It’s only been a year since I started working at the law offices of Horowitz and Chau, and I’ve already adopted the habit of gleefully speeding away from that beige prison. As I get onto the subway and it takes me further and further away from the Hell Hole, my heart grows lighter, but the intensity of its beating doesn’t waver a bit. I have a hell of a weekend coming up: a double date with my boyfriend Scott, as well as Brittany and whatever guy Brittany is currently bedding.
She’s got a revolving door of square-jawed hunks at her disposal so I’m hoping she brings someone who’s not as much of an empty-headed model as the last guy she brought to our double date. Maybe someone I can even talk about art with.
I love Scott but he’s not too keen on checking out my drawings. As a matter of fact, he hasn’t been too keen on much in my life lately. But I can’t entirely blame him. Whenever he comes home, he looks so worn out from work. He’s been working these bizarrely late shifts, so it’s not hard to imagine why he hasn’t been interested in much as of late.
I can’t say it doesn’t bother me to have such a distant boyfriend, but once he goes back to his regular daytime shifts, things should return to normal. Maybe he'll even model for me again. He’s not a fan of having pictures taken of him but sometimes he lets me draw him while he watches TV or cooks. He’s even let me draw him naked a few times.
A kid beside me starts crying and his mom hands him a coloring book. Good idea, I think. Coloring always calms me down, too. I reach into my messenger bag so I can start working on the details of my last Scott-modeled live sketch. I reach into the bag, but can’t feel the spirals that hold the sketchbook together. Acting fast, I dump out all the contents of my bag onto the seat next to me and find that my sketchbook isn’t with me.
Damn it. I must have left it behind.
The last thing I want to do after work is go back for any reason whatsoever, be it overtime, work party, or any other goddamn thing. But there’s no way I’m going a whole weekend without adding to my spiral bound collection of art. That sketchbook is as much apart of me as my nose is.
I quickly scoop all of the items back into my bag and jump off the subway at the next stop, only to wait for the one coming in the opposite direction and get back on again. Somehow, the subway ride away from the office seemed much shorter than this begrudging but necessary ride back. Now the intense beating of my heart isn’t from the excitement of the weekend but from pure frustration. Once I’m off the subway again, my disgust for the building I work in comes to a peak as I walk towards the doors I was so eager to run through earlier. I grip the door handle and try jerking it towards me, to no avail.
People usually leave the building on Fridays rather quickly but to have everyone out already must be some sort of new record today. Just my luck. I have a key in my messenger back but it’ll be a pain to find and fish out. I remember how Brittany was being led down the hall by a partner when I left, and figure she might still be in the office working on whatever new project has been assigned. Looking at the Slack app on my phone, I can see that the light beside her name is green, indicating that she is still at work and online.
Whew. I try calling her so that she can let me in, but I get nothing. After three attempts, only her voicemail has answered me each time.
I know Brittany sees my number on her phone— she doesn’t ever put it away, even in front of supervisors. At first I thought that she could get away with that sort of thing because she’s been here at the firm longer than I have, or maybe that other people were afraid of being bitched at by her by suggesting she put away her phone. But then I realized that the aura she gives off says she doesn’t give a shit— or maybe even that she’s an important, powerful person who must have her phone on her at all times— and so no one else really cares.
I try to give Brittany the benefit of the doubt, thinking that maybe she’s surrounded by partners in the middle of a heavy planning session and can’t possibly take a call right now despite doing it many times in the past. But deep down I know that she knows I wouldn’t be calling unless I really need something— usually I just Slack or text— and I can’t help but think that even though I love Brittany, she’s been such a bitch lately. And she’s a real monster when she’s bitchy.
Just like she was a couple days ago. For some reason, she was super mad at me for asking her to our monthly-ish double date. I was excited because it had been longer than usual since our last get together, but she was so insistent on being left alone, she even raised her voice at me. I wasn’t even able to get her to agree to go at first. Scott took the phone from me and walked into the living room while I calmed down by myself. Being a fast-talking broker in the finance and sales world, Scott is the persuasive type and he got her to tag along even though I was no longer that excited about having her join us after, being yelled at.
And now I’m just pissed. Brittany is inside and not letting me in. Could she still be unreasonably upset with my double date invitation?
I hadn’t even let her in on why I had wanted to have this double date so badly, because it was a surprise. I wanted to celebrate my love for both Scott and Brittany with portraits I spent hours painting these past couple of days. Then after dinner, when I’d reveal these paintings, I’d suggest going dancing like how we used to, back in the day.
Brittany and I used to go out and do it all the time and then when I first started dating Scott, he would come too. Those first days of our three-person friendship were spent dancing, eating, and talking endlessly. But now we all seem so out of touch and far away from each other, so, I’ve planned this weekend as my way to rectify that situation.
But now, I’m starting to wonder if all that time was even worth it. Maybe Brittany is too busy working, just like Scott has been, and neither one of them have time to see me anymore. Perhaps that’s a sign that I should focus on my own career more.
But as I gaze at the ugly brown building in front of me, I think, no way, fuck that. If my theory that Brittany and Scott are too busy with their careers to have time for me is correct, then I’ll just have to make new friends, or have more cozy nights at home with Lucy, and if worse comes to worst, I’d rather be bored than a workaholic for The Man.