Page 75 of Our Final Encore

The weight of my own failure sits heavily on my shoulders as I walk back down the street towards my car. I can’t even keep a job, even a job that I thought I was pretty decent at. How the hell am I going to raise a kid? I slam my car door closed and rest my head on my steering wheel. Tears start flowing from my eyes before I can stop them or pull myself together.

It’s just a job, Opal.

But it’s not. It’s more than that, because it’s just one more thing I can add to my list of fuck-ups in life.

I pull my phone out of my purse and tap on Maisie’s name. It rings and rings, but eventually goes to voicemail. I know she’sin her nursing class this morning, and she can’t just step out for what she probably thinks is a casual phone call.

I scroll through my contacts. I could call Mom, but she won’t understand. She’ll call my boss a bitch for firing me, but she’ll make me feel worse when she says the job didn’t pay enough anyway. I sure as hell don’t want to tell Mamaw, she’s had more than enough stress lately.

My thumb hovers over Alex’s name as I blink away new tears. What the hell, why not?

It rings a few times. He probably won’t answer, he’s at work.

“Hello?”

I sniffle into the receiver, realizing I didn’t even plan how I’d start this conversation.

“Opal? You there?”

“Hey,” I say. “Um, sorry to bother you. I just–” I pause, feeling like an idiot for calling him now. I just felt like I needed to talk to someone, vent.

“It’s okay, you’re not bothering me. Is everything alright? You sound upset…” His voice is laced with concern.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. I um, I lost my job. So…I’m just kind of sad, and pissed.” A laugh escapes me, and it feels weird, but also good. The situation isn’t funny at all, but laughing in spite of myself seems like the only logical solution.

“Shit…Did they say why?”

“Basically just that I wasn’t meeting expectations.”

“Fuck that. I bet you were the smartest one in that place.” He sighs. “I’m sorry, honey.”

Even though I know that’s not true, his words somehow make me feel better almost instantly. “Thanks. I just feel like, now what? I’m almost twenty weeks pregnant. It’s going to be hard to find a job now, if they know I’m pregnant they won’t want to hire me. I’m just scared. I feel like I’m doing everything wrong.”

He pauses, and I look at my screen, making sure he hasn’t hung up. “Do you need me to come over?” he asks.

“What? No, you’re at work, you don’t need to do that.”

“You’re not doing anything wrong, Opal. These things happen sometimes, don’t be too hard on yourself.” He sounds so sincere, it almost makes me second guess my insecurities. “Can I come see you later, when I get off? Just to check on you?”

A lopsided smile appears on my lips. “Yeah, that would be nice actually.”

“Okay. I gotta get back to work, but I’ll see you this evening. I-” he pauses like he was about to say something else, but decided not to. “I’ll see you later, bluebird.”

“Okay, see you.”

I disconnect the call, feeling a tad air of awkwardness about how it ended. Like the conversation wasn’t complete. I shake off the weird feeling and shove the key in my ignition, feeling like I have a much better hold on my emotions now than I did before our phone call.

It’s kind of funny that only a couple of months ago, Alex was the one person who could throw me into an emotional turmoil, and now he’s the one calming me down.

FORTY-SEVEN

Opal

I’m still sulking in my bed, staring at the angry words in front of me on my laptop’s screen. Most of my writing is angsty, even a bit self-deprecating at times, but I think I’ve hit a new low. Sometimes I don’t write to create something pretty, though, sometimes I write because my emotions just need to be released, and that’s how I feel today.

My phone buzzes on my side table, and Alex’s name flashes on the screen.

“Hello?”

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