A little voice in the back of my head is chanting: freelance, freelance, freelance. It gives me a stress stomachache, probably very similar to the one Sammy is suffering. It’s so unpredictable! You never know whether you’ll be working or struggling to pay the bills! If Miles loses his job his insurance on the kids will get canceled! A regular paycheck is all I’ve ever known. I don’t know if I can handle all the risk that comes with freelancing.
I pick up my cell phone and look down at the text messages that have come from my sister over the past couple days. My stomach is in knots as I consider calling her. It’s probably too late. Ozzie’s probably already hired someone else for that job. Why was I such a bitch earlier? Why did I have to go ballistic at the warehouse? Those people were just trying to help me out by giving me a little extra money for what was probably not a big deal.
Having a job gave me a sense of security, but I should’ve known better. In this industry, you never have a job for long. Companies are always selling out, going out of business, or changing mission statements. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, and people like me are Purina ALPO—even easier to eat than another dog. Nom, nom.
I take a few more deep breaths. At this point I’m almost ready to start hyperventilating. I walk over to sit down at the kitchen table, bringing my phone with me. It’s time to face the music, swallow my pride, and put on my big-girl panties.
“Pick up, May. Pick up.” She’d better answer soon, before I chicken out.
“Hello?” says my sweet sister. Just hearing her voice makes tears rush to my eyes.
“Hello. It’s me.”
“What’s wrong?” Gone is the sweet voice, and in its place the demanding one. The concerned one. And that’s what does me in.
I start crying and my throat squeezes shut. When I can finally talk again, I sound like a total mess. “I got fired.”
“Fired? When? Why? You’re their best employee! What happened?”
“I guess I’m not so great after all.” I try to laugh, but it comes out more like a choking sound. “I called in sick because Sammy’s got another stomachache, and they just laid me off.”
“They can’t do that. They can’t fire you or lay you off because your child is sick.”
“I’m not sure it has anything to do with that. Or maybe it does. I’ve called in several times over the past year because one of the kids has been ill. Anyway, the end result is the same. I’m jobless as of today.”
“Did you get some kind of severance package?”
“That’s what I hear, but I also hear it’s only two months’ pay, so it’s not going to get me very far.” I stop to consider how much detail I actually want to share with my sister. She has her own problems; she doesn’t need to be burdened with mine.
“How much money do you have saved up?”
I laugh bitterly. “Are you kidding me? Savings? What’s that?”
“Okay, no need to panic. We can figure something out.”
“There’s nothing to figure out, really. I was just calling to see if you still have that freelance job available.” The humiliation is strong. I’m actually almost to the point of begging my sister to get me a job from her boyfriend.
I’m on tenterhooks waiting for her response, but thankfully it comes pretty quickly. “Of course! We haven’t hired anyone else. And besides, even if we had, there’s still work for you to do here.”
“You’re just saying that to try to make me feel better.”
“No, I’m not. Trust me. Now that I’m with Ozzie, I get to hear about everything that goes on with the company behind the scenes. He said just last night that in the last couple years, their jobs that involve computers have doubled.”
“But you already have somebody there for computer work, right?” I try to remember the guy’s name, but all I can remember is how beautiful he is and how nice and white his teeth are.
May fills in the blanks for me. “You mean Lucky. Yes, we have Lucky, but he’s not that kind of computer guy. He’s not an engineer like you are. He’s a financial person. He can get into people’s financial records and see what’s going on there, but he cannot get into hidden folders or hack into things.”
“Hack? You want me to hack into things?”
Suddenly May sounds very cheery. “No! Did I say ‘hack’? I didn’t mean hack. Don’t be silly.” She snorts, a sure sign she’s nervous about me knowing exactly what she’s talking about, but I let her continue uninterrupted. She has at least captured my interest.