Halle Butler: Jillian

“I really feel like you’re taking advantage of me right now and, ma’am, I have a child to take care of and I’m about to get a dog and I have too many expenses right now to pay you nine dollars, let alone two hundred dollars.”

Jillian was becoming clearly angry.

“I am unable to pay over the phone, but I can send you a money order at my earliest convenience. No, I don’t have a credit card. No. No, I don’t have a debit card. I don’t have a checking account.” Pause. “Well, you know what, someone was stealing my identity so that’s why I don’t have one anymore. Yes, I got that taken care of. I will try to send you that money order as soon as I can, but I think you’re being very unfair and rude. Yes, ma’am.”

Jillian let out a stifled scream at the phone after she hung it up, then laughed and said, “My car.”

“Hmm?” said Megan.

“I got a ticket last night for running a red light on my way home and I, you know, didn’t have my license on me, so the cop looked me up in his thingy, and it turned out I have an unpaid fine from an accident I had three years ago. I got bad injuries. Apparently, my license has been suspended for three years, and now I have to pay this frickin’ fine.”

“Geez,” said Megan.

“Yeah. I’m not even supposed to be driving right now, so I have to be real careful on my way home.”

“Yeah, make sure to be real careful,” said Megan.

The patients started coming in.

Jillian said “Noooo problem!” a lot.

Megan said “Sure” a lot.

During down time Jillian would look at the internet, but sometimes she would just sit and stare at the wall.

Jillian sat at her desk practicing visualizations, as had been suggested to her by a few members of her church group. When someone opened the door, she thought “Action!” and then her face would become bright and her voice would flow easily out of her mouth and she could say, “Oh, hi, how are you?” as if she had no real problems of her own. This ticket thing would not do. That stupid woman at the court office telling her she had to pay nine dollars to get a special form to attach to the money order to get the hold taken off her license. I spent nine dollars on lunch today, she thought. I’m not going to spend nine dollars on a piece of paper. And Miss Prissy-Prim Tight-Lips Megan over there on the other side of the office, what was her problem? But I will have that dog, she said to herself, because the dog was part of the visualization she was doing. Where do you want to see yourself in half a year? In half a year I want to see myself walking down the sidewalk with this internet dog, Carla. Carla would be an ok name. Walking down the sidewalk with Carla, the dog of the day, practically a famous dog. How silly. But this dog was essential, and this dog cost as much as the fine she had to pay as a result of an accident she’d been seriously injured in, and the court should pay her in her opinion, not the other way around.

For the visualizations, she knew she was supposed to pick something that went good with her personality, so that’s why the dog made sense. She was a mother, a nurturer. Also, being a mother meant you had a kid to entertain, which meant you had to give it something to play with, which was why (another reason why) the dog made sense. And she lived outside the city, in an apartment, yes, but still outside the city, and she’d heard city dogs weren’t that happy. She knew she wasn’t going to pick something like “become a rock star in half a year” even though she’d had a pretty good voice as a kid—haha!—and kind of a rock star’s appetites, if you know what I mean. And that would be a good reason to not pick rock star, too. That was her old life and personality. Now she was mom and worker (not just worker, but office manager, since Miss Tight-Lips had no interest in advancement, it seemed) and a dog would suit her just fine, so she would get Carla and a month from now that dog would be frolicking in the medians at the end of her leash.

She would not use a choke collar, obviously.

The work day ended, and Jillian drove home quickly, but still carefully, in her beige four-door sedan because, on one hand, she needed to get to her home phone before the Humane Society closed, but on the other hand she knew she didn’t have any more gimmies.

Her car had little piles of white paper coffee cups and magazines that had been stepped on and twisted into spirals. Everything was covered in a layer of crushed Apple Jacks. Some books lay on their spines or sides or wherever they landed, books about confidence and stuff, which she knew were super corny, but helped her out and helped her stay on track. Jillian felt like she was gliding home in a star craft, she was so excited. She glided into the day care parking lot and de-boarded her craft in the spot just next to the handicapped spot, swooped through the doors, and looked through that crawling mass of children to find hers, that little halfie. Half hers, you know.

“Hey, Barb!” said Jillian to the day care teacher.

“Adam!” shouted Barb, and then Adam, who was five-ish and had tight, dark curly hair and a pale face, walked casually out of a tiny plastic house.

At home, Jillian handed Adam the remote and said, “Now, you sit in here. Mommy’s gotta go do something.”

“Can we eat soon?” asked Adam.

“Oh yeah, dinner’s soon, just watch your video for a second.” The video was a documentary about baby animals that Adam seemed to like.

Jillian walked to the kitchen, picked up the cordless, picked up the laptop, walked to her bedroom, and shut the door. It was so exciting, ugh! She dialed the Humane Society and looked at the picture of Carla. The phone rang twice before it was answered. Each step was a thrill.

“Hi!” said Jillian. “I’m calling to inquire about the dog on your website named Carla, the special needs dog?”

“Oooohh, I’m sorry, but Carla was adopted yesterday.”

“Oh, really? Are you sure? Because she’s still up on your web page.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Every time we put up one of those photos the dogs get adopted almost the same day. It really makes people fall in love, I guess.”

“Yeah, I guess it does,” said Jillian. “Well, maybe you should take it down so you don’t give a misrepresentation of the dogs you actually do have.”

“We have a lot of wonderful dogs in right now. All the time, in fact. Do you want to know our hours?”

“No not really, I only wanted Carla.”

“Are you sure? Carla’s not our only special needs dog, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Ok, well, please keep us in mind,” said the woman.

“Bye.”

Jillian clicked the End button on the cordless and sat on the edge of her bed for a second. Then she put a pillow to her face and screamed “fuck” three times.

She set the pillow down, punched it twice, and then said “Mommy’s all right!” and went back to the living room.

And my boss was like, ‘We have to get this,’ ” said Carrie. “So we walked up to the guy and my boss was like, ‘I’ll give you fifty dollars for that llama,’ and he did it.”

“Oh my god, that’s hilarious,” said Jessica. “Steve, check out this llama at Carrie’s desk.” Jessica handed the phone to Steve. Everyone was smiling.

“That’s a life-size llama,” said Steve.

“We had to carry it back to our office on the bus,” said Carrie. “It almost didn’t fit through the door, that’s how big it was. We almost hit the bus driver in the face with it, that’s how big it was.” A few people laughed. Carrie reached out for the phone. “Here.” She flipped to the next picture. “That’s how big it is.” The photo showed Carrie and the llama, Carrie with her arm around the llama, Carrie wearing glasses and grinning, the llama looking dingy and staring with its dead eyes at the camera, the two of them in Carrie’s well-lit office.