Read The First Day of the Rest of My Life Online
Authors: Cathy Lamb
The First Day of the Rest of My Life (18 page)
As soon as I walked in, I instantly felt like I was in a gigantic, cold, ultramodern tomb.
I so don’t like my house.
I dropped my purse and my briefcase, tossed my keys to the freaky black metal statue with the octagonal head, and dumped myself into a stiff, modern leather chair that was completely unlike my dad’s comfy, poufy leather chair.
Why did I feel so cold in my own home?
Why did I feel like a visitor?
Why did I feel like I had to be quiet here, as if I couldn’t talk, or move?
Why did I feel like I couldn’t breathe in my own home? Why did I feel like I had to hide, as if I was an imposter, a fake, an interloper, a burglar, even?
Why is that?
And, if I feel this way, why am I still here?
“Greetings, Madeline.”
“Hi, Georgie.” I’d been in the office since six in the morning. I moved one client folder over, replaced it with another, clicked on my e-mail, and decided the forty new e-mails and twenty-three phone calls that had come in that morning could wait. I had already talked to Janika Jeffs, the head honcho organizing the Rock Your Womanhood conference. “Can’t wait, Madeline, we
can’t wait
to hear your closing night speech! I’m rockin’, I’m rockin’ already!”
can’t wait
to hear your closing night speech! I’m rockin’, I’m rockin’ already!”
“Aurora King is here,” Georgie said over the phone.
“I’ll bet she’s wearing the yellow fairy dress today.”
“Yes, she is,” Georgie said. “How did you know? Wait. You have unrealized psychic abilities, don’t you? I knew you were in touch with your inner self. Anyhow, Aurora says her spirit is light and flowing on a stream of goodwill.”
“Superb. Her tiara in place?”
“Tilted perfectly. She wears the tiara to remind herself that she is a princess. What, Aurora? She wants me to tell you that she feels some black around the edges of your aura. What, Aurora ? She says she sees red. She says it’s mysterious blood. What? She sees a fire. A ball of fire. By that same tree with the branches that criss and cross. What else, Aurora? A heavily armed airport and a senator who has to resign.”
“I’m wearing a black suit and black heels. I think my underwear has red trim. Tell her that’s what she’s seeing. There are skyscraping-sized trees in Portland. I looked at a plane today. I don’t know about the senator. You know I think politicians are drivel slobber.” I continued to shift papers. Where was my draft for my speech? I’d been working on that in the wee hours....
“I don’t think she is talking about your boring black heels.”
I was not offended. “Did you say boring black heels?”
“Yes, I did.”
I heard Stanley bark.
“I have offered to go shopping with you, Madeline, so we can touch your fashionista, wake her up.”
“My inner fashionista died a long time ago.” Yep, the fashionista died in a shack. “Plus, I wear suits because I’m a professional.”
“You wear suits because you are not in touch with the creative side of your spirit. You are unwilling to release her into a welcoming spectrum world.”
I didn’t know what a welcoming spectrum world was. I would ask later. “There’s no inner spirit in me that wants a release.”
“Yes, there is. You have to meditate to bring her out, coax some color and flavor into your wardrobe to reflect the complexity of the spirit.”
“I’ll try to get the spirit out tonight. Maybe she’ll attack my frumpiness. Send Aurora King in and tell her not to throw glitter at me again.”
“Don’t throw glitter at Madeline,” I heard Georgie say before she disconnected.
I opened my door to Aurora King and closed my eyes when I saw her hand swing up.
She threw yellow glitter at me.
Two days later I was still picking it out of my hair.
Corky Goshofsky was next up.
“You are not succeeding because you are blaming everyone else for your failures,” I said, twirling a pen in my fingers.
“What?” Corky’s voice sounded like a machete on sandpaper. Ugh. She rearranged her significant, interesting bottom on one of my chairs.
This is an odd thing to say, but Corky has a butt that has a life of its own. When she walks, one cheek goes up, wiggles at the top like piled-up Jell-O, then sags while the next cheek does the up, wiggle, and Jell-O thing.
“You are not succeeding because you are blaming everyone else for your failures.” I wanted to eat a burrito for lunch. Extra cheese and avocado.
Corky glared at me, crossing her arms. “People are always talking behind my back. No one gives me a break. When I work in groups I can’t help it if I get frustrated with slow people. I speak up when I have an opinion, and they don’t want to hear it, even though they know they’re wrong and I’m right.”
“Your personality is also a huge barrier to your success.”
“What do you mean by that?” The words came out like verbal bullets.
Pow, pow, pow.
Pow, pow, pow.
“You’re abrasive, offensive, and difficult. You come off as superior and condescending.”
“This is the third session I’ve paid for, Madeline, and I’m not coming here to listen to you take their side.”
“Then you can go.”
That took her aback. “What?”
“You can go. You came here because I’m a life coach and I help people with their relationships and their lives. I can’t help you with your life, with all the problems you’re having at work and home, if I’m not honest with you, so here’s the truth. You’re obnoxious.”
She sputtered. She bopped up and down in her seat on that interesting bottom, her graying, curly brown hair bouncing. “I am not!”
“Yes, you are. You have to learn how to like Corky. You don’t like her at all, do you?”
She sputtered. The sputtering sounded like: Blind denial.
“Yes, I do! I’m smart! I’m successful! I have a bunch of money and a huge house and a Lexus!”
“You have much of that because you received an inheritance. You’ve been fired from three jobs in three years. You complain that your Lexus is too low to the ground, and all this is beside the point.” I waved a hand in the air. “You have got to do something to learn how to like yourself, and when you like yourself, you’ll be able to like others—”
“I don’t like other people because they’re rude, uncouth and judgmental, and social idiots—”
“You don’t like all those people because you don’t like yourself. Pure and simple. Look here, Corky.” I leaned my elbows on my knees. I would add hot sauce to my burrito. “You need a Bash ’em in the Brains O’Shea Reality Check. You have to re-do Corky. You need a makeover physically so you’ll like yourself. You need to join one of those diet places and a gym, because you have to get your health together before you collapse. You need to walk every night so you can be in nature. Notice leaves, trees, spiders, obsessive-compulsive squirrels and chipmunks, stuff like that. Get your hair done at a salon. That’ll give you a lift you won’t believe.”
“I don’t like the outside! I don’t like nature! I don’t want to be in it!”
“I’m sure nature doesn’t like you, either, but she’s willing to put up with you in hopes for a better tomorrow. Now, for your personality fix, you need to chill. Relax. Quit attacking people. Compliment them. Be sincerely interested in their lives. Volunteer, if you can be well behaved, so you can get a picture of what other people’s lives are like who are not on your same socioeconomic ladder. Your complaints and incessant whining will seem ridiculously petty, and hopefully you will shut up at that point. Honestly, there are teenagers who are homeless, kids in prostitution, and others starving tonight. They’d trade places with you in a minute. Spend time reading to open up that clampeddown brain of yours, have adventures to get yourself out of your rut, go to a play so you can be interesting. Be someone people want to talk to. Right now, your entire conversation is filled with what I call Roaring Shit Negatives and Corrosive Complaints. No wonder you have no friends.”
“How dare you say that, you skinny moronic twit.” She was purple with rage.
“I dare because you’ve paid me money to be honest. I will have to deny being a twit.” The twit wanted lemonade with her burrito, too.
“I’ve paid a lot of money!”
“I charge you extra because you’re a pain in the butt.” I ignored her shocked look. “You need to change so the rest of the world does not have to put up with your critical, narcissistic personality anymore. It’s unfair, Corky. No one should be allowed to ruin someone else’s day. That should be a law.”
She hauled her interesting bottom up and grabbed her chair, and her face, which resembled a purple sponge, scrunched in fury. I leaped behind the couch, and she tossed that chair with a bad word following closely behind it like a tail.
Luckily, the chair did not break any windows. I am up high in this building, after all.
“Bitch!” she screamed.
“I thought I was a twit.”
Georgie popped in with Stanley at her heels. He barked. “Can I help with this degenerating emotional situation before it reaches a galaxy-sized disaster?” Georgie said, quite calmly through a sucker she had in her mouth.
“Nope,” I said.
“Bitch!” Corky twisted and reached for another chair. Her bottom wiggled at me.
“If you do the things I told you, Corky, people won’t hate you so much.”
“Double bitch!” she screamed again.
I did not tell her that she should have screamed “Triple bitch,” not “Double bitch,” as I dove beneath my desk when another chair went flying.
“You’re not doing what I said,” I called out, singsongy.
“Should I grab her?” Georgie asked. She was wearing a short jean jacket over a purple tube top and a floaty black skirt with ruffles and black ankle high boots. “Should I hold her against her will and cap the volcanic emotional rocks bursting forth?”
“Triple bitch!” Corky threw another chair. I ducked once again.
She was out of chairs. I grabbed one of the chairs that had been thrown, scooted around the desk, dropped it right in front of her, then darted back behind my desk. “Go ahead and throw it again, Corky!”
She picked up the chair and pitched it. “Straight-haired, spindly legged snot!”
I scrambled out and brought her another chair, then hustled back behind my desk.
That chair broke on my desk.
“Tight-assed, stuck-up, know-it-all!”
Even though she called me “tight ass,” I didn’t think it was time to tell her about her wiggly Jell-O bottom. I scooted out a third time, handed her another chair, and darted behind the desk. “One more time, Corky.”
“Arggghhh!” She tossed that chair and it split, too.
“Okay, you’ve had your temper tantrum, Corky. Now go home and think about what I said. Meditate. Yoga-ize yourself. Slap your cheeks. Whatever it takes.”
“I’ll never think!”
“Never?”
“No, never! I’ll never think!” She was shaking all over.
Georgie said, “Wrap yourself in your spiritual nature as you leave. Think pleasant thoughts. Think of waterfalls, rivers, streams, a naked man. Think of a naked man. That’s what I do to calm my spirit.”
I glanced at Georgie while keeping a close eye on the chair thrower. Eye candy. Georgie used men as eye candy for inner peace.
Corky turned to huff out, but first she kicked my wall and threw a metal side table. Stanley barked at her. Twice. He did not raise his paw, he did not want a hug. “I’m going to sue you, you liar, you silly-headed creep, you poop!”
Poop? I was a poop?
She blushed redder. I knew she regretted saying the word poop. It sounded so poopy.
“My pleasure,” I called out. “Call my attorney, Keith Stein, directly. He’s in the book.”
“You’re going to regret this!”
“You’re not. You’re going to go home and fume and rant and rave until everyone around you is literally running when they see you lumbering their way, and you’re finally going to have a Herculean breakdown and cry your eyes out, and three days later you’re going to call me and make an appointment.”
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