the "up in the air" employee characters weren't actors. they wrote their own lines.
It's not personal, Jane.
He stopped, cleared his throat, and gave a stiff two-note laugh. He laughed as if to try to convince himself of the truth and lightheartedness of this statement, and it gave him permission to repeat himself.
This-- this isn't personal.
He had paused when he reached the word "this", momentarily panicked when his mind advanced to the words 'employment termination', but avoiding it seemed to have given him some kind of rush. A small flood of relief to have dodged the awkward part, and arrived at the part where he cleared himself of blame. He sat back in his chair, looking pleased with himself. He rubbed his nostril with the side of his thumb, now actually feeling comfortable with what was transpiring. He looked so proud, and I couldn't help but notice how much he looked like a little boy. There was no question what he looked like 33 years ago.
My voice surprised all three of us sitting at that table-- myself the most.
Yes. It is.
His thumb stopped mid-motion, flattening his nostril.
What? -- N, no...
Yes.
Oh my god. It was my voice, undeniably my voice. I had broken an hours' worth of quiet, scared, wide-eyed silence, and my words were tumbling out of me. I needed to clear my voice badly-- it felt lost and strangled in my throat from where I had been burying my words-- but I knew that any sound besides words would break the spell, so I gathered my strength to barrel ahead.
It IS personal. How can you even say that? Of course it's personal. It's personal because you pay me so little, I have to work a second job-- nights and weekends-- to afford rent and groceries and still be able to put any part of my income away. It's personal because I worked hard, DAMN hard, at this job... I put my whole heart into this work. I made sure my research was correct, not convenient, I bent over backwards to make sure the educators thought my projects were accurate and high-quality. It's personal because this was my life-- I carried it home with me, calling my girlfriends and asking, 'have you heard about this? or 'do you know anyone who might be able to help me get info on that new study?'.
Every single day, my car is in that parking lot hours before you arrive, and it is there almost every day after you go home to be with your family. This is deeply personal...if anything, this is personal. So please don't tell me that it isn't.
On either side of me, two people sat and listened without moving or saying a word. It's the only time in the entire 75 minutes that they hadn't spoken, and that they had listened to anything other than themselves and the clock ticking above her desk, the one I had ordered from Staples and then taped large, comical wads of paper towels to the back of when the ticking had started driving her crazy two years earlier.
We didn't need to say anything after this. They assumed I would fight for it; but it wasn't mine to win. It's as if there was a game that they hadn't planned on canceling if the third member didn't want to play.
The silence hurt. It felt like a hand pushing my chest down into my lungs. My cheeks burned so hot that I knew I was furiously blushing. It didn't matter-- it was over. It was over, and the words that had been buried deep, deep down in my chest for so long... five years...had finally been released.
Ten minutes later, I sat in the drivers' seat of my rental Prius thumbing the key fob to its enormous, comical ignition. Tears were welling up, hot and furious, pooling on my lower lids and smearing the mascara underneath. I couldn't drive like this, but the blinds were raised on the second floor windows, and the setting sun was spotlighting my motionless form.
Across the parking lot, the rabbits that burrowed under my new corner office had gathered in the center of the common lawn, ears back, grass poking out from under their velveteen noses as they stopped chewing to stare back at me.
It was the last time we would watch each other through the wintry dusk, momentarily pausing to observe the other before turning our backs again, returning to our own lives, as we did every day. Every day the same as the last.
He stopped, cleared his throat, and gave a stiff two-note laugh. He laughed as if to try to convince himself of the truth and lightheartedness of this statement, and it gave him permission to repeat himself.
This-- this isn't personal.
He had paused when he reached the word "this", momentarily panicked when his mind advanced to the words 'employment termination', but avoiding it seemed to have given him some kind of rush. A small flood of relief to have dodged the awkward part, and arrived at the part where he cleared himself of blame. He sat back in his chair, looking pleased with himself. He rubbed his nostril with the side of his thumb, now actually feeling comfortable with what was transpiring. He looked so proud, and I couldn't help but notice how much he looked like a little boy. There was no question what he looked like 33 years ago.
My voice surprised all three of us sitting at that table-- myself the most.
Yes. It is.
His thumb stopped mid-motion, flattening his nostril.
What? -- N, no...
Yes.
Oh my god. It was my voice, undeniably my voice. I had broken an hours' worth of quiet, scared, wide-eyed silence, and my words were tumbling out of me. I needed to clear my voice badly-- it felt lost and strangled in my throat from where I had been burying my words-- but I knew that any sound besides words would break the spell, so I gathered my strength to barrel ahead.
It IS personal. How can you even say that? Of course it's personal. It's personal because you pay me so little, I have to work a second job-- nights and weekends-- to afford rent and groceries and still be able to put any part of my income away. It's personal because I worked hard, DAMN hard, at this job... I put my whole heart into this work. I made sure my research was correct, not convenient, I bent over backwards to make sure the educators thought my projects were accurate and high-quality. It's personal because this was my life-- I carried it home with me, calling my girlfriends and asking, 'have you heard about this? or 'do you know anyone who might be able to help me get info on that new study?'.
Every single day, my car is in that parking lot hours before you arrive, and it is there almost every day after you go home to be with your family. This is deeply personal...if anything, this is personal. So please don't tell me that it isn't.
On either side of me, two people sat and listened without moving or saying a word. It's the only time in the entire 75 minutes that they hadn't spoken, and that they had listened to anything other than themselves and the clock ticking above her desk, the one I had ordered from Staples and then taped large, comical wads of paper towels to the back of when the ticking had started driving her crazy two years earlier.
We didn't need to say anything after this. They assumed I would fight for it; but it wasn't mine to win. It's as if there was a game that they hadn't planned on canceling if the third member didn't want to play.
The silence hurt. It felt like a hand pushing my chest down into my lungs. My cheeks burned so hot that I knew I was furiously blushing. It didn't matter-- it was over. It was over, and the words that had been buried deep, deep down in my chest for so long... five years...had finally been released.
Ten minutes later, I sat in the drivers' seat of my rental Prius thumbing the key fob to its enormous, comical ignition. Tears were welling up, hot and furious, pooling on my lower lids and smearing the mascara underneath. I couldn't drive like this, but the blinds were raised on the second floor windows, and the setting sun was spotlighting my motionless form.
Across the parking lot, the rabbits that burrowed under my new corner office had gathered in the center of the common lawn, ears back, grass poking out from under their velveteen noses as they stopped chewing to stare back at me.
It was the last time we would watch each other through the wintry dusk, momentarily pausing to observe the other before turning our backs again, returning to our own lives, as we did every day. Every day the same as the last.
posted by JustJane at
4:26 PM
1 Comments
