When I told Justin how superficial he was, he started dating an ugly girl a month later to prove me wrong. But all he managed to do was prove how right I was. I’m the ugly girl, if you didn’t already guess it. This is where Justin would have normally burst in with an empathetic “you’re not ugly” and maybe I could believe him if I didn’t know what I looked like. I saw myself everyday and unless somehow the person I see in the mirror isn’t me, then Justin is what I’ve always suspected him to be: a pathological liar.
He can’t even be a liar without being the best at it. He’s so damn good that he actually believes the shit he says.
And I never would have met him in the first place if it wasn’t for Janice Mitchell. Janice was a wide-eyed, small town girl who’d dreamed her way right out of Brentwood, CA to join the masses as a lost angel in the city of the two S’s: Silicon & Stars.
We met each other while I was working at Jill’s Heels, a small shoe store with big dreams of becoming trendy one day. Or at least not as tacky. I’ve never met Jill but her heels are a stripper favorite. With the heel height ranging from twisted ankle to help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up. But I digress.
Janice saw me and just latched onto me, claiming that I reminded of her family”which instantly had her getting my sympathy. I mean, what kind of family did she have if I reminded her of them? Poor girl.
“How? Are they generally peppy with cheerleader-like optimism about the game of life…like me?” I said dryly.
Janice shook her head. “No, actually they’re more like me in that sense.”
“Oh,” I muttered, continuing my monotonously brain cell slaying task of stocking the shelves. “So they’re all perfect then.”
“Perfect?” She wrinkled her ridiculously straight nose at the word. “Heaven’s no.” She laughed. “Actually, my family is pretty dysfunctional.” She added, before proceeding to reveal how her family is ridden with phobias. Her mother has Paraskavedekatriaphobia, the fear of Friday the 13th, which was brought on solely by the one movie: Friday the 13th. Now, I’ve never seen the movie, but I’m sure it’s like every other supposedly scary movie that’s I’ve seen which others have hyped to be this really fantastically horrific ordeal only to pale in comparison. Becoming classic horrible ‘scary’ movies like The Ring, The Grudge (which is just too stupid for words), and Saw.
Then there’s her dad, who has Octophobia, the fear of the number eight. She never did find out where the fear might have originated from, but she’d had to grow up counting like 5, 6, 7, 9 for so long on account of her dad’s fear that even to this day if you ask her to count to ten, she’ll probably skip right on over number eight and look at you like you’re crazy when you tell her that’s what she did.
Then there’s her eldest sibling, Doralis, who was bound to have a hard life given that God-awful name of hers. But her phobia was called Neophobia, the fear of anything new. And since she was born in ’78 they hadn’t changed a thing about the house since they discovered she had the phobia and that was back in ’83.
Next was her oldest brother, Gregory, who they all believe for a long time had Decidophobia, the fear of decisions or making decisions, on account of his incredible inability to make a single decision even down to the smallest thing such as what to eat for breakfast. Rather than think it out for himself, he’d badger you on what you’re going to eat, until you make and decision and then choice the same thing you did. And when he grew out of that, he couldn’t decide on a college (which is normal but he found a way to make it a more long and drawn out process than it needed to be), then he there was decisions such as career, where to live after college, girlfriends…etc, etc, right up into marriage. It’s a wonder anyone could stick around with his indecisiveness long enough to even get to thoughts of marriage let alone following through with them and now the question was for him: to have kids or not to have kids. Let’s just hope for his wife sake that if she wants kids that either she ‘accidentally’ gets pregnant or when he does decide she’s not 45 and completely barren.
Then there’s her youngest brother, Andrew, who everyone thought had Vestiphobia, the fear of clothing, when he was younger because he absolutely refused to wear clothes and if you were lucky enough to get him tired enough to let you dress him then he’d just wait until you’d taken him out to the most public place possible and rip his clothes off while happily laughing, ‘Me Nakie, people! Look me nakie!’
And last but not least is her Uncle Bobby who has Phobophobia, the fear of phobias. Apparently this wasn’t a life-long phobia and only developed after he’d been living with them from time to time when his wife had gotten sick of him and kicked him out of their house. Subsequently now when, June, his wife, kicks him out he’s forced to temporary move into a homeless shelter, because he’s much too cheap to simply stay at a hotel for the night. And has much too much pride to ask one of his old buddies, who told him this would happen if he ever decided to jump the broom with June, to crash the night with him.
After such a heart-warming tale, you can only imagine the honor it is to know that just being around me triggers in her a sense of home “ the same home with all of the psychotic-ness that had drove her to seek refuge in the big city in the first place. Ah, the effect I have on people it is a gift.
“Ah, well I’m glad my presence is a nice little reminder of the dysfunctionalism of your homelife.”
She laughed again. “No, no, Fi, I didn’t mean it like that.”
Fi? Humph. She’s already taken the liberty of shortening my name. Because it’s three syllable beastly length, was too much for her to say.
“I don’t even know why, really. There’s just something about you.” She shrugged. “You just seem like a nice person to be friends with.”
“Well looks can be deceiving.”
She laughed again. Now either I’ve suddenly become hilarious or she’s a little too easily amused. Or better yet, she sees me as a funny little clown here for her amusement until she gets to stroll off to her life of bigger and better things. She probably wants to be an actress. Or maybe a model.
“So what is your big important job move anyways?” I asked, curiosity getting the best of me.
I’d been unfortunate enough to have been here going on a one whole year next month, after I’d finally decided that Wal-Mart wasn’t good enough to live in “ full-time at least “ so I cleaned myself up as best as I could in their restroom, dragged myself out into ‘the real world’ fully expecting to get a job at a McDonald’s so then I’d at least I could have heart clogging, yet edible meals; only to take a wrong turn, wind up lost and wandering down the street tired, frustrated and so delirious with hunger that I’d hallucinated seeing the golden arches at least twice and just happened to pass the ‘help wanted’ sign posted in picture window of Jill’s Heels.
Two months ago, Janice was sucked into the same trap as I had been nearly a year ago only she wasn’t content to stay trapped and had after the first day of working here gone out looking for alternative work. Smart girl. Very smart girl.
“Oh,” She smiled at the slight change in the subject. “I’m going to be a stylist for…” She trailed off as if I was supposed to supply her with a drum roll. When that didn’t happen she said, “Justin Timberlake.”
She stared at me as if expecting some kind of squeal of recognition to begin, as if that name was supposed to mean something to me.
Timberlake was familiar only because of my not so fond memories of summer camp before the eighth grade, when I’d managed to slip and fall into Lake Timber. And as if it wasn’t bad enough that I’d been jogging (not running because I don’t run unless my life is threatened) back to my cabin after I’d stood up and discovered my pants had leaked a scarlet letter on my seat in a puddle of red I’d been sitting in during lunch. Then on top of that add in cold lake water, a rather nice sized audience to witness my natural art of buffonery at work “ including my crush who seemed to be leading the crowd in whooping, belly-aching laughing and pointing. Oh and I can’t forget the fact that I’d been wearing a white tank top, no bra because somehow despite already having 36 C’s my mom had refused me permission to buy new bras…so I was stuck with a tiny training bra that was no more up to the task of training my breasts to defy gravity than they were to train a dog to sit.
I’d pulled myself back onto the muddy dock from which I’d slipped and fallen admist the howling laughter of my bastard ass peers, my white “ now nearly completely transparent - top making me a shoo-in for the 7th grade camper wet t-shirt contest, which got me some catcalls from the guys and dirty looks of pure unadulterated hate from the girls.
All of which sent my already derailed self-esteem soaring to new lows as I wondered what in the world had I’d done in a previous life to get God to hate me this much. Wasn’t it bad enough that I was six foot tall, wore a size ten shoe, still hadn’t mastered the art of walking without tripping at least once, did I really need to have all that shit happen on top of it?!
“What?” I snapped; frowning when I noticed Miss America was still talking to me.
“I said, ‘don’t you know who Justin Timberlake is?’”
Of course I don’t know. And the better question is do I care who Justin Timberlake is. “No,” was my curt reply, which was nice for me “ considering the things I could have said instead.
Laughing, she shook her head at me. And we’re back to that again. Well if I’m a clown at least I’m doing something right, for once. “Girl, where have you been living the last few years? Under a rock?!”
Close. I did live by a rock though once. It was a fake one, in the little camp display that Wal-Mart had been using at the time.
“Well anyways, he’s a pretty big popstar. Good looking, talented, young. And probably unbearably full of himself.”
“And you’re going to be his stylist?” I said, glancing over what she was wearing.
She had on the Jill’s Heels branded mandatory t-shirt that came in two fun colors: puke green or doo-doo brown. You should have seen the look of utter joy I had on my face when I was first handed those two tops and told that I was given a choice between the two. It took all I had to contain my excitement, restraining my need to clap my hands and bounce up and down while squealing, ‘Oh goodie, now I get to look as much of a fool on the outside as I usually feel on the inside. Yes, there is a God after all!’
But I digress.
Her hair was pulled back into a messy bun, her make-up was hardly here or there, her shoes were a stepped-on-repeatedly, scuffed up white tennis shoes, her pants were simply black sprinkled with a little lint in there…to add flava I’m sure.
“Yep,” She smiled with pride. Glancing over her own clothing now, she added. “Naturally, I’ll look more of the part when I’m not in this uniform. And I’m just the assistant anyways. No way they’d let someone as new to the whole celebrity wardrobe styling business take it on alone.”
“Oh okay.” I nodded, my interest having died on the subject a long time ago.
“But it should be fun…and challenging. I’m looking forward to it.”
“Good luck.” I said, only half listening now.
“Hey, maybe if I make a good enough impression with the boss…I could find you a job too.”
“I already have a glamorous job with celebrity clientele.” I retorted, with a frown, glancing over at the Roseanne look-a-like who’d just waddled her way into the shop teetering on heels that were way too high; yet the fact that she was managing to walk in them at all created a very impressive sight considering how if I were wearing those shoes I would have crashed to the floor by now. Hell, even when wearing sneakers it’s not absolutely guaranteed that I wouldn’t find myself in a crumpled mess on the floor.
Laughing, she replied. “Yes, I’m sure as great as this job may be…I still think I could find you a better one.”
“Well don’t worry yourself about finding me a job. Like I said, I have a job already. ‘Sides this place would go to hell in a hand basket if I wasn’t here to control the chaos.” I said, motioning around to all the ‘chaos.’
We’d been open for a few hours and Roseanne was the first sign of outside life we’d been in contact with; but just imagine if I wasn’t here to help Roseanne with her stripper shoes fetish. No, really go ahead imagine it. I’ll wait.
Scary wasn’t it? Almost as scary as The Grudge, now all I need is a little Asian kid to meow and hide in a dark stairwell to finish off this little nightmare. Like I said Jill’s would never survive without me.
So tell me how despite such an eloquent speech, I find myself now waiting for my new boss to arrive?
