by Kate McSHANE

I did­n’t al­ways live alone. I used to have room­mates. I al­so used to have all of my wis­dom teeth but last De­cem­ber they were all re­moved in one mag­i­cal week. Both my mouth and apart­ment are no longer over­crowd­ed with ass­holes who thought they be­longed there. I bid them a fond farewell with an over­due phone bill and a cou­ple of Per­co­cets as part­ing gifts. Thanks for play­ing “Try to live with Ann!” now get the hell out. Now I can eat all the marsh­mal­lows out of the ce­re­al box with­out con­se­quences. I can chew bub­blegum with reck­less aban­don. My boyfriend can walk around naked and on­ly one per­son has to be of­fend­ed. But I have to ad­mit, it’s on a morn­ing such as this when I wish any­one was around to say, Good morn­ing, Ann. Don’t walk in front of a bus, Ann. Hap­py Birth­day, Ann.

…

I have to leave for work in ten min­utes and so far on­ly my best friend, Rags, has called. Rags got her nick­name when we were sev­en and both Raggedy Ann for Hal­loween. I picked the cos­tume be­cause of my name, she be­cause her sis­ter was Pip­pi Long­stock­ing the year be­fore and her Mom want­ed to re­cy­cle the red yarn wig. We bare­ly knew each oth­er then but we were placed to­geth­er in the school pa­rade. The name just stuck and so did we.

“Lis­ten,” she said, “you are not six­teen so quit act­ing like Mol­ly Shit­wald and get a grip.” Rags is the on­ly per­son who has the guts to tell me how it is and some­times tear my heart out in the process. This has re­sult­ed in months of not talk­ing. Se­cret vaults filled with re­sent­ment. We used to just beat the shit out of each oth­er but I bruise eas­i­ly and peo­ple start­ed to look at my boyfriend funny.

“He for­got, huh?” she asked.

“He can’t tech­ni­cal­ly for­get if he is asleep,” I shot back, know­ing how pa­thet­ic it sound­ed the sec­ond the words left my mouth.

So my boyfriend is kind of fa­mous. He was on a se­mi-pop­u­lar tele­vi­sion show in the ear­ly nineties but af­ter it got can­celed he moved back east. I met him at my friend Au­drey’s par­ty three years ago. When my friends said there was a celebri­ty com­ing, I sped all the way there. Imag­ine my dis­ap­point­ment when I saw the equiv­a­lent of Pauly Shore wait­ing in line to use the bath­room. He even­tu­al­ly won me over with his ut­ter con­tempt for his for­mer co-stars, who he called a bunch of clowns. “And not the kind that went to col­lege for it ei­ther,” he said.

I did­n’t know if he was be­ing se­ri­ous but I did­n’t care, I had­n’t heard any­thing so sil­ly in weeks. It’s hard to find a sil­ly man so I kept him around for the gig­gles. He used to fly out for pi­lot sea­son but he stopped that around the time we met. Now he teach­es dra­ma class­es at the lo­cal col­lege, slow­ly re­plac­ing all the mon­ey he snort­ed up his nose. He’s not my soul mate but you know what Cros­by, Stills, and Nash say about lov­ing the one you’re with. Some­thing about it be­ing moral­ly ac­cept­able, I think. Any­way, he does­n’t re­al­ly love me ei­ther or else he would’ve called by now. Some­times I can’t even get an­gry at him be­cause it would in­volve bad act­ing on both of our parts and I like him to keep some things just for himself.

…

Up­on ar­riv­ing to work, I see a bou­quet wait­ing at my desk. This has to be a mis­take. The same mis­take that be­fell me one fate­ful Valen­tine’s day when my col­league’s ros­es were de­liv­ered to me in­stead. I ex­cit­ed­ly ripped open the card, not check­ing to see if it was even made out to me. I don’t know what was sad­der, that the flow­ers were from her par­ents or that my boyfriend did­n’t even both­er to wake up that day.

It has hap­pened again but this time it’s okay be­cause I am pre­pared. Maybe the new girl’s boyfriend cheat­ed on her or it’s the an­niver­sary of the first time the temp loaded the print­er car­tridge prop­er­ly. Maybe my boss has fi­nal­ly got­ten her braces off and her hus­band has sent her lilacs be­cause he can now look at her and not wince. I ap­proach the flow­ers ner­vous­ly and see that the card is made out to me. I half ex­pect wa­ter to squirt out when I bend over to smell them but am greet­ed with a sweet aro­ma instead.

“What’s the oc­ca­sion?” asks Jean, who’s been milling around since I came in.

“Oh, it’s my birth­day,” I say with a shrug of the shoulders.

“Well, Hap­py birth­day to you,” she says with a ro­bot­ic tilt of the head.

I hate every­one I work with ex­cept El­roy. El­roy and I sit two desks away from each oth­er and we pass notes on our way to any­where. Most­ly about what a shit Jean is.

“Well, en­joy your flow­ers,” she says as if I sent them to myself.

Jean walks away and starts to dis­creet­ly whis­per to peo­ple she pass­es, as if in­form­ing them I had just killed the of­fice gold­fish. I near­ly for­got to open the card when El­roy si­dled up to me.

“Those can’t pos­si­bly be from Lester,” he says in­cred­u­lous­ly. El­roy mock­ing­ly calls my boyfriend by his sit­com name but all this does is re­mind me that he was once on tele­vi­sion and El­roy sta­ples things for a living.

“Don’t know yet,” I say as I grab the tiny card from its plas­tic hold­er. I did­n’t want to read it, as if it was a col­lege re­jec­tion let­ter. Some­thing I al­ready had a han­dle on, unfortunately.

“El­roy,” I sigh. He hangs his head for a sec­ond and then looks up at me.

“I did­n’t want your desk to get a com­plex or any­thing,” El­roy says as he crum­ples the pa­per cup he was hold­ing. “You know, about Valen­tine’s day,” he whis­pers as if to shield my desk from fur­ther embarrassment.

“You’re very sweet,” I say as I kiss him on the cheek.

He walks to his desk with a goofy grin on his face. I did­n’t want to lead him on, but a kiss on the cheek is ap­pro­pri­ate for the sit­u­a­tion, I tell my­self. The phone rings and Rags im­me­di­ate­ly wants to know why I sound so happy.

“Se­nile al­ready?” she asks. I tell her about the flowers.

“Aw, at­ta boy,” she coos.

“Come on now.”

She’s al­ways liked El­roy but she knows bet­ter. Be­sides, my boyfriend may be a burnout but he has al­ways been nice to my friends. He even flew her out to Los An­ge­les once so I would have some­one to hang out with while he went on some au­di­tions. He did­n’t get any parts but I think the Cal­i­for­nia air serves as a de­con­ges­tant for him: his snor­ing re­duced to a mere honk­ing while there.

“So I guess that makes it Ann, one, Birth­day, ze­ro,” she says.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

“So what he has­n’t called,” she says and maybe she’s on­to some­thing there.

“Fuck, here comes Bri­an from pack­ag­ing. I got­ta go,” I say and Rags wish­es me luck.

“Let me guess,” Bri­an is point­ing his trig­ger fin­ger at me. If on­ly it were loaded with bul­lets in­stead of awk­ward paus­es. “Lucky twen­ty one!” he shouts.

“Close, twen­ty four,” I say.

“Ohh, you’re catch­ing up to me!” he shouts, his laugh echo­ing through­out the office.

“I don’t think I could run that fast,” I say. I can tell Bri­an does­n’t re­al­ly know what that means and quite hon­est­ly nei­ther do I.

“Well, have a good one,” he says, a puz­zled look still on his freck­led and wrin­kled face.

This is why I nev­er an­nounce my birth­day to peo­ple at work. Es­pe­cial­ly to the hat­ed. I hate Bri­an. I hate that he knows my sign. I hate that I can say some­thing flaky and he can go, “You crazy Capri­corns!” I would­n’t mind all this hul­la­baloo if there was go­ing to be cake lat­er but there is­n’t. My birth­day is­n’t marked on the gi­ant cal­en­dar in the kitchen. All hail the gi­ant cal­en­dar in the kitchen. Their per­pet­u­al gift to me is re­sent­ment for not al­low­ing them to buy me an ice cream cake in the shape of a whale. The ab­sence of choco­late crunchies in their stom­achs, a sweet gift af­ter all.

The one good thing about no cake is there will be no singing. I hate birth­day singing. It’s my par­ents’ fault re­al­ly: my name is just not con­ducive to the tra­di­tion. I mean the jerk who penned the Birth­day song had to have had more than one syl­la­ble in his or her name. It just sounds best when you get to the end and every­one sings “Hap­py Birth­day, Dear An-drew” or what­ev­er. Us schmos with mono­syl­lab­ic names are ba­si­cal­ly screwed. Awk­ward­ness en­sues every year when my name is drawn out to be longer than ever in­tend­ed, “Hap­py birth­day, dear A‑aaaan!” It’s em­bar­rass­ing, re­al­ly, every­one adding that ex­tra beat. Don’t do me any fa­vors, birth­day song singers, okay?

I used to re­al­ly love to­day. Just hear­ing the words “May tenth” spo­ken used to make my eyes twin­kle. It seemed there was al­ways some­thing to look for­ward to there for a while. Af­ter the promise of toys came the promise of dri­ving, cig­a­rettes, then fi­nal­ly al­co­hol. These could be con­sid­ered my three fa­vorite things. Af­ter you get your fa­vorite things, what’s left?

I al­so al­ways think I’m go­ing to get the best present in the world. A pup­py, a di­a­mond, a car with an over­sized bow. What about my boyfriend, you say? He must give you some sweet gifts with all that roy­al­ty mon­ey, right? I’d say that the mon­ey that was once spent on the white stuff is now be­ing spent on the green stuff and as awe­some as that Bil­bo Bag­gins pipe he gave me last year was, I have since re­fused to ac­cept gifts that are whittled.

…

Pulling in­to my dri­ve­way I see his car and am in­stant­ly re­lieved. I wor­ry he won’t say it though. The im­me­di­ate “hap­py birth­day” is nec­es­sary. Hap­py birth­days are the re­verse of I‑love-yous when it comes to eti­quette. If you don’t say “Hap­py Birth­day” with­in the first few sen­tences you speak to the per­son, you may as well shoot them in the face. With “I love you,” if some­one says it to you, you have a few sen­tences you can stall with but if you don’t say it back, you may as well shoot the oth­er per­son in the face. He said I love you first which sur­prised me and I said it right back with this stu­pid smile on my face. I can’t help it, I was twen­ty-one and Lester loved me! Lit­tle old me!

I open the door and slam it in an at­tempt to wake him if he is sleep­ing. I don’t hear any noise com­ing from the back of the apart­ment and I know right away he’s not there. I search the coun­ter­top for a note but hon­est­ly, I know bet­ter. I do things like this for my Non­nie. I of­ten think she is watch­ing me from heav­en, and ges­tures such as look­ing for a note might give her hope that my life has­n’t com­plete­ly gone to shit. See, my boyfriend has just stepped out for a minute, Non­nie, he’ll be right back with a bun­dle of pe­onies and one of those ob­nox­ious­ly large cards with Zig­gy on it.

I call Rags and she spares me the “told you so” at­ti­tude. “I’ll be there in five min­utes,” she says.

…

As soon as she comes in, she says, “let’s go for a drink.” It’s more of a state­ment than a suggestion.

“I don’t know,” I say. I don’t know what I don’t know but I feel pret­ty con­fi­dent say­ing it. I do know I want to­mor­row to come. For it not to be my birth­day. The ab­surd ex­pec­ta­tions of birth­day per­fec­tion to be as dead as my youth.

“C’­mon,” she says, “I’ll buy you a shot.”

“I’ll take two in the skull, please.”

“Shut up, al­right. No one is shoot­ing any­one in the skull. You re­al­ly say that a lot, you know?”

“Yeah, but to­day I re­al­ly mean it.”

“Oh, well if you re­al­ly mean it I’ll stop at Wal­mart and in five days you got it fuckin’ comin’, girl.”

Rags is a pis­tol. She’s a re­al card, my Dad would say. A piece of work, my Mom would shout from the next room be­cause she al­ways thought she said it better.

“I know what would make the night bet­ter,” Rags says.

“What’s that?”

“I think we should give a not so se­cret ad­mir­er a ring a ding ding and have him join us,” she says as she picks up my phone and fon­dles its numbers.

“Are you mental?”

“What?” Rags says, like ask­ing El­roy to get drunk with us was this fan­tas­tic idea.

“You know what,” I say but Rags is al­ready run­ning for the bath­room, phone in hand. “Okay, okay, I’ll call him,” I say, chas­ing her, but it’s too late.

“It’s ring­ing,” she says from in­side the bath­room, and sud­den­ly I am in sev­enth grade and hav­ing my best friend call boys for me.

“I got his an­swer­ing ma­chine.” She can tell by my si­lence that I am disappointed.

“Maybe he’s out, don’t wor­ry ba­by girl,” she says. I smiled then, re­mem­ber­ing that El­roy does­n’t have Caller ID at home. If he did­n’t pick up his cell phone I would know for sure that men were put here on earth sole­ly to ru­in my birthday.

“Hel­lo?” I can hear his muf­fled voice through the door. He sounds so far away and all I can think about is kiss­ing him. I hear Rags laugh­ing and I have to walk away. I imag­ine El­roy at home in his pa­ja­mas, nod­ding so hard his head he­li­copters off, say­ing yes, yes, yes. I sup­pose I’m be­ing nar­cis­sis­tic, maybe he’s say­ing no, no, no, he has a girl over and they’re play­ing strip Bog­gle. Tell her it’s too late, he might say and he would sigh and Rags would say “El-roy” but he will’ve al­ready hung up.

I start walk­ing back to­wards the bath­room door on­ly to find it open­ing. Rags comes out with a short, stiff smile on her face.

“So?” I ask with my eyes bugged out, my eye­brows raised like some kind of car­toon idiot.

“So El­roy shall meet us at the bar in twen­ty min­utes, my el­der­ly friend.”

Our town is so small that I know im­me­di­ate­ly which bar she means, every­one knows our name, blah, blah, blah.

I un­dress and I pull my hair out of its tight pony­tail, find a tee shirt on the wash­ing ma­chine and pull it over my head.

“Just some quick make­up,” Rags says as she at­tacks my face with mas­cara and lip gloss. “I think you’re ready, birth­day girl.”

I smile when I see Rags look­ing back at me. She looks so pret­ty stand­ing there, want­i­ng me to be happy.

“Let’s go,” I say, and grab my bag from the back of the kitchen chair. I ig­nore the fa­mil­iar sounds of boots on the dri­ve­way grav­el, of keys jan­gling, and we walk out the back door.

Filed under Fiction on September 12th, 2007

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