I enjoy lingerie even more than the next person. Don’t get me wrong.
That being said, I am exhausted and have no wish to humor her and go through these items. Clara would never allow me to go back to sleep if I deny her this. So, with as much desire to handle objects as is typically reserved for radioactive isotopes, I reach in and grab out whatever is nearest the top.
Electric blue coordinated bra and panty set. Nice.
Plum and lavender inset bustier with matching cheekies. I will wear this one some day soon just for me.
A bra so padded it could double as a Muppet. I would have to refer to my breasts as Kermit and Fozzie.
Hot pink fishing line.
Oh, wait. It’s a thong.
I cannot be expected to wear a thong. I am not a stick figure. Thongs ride up my butt crack. The removal of undergarments is not supposed to launch a full scale search and rescue operation.
I refuse to go spelunking just take off my undies.
“I am not wearing these,” I say.
Clara snatches them away. Snorts.
Day of Employment:
363
1:11 p.m.
*
Personal Assistants Who Started Today
: 3.
*
Personal Assistants Still Employed:
1.
*
Fit to be Tied
: Rebecca.
*
Actually Tied
: Bert and I. We placed identical bets.
“HOW CAN I BE EXPECTED to accomplish anything constructive if I have to replace personnel every damned minute of every damned day?” Rebecca fumes. She must be very upset; her blotter and stapler no longer run at perfect, intersecting lines. She buttons, then unbuttons her suit jacket on repeat.
Madeline smartly tucks the betting pool notebook behind her back. “Wonder why Mr. Canon is acting nastier than usual. Do you suppose it’s the holiday blues? I always hear the holiday season can cause depression and loneliness.”
Bert laughs. “If that guy is lonely, he has only himself to blame. He probably ate all his young.”
Oh, low blow. That hardly seems fair.
There is no replicant technology that affords androids procreation.
8:59 p.m.
*
Final Exam
: Impossible to complete in the three hours allotted.
“EMMA! EMMA!” A particularly nice girl from first semester study group snags me in the hallway immediately after I leave the classroom.
“Hey, lady,” I say, as I try to cover for being unable to recall her actual name. Anything would be preferable to calling her what I remember her as: Age Inappropriate Pigtails.
“Are you taking Klassen’s Divorce and Child Advocacy intersession course?” She scoots to the side to allow others to pass, ringlets swaying below her ears.
“Yes, I rented the texts last night.”
“Great,” she says. “We’re forming a study group. We’ll probably meet right after class every afternoon in room one-nineteen. See ya!”
She leaves too quickly for me to tell her that I have to use all my vacation time every morning just to be able to attend the class. I won’t have enough time this year for any real vacation. Or study sessions. Or a life.
Day of Employment:
364
8:41 a.m.
*
Laundry
: Sorted. Categorized. Pre-treated.
*
Basically
: Everything but actually washed.
*
Kitchen
: Suffers from an appalling lack of donut.
POUT. I AM HENCEFORTH REIMAGINING the word as more than a mere verb and noun. It denotes my entire state of being at this moment. My outlook.
It’s a good thing today is Saturday. I’ve expended the bulk of my waking moments foraging for the day-old goods that are the greatest perk of being Clara’s roommate.
Erm, I mean, apart from her being my oldest and dearest friend. My sister from another Mister. My Sole Sister—highest of honors between us Heel Hoors. Yikes. Must sort priorities.
But seriously: Homer has a point. Donuts equal yum.
“Clara, are you trying to torture me? Quash my will to live?” Cabinet doors bang. I rummage and search to no avail. Not a single cream puff to be had. Not even a stale apple spice cake donut to soak in my black gold. I mean coffee.
Clara is missing.
I will earmark a few minutes later in the day today to rationalize why I noticed that fact after the donuts. About forty minutes after. And a hunt that would’ve located D.B. Cooper if he had the misfortune to smell of cruller.
She’s always home long before now. Her workday starts around 2:00 a.m. weekdays and as early as midnight for the extra heavy Saturday sales.
That Time to Make the Donuts commercial guy was a fairly accurate portrayal of Clara’s nocturnal adventures. The more successful her entrepreneurial efforts, the more zombie-esque she has become. Which is not exactly an insult in her mind, either. One of the eccentric things that endears her to me is an inexplicable affection for the extraordinarily terrible film I Walked with a Zombie. Which, I must admit begrudgingly, may have grown on me over the years of coerced viewings.
There are days I half expect to find a check from the Sadist Sleep Study Institute in the mail. Compensation to us both for being participants in a long-term deprivation experiment we are both far too exhausted to remember signing up for.
Clara’s text tone sounds out. Her shop is slammed, and the help went home sick.
No need to ask.
My successful lobbying at work helped nudge her catering bid to victory. Even fully staffed it was shaping up to be a huge production day for her. In under three minutes, I tie my hair up, throw on blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and Keds, and back the car down the drive.
I better at least score beaucoup donut holes for this.
10:16 a.m.
*
Here
: Flour.
*
There
: Flour.
*
And Everywhere
: Flour.
“HOW’S IT GOING BACK THERE?” Clara peeks into the prep room.
I’m up on a pallet, working at the cutting bench, giant mixing bowl on an old storage drum that sits waist high. Beside me, several metal racks await donuts to be cut from Clara’s secret recipe dough.
She guards it like none other. It’s all very Super Secret Squirrel. Fort Knox could take tips. Colonel Sanders would tell her to relax.
“You tell me.” I finish another roll through the dough with the cutter. She watches me pop the centers out of donut rings two at a time and place them onto a proof box screen.
I touch the one in the lowermost right corner. “Dibs.”
“Looks like you’ve got it under control. Reminds me of ye olde good ol’ days when you used to help out at my mom’s store.”
“Just like riding a penny-farthing.” I poke out two more holes in her direction for emphasis.
Clara runs back up to man the counter. Display case is all but barren. Neck deep in customers.
“What time exactly does the demand for donuts taper off?” I call up to her. Desperation is evident in my tone. Though tonight’s catering goods are mostly complete, we still have to do the finishing flourishes and prep for transport.
She smiles crookedly over her shoulder at me.
I have flour in places where flour ought not be. Where people typically only complain about having sand in.
Flour has gotten farther than anyone I’ve dated in recent memory.