Lala Pettibone's Act Two Read online

  Lala curled up on the couch with Petunia and Yootza. The dogs’ steady presence and rhythmic snoring comforted her a bit. She kept the TV on Comedy Central, and she dozed until her temp agency had opened for the day.

  “Rick, I need to make forty thousand dollars as soon as possible, but definitely by next week. Prostitution, high class or otherwise, is definitely not out of the question.”

  “I’m already on it.”

  Rick’s cheerful voice on the other end of the line, while clearly intended to be supportive, made Lala scrunch up her face.

  “You already knew I wasn’t going back to the Atelier?”

  “Adele called just a few minutes ago. She said you were a gem, and they were all so sorry to see you go. If I buy you drinks, will you tell me what happened?”

  “It’ll have to be a lot of drinks.”

  “I’ll call you as soon as I have something. I assume you don’t want to go back to word processing?”

  Barf, Lala thought.

  “I’ll take the most lucrative slot you’ve got. Prostitution included. And I’m available any hour of the day or night.”

  Lala sprawled out on the couch for another two hours. She debated eating breakfast. She debated going to the gym. She debated going back to bed. Then all the debating made her head hurt, so she closed her eyes and listened to the voices on the television. Finally, she’d had enough of her motionless confusion and despair.

  I better get my tuchus off this couch and do something positive, she thought.

  Lala took Petunia and Yootza for a long walk, pausing every couple of blocks to crouch on her heels and pet the two dogs and coo in their ears that Mama loved them and Mama would always be there to take care of them and to love them forever and ever. Whenever she stopped to fuss, Lala got teary and the dogs, picking up instantly on her bizarre energy, made a concerted effort to flee.

  “Mama loves you so enormously and constantly much, my precious babies . . . Damn, Yootza, quit jerking on the leash,” Lala grunted.

  After she took the dogs back home and gave them a snack, Lala walked uptown to the Bide-a-Wee no-kill animal shelter where she had been volunteering for years. When she entered the lobby, she found one of her fellow volunteers, Sally, behind the desk. Sally was a fun, young gal with multiple piercings that Lala affectionately deemed “rather excessive,” and Lala was quite fond of her. On that day, Sally had her head face down on the desk, and she was whimpering and sniffling quietly.

  It was not the first time Lala had arrived to volunteer only to find Sally in this pitiable condition.

  “Oh, no,” Lala said. She scurried behind the desk and pulled up a chair to sit next to Sally. She put her arm around Sally’s slumped shoulders.

  “I’m okay,” Sally mumbled.

  It came out, “Mmm keh.”

  “Please, don’t speak,” Lala said. “I won’t be able to understand a word you’re saying, and that will irritate me enormously. Please tell me your asshat of a boyfriend hasn’t done something douchey again.”

  “Nawh iss cuh cahn—” Sally began.

  “Oy, such a rhetorical statement I just made,” Lala said. “I thought that was obvious. Come on, sit up straight.”

  Sally obeyed. Lala grabbed a tissue and gently wiped Sally’s face. She held the tissue to Sally’s nose.

  “Blow,” Lala said. Sally obeyed.

  “Good. Now we’re going to go to the back, and we’re going to find some puppies and kittens to hug, okay?”

  “‘Kay,” Sally said.

  “And then we’re going to find some old dogs and cats to hug, right?”

  “Right,” Sally said.

  “And then I’m going to take you out to lunch and remind you that you are smart and beautiful and talented, and you deserve much better than that asshat of a boyfriend.”

  Lala and Sally took a long lunch after spending a solid hour covering animals of all ages and sizes with loud, smacking kisses. Lala ordered bruschetta as soon as they sat down at the restaurant.

  “We’ll be here for a while,” she announced to Sally. “What’s Bide-a-Wee gonna do? Fire us?”

  The two women laughed and sniffled through a shared pasta dish and three desserts. Lala told Sally about what had happened at Atelier du Monde, at least as much as she remembered. Sally said, “Yikes,” a lot and kept assuring Lala that there was a great man waiting out there for her somewhere.

  “You know what?” Sally said. “I bet you’re way older than my mother because you make references to things that she wasn’t around for like President Carter and stuff, but you don’t even look old at all. You look really hot. And I’m not just saying that because I feel so sorry for you because of those humiliating things that happened with that French guy. You are seriously a babe, Lala.”

  “You’re making me blush,” Lala said. She pursed her lips in a very pleased, little grin. “P.S. I’m not sure if I should consider your enthusiasm a backhanded compliment or forehanded insult.”

  “Really, I’ve got a good feeling,” Sally said. “I bet you’re gonna find some great guy, and he’s gonna fall madly in love with you. I think today is gonna be the beginning of a great new life for you.”

  “God, I hope you’re right,” Lala sighed.

  It’s Always Darkest

  When Lala walked home later that day, she was not alone.

  She was not accompanied, as Sally might have imagined, by a handsome man who had come to the shelter to adopt a pet and who had ended up finding the woman of his dreams.

  Lala was accompanied by a dog who looked older than his age. She gazed down at the greyhound walking so calmly and trustingly beside her.

  You sweet boy, Lala thought.

  Lala hadn’t realized she had chosen to make one of her several days per week of volunteering at Bide-a-Wee the same day a transport of racing greyhounds, rescued from a Mexican dog track, arrived.

  The moment she laid eyes on the dog she immediately christened Chester, she started calculating how much more she would have to earn to care for three dogs instead of two.

  I don’t care, Lala thought. He’s mine.

  Victor, Lala’s favorite doorman, held the doors for her as she approached the Bancroft.

  “Look whatchu got!” Victor said. Victor was a small, older man with a round, perpetually happy face, and Lala adored him.

  “Chester, meet Victor, one of my favorite people,” Lala said. Victor rubbed Chester’s head, and Chester leaned into Victor’s hand and looked like he was smiling.

  “Victor, can you do me a big favor? Can you go up and get the kids and bring them down, so I can introduce them to their new brother on neutral territory?”

  “‘Course,” Victor said.

  When he came back to the lobby a few minutes later, Petunia and Yootza were straining at their leashes. The dogs ran up to Chester and a three-way sniff-fest ensued. No growls. No bared teeth even. Just lots of sniffing.

  “I’m thinking ‘match made in heaven,’” Lala said. She beamed at the dogs and Victor distributed ample pats to all three.

  Lala exited the building holding the three leashes. The dogs fell into a comfortable stride as a pack from their first steps outside together.

  Wow, Lala thought. Is my luck changing?

  Lala looked up at the sky.

  I mean for the better, Lala silently informed the fates, heavens, universe, something. In case that’s not immediately obvious, she added.

  They walked for many blocks on all of Lala’s favorite streets. They probably didn’t cover more than a mile, but the walk took nearly two hours. Because every inch of sidewalk and all items on the sidewalk or adjacent to it had to be thoroughly inspected by her beasts.

  People smiled at Lala and her brood as she stood patiently next to a short iron fence that was being covered with the vigorous inhalations of three ve
ry happy snouts.

  “Hounds,” Lala said, nodding to the dogs’ admirers. “It’s all about the nose.”

  The dogs did pick up the pace as they turned back in the direction of the Bancroft. It was close to dinnertime.

  “It’s funny,” Lala said to them as they trotted, “without design or planning, I’ve ended up with three hound dogs. I like that. The nose knows.”

  When Lala opened the door to her apartment, the red light on her answering machine was blinking. She smacked the playback button.

  “Honey, it’s Rick. Don’t freak out.”

  Barf, Lala thought. Why haven’t I gotten rid of that stupid machine? Why do I still have a stupid landline?

  “Crawford Dunlap is delighted to have you back.”

  Lala felt her breath getting choppy, and her face getting flushed.

  “Deep breaths, okay?” Rick said. “They’ll pay you thirty bucks an hour. And you don’t have to start until ten o’clock. Okay?”

  That night was not as bad as Lala thought it was going to be. She didn’t sleep at all, but being in bed with three contented dogs who seemed to have known each other forever was a big comfort. Lala lay on her back and listened to them all snoring.

  Precious babies, Lala thought. It’s going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay.

  Lala had her eyes wide open when the alarm went off at seven o’clock. And, before she knew what was happening, she started projectile sobbing.

  She gulped and gasped and tried not to choke. The dogs’ heads all shot up, and they were awake and on full alert in an instant. Lala couldn’t bring herself to lift her head to stop the tears from flowing backward into her nose and mouth.

  “Don’t be scared, babies,” she sobbed. “Mama’s just having a little bit of a rough time. Everything is going to be okay, I promise.”

  Somehow she got herself to the kitchen to feed the dogs, and somehow she got herself on the couch, and at some point she ran out of tears. Lala sat there for a few minutes, reminding herself that the dogs had to be walked, but she was unable to move. Until she heard the unmistakable sound of someone peeing in the hallway.

  Lala leapt off the couch. She ran to the front door and saw Yootza with his leg lifted.

  “Mama’s sorry,” Lala wailed. “Mama’s a bad mama.”

  Lala rushed to get them all leashed and out the door. Once in the open air, all maternal shortcomings seemed to have been forgotten. Petunia, Yootza, and Chester stared up at Lala with clear adoration.

  “Stop being so kind and forgiving,” Lala whispered. “You’ll break my heart.”

  When they got back to the apartment, the dogs amiably staked out their new napping territories to divide the available space in thirds that had before been halved. Yootza and Chester landed next to each other on the couch, while Petunia snuggled close to Lala on the loveseat.

  I should go to the gym, Lala thought. There’s enough time before I have to go to . . .

  She put her head down on Petunia’s tummy and tried to not start sobbing again.

  Lala stayed there, not crying and not moving, until the last moment she could wait to take a shower and not be late for work. Petunia seemed to enjoy having Lala’s face on top of her. She slept contentedly and only stirred a bit when Lala finally got up.

  Lala shuffled through the lobby of the Bancroft. Victor was working that morning.

  “You okay?” Victor asked.

  “Appearances notwithstanding, I’m doing great,” Lala reassured him. “Victor, would you be able to—”

  “I would love to walk the pups,” Victor said.

  “God, what would I do without you? But you have to let me pay you this time.”

  “No.”

  “You have to.”

  “No.”

  “You must.”

  “No.”

  “I insist. Please.”

  “No.”

  “Victor, your kindness will make me cry.”

  “Don’t do that,” Victor said. “Don’t cry.”

  There was absolutely none of the usual bounce in Lala’s gait as she walked to midtown. The word processing center of Crawford Dunlap was on its own floor in one of the dozens of soaring office buildings that surrounded Grand Central Station.

  Just don’t cry, Lala kept thinking as the elevator made its way skyward. You won’t always feel this uncomfortable in your skin. You won’t always feel so lost. Because this level of angst and Weltschmerz would be fucking impossible to sustain. Think of all the things for which you can be grateful. A lifelong appreciation of good grammar, for example, and to name just one.

  The elevator stopped on the twenty-seventh floor, and Lala exited. There were closed doors at either end of the elevator bank. The atmosphere immediately reminded Lala of that chamber the guy got trapped inside in 2001: A Space Odyssey because the computer had gone nuts.

  I am so fucked, Lala thought.

  Lala pushed the button on the visual intercom next to one of the doors. The lights on the screen crackled alive, and Lala saw the face of Claire Stevenson, a reed-thin whippersnapper who was a good bit younger than Lala. And the person Lala would be reporting to, as she had in the past when she worked at Crawford Dunlap. Because Claire ran the show there.

  Claire loved running the show there.

  Lala saw on the screen that Claire was looking at her watch.

  What? Lala thought. I’m maybe three minutes late? So I’ll fill out my timesheet accordingly. Sheesh. This is so fucked.

  “Hi Lalaaaaaaa,” Claire’s voice droned over the intercom.

  The door buzzed, and Lala shoved it open. She entered a vast beehive of cubicles separated by transparent dividers. Employees were hunched over their computers.

  Smother me, Lala thought. Grab a pillow and put me out of my misery. Please. Somebody.

  Claire came striding out of her office, which was one of a few indented into the walls of the hive. It was a tiny space, and whenever Lala had been forced to enter it in the past, she immediately felt suffocated. Claire’s office was filled with Claire’s overarching pride in her position. There was a sign on the door that read “Claire Stevenson, Daytime Workflow Coordinator.” It had clearly not been issued by the firm. Clearly, someone had created and printed it themselves.

  Comic Sans, bold, Lala thought. Could there be a more irritating font?

  “Nice to see you again,” Claire singsonged.

  “Thanks for having me back,” Lala said.

  “Come on over here. You’ll be sitting next to Kim. I don’t think you two have met. I don’t think Kim was working with us the last time you temped for us, Lala.”

  A young woman with very long, black hair peered at Lala. She was wearing a deeply plunging shirt and very, very, very tight black pants. The inappropriateness of the outfit was hidden by a large black blazer. The overall effect was one of calculated sluttiness at its finest.

  Kim and Lala would be sitting at desks that were facing each other. There was a divider separating the desks, but even if it hadn’t been see-through, it wasn’t nearly tall enough to allow any sense of division.

  Sweet mother of God, Lala thought.

  “Hi,” Lala said.

  “Hey,” Kim said.

  “Okayyyyy,” Claire said. “Go ahead and get logged in, and I’ll send you a job right away.”

  “Great, thanks,” Lala said.

  I suspect my face looks like I just caught a powerful whiff of old gym socks, Lala thought.

  Lala turned on the computer at her desk. Her old log-in for the firm still worked.

  Damn, she thought. There is something very barfy about that in terms of the energy of the universe. The Law of Attraction is definitely dicking with me.

  Lala clicked on the network that distributed jobs to the word processing worker bees. There was a job already
assigned to her. It was marked “Highest Priority.” The instructions included a PDF of a handwritten document that was to be input. As soon as possible. Lala clicked on the PDF, and it appeared on her screen.

  It was ninety-three pages of complete gobbledygook. Much of it in the form of charts that had arrows all over pointing to words within phrases within sentences to be inserted who knows where, and who knows in what sequence.

  Lala stared at the screen. She didn’t know what to do. All kinds of impulses ran through her mind as possible options.

  Run.

  Shout obscenities.

  Flail her arms.

  Sob uncontrollably.

  Run out of the hive, shouting obscenities and flailing her arms as she sobbed uncontrollably.

  Lala printed the PDF, set it on her typing stand, and pulled up a blank document on her screen.

  Let’s just stay calm and take this one word at a time, she thought.

  Lala stared at the handwritten pages.

  Cleveland? she thought. Does that say Cleveland? Or does it say Cruilunt? November? What number is that supposed to be?

  Lala had hit only a few tentative keyboard strokes when her concentration was interrupted.

  “So you’re a temp?” Kim said.

  “Yup,” Lala said. She looked up briefly and smiled, then returned to the screen.

  “You like it?” Kim asked.

  “Oh, yeah. It is just amazingly wonderful being a temp,” Lala said. She nodded without looking up.

  “Flexible, I bet, right?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “You live near here?”

  “Village.”

  “Cool! Wow! It’s expensive down there, I bet, right?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Lala squinted at the writing and typed whatever made anything close to any kind of sense and braced herself for the next riposte.

  “I live in Queens,” Kim said.

  “Mmmm.”

  Sheesh, Lala thought. Put me in a hair shirt. Whip me with a cat-o’-nine-tails. Make the experience complete.

  There was a pause. And then it went on a bit longer. And then a bit longer after that.