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Nella
“I’m just saying, when I was standing on stage with my degree in hand, this isn’t exactly the future I had in mind,” I exclaim in frustration, fuming to my friend Marley over the phone.
“I know,” Marls says in a sympathetic voice. “That wasn’t what I thought either, but you know what? When one door closes, another one opens. Stay strong, girlfriend! It will work out, I promise.”
I huff a bit because it’s easy for Marley to say. In an incredible turn of events, Marley is now married to a CEO. Even crazier, they met when her husband went to her apartment to repossess her car. Isn’t that insane? Most people hate the repo man, but in Marley’s case, she married him.
Nonetheless, I square my shoulders and take a deep breath.
“I never thought my degree would be nothing but a two hundred thousand dollar piece of paper,” I say in a disgusted tone. “Who would have guessed?”
Marley clucks again.
“I know, I know, but it’s going to be fine,” she says. “You’ll see.”
But it’s been tough because I’d love to put my Fine Arts degree to work. When they began offering this concentration at NYU, I leapt at the opportunity and immediately signed up. I’ve always adored drawing and painting, and hope to make a living as an artist one day.
However, right now, I’m a far cry from supporting myself via my creativity. Sure, I’ve sold a few illustrations to a couple of magazines here and there, but it’s nowhere near enough to pay my bills. As a result, I moonlight with an agency called City Girls in Manhattan as a high-end escort. We accompany men on dates and provide the “girlfriend experience,” all for an exorbitant price of course.
Tonight, I went on a date with a client named James, which partially explains why I’m in such a bad mood. He wanted to meet at a roller-skating rink, which isn’t so terrible because it’s a fun activity, even if I’m uncoordinated. Plus, James wasn’t so awful to look at. When I got to the rink, I saw an average looking guy about five foot six with brown hair and narrow shoulders. My date was wearing dark jeans and a navy jacket, which are rather “blah,” but I’d prefer blah to insane. Conversation drudged on throughout the night, but I smiled and nodded because it’s my job. Unfortunately, James genuinely thinks that accounting is interesting, and so he went on and on and on about the topic without stopping to take a breath.
“The nerve of some people!” he complained. “I had a client today whine about the number of hours I charged him for. I explained to him that it only took me so long because of how disorganized his records were, but he wouldn’t listen! He told me it’s my job to organize their records for them and he refuses to pay extra for me being slow,” James scoffed. “Slow? Yeah right. I’m fast and good, he just doesn’t realize how good I am.”
I smiled wanly.
“I’m sure he’ll realize in time.”
James merely hunched his shoulders and shrugged into his jacket while skating in a circle. “You never know,” he said darkly. “There is just no appreciation in this world! People need to learn gratitude.”
I merely smiled again, although internally, I was dying a slow death. I began racking my mind for a way to change the subject. Anything but more accountant talk! But as luck would have it, I didn’t need to because James created his own diversion. I was opening my mouth to make conversation when suddenly, I heard a weird grunting noise and then a short scream.
My date’s arms were flailing around wildly, his feet kicking beneath him searching for balance. Before I could react, James had toppled over onto the floor. He landed in a heavy heap right in front of me, causing me to screech to a halt on my rental skates just in time to avoid collapsing on the floor along with him. But to my surprise, my date’s moppy brown hair flew right off his head and plopped down on the rink, landing an impressive two feet past his own spilling point.
‘He was wearing a toupee?!’ a horrified voice screamed in my mind. James’s hair did look funny when I arrived, but I figured it was just a bad haircut. Now, everyone was staring at the wig, currently detached from my date’s shiny bald crown. It looked like a dead animal on the ground, which had been run over a few times for good measure. I cringed at the sight.
A young girl screamed across the rink. “Mommy, what is that thing? Is it a squirrel?”
A few people clapped their hands over their mouths trying to hide their laughter, and I felt my face turn burning bright red as I stood there mortified. James didn’t look much better as he stumbled to his feet and grabbed his toupee with glassy shameful eyes. Then, we exited the stadium and called it a night. He wouldn’t even meet my eyes. He merely mumbled something that sounded like “bye” and took off, toupee stuffed into his pocket.
