Sarah Mlynowski - Monkey Business

What I really need is a break from Sharon and Kimmy so I can figure out what I want, who I want. Wish I were backpacking with Nick in Australia for the month. Now that’s a break. He leaves for Sydney tomorrow. It’s summer there, so I guess he’ll be sitting on the beach and playing with kangaroos. No kangaroos or beaches for me. Toronto has already had three snowstorms. I’ll be shoveling, not sunning.

I grab my pencils and student card, and bolt from the room. Kimmy is still scribbling away. She’s all dressed up today, in high black boots, a miniskirt and a tight blue turtleneck. She looks hot. So what else is new?

I pick up a sandwich in the caf, zip up my coat and return to the Zoo to pack. Flight leaves at nine. I have to make some decisions in the coming month about where I want to work, Toronto or New York. Maybe I should let my job determine my girlfriend. If I return to my job in Toronto, I’ll stay with Sharon. If I’m offered something in New York, I’ll stay with Kimmy. Luck of the draw. Maybe random is the way to go after all.

Tuesday, December 30, 2:00 p.m.

“Do you like it, Kimberly?” my father asks.

“It” is a day in a Scottsdale spa. Facial, manicure, pedicure, massage. “Love it, Dad. Thanks.”

Valued at three hundred dollars, it could all be exchanged and used to purchase books next semester. My father the atheist refuses to call it a Christmas present, but that’s what it is. I don’t care what he calls it; it’s still nice to get presents even if they don’t know what I’d want. My mother, who’s Jewish, was never good at presents, either, and it got worse when I was eleven and they got divorced. She’d buy things I didn’t want, like rhinestone-your-own-T-shirt kits and glittery hair clips. When it comes to presents, my parents don’t know me at all.

“Honey, you look tired,” my father says.

We’re sitting on the patio of a trendy new Mexican restaurant in Phoenix. I’ve had a few too many margaritas, and my body feels rubbery and indestructible.

“I haven’t been sleeping well.”

He runs his no-polish manicured fingers through his jet-black dyed hair. “Maybe LWBS isn’t the right lifestyle for you.”

I shrug.

“You should think about your goals.” He’s nodding as he speaks, his perfectly chiseled chin bobbing up and down. I wish I looked more like him and less like my mom. I have no chin. Just a neck.

“I do. I have two consulting company interviews through school.” Interviews for first-year students are the first week after vacation. Second-years have an extra week off for winter break. I could use that second week of rest, but three and a half weeks is already too long a time to have Russ off philandering with his precious Sharon.

I want my father to be impressed with my potential career, and I say, “Who knows? Maybe I’ll nail a fantastic job. Some of them pay two thousand a week.”

He cuts his tamale into neat little sections and inserts a piece into his mouth. “So you’re looking for a job. That’s nice.” He chews slowly and swallows. “I was talking about your long-term goals.”

To get Russ to dump his girlfriend? “What long-term goals?”

“Marriage. Family.”

No pressure or anything. “I’m sure I can worry about that after I find a job.”

“I think you’re missing my point.” He inserts another piece. “I can’t pay your tuition this semester.”

I nearly choke on my refried beans. “What?”

“Too many leases went sour in the past few months and I need to invest my own capital into the business. I’m sorry.”

“But, but Dad…” Oh. My. God. What am I going to do?

“I’m sorry, Kimmy, but money’s tight, and I don’t believe that sending you to business school is my best investment.”

“How can you say that?” I ask, my hands shaking. “What could be a better investment than arming me with an MBA?”

“You won’t be in the workforce long enough to make back that kind of money. If you go back to LWBS-”

“I’m going back,” I say, suddenly determined. “I’ll take out a loan.” Russ takes out loans. Lauren takes out loans.

“You want to go forty-five thousand dollars into debt?”

“I’ll pay it back after I graduate. I’ll get a job that pays well. I told you, I have two interviews lined up-one with O’Donnel and one with BCG.” I got rejected by everyone else, but whatever.

“Honey, you’re twenty-six now, right?”

I nod, blinking back tears.

“Even if you do get an incredible job after graduation, you’ll only keep it for a few years. You’ll be approaching thirty and you’ll want to settle down.”

Settle down? “You can’t be serious. In case you haven’t heard, two-income families are the norm.”

He scowls, and it’s not from the jalapeños. “What about the kids?”

I’m not even dating the guy I’m screwing, and my father is talking kids? My back is beginning to spasm from the hard wood chair. “That’s what day care is for.”

“So you’ll ship your kids off to day care? You want your children to be raised by strangers?”

I was shipped off to day care when my mother had to get a job after my father left her. One woman was responsible for about twenty-five of us. I spent the first two weeks crying in the corner, and the rest of the time watching the small Polish woman picking up children by their ears. But anyway, why are we talking about my nonexistent children? “I don’t know. Maybe I can get a part-time job.”

He points his finger in the air, dotting an i in the sky. “Exactly my point. Why spend all that on your education if you can’t commit yourself totally to your career? There is no reason for you to have an MBA. You don’t want to be a career woman. You want to be a wife and mother. And I don’t want to burst your bubble, but in today’s economy, managers aren’t rushing to hire childbearing women. Remember Melissa? When I hired her, she didn’t utter one peep about wanting kids, and now she’s six months along and I have to find someone to replace her while she’s on maternity leave. Sure, she says she’s coming back, but she doesn’t have to let me know until the end of her leave. It’s horrible for the company, I tell you.”

“I-” I think you’re an asshole, I think but don’t say. “I’ll be right back.”

I lay my napkin on the table and scamper to the bathroom, as quick as my unpregnant body can take me. Although, since I haven’t gotten my period in weeks, I could be pregnant, who knows? Not a big deal. I could just have it “taken care of.” Again.

I lock the stall and sit on the closed toilet, the tears freely flowing down my cheeks, ruining my mascara.

Taken care of. Can you take out the trash, please? I imagine a vacuum being placed up against my vagina, sucking out the debris. When I missed my first period, I’d been surprised. But excited. Wayne hated condoms so he’d been pulling out. I knew I was supposed to be nervous, devastated even, but I ran to the store to buy the pregnancy test, ran up to my bathroom and did it right away. Pink. Pink, pink, pink. Wayne and I had been dating a year; he would be happy, wouldn’t he? Scared of course, that was normal, but secretly happy. He must have known there was a chance this would happen (they don’t call pulling out sexual roulette for no reason). Maybe this was what he’d been planning. I called him at work, told him to come over as soon as possible. We sat in his car in the driveway, engine off. I didn’t want my mother listening. I felt like Molly Ringwald in that movie where she and her high-school sweetheart are scared, but they drop out of school and make it work.