From the studio: I Must Decline the Offer to Be a 2.0
Three short fictions for a collage in my Brilliant Wreckage series.
I.
To some degree, interns are interchangeable, sure. The job lasts for only three months so I get that people aren’t going to be too invested in us. But it happens too often to be a coincidence, like “the Melissas” had been a shorthand everyone was using before our arrival and now our identities are adhered together.
First it was the housing arrangement. It could have been a honest mistake, the two different people who checked us in, each sliding a finger sliding down the list of incoming residents until their eyes landed on a Melissa, the other Melissa because her last name occurs first alphabetically, and somehow the second accommodation, the one that was supposed to be mine, got swallowed up and instead of two singles we had to share a double.
Then it was the little stuff, like having to ask for another transit pass for the other Melissa, or getting duplicate ID badges instead of separate ones, and the mess with the system logins. How inconvenient that they had to treat us like separate employees.
The last straw though was Jim, who went by Jim so as not to be confused with James just down the hall. I guess one of us could have been a Lisa or a Mel or even a Lissie. Who was going to start pulling together background on the new file? Just give it to one of the Melissas. That was his answer, and as the nearest Melissa to him at that moment, it got handed to me. I dropped the file the recycle bin outside of James’ office on my way to lunch.
It got around to me later that our boss said we did good work, the two Melissas, that one of us was smart and the other was strong. This characterization stuck under my skin like a sliver for years.
I have a feeling I was the strong one.
II.
I knew it wouldn’t work out, couldn’t work out. Did women do this, date someone with the same first name as their ex? I mean, I’m sure they do but so far, in my experience, it’s been a guy thing. Maybe it’s unavoidable because of name popularity, like how Jennifer was the most popular feminine name for fourteen straight years so there had to have been repeats. How many Kevins dated at least one Jennifer?
It certainly didn’t work out for that one friend of mine. There wasn’t much time between the first Lisa and second Lisa. A little buffer would have made it less awkward socially, is what I’m saying.
Maybe that’s why I thought we had a chance. At least fifteen years had elapsed between my predecessor and I, enough for social circles to change. There was very little chance of us being introduced to the same people, of us being mistaken for each other. Or so I thought. The conversations that included yes, that is my name but no, I am not his mother, that is the other woman with the same name were tricky but I didn’t anticipate how many times I’d say those words. And when he said my name, our name, against my neck in the dark, I couldn’t shake the question that haunted me. Were we a two-for-one sort of fantasy? That doubt didn’t bode well for our future, either.
I met her, by the way, Amanda, the first ex-wife. He was the only thing we had in common. If circumstances had been different, if we had met some other way, we still wouldn’t be friends.
III.
The first time we meet, the second week of a new job, I write him off as an asshole I don’t have time for. Then I discover I have to speak to him often. I don’t dread it but I don’t relish it, either. I learn that his work completely shapes mine, this man who considers me an upgrade to the woman I’ve replaced. More responsive, he says, when I ask how so.
Maybe that’s why he tries it with me, this business of his shenanigans. I know he’s done it before, been caught before, by the way he carries prepaid VISA gift cards in his wallet to cover happy hour tabs, by the way there are always chaperones when we are at work. Our messages and emails are impeccably professional, phone calls much less so. After hours, when most everyone has gone home, the office plays by another set of rules and I learn to switch between them. Maybe Kim refused to be mentored in this skill, I think, convincing myself to feel smug about it but secretly envying her. Maybe he knew she wouldn’t be down for it, that she’d call him on the bullshit I once found endearing, even kind of charming. Or maybe Kim wised up to being played the same way I finally did.
I am given her office, the key to the shared filing cabinet where I find the history of projects I inherited, and her locker for the on-site gym. The locker sits vacant and unused for a few months until I need a place to stash clean clothes. Typed in a small font and adhered behind a piece of Scotch tape, there is a message taped to the backside of the locker door: He isn’t worth it. This isn’t worth it.
Kim’s right. She’s right about him, about the job, about all of it. I wonder why she didn’t tell me then, back in the conference room during the ten minutes we had alone together before I was hired, but she didn’t. I figure it out when I’m the one on my way out. I think I’ve found my replacement, the woman we’ve all interviewed, all agreed could do the job well. We’ve extended the offer, planned the overlap, devised a plan to make the transition as seamless as possible. I may have mentioned something, may have warned her off about this coworker and that one, sandwiching the message between anecdotes about the good eggs, and I must have overplayed it because she declines.
You’re too good to replace, he says as he buys my coffee later. I bet you said that to Kim, too, I say.
I did, and yet, here I am with a 2.0.
It’s his smile right then, the one that used to undo me, that I realize I now despise. We walk back to the office, our chaperones tagging along, and when I reach my desk I respond to the email from HR asking me to stay for another month. This really isn’t worth it.
About Brilliant Wreckage:
The Brilliant Wreckage collages are rough and messy in places, surprising and crisp in others. Rather than edit down to reduce noise, I chose to accept everything that was happening in each piece. There are thick layers of material sandwiched and stitched together that are peeled and rended apart. There are fragments leftover from previous projects and remnants of a chapter closed painfully. That yellow, though. Goddamn, hope can be a thing that shouts and screams through the tiniest keyhole, leaking brilliance everywhere.
