[Author's note:- This Fan fiction is now available on my wordpress blog. Do check it out at normajeanne222083628 . I would be posting more content in the future like original stories etc.]
And so it went for un-numbered weeks till summer. Countless office hours typing endless scrolls of reports and articles. The mortgage rates to the British crisis, I covered everything. I also reviewed a few books on the side for the weekend edition, not because the editor had faith in my capabilities but because the staff was running short and there was a moderate amount of overtime involved. By the time it was May majority of the existing staff was skimmed away. It was something that existed in the air but very few had to guts to acknowledge it, like it was some embarrassing fart let out by a person with a huge ego. Everytime someone was fired or someone's prolonged absence was noted, the grapevine made vague allusions to the financial condition of the magazine being a bit troubled (always 'a bit', very diplomatic). There used to be talks about acquisition, mergers and the usual tired terms thrown around in the chaos of the downfall of many small corporate empires.
It was all déjà vu for me of course, but this time the situation was not as idyllic as it was under Castor. This place still was large enough and the larger the loss making entity is, the greater its disorder tends to be.
Plus I was actually beginning to enjoy my work here, in a bizarre state of deathly calm I was for most of the time. I wasn't bothered by the extra burden of reviewing weekly books. My days went by in a few snaps of fingers. I didn't want to get fired. I didn't know what else I would even do with my life outside of this job. In hindsight this of course doesn't seem like a healthy perspective to have on life, but at the time all I wanted was to lay my head down low and keep on going.
If I was lucky, I would reach home so tired that I could barely sit up to eat my cold dinner and even before I collapsed on the bed I would be knocked out. But there were times when I wasn't so lucky, I would stay wide awake, longing for sex so badly. I tried to placate the feeling by indulging in some porn but it didn't do anything after a point. Most of it was gross and unpleasant anyways and something in the uncomfortable expressions of the actresses would take me away from the experience.
Some nights I would use my imagination peppered with heaping helpings of fancy. It was no doubt better than porn, but there were day when I was too much despaired to even picture anything substantial. Furthermore, no matter how hard I tried my thoughts would always, ALWAYS drift towards Frank. And after I was duly delivered a satisfying orgasm guided by his dark looming spirit and an over-expensive vibrator, I was left with a shaky groin and a sharp stinging pain in my heart. After a few weeks that pain leaked into my heavy eyes and I would continue to cry hot torrents to tears until my head was so strained that I would pass out, occasionally with the sex toy in my left hand remaining there till morning. Soon I developed a very dependable habit of crying myself to sleep at night.
My psychiatrist in later years asked me why I never made any friends at the office of the magazine. An obvious answer to that was that I'm a clichéd introvert, exhausted severely by even the thought of interacting with people in any social setting. But the truth was that it was a very hostile environment. The number of women there were low and restricted to the small pool of secretaries who were always overworked and even more exhausted than me from the dual burden of running the high-powered lives of an insular group of well-known senior financial journalists as well as braving their varying degrees of sexual advances from almost all of them. They barely had times for their families, let alone for a fellow reporter working a few meters away from them. The remaining were, what seem to me now as an amorphous crowd of managers and fellow journalists, clerks and pages and messengers, graphic designers that I only faced in passing through their cubicles and offices. There were of course the marketing and advertisement department guys that I remember the most vividly for they were the most vocal ones of the office. It is quite funny, now that I think about it that of all the people who were fired in that spring, not a single one of them ever vacated their offices. And yes, all of them had proper offices, none of them sat in a paltry cubicle like the other plebians.
My mind wasn't completely bland and unproductive in that time. I had a bunch of ideas about many projects. One was to go back to my old ones. But the moment I scoured out those old files from my dusty laptop, I felt a weird distance from the person who wrote those. It wasn't an overtly negative feeling, I was detached in a very cold and calm manner. I found those ideas of my past extremely stupid, but yet I didn't cringe at them. It was like my past self and my present self made an unspoken understanding. I quietly deleted all those files and pulled out a little burgundy buckram journal to note down some ideas. It wasn't all hunky dory at the first go but after a few days the journal started to breathe a life of its own. Whatever career as an essayist and writer I did eventually ended up happening had its genesis in that journal, which I have still preserved not for nostalgia's sake but to go back for some peripheral inspiration that might be evading me as I approach my twilight years.
It was on one Thursday towards the end of May that I began to contemplate my options in case of my own untimely firing. I wondered if I should approach other publications, I had developed a niche of my own at that point and I had a track record of four months to show for it. I knew it might not be adequate. Big publishing houses were particularly impenetrable. They rarely put out vacancies or openings and whenever they did it was always in the most obscure and hidden parts of the newspapers and websites to ensure that as many people as possible would be able to find it. I of course did find it because I was looking for them that desperately. And no matter how convoluted their job openings were in public, there was always a considerable amount of applicants in the reception area.
Despite applying for in somewhere around seven publications, I only had the opportunity for an interview in two of them. Three of them declared their vacancies full even before anyone was screened and two of the vacancies were cancelled in the aftermath of a merger. In the two interviews I did sit in, one was held with four other applicants in the same room as me, and all of the four seemed to covet the attention of the pink-haired HR woman with a desperation rarely seen in Ivy League graduates. The HR was cruelly aware of the nerve points as she twisted the knife in them by asking with a smirk, "How come three Harvard Business Graduates are applying for junior reporter in a small internet website?". The victims babbled the usual excuses with rivers of sweat on their brows despite the chiller's digital display flashing a temperature of 65 F. She continued to grill the fallen angels with a perverted sense of amusement and because of this she almost forgot about me. It was when one of the Harvard bunch were at verge of tears that she turned to me for a change and blankly sifted through my articles. She asked me one generic question about the bubble burst in cryptocurrencies and from her reaction to my answer I knew that I was not getting this job.
The second interview was held in the cafeteria of a new and trendy online publication, the ones known for their youtube videos with polished production and cool infographics. The interviewer was a tall and broad well built man dressed in casual ripped jeans and a lumberjack shirt with a crew neck white tee under it. It was a lot more relaxed than the last one and I for one was not competing for his attention with other candidates. Very early on in the interview I realized that this also wasn't a job for me, it required a certain type of positivity and enthusiasm that I couldn't gather up even in a thousand years. The cost-benefit ratio didn't seem worth it.
But it didn't matter because the interview soon turned into a date as 7 cups of coffee were consumed between the two of us that long afternoon.
I don't remember the name of that hunk after all these years. The only thing I remember is the way he grunted and moaned when I was positioned on all fours at the edge of his bed. He hanged on to my hips and quite rigorously thrusted into my body. When he climaxed he made a long smooth motion by stretching his entire body upwards and then softly falling onto my still bent-over back in a collapsing manner. He dozed off after a couple more trips and a blowjob but I couldn't bring myself to stay the night at his apartment. I remember the late-night cab ride I took to my place in more detail than that man.
It was in mid-June that I got a call from mother. She was at this point very well settled in her life in Italy. She announced that she was to marry Michele at the end of August in a very private ceremony in Tuscany. Jane was of course going to be shuttling all across Europe juggling her Job and the wedding arrangements but she wanted me and Dad to spend the summer in Italy. Dad came to an arrangement with mother where he decided to spend the summer in England while making short visits to friends and family in different parts of the continent, making a final pit stop in Tuscany for the aforementioned late summer wedding. I would later on decide to divide my weeks between Italy and England to ensure healthy diplomacy.
I tried to stall my plans to leave the country for a few days, thinking that I might be putting my already endangered job at risk by even mentioning a long European vacation. Even if by a miracle I wouldn't be fired, I would still be replaced by someone temporarily. And the chances of that someone not being an ambitious and ruthless person who need this job a little bit more than I did were astronomically low. I couldn't explain it back then but for some reason I wanted to hold on to my life in Los Angeles, no matter how awful, lonely and, well, American it was. It was like a part of me already sensed the near future and the events that were to conspire in that summer and because of it I was compelled to prolong my presence. I was even prepared to work as a barista if it would mean that I was to stay in LA, despite the fact that everything was beginning to very visibly crumble.
By everything I not only mean my social life and stunted sex drive, but also the world around me. Despite allowances from Dad and the magnanimity of Emily, the locality I lived in was showing signs of serious decline. Even Emily, while not daring to say it out loud, hinted several times towards relocating to Atlanta with her boyfriend. She started talking an awful lot about having kids and wondering if LA was the right place to raise kids. The financial ruin that was quite deftly masked by shimmering glass buildings and chiseled abs in affluent parts of the city would burst out in ugly waves everywhere else. A dental treatment Emily had to get done cost her $4500. One really played a lethal game of Russian roulette with everyday life. Even if one were to contemplate suicide, one had to be absolutely sure that the deed would be one hundred percent be done with, for one misstep and one might end up in a place infinitely worse than definite and certain death.
All these mounted on top of my sleep paralysis every night on top of the unstable environment of office. One particularly hot afternoon, when I was lying comatose in bed, unable to get up from the moment I opened my eyes in the morning, I got a call from Dad. He asked if I would be visiting mother.
"I can't leave office dad"
"Why not?"
"I'll lose my job, why else"
"you deserve a vacation, Lizzie dear" he said, "besides when was the last time you visited London? Don't you miss your aunt and uncles?"
I drew a long breath.
"I know dad but…"
"But what? If you want to go then why think about anything else?"
"Because I don't know what I will do if I lose this job, dad. Okay?" I blurted out trying to keep my quivering voice stable.
There was a long silence for a few seconds. It pierced through my heart and I started sobbing hopelessly.
"Are you there, Dad?" I braved through tears, "I'm sorry I shouldn't have yelled at you"
"First," he said in a stern yet gentle voice, "get up and get a tall glass of water."
I complied.
"Now sit down in a comfortable chair and calmly take a few large gulps of it."
I felt the semi-cool water going down my throat and soothing my chest.
"Thank you, I feel a bit better" I said as my sobs started to fade.
"Let me tell you something, Lizzie dear" he said, "the moment you feel like you are nothing without something is the moment you realize that you have taken it too far, okay? It might be very unhealthy for you think like that."
"I know" I said quietly.
"Now, if you don't want to come to England with me then it is fine. If you want to spend your summer in LA that is your call. But you should know that nothing is so hopeless in your life, even if it might seem like it."
Another wave of tears flooded my eyes as I nodded as if he was there in the room with me.
"No matter what you decide to do in your life, I am always going to be really proud of you. And don't be afraid of falling. Even if it isn't in Beardlsey anymore and things are not the way they used to be" he said as he sighed, "you will always have a home, be it with me here in Boston or with your Mother across the lake. You are not alone, Lizzie."
I stared at the empty closet in my room and then to the three large suitcases stacked precariously near the bedroom's door. I checked the bathroom for the third time fruitlessly. The doorbell buzzed furiously as I rushed to the speaker.
"Uber for Elizabeth Bennet?" a distorted grainy voice erupted through the speaker.
"Yes, give me a moment I'll be there right away" I said.
I sat at the dining table that seemed rather empty for no discernible reason. The only thing on it that I claimed was my ashtray. I pulled an old bill lying on the table and folded it in half.
"Emily,
I am sorry this seem very last minute and abrupt.
I have decided to move to Boston with Dad for now.
I don't know what I will do next.
I will go there after mum's wedding in September.
Don't fuss about the advance, you can keep it.
See you at the wedding in Tuscany
Love
Liz. "
The driver still panting from loading the luggage in the trunk asked breathlessly, "to the airport?"
"Yes." I said robustly staring out of the window. I wanted to completely take in that entire scene, those streets, those buildings. I was replaying the memories of not only LA but also of Beardsley and college in a very vivid fashion. My rumination was briefly interrupted by an email notification I got on my phone:
"RE: Resignation Letter
Dear Elizabeth,
We have received you e-mail and wish to process accordingly as soon as possible. If you have any questions/doubts please feel free to contact HR at the e-mail: #### ##### or at her contact number: ***********.
This is an automated message. Do not reply to this."
I leaned back in my seat as I gazed out lazily. I felt like I have to take it all in. Everything that was happening in that very moment.
It was as if I knew that this was to be the last time I was, not only in Los Angeles or California, but North America itself.
