When she got home, Randy asked, “Oh, cool, what’s the occasion?”
“I dunno,” said Megan. “I just wanted to get us some fancy groceries.”
Randy poked through the bag. “No snacks?” he said.
“The snacks were all stupid,” said Megan. “It was all, like, tiny bags of dried Himalayan berries for nine bucks.”
“Hey, nice cheese.”
“And I got some fancy beer.”
“Can I have one?” he asked.
“Obviously,” said Megan. “And look at how nice that bok choy looks.”
“Oh yeah,” said Randy. He wasn’t looking at it closely enough. He was looking for snacks. “Do we have any bread for this cheese?” he asked.
“God fucking damnit.”
“What?”
“No, we don’t have any fucking bread for that cheese.”
“Oh, it’s ok, baby.”
“Well, what’s the point of the cheese if you can’t eat it?”
“We could put it on the potato. Hey, don’t look at me like that.”
“We’re not going to put the cheese on the fucking potato,” said Megan. “That’s stupid.”
“Well, hold on,” said Randy. In the cabinet he found some stale tortilla chips. “Here. We can eat it with these.”
“Are those even good?”
“They’re probably fine,” said Randy.
Megan baked the potato and cooked the greens with hot pepper. They ate the nine dollar cheese on the stale tortilla chips and Megan said, “Well, I guess this nine dollar cheese is pretty good.”
“Oh come on, it’s great.”
“It would be great if we didn’t have to eat it with these shitty chips.”
Randy sighed. “Do you remember Kelly?”
“Uhhh, sort of,” said Megan.
“She’s opening up a vintage clothing store in the neighborhood.”
“Wow.”
“And,” said Randy, looking at her sideways, “I’m doing the website for it.” He wiped his mouth and took a sip of beer.
“Oh, cool. What’s it going to, uh, look like?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t started it yet. But she’s having a launch barbeque thing in two weekends, so that’s my deadline. She’s going to give out business cards and coupons and stuff. It’s going to be a pretty big thing.”
“Sounds fun,” said Megan. Sounds like my fucking nightmare.
“So, you want to go? She’s paying me.”
“Paying you to go to her party?”
“No, Megan, paying me to do the website.”
“Oh, that’s cool.”
THREE
You know that part in The Little Mermaid when Ariel has just seen Eric for the first time and she’s swimming around the dressing room, combing her hair and singing? And all her sisters are like “Whoa, she’s happy”?
Jillian was on the train monologizing to herself.
When she got off, she sighed and noted that the sidewalk had never looked so beautiful. She reached up and touched the buds on the trees and smiled and hummed. She even did a little twirl half a block from the office building.
It was ok that she was late. Megan was always late, so it was ok for her to be late once, geez.
“Oh, hey, Miss Megan,” she said. Megan looked at her quickly, then looked back at her computer.
“Hi, Jillian.”
Jillian sighed, put her purse up on the coat rack and plopped herself down in the chair, spinning around in it slightly. “So, what’s new?” she asked.
“Nothing,” said Megan.
“Hmmm,” said Jillian. “Geez, I did not get much sleep last night.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Too much caffeine too late,” she giggled to herself.
“Yeah, you’re not supposed to have caffeine at night.”
“Oh, but it’s ok because I’m in such a great mood.”
“So you’re feeling better? From your accident?”
“Oh, you know, I’m still pretty sore from it and my car is still totaled.”
“Yeah, but you’re feeling better?”
“Hmm, nope,” Jillian laughed. “You know it takes longer than two days to recover from an accident.”
“Uh huh,” said Megan.
“I wonder if I can get a massage covered by my insurance.”
You’d probably have to’ve had an actual injury to get that, thought Megan.
“Oh yeah, that’d feel real nice,” said Jillian. “Do you want to get some cookies for lunch? Just have only cookies for lunch?”
Megan wanted to scream.
Jillian almost snort-laughed when she said this, oh man it was like a truth serum or something. The one pill last night had just made her feel wired and made her sore back feel better, but this morning when she’d taken three it was like a truth serum. Being on truth serum was fun.
“No, not really,” said Megan. “I brought a salad.”
“Oh, you and your salads,” said Jillian. “I know I’m going to have cookies at some point today, I just know I am, so I thought I’d offer to share some cookies with you.”
I can afford my own cookies, thought Megan. “Uh, no, I’m cool. I don’t really like to eat cookies that often.”
“Really?” said Jillian. “I thought all people liked eating cookies. But I guess you’re above cookies. You’re, like, able to resist the temptation.”
“It’s not even really a temptation to have cookies for lunch,” said Megan.
“Are you sure I couldn’t tempt you to have one or two cookies with your salad?”
“No, really, I’m fine,” said Megan.
“Do you think they deliver cookies?”
“What? Who? Who is ‘they?’”
“Oh, you know, the place we get our food from sometimes.”
“I don’t know. Would it really be worth it? Do you really want to tip and pay a delivery fee just for a couple of cookies? Not to mention the waste of gas.”
Oh, I’m not going to just get a couple of cookies, thought Jillian and almost laughed that exploding snort laugh again.
“Hmm, I guess you’re right,” said Jillian.
There was silence for a minute.
When the minute was up, Jillian said, “Can you, um, answer calls for me while I’m gone? I’m going to run out to the Walgreen’s real quick.”
“Yeah, sure,” said Megan. Jillian left with her purse and Megan sat in her chair with a “what the fuck?” face.
As soon as she shut the door, Jillian let the laugh out and doubled over a little bit, then straightened out and sighed. “I didn’t really need to bend over like that,” she said to the empty hallway. “Just felt like it.”
“Did you know that Walgreens has home-baked cookies?” Jillian said in the grocery aisle at the Walgreens. “Incredible.”
I want to make sure I’m fully stocked, she thought. She thumbed through the cookies, which were the size of compact disks and individually wrapped in cellophane. Peanut Butter, Peanut Butter M&M, Sugar M&M, Oatmeal Raisin, Chocolate Nut. Guess I should get one of each. But maybe two Chocolate Nut. There came that old laugh again, because it was she who was the real nut. She looked to the side. Good that no one was there.
But maybe she needed something else. Oh my god, Pop-Tarts were on sale. Those would make a good lunch. Something salty. Hey, these nuts are smoked. That sounds like a health nut thing. Megan was such a health nut! Then that damn laugh again. Two Pay Days, because they were on sale, and then a bottle of water. Yeah, today seemed like a water day. Evian. Oh, cool, they have little Crystal Lites right in the water fridge door. Cool. Jillian took her armload up to the cashier and felt that laugh bubbling up in her chest again. And it felt good to suppress, too, that was how fun the laugh was.