Sprinkle me.
Well. It’s Monday. Again.
And I need to check the closet.
I scramble out of bed.
The fabric is still there. The papers scribbled with new ad possibilities survived too. Everything I put in the closet survived the night. I turn around. Everything I didn’t put in the closet is back where it was on the first Monday. The phone, the clothes, the briefcase . . .
It is a magic closet.
I spend ten seconds dancing around, my limbs a spastic blur divorced from the music’s tempo, but whatever. Something is different, something I can maybe use to my advantage, and it makes me inordinately happy. I can control something in this weird . . . whatever this is.
I stop dancing and reconsider the confined space full of work clothes and boxes. Maybe I should sleep in the closet. It’s small, barely large enough for me to sit in comfortably, but it might work. I’ll try tonight. Something I can control, right?
I’ll figure it out later. For now, I have to go get fired and then dumped by a narcissistic malcontent.
My stomach lurches.
I hate talking in front of people, and knowing I’m going to get fired at the end is like an extra turd on a giant crap cake.
But it’s not a life-or-death situation like my mind wants to believe. Like my body seems to. My own thoughts make it worse. They always have. How do I escape my own self-defeating thoughts?
But what else can I do? I have to get through this, right? At least I have a brand-new pitch to try out.
And I have an idea on how I can avoid the train.
I bring sanitizing supplies to the pay phone on the corner, clean it off, and then call the yellow cab.
I arrive at the office ten minutes sooner than I would have if I had taken the train, and I’m poop-free.
It’s already a better day.
This is totally going to work.
Instead of asking Hannah or Presley to tell the others I’m here, I go straight to the conference room. I miss running into Alex but, oh well, it’s not like he’ll notice or care.
And still, knowing how this ends, knowing I won’t die or anything doesn’t change my body’s response. I’m sweating. Again. My heart is racing. Again. Black dots swarm the edges of my vision.
No.
I can do this.
This is just a meeting. I’ve been here before. But why does my body respond like I’m surrounded by black mambas?
Ugh. Get over this, Jane.
It’s great. It’s fine. I’m going to sweat like a pig and screw it up and I hope I do, I hope it’s terrible, I hope they go all Lord of the Flies and band together and kill me.
I almost laugh at the thought, the ridiculousness of my thoughts dropping my anxiety down a notch.
What’s the worst that can happen? It already has. They’re just going to fire me. It sucks, but it’s not death.
“It opens with a brief clip showing the development of a budding romance, two lovers meeting for the first time at a restaurant. More clips of them dating, kissing, moving in together, a whole relationship revealed in the span of seconds. Then they’re fighting, yelling in the rain, at night. They’re both alone.
“But then she’s walking along the street near their first meeting. She gets a notification and he’s there, at the restaurant they first met. They reunite, it’s very romantic, and the tagline reads: a splice of life.”
Blade and Drew exchange a glance. Did Blade roll his eyes?
Okay, maybe it’s not the best pitch but I came up with it in the span of an afternoon, shouldn’t that get me something? I thought it wasn’t half bad. And it’s about love. That’s what’s supposed to get me through this, right?
“Jane, it’s fine, but it’s not quite there,” Stacey says.
I let out a breath. I know what’s coming next.
“So, you’re firing me.” I deflate like a popped balloon.
“Don’t think of this as a door closing. It’s a whole bunch of new doors waiting to be opened.”
“Right.” I gather up my papers but then stop. “Wait.” The last thing I want to do is extend this conversation, but I have to know. I force the words out, my voice quavering through it. “What could I have done differently?”
“We want something with more emotional punch. But I’m not sure you have it in you, Jane,” Drew says.
Basically what they’ve already told me.
I leave and head straight out the back into the alley, avoiding Mark, avoiding Alex, avoiding everyone.
There has to be something I can do. Something that can adjust or shift or something. I will find a pitch that works, even if I have to work on it all day every day for a month of Mondays.
I am not giving up. I will change this one thing about this day if it kills me.
Over the next however many Mondays, instead of working on keeping my job like I declared I would, I work on doing anything and everything I can think of to get out of it.
Having a panel of critical people staring at me and judging me and finding me lacking is . . . worse than having a mouth full of bees. I push through it, trying new things a half dozen times, but I need a break.
So I run some experiments.
First, with the closet. The magic closet only works for inanimate objects, and it doesn’t work for everything. When I try to sleep in the closet anyway, I end up back in bed the next morning. Twice.
Most inanimate objects stay in the closet without disappearing, like fabric, papers, toiletries, books. Everything but money. Money and me seem to be the only things the closet spits back out overnight.
The universe wants me to be miserable and poor. There’s my sign.
Attempting to stay awake all night doesn’t work either. I black out from forces beyond my control at around five a.m. And it’s a terrifying and sudden blackness. Not a fun experience, one I do not wish to repeat, so that one becomes a hard pass after the first attempt.
Leaving the city is impossible. When I go to the airport in the morning, the planes are grounded because of fog and low visibility on the runway, and there are no rental cars available. June gloom. Dammit, Karl.
I also go to a few different doctors. A neurologist first. They run tests—CT scans, blood work, an MRI—to rule out brain-tumor-induced hallucinations and any other physical cause. Everything comes back clean. As far as I know anyway, maybe they’re part of the hallucination too. Who knows? Also, a majority of the tests don’t have results for a few days. Ha. Yeah, “We’ll call you tomorrow” always gets a good laugh.
I try a psychiatrist, but I’ve done therapy before for my anxiety and they want to schedule future sessions and prescribe medication.
So I’m stuck. Even if it’s all a dream, it’s one I can’t get out of.
And the only way out is through. So time to choke on some bees.
“The scene is a crowded dance club. The camera fixes on a group of friends showing up together and having a great time dancing, but they get split up in the crowd. Both groups end up leaving. They need food after a long night, right? And then one group gets a notification that their other friends are at a restaurant nearby, and they find each other and eat together. The tagline can be: Splice up your life.”
Stacey winces. “Well . . .”
“A splice of heaven?”
“No.” Drew shakes his head.
“A family over the holidays, getting together, sharing the love, any way you splice it!”
The room is silent. Three sets of eyes staring at me.
Stacey smiles, but it turns into a wince. “Um. What exactly are we splicing?”
“The greatest thing since spliced bread.”
Blade sighs, his pen tapping on his notepad. “Jane, the demographic that would recognize that cliché is not using mobile apps.”
“Grab a splice of the action!”
Drew frowns. “I’m not sure dinner could be considered action.”
“And I don’t think the client wants to spend ad money on explosions.” Blade raises his brows at me.
“CGI may be too expensive, I’m afraid,” Stacey adds.
“Splice it right up your pie hole!”
Stacey frowns at me. “Wait. Um. What?”
“Never mind. I’ll see myself out.”
After twenty-odd failed pitches, however, the sting aches less and less. My nerves and anxiety aren’t quite as debilitating. They’re still there. I can’t imagine them ever going completely away, not with three people staring at me with their beady little judging eyes. I guess immersion therapy works somewhat though, because I keep screwing up, over and over and over, and gradually, I stop caring as much about their reactions.
Getting fired doesn’t hurt nearly as much the fiftieth time.
And that’s where my silver lining ends.
The Mondays continue and no matter what I say, over the course of weeks and weeks of Mondays, the results are always the same. I can affect some things, like how I get to work, who I talk to each day. I may be able to avoid getting poop on my hand and sleeping with Mark, but that’s about it. I still get fired. Over and over and over.
The more days pass, the more I realize how vile he is. Why did I ever hook up with that jerk? Ugh. It makes me want to spew just looking at him now.
He is definitely not what this love thing is all about and if he is, the universe is messed up.
I want to let him know exactly what I think about how much of a repulsive, sickening, revolting turd he is. I have a whole speech planned out in my head, crafted over the course of so many Mondays, using a lot of adjectives, but despite the anger bubbling in my veins every time he’s in my general vicinity, I can’t do it. I try a couple of times. I open my mouth to tell him off and the words stick in my throat and my heart starts beating too fast, and I just can’t. So I run away.
I try to stay positive, but frustration gets to me after getting fired for the zillionth time.
One Monday, after getting fired again and avoiding Mark by mumbling something about being on my period, I leave out the front for the first time in a long time, shoving open the door and exiting without looking back, my mind trying to drag me into the mire of depression.
What’s the point of reliving the same day if I can’t actually change the major outcomes, the things that made it so shitty to begin with? It’s been almost three months of this now.
Footsteps pound the pavement behind me.
“Hey, Jane. You okay?”
“Alex. Hey. Yeah. I’m all right.” I’m not but what can I do about it that I haven’t already done?
“How did the pitch go?”
I shake my head. “Not great.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
Alex is among the things and people I’ve been avoiding. When I run into him, he’s sweet and concerned and he asks about the interview and I brush him off. I don’t want to admit I’ve been fired. It’s embarrassing. Shameful. But I hate lying to him. He’s always so honest and open about everything.
During his very first meeting with the marketing team at Blue Wave, he talked about his failures, how many mistakes he’d made along the way to success. He said he learned more from failure than from success, and he didn’t want anyone on his team to be afraid to fail, because fear prevents creativity.
I wish I could be more like him. Fearless in the face of adversity, instead of just a scared failure.
I could tell him the truth. I know him well enough to know he’s not the judgmental type, but opening up to people, especially people I respect and admire, is like being skinned alive. Rejection and lack of understanding is too common an occurrence.
And yet.
“I got fired,” I blurt out. Heat fills my face. I can’t meet his eyes, instead fixating on a crack in the sidewalk. Why did I tell him?
“Oh, Jane. Hey.” He dips his head to meet my eyes. “That really sucks.”
I wave him off, even though my eyes are stinging. This is humiliating enough without crying in front of Alex. I’m a lot of things, but a crier isn’t usually one of them.
Maybe because I usually don’t talk to other people about my problems.
I shove the thought away. Now is not the time for introspection. “It’s fine.”
But it’s not fine. I blink back the tears. I hate this day. Over and over this damn day.
“Hey listen, I’m in a band. We have a gig tonight. I mean, it’s not a big thing, we’re the opening act and it’s at the Saloon, but you should come. I’ll buy you a drink.”
“Pity invite, huh?” I laugh, the sound brittle.
“No.” He shakes his head. “Not at all. You should come. Please?”
Alex’s expression is careful, his hands shoved into his jeans.
This is new.
This is different.
On the Mondays I don’t avoid Alex, he never asks me to this show. I didn’t even know he was in a band.
A normal person would jump at the chance. But of course, my first thought isn’t about spending time with Alex. My first thought is about social anxiety. Go, by myself, to a bar I’ve never been to, to potentially hang out with Alex and his bandmates? Please. The old Jane would run so far and so fast, she’d leave a Jane-sized outline in smoke. I still want to say no. This is totally and completely outside of my comfort zone. I’ll probably do something dumb or make a total ass of myself.
But . . . is this a sign?
And if there’s no tomorrow, what does it matter?
Why not go?
It would be different. Different is good.
I need to change something about this day. And if I do something awkward and embarrassing, as I do, it’s not like anyone else will remember because tomorrow will reset everything, so really, there’s no risk.
I could show up wearing a G-string and cowboy boots and the slate will wipe itself clean overnight like it never happened.
“Yeah. Maybe.” I straighten. “I mean, I’ll go.” My voice shakes only a little.
His whole face lights up with his smile and I can’t help but smile back, even if my lips tremble with the motion. “Really? That would be amazing. Eight o’clock.”
I give him a shaky nod and straighten my shoulders. “I’ll be there.”