THE GOOD NEWS was that I was acclimating.

The bad news was that I was bored out of my mind.

Day after day I either hung out with Molly/Amelia - I wanted to call them Moelia, but that was too much effort - or I walked the city, trying to get my bearings. Without school, hell, without a goal, I found myself completely listless.

I thought maybe I'd feel better if I resumed my cash hoarding. I would go shopping and buy a shit ton of stuff, and then return half of it for cash. Stores that wouldn't give me cash, I'd take in store credit, buy more stuff, return it, say I didn't have my card, and then have them mail me a check. I racked up a couple, maybe ten thousand doing this, but my heart wasn't in it. Besides, New York stores are savvy; they knew what I was up to, and they made it hard. They took the fun out of it.

I also tried messing with Patrick. I knew all his firm passcodes, so I hack into his email and deleted everything. Then I changed all his passcodes to "#1pedophile" and email bombed it.

Of course, I totes didn't get away with it. Cousin Bob called me and told me to stop it.

"He's a pedophile, Bob. I'm just helping him create a password he'll remember."

"Be that as it may, Cousin Siobhan, you need to stop it. Don't make me come up there. Really. I hate LaGuardia."

"Corporate Nazi stooge."

"I love you too, Cousin Siobhan. Now cut it out with the hacking."

So I stopped it with the hacking. Bored, bored, bored. I was so bored. Was this what depression was? I'd never been depressed before, so I wouldn't exactly recognize the symptoms.

I thought about bringing it up with Alex, but I didn't know how to articulate it without sounding whiny. The few times I did bring it up, he'd tell me I needed to grow up.

He did have a point. I have so much; why isn't it enough? I couldn't explain it in a reasoned, logical way. The best I could come up with was that it wasn't actually mine. I hadn't earned it, so I didn't own it. I lacked a sense of accomplishment, a sense that I had made and achieved a long term goal.

Once upon a time, I did have a long term goal. I was going to be a lawyer, like my father, and his father before him.

Maybe I should just go ahead and do it. Take out the student loans. Shoulder the $200,000 debt like everyone else. It had to be better than this ridiculous existence of doing nothing.

Yet, when I finally broached the subject with Alex, he said, "You know, baby, if you want to go back to school, that's fine. Columbia's got a good fine arts program."

That took me back. "Fine arts? Why would I want to do fine arts?"

"You don't want to do fine arts?" he asked, pouring me some more wine. "I thought that since you were spending so much time with Amelia at the Met that you were interested in fine arts."

I stared at him. "No. I'm interested in law."

"Siobhan...if you want to go to law school, you can go to law school. I only suggest fine arts because Amelia says you have a propensity for it." He cut into his kobe steak and took a bite. "But it's like I told you, you want to finish up and go to law school, it's fine with me."

I watched him cut another bite. "So you're good with me going back to Notre Dame?"

His fork stopped halfway to his mouth. "Notre Dame? Why Notre Dame? Columbia is a better school."

"It's Notre Dame because I'm Irish, and I fight, so I should go to a school whose mascot is the Fighting Irish."

He chuckled. "Well, be that as it may, Columbia garners more respect. I'll call admissions, get you into the College of Arts and Sciences." He resumed eating, then said, "You might want to consider taking a few art classes, though. You might find you like them."

"I'm not going to Columbia. It's either Notre Dame or no school."

He carefully swallowed, put his utensils down, and glowered at me. "Siobhan. Stop being childish. There's no reason for you to leave the city to go to school when there are excellent educational opportunities here."

"I'm going to Notre Dame."

He stared at me and said in the soft, deadly tone of his, "No you're not."

I stared back at him. "Oh. So it's like that," I finally said. "You told me you'd pay for me, that I could go back to school, and it was all good. Are you reneging on that?"

He took a deep drink of wine then wiped his mouth. "You're not going to Notre Dame. You either go to Columbia or you don't go to school. I don't really care which."

"If you lied about that, did you lie about everything else?"

"Siobhan. We're getting married and we're starting a family. I won't have my wife living apart from me. Figure out if you want to go next semester or not. Until then, this subject is closed."

He returned to his dinner. As for me, I left the table.

Yeah. I should have known it wasn't quite the picture he painted. For a couple of days afterwards, I was enraged. I refused to talk to him and moved myself to an entirely different floor so I wouldn't even have to see him. The only reaction I got out of him was to let him know when I was over it.

Then the bastard brought home a puppy. The cutest little Irish Setter puppy you ever did see. I couldn't stay mad; the puppy was too cute, and he was all smug because he knew I loved the puppy.

So I moved back in downstairs with him. Everything should have been fine.

It wasn't, though. My mood only got darker and darker. Soon I wasn't even getting out of bed. Alex began suggesting therapy.

Then trouble stopped by and immediately cheered me up.

Trouble came in the form of my landlord's daughter, Jenny the flight attendant. She was in New York on a layover, and texted me to find out if I could meet up. I texted her back a big you betcha, told Alex I was going out for a few hours, and left before he could say no. I always figure it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

Trouble, I missed you. You need to keep in touch.

I found Jenny in the hotel's lobby bar, waiting for me, and already two vodka tonics deep. She had on a trying too hard deep blue mini dress complete with long blonde extensions poofed out bed head style. I always thought Jenny was so pretty, but she could take cheap to a whole new level. Goes to show you can take the girl out of the small town, but the small town will stay with the girl until she gets a decent stylist.

Not that anyone was complaining. Every man in the bar was looking at her like she was a filet mignon and they were iron deficient.

"Hey Blondie," I said as I moseyed up to her, "like the look. It's very Wet Seal."

She squealed, hopped off her stool, and gave me a big hug. "Siobhan! Omigod! So nice to see you! Mom says you're getting married!" She looked down, grabbed my hand and whopped, "My God. That ring is huge! It's like a 10 karat center stone, right? Surrounding stones two karats each, in a platinum setting?" She stared harder. "Is it a vintage Van Clef and Arpel?"

I looked around, embarrassed. "Thanks for letting the bar know, Jen. I was afraid the muggers might miss the opportunity."

She covered her mouth with her hand. "Sorry. I can't help it. It's gorgeous, like Beyonce's ring."

"Thanks." I climbed up on the bar stool next to hers and flagged down a waitress. "So. How's the flying thing?"

"It's fine." She climbed back up on her stool with significantly less grace due to the tightness of the dress. "I've finally got my transfer to Chicago."

"That's good," I told her. "Your mom's gotta love that."

She nudged me. "She does, especially now that you're not there to pinch hit for me."

I shrugged. "She misses you, Blondie. Trust me, I'm no substitution. Besides, it's sweet." The waitress walked over; I showed her my fake ID and ordered a scotch and soda.

"Yes, I know. I miss her, too, but still...I wish she wouldn't cry all the time. It makes me feel bad." She flipped her extensions back. "Enough about my mom...tell me about your boyfriend...I mean fiancé. Mom says he's old." She chugged her drink, then said, "I didn't even know you had a boyfriend."

"I have a boyfriend. He's old. Now he wants to get married."

"Lucky. What's he do?"

"He's a lawyer."

"Wasn't that what you were in school for?" She grabbed my arm. "Wait. Did you, like, meet him in court? Was it a love at first sight thing?"

The waitress brought my drink, which I sipped to give myself time to figure out how to answer. "No, not really. Alex is more of a family friend."

She looked down and stirred her drink, unsuccessfully masking the hurt at having her love connection bubble busted. "Oh. So, when's the date?"

"December, I don't know...omigod. Jenny, you should totes be in my wedding!" It was my turn to grab her arm. "Will you be a bridesmaid? Say yes. Don't worry about buying anything, either. My sister-in-law's planning this thing, and I don't think she understands exactly what money is."

Jenny stared at me. "Omigod. I would so love to be in your wedding."

"Awesome." I texted Amelia that Jenny was in. Amelia texted back a strong no. I texted her an image of a fork. "We're having fittings soon, so I'll email you a pdf of the schedule."

"You have a pdf of your wedding planning schedule?" She looked at me, amazed. "Is this how rich people get married?"

"Maybe. I don't know." I scrolled through my email. "I know it's here somewhere. Whatever. I'll find it later."

"Wow. I can tell this is going to be super classy. Where's it going to be?"

"The Curia." When she looked confused, I explained, "Alex's family's Hampton estate." I sighed. "I'd be just as happy going to Vegas."

Jenny grinned so big I thought her face would break. "I'm going to be in a Hamptons wedding. Omigod. I might even make it on Guest of a Guest." She threw an arm around me and almost pulled us both over. "I love having rich friends!"

"Thanks Jenny. The muggers that got bored with waiting to take my ring have now been replaced with a new set who know I've got bank."

"Sorry," she squealed. "Hamptons! Rich people! I want to be rich!"

I rolled my eyes. "Eh, Jenny, it's not all it's cracked up to be. Rich people are very meta. I don't really understand them." I toyed with my drink for a minute, then groaned, "Jenny, I'm so bored I'm thinking of shooting myself just to give myself a reason to stay in bed."

"What? How can you be bored?" She looked at me, all askance. "I mean you can buy anything."

I took a chug of my drink before I answered. "Yeah. It's great being able to contribute to the economy."

She pointed at me with her stirrer stick. "You know, you're only bored because you've never been poor. Right now, I share a one bedroom with five other girls because rent in San Francisco is that high. Do you know how hard it is living with five girls during certain times of the month? Do you?"

I shuddered. "Point made, Jenny. Point made."

"I'd give anything to be your kind of bored," she said with a deep, deep sigh. "So would half the women I work with. Of course, the other half is already married and fly so they'll have something to do." Her voice trailed off and she stared at me, the light of an idea shining in her eyes.

"What? You're looking at me weird."

She snapped her fingers and pointed. "If you're bored, you could be a flight attendant."

I snorted. "Me? Don't you have to be nice?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, confused. "You're nice."

I burst out laughing at that. "And you're sweet, Jen, but trust me, I'm not that nice. At least, I'm not nice enough to do it professionally."

"You are too," she cried because she was that nice. "Anyway, being nice is only part of it. It's really a great job! They provide your uniform and you get to go really cool places, and you only work maybe 15 days a month at most." She kind of burped and then giggled.

Well now. Jen was getting all liquored up. I flagged the waitress down and ordered some water, then said, "Fifteen days a month, huh? Tell me more."

"Well...you can drop your trips, and only maybe work, like, once or twice a month. You know, get out of the house, out of New York...it's like a little vacation." She chewed on her stirrer stick then pointed it at me again. It was starting to look a little gross. "I mean I know lots of stews that do it. They work one trip a month, so they can have some alone time. It's, like, totally a young mother thing." She giggled again. "I aspire to that."

Hmm. Alex would hate it, which actually made it more appealing to me, plus it had the additional benefit of getting out of this ridiculous city for a couple of days a month. I pushed the water glass over to her, then asked, "How do you get on?"

"Cover letter, resume, that kind of thing. It's so competitive, though. Like, last year, one of the majors was hiring for, like, 500 spots, and they got like 5 million applications, or something like that."

Jenny could be hyperbolic, but still. I bet the job was hard to get.

She snapped her fingers at me as she sipped the water. "Hey, I've heard TransGlobal is having an open house in a few days. You could go to that."

Hmm. "What would an open house require of me?"

"You go, meet some recruiters, and if they like you, they ask you to interview." She cocked her head. "Or they hire you on the spot. I don't know. Anyway, Google it." She began to frantically wave. "Hey! There's my crew! We're going to the Morgue...you have to come. Are you coming?"

"What's the Morgue?"

It's a club on the Lower East Side, in some old abandoned bank." She hopped off the stool. "Come with!"

"Sure thing, Blondie." I downed my drink. Somebody had to look after her. "Let's go to the morgue. Meet some coroners and shit."

"Siobhan, you're so weird," she giggled. "We're going to have so much fun."

I dropped a fifty on the table. "C'mon, Blondie. Let's go dance with dead people."

_____ * _____ * _____ * _____ * _____

Jenny's back and being an influence. Good or bad? Depends on your perspective. At least Siobhan's having a girl's night out.

Thank you so much for taking time to read Siobhan's story! I look forward to your comments, and if you liked it, please remember to vote!

©Copyright Liz Charnes May 2018

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