Also, I’m pretty sure he actually said, “Nicola, we’re so sorry to tell you this, but we’re going to have to let you go.” But what’s the difference when they pretty much mean the same thing? In one damn second I’ve lost my job. My income. My stability.
My future.
It’s a wonder I don’t have a meltdown like the ones Ava throws when she can’t find her favorite plush toy, Snuffy. Or even leak a single tear. Instead, I just sit there like an idiot, a frozen, slack-jawed failure, while my boss, Ross (ex-boss now, I guess), prattles on about how sorry he is and how he wished they could have kept me but the company is downsizing and they’re removing one of the stores and yadda, yadda, yadda.
But none of that matters whatsoever since I know I’m one week shy of having worked for them for three months. In one week, I would have finished my probationary period and my health insurance would have rolled in. I would have gotten a raise. I would have gotten piece of mind and a career in the field I’ve been striving for.
And now I’m angry because I realize these assholes knew they’d never offer me a permanent position, they just wanted the cheap fucking labor. This had been their plan all along, to string me along under false pretences and then kick me to the curb before it became serious.
Sounds a lot like my love life, come to think about it.
“Is there anything we can do for you?” he asks, peering at me with concern, perhaps watching my face for signs of an imminent explosion.
Ava, it always comes back to my daughter. If it weren’t for her, I probably would have just nodded at the dismissal. Take it graciously like I try to do with everything life throws my way, like I’d been taught at a young age. Never let them see you cry; never let them see you as anything but perfectly appropriate. Suck it up and carry on, a vision of cool.
But my life at the moment isn’t cool and there isn’t a single appropriate thing about it. My rent at my shitty apartment recently increased. My car needs a part I can’t afford, so it just sits on the curb collecting rust from San Francisco’s eternal mist, and Ava has been increasingly sick lately. Nothing to worry about, the doctor says, just lethargic on some days but I’ve got an endless supply of worry for my kiddo and not always enough money to pay for a doctor’s visit. Not to mention a pretty useless doctor at that. I was counting on that goddamn medical insurance for her, not for me.
And so, like Bruce Banner when he turns into the Hulk – minus the shirt-ripping – I let it all unleash on my unsuspecting ex-boss. For three months I have been prim and proper and yes sir, no sir, running around all the stores like an overworked slave, all while keeping a big smile on my face. Never let them see you sweat. Always keep your cool.
Fuck that.
I’m not even sure what to say. It’s like I go into some deep, black pit of pent-up resentment. I think I even blackout for a moment. All I know is that when I realize what I’m doing, I’m standing up, my finger jabbing in the air towards my ex-boss, and I’m spewing a load of obscenities.
“You know if you had just fucked me over sideways, that would have been fine. But you’re hurting my daughter by doing this. How dare you just toss me aside a week before my health insurance kicked in!” I yell at him. “Don’t you have a damn heart?”
But from the way Ross calmly picks up his phone and asks his assistant, Meredith, to come in the room as if I need to be escorted out, I can see he doesn’t have a heart at all.
Meredith has never liked me and the last thing I need is her gloating, so I hightail it out of his office before she can get a glimpse of my red and distraught face. I quickly gather my purse from my cubby in the staffroom, grateful for once that while I was the company’s visual stylist for the past three months, I never had a desk of my own. What a pain that would be to clean out.
I don’t even say goodbye to Priscilla, the buyer whom I’d become somewhat close with, or Tabby, the regional merchandiser, someone whose job I hoped to have one day. I’m just too ashamed to tell them what just happened and I feel worse when I suspect maybe they knew all along.
When I first got the job for the popular yoga clothing chain, Rusk, I thought I’d finally made it. I’d spent enough time taking two steps forward and one step backward. The city doesn’t always make it easy on you, no matter what industry you’re in. And fashion is definitely one of the more challenging ones.
I went to college with Stephanie at the Art Institute in downtown San Francisco, connecting with her after being decades apart. I grew up near Steph in Petaluma, a town north of the city, and I knew her in grade school until my parents got divorced and I moved with my mom to the Pacific Heights in San Francisco to live with her terribly rich new husband. Long story short, after spending high school with the rich kids – and being one of the rich kids – I enrolled myself in college, wanting to do something with my passion for fashion. After all, the garments I designed and made in my spare time, ones with screen-printed graphics and kooky phrases, would never grant me an income or a career. They were good but not “that good” (as my ex-stepfather had pointed out). So, I thought a career in fashion merchandising would be the next best thing.