The Wrong Way to Rock Bottom | UPDATES Fri/Mon

8

"You're firing me?"

"I'm sorry, I just can't take risks when it comes to Lacy." She gestures airily. "We'll give you severance pay, of course, as outlined in the contract. I will take over the care of Lacy for today. The check will be mailed."

I just stand there, staring at her. Upstairs, Lacy yells, "Lissy, are you coming?" in her adorable six-year-old voice, and suddenly I'm crying, right there in the Walsh's fancy kitchen, in front of the hummus and artisan bread and everything. Oh geez, how humiliating. Stop that right now! Pull yourself together!

Except I can't, because I'm a cryer, and because I can't believe I'm not going to see Lacy again. I'm not going to be there to read her favorite books or sing her the song from Cinderella at bedtime or purposefully give her the wrong stuffed animal just to hear her little frustrated grunt when I got it wrong. And she's going to ask for me, I know she will. The idea of her missing me, not knowing why I'd left?

"Can I say goodbye?" I whisper.

Mrs. Walsh looks a little guilty, probably because I turned into an indoor water fountain, and she agrees to let me go upstairs and see Lacy one more time. The little girl doesn't understand when her mom says I'm not coming back, and her fists grab onto my skirt possessively.

"When are we playing dress-up?" she asks, her bottom lip quivering. "You promised."

I kiss her blonde head, my tears falling into her hair. "I'm sorry munchkin."

Needless to say, when Gina calls me on my way home from what turned out to be my last day at my favorite job, I'm a blubbering mess.

Wiping my face, I pull over to the side of the road and answer my phone. "Hello?"

"Lissa?" Gina pauses. "Are you crying?"

"No," I sniffle. I have zero desire to tell Gina that I've just been fired. She'll want to know why, and then she'll probably give me some sort of speech that's meant to be comforting but boils down to 'one day you'll stop screwing up and these things won't happen to you all the time'.

"Okay, well I just called because Christy and I have been talking and I wanted to give you a heads up so you wouldn't be left in a lurch."

That doesn't sound good. "What do you mean?"

"We're going to cancel our phone plan."

"What?" I cry. That's the last thing I thought she would say, and pretty far down on the list of things I want to hear right now. "Why?"

When Christy was fifteen and I was ten, 25-year-old Gina thought that a good Christmas present for the two of us would be to get us on her phone plan. To clarify, she didn't pay for our service, and she still doesn't. She did, however, get us a pretty good deal that was way better than what Christy was paying at the time. I got my first phone from Mom and Dad that Christmas, so I had no idea what I was doing, but it was pretty nice to just give Gina ten dollars a month from my birthday money savings and be able to talk to my friends as much as I wanted. Since then, as we got updates and data was added into the mix, I'd just tell Gina what I wanted and she worked it all out for me. It's one of those things I never have to think much about. And I like it that way.

"I'm married with two kids, Lissa," Gina says, sounding exasperated. "Stan's been wanting me to cancel this for ages, but I put him off because I knew you'd have a rough time doing it on your own. And then the other day at the party, Christy was mentioning how none of us live in the same state—and she's usually not even in the same country—and it just doesn't make sense to share like this."

"But—but what about the deal?" I stammer. "You said we got better rates if we shared."

"That was back when we still paid for minutes. Now there's all this streaming and 4G to consider, and a corporate businesswoman in her thirties has very different needs than a flight attendant who's in Japan one month and New Zealand the next." Her tone turns accusing. "Or a twenty-four year old nanny who binge watched two whole seasons of The Crown on her phone last month."

I flush. "I said I was sorry for using up all the data, the wifi was out at the house!"

She sighs. "Sweetie, Christy's got a bunch of coworker friends who want to start their own plan and Stan wants to get me on the one he shares with his parents. It just makes more sense this way. I'm paying for things I don't need and honestly, I don't have time anymore to manage this."

There's no way to argue this. Clearly it's not benefitting her and if Christy leaves us, it'll just be me taking up Gina's time. I feel a little pang at the thought of Gina trying to balance her demanding job, her toddler, and her newborn baby, and having to pause all of that to call our phone company because she needs to put on a video for three-year-old Isabella and I've used up all the streaming. Gina was just telling Mom how hard it's been for her to try and figure out how to be a good mother and a good employee. She doesn't need to be worrying about her kid sister on top of that.

"Thanks for letting me know," I say in a small voice, trying not to let her hear how panicked I am. I have no idea how phone plans work, how to get one, or how to afford one all on my own, but I don't want Gina to feel guilty and change her mind. As much as she's wrapped up in her own life, she's always tried to help me out when I needed her.

"I can come up with a list of good single plans if you want me to?" she offers.

"No that's okay." I need to hang up before I start crying again. "Give my love to Bella and Berto."

"I will—"

I end the call.

"Well this day sucks." I say it out loud, because there's this tightness building in my chest and speaking helps to push it out. A man walking his dog on the sidewalk next to where I've pulled over gives me a strange look. Probably best to get going before someone in this hoity toity neighborhood calls the police on the strange girl having a breakdown in her car. To these people, I'm sure my 2004 Honda Civic is an eyesore they shouldn't be expected to endure.

I wipe my face, start the car up again, and pull back into the road. I manage not to weep the whole way back to my house by turning up the radio and shouting the songs at the top of my lungs. As I drag myself through the front door, all I want is to get a bowl of ice cream and my dad's leftover noodles, collapse in my bed, and watch sad movies until I pass out.

No such luck.

"Lissa?"