Lisa Owens - Not Working

In the bathroom, I clean the bin with toilet bleach, and on the way out exchange a woeful look with myself in the mirror, impressed by how pale and wretched I look. In the guest room, softly groaning, I crawl back under the covers, and as I fall asleep, my mother appears to me, holding my hair away from my face and rubbing my back, saying, “Poor pet, poor love.”

“Where did you sleep? I missed you.”

“My old room,” says Luke, setting out knives and forks.

“I’d have been happy to sleep there too.” I follow him round the dining-room table, laying dessert spoons in his wake.

“I didn’t want to disturb you. Dad and I stayed up late.” He embarks on another lap to correct the direction of my spoons.

“Probably for the best, anyway. I was sick.”

“Really?” says Luke, turning back to look at me. I realize I’m still following him. “Are you all right now?”

“Fine,” I say. “A bit shaky, but okay. It was the chicken chow mein: we did not agree. Nor did I get on with that cat bin in the guest room.”

“What?” he says in a tone that suggests he doesn’t want to know. “Look, if you need to go upstairs and rest, I’m sure my parents won’t mind.”

“Luke, is something wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been acting weird with me ever since we got here.”

A hand lands splat on his chest. “ I’ve been weird? What are you talking about? You’re the one who was chipping away the entire drive about some insane bullshit.”

“You treated me like a stranger all through dinner last night. You didn’t even want to sleep in the same bed! How do you think it makes me feel? You’re the only reason I’m here.”

He’s pinching the bridge of his nose, head tilted back as though stanching a bleed. “I just wanted to come and see my parents, forget about work and have a relaxing weekend — but now I’m under siege for not paying you enough attention. I’m not your babysitter, Claire.”

This last comment — as Luke well knows — keys into a deep-seated, long-held, only-child fear that I’m needy and high maintenance. “Not fair,” I say in a low voice. “I don’t know if it’s work stress you’re taking out on me, or something else, but please don’t treat me like one of your teenage girlfriends.”

“What does that mean?”

On the drive home from the Chinese last night, Bob and Jan reminisced about what a ladies’ man Luke had been at school. “Who was the little blonde, Bianca or something? Followed him around everywhere!”

“Called him Lukie, ” Jan added dryly.

“She went to every single one of his soccer games, came around all the time with cakes and cookies she’d made. Hint, hint, Claire!” His eyes found mine in the mirror. “No, I’m only joking. And Luke hardly said a word to her! Never called her back…” Luke had pretended to be embarrassed, but even in the glancing shadows of the backseat I could see he quite enjoyed this image of himself: aloof and irresistible.

“She’s a solicitor in London now, her mother tells me. Very good money apparently,” Jan said, twisting round in her seat to nod at me conspiringly.

“You know what? Never mind,” I say to Luke. “Whatever.”

He draws a hand down over his mouth. “I can’t talk to you when you’re being like this.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t talk to you at all .” Suddenly, mortifyingly, everything gushes. My face is in hot, snotty chaos. “It’s as though you’re a different person! It’s…it’s like you can’t even bear to be near me.” I pull out one of the dining-room chairs and sink into it. “Argh!” I say, trying to laugh between sobs, but my breath catches and a hiccup comes out. “It’s so unfair that this never happens to you!” Luke comes around the table behind me and stacks his head on mine. He reaches his arms around my waist and clasps them in front of me.

“ Please don’t cry, ” he says. Through the open door we see Jan scurry past, head turned discreetly away.

On the drive home, we are polite and cautious.

“Is that too loud?” Luke asks of the music, and I say no, seesawing my shoulders to the beat. For my part, I give life in the fast lane a try, passing perhaps three or four cars, before a bullying Mercedes puts me back in my place.

At the service station, I buy sweets: jelly beans, Luke’s favorite, though I’m not such a fan. Luke picks out all the greens for me and holds them cupped in his hand so I can help myself without having to look away from the road.

“What have you got on this week?” I ask. We both know the answer already, but he plays along.

“Working nights until Sunday,” he says. “How about you?”

“Oh, you know. More of the same.”

“Are you…making any kind of progress?” he asks.

I suck too hard on a jelly bean and tut accidentally. “Honestly, I don’t know.”

“Maybe you just need to dive in and try some thing.”

“But if I do and hate it, all this will have been for nothing. Plus I’ll have lost another crucial few years.”

“Okay,” says Luke. “I’m not trying to rush you. I only want to make sure you’re not losing perspective.”

“What?”

“That this isn’t becoming about more than a job.”

“Meaning?”

“A job doesn’t have to define you.”

“Yours is literally part of your name.”

“Well…that’s the exception that proves the rule,” he says.

“Reverend, professor, sergeant,” I say. “And that’s before I even look at Wikipedia.”

On the radio, a hectic procession of jingles: windshield replacement, cash for gold and a legal claims service for accidents sustained in the workplace.

For the last few weeks I’ve been diligently avoiding my bank balance, but after six days of careful spending (no cafe trips, meals entirely composed of cans and fridge staples) I’m confident I’ve restored sufficient order, and log on to my online account. Combining savings, my last bonus, plus a small, borrowed portion of Luke’s salary, I’d originally calculated I could just about manage a frugal six months without earning, but what confronts me now is so shocking I shut the laptop lid.

—

I phone Geri, my ex-boss, to follow up on a possibly too-breezy email I sent her, asking if she knew anyone in need of a freelancer.

“Actually, I’m glad you called. We could do with someone here to help get a new campaign up and running. Jono’s totally swamped with his own stuff at the moment, and you already know how we work, so it would mean I wouldn’t have to waste time explaining every little thing to someone new. Does that sound tempting?”

“Definitely. How long would it be for?”

“Well, as long as it takes. Six to twelve weeks? Don’t worry, I’m not going to trick you back into a full-time contract or anything.”

“It sounds perfect, thank you,” I say.

“Great. Start Monday?” she says, and names my fee. Pro rata, it’s nearly double my old salary.

“Wow. Really? Are you sure?” I say.

“Hey, that’s freelancing for you,” she says. “Happy to reduce it, if it would make you more comfortable.”

“I think I’ll manage. See you Monday.”

“I think we’re popping you…” says Geri, resting her fingertips lightly on a surface adjacent to the intern’s desk, “here for the moment.” Her eyes scan the rest of the office, perhaps in the hope that by being so vague, I won’t notice my new desk looks an awful lot like the mini filing cabinet where the printer used to be. An old monitor sits there instead, shrouded in dust but with fresh claw marks at the corners where it’s been manhandled out of retirement.