Jessica had flagged with tiny sticky notes and dig my hands into the gift bag. Was this? No. A four-ounce bag of CoCo coffee. Four ounces. The size we sell to hotels. All this time here and they couldn’t even spring for a pound?
I consider throwing it at them. I glare at Jessica. At Dale. And then at the two mountainous security guards.
“Well!” I say, shoving the coffee into my purse. “Fuck off, then!”
33
Carla
The smell coming from Jaxon’s backpack is from a few bites of what might have been deli ham at some point. It’s hard to tell, but it’s clear the whole thing needs to be thrown into the washing machine or possibly burned. I dump the backpack onto the kitchen table and sort through all the junk. We’ve got chewed-up pencils, a baseball schedule, some spiral-bound notebooks, a math textbook, a calculator, some kind of melted candy, and one sealed envelope that looks too clean to have been in this bag for long. I separate the usable school supplies from the pencil shavings and food remnants and pick up the letter.
“CARLA DUNKLER” is written in neat block letters on the front, and I pray it’s not another library fine like Jaxon got last year for trying to get into The Guinness Book of World Records by eating a Guinness Book of World Records to entertain his classmates.
I unfold the paper and wince. It’s worse than a fine.
Hello Ms. Dunkler,
I’m just checking in again to see if you’re available to join us for conferences. Midterm conferences are a great time for educators and parents to connect about a child’s development and performance this year, before the crunch of the holiday season.
Let me know if you’re available. Spots are filling up, but I’m more than willing to accommodate your schedule.
Sincerely,
Peter Nolan
Shit, this guy is relentless. What has Jaxon done that would necessitate a conference? Every time I ask him about school, Jaxon grunts and says his day was good, or that everything’s fine. Sometimes he’ll even smile about it and tell me something they learned that day. Mr. Nolan needs to step the fuck off and let Jaxon and me just live. I use the paper to sweep the backpack trash into the palm of my hand, then crumple it up and dump it all in the trash.
34
Amy
My life is teetering dangerously close to the lyrics of a country music song. My husband has left me. I just lost my job. My dog hasn’t died, but he is on anxiety meds. I’m driving home, playing through all the scenarios that could arise when my mom finds out that I’m also unemployed. It’s chilly, but the windows are down, and Alanis Morissette is up, because when everything has gone to absolute hell, I find that angsty music from middle school is really the only thing that helps.
And, the only thing that can interrupt my word-for-word rendition of a song about the heartbreak of losing Dave Coulier to another woman is the sound of my phone ringing, which blasts through every speaker in the van. I have to admit that Mike was right, and I do have a very nice minivan.
Any sense of fine-ness I’d achieved with Alanis disappears when I see the number calling me. It’s the generic number from McKinley, which means it’s the school nurse calling to let me know that one of the kids puked or has chicken pox or lice or whatever else could possibly go wrong this week.
“Hello!” I shout, trying to roll up the windows and keep an eye on the road. “Amy Mitchell here.”
“Hello, Mrs. Mitchell.” It’s a deep, kind voice. Not like our nurses aren’t kind, but they are also not men my father’s age.
“Hello?” I reply. “Can I . . . help you?”
There’s a cough on the line. “Yes, it’s Principal Burr. Could you come pick up Jane from school? She’s in my office.”
Jane? He must mean Dylan. “Jane? Jane Mitchell? My daughter? Is she sick? Is she getting bullied?!”
My body has already rerouted the van toward McKinley, and I know from memory that I’ll be there in approximately eight to eleven minutes, depending on how many parking spots are available.
“No,” Principal Burr says, sighing, “she’s not sick. And she’s not being bullied. We can discuss it in person.”
The line goes dead, and I push the gas pedal. What the fuck is going on?