A hint of a cherry scent curls under my nose. I don’t know where it’s coming from—maybe through the window. The scent reminds me of cherry soda, something I haven’t had in years. I think about its virulent fizz, the way it bubbles deep in one’s gut.
I picture a giant glass, dark plumes of liquid bouncing off the sides. I recall a New Year’s party my father threw when I was young, how black cherry soda was what we kids were allowed to have while the adults downed highballs. There was a kid named Ted there, and he dropped M&M’s and corn chips and peanuts into his cherry soda to make us cringe. He got so much attention from the threat of drinking it that I don’t think he actually had to do the deed.
I grab a notebook from on top of my stereo and start writing my “things I love” list for Dr. Petrov. Soon, I actually have managed to come up with a few.
1 Cherry soda
2 Street sounds
3 My bed
The best bed I ever had was one with a powder-blue canopy when I was eight. My room was great back then. It had a black shag rug, Parcheesi, a giant periodic table of the elements, a diagram of Hegel’s dialectic, a model solar system, a couple of abstract paintings, and a sextant.
4. The green-blue hue of an indoor pool
5. Starfish
6. The Victorians
7. Rainbow sprinkles
8. Rain during the day (makes it easier to sleep)
I think a little more. I’m out of ideas.
If I could write a hate list, I could fill three notebooks.
That would be fun. A list of things I hate.
I could start with the couple across the street.
The couple across the street are in their late twenties or early thirties. They’re tall and fairly professional-looking. I see them in their kitchen window more than I do outside. They always mess around in front of the oven, pinching and poking each other, and before you know it, there’s a little free-love show going on, and finally, they repair to a different room. You’d think they’d have enough respect for their neighbors to keep us out of their delirious debauchery. But that’s not the reason I hate them.
The reason I hate them is that whenever they pass me on the street, they never say hi to me. They must know I’m their neighbor. I’ve lived here for almost a year.
Then again, I never say hi to them.
I try for a little while longer, but I can’t come up with nine and ten for my list. I put the notebook down and lie in bed on my side, my hands crossed over each other like the paws of a Great Dane.
I think about Petrov’s five-point plan. Join an organization. Go on a date. Petrov must think that I’m incapable of these things. It’s not at all that I can’t do them. It’s that I choose not to.
Sure, being alone can get boring, but why should I have to force myself to go out and meet all the people who have lowered their moral, ethical and intellectual standards in order to fit in with all of the other people with low moral, ethical and intellectual standards? That’s all I would find if I went out there.
I could prove to Petrov that he’s wrong. I could show him that the problem is not with me, but with everyone else. I could do it just to prove how ridiculous it is.
Going on a date, or joining a club, will push me right into the thick of the social situations that people get into every day. I’m sure it can’t be that hard. And even if Petrov believes there is the .0001 percent chance that I’ll meet one person who understands me, more likely, I will simply be able to say that I tried.
It will be a pain, but it shouldn’t be that difficult. I will be a spy in the house of socializers. And then I will be able to prove once again to myself, as well as to Petrov, that even when I’m alone, it’s much better than going outside.
That evening the phone rings. It could be bad news. It could be my father calling to say I didn’t get the job. Or worse, it could be my father calling to say I got the job. But it also could be the MacArthur Committee calling to tell me I’ve won the Genius Grant. I jump up and catch it on the third ring.
It’s my father.
“I spoke with Brad,” he says. “He seemed to think you weren’t that interested in the job.”
“Oh, now I remember,” I say. “The vapid, immature guy.”
“I got the feeling you weren’t very nice to him.”
“I didn’t ask for the interview.”
“You have to tell me how, at some point, you are going to support yourself.”
“Right now I’m using a Sealy Posturepedic.”
“Carrie.”
“I saw Dr. Petrov this morning.”
This seems to cheer him up. “Okay. And what did he say?”
“He wants me to do some kind of socialization experiment. Go on a date. Join a club.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said I’ll try.”
“That’s what I like to hear.”
“You know, you owe me,” I say.
“Why?”
“You know why.”
Silence.
He knows I mean the Big Lie.
“I know,” he says.
“Good.”
“Well, if there was a job you might be interested in, what would it be?”
“Something where I can use my intelligence,” I say. “Something where the hours aren’t ridiculous. Something where I can sleep while others are awake and be awake while others are asleep. Something where people aren’t condescending….”
“Yes….”
“Something I don’t hate.”
Chapter Two
“You ever been here before?”
“No.”
The woman behind the desk peers at me through small round glasses. I don’t know what her problem is. Everyone in this office has, at some point, never been there before.
She gives me three forms to fill out, including a W-4 and a confidentiality pledge, and this wastes twenty minutes. If only the rest of the job is like this.
She hands me two hulking toothpaste-white stacks of paper. “The lawyers need you to compare them word for word,” she says. “A full read. It could take a few hours.”
Dad has gotten me work legal proofreading, which he says pays well and can be sporadic. I can work night or day. I’m smarter than ninety-nine percent of lawyers, so it should be easy.
I reach my cubicle, which has a drawerless desk. This is even lower in the office furniture hierarchy than a drafting table. Behind me, an old guy in squarish glasses is reading two documents, his eyes swinging from one to the other.
He looks a little too old for me to consider him for a possible date. But who knows? He’s bald and unthreatening-looking. Maybe I can figure out how to flirt with him enough to lure him to dinner, and then I’ll be satisfying Petrov’s requirement. That would leave me with three requirements to go.
I look over my desk. It’s rife with supplies. Someone has taken a long piece of yellow legal paper and colored in every other stripe with a red Flair pen,