Boy Meets Girl

Journal of Kate Mackenzie

Well, it’s happened. I’m fired. I’m actually fired.

I’ve never been fired before. Even when I was the salad-bar attendant at Rax Roast Beef back in Luxor, and my manager, Peggy Ann, said I was the worst salad-bar attendant they’d ever had, because I picked the cauliflower out of the dressing canisters instead of stirring it to the bottom, I still never got fired for it.

Until now.

How could this have happened? I don’t understand how any of this could be happening. This morning I had a job. This morning I had no boyfriend, or place of my own to live. But I still had a job. I had a job that I even sort of liked.

And now I have no job. I have no boyfriend, I have no place to live, and I have no job.

Oh my God. I’M HOMELESS!

It’s true! Except for the fact that I’m sitting in a penthouse suite (that doesn’t actually belong to me), I have become a statistic—one of New York’s many unemployed homeless.

Oh God! Soon I’ll be living in a cardboard box! In Alphabet City (except Alphabet City has become totally gentrified—I bet even a cardboard box there costs $1200 a month . . . and they probably want first and last and a security deposit on it, too).

What am I going to do? I mean, seriously. I have no job to go to, no place to live. . . . WHAT AM I GOING TO DO????

I guess I could ask Dale for a loan. He just came into millions. Or however much they pay members of bands that have just been signed to a major label.

But if I ask Dale for a loan, I’ll actually have to talk to him. And I don’t want to talk to him. Not after the chicken-with-garlic-sauce incident. Plus he’ll just feel all superior—Oh, she couldn’t make it without me.

Ditto Mom. I mean, she isn’t about to touch a penny of what Dad left her when he died . . . not the principal, anyway. And besides, she’ll just tell me to go back to Dale again. I swear, she’d be prouder of me if I followed Dale and the band around wearing nothing but a hand-knitted poncho than she’ll ever be over my having a job or my own place to live.

Jen? No, I can’t to go to Jen, she has her own problems. I can’t keep running to Jen every time I suffer a financial or emotional setback.

Mitch? Mitch? How can I even think about going to Mitch? I mean, this is all his fault, anyway! He KNEW Amy forged that letter! He knew she forged it, and he wanted Mrs. Lopez’s lawyer to see that, because for some reason Mitch is on Mrs. Lopez’s side and not the paper’s. Which is all well and good, since Mrs. Lopez is a sweet lady and all, and none of this is her fault, anyway.

EXCEPT THAT NOW I HAVE NO JOB!!!!!!!!!! Is that what he wanted? For me to get fired????

No wait. Mitch is a reasonable person. A decent person, even. A reasonable, decent person would never get a girl fired because her ex threw chicken on his pants.

I should have have just quit my stupid job in the first place in protest over what happened to Mrs. Lopez. Seriously, this is like karma, or something. Because I didn’t quit my job, as I knew I morally should have, my job has been taken away from me.

And hey, don’t I get severance pay? Or at least unemployment? I should AT LEAST get unemployment. Why didn’t I read the personnel handbook more closely? Let’s see, I’m administration, not staff, so that means I get . . . two weeks pay as severance? Or is it four weeks? WHY couldn’t I have been union? Then the T.O.D. wouldn’t have dared fire me without issuing both a verbal and written warning first. . . .

Let’s see . . . unemployment for someone who was making $40,000 a year is . . .

Oh God. Skiboy just walked in. He says Dolly told him to meet her here after work. They’re going to some benefit dinner, or something. Doesn’t Skiboy look nice in a tux? Yum. Not as nice as Mitch Hertzog, but . . .

OH MY GOD, I CAN’T BELIEVE I WROTE THAT!!!! I am never thinking another kind thought about Mitch Hertzog again. THAT GUY GOT ME FIRED!!!!!!!!!

Skiboy just asked me what I’m doing here in the middle of the day. I told him that I was fired on account of standing up for my convictions at work. He seems impressed. He says this calls for a celebration.

And really, if you think about it, I SHOULD celebrate. I am free of the oppressive rule of the tyrannical office despot! I don’t know where I’m going to find a new job, let alone scrounge up first and last month’s rent, plus a security deposit for a place of my own while living on unemployment checks, but I’m free! Liberated! Why shouldn’t I celebrate by drinking a vodka and tonic in the middle of the day?

“Yes, we SHOULD celebrate,” I just told Skiboy. And he is breaking out the Grey Goose now.

Really, things aren’t SO bad, are they? Yes, I have no job, no life, no place to live, etc. And I can’t even move back home with my parents, because my father is dead and my mother is driving cross-country in an RV the size of Dolly’s terrace.

But I have what few are given—ooooh, Skiboy makes strong drinks—I have what you called the greatest gift of all: the opportunity to make a whole new start in life. Really, I could be anything. I could be a doctor—well, if I could get money for med school. And if the sight of blood didn’t make me feel all sweaty. I could be a politician—really, I’d be very good at that, you know, because I know what it feels like to be trod upon and broken, like the people of Jersey City or wherever. I could be a lawyer—

Oh, no, blecch, a lawyer, never! I never want to be like Stuart Hertzog. I HATE him. As much as I hate Amy Jenkins. The two of them deserve each other. I hope they both enjoy their country-club wedding and their Sandals honeymoon and their house in Westchester and their 2.1 kids and no dog because of the kids’ allergies and their gas-guzzling, environment-destroying—Yes, thank you, Skiboy, a refill would be lovely—SUV, and their two weeks in Aspen and their summer on the Cape and their JP Tods and their Tse cashmere sweaters on their two-year-old, and preschools that cost ten grand a year for two mornings a week and then the right elementary school because God forbid Junior doesn’t get into the right college so he can get the right job so he doesn’t end up like ME, A BIG FAT HOMELESS UNEMPLOYED FREAK THAT NO ONE LOVES AND WHO IS GOING TO DIE PENNILESS, BITTER, AND ALONE. . . .

Okay, one more drinkie, then I have to hite the pavement, becauge I am woman hear me rihatibgrmvn

To: Dolly Vargas

Fr: Jen Sadler

Re: Kate

Dolly, something AWFUL has happened. Kate’s been fired! Amy gave her the old heave-ho right before lunch. I don’t know what went down at the meeting they went to this morning, but Amy came tearing in here with SECURITY, cleaned out Kate’s desk, confiscated her computer, and that was that. I haven’t been able to reach Kate—I don’t even know where she is. She left a message a little before noon, but since then. . . .

Dolly, you’ve GOT to talk to Peter about this. Kate is a GOOD employee. If she’s been fired—and like this—it must be a mistake. It probably has to do with Mrs. Lopez. PLEASE PLEASE ask Peter to look into it.

And if she shows up at your place, can you ask her to call me? I’m really worried about her.

Jen

To: Jen Sadler

Fr: Dolly Vargas

Re: Kate

Darling, don’t worry. I just called home, and Kate’s safe with Skiboy. He says he’s taking good care of her.

Of COURSE I’ll talk to Peter, only you know he flew to San Francisco this morning to check on his vineyard. I mean, I’m happy to see if I can do anything to help our poor little Miss Moppett, but I’m not sure Peter’s going to be able to be of any help until he gets back.

Tell you what, though, if it makes you feel any better, I’ll call Mitch Hertzog. He’ll know what to do. After all, from what I hear from Kate—and it’s hard to tell, with all the slurring—he’s the one who got her fired. He can damn well get her hired back.

Got to run—so many new designs, so few adjectives to describe them. . . .

XXXOOO

Dolly