Page 83 of 13 Rules For Fantastic Phone Sex

“Uhm.” At least she doesn’t lie to my face. She has the integrity to hedge.

“Please. Promise me you won’t call him. I know you want to fix this, to make it right, to call him and tear him a new asshole for me, but it’s already right. This is how it’s supposed to be, and I am asking you to please respect that.”

She grimaces, and she’s not happy, but she says, “I solemnly swear I will not call Henry Sterling.”

One more day, and I can walk away from this life. My integrity will be in one piece, even if my heart has been pulverized.

My fellow phone courtesans know something is up.

One by one, they came and hugged me, silently dropping off a chunk of chocolate or kissing the top of my head while I was faking an orgasm. Fake pleasure sounds and sobbing have lots of overlap, so I might be able to get away with tears, but they don’t come. Anger wins.

Pixie slips an oddly sweet hand-drawn diagram of the molecule for serotonin under the door of my cubby. It’s the happiness neurotransmitter. She rightly assumed I’m deficient.

“Can I get you something?” Jess asks when I’m between calls. I shake my head, afraid to speak, which is not ideal in my career.

I’m going through the motions of my day, but it’s like the difference between hearing and listening. I doodle on a piece of scrap paper and, for the first time ever, avoid taking calls.

I emerge from my cubicle to use the restroom, and heads swivel toward me. I would be utterly humiliated, but no one looks at me with pity. They look sad with me, which is absurd. It’s just a client not calling anymore; most of the time, we don’t even notice until they randomly call again a few months later, and we make a big production about how much we missed them—because our database tells us we should, not because we noticed.

Guinevere, real name Melissa, one of the women I’ve worked with the longest and shared countless bouts of uncontrolled laughter with, waits until I’m getting ready to walk past her and whispers low so only I can hear her. “Finding out he’s a dick is devastating. He reminded us there are good men out there.” She sniffles and wipes away a tear. “He’ll get his head on straight and call before five on Friday. He wouldn’t take a chance that he’s going to lose you, he has no idea you own the place, or that you make the rules. That man adores you. The way he would say your name, like he was blushing when he asked to speak to you, was the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.”

At 5:01 on Friday, Kait no longer exists.

I fake a smile and nod. Numb keeps the tears away. Thinking about him does not. Cassandra/Julie wanders by and says, “He’s going to call back before you go. I mean, we’re talking about the guy who sent us those tiny Valentine’s Day cards like in elementary. It was dorky and ridiculous, and I loved it. He must have planned that weeks in advance. I mean, he sent them to you, but he sent them to us too.”

I forgot about that. He asked me who was scheduled to work, and then he sent an envelope full of those ridiculous tiny valentines, with each of our names handwritten on the front. I know those valentines probably cost five dollars, including mailing them, but my heart melted when I opened that envelope.

She continues, rubbing salt in the gaping, oozing wound. “Kait, he acted like you were his girl, and we were the officemates of his girl. It was too cute for words, and I’ve never seen you smile like Henry made you smile. He’s softened you.” Yup, softened and squashed like a jelly doughnut that falls on a dirty sidewalk, with my innards spooging out onto the concrete and getting eaten by ants and maybe touching bird poop and a blade of grass getting mixed in with the dirt-coated filling. Perfect.

Evangeline/Elizabeth stops by next, and I’m not sure why they all think I want to hear nice things about the guy who fired me, but she stands outside my cubby and laughs about the week when my Christmas presents showed up.

I pull the scrunchie out of my hair to repair my messy bun, and I can smell the verbena from my shampoo. He’s everywhere. I’ll pick up some Suave, anything, really, just not verbena.

By the end of the night, I’m convinced my coworkers like him more than me. They all have some story that paints him in an endearing light, and they all want to share that story with me. It’s like being dumped by a saint, and your friends are disappointed that you get to keep them in the breakup.

If I have to hear the strep throat story one more time, I’ll hurl myself out the window. It’s a ground-floor office, so it’s not like I’ll plummet to my death, but the dramatics of it all might put an end to their moaning over the loss of their favorite human-golden-retriever-from-Chicago. I pull up Spotify and choose “Die Motherfucker Die” by Get Set Go.

T minus five hours. I’m ready. Not because I think he’ll call—he won’t—but everyone around me is obsessing about it. I don’t have the heart to tell them they’re wasting their energy.

Anastascia pulls me out of my cubby and hugs me long and hard and tells me to log out of the phone. I protest until she does it for me, and then I go to the office and close the door to start boxing up records to ship to California.

Hunter wanders in and starts helping me box. Her presence, without the need to speak, is comforting.

“Tape?”

I point. “Over there.”

An hour passes, and when there are no more records to be boxed or labeled, she pulls one of my braids, says, “Good talk,” and wanders off to find something else to do. I do a few request calls when Jess asks, and when I emerge from my cubby, it’s looking like a party.

“Wow, you guys did a great job decorating while I was busy.”

Hunter’s desk is covered with a glittery tablecloth and staged with champagne glasses, noisemakers, party hats, and a Home Depot bucket filled with ice for champagne and sparkling grape juice.

T minus one hour. Thank god for my inner-circle callers with their requests to talk to me, unknowingly, for their final minutes with me. Time is flying.

I bump into Ana before the big final closing moments. I don’t have any words when she wraps me in a giant hug and squeezes again. I start to babble-thank her, and she stops me.

“Kaitlin, my deepest and wildest dream has come true, even though it is pretty tame as fantasies go around here. I’m a stay-at-home mom. I’m not a complete fool, so there will be a nanny on speed dial for when I want to take a shower or need a nap, but I’m going to stay home with the boys and be their full-time mommy. It’s only fair that your dreams come true too. You’re already an amazing artist. I can’t wait to see what you do with your master’s.”