| |
My heart aches as I pull my cell phone from my shirt pocket. It’s only ten o’clock in the morning and Chastity is still home. Her shift at the diner doesn’t begin until a little after noon. I’m about to give her terrible information that at first I wanted to hide from her until after she got home from work. However, my wife has always told me to be completely upfront about everything that happens in my life. We have built a robust system of trust between us, and waiting several hours to let her know of what has happened wouldn’t be right.
“Hello?” I hear her say on the other end of the phone call. I swallow hard as I close my eyes and prepare to say what I have to say.
“Hey, honey. I have some bad news.” Though I’ve been rehearsing what I was going to say to her for the last half-hour, I can’t bring myself to follow the mental script. There’s no pleasant way to tell her. “They have let me go.”
There’s a painful silence on the phone for a moment before she replies, “What?”
Swallowing hard before licking my lips and shaking my head, I tell her, “I was just called into the office and they told me they are letting me go. I’m fired, Chastity.”
“Oh, no,” she replies softly into the phone. “Lane, I’m so sorry. Why?”
Again, I rehearsed how I might answer this question, as I knew she would ask. There’s really no suitable response except what Mr. Hanover told me just before he announced to me that my position was going to be eliminated.
“I was told that they have to make some cuts. The plant isn’t turning out as many aluminum engine parts because of the slowdown in new car manufacturing right now. They don’t need three positions for domestic sales, so they’re letting me go.” I shake my head and close my eyes before adding, “I’m so sorry, honey. I didn’t think they would ever fire me.”
It came as a sudden shock this morning. Mr. Hanover walked into the office and looked at me, nodding and offering a slight smile before waving me toward him. I followed the plant manager, and we took a walk around the parking lot just outside the building. The last time he did this, he promoted me to the company sales team. It was just last year that it happened, and Mr. Hanover told me at the time that it was because of the quality I put into the work that I performed for the company. He was impressed back then, but I guess my sales record was just not good enough to keep me on. I offered to go back to the plant floor to work in casting, but the manager told me I would never fit in there after working in sales. It seemed like a copout of an answer, but what could I do? They can hire and fire whomever they please.
“It’s not your fault,” Chastity says with deep empathy. I can always hear the concern in her voice when she is worried about me. “You have worked hard for them for the last several years. It’s their loss if they want to fire you.” She sighs and then tells me, “I’ll talk to the diner’s manager and see if she will let me work a couple of extra shifts over the week. They’ve been looking for another server, so maybe I can fill that time in for them and solve a problem for all of us.”
“You already work full time for them,” I reply. “I’ll get a job, honey. You shouldn’t have to make up the time and money for a worthless husband.”
“You’re not worthless, Lane!” I can tell that my sweet wife is becoming exasperated with me as I wallow in my self-pity. “I would never marry a worthless man, right? We’ll be alright, sweetie. We just need to make a few adjustments.”
I met Chastity three years ago on a blind date that was set up by a mutual friend. Neither of us had been married before, but we had each sowed our own wild oats. From what my future wife told me on that date, some choices she made in her twenties embarrassed her and I admitted I had a few as well. Once we each made certain that neither of us were supporting children somewhere, things took off between us. I married Chastity two years ago, the both of us already in our early thirties, and we have had a very nice marriage that entire time. Though we aren’t wealthy, we’ve made enough money between us to be reasonably comfortable. Unfortunately, that comfort level is about to become more challenging now that I’ve lost my job.
“I’ll find something,” I tell her after taking a deep breath. “You’re so good to me, Chas. I don’t know what I would do without you in my life. I don’t know how I existed at all without you before I met you.”
“Ditto, baby,” she says with an upbeat voice. This causes me to feel a little better as I realize Chastity isn’t going to just roll over and give up. She’s in this with me and she plans to fight. So, I need to fight as well. And I will. For her.
“So, we should cut out whatever we don’t need, right? I guess the date we had planned for Friday is out of the question.”
She sighs. “Yeah, going out for steak is probably not the best decision for us at the moment. We can postpone it and have it as a celebration when you find another job, Lane. Just keep your chin up, okay? I don’t want to hear you getting down over this. We’ll be fine. I promise.”
“I know, honey,” I say with a smile on my face. “Um, what else should we cut? Maybe the television cable?” I hate suggesting it, but it’s one of our larger expenses.
“Oh, that hurts,” she laughs. “Well, I guess for now we probably should. Can you go by the cable company’s office and let them know? Maybe they’ll let us just pause the subscription for a couple of months until we can get back on our feet.”
I nod my head. “Yeah, I think they do that sort of thing.”
“And the cell phone bill. We might have to consider downgrading from the high data plan. It would save us about eighty dollars each month.”
“Ugh. Really?” I love watching ESPN on my phone while on my lunch break. Of course, lunch breaks will look different now that I no longer have a job, so that might not even matter.
“Yeah, we need to do that, sweetie. Everything that can be cut must be cut. We have enough money in the bank to pay a month’s rent and utilities, but not much more than that. I think it would be smart to maintain a strict spending budget for now.”
“You’re right,” I admit. “And I’ll take care of those things today. I’ll also start hitting some of the local businesses and see if there’s anything around here that I can do on the side until I get a full-time job. The way things are looking right now, though, it could be pretty difficult. Even the local McDonald’s isn’t hiring.”
“No, they’re not.”
“What about that other position the diner is hiring for?”
“You know they won’t hire you,” Chastity reminds me. “Misty can barely stand you, remember?” There was an unfortunate incident right after we got married, in which I was a little too drunk at a restaurant in town. Misty, the manager of the diner, was there with her boyfriend, enjoying a meal. She said something to me about being too tipsy and I commented on her enormous chest. I guess she didn’t appreciate those comments and ever since she has refused to be anywhere that I happen to be. I tried to apologize the day after it happened, but to no avail.
“You’re right,” I reply. “Okay. I’ll look around and you take on a day or two more hours in the short term. You won’t be doing that for long, though. I won’t allow you to work yourself to death over me, Chastity. I swear I’ll get a job.”
“I know you will, baby,” she says with an upbeat sound in her voice. “I have confidence in you.” I hear someone saying something to her in the background before Chastity says to me, “I have to go. A large group of people just came into the diner. I’ll see you at home this evening, Lane. Please, just try to have a good day, okay?”
I smile. “I’ll do that. You do the same. I love you.”
“I love you too, baby.” We hang up and I slide the phone back into my shirt pocket. Though I felt ill from worry just minutes ago, I now feel like I can take on the world. All it takes is having my sweet wife believe in me. As long as she does that, I can do anything.
“Fucking Hanover,” I say as I grimace. I look at the large manufacturing plant in front of me as I put the key into my car’s ignition. “I’ve worked so hard for you assholes and you treat me this way.” Though I don’t agree with Mr. Hanover and the company, I understand their reasoning to a point. The fact of the matter is, I was one of the highest paid employees in the plant. The reason for that had a lot to do with my years of service in the plant and the position of sales associate. I did well, though I would guess that Travis, a younger salesman, edged me out in most months. The management there never posted our total sales for others to see, but I could tell by the way Mr. Hanover would interact with Travis that he wanted to keep him happy. He’s the golden boy. I have to understand that.
“Now to find a fucking job,” I say to myself as I pull out of the parking lot and enter the highway. I do not know where I’ll go to look for a new position, though the unemployment office might be a good place to start. Thankfully, Mr. Hanover gave me my pink slip and told me it would be because of a reduction in positions at the plant. This might allow me some unemployment benefits, but not that much. I’ll need to get a job soon if we are going to keep up our middle-class standard of living. It’s not all that much to ask for ESPN on my cell phone or to have a nice dinner every other week with Chastity. Once I find my next job, we’ll go out again and once again enjoy our life together. One way or another, I’ll make my wife even more proud of me.
