Never Enough(2)

I stand, shoving my expensive leather executive chair back, all eyes on me now.

"Larry, Nigel," I say, my tone clipped. "A word?"

I don't wait for them to answer, just walk out of the conference room and into the hall. Both men follow, and they shut the door behind them.

"Gavin-"

"I'm not doing this," I say, gesturing at the door. The wall dividing the hall from the room is frosted glass, so I know they can see me, but I don't care.

"Come on, Gavin," Nigel says, holding his hands out like he's trying to console me. "We talked about this, and you know the record label isn't-"

"Was I unclear?" I ask, my voice rising a little. "I'm not pretending to shag that sweet moronic poppet so that housewives on Long Island will buy our records, and fuck the label."

Nigel's face drops, his mouth sagging at the corners. Next to him, Larry's face is perfectly, carefully neutral.

"Gavin, this is what we-"

"How can I get you to yes?" Larry interrupts, a phrase I'm certain he learned from some negotiation seminar.

I didn't think I could hate this moment more, but now I do.

I just shake my head and push one hand through my hair, the narrow leather straps around my left wrist sliding down. There's seventeen of them, one for each week I've been clean.

"You can't," I say, turn, and leave the building.





2





Marisol





My feet are already screaming as I walk through the doors of the campus library, toward the reserve desk. I really wish I hadn't forgotten my flats, but I keep telling myself it's good practice for next year, when I'll have a job where I'll be wearing shoes like this six days a week.

Well, if I'm lucky I'll have a job like that. If I'm not lucky I won't have a job at all, but I can't think about that right now.

"Need a book?" asks the undergrad behind the reserve desk.

"Yes, please," I say, sliding an index card across the counter. On it I've written, very neatly:

Meyers, Law 341

Contemporary Issues in American Asylum Law, Second Edition

KZ6350 .S27 2014





"Cool," she says, reading the card. "Be right back."

She walks away and I hang on to the counter, carefully lift one foot, and circle my ankle above the floor, wiggling my toes. There's a small knot of anxiety in my stomach, because I still haven't been able to get a hold of the book, and I need to do my reading by Monday.

Since it's a small seminar class, participation counts as fifty percent - half - of our final grade, meaning that each once-weekly class session is 3.125% of that grade. And sure, if I don't participate once, a 96.875% is still an A, but why risk it?



       
         
       
        

The undergrad doesn't reappear. I think calming thoughts. My phone buzzes in my briefcase, and I crouch down to grab it.

Brianna: You're still coming to the secret show tonight, right?

Crap. I squeeze my eyes shut, put the phone down on the counter, and rub my temples. I totally forgot to put Brianna's birthday thing in my calendar and now it's tonight.

Just say you forgot and don't go, I tell myself. You know it's going to be her and a bunch of her new, rich friends, and they're just going to talk about celebrities and designer purses or whatever it is she likes now.

I wish. It's a nice fantasy, but I text her back.

Marisol: Of course! The Whiskey Room at 10, right?

Brianna's my oldest friend. We've known each other since kindergarten - almost twenty years now. I have to go.

True, about a year ago she married Larry, who's forty-three, mega-rich, and bills himself as "the attorney to the stars." Since then she's found a new crop of friends, but I should still go to her birthday party. It's the least I can do.

The undergrad finally reappears, frowning. My stomach sinks, because she doesn't have a book.

You have to be kidding me.

"It's checked out," she says, handing my index card back.

"Would you mind looking again?" I ask, as politely as possible. "It was also checked out yesterday morning, yesterday evening, and earlier today, and there's a two-hour limit on checking out reserve books."

She taps at a computer for a few moments, then nods.

"Yeah, it's still checked out," she says. Then she frowns. "Actually, it's been checked out for two days. That's weird."

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I need that book to do the reading, and someone's taken it.

No. Worse.

They've taken it against the rules. Those rules are there to make sure that everyone can do the reading, whether or not they can afford insanely expensive textbooks, and someone's just ignoring them.

And now I'm furious.

"Could you tell me who has it?" I ask, still perfectly polite through sheer force of will. "It's a small seminar class, so I'm sure I know whoever it is."

"I can't," she says, sounding apologetic. "It's against the law."

It's not, actually, but I'm not going to argue about it with her. It's probably against library policy.

"You could just buy it?" she asks, obviously trying to be helpful.

I almost laugh in her face. It's a two-hundred-dollar book. Short of a fairy godmother, I can't just buy it. 

But I don't. It's not her fault that some jerk hasn't returned it.

"Thanks," I say, even though my heart is pounding.

"No problem!" she says brightly, and pulls her phone back out.

I take a deep breath, heave the strap of my briefcase over my shoulder, and walk deeper into the library. I take the elevator to the basement and fall into the ugly wooden chair at my carrel, glad to finally be off my feet.

Two undergrad girls walk by, whispering about some party tonight, both wearing Tiffany bracelets and casually carrying laptops worth as much as my rent. A pang of jealousy stabs through me.

I should have married a rich guy too, I think. Or just been born to rich parents in the first place.

I feel guilty instantly. My parents didn't pay my college or law school tuition because they couldn't, not because they didn't want to.

But while my classmates' parents were smoking pot in college, mine were escaping a decades-long civil war in Guatemala. When their parents had their first full-time jobs, mine were picking strawberries on migrant worker visas, entering the lottery for permanent resident status over and over again. When their parents were in their twenties, working office jobs and going to happy hour, my parents were learning English, navigating a labyrinthine immigration system, and studying to become U.S. citizens.

And now, when they're in their fifties and they should be slowing down, working less, enjoying what they've earned? Their scumbag landlord's evicting them. The part of town where they live, Highland Park, has suddenly become the preferred neighborhood of white hipsters, and that means rent has skyrocketed.

Their apartment is rent-controlled, so instead of raising their rent, they're just getting kicked out. The landlord says his son is going to live in the apartment - one of the few reasons you can evict someone - which I know is bullshit. But I can't prove it, so now my sister and I are helping them look for another place to live, and it's not going well.

I sigh, pull my five-year-old laptop out of my bag, and fire it up. If I can't actually get the book, maybe I can find something written about it and still contribute to the discussion on Monday.

But then, watching my laptop's load screen, I have a flash of genius.

The bookstore has a fourteen-day return policy. I've got a credit card that I hardly ever use.

As long as I don't damage it, I can buy this stupid book. I can get my reading done, get my participation grade, and then return it. Of course.

I grin, shut my laptop, and shove it back in my bag. Today's got nothing on me.





3





Gavin





I'm backstage, forty-five minutes before we go on, and of course the band is having a row.

"You're kidding, right?" Darcy says, her arms crossed over her chest, her stance wide, like she's ready to fight. Which she most certainly is.

"I'm not going to make gaga eyes at this child for months to prove that I'm fucking clean," I say, crossing my own arms.

"Goddamn it," Trent says, then turns and walks away, toward the door.

"God fucking damn it," I hear as he jerks the door open and stomps through. For a split second, I can hear the screaming, thrashing guitar of the opening band before he slams the door and it's muffled again.

I let him leave. I knew they'd be angry.

"I can't do it," I say to Darcy. "I can't fake interest in someone just so we're photographed properly and the fucking gossip blogs can write about how former junkie Gavin-"

"This was our way back!" Darcy suddenly yells, throwing her arms wide. "We finally got Crumble City to agree to something, and it was so fucking easy, Gavin, you just hang out with a cute girl for a while and voila, we keep our contract."



       
         
       
        

Crumble City is our record label. They're the ones insisting that I improve my image or they'll be dropping the band.

"As if there are no other record labels," I say. "As if Lucid Dream didn't go triple-fucking-platinum and buy the head of Crumble City another fucking Aston Martin."