ON THE TREK HOME FROM SELF-DEFENSE CLASS, I PLAY THE CATAPULT interview over again in my head, remembering how I felt distinctly like lion feed walking into the Zelda conference room. A block from home, I’m struck with the spark of a game idea and spend the rest of the day scoping out a plan for the prospective concept. I map out a Groundhog Day–style time loop where the playable characters are trapped in a zoo in which all the animals have been released from their exhibits and are running wild. Ultimately I scrap it, though, because I find once the escaped animals are sedated, the game becomes a bit anti-climactic. Though wandering around eating churros and hot dogs from abandoned food carts is potentially appealing in real life, it wouldn’t sell as a game. I’ve wasted almost two of my ten days and still have nothing.
All I can seem to think about is Zane. Then Charlie. My mind oscillates between them, and I can’t help comparing the two. I was afraid Zane had killed my ability to trust or feel attraction, that I am, still, just one big deadened nerve. Charlie is the only guy I have been remotely attracted to since Zane, and that feeling is equally reassuring and unsettling.
When I reach my apartment, there’s a sheet of paper stuck to my door. I rip it off, already anticipating what it might say. RENT PAST DUE, it reads in aggressive all caps, bolded font that looks too much like a ransom note. My hand goes to my neck, mound bulging in my throat. I’m appalled by the public callout. Couldn’t building management just continue to email me? Is it the public humiliation factor they’re going for? A bullying tactic? You’ve been so consumed with preparing for the end of the world, you neglected to prepare for the basics of your actual life. Tess’s words nag at me. It’s unnerving when she’s right. I crumple the sheet into a ball as I enter the apartment and toss it to Finn, who promptly collects it and brings it back to me.
“We’re not playing fetch with my harassment letter,” I tell him.
He looks up at me woefully and places his chin against my leg.
I sigh. “Fine, but at least drool all over it.” I throw the letter across the room and watch Finn do as I asked, the quickly wet paper clinging to his snout.
I am twenty-eight years old and can’t pay my rent. This isn’t just my mom thinking I make bad choices anymore. This is me possibly losing my home. The distress of my life failures spreads across my insides like dry rot.
My phone vibrates just as I’ve set up my laptop at the kitchen table. “Hi, Mom.” She has a knack for calling when I’m at my lowest.
“Sloane, ah, what are you up to?”
“Just, you know, getting ready for this trip with Tess.” Yes, I lied to my mother about going on a trip to a foreign country with a guy I’ve barely met. Tell me you wouldn’t do the same.
“How is Zane?”
“Mom, you know Zane and I broke up six months ago. So you can stop asking about him anytime.”
“I just wondered if you two had figured things out yet.”
“No, and we won’t be.”
I feel her eyes rolling on the other end of the line. “Anyone else, then? Have you gotten on that India Match dating application yet? Lots of doctors there.”
As I inch closer to thirty, my mother reminds me more and more often that my “best eggs” have died.
“How do you know that?”
“Jaya’s mom told me.”
I picture her head moving in a slight figure-eight motion, gold earrings waggling as she does. The Indian head bobble I’ve never been able to master.
“I’ll check it out,” I lie. I’m grateful I’ll at least have Tess by my side at the vow renewal to help distract my mother from Zane talk. Charlie flashes in my mind, then my conversation with Tess earlier. Perhaps he could serve as a reasonable solution too. A date, even a fake one, could be enough to keep my mom on her best behavior for the night.
She moves on to her next item of concern. “Tell me when you get back from this trip you will get serious about your job search. Ah, it’s been weeks since you left that secretary position.”
I think once again to correct her, that I wasn’t a secretary, rather an assistant at an engineering firm, and also, people don’t say secretary anymore. But trying to politely educate an elder Indian woman is a lost cause. Especially if that woman is your mother.
“I’m looking. In fact, I had an interview two days ago,” I say and immediately regret it, preparing for the inevitable blow.
“What is the job?”
“Actually, it’s a game design position with Catapult Games. They’re the number one—”
“Really, Sloane? When will you take your career seriously, use your engineering degree? You must earn your own way and take care of yourself. Nobody else will do that.”
I sigh. Obviously I know that. I spend most of my time preparing in some way or another.
She’s been married to my father for almost thirty years and still has a separate bank account so she can “fend for herself” should the need arise. She is prepared for surviving people, just not natural disasters. Although now, at my urging, my parents live on a hilltop.
I picture her expression when we went back to face our post-storm home, three days after we had left for what we thought would be an overnight escapade to a hotel, armed with exclusively non-valuable basics that could be easily replaced—pajamas, toothbrushes. My dad’s “good pillow” he couldn’t sleep without and my mom’s silicone earplugs to drown out his snoring. At least I had thought to bring my frayed copy of Judy Blume’s It’s Not the End of the World.
But more than anything, I remember my mom’s face when we saw our house again, the flood damage so fresh the reservoir inside had not yet fully receded and still days away from the decomposing smell of water rot. In contrast to the shock on my dad’s face, she looked . . . resigned. Like she knew her life had been too smooth for too long and this was the thing that was lying in wait, ready to level her.
Everything was new after that, largely paid for by insurance. Clothes, furniture, books, things. New meant not yet messed or waning, but also, void of story or sentiment.
I want to remind her—as I have so many times before—that the gaming industry is bigger than Hollywood and the music business combined, but again, there is no reason to argue.
“I’m looking at other jobs as well.” Another lie.
“You’ve promised me, if no job by end of the year, you will find an engineering position. Not a secretary one.”
“Yes. I’m aware.”
“So, better hurry up. Say hi to Dad.” I hear her rustle around and hand the phone over.
“Hi, honey,” he says. I picture him on the couch, remote in hand as he flips channels, never settling on any one program for more than two minutes, unless it’s a Bob Ross rerun. I imagine him wearing the HAPPY LITTLE TREES T-shirt I got him several birthdays ago that’s become a weekly staple.
“Hi, Dad.” I see his smile, the thin, even slats of space between each sharply rectangular tooth. I think about how tonight the two of them will cuddle into the same corner of the couch, used so much it sinks lower than the rest of the barely touched cushions. I picture his arm around her neck, her hand resting on his knee. How he’ll sweep her hair to the side and rub small circles into the back of her neck. How she’ll get up to make a tea for them to share, knowing he’ll refuse his own and opt for sips of hers. How easy they make love seem.
Mom takes the phone back. “I’ll reach out to Jaya’s mom, ask her about the firm she works at. Good benefits, I hear. Also, don’t forget to put a chair under the doorknob of your hotel room. I saw a story on it. Hotel rooms, not safe.”
We hang up and I try to picture myself working at another engineering firm, sitting at a desk all day, clicking around on CAD software, hating life.
Catapult has to work out.
It has to work out so I can pay my rent. So I can show my mom game design is a promising, lucrative career. It has to work out so I can beat Zane. So I can prove I am a damn good designer. And most importantly, it has to work out because I have no backup plan.
After another hour of staring at my computer screen, no closer to identifying a viable game concept, I give up and close my laptop. I can only hope this trip offers me some creative juice. Finn lifts from his spot at my feet under the table, walks groggily to the bedroom door, stops, and looks over his backside at me with a lazy expectancy.
“All right, buddy, I’m coming.” I follow him into the bedroom to pack. It’s an early flight to paradise tomorrow.