Lisa Owens - Not Working

Paul, my friend from university, is back from a stint abroad that took in Berlin, Tokyo, Vienna, Johannesburg. He’s a conceptual artist of growing repute: I’ve started seeing his work mentioned in blogs (even if I always find them via links on his own). We arrange to meet at a dive bar we frequented in the old days after we’d graduated. I’d traipse into London from my parents’ house in the suburbs to interview for positions whose criteria my patchy employment history — waitressing, babysitting — fell some way short of fulfilling. Afterward we’d sink bottles of wine and bemoan our lost youth (we were twenty-one) and rail about how life wasn’t fair: what more could we do? Why wouldn’t someone give us a break? But while I was spamming every arts, advertising and media organization I could think of with my resume — regardless of whether a job was on offer — Paul was secretly receiving scholarship offers from prestigious art schools all over the world. When I found out, two weeks before he left for New York, I felt deeply, righteously aggrieved. How dare he harbor such dreams? Who had given him permission to aim so high? Who did he think he was?

—

He arrives wearing big boots, their laces agape, beard full and his newly grown-out hair pulled up into a little topknot.

“Congrats on dropping out of the rat race, little one,” he says. He also pats me on the head, a paternalistic bit he always does — it’s ironic, but still, he does it every single time. “After all those years of empty threats! What made you go through with it?”

I tell him about the day I was seized by a powerful impulse to start swallowing things on my desk: thumb tacks, Post-it notes, whatever would fit in my mouth.

“I got as far as putting a paper clip on my tongue before realizing there was another way. So I spat it out and went to my boss’s office to quit.”

“How did he take it?”

“ She was on holiday, so I had to wait another two weeks. But as soon as I’d made the decision, it was as if…I’d been holding my breath for years without knowing, and finally I could let it out. And I didn’t have to swallow so much as a staple.”

“Suicide by bureaucracy: I like it,” he says, slow-nodding in approval.

“Hey, that’s a freebie. Have it for your next show.”

“Mm. It’s not really my kind of work. But thanks,” he adds, eyes shrinking into a smile.

There are ladybugs everywhere; I keep stepping on them and having to clean up their crushed bodies. They’re getting in through the sash windows and startling me when they fly too close, buzzing in my face like tiny drones. Luke says he hasn’t seen any and I wonder if they might be haunting me, or if it’s just that I’m spending too much time in the house.

The year my dad’s company relocated, we had to move, and the pavements in our new neighborhood crawled with ladybugs. I was ten, and the only friend I made that summer was a boy named Jeffrey who lived next door. One of his longer-term projects involved collecting hundreds of ladybugs in a big mason jar over several weeks. When it was full, he dropped a lit match inside. I don’t remember what happened next: it’s possible I walked away to the sound of them popping, but it’s equally likely he put the lid back on, extinguishing the flame. Big ideas, poor execution, that was kind of Jeffrey’s style.

—

I look up “ladybug windows” online and am gratified by the number of search results. “They are overwintering in your window frames,” asserts Quizking2, who has a three-out-of-five-star user rating on the forum. I look up “overwintering.” “Hibernation and migration are the best ways to overwinter,” Wikipedia recommends. Both sound pretty good to me.

I agree to go to a party hosted by one of Luke’s friends from school. This group are all finance guys except for Luke: they’re in chinos or dark jeans and crisp shirts, and their girlfriends are variations on a tanned, thin theme. I feel their eyes on my hair, which is flatter than I’d like, and my dress, which in the bathroom mirror looks a bit cheap. I drained my first glass of Prosecco within five minutes of arriving, and — angling my glass to catch the eye of the pourer — accept a refill every time the bottle comes near.

“Such a shame you guys can’t come to Marbella,” one of the girlfriends, whose name might be Lou, is saying. “Luke works too hard. He needs a holiday.” This is the first I have heard of “Marbella” as a plan, and I can’t think of anything worse. I’m surprised and pleased Luke has counted us out without making me be the bad guy for once.

“Yes, a real shame,” I say. “Next time, for sure.”

“Definitely,” says maybe-Lou, scanning the room. “I’m just going to…” she says and slips past, not bothering to finish making up an excuse.

I take a seat on one of the enormous leather sofas next to a long dish of wasabi peas, and toss a couple into my mouth. Luke’s friend Nish joins me. He has his collar turned up and is wearing sunglasses on his head even though we’re indoors and it’s nighttime. Notwithstanding, he’s a nice guy, good at keeping things going when the conversation starts to flag. He’s definitely the best out of Luke’s friends.

“Watch out, they’re like crack,” he says, nodding at the dish.

I look at him and reach for a fistful more, which I trickle into my mouth. My eyes stream as I grind them down.

“What’s new?” I ask through the burning grit. “Any scandals?”

He fills me in on what he knows. Everyone is getting married: he points out four newly engaged couples and complains about how hard it’s getting to muster the required excitement with every new announcement. Nish is single and shares my ennui at what we dub the “endless parade of the engagement brigade.”

“My theory is, it’s like grandparents dying,” I say. “When it happens to someone else, it’s sad in a vague, universal sort of way, but essentially you don’t really care. When it happens to you, though, it’s the biggest deal.”

“Yes!” says Nish. “Exactly!”

“My granddad just died,” I say. “Good to know you don’t give a shit.”

Nish laughs and shoulder-bumps me.

“So what have you been up to?” he asks. I tell him about the blue-plaque job that I’m thinking of applying for.

“Maybe I’ll get my own blue plaque one day,” I say. “Claire Flannery, Blue Plaque-smith lived here.”

“Meta,” says Nish. “That didn’t take long, then, finding your raison d’être . Didn’t you only quit your last job a few weeks ago?”

“I’m just exploring my options. I might not take it.”

“ If you get it,” he says.

My glass, frosted with salty, greasy fingerprints, is empty. I wave it at Nish. “We have a situation.”

While he’s gone, I keep working through the wasabi peas. I can’t stop palming them into my mouth. Nish returns, having hustled an entire bottle of Prosecco from the fridge. I cough in an attempt to mask the pop of the cork, but end up turning a few heads with my performance. The two of us laugh and clink glasses, brazening it out.

“I think I’ll skip this round,” Nish says, leaning back into the sofa. “Of marriage, I mean. Wait for the second wave once everyone’s divorced, have my pick of you lovely ladies when the competition’s diminished.” He says “you lovely ladies” in a joke-sleazy voice.

I suspect that maybe, encouraged by the fizz, Nish has taken a shine to me. I am hyperaware of his denim thigh against mine, his eyes on my face, his hot breath.