7.01 a.m.
Honestly, I swear I’m the only person in the universe who realizes how pointless life is. People act like mere existence is some beautiful gift, completely overlooking the fact that said existence is nothing but the result of a freak accident that occurred a cool 13.7 billion years ago.
Not to rain on the parade or anything, but we’re all doomed to a limited number of sun orbits before we finally kick the bucket and end up in the same infinite hell as Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler. Perhaps I’m overthinking it, but what we do between now and then barely seems worth getting out of bed for.
Maybe I’m being melodramatic. I just really hate getting out of bed.
2.47 p.m.
Just had a career counseling session with Mr Rosenqvist, who is Swedish and very flamboyant. Like Brüno but less subtle. Actually I think Brüno was Swiss or Austrian or something, but whatever. The point is I can’t look at Mr Rosenqvist without seeing Sacha Baron Cohen in a blond wig.
The dude tries really, really hard to make sure everyone FOLLOWS THEIR DREAMS [he is very shouty, hence the caps lock] and TAKES THE PATH LEAST TRAVELED and STOPS INJECTING HEROIN ON WEEKENDS. [I hilariously added that last one myself. To clarify: nobody at Edgewood High is in the habit of injecting heroin on such a regular basis that it would be of concern to our career counselor. In fact, if you are a lawyer who’s reading this, please ignore every such allegation I make throughout this manuscript, because I really don’t need to add a libel suit to my spectacular list of problems.]
We’re sitting in Rosenqvist’s minuscule, windowless office, which I’m pretty sure is just a repurposed broom closet, if the lingering scent of carpet cleaner is anything to go by. He sits behind a tiny desk that would be more suitable for a Borrower. There are filing cabinets everywhere, containing folders on every single student in the entire school. I would imagine there’s probably some sort of electronic database which could replace this archaic system, but Bible Belt schools really love to do things the Old-fashioned Way™.
So he’s all: “Miss O’Neill, have you given mach thought to vat you vould like to study ven you go to college next fall?”
[I’m going to stop trying to type in dialect now as I don’t want to appear racist. If you can even be racist to white Scandinavian men, which I’m not sure you can be.]
Breathing steadily through my mouth in a bid to prevent the bleach smell from burning away my nostril hair, I’m all: “Um, no, sir, I was thinking I might do a bit of traveling, you know, see the world and such.”
And, to be fair, his subsequent line of questioning regarding my economic situation is probably quite legitimate, given that my grandma and I currently require more financial support than the US Army.
“So do you have money saved up to fund your flights at least?” he asks, completely unperturbed by the decades-old feather duster that’s just taken a nosedive from the top shelf behind him. As an aspiring comedian and all-round idiot, it’s very challenging for me to refrain from scoring the duster according to Olympic diving standards. 8.9 for difficulty, etc.
But back to the issue at hand: my negative bank balance. “No, sir, for I am eighteen and unemployed.”
Patiently moving the feather duster to a more secure location in his desk drawer, he shoots me a sympathetic look. A waft of moldy apple stench floats out of the open drawer, and he hastily slams it shut again. This place must violate at least a dozen health codes. Is that the patter of tiny mouse feet I hear?
“I see. And have you tried to find a job?”
“Good God, that’s brilliant!” I gasp, faux-astounded. “I had not previously considered this course of action! Have you ever considered becoming a career counselor?”
In all seriousness, this is a sore point. For the third time this year, I just handed out my résumé to every retailer, restaurant and hotel in town. But there are too few jobs and too many people, and I’m never top of the pile.
He sighs. “I know it’s stating the obvious. But, well . . . have you?”
Grinding my teeth in mild irritation, I sigh back. “Yessir, but the problem is, even the most basic entry-level jobs now require at least three years’ experience, a degree in astrophysics and two Super Bowl trophies to even be considered for an interview. Unfortunately, due to my below-average IQ and complete lack of athletic prowess, I am thus fundamentally unemployable.”
So ultimately we both agree that jet-setting to South Africa to volunteer in an elephant sanctuary, while very noble and selfless, is not a viable option at present.
Rifling through my shockingly empty file, Mr Rosenqvist then tries another tactic. “What subjects do you most enjoy in school?” He tries to disguise the flinch as he spots my grade point average.
I think about this for a while, tugging at a loose thread on the cushioned metal chair I’m perched on. “Not math because I’m not a sociopath.”
He laughs his merry Swedish laugh.
“Or science. See above.”
Another endearing chuckle.
As a feminist I feel immediately guilty because everyone is trying to encourage girls into STEM subjects now, but to be honest I’m not dedicated enough to the Vagenda to force myself to become a computer programmer. Sometimes you have to pick your battles.
The thing is, I know exactly what career I’d like to pursue, but I’m kinda scared to vocalize it. Most career counselors are interested in one thing and one thing only: getting you into college. Schools are rated higher according to the percentage of alumni who go on to get a college education, and thus career guidance is dished out with this in mind. If the Ivy Leagues don’t teach it, it’s not worth doing. And, believe it or not, the Ivy Leagues do not teach comedy.
Plus, the chances of success in my dream job are not high. Especially for a girl like me.
Rosenqvist continues his gentle coaxing. “What about English?”
Nodding noncommittally, I say, “I like English, especially the creative writing components. And drama.” Before I can talk myself out of it, I add, “Sometimes I write and perform sketches with my friends. You know, just for fun. It’s not serious or anything.” Judging by the tingling heat in my cheeks, I’ve flushed bright red.
But despite my pathetic trailing off, he loves this development. His little blond-gray mustache jumps around his face like a ferret stuck in a combustion engine.
“FANTASTIC! FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS, MISS O’NEILL!” [Told you.]
So now, despite the fact that it’s not exactly a reliable career path, I have a backpack stuffed full of information on improvization troupes and drama school and theaters that accept script submissions. I’m actually pretty grateful to Rosenqvist for not immediately dismissing my unconventional career ambitions, as so many teachers have before.
He even told me about his friend who does reasonably priced headshots for high-school students. Granted, this sounds incredibly dodgy, but I am giving him the benefit of the doubt here because I would be quite upset to discover Mr Rosenqvist was earning commission by referring his students to a pedophilic photographer as a side hustle.
5.04 p.m.
On Mr Rosenqvist’s jolly recommendation, I find myself voluntarily staying behind after school to talk to Mrs Crannon, our drama teacher, about my career. Like, I am actually spending more time on campus than is absolutely necessary. Of my own free will. This is clear, unequivocal evidence that mind control is real, and that my lovely, albeit shouty, Scandinavian career advisor is in fact some sort of telepathic Dark Lord. It’s the only explanation. Well, not the only explanation. For those who do not believe in the supernatural, it is of course possible that Rosenqvist performed some sort of lobotomy on me during our session.
[For all my cynicism and wit, I do actually genuinely care about writing. But, as much as I would love to be, I’m not clever in the traditional bookish way – more in the “watches a lot of movies” and “is very talented at taking the piss out of everything” way. Which means academia is not exactly my preferred environment, due to the lack of emphasis on movies, and the general dissuasion of piss-taking. It’s almost like teachers don’t want to be told their subject of expertise is a cruel and unusual punishment for being born. Weird.]
Anyway, Mrs Crannon’s office is up a random back staircase behind the theater. I traipse up there once the final bell has rung and all other sound-of-mind students have evacuated the premises. I’m armed with a notepad, a sample script, and a metric crap-ton of peanut butter cups, since I assume talking to teachers in your spare time is much like getting a tattoo – you have to keep your blood sugar consistently high in order to survive the pain without passing out.
Mrs Crannon is a lovely woman. She dresses in purple glasses and Birkenstocks and crazy tunics, and veers toward the eccentric side of the personality scale. And she always gives me great parts in school plays because I’m loud enough that the tech department doesn’t need to supply a microphone. I’m currently playing Daisy in The Great Gatsby, for example, despite not being elegant or glamorous in the slightest.
I’ve always liked Mrs Crannon, but in a Stockholm Syndrome sort of way. I mean, do any of us really like our teachers? These are the important philosophical questions, people.
When I walk in, she’s sitting behind a desk piled high with playbooks, coffee mugs and a massive beige computer from the nineties [good old budget cuts]. The whole room smells of dusty stage costumes and stale hairspray. My favorite smell in the world.
“Izzy! It’s lovely to see you outside of rehearsals for once.”
She ushers me in and I take a seat on quite literally the most uncomfortable plastic chair I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter. It is the Iron Maiden of the chair world. I’m not exaggerating.
“Thanks,” I say, trying to give off the pleasant expression of someone who is not in severe physical discomfort at the hands of a chair-come-torture-device. “I brought peanut butter cups to compensate for the fact I’m keeping you from getting home to Mr Crannon.”
“Actually, I have a Mrs Crannon.” She grins, waggling her left hand at me. Her engagement ring has a Dwayne Johnson of a diamond on it, and an elaborate wedding band sits next to it. “I’m gay. And married. Which, as a combination, is apparently difficult for a lot of the population to comprehend.”
“Oh! Awesome. But let me get this straight.” [Or should it be “let me get this gay”? Honestly, what a minefield.] “You’re both called Mrs Crannon? Does that not get confusing?”
She laughs, cracking heartily into the packet of peanut butter cups I’ve plonked in front of her. “Yes, in hindsight we probably should’ve kept our own names. But I had to do something to keep my traditional Catholic parents happy.”
I grin. “Aren’t you tempted to write some sort of farcical sketch about two wives with the exact same name?”
Mrs Crannon smiles warmly. “Which leads us nicely onto your writing. Mr Rosenqvist told me you’ve been writing your own scripts? That’s great! Tell me more about that.” She leans back in her chair [a delightful padded malarkey, you’ll be pleased to know, if you’re at all concerned about the well-being of my drama teacher’s backside].
Suddenly I feel a little embarrassed, mainly because I can tell I’m expected to hold a normal adulty conversation at this point, not one that’s peppered with inappropriate gags and self-deprecating humor. And I’ve sort of forgotten how to do that.
Mumbling idiotically about Nora Ephron, I reach into my satchel, which is decorated with an assortment of pins and badges to give the illusion that I am halfway cool, and pull out the sample screenplay I brought along. It’s a feature-length film I wrote over the summer. The logline [i.e. a one-sentence pitch] is this: a broke male sex worker falls for a career-obsessed client with commitment issues. Basically, it’s an updated Pretty Woman that challenges gender stereotypes while also telling an impressive array of sex jokes. [Be honest. You would so see this movie.]
“You’ve already written an entire screenplay?” Mrs Crannon gapes at me, clapping her hands together like a performing monkey. “Izzy, that’s fantastic! So many aspiring screenwriters struggle to even finish one script, and they’re professionals who’ve been to film school. When I was a working theater director I used to despair of writers who seemed incapable of seeing an idea through to the end. You should be very proud of yourself. Writing ‘fade out’ is quite the accomplishment.”
“Really?”
“Really!” She takes the script from me, examining the professional formatting and neatly typed title page. [My best friend Danny pirated the proper software for me on account of my severe brokeness. Don’t tell the internet police. Or, you know, the actual police.] “I’d love to take it home with me to read. Can I?”
This show of unbelievable support catches me way off guard. “You’d do that? Spend your own free time reading my work?”
“Of course I would!” She crams another peanut butter cup in her mouth, tossing the paper in the overflowing trash can behind her. It’s full of empty candy wrappers and soda cans. Obviously she is just as nutrition-conscious as me, which is precisely not at all. “I know how talented you are through working with you on school plays. You have me in stitches with your clever ad libs and witty improv.”
I blush fiercely. Again. “Thank you. It irritates the living hell out of most people.”
“Well, most people aren’t budding comic writers in the making. Have you given much thought to what you’d like to do after leaving school? College? Internships? If you wanted to do both, USC is incredible for screenwriting – Spielberg is an alum – and you could intern during spring break and summer vacation while you’re in LA. Best of both worlds.”
I fidget with the zipper on the fake leather jacket I picked up at a thrift store last fall. This is the part I dread: coming clean about my financial situation. For the second time this afternoon. It shouldn’t be a big deal, and in day-to-day life it doesn’t bother me that much, but now that it’s actually having an impact on my future decisions, it’s kind of uncomfortable to discuss.
But like I say, Mrs Crannon is good people. So I tell her the truth. “Actually, I’m not sure I can afford college. I figured I’d just get a job here to support me and my grandma, and write in my spare time. Film a few shorts if I can scrape together the cash.”
She frowns. The sound of her computer putting itself to sleep whirs through the quiet room. Even technology has zero interest in school after the final bell. “Have you looked into loans? For college, I mean.” Figures that’d be her next question.
“Kind of. But the idea of being in that much debt scares the crap out of me. Especially with no parents to fall back on.”
She rolls up the purple sleeves of her wild tunic, revealing a set of black rosary beads triple tied around her wrist. Another peanut butter cup bites the dust. She’s plowing through them with such velocity I can only be impressed. If consuming chocolate was an Olympic sport, Crannon would be on the podium for sure. She’s practically Simone Biles at this point.
“I get it,” she says, in a way that entirely suggests she doesn’t get it at all. “I do. But you have to think of it as an investment. In yourself, in your future. It’s so cliché, and I know you’ll have already heard it all with Rosenqvist, but you’re young, you’re bright, you’re ambitious. You have to go for it.”
I nod, but I feel a little deflated. It always leaves me feeling kinda empty when people preach “follow your dreams” to those with “do what you gotta do” kind of lives, even though I know their hearts are in the right place. Maybe being reckless and risk-taking is an option for them, but for me it just isn’t.
Mrs Crannon senses the shift in mood, even though I try my best to hide it from her. Showing vulnerability is about as appealing to me as sticking my face into a bucket of mealworms. But she picks up on it nonetheless.
Wiping a smear of chocolate from the corner of her mouth, she says, “I’ll help you in whatever way I can, Izzy. Dig out old contacts, keep an eye out for paid internships, recommend some places to submit your work to while you’re still a high-school student. USC would be great, but traditional college education isn’t the only way into the industry.” She smiles at me, and I can’t help but smile back. “We’ll figure it out. I promise.”
When I leave twenty minutes later, stuffed full of Reese’s and silently praying Mrs Crannon actually enjoys my screenplay after all that hyperbolic encouragement, I realize that I don’t just like her in a Stockholm Syndrome way. I like her in a human way.
So I do have a heart. Who knew?
7.58 p.m.
“And so, it transpires, I do in fact possess an organ of the cardiovascular variety,” I finish, triumphant.
I’m chilling at the diner with Ajita and Danny, my two best friends in the world. We have a mutual love of nachos and making fun of everything.
Martha’s Diner is super old school, with neon signs and jukeboxes and booths and checkered tiles. It’s massively overpriced and you have to take out a small mortgage to afford a burger, but their fries have been cooked at least eighteen times and are thus the most delicious substance on earth. Honestly, you should’ve seen the hype all over town when Martha’s opened. Largely from those people who post Marilyn Monroe quotes on social media and go on about how much they wish they were born in the 1950s. Like, calm down. We still have milkshakes and racism.
Incidentally, Martha’s is also where my grandmother Betty begrudgingly moonlights as a pancake chef. I mean, it’s not exactly moonlighting when it’s her only job. But it sounds more glamorous if you say it that way. In reality she works twelve-hour shifts on bunion-riddled feet and is in almost constant pain because of it, but there’s just no way she can afford to retire. That’s why I can’t go to college. Not just because of the tuition fees, but because I need to stay in my hometown and work my damn ass off to give her the rest she deserves after so many years of hard graft. It’s my turn to support her for once.
Anyway, I’ve just filled my pals in on my chat with Mrs Crannon, and explained how I’m not as dead in the soul department as previously thought.
“Interesting hypothesis, but I reject it unequivocally,” Ajita replies, tucking a lock of black hair behind her ear and slurping her candy apple milkshake. The henna on her hands is beginning to fade after her cousin’s wedding last month. “I mean, it’s pretty off-brand for you to care about people. In fact, short of an alien parasite feasting on your brain, I’m not convinced you have the capacity to like more than three individuals at any given time, and those slots are already filled by me, Danny and Betty.”
“Valid point,” I concede. Smelling burnt pancake batter, I peer past the server station into the massive chrome kitchen, trying to see if Betty’s knocking around. There’s no sign of her. She’s probably swigging from her hip flask out back while telling dirty jokes to the naive dishwasher. [To clarify, the dishwasher is a person. Not an appliance. My grandma may be nuts, but even she doesn’t engage kitchenware in conversation.]
“That’s cool of Crannon to read your script, though,” Danny says, stirring his salted-caramel banana milkshake with three jumbo straws. He’s wearing a grubby Pokémon T-shirt I got him for his twelfth birthday, which still fits due to his scarily low BMI. “She didn’t have to do that.”
I nod enthusiastically. “Right? And she was so complimentary. She even likes it when I spontaneously ad lib during rehearsals. I did attempt to show some self-awareness and reference the fact it renders most people homicidal, but she was adamant. She genuinely likes my banter.”
“Clearly the woman needs to be sectioned under the mental health act,” Ajita points out helpfully. I flick a blob of whipped cream at her face. It lands on her nose and she licks it off with her freakishly long tongue. She’s Nepali and about three feet tall, but her tongue is like that of a St Bernard. If I spilled my entire milkshake on the floor, for example, she could just vacuum it right up with her tongue without even bending down. It’s truly remarkable.
“Well, I think Izzy’s funny,” Danny mumbles, disappearing under his unruly platform of matted hair.
Aghast, Ajita and I exchange looks. Danny has literally never complimented me at any point in his life. Even when I was five years old and my parents had just died, ours was a friendship built on good-natured antagonism.
“To look at?” Ajita suggests, mentally flailing for an explanation.
“Shut up,” he says, not looking at either of us. “I’ll go pay for these milkshakes.”
And then he slides out of the booth and walks up to the cash register, where a large-of-breast freshman greets him with as much enthusiasm as she can muster for minimum wage.
“What on earth was that about?” I whisper to Ajita, too shocked to crack a joke. “He thinks I’m funny ? What’s next – he thinks I’m also a fundamentally decent human being?”
“Let’s not get carried away,” she says hastily. “But wait, he’s paying for the milkshakes? Danny. Buying us things. Why? Has he been hustling us this whole time? Is he the Secret Millionaire? I think the last thing he bought me was a box of tampons, and that was just his pass-agg way of telling me I was overreacting during an argument.”
Having forked over the moollah, Danny walks back across to the booth, tucking his wallet back into his jeans pocket and looking rather pleased with himself. The Pikachu on his shirt smirks obnoxiously as he almost collides with a waitress carrying three club sandwiches. She shoots him a dirty look, but his gaze is fixed so intently on me that he barely notices. Then he smiles this weird, bashful smile I’ve never seen before. Smiles. Danny. I mean, really.
What, pray tell, the fuck?