seem to provide any service, just websites that you’d accidentally sign up for if you said the wrong thing while buying calling cards or coupon books off the TV. They might say something like, “Would you like to receive hotel rewards in the mail?” and if you said yes, that meant you’d get charged ten dollars on your credit card, every month, until you noticed.
Riley’s job was to listen to these people yell and scream and say their wives would divorce them if they didn’t get the money back. They’d plead and say it was an accident and they really needed the money, that’s why they were buying coupon books and discount calling cards. And Riley would say, “I understand your confusion, but you signed up for the program. We can cancel your subscription, but we don’t offer refunds.” And they might cry or yell or put their husband or wife on the phone to try another angle.
All Riley could do was enter a “support ticket” and promise someone would call them. No one ever would.
She hated the job. It made her sick to get yelled at all day, to be threatened, to listen to people cry. Laura was good at it, though. She enjoyed it. It was an easy job just saying “uh huh,” “yes,” “I’m so sorry to hear that,” over and over again all day. And then she’d write out her notes, submit a ticket, and wait for the next call.
She’d try to remind Riley that they were just voices on the other end of a telephone, that they couldn’t hurt her. Matt had left a few months into the job, and now that she wasn’t supporting him, Riley was hopeful about the future and able to save a little extra money. But it felt like the job was killing her.
She and Laura would go out for lunch, to the KFC across the parking lot from the office building, and eat popcorn chicken and share a Pepsi and stories about recent calls. One caller was a young man, from somewhere in Texas, who offered Riley a brand–new truck if she would send him their list of contacts. She didn’t do it, but she liked knowing she had access to information people would pay for. She was young, but in charge of something important.
After Riley quit the call center job to start working at the agency, she and Laura stayed in touch. Laura had gotten a promotion and was now managing the floor. She was only twenty-two, so it was a big deal. But she was good at it, and kind to her team.
“Just remember,” she’d say about the angry people who would call them, “they’re not real people like you and me.”
Chapter 4
Riley walked down the hall toward the bathroom. She could now feel the dust and dirt collecting on her wet feet. Where did it all come from? She knew where the long brown hairs came from, but what about all the long grey fibers that collected in the corners of rooms? She didn’t have a pet. Was animal hair just in the air all the time, and in her lungs and in her food and in her ears and mouth?
She tried not to think about it.
She pulled her tattered sweatpants down to her ankles and sat on the toilet. She thought about the small bottle of Jameson she kept in the drawer under the sink. She thought about opening the drawer, slowly, and seeing the green glass shape filled with golden liquid. She thought about unscrewing the cap with the swift and automatic motion she’d perfected. Just one flick of her wrist and it would spin all the way off.
She thought about bringing the bottle to her dry lips. She thought about the droplets of alcohol that would collect on the edge, touching the small split in her bottom lip that had formed in the night. She thought about the whiskey mixing with the blood, and the pain she’d feel and find herself enjoying.
She thought about tipping the bottle back, letting the cool liquid fall into her mouth, and feeling the tingle as it combined with the saliva on her tongue. She thought about holding it there, for a moment, letting her taste buds touch and tease it. She thought about swallowing it, feeling it run against her throat.
She thought about how much better she’d feel as she felt her body absorbing the alcohol. About how much easier it would be to get in the shower, get dressed, and go to work. With just a taste. Just enough to tell her brain there’s more where that came from if you help me get through this.
But she didn’t open the drawer. Somehow, she kept it closed. It was her morning ritual now, her first test of the day. If she could pass that test, she could do anything.
She flushed the toilet, washed her hands, and then looked into the mirror. The stud in her nose was dull, and she wished it still sparkled. Her skin was pale and untanned, but healthy-looking. She wanted to be pretty, and some people said she was, but she never saw it. She just saw messy hair and tired eyes.
She arrived at the office late, as always, but it was better than getting there on time and spending the whole day tired, or hungover, or wanting to spend it all on the toilet. Better to recover from the night before at home, even if it made her a few minutes late.
Most of her colleagues were already at their desks, spread out across the long, open space. Her desk was at the opposite end from the door, so everyone always knew how late she was. But she didn’t care. They also knew she was the one who was there latest, most evenings, and in on the weekends.
She hadn’t washed her hair and hoped it didn’t smell too bad. Recently, she’d noticed that even if she showered, people could still tell if she’d been drinking the night before. Was it her hair? Where was it coming from? Just seeping, slowly, out of her pores? What was the ABV of her sweat?
The forty or so employees sat at desks with awkward quarter-length walls between them. Not quite cubicles, not quite giant flat desks. Just little plastic walls, like table tennis nets, separating each other.
You could hear everything and see everyone (from the eyebrows up, at least). So, of course, it was always quiet, except for when it was agonizingly loud. Not a hum, like in a normal office, just high peaks and deep valleys of sound.
It was never not distracting.
Right now, her shoes were click-clacking on the smooth, cement-like floor. She was wearing flats, but their hard soles made her sound like a tone-deaf tap dancer. She wore tight black jeans with a white blouse and a chunky turquoise necklace. Her hair was up in a messy bun.
Her brown leather laptop bag was slung over her shoulder, banging into her thigh with every step. She smiled at everyone she could feel looking up and smiling at her, but she kept looking toward her desk with a practiced confidence that really wasn’t.
Riley’s desk was full of loose papers. Before she unpacked her laptop, she gathered up all the papers and put them into a drawer. She couldn’t work with a messy desk, but she couldn’t be bothered to do any real cleaning. This was enough.
After setting up, checking her e-mail, and drinking her first of many coffees, she started proofreading the RFP response she’d written the day before. It was full of mistakes, typos, and sentences that just dropped off without completing a thought.
Her first drafts could be rough. Her mind wandered, and she couldn’t always type fast enough to keep up with her thoughts. Other times, she couldn’t think fast enough to keep her hands busy, so they just typed on, stringing nonsense together. But she would keep working. Keep polishing. Keep trying, harder and harder, to prove she could do this, and do it well. And, so far, it seemed to be working.
By lunchtime she’d convinced herself that she didn’t need a beer, so she stayed at her desk instead of going across the street to the pub. Her office crush was still at his desk, too.
The large open space was mostly empty now, with some people having gone out for lunch, and most of the others in the kitchen, eating what they’d brought from home at the long table. For Riley, though, it was just him and her. Just the two of them in this cavernous space. This cement cathedral. She could hear him typing. She could hear the wheels of his chair move across the floor when he shifted his weight.
She wished she could smell him. What would that be like? She had never gotten close enough to find out.
He’d rolled up the sleeves of his navy blue shirt. His forearms looked strong, like in another life he’d cut down trees or maybe he just went to the gym. He kept brushing