CHAPTER 2

The ‘car’ was a limo.

I’d never been in a limo before so of course I spent the first several minutes in shock, the next several minutes playing with buttons, then the subsequent several minutes after that trying to clean up the mess made by an exploding water bottle. It tumbled out of my hands when the driver hit the brakes behind a yellow cab.

The driver asked me where I wanted to go; I wanted to say Las Vegas but I didn’t think that would go over very well. In the end he’d graciously consented to drive me around while I made some calls using the car’s phone. One of the nice things, or not nice things depending on your perspective, about not having a cell phone was that you had to know people’s phone numbers.

Additionally, it kept you from making meaningless acquaintances.

It was nearly impossible for most individuals to remember a phone number unless it was used with some frequency. Cell phones, like the other social media constructs of our time, encouraged the collecting of ‘friends’ and contacts like my grandmother used to collect tea cups and put them on display in her china cabinet.

Only now the tea cups were people and the china cabinet was Facebook.

My first call was to my dad; I left a message asking him not to call or send mail to Jon’s apartment, explaining very briefly that we’d broken up. Calling my dad, in retrospect, was more cursory than critical. He never called, he didn’t write except to send me email forwards, but it was important to me that he knew where I was and that I was safe.

The next call was to Elizabeth. Thankfully she was on break when I called; this was a stroke of luck as she was a surgery resident at Chicago General. I was able to communicate the salient facts: Jon cheated on me, I was now homeless, I needed to buy some conditioner for my hair, I lost my job. She was outraged about Jon, generously offered her apartment and hair conditioner, then stunned and sympathetic about my job. She had a nice studio apartment in north Chicago; too small for long term but large enough that I wouldn’t smell like fish after three days.

I was relieved when she quickly asserted that I could stay at her place as I didn’t actually have a Plan B; Elizabeth also noted that she frequently was forced by necessity to sleep at the hospital so I would likely be there more than she would. We decided on a course of action: I would stop by Jon’s, quickly box up the essentials, then head to her place. I would go back over to Jon’s the next week to pack up everything else as it wasn’t like the construct of work hours held much meaning at present.

I hesitated asking the driver to wait for me while I packed a bag; but, in the end I didn’t have to. He’d been eavesdropping on my conversation and offered to circle back in two hours.

When I finally arrived at Elizabeth’s place several hours later, the limo driver- his name was Vincent, he had fourteen grandchildren, and he was originally from Queens- helped me carry basically all my belongings up the two flights of stairs to her apartment. As I packed I was stunned by my lack of material possessions. Three boxes and three suitcases was all it took to assemble the entirety of my worldly goods. One suitcase, the largest one, was full of shoes. One box, the largest one, was full of comic books. This plus my brown and white box from work was the sum total of my life.

Elizabeth greeted us at the door and helped Vincent with the suitcases. She was all smiles and profanity.

When we unloaded the last box Vincent surprised me by taking my hand and placing a kiss on my knuckles. His deep chocolate eyes gazed into mine as he spoke with an air of knowing wisdom, “If I ever cheated on my wife I think she’d have cut my balls off. If you don’t want to castrate this guy after what he’s done then he’s not the one for you.” he nodded as though affirming the truth of his words and turned precipitously to the driver’s side door.

Then, like the end of a B-movie, he left us standing on the street watching the limo depart into the sunset.

Elizabeth told the story several times that night to our knitting group; it was her turn to host so I helped her procure snacks and red wine. With each retelling Vincent became younger, taller, more muscular, thicker hair; his Queens accent was replaced by a sultry Sicilian brogue, his black coat was removed leaving only a gauzy white shirt open to mid-chest. The very last time she told it he gazed longingly into my eyes and asked me to run away with him. I, of course, replied that he would be of no use to me castrated.

I didn’t mind that Elizabeth was so open with the ladies about my day; I thought of them as our knitting group even though I knew not one stitch about knitting. I felt a great deal closer to each of them than I did to my own sisters: none of the ladies were felons, to my knowledge, and I thoroughly enjoyed their company. I loved how open and supportive and non-judgmental they were. There was just something about women who spent hours and hours knitting a sweater, with mind-blowingly expensive yarn, when they could just buy a sweater for a fraction of the price let alone the time saved, which lent itself to exceptional acceptance and patience of the human condition.

“Who puts the condom wrapper back in their pocket?” Sandra, a feisty redhead with a mostly concealed Texan drawl, pursed her lips, her brows rising expectantly as she glanced around the room. She was a psychiatry resident at Chicago General and liked to refer to herself as ‘Dr. Shrink’, “I mean, hola Señor Dumb Ass.”

“Exactly.” I nodded as did everyone else in the room, feeling slightly vindicated.

“I think you’re better off without him.” Ashley didn’t lift her blue eyes from her scarf as she offered her thoughts; her long, straight brown hair was pulled into a clever twist. She was a nurse practitioner originally from Tennessee and I loved listening to her accent; “I never trust a Jon without an ‘h’. John should be spelled J-o-h-n, not J-o-n.”

Sandra pointed at Ashley and added, “And his last name: Holesome. It should be ‘Assholesome’ or ‘Un-holesome’. He’s a turd.”

“I think we should ask Janie how she feels about the break up.” Fiona’s pragmatic assessment was met with agreement. A mechanical engineer by training, a stay at home mom by choice, Fiona was really the leader of the group; she made everyone feel valued and protected. She owned a commanding presence even at a mere five feet tall. Her small impish face, large heavily lashed eyes, paired with the practical pixie cut made her look like a fairy. Both Elizabeth and I knew her from college; she was the Resident Advisor in our freshman year dorm, ever the mother hen.

I shrugged as all eyes turned to me. “I don’t know, I don’t really feel all that mad about it, just... annoyed.”

Marie peered at me over her half knit sweater; “You seemed pretty shaken when I arrived.” I met her large blue eyes before she continued, “Between Jon and losing your job, I think you’re more upset then you want to admit.” Marie was a free-lance writer and artist; I envied how her blond curls always seemed to behave; every time I saw her it was like she’d just finished shooting a shampoo commercial.

I sighed, “It’s not that. I mean, yeah- I wish I hadn’t lost my job because now I have to find another one. But, it’s not like I was really able to do what I wanted there. I went to school to become an architect, not to become a staff accountant at an architecture firm.”

“At least it was at a firm; jobs are scarce.” Kat- the most soft spoken of the group- shook her head full of brown waves. I introduced Kat to Elizabeth when I discovered her passion for knitting. Kat also worked at my company-

Scratch that, ex-company

- as an executive administrative assistant to two of the partners; “But they are going to miss you, Janie. You were, by far, the most competent of the business group.”

“Do they always give their terminated employees limos for the afternoon?” Ashley asked Kat with plain interest.

“Not that I’ve ever heard of. But then layoffs have always happened in groups of five or more.” Kat wrinkled her nose, “It does seem extremely strange; I’ll look into it.”

I wondered at the limo as well. The whole day bordered on ridiculous so, in comparison, the limo and Vincent seemed like a minor bump on my roller-coaster of anomalies.

“Do you have any idea why they did it? Why they let her go?” Sandra reached for her red wine, directing her question at both me and Kat.

“No, but I’ll try to find out what I can.” Kat lifted her brows as she slid a gaze laced with suspicion in my direction, “Although, I heard that you were escorted out by one of the security guards from downstairs. Is that true?”

I nodded, becoming suddenly uncomfortable and pointedly studying my wine glass.

“Wait, what? Security?” Elizabeth suddenly sat forward, she placed a hand on my arm, “Who was it?”

I took a swallow of the wine and lifted my shoulders in a non-committal shrug. “Uh, just one of the guards.”

The room was quiet as I tried to sink farther into the couch. Suddenly Elizabeth started bouncing up and down, throwing her knitting to the side, “Oh. My. God. It was him, wasn't it? It was HIM!” Her blond ponytail wagged back and forth.

“Who is him?” Sandra stopped knitting at this point, her arms were crossed over her chest as she looked from me to Elizabeth to Kat, her large green eyes darting around the room like a ping pong ball.