“And I’m sure they do. But come on, it’s just a demo like you said. It’s not going to be perfect your first time out. Besides, you almost f**king died making this. That’s insane.”
She had a point but it didn’t help with what my parents said about keeping my day job.
“Anyway,” she continued, “I think it’s awesome and I’m gonna get everyone else to think it’s awesome. You’ll get a million likes on YouTube. And the next time you do this, it’ll be even better. You guys just need practice.”
“No, I need practice. Dex is fine.”
She laughed. “He at least needs to practice his narration.”
“It was a little Vincent Price, wasn’t it?” I mused.
“Who’s Vincent Price?”
Oh, for crying out loud.
“Nevermind, nevermind.” I covered my face with my hands again. I knew if I got more comfortable being on camera, and if we had a better script and an actual game plan, the next time would work a lot better. The thing that bothered me though was if there wouldn’t be a next time.
What did Dex think of it? What did his boss? I eyed my cell and contemplated calling Dex but decided I was too afraid to hear what he had to say. I couldn’t handle brutal honesty at the moment and I knew if I couldn’t make a go of this show then I didn’t have anything else left.
I moaned and rolled over.
Ada hit my leg with her hand. “Snap out of it. I don’t want to see you go into another depression.”
“I’m not depressed,” I mumbled face down into the bedding. “I’m screwed.”
“No you’re not. You hated your job anyway, right? So go get a new job. Stop being so emo.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. That said a lot coming from Queen Emo herself.
“Ada, when you’re my age you’ll understand what a big deal it is to be without a job.”
“Oh shut up. Spare me your dramatics. You’re in your early twenties and you live at home, you loser. Half of the country is out of work right now and they actually have real problems, such as mouths to feed and mortgages to pay and whatever.”
“It’s a terrifying world when you are the voice of reason,” I admitted.
“And it’s a terrifying world when you have to tell your older sister that everything will be all right. Just…promise me you won’t lock yourself in your room and mope all week. Go out and get another job. I’ll keep your secret safe from mom and dad. You’re going to have to do something between nine and five anyway and like hell I’d want you following me around at school.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
CHAPTER TWO
The next morning felt like I was on a super secret spy mission; I was a spy who wore a business suit and rode a motorbike.
“You look nice,” my mother said as I tried to sneak through the kitchen without her noticing.
“Oh, thanks. Just felt like looking more professional,” I replied uneasily.
Her face brightened. “That’s my girl. Have to look the part. Don’t want them to regret giving you a promotion, do we?”
I shook my head and proceeded to leave the room.
“What’s in your hand?” she called curiously.
I looked down at the manila envelope that was full of my resumes and cover letters.
“I had some work I wanted to catch up on over the weekend.”
I was surprised at how easily the lies came to me.
My mother grinned again. “I’m proud of you, pumpkin.”
Oh God. Kill me now.
I laughed nervously and booked it out of the room before she said anything else.
I got on my bike Putt-Putt and roared off towards downtown Portland. Only a few weeks ago I was riding to work and wishing I didn’t have to go, that I could just go anywhere. And now that I actually could go anywhere I wanted, I was still heading into the city in hopes of finding a paycheck of some sort. Argh, irony was having a field day with me lately.
I didn’t really have a sense of what to do or where to go. Normally I would scour the job and career websites for openings and send off my resumes via email. But I couldn’t sit at home and do that all week without blowing my cover, so I had to go off and do my job search the old-fashioned way.
Let me tell you…the old-fashioned way sucks. I much preferred the easy anonymity of email submissions. I found it really hard to walk into random office buildings and inquire about potential positions. Luckily a lot of companies were OK with the drop-in (maybe it made me stand out) but I still felt embarrassed. I could tell each receptionist silently judged me and praised their good fortune for having a job and not needing to walk around town groveling. It probably didn’t help that most of the time I was actually applying for the receptionist position. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they tossed my resume in the trashcan afterwards.
By the time lunch rolled around, my stomach begged for nourishment of some sort (I still wasn’t too big on eating breakfast). I had visited 28 offices, which actually only covered about one square block downtown. I decided the next course of action would be to find an internet café after lunch and go back to basics.
As I sat in a sushi restaurant, drinking copious amounts of free green tea and looking over my resume for any errors (yeah, I probably should have done that before I started handing them out), my phone rang.
The sound startled me and naturally I knocked my cup of tea over my remaining stack of resumes. I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath, trying to defuse the bomb I felt slowly building up in my abdomen.
I calmly looked at my phone. It was Dex. For some reason that made my blood boil.
“Yes?” I answered (rather rudely, I must say). My waitress, who was dabbing up the tea with a cloth, gave me a wary look. I smiled at her apologetically.
There was silence on the other end. He carefully cleared his throat. “Perry?”
“Yes?”
“It’s Dex. That guy you did that show with. We were at a lighthouse…”
“Yeah, hi Dex.”
“You have caller ID, don’t you?”
“Sure do.”
“Is this a bad time?”
“Sort of. Though I don’t see it getting any better.”
I didn’t know what was wrong with me, I was practically spitting out the words as if they were bitter pills.