“I was just curious.”
“You were there.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
Lois frowned. “Yes, you were. I was talking to you. I was telling you about that accident my daughter got in.”
I blinked. “I wasn’t there. I was here the whole time.”
“Are you sure?”
I nodded. Of course I was sure. I knew where I’d been for lunch, knew what I’d done, but I nonetheless felt chilled, slightly uneasy, and the thought irrationally crossed my mind that there was a doppelganger out there, a double acting in my stead.
“Huh,” Lois said, shaking her head. “That’s weird. I could’ve sworn you were there.”
I was ignored. By everyone.
I hadn’t noticed the extent of it at first because the company was not one big happy family. It was a pretty impersonal place to work, and even friends did not get much of a chance to speak in the hallways beyond a quick “hi”.
But people seemed to go out of their way not to notice me.
I tried not to think about it, tried not to let it bother me. But it did bother me. And I was reminded of it each workday, each time I sat in my office with Derek, each time I walked through the halls, each time I took my breaks or went to lunch.
It seemed frivolous to dwell to such an extent on my own problems, to be so chronically self-absorbed. I mean, there were people in Third World countries dying every day from diseases that science had the means to eradicate completely. There were people in our own country who were homeless and starving, and here I was worried that I didn’t get along with my coworkers.
But everyone’s reality is different.
And in my reality, this was important.
I thought of talking about it with Jane, wanted to talk to her about it, even planned to talk about it, but somehow I never seemed able to bring it up.
On Friday, Hope passed out the checks at four o’clock, the way she always did. I thanked her as she handed me my envelope, and I opened it up to look at the check.
It was sixty dollars less than it was supposed to be.
I stared at the printed number, not sure of what to do. I looked over at Derek. “Is there anything wrong with your check?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Don’t know. Haven’t looked.”
“Could you check?”
“It’s none of your business,” he told me.
“Fine.” I stood up and took my check down the hall to Stewart’s office. As usual, he was sitting at his desk, reading a computer magazine. I knocked once on his doorframe, and when he didn’t look up, I walked in.
He frowned at me. “What are you doing here?”
“I have a problem,” I said. “I need to talk to you.”
“What kind of problem?”
There was a chair available, but he didn’t offer it to me and I remained standing. “My paycheck’s sixty dollars off.”
“I don’t know anything about it,” Stewart said.
“I know. But you’re my supervisor.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? That I’m responsible for everything that goes on in your life?”
“No, I just thought — ”
“Don’t think. I don’t know anything about your little check problem, and to be honest with you, Jones, I don’t care.” He picked up his magazine, began reading it again. “If you have a question, talk to Accounting.”
I looked down at the check, at the attached pay stub, and I noticed something I hadn’t seen before. I cleared my throat. “It says here in the hours box that I only worked four days last week.”
“There you go, then. That’s why your check’s short. Case closed.”
“But I worked five days.”
He lowered his newspaper. “Can you prove it?”
“Prove it? You saw me. Monday I helped you with the IBM memo and retyped that page for the new keyboard. Tuesday I met with you and Mr. Banks to talk about GeoComm. Wednesday and Thursday I worked on the list of processing functions for GeoComm. Friday I turned in what I’d done and started on that Biweekly Report System update.”
“I can’t be expected to keep track of every little movement made by every little person in this organization. To be honest with you, Jones, I’ve never known Accounting to make a mistake like this before. If they say you only worked four days last week, then I’m prepared to believe them.”
He returned to his magazine.
I stared at him. This was an Orwellian nightmare, a real-life Catch-22. I couldn’t believe it was happening. I forced myself to take a deep breath. Over the years, I’d grown immune to this sort of reasoning. In the abstract. The three-hundred dollar Pentagon hammers, my dealings with the cable company, all of this had caused me to take for granted the absurdity of the modern world in which I lived. But to come face-to-face with this sort of thinking on such a personal level was not only unbelievable but truly infuriating.
Stewart continued to ignore me, made a big show of licking his thumb and turning the page of his magazine.
He was smiling to himself, and I wanted to smack him, to just walk around the side of his desk, slap him upside the head, and wipe that smirk off his smug pretty-boy face.
Instead, I turned and left, walking straight to the elevator. Accounting was on the third floor, along with Personnel, and I saw Lisa behind the counter as I walked through the third-floor lobby. I ignored her and headed down the main hallway, in the opposite direction of the conference room.
I spoke to a clerk, then an accountant, then the finance director, and though I’d half-expected to hear that I had to get Stewart to sign a form verifying my whereabouts on each working day last week, the director apologized for the error and promised to get me a check for the difference by Monday.
I thanked him and left.
I told Jane about it when I got home, related the entire story to her, but I couldn’t seem to impart to her the feeling of frustration, the powerlessness I felt in the face of Stewart’s disbelief in me and his complete faith in the infallibility of the system. No matter how much I talked, I couldn’t make her understand how I felt, and I ended up getting mad at her for not understanding, and both of us went to bed angry.
Six
I don’t know why my job affected my relationship with Jane, but it did. I found myself being unnecessarily curt, getting angry at her for no reason at all. I guess I resented her for not being stuck in a crummy dead-end job like I was. It was stupid and irrational — she was still going to school and working part-time, so of course she couldn’t be in the same boat I was in — but I took my frustrations out on her anyway. I felt guilty for doing so. Throughout all those frustrating months when I could not find work, she had been there for me. She had put no pressure on me, she had never been anything but supportive. I felt bad that I was doing this to her, treating her this way.
That made me resent her even more.
Something was definitely wrong with me.
I’d called my parents when I’d first gotten the job but hadn’t talked to them since, and although Jane kept pressuring me to do so, I kept putting it off. My mom had been supportive, my dad happy that I’d finally found work, but neither of them had been thrilled, and I’d felt vaguely embarrassed. I didn’t know what kind of job they’d expected me to get after graduation, but it was obviously something better than this one, and I felt even more awkward about discussing my work with them now than I had that first time.
I loved my parents, but we didn’t exactly have the closest family in the world.
Jane and I were not as close as we had been either. Until recently, we had occupied the same little universe, that of the college student, and our free time had been spent together, doing the same things. But there were differences now, gaps. We were no longer in sync. I worked from eight to five, came home, and my day was done. I relaxed and read, or watched TV. She had night classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays and on those evenings did not come home until after nine. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays she did schoolwork or prepared activities for the kids at the day care center.