Halle Butler - Jillian

Then Jillian started making reminder calls.

Unless it’s like money talks or body language.

“Oh, hi! This is Jillian calling from Dr. Schraeder’s office! Yeah! Hahahaha, yuh-huh, sure is! I’m just calling to remind you you have a, um, a colonoscopy appointment for next week. Oh yeah, well, we look forward to seeing you then, haha. Ok, you too!”

Jillian was using the baby voice and continued laughing after she hung up the phone.

Today is great. Jillian was still floating along. Talking to people is a lot of fun. “Megan, we are so lucky, did you know that?”

“What, you mean to be Americans or something?”

“No, silly. Our jobs. I love my job so much. I just love it here so much. We are so lucky. We could be working at, you know, a steel mill or something. Sorting grommets. But we have it so nice here. Everyone is so nice here.”

Megan turned around and said, “I don’t think I would ever work at a steel mill, Jillian.”

Jillian reached into her file cabinet and brought out a packet of Pop-Tarts.

“Oh, yeah, but you know what I mean.” Jillian’s eyes widened. “Mmmm,” she sighed. “Oh man, these are so good.”

“Pop-Tarts?”

“You want one? They come in packs of two,” said Jillian.

“Yeah, I know. But, I’m fine with the salad I brought.”

God, what? Megan turned around and looked at the colon of a healthy 50-year-old woman. It was pink and winding. Jillian sighed in the background and Megan tried to force herself to get back on track. I have to file these colons, she thought. That’s what I’m doing here. This is important medical stuff.

She filed the woman’s colon and switched to the next, which was filled with sludge. Jillian looked at these same pictures all day. This guy was a 40-year-old drinker, smoker, and snacker. It chagrined her to imagine this as the future state of both her and Jillian’s bowels. Annoyed her to know that they shared that fate together, probably.

THE 90-MILLIGRAMS of Tylenol T3 with codeine wore off before the day was over. Jillian left the bottle at home because the bottle said not to operate heavy machinery while taking them and, duh, she knew the bottle meant, like, cars and tractors and stuff, but she would be using a computer all day and computers were heavy and she was covering her bases. When she got home she decided it was ok to take one, just one, because she was in a lot of pain from her accident. The bottle said, “take with pain when needed.”

She felt so sad leaving Crispy locked in the bathroom all day, but that was the only place she could leave the dog where the poop and pee would be easy to clean up. There it was, it was gross, but it was true and there it was.

“Hey, Crispy!” she said.

She still hadn’t gotten Crispy that pull-toy yet and the bath mat was pretty much shredded.

“Get on out of here,” said Jillian, and Crispy obeyed and started tearing ass around the apartment in circles. Jillian took a big wad of toilet paper and used it to pick up the turds and mop up the urine and vomit (which she noticed had some threads from the bath mat in it, Crispy!). She put these wads in the toilet and flushed and then performed one more wipe-down of the floor. She fed Crispy and filled her water bowl.

“Do you need to go out?” she asked. Crispy cocked her head. “No?” Crispy got in the play position. “Ok, I guess you don’t want to go out,” said Jillian.

Jillian went to take that one Tylenol, then sat down and turned on the tv. She was pooped. Elena came over with Adam.

“Oh, hey, I just got back from taking Crispy on a walk! Good timing,” said Jillian.

“I have to run,” said Elena. “Are you coming to the 80s party this weekend?”

Jillian looked off into the distance. “Yeah, I guess so,” she said.

“Ok, could you come a little early? We need help setting up.”

“Well, sure,” said Jillian. “Yeah, I could do that.”

“Ok, I can’t pick you up, but you can bring Adam. There’ll be a little day care set up for him and the other kids to play in. We’ll set up a movie for them to watch or something.”

“Oh, yeah, I could bring Charlotte’s Web.”

“That won’t be necessary, we have plenty of Veggie Tales.”

“Oh, of course.”

“See you Saturday around one, then?”

“Yeah, and tomorrow, too, right?”

“Yeah. When are you getting your car out of the impound, anyway?”

“Oh, I’m still waiting to hear how much it’ll cost, and then I have to set up my court date and everything, but it’ll be soon, I promise.” This was making Jillian nervous and when Jillian got nervous she got angry and her anger expressed itself in her tone. “So, yeah, I’ll definitely be able to come and set up and do whatever you want me to, anytime, you know, ok?”

Elena looked at her and left.

“Gee whiz,” said Jillian. “Gee whiz, right Adam?”

“Yeah, gee whiz,” said Adam.

“Who do you like more, Mommy or Miss Elena?”

Adam rolled his eyes.

“Come here,” said Jillian. She scooped him up. “Who do you like more, Mommy or Miss Elena?”

“Mommy,” he said. He gave her a kiss, then squirmed out of her lap and said, “Crispy!”

MEGAN COULD SIT NOW. All her scab did was itch. She sat on the couch and said, “Jillian was totally high all day.”

“How could you tell?” asked Randy.

“She was eating cookies and laughing with her mouth full and talking to herself.”

“Hahaha.”

“Being around her makes me feel closer to death.”

“Ha.”

“It’s like, oh-kay, this is the future. Guess I better get used to the idea of slowly going crazy and having a baby and going to some kind of freaky church in the suburbs.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Easy for you to say, ‘oh come on.’ You have a real job and friends and shit.”

“Uuuughh,” said Randy.

“What? I’m in a dead-end job, this is what it means to be in a dead-end job. I face death.”

“You can always get another job.”

“Not when I am become death.”

“Think positive,” said Randy.

In bed that night, Randy put his arms around Megan and said, “Hey, I love you.”

“What? I love you, too.”

“No, I mean, I really, really love you. You make me happy.”

“I know,” said Megan. She felt nervous.

“Ok. I just want you to know that I love you and I’m not trying to make you feel bad, but I also, you know, want to have a nice job and active friends and I want to have a girlfriend who is happy at least seventy percent of the time.” He hugged her.

“I’m sorry. I get like this sometimes. I’ll be better. And you’re the only person I really like at all,” she said. “So of course I love you.” She laughed and it was terrible. “I just feel messed up and diseased right now. But it’s just a mental thing, I’ll be better, I promise.”

“I love you, ok?”

“I know, I love you too. I’m sorry.”

God I suck, god I suck so much I suck so much, what the fuck, why the fuck do I suck this much? Why me? Hahaha, why meeeee? thought Megan, feeling the simultaneous sting of remorse and indignation. Oh shit, I’m such an asshole either way.

The next morning when the alarm went off, Megan turned around and squeezed Randy and said, “I love you.”

“Oh, good morning,” said Randy.

She got up and made the coffee and took a shower while Randy stayed in bed and flicked his boner like a doorstopper. She made him a bagel and poured him some coffee and then said, “I made you a freezer bagel. Do you want it in bed?”

They ate together and she left for work, looking pretty damn cute. Usually she looked like she was going to go do some work in total isolation, he couldn’t think of where, but she didn’t always shower or wear clean-looking clothes. He wondered how the doctors hadn’t said anything about it, but then remembered that most doctors’ assistants wore pajamas.