in one day.
People walked quickly, as if they couldn’t waste a second (not one second!) by walking at a regular speed, and so they raced from their offices to the restroom, and back again, presumably to continue their proofreading. As they passed each other in the halls, they often called out to each other, “Shoot me an e-mail,” because wasting time to stop and talk was clearly not an option.
Sometimes it was funny and sometimes it made Claire a little sad to watch them. They all seemed to have just discovered Microsoft Outlook meeting invitations and they sent them to each other for everything—weekly meetings, morning coffee breaks, birthday celebrations in the break room. It was the cause of many a scuffle when someone chose not to respond to an invite.
One of the women that Claire assisted, Leslie, called her anywhere from seven to ten times a day. She mostly called her Amanda, even though Claire was certain that she knew her name and remembered that Amanda was on maternity leave. Claire answered to it, figuring it was Leslie’s way of trying to tell her that she was very important and couldn’t be bothered to remember everyone’s name.
The job was easier than Claire had imagined. It was also a lot more boring. She mostly just sat around and waited for someone to ask her to Xerox something or for the phone to ring. If Claire had had any desire to write a book or a screenplay, this would have been the perfect opportunity. She could have sat all day and typed, mostly uninterrupted. But she had no such desire, and so instead she played solitaire, and perused cooking sites for recipes. Sometimes, she added up how much she was earning each day, and how much closer she was to paying down her credit cards. That was usually the most exciting part of her day.
AT HOME, MARTHA KEPT SAYING, “It’s good timing that you moved home now, since I’ll probably be buying a place soon.” Martha had been talking about buying a place for years now, so Claire didn’t pay much attention to her.
Each morning, Claire got up and was in the shower by seven, in order to beat Martha, who took forever in the bathroom. The two of them still often ended up in there at the same time, brushing their teeth or putting on their makeup, which made it feel like they were in high school again. Claire left the house around eight thirty and then was home by six, where she immediately changed into pajamas, or headed over to Lainie’s to drink wine. It was one or the other.
The first time that she came back late from Lainie’s, Weezy started to say something about coming home at a regular hour, and wanting to know where Claire was. While she talked, Claire just stood and stared at her and finally said, “Mom, I’m almost thirty. This isn’t going to work.”
Weezy let out a little laugh then, and looked just a touch embarrassed, as if she’d actually forgotten how old Claire was. “I guess it’s hard to get used to you living here as an adult,” she said. But then she made Claire promise that she would still just leave a message so that they knew where she was. Claire was too tired to protest, so she agreed. “Just Twitter me,” Weezy said, by which she meant send a text.
They ate dinner together every night, and Martha talked about her new job, Will talked about his students, Weezy asked Martha about nursing, and Claire tried to figure out how she’d ended up there. After a week of the same routine, Claire felt like she was right back in high school. Or jail.
The other thing about living at home (which Claire had forgotten) was that all of a sudden, she was expected to be so many places, to attend so many random things—Lainie’s niece’s baptism, lunch with Weezy’s cousins, dinner with Will’s professor friends. When she tried to back out of anything, they would all just shake their heads. “You’re here,” they’d say, as if that explained it. As if her presence back in the state of Pennsylvania required her to participate in everything.
She even got roped into going to a wake for the father of an old high school friend. “I haven’t seen Kelly in, like, six years,” she said, but Lainie wouldn’t hear of it.
“You have to go,” she said. “It’s Kelly’s dad.”
And just like that, Claire was in