Kira
“Kira! Get in here!” Mr. Bryant, Kira’s boss called from across the room. Kira felt the back of her neck get hot, embarrassed that everybody in the office turned to look at her as she got up from her seat to follow Mr. Bryant into his private office. He didn’t sound happy.
“Sir?” Kira asked as Mr. Bryant slammed the door shut behind her, gesturing for her to take a seat. “Is something wrong?”
Mr. Bryant sighed deeply, lacing his fingers together and pressing them to his mouth for a long, silent moment before he finally cleared his throat and spoke. “Look, Kira. You’ve been a good employee here. Reliable. Polite. Punctual.”
“Thank you,” Kira said softly, feeling her heart start to pound insistently at the base of her throat. This wasn’t going to end well, was it?
“But I got a complaint today from a customer who said that you were so rude on the phone to him that he will be taking his business elsewhere. I can’t let that happen.”
“What? Who was it?” Kira asked, her jaw dropping open in shock. She was never rude to potential customers, even when they were mean to her. She knew that it was essential to be incredibly nice and helpful on the phone with would-be clients for Mr. Bryant’s law firm.
“That doesn’t matter right now,” Mr. Bryant said. “He said his name was Larry, I think, but it’s irrelevant now, isn’t it? We lost his business. Because of you.”
A cold chill settled over Kira’s body, making the hair on her body stand up. She shook her head in disbelief, then squared her shoulders back and tried to speak as confidently as she could. “Mr. Bryant, sir. Please listen to me. I think I know what’s happened here.”
“Oh, you do?” Mr. Bryant asked skeptically.
“Yes,” Kira said. “Larry is my ex-husband’s name. I’m pretty sure he called in a complaint about me just to piss me off. I’m sorry for that, and I’ll talk to him and make sure that it doesn’t happen again, so he doesn’t waste your time with his little stupid pranks, but—”
Mr. Bryant cut her off with his hand, shaking his head at her. “Kira. I’m disappointed in you. I know you want to keep your job, but this is such a pathetic excuse. Really? Blaming it on the ex? How many times do you think I’ve heard that one over the course of my career?”
“But it’s true!” Kira protested, her voice unfortunately coming out much more high-pitched and squeaky than she’d intended.
“Sure,” Mr. Bryant said, scoffing a little. “Listen, you’ve done a pretty good job here, before today. So I’ll tell you what. I’ll write you a letter of recommendation, but you’ve got to get your stuff out of here by the end of the day.”
Kira wanted to protest further, but she could tell based on the firm, almost stern tone in Mr. Bryant’s voice that there was no room for argument in his mind. He’d made his decision already, and there was nothing Kira could do to convince him otherwise. “Can I get the full payment for today, sir?” she asked softly.
“Of course,” Mr. Bryant said. “Just be sure that you turn in your badge and everything to HR before you leave. All right?”
Kira nodded slowly as Mr. Bryant walked around her to open the door to the rest of the office, clearly trying to get her to walk back out to her cubicle and leave him alone. But for a moment she was frozen on the spot, her body incapable of moving as reality set into her mind. This was really happening. She was losing her only source of income, and with all the bills this month she didn’t even have enough money to feed her son Lucian for a week. What was she going to do?
Finally, Mr. Bryant put his hand on her shoulder, tapping his fingers on the top of her shirt until she finally summoned the will to force her body out of the chair and stumble back out to her desk.
She worked the rest of the day in a haze, her thoughts all blurred together as she entered numbers into spreadsheets and answered the phone and did the other mindless tasks assigned to until 5 o’clock. Kira cleaned out her desk, her skin burning with embarrassment as other office aides and paralegals murmured under their breath around her, clearly gossiping about her inglorious demise, and then she dropped off her badge with the HR representative before bolting from the building as quickly as she could. She just wanted to get home, hug her son as closely as she could, and cry until she fell asleep.
By the time Kira reached her apartment halfway across town, her whole body ached, every muscle tense and every bone aching like her body knew the tragedy that had occurred earlier that afternoon. Whatever, I’ll figure it out, she told herself, trying to summon as much inner strength as she possibly could for her son Lucian’s sake. She had to be strong for him.
But before she could get into her apartment, she noticed a white square of paper taped to her front door. Oh, Jesus Christ, what now? Kira wondered, blinking several times before her eyes could focus well enough to read the writing on the paper. Eviction Notice, Kira mumbled out loud, needing to speak the words audibly out into the air around her before her brain could truly comprehend them. “No. No, no, no!”
Kira ripped the notice off the wall to read it more closely. “Due to circumstances in violation of the terms of your lease, you have two days to vacate the premises. Any possessions remaining after that time will be surrendered to the landlord.” Kira crumpled up the eviction notice into a little ball, panting as she fought the urge to scream like a banshee and disturb all of her neighbors. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!” she hissed under her breath, banging her head against her front door lightly, just enough to cause a little pain to distract her from the reality of her awful, horribly unlucky life.
“All right, fuck this,” she muttered to herself, her blood surging defiantly inside of her as she turned on her heel and marched toward the landlord’s apartment across the hall. She banged on the door as hard as she could, tapping her feet impatiently as she waited for her landlord to get off of his lazy ass and explain himself.
“What?” her landlord Bob said crabbily, barely opening the door to his apartment a crack before sticking his head out to glare at her.
But Kira didn’t back down. She glared back at her landlord, a creepy old guy with wandering eyes and huge hairy hands. “What is going on, Bob?” she asked, trying to come off as imperiously annoyed as possible, like she was the one with the power here. “Eviction notice?”
“Yeah,” Bob said, licking his teeth before spitting on the ground next to Kira’s feet. “You broke the rules, you’re out. That’s what you agreed to when you signed the lease.”
“What rules? I haven’t broken any rules,” Kira said, furrowing her brow in frustration and confusion.
“How about threatening the safety of another tenant in this building?” Bob said, narrowing his eyes as he stared hard at Kira, who felt herself tremble a little as a result of his tangible rage.
“Did…did my ex-husband come by and talk to you or something?” Kira asked tentatively, even though she was pretty sure she already knew the answer to that question.
Bob snarled at her, scoffing and shaking his head. “You’re a fucking piece of work, lady. Coming here playing the victim, trying to get my sympathy. Well, it isn’t going to work. Two days!”
“Wait, I—” Kira tried to say, but before she could get anything else out, Bob slammed the door in her face. “God fucking damn it!” Kira screamed, barely holding her herself back from punching a hole in the door. She inhaled deeply, sucking in as much air as possible to ground herself back to reality before slowly walking back to her apartment, only exhaling again after she closed the front door behind her.
“Something wrong?”
Kira looked up from the floor and saw her babysitter Cara sitting on the couch next to a sleeping Lucian.
“You heard that?” Kira asked. She sighed as she put her purse down and tossed the eviction notice into the trash.
“Was that you howling out in the hallway?” Cara asked as she got to her feet, repositioning Lucian on the couch so that he wouldn’t be disturbed. “Yeah, I think everyone on the whole block heard that one.”
“Fuck,” Kira muttered. She walked over to her kitchen and pulled out a bottle of whiskey she kept around for “special” occasions. “You want a drink? I’m having one. Or twelve.”
Cara smiled and shook her head. “No, I got to go see my boyfriend soon. I’m sorry. I wish I could stay and help out more.”
“No, no, it’s okay, I understand,” Kira said as she poured herself a glass full of whiskey, taking a deep drink and gagging a little at the thick, bitter taste. “Anyway, I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep paying you, Cara. So this might be goodbye for a while.”
“What happened?” Cara asked, putting her backpack back down and walking over to sit across from Kira at the kitchen table.
“Lost my job. And then lost this place. What a fucking day, right?” Kira said with a bitter laugh, tossing more whiskey down her throat.
“Jesus,” Cara said. “Look, I can cancel with my boyfriend and help you look online for jobs and other places if you want.”
“No, no, go,” Kira said, waving her hand as if to physically push Cara away. “I’m sorry I can’t keep paying you to watch Lucian for me. But we’ll be okay. We always are.”
Cara looked like she was struggling to say something, her young face wrinkled up as she stared at Kira with visible pity in her eyes.
“Go on, get out of here, kid,” Kira said, getting to her feet to lead Cara to the door. “I’ve got something I got to take care of, anyway. I’ll see you later, all right? Whenever I get a new place, I’ll come get you so you can say hi to Lucian.”
“All right, I’d like that,” Cara said as she grabbed her backpack again, pulling the hood of her sweatshirt up over her head to protect herself from the cold outside. “Goodbye, Kira. And good luck. I know you need it.”
“Goodbye,” Kira said as she shut the door softly, barely suppressing the urge to curse and scream again. It was a miracle that Lucian had slept through it once. She didn’t want to tempt her luck again.
She stared down at her beautiful son, who had his hands folded neatly under his head, his mouth curved upward a little bit even in his sleep. He was a good kid. Smart, too. He’d on fast that that they were in trouble, even though he was only five years old. And of course I’m creating another minor trauma in his life by firing his babysitter, Kira thought sadly as she pulled a blanket up from the side of the couch to drape over her son. He’s known so much loss already, just because of that loser asshole who helped me create him.
Kira finished drinking the rest of her whiskey, putting it down on the coffee table and cracking her knuckles for a minute to prepare herself for what she was about to do. “I got this, I got this, I got this,” she whispered to herself, leaning over to grab her phone out of the inner pocket of her purse. She scrolled through her contacts list and hit Larry’s name when it popped up on her screen, tapping her feet anxiously as she waited for her ex-husband to pick up.
“Yeah?” Larry said in a surly tone of voice as soon as he answered the call.
“What the fuck, Larry?” Kira said, careful to keep her voice low enough not to disturb her sleeping son. “You called my boss? And you did something to piss Bob off? Are you trying to get me to kill you, or is this your sick idea of doing something fun?”
“I didn’t do shit,” Larry said before yawning right into the phone receiver. “Listen, you called at a really bad time. I got to work in a few hours, you know, on the night shift, so I need to get sleep while I still can.”
“Oh, cut the crap, Larry,” Kira said. “I know what you did. If you hate me so fucking much, you can take it out on me in another ways. Call me a bitch, spread ugly rumors about me to your friends. But don’t fuck with my livelihood. All it does is hurt Lucian.”
“Don’t lecture me about my own son,” Larry said, sounding wide-awake now. “Your life is fucked up. That’s your fault, not mine. If you can’t take care of our son, that’s on you. And hey, maybe it’s time he spent a little more time with his father anyway.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Kira said into the phone before hanging it up, groaning in frustration. Her ex was such a fucking loser, a total waste of space. She couldn’t believe that she had ever loved him.
But after a few moments, her anger faded away, replaced by the heavy blankness of despair. She had no money. She had no friends. And she had a son, a son who needed to be fed and clothed and kept warm in the winter.
What was she going to do now?