Chapter four
I am shelving metamusil in aisle seven when maura stalks in. she knows my boss is an ass**le about me standing around and talking while i’m working, so she pretends to look at vitamins while she’s talking to me. she’s telling me there’s something really disturbing about the word ‘chewable’ and then all of a sudden the clock strikes 5:12 and she figures it’s time to ask personal questions.
maura: are you g*y?
me: what the f**k?
maura: it would be okay with me if you were.
me: oh, good, because the thing i’d be worried about the most is whether you were okay with it.
maura: i’m just saying.
me: noted. now will you just shut up and let me work, okay? or do you want me to use my employee discount to get you something for your cramps?
I think there really needs to be a rule against calling a guy’s sexuality into question while he’s working. and anyway, i really don’t want to talk about it with maura no matter where we are. because, here’s the thing - we’re not that close. maura is the kind of friend i enjoy swapping doomsday scenarios with. she’s not, however, someone who makes me want to prevent doomsday from happening. for the year or so we’ve hung out, this has always been a problem. i know if i told her about liking guys, she’d probably stop wanting to date me, which would be a huge plus. but i also know i’d immediately become her g*y pet, and that’s the last kind of leash i want. and it’s not like i’m really that g*y. i f**king hate madonna.
me: there should be a cereal for constipated people called metamueslix.
maura: i’m serious.
me: and i’m seriously telling you to f**k off. you shouldn’t call me g*y just because i don’t want to sleep with you. a lot of straight guys don’t want to sleep with you, either.
maura: f**k you.
me: ah, but the point is, you won’t.
she comes over and messes up all the bottles that i’ve been putting in rows. i almost pick one up and throw it at the back of her head while she leaves, but the truth is if i brained her here, my manager would make me clean it up, and that would suck. the last thing i need is gray matter on my new shoes. do you know how hard that shit is to get out? anyway, i really need this job, which means i can’t do things like yell or pin my stupid name tag upside down or wear jeans that have rips in them or sacrifice puppies in the toy aisle. i don’t really mind it, except when my manager is around or when people i know come by and are all weird because i’m working and they don’t have to.
I’m thinking maura will swing back into aisle seven, but she doesn’t, and i know i’m going to have to act nice to her (or at least not act mean to her) for the next three days. i make a mental note to buy her coffee or something, but my mental noteboard is a joke, because as soon as i put something on there it disappears. and the truth is that the next time we talk, maura’s going to pull her whole hurt routine, and that’s only going to annoy me more. i mean, she’s the one who opened her mouth. not my fault if she can’t take the answer.
cvs closes at eight on saturdays, which means i’m out by nine. eric and mary and greta are all talking about parties they’re going to, and even roger, our square-headed manager, is telling us that he and his wife are going to be ‘having a night in’ - wink wink, nudge nudge, hump hump, spew spew. i’d rather picture a festering wound with maggots crawling into it. roger is bald and fat and his wife is probably bald and fat, too, and the last thing i want to hear about is them having bald and fat sex. especially ’cause you know that he’s making it sound all wink-nudge when the truth is he’ll probably get home and the two of them will watch a tom hanks movie and then one of them will lie in bed listening to the other one pee and then they’ll switch places and then when the second person is done in the bathroom, the lights will go off and they’ll go to sleep.
greta asks me if i want to come along with her, but she’s like twenty-three or something and her boyfriend vince acts like he’ll disembowel me if i use any SAT words in his presence. so i just get a ride home, and mom is there, and isaac’s not online, and i hate the way mom never has saturday night plans and isaac always has saturday night plans. i mean, i don’t want him sitting at home waiting for me to get back and IM, because one of the cool things about him is that he has a life. there’s an email from him saying he’s going out to the movies for kara’s birthday, and i tell him to wish her a happy birthday from me, but of course by the time he gets the message her birthday will be over and i don’t know whether he’s told kara about me, anyway.
mom is on our lime-green couch, watching the pride & prejudice miniseries for the seven-zillionth time, and i know i’ll be totally girling out if i sit there and watch it with her. the weird thing is that she also really likes the kill bill movies, and i’ve never been able to sense a difference in her mood between when she’s watching pride & prejudice and when she’s watching kill bill. it’s like she’s the same person no matter what’s happening. which can’t be right.
I end up watching pride & prejudice because it’s fifteen hours long, so i know that when it’s over, isaac will probably be home. my phone keeps ringing and i keep not answering. that’s one of the good things about knowing he can’t call me—i never have to worry it’s him.
the doorbell rings right when the guy’s about to tell the girl all the shit he needs to tell her, and at first i ignore it the same way i’m ignoring my cellphone. the only problem is that people at the door don’t go to voicemail, so there’s another ring, and mom’s about to get up, so i say i’ll get it, figuring it must be the door equivalent of a wrong number. only when i get there it’s maura on the other side of the door, and she’s heard my footsteps so she knows i’m here.
maura: i need to talk to you.
me: isn’t it like midnight or something?
maura: just open the door.
me: are you going to huff and puff?
maura: c’mon, will. just open it.
It’s always a little scary when she gets all direct with me. so while i’m opening the door i’m already trying to figure out how to dodge her. it’s like some instinct kicks in.
mom: who is it?
me: it’s only maura.
and, oh f**k, maura’s taking the ‘only’ personally. I want her to just draw the teardrop under her eye and get it over with. she has enough black eyeliner on to outline a corpse, and her skin’s so pale she looks like she’s just broken dawn. only without the two dots of blood on her neck.