And something fun to eat. The snack aisle. Oh, yeah, I like this, she thought. Cruelty-free agave dino gummies, gluten-free-cookie mixes, puffed and naturally flavored corn and rice balls, crackers made mostly out of raw seeds, a bag of dried Himalayan goji berries. Yeah, cool.
Ultimately these things were too expensive, so she picked a small-farm cheese and a six-pack of nice beer. “I mean, I work all the time. This is why I work, isn’t it?” she mumbled. “I’m a hard worker. I can buy this cheese. It’s just cheese, I guess.” She was standing by the cheese case, holding the cheese, looking at the cheese, and pumping herself up to buy it. “Fuck it,” she mumbled, and tossed it in her basket.
When she got home, Randy asked, “Oh, cool, what’s the occasion?”
“I dunno,” said Megan. “I just wanted to get us some fancy groceries.”
Randy poked through the bag. “No snacks?” he said.
“The snacks were all stupid,” said Megan. “It was all, like, tiny bags of dried Himalayan berries for nine bucks.”
“Hey, nice cheese.”
“And I got some fancy beer.”
“Can I have one?” he asked.
“Obviously,” said Megan. “And look at how nice that bok choy looks.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Randy. He wasn’t looking at it closely enough. He was looking for snacks. “Do we have any bread for this cheese?” he asked.
“God fucking damn it.”
“What?”
“No, we don’t have any fucking bread for that cheese.”
“Oh, it’s okay, baby.”
“Well, what’s the point of the cheese if you can’t eat it?”
“We could put it on the potato. Hey, don’t look at me like that.”
“We’re not going to put the cheese on the fucking potato,” said Megan. “That’s stupid.”
“Well, hold on,” said Randy. In the cabinet he found some stale tortilla chips. “Here. We can eat it with these.”
“Are those even good?”
“They’re probably fine,” said Randy.
Megan baked the potato and cooked the greens with hot pepper. They ate the nine-dollar cheese on the stale tortilla chips and Megan said, “Well, I guess this nine-dollar cheese is pretty good.”
“Oh, come on, it’s great.”
“It would be great if we didn’t have to eat it with these shitty chips.”
Randy sighed. “Do you remember Kelly?”
“Uuuh, sort of,” said Megan.
“She’s opening up a vintage clothing store in the neighborhood.”
“Wow.”
“And,” said Randy, looking at her sideways, “I’m doing the website for it.” He wiped his mouth and took a sip of beer.
“Oh, cool. What’s it going to, uh, look like?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t started it yet. But she’s having a launch barbecue thing in two weekends, so that’s my deadline. She’s going to give out business cards and coupons and stuff. It’s going to be a pretty big thing.”
“Sounds fun,” said Megan. Sounds like my fucking nightmare.
“So, you want to go? She’s paying me.”
“Paying you to go to her party?”
“No, Megan, paying me to do the website.”
“Oh, that’s cool.”
3
You know that part in The Little Mermaid when Ariel has just seen Eric for the first time and she’s swimming around the dressing room, combing her hair and singing? And all her sisters are like, “Whoa, she’s happy”?
Jillian was on the train monologizing to herself.
When she got off, she sighed and noted that the sidewalk had never looked so beautiful. She reached up and touched the buds on the trees and smiled and hummed. She even did a little twirl half a block from the office building.
It was okay that she was late. Megan was always late, so it was okay for her to be late once, geez.
“Oh, hey, Miss Megan,” she said. Megan looked at her quickly, then looked back at her computer.
“Hi, Jillian.”
Jillian sighed, put her purse up on the coatrack, and plopped herself down in the chair, spinning around in it slightly. “So, what’s new?” she asked.
“Nothing,” said Megan.
“Hmmm,” said Jillian. “Geez, I did not get much sleep last night.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Too much caffeine too late,” she giggled to herself.
“Yeah, you’re not supposed to have caffeine at night.”
“Oh, but it’s okay because I’m in such a great mood.”
“So you’re feeling better? From your accident?”
“Oh, you know, I’m still pretty sore from it and my car is still totaled.”
“Yeah, but you’re feeling better?”
“Hmm, nope.” Jillian laughed. “You know, it takes longer than two days to recover from an accident.”
“Uh-huh,” said Megan.
“I wonder if I can get a massage covered by my insurance.”
You’d probably have to’ve had an actual injury to get that, thought Megan.
“Oh, yeah, that’d feel real nice,” said Jillian. “Do you want to get some cookies for lunch? Just have only cookies for lunch?”
Megan wanted to scream.
Jillian almost snort-laughed when she said this, oh man it was like a truth serum or something. The one pill last night had just made her feel wired and made her sore back feel better, but this morning when she’d taken three, it was like a truth serum. Being on truth serum was fun.
“No, not really,” said Megan. “I brought a salad.”
“Oh, you and your salads,” said Jillian. “I know I’m going to have cookies at some point today, I just know I am, so I thought I’d offer to share some cookies with you.”
I can afford my own cookies, thought Megan. “Uh, no, I’m cool. I don’t really like to eat cookies that often.”
“Really?” said Jillian. “I thought all people liked eating cookies. But I guess you’re above cookies. You’re, like, able to resist the temptation.”
“It’s not even really a temptation to have cookies for lunch,” said Megan.
“Are you sure I couldn’t tempt you to have one or two cookies with your salad?”
“No, really, I’m fine,” said Megan.
“Do you think they deliver cookies?”
“What? Who? Who is they?”
“Oh, you know, the place we get our food from sometimes.”
“I don’t know. Would it really be worth it? Do you really want
