Wednesday, February 22, 2006

She II - Morning

She watched the remains of her coffee meander down the drain, staining the steel the color of sunset. Unemployment was beginning to weigh heavy on her soul. As she rinsed the mug and wiped it clean it occured to her that after this - breakfast, cup of coffee, crossword puzzle - there was nothing to do.
She had no money. So, despite the beauty of the late summer day, there was nowhere for her to go.
She had no job. No where to rush off to and no real desire to spend another day walking The Loop from one employment agency to another. Yesterday she had worn herself out bringing her resume around. Lake and Michigan, Jackson and LaSalle, Riverside Plaza. In every elevator she had reapplied powder to mask the sweat from the walk. In every waiting room she drank whatever free beverage they were offering and snacked on whatever candy was in the dish at the reception desk. If she had time, she made a visit to the bathroom and blotted face, underarms and neck with a damp towel before the interview.
It was hot again today. There was no air conditioner in the window. Instead she opened it wide and sat on the sill. It was only 10am. When you have no job and no money there's no reason to stay up late. You wind up waking up as if you were going to work anyway. Now the whole of this long, hot day stretched out before her.
Even if she could go somewhere, had money to take the bus to the beach, had $3 to spend two hours in the second run movie theater's air conditioning or cash enough to do a couple of loads of laundry it would mean leaving the phone. She wanted to be there in case something panned out from the day before. It was an off chance. She had already spent too many days tethered to the phone.
If she had any money she would get herself a cell phone like every other person in the world. If she could just find a job she would ditch the land line and shell out for a nice, simple cell phone plan.
She could spend the whole day sitting in the window, thinking about mightbes and maybes. She could write up on the walls the list of items she needed to get her life in order properly. There was no real point though. She should focus her energy on getting a job.
There was that one interview yesterday. The scary woman with the portraits of herself on various motorcycles on the walls. She had been overwhelmingly serious about finding a position for her. What was her name again?
She pulled her messanger bag up from the floor and into her lap and extracted one of the business cards from the many she had collected over the last month.

Lucille Waters - The Waters Employment Group

Maybe Lucille would come through for her. Somehow, when Lucille had looked into her eyes across the desk, she had believed her when she said "We're going to find a job for you."