Halle Butler: Jillian

She poured Adam some Apple Jacks and picked him up out of his bed, set him down in the kitchen, and then watched him eat. He didn’t even open his eyes. He was hilarious.

Since black coffee was disgusting, Jillian liked to get a Starbucks on her drive to work. She knew she could save money if she made her own, but there was a drive-through right past Adam’s day care, and it was good to have a treat, so she treated herself. The downside was it gave her heartburn.

When she got to work, Jillian microwaved the remainder of her Starbucks and opened her email.

“Oh, this is cute,” she said.

On the computer screen there was an email from Sister Grace about how dogs were better people than people. Enjoy this, I know I did ;P !!!!!!!!!! it said.

“This is real cute.” Jillian hit forward and selected 20 of her contacts.

The door opened.

“Hey, Megan!” said Jillian.

“Hi,” said Megan.

“I just sent you an email.”

“Ok.”

“It’s nothing serious, but it’s real cute, ok?”

“Ok, let me turn on my computer.”

She’s going to like this, thought Jillian.

“Do I have any messages so far?” asked Megan.

“Nope, phones haven’t started ringing just yet,” said Jillian. “So, what’s new with you?”

“Nothing.” Megan felt awkward for saying it that way. “I mean, nothing’s really changed since yesterday. How was your night?”

“It was good. I think I’m going to hold off on getting that dog.”

Megan opened her email and saw the thing from Jillian.

“Two hundred dollars is too much for an adoption fee. I just don’t think I feel ok paying it,” said Jillian.

“Yeah, well, I know I wouldn’t want a dog. Seems like it would be really inhibiting if you wanted to go on vacation or have friends, or inhibiting financially at least, if you want to be able to pay your bills. That’s what the adoption fee is for. To weed people out.”

“Yeah, well, I guess I just thought my son would like having a dog.”

“Right,” said Megan.

“Anyway, nothing new with you, then?”

“Nope. Nothing at all.” Megan’s hangover was critical.

“You get your email?” asked Jillian.

“Yeah, I got it. Cute dogs.”

“I know, I just thought that was so funny.”

I just want to get my work done so I can go home, thought Megan. And then what?

Things are going to get better after a while, after I get a few more things in order and out of the way, things are going to start getting better, I promise, thought Jillian. I promise.

Dr. Billings poked his head out of his office. “Uh, Jillian,” he said. “Did you get a chance to order those gowns?”

“Yeah, I ordered them last week when you asked me to.”

“They haven’t come yet. Usually it only takes a few days. They’re in town. If you haven’t ordered them yet, I could always drive by after work.”

“No, I ordered them. I don’t know why they haven’t come yet, but I ordered them.”

“Ok. If they don’t come tomorrow, why don’t you give them a call. They might not have the right address, but they should have our address.”

“No problem,” said Jillian. Megan rolled her eyes. “I’ll give ’em a call tomorrow,” said Jillian.

“Ok. I don’t have patients until one, right?” asked Dr. Billings.

“Nope, that’s right,” said Jillian.

“Ok,” said Dr. Billings. “I’ll be back.” He left the office. Jillian picked up the phone and in a moment whispered, “Hi, my name is Jillian and I’m calling from Dr. Billings’s office. Yeah. Hi. I’d like to place an order for some surgical gowns. You got it.”

Megan paused from her work and shook her head. I’m shaking my head with disbelief, she thought. But then she realized an opportunity had been presented to her and she slipped the public restroom key into the waistband of her skirt and went outside for a smoke break.

The cigarette undid her tension from the top down, liquefying her brain, lungs, fingers, bowels, spirit, etc.

In the locked, single-toilet public restroom, between spasms, she leaned back on the flush-pipe and thought.

“Do you have a name for that llama yet?”

“No, I don’t have a name yet.”

“Why don’t you name it Megan?”

“Uuuhhmmm?”

“Yeah, you can name it Megan and then you can take a knife and stab it in the ass or the face or wherever you want. Whatever you want, really, but if you name it Megan it’ll be like I’m close to you while you work.”

“Uh, what?”

“Not that I want to be near you. You know I don’t like you, right?”

“Uh, what?”

“I just think it would be pleasant to have some kind of non-sentient representation of myself floating out there in the world.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You know, not sentient? Like it doesn’t have any self-awareness or consciousness? The llama?”

“Yeah, I know what the word means.”

“Oh, right, you went to grad school. I forgot you went to grad school.”

Megan wiped and flushed and tried to use the flush sound to symbolically rid herself of the fantasy of saying something to Carrie about the llama.

“Show this guy a picture of your llama,” she said while she washed her hands. “Show this guy that picture of your llama.” Since it would make her feel better, she let herself cry whenever she wanted to. She put her head in her arms and her arms on the bathroom wall. When she finished, she washed her face and shook her fist at her reflection.

“I’ll get you!” said Megan.

God, I’m hilarious, she thought.

She walked back down the hallway and the hallway didn’t exist.

Everything about her life was so much the same from day to day that it almost didn’t exist.

RANDY DIDN'T GET what the big deal was about Jillian. He didn’t think she sounded like a liar, and he thought Megan was blowing things out of proportion. He’d suggested this once.

“Megan, do you think you’re re-directing your dissatisfaction with your job onto Jillian?”

She’d said, “Fuck you.”

Randy was sitting at his computer desk at home. He was confident that Megan’s Carrie thing was fleeting, despite her display last night, and he decided not to edit himself to accommodate her.

Megan opened the door.

“Hey,” said Randy.

Megan slipped out of her bag, coat, and shoes and then took off her skirt, tights, underpants, sweater, and bra on her walk to the bedroom. She got into pajamas, put her hair in a stupid-looking ponytail, and said, “Hey,” as she sat down at the kitchen table.

Randy started by mentioning some design work of Carrie’s that he’d seen.

“Hmm,” said Megan.

He had the magazine he’d seen it in, and he brought it to her, opened to the correct page. He took a seat.

“Oh, wow,” said Megan. She picked up the magazine and dropped it back down on the table.

“I think it’s really cool,” said Randy.

“Sure. It looks like everything else, if that’s what you mean by cool.”

“No, I mean, this is really professional work. It’s cool that it’s done by someone we know.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

“It’s just a formula. I don’t feel honored to know a formula. Only one in, I don’t know, ten thousand designers are real artists. I don’t know any designers who’ve been artists since Bauhaus, and they were fighting Nazis with their designs, not . . . imported produce or whatever.”

Randy straightened. “Well, anyway, I was thinking it would be fun to ask Carrie to help me do some web design, and I wanted to ask if you thought her stuff would translate well to a website.”

Megan scratched her face. “Yeah. It’d translate well to a website, if that’s all you’re thinking about. But, you could do this kind of stuff alone,” she said, gesturing at the magazine. “I mean, well, to me, the real hindrance in working with her—or anyone like her—would be the total hypocrisy of it all. Encouraging someone who considers herself to be a forerunning mind of our generation while all she’s doing is, essentially, coloring in the lines would make me, personally, want to fucking kill myself.”