Jillian’s desk was large—executive, almost—and made of mahogany-colored laminate. Megan’s desk was small and made of glass and cheap, black metal, and Megan had decorated the glass with a fanciful pattern of coffee splatters, adhesive, and various other dribblings. Megan’s desk was placed in the corner between a fax machine and an oversized, locked trash can. She had a nice view of the wall.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” said Jillian, “I love my job.” She peeled the plastic flap off her lunch and slapped it on her desk with a practiced gesture. “But it’s a dream of mine to work on my own terms. And I think, you know, when a person has a passion, they should follow it.”
“Mmmm,” said Megan.
“And since I keep collecting all this organizing stuff, I think it’s pretty clear that it’s a passion, so I’m trying to really listen to it so I can understand what it means for my future.”
Megan squeezed the bridge of her nose.
“I’m sorry?” said Jillian.
“Oh, nothing, I’m sorry. I was talking to my computer.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I do that all the time,” said Jillian. She laughed. “So what do you think of my idea? Do you think about that stuff sometimes?”
“Yeah, I guess. I don’t know about organizers, though,” said Megan. She dropped her voice an octave for the authoritative thrill. “I think sometimes people buy organizers to make themselves feel satisfied with their intentions, rather than to help them organize.”
“Hmmm, that’s interesting,” said Jillian.
“It’s just an opinion.”
“It’s cool how different people are,” said Jillian.
“Yeah, maybe,” said Megan.
“So, Miss Megan, what’s your dream job? Go ahead and describe it to me.”
Jillian was a thirty-five-year-old woman. Megan was twenty-four.
“Gee, I don’t know,” said Megan. She looked around the office. “I guess this.” She widened her eyes at her keyboard. “I guess I would like to have a job that’s easy like this, but maybe with better pay and fewer hours.”
“Awww,” said Jillian.
“What?” said Megan.
“We do hard work.”
• • •
Megan threw her skirt on the floor and said, “Jillian.”
Her boyfriend, Randy, was making dinner. He was cutting a zucchini into slices and laying the slices on top of a frozen cheese pizza.
“Today she burped in the middle of a sentence,” said Megan. “Like it was a word in her sentence.”
“Ha ha,” said Randy. Megan leaned against the kitchen sink.
“JILLIAN!” said Megan, raising her arms.
“Yeesh,” said Randy.
“She thinks she’s going to become a personal organizer.”
“I don’t know what that is,” said Randy.
“Yes you do.”
“Yeah, I guess I do,” said Randy.
“When she told me about it, it occurred to me to say, ‘Well, never in all my life!’”
Megan thought about this and tried to sit on the edge of the sink. “I don’t really know why I wanted to say that. I just want to do my work without having to listen to her dreams.” Megan gestured again. “I don’t want to stress out about her dreams.”
“It’s a really small office, right?” her boyfriend asked. “So, you’re really trapped in there.”
“Completely trapped.”
Megan kept thinking about Jillian and tried to sit on the edge of the sink, but fell backward into it. She hit her head on the aluminum cabinets. Randy heard this, along with the noise of some dishes.
“You all right?” asked Randy.
Randy walked to the sink, which was attached to the wall shared with the living room. Megan started shaking and said she thought she might throw up. He put his arms around her and lifted her out of the sink. When he looked down into the sink, he cringed.
“I fell on that knife,” said Megan.
“You sure did,” said Randy.
He walked her through the living room while assuring her that she would be fine. Megan’s knees jiggled.
“Here, lie down,” he said. Megan got on her stomach on the bed and Randy pulled her tights down. He looked over at the pile of clothing in the corner of their small, unlit bedroom, hoping to see a pair of sweatpants in the wad.
“I’m going to get something for this,” he said.
“Did I cut myself?” asked Megan.
“You did,” he said.
“I thought so,” she said, and then nearly fainted.
Randy got up from his squat beside the bed and walked to the kitchen. Megan continued to lie on the bed on her stomach, her face pointed at the clothing wad. In the kitchen, where he was getting a bowl of warm water and a roll of masking tape, Randy saw the knife she’d sat on. It was surrounded by watery blood. Next to the knife, floating in a teacup, was a small crouton.
He went to the bathroom to dry-heave and get gauze, Neosporin, and Tylenol.
When he got back to the bedroom, she was sobbing. He set his things on the nightstand and took a moment to look at the underwear around Megan’s ankles.
“Hey, it’s not that bad,” he said. The gash was deep, but not incredibly bloody. He rinsed and dried it, then covered it with a quarter of the tube of Neosporin.
“It really hurts,” she said.
“I know, I know,” he said. He rubbed her head for a minute. “Do you still want me to make that pizza?”
“What? No. Maybe. Maybe I’ll want that pizza later,” she said. “You decide, I don’t know.”
“Okay, I’ll decide,” he said. He wiped her nose and eyes with the extra gauze. She looked like a disgusting dead sea creature. Randy began to smile and wipe the stray hairs out of her face.
“My ass hurts so much,” she sobbed.
“I know it does, honey,” he said.
Megan remembered what she had been talking about when she slid into the sink and said, “Jillian is such a fucking idiot!”
“I know, honey,” said Randy. “She’s a total idiot.”
“No, I’m serious,” she cried. “This is serious!”
“Of course it is,” said Randy.
“I get a dangerous sense of foreboding when I’m around her.” Megan swallowed some spit. “She’s seeping into me! Everything she says and does, whenever she opens her mouth!”
Randy nodded and rubbed Megan’s ears.
