I wrote this in 2018 to a prompt that became the title of this short piece. I think it begs to be a longer piece. It was featured on theLitCamp Creative Caffeine Daily website that released the writing prompts.
In A Room Alone
In a room alone, she breathed, clutching a briefcase she had pulled from the back of a closet that morning. She tugged up on the black tights that she never wore, adjusting the high-waisted skirt she also found in the recesses of a closet, a remnant from the ‘90s. Steady income. Steady income, she chanted in her head. The blue couch she waited on was retro vinyl, sticky. It was, she knew, supposed to be a cheerful contrast to the aqua green polka-dotted pillows and the frames around the abstract prints on the walls in the same sea colors. But instead it reminded her of the color-matching clothesline for girls that existed when she was little, in all the flashy colors of the 1970s. What was it called? Gr-animals? Something to do with zoo creatures. That she couldn’t remember the name and that it was from the ‘70s, for God’s sake, a now-historic age that she lived through both made her feel old.
I want this, she told herself. This is good for the family. No more anxiety trying to find the next new client. I don’t have to be a salesperson any more. New mantras. Can you have four, she wondered? That didn’t seem effective. Besides, these were really more statements of desperation. She half-buried the thought. No one wants to hire a desperate person.
“Rhonda Mattson?”
“Yes, that’s me.” Rhonda flashed the young woman a trained smile. Social graces were one good thing her parents gave her, despite the cost of being a “Good Girl.” This will pay for more therapy. There’s a mantra.
“Hi, I’m Melissa. I’ll be your agent.”
Standing to meet the young woman’s outstretched hand, Rhonda’s briefcase slipped to the ground with a thud, causing her sudden, involuntary sweat. She half kneeled, half-leaned to pick it up, then shook the slim fingers, cringing inwardly at her own clammy grip.
“Nice to meet you.”
“This way.”
Following the agent, Rhonda straightened the skirt again and felt her heel throbbing, her plantar fasciitis aggravated by the walk on pavement in heeled shoes to get to this office building.
In another room with abstract prints, this time sunny orange and yellow, the young woman poured them two cups of water from a dispenser in the corner, while Rhonda pulled from her briefcase the folder containing her resume and writing samples, placing the artifact on the small white café-style table and then sitting up unnaturally straight.
“So, you’re a writer.”
“Yes.”
“What kind of work have you done.”
Rhonda launched into a retrospective of her career, starting with what she thought the young woman, Melissa, would want to hear, freelance business writing completed twenty years ago, necessary high-paid work to allow the creation of magazine features and fiction workshops. What finally motivated her to call the agency was her recent discovery that these same magazines paid the same amount or less per word than they had two decades ago. The revelation had sunk her.
As Rhonda spoke, she noticed the smoothness of her interviewer’s dark skin and tried not to look at the plunging neckline of her blouse that made a narrow V between her breasts, pert things absolutely untouched by gravity. Christ, I’m old enough to be your mother, she thought.
“Awesome. I think we have some possibilities that meet your income requirements and your skills,” said the young woman smiling. Of course, the hourly that Rhonda quoted in her application was way below what she made ghostwriting the memoir for her last client.
“Let me explain how our agency works,” said Melissa, smiling. “This is a W-2 position. You would actually work for us.”
V was not for victory, Rhonda thought, glancing again at that youthful exposure of skin, at the natural coy posture of a 20-something powered by sexual drive. She’d probably be dancing at a club tonight with her friends. They’d share a Lyft home, buzzed and giggling. She remembered. W-2. A loss of independence. What was she doing? Looking for work that once again skirted around her dreams, work that she didn’t really want. But there was her family, her husband’s income that was not enough and had never gone up as she had expected. There was the debt. The financial anxiety.
Before she left the office, she exercised the actress within her, beaming at her would-be daughter, telling her how delighted she would be to work for her, while feeling the seam of her skirt tear slightly on her backside. Out on Market Street, taking painful steps towards the BART station, she held back tears. No, she thought. There has to be another way.
Down the stairs into the subterranean gray, she passed men and women, some older than her, most younger, some disheveled some quaffed, some awake some asleep. She didn’t want to be asleep. She was too old to fall asleep now, to settle. Settling now would be into an early grave. She knew better. But what was the alternative? The hall smelled of urine and passing perfume. A saxophone echoed, playing a jazzy-version of I Did It My Way as a train beeped its horn. Hurrying, her hair pushed back by the whishing wind of the slowing train, she gathered with the horde and boarded a car for home.
Photo by Jean-Philippe Delberghe on Unsplash