Calling Out by Rae Meadows Page B

here,” I say.
    â€œA rug here? Those are works of art,” he says, offended,
rearranging the carnations. He opens the safe and separates the different credit card slips. “Send that new one out
tonight.”
    â€œOkay. I’ll send her to that guy who wants them to
bark but doesn’t make them do much else.”
    â€œI don’t want to hear about it,” he says, holding his
hands to his ears.“I’m not interested in those things. Why
don’t you make yourself useful and clean up the bathroom
while the phone isn’t ringing? I pay you good money.”
    â€œNow that is definitely not in my job description,” I
say, going back to the crossword puzzle. “And you don’t
pay me that much. The rest comes from the girls.”
    Utah is cheap, but I’m still surprised at how easily I
have adjusted to living on a fraction of what I used to
make. My dad would be aghast that I no longer have a
401(k) or health insurance and that I actually have to
punch in on an old-fashioned time clock.
    Mohammed looks up to the ceiling and mutters an
unintelligible plea. He straightens the old magazines on
his way out the door without even a hello to Diamond,
who brushes past him to the couch.
    Diamond is twenty-one, petite but with D-cup breast
implants, dark bobbed hair, and sullen brown eyes she
lines in black. She got married a couple months ago and
left escorting with a ceremonious salute. I was rooting for
her. She got sporadic work as a fitness model, posing in a
bikini next to exercise equipment in the back-page ads of
muscle magazines, but the income hasn’t been much.
    â€œHey,” she says to me.
    â€œHey,” I say, trying to sound chipper, “nice to see you.”
    She looks at me with an accusing glance then clicks
on the TV. “Yeah, sure,” she says. She turns to Montel and
lights a cigarette. “Is Nikyla on a date? I was supposed to
meet her here.”
    â€œYeah. I sent her out again. She’s with ‘Randy
Johnson’ at the Marriott.”
    â€œThat lucky bitch,” she says. “I wonder what he’ll buy
her. Last time he took me to Victoria’s Secret and got me
this sexy little nightie. I wore it on my wedding night.”
    â€œHow’s married life?” I ask, wanting to sound
cheerful.
    â€œIt’s okay. It was good at first but we fight a lot.” Diamond dials one of the numbers etched on the lounge
phone and orders a small pepperoni pizza. “How about
you, Roxanne? Ever been married?”
    â€œNot me.”
    â€œBoyfriend?”
    â€œNo. Not since moving here.”
    â€œI can’t believe you left New York for this,” she says,
less wistful than disgusted.
    â€œI needed a change,” I say.
    Diamond gives a “whatever” shrug and turns back to
the TV.
    I don’t tell her that I left because I had started fantasizing about my own funeral. It was almost the same thing
as imagining my wedding—all the people from different
stages of my life in one place, all the focus on me. Old
boyfriends thinking about what might have been. McCallister in the front row. It’s not that I actively wanted to kill
myself but I did like that view from above.
    I started with small things like giving up vitamins and
vegetables, smoking alone, switching to nonlight cigarettes, not washing my hands after the subway, forgoing
my seat belt and driving fast, making out with someone in
a bar who had strep throat. But soon I had amassed a
lethal dose of Valium. I found it calming that the option
was there, that death was a possibility. I walked around
late at night by myself downtown through the empty,
fishy streets of Chinatown and across the Brooklyn
Bridge. I avoided the dwindling, few friends who I hadn’t
yet shaken loose. I felt invisible, on the periphery of existence, heading toward negligible. On my bathroom
mirror I taped a fortune that read, “You can always find a
way