I followed her into the kitchen and then sat at the breakfast bar on one of the high stools.
“How did the job interview go?” she asked as she poured me a glass.
“I didn’t get it.” I slid the glass across the container and took a big gulp. Part of me still couldn’t believe it.
“Come on now, Daisy. Don’t be so negative. I bet you did really good on the interview. You’re just being too hard on yourself.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’m not. I know I didn’t get the job because he called me and told me so.”
She tilted her head to the side slightly, brow furrowed. “He called you today? Already? But you just had the job interview, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “So that means he didn’t even need time to think it over or anything. Is that like some sort of world record or something? For fastest decision ever made about a job interview? He just knew that I wasn’t the right person for it. Do I exude some sort of vibe that says I’m completely incompetent? I should never have told Amanda what Rosie was doing. I should’ve just kept quiet about it.” I took another gulp of my wine and then stared straight ahead, willing myself not to cry. People lost their jobs all the time, and things turned out okay. Unless they didn’t. There were some people who got fired and were never able to recover from it; they went crazy, they never got another job, they ended up moving back in with their parents or living on the streets, panhandling or having to eat food from the trash.
“I don’t want to have to eat food from the garbage!” I said, realizing too late that I was actually speaking these words out loud.
Instead of looking at me like I was insane, though, Caroline just reached over and patted my arm. “You’ll find a job,” she said. “And don’t think for a second that you shouldn’t have said something about what Rosie was doing. It was messed up that Amanda fired you, too. She shouldn’t have done that.”
Of course, I wanted to believe that I had done the right thing, and up until the moment that Amanda had told me she was letting me go, too, I believed that I had. Rosie had been managing the salon for almost as long as Amanda had owned it, and I was just a glorified receptionist who had taken on more of Rosie’s responsibilities when I realized that things weren’t getting handled the way they should have been. I wasn’t doing it to be a brownnoser or even because I was trying to get a raise; I just wanted things to run smoothly, and part of that meant making sure things were done properly. Like the money in the drawer being counted and reconciled at the end of each day. Maybe Rosie had just gotten bored; maybe she thought she’d been at Shear Genius for so long that she was untouchable; maybe she didn’t think that someone like me would dare turn in someone like her. She was glamorous and beautiful, outgoing and charismatic. In other words, all the things I was not.
When I figured out what she was doing, how she’d write up slips for a haircut when the client actually got something far more expensive, like color put in, and then she’d take the difference, I thought at first that I was the one who was misunderstanding. I just couldn’t believe that she’d do something like that. She was also taking tips from the stylists. Some cl
ients would hand the cash themselves to the stylist after they were done, but most of them would leave the tip when they settled their bill up front with me, and put the tip in these little manila envelopes we had. If the client didn’t write the stylist’s name on the envelope, I would, and then I’d put the little envelopes underneath the cash drawer in the register, and the stylists would collect them at the end of each day. Rosie was smart enough to never take all the envelopes, but she’d help herself to four or five of them, and because we were such a busy salon, most of the stylists didn’t even notice.
Maybe I should have gone to Rosie first. Maybe I should have told her that I knew what she was doing, and that it was totally wrong and she needed to stop. If I could do it all over again, perhaps that’s what I’d do, but there was no way to go back in time. I had gone straight to Amanda, who didn’t believe me at first. Almost fired me on the spot, in fact, but then she reconsidered, saying that she had noticed there seemed to be a significant drop in the number of more expensive services that the salon provided, and a hike in just the basic wash and cuts. She ended up having a camera installed, and she got video of Rosie taking the tips envelopes from the drawer. I didn’t feel good about Rosie getting fired, but I had been completely unprepared for the fact that I would be let go, too.
“We need a fresh start,” Amanda had told me, almost two weeks ago now, while I’d done my best to hold it together and not burst into tears in her office. “If you need to file for unemployment, I won’t dispute it, but I just feel totally burned by this whole thing.”
She had no idea about Noah, or the fact that I was trying to move. I didn’t have much in savings—rents in Boston were astronomical—but I’d been doing what I could to squirrel away any extra, so I could have enough for first, last, and security for a new place. I’d already had to dip into my savings to cover some bills and groceries, and I’d need to pay rent soon. While he hadn’t guaranteed me the job, Jonathan had made me feel as though it was a pretty good bet that I’d get it. I felt relieved after he’d told me that, even though I hadn’t been on the interview yet. Now it just seemed foolish.
“Am I doing something wrong?” I asked now, looking at Caroline. “I thought that I was doing okay in life, that I was being responsible and going to work and making sure my bills were paid, but it just seems like I’m missing something that everyone else has.”
“You’re one of the most together people I know,” Caroline said. “We’re only twenty-four. That’s young. We’re supposed to be out there, having a good time, figuring out what it is we want to do with the rest of our lives.”
“Yeah, well, you might be out there having a good time; I’m out there and agreeing to get smoothies with guys who end up being psychos. That’s what I’m talking about—why couldn’t I have agreed to get a smoothie with a normal guy? Why did I have to get fired from my job, too, even though I wasn’t doing anything wrong? Why did I think for a second that everything was going to turn out all right because this other nice guy I knew from the gym said he’d be able to get me an interview at his work and that I’d most likely get the position? I just seem to have really bad luck.”
“You need more wine.” Caroline refilled my glass and then poured some more in her own. “Listen, Daisy. You can’t let this derail you. I know it sucks. And I’ll help you out however I can, okay? I can ask around and see if anyone knows of any openings. Or . . . maybe you should go to grad school. Now might be a good time.”
“I’m not going to enroll in an MFA program now,” I said. “That would be a huge waste of money that I don’t even have. I mean, so was four years of college to get a creative writing degree. I should have listened to my mother.”
It had been a while since my mother and I last talked, mostly because I’d chosen to study creative writing, with a minor in English. She wanted me to do something practical; she didn’t want to spend the money on something that may or may not pan out in the end. And since I hadn’t yet written the Great American Novel and made millions of dollars, clearly getting a degree in creative writing had been a waste of money. My mother had her Ph.D. in psychology and was a professor at Boston University. I knew that at the very least, she thought I should get a teaching position, even if the pay for a public school teacher was pretty terrible.
“There’s probably not going to be a totally perfect time to go back to school, you know,” Caroline said. “There’s always going to be some sort of challenge. And so maybe you have to take out some loans. Most of us do.”
“I’d consider it if it was for something a little more concrete. If I go get an MFA, the most I could reliably hope for is some teaching position, but then again, who knows since I’ve only published a few short stories in completely obscure literary journals?”
Caroline frowned, trying to come up with something to dispute me with. She started to say something but then stopped, took a sip of her wine.
I could hear my phone ringing. I was tempted to ignore it, but decided at the last second to at least look and see who was calling. It was a number, not a name, that appeared on the screen, but I recognized the number: Ian’s. It was the number he had just called me on.
“It’s Ian,” I said.
“Pick it up,” Caroline said immediately.
I hesitated as the phone continued to ring in my hand.
“Pick it up!” Caroline said again. “Before it goes to voicemail.”
I didn’t want to pick it up, though. I’d felt bad enough talking to him the first time; I didn’t want to have to talk to him again. There was something unnerving about the way he had of looking at you. Jonathan had prepped me before the interview: Ian’s a great guy. He can be a little intimidating if you’ve never dealt with him before, but he’s a really good guy. And since Annie left the office has been a mess, so we REALLY need someone. You’ll be perfect. The way he’d said it made me feel like I’d been a shoe-in for the job, yet obviously, that wasn’t the case.