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F I V E
- Madeline -
He totally saw me look at his crotch. Granted, he was probably used to women’s eyes wandering in that direction, so there was a chance he didn’t notice, but days later, I was still mortified.
The guy tried to be nice for once, and I thanked him by shamelessly trying to catch a glimpse? Not that that’s what I was doing. Or was I? I don’t know. I couldn’t think straight when he was around the same way a mouse doesn’t daydream about cheese if you put it in a room with a cat. It just panics and shakes and tries to hold very still.
Which was why I absolutely could not go live with him. That much I knew. God forbid he tried to pee again only to find me lurking in the bathroom doorway like a creep.
It didn’t make sense. How could I be so annoyed that Kiki’s boyfriend kept forgetting to lock the bathroom door and then fail to give Quinn the privacy he deserved in the same situation? I was obviously some kind of pervert. Or maybe I was just curious what all the fuss was about. I mean, I hadn’t spent much time with the guy, but any idiot could see there was a handful of women at that party who let their eyes trail him like lovesick puppies. And all the while, he acted like he either hadn’t noticed or didn’t care, which, for some reason, I found infuriating.
I heard the buzzer on the dryer go off down the hall and knew I couldn’t put off talking to Kiki any longer. My working life had become infinitely more miserable now that I knew there was another path I could take, and every extra day I spent handing out goody bags of floss, changing water dispensers, and wiping greasy fingerprints off waiting room magazines felt like a step in the wrong direction.
“Need some help?” I asked, walking up as Kiki transferred the last of the warm towels into our only laundry basket.
“Sure,” she said. “Thanks.” Her normally frizzy curls were smooth, dark ringlets after her shower, and the shoulders of her Bears sweatshirt looked slightly damp as a result.
I followed her to the sitting room and reached for a towel as soon as she set the basket on the coffee table. When a pair of Steve’s boxers tumbled from the bundle to my feet, I took it as a sign. “So you know that internship I told you about?” I asked, knowing I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it in passing during one of her and Steve’s Netflix marathons.
“Oh yeah. Did you decide if you’re going to take it?” She stretched a fluffy towel across her body and folded it in half.
“I think I should,” I said. “It’s a great opportunity.”
“Aren’t you worried it’ll be like that Intern movie with Robert DeNiro?” she asked. “Like you’ll get thrown in with a bunch of young guns and you’ll be the has-been that can’t keep up?”
I furrowed my brow. “What? No.” I was only out of college two years. “Surely it would be nothing like that.”
“I’m joking,” she said, nudging me with her elbow. “I’m sure you’ll wow everyone and they’ll start paying you the big bucks you deserve in no time.”
God, she really didn’t have a clue. Was she this flaky when we were in school together? How come I didn’t notice? Was I flaky, too, or were we just different people now that our drinking schedules clashed? “Unfortunately, I know for a fact that they aren’t going to pay me shit for at least six months, and they’re only going to start paying me if they offer me a permanent position, which they can’t guarantee.”
She made the nervous emoji face, her square white smile stretching between her cheeks. “Yikes.”
This wasn’t going how I wanted it to.
“Well, I admire you, Mads. I would never have the guts to leave a stable job for something so risky.”
“I wouldn’t say my job is stable,” I said. “I’m probably the most replaceable employee working on State Street.”
“But what about the perks?”
“What perks? The free floss?” I imagined Maeve’s test tube baby sitting in my lap and telling me she wanted to be a receptionist in a dental office when she grew up so she’d always have access to free floss and rubber gloves. The daydream was so farfetched it dissolved before my eyes. I wanted to add “I can afford to buy floss,” but it wasn’t consistent with what I had to say next.
She shrugged. “It is the good kind that doesn’t rip between your teeth.”
Was she worried about me having free floss or her having it? And did she know something I didn’t? Was floss unaffordable these days? Was there a shortage I didn’t know about? Should I be hoarding it? Would that be enough to cover my rent?
“But hey, if you’ve got the savings and the guts, I say go for it. You only live once, right?”
I felt like smothering myself with the towel in my hands. Instead, I exhaled slowly and tried to keep the emotion from my voice. “About that—” I cleared my throat. “I don’t exactly have quite enough savings.”
Her dark eyes flicked up at me. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I’d be a little short for a while if I took this job.”
“You mean internship,” she corrected. “A job is something you do in exchange for cash. This sounds more like a hobby. Like your blog.”
I couldn’t tell if she was just being ignorant or deliberately trying to piss me off. “What I’m trying to say is, when is Steve going to start chipping in for rent?”
