“wayward girls” like the cop called me. If only he knew exactly how respectable and honorable and what a good girl I really was. Back in the twenty-first century where I belonged.
Where I belonged ? Oh how I wished I didn’t belong there. I didn’t, did I? In the Payne family. How I came from them, I had no idea. I was nothing like them. Maybe I was adopted? That would be great. No, my birth certificate was black and white. I was begot from Chloe Lambert and Nathan Payne. The all-American couple. Sure, they clothed and fed and sheltered me, kissed my booboos, sent me to public school and drove me to church. But they always treated me like the odd girl out.
Tammy and Perry were always more important. And they were invariably in trouble. Nothing Momma’s money couldn’t remedy. Chirping hatchlings devouring the regurgitation.
I wished I belonged here. Right here. If here was real, that is. I would have had a much more glamorous job in the forties. Maybe I could’ve been a switchboard operator? That would’ve been fun. I heard men used to dial the operator just to have a girl to talk to. Maybe I could’ve made dates with some classy guys. Yeah, perhaps switchboard operator was not much better than being a file clerk in the peon job category but, hey, it would’ve been more enjoyable. I knew it would have.
Or maybe I’d have been a girl newspaper reporter. War correspondent. No, not that. Dangerous. How about covering the gossip scene in Hollywood? Yeah, that’d have been great. Interviewing Cary Grant and William Powell and hey, why not, Vera Blandings. At least that way I’d have known what the first love of my father’s life had been like. I wonder why they broke up.
And I’d write Pulitzer Prize-winning articles for the front page, on important issues of the day. Wouldn’t I be something? And I’d be respected. And I’d have friends. Witty, intellectual friends. We’d go to parties and premieres and jet set. Not just an email relationship with a roommate that I’d never actually seen face-to-face. I didn’t even know what Ashley looked like. Probably heavy, with short hair. Taller than me though. Everyone was taller than me.
It would have been fun living in the forties with my dream man. He wouldn’t have let me miss our wedding. Mr. and Mrs. Jones. Mrs. Donna Jones. I couldn’t wait to drop my maiden name. I wasn’t going to hyphenate. Speaking of my Mr. Jones, where did he evaporate off to? He’d said I would meet someone from Momma’s past. Check. Been there, met Bill Blandings. Now I was done.
The wind roared in. I heard music. Oh no. Not that one—yep. The darned “Donna” song again.
~*~
I blinked my eyes open, shielding my face with one hand. An annoying bell rang out. And rang and rang. I opened my eyes all the way and focused on the canopy of my queen-sized bed. Big Ben blared on the nightstand. Six o’clock. Thursday morning. Exactly a week since my accident. I have to go to work. I reached for the wind-up alarm and smashed the little pin in the back to shut it off.
But I didn’t want to go to work today. I didn’t want to ever go to work again. I knew Cynthia didn’t delegate my filing to anyone else in my absence. There were probably a hundred and seventy baskets of Place-In-Files to pigeonhole. I hated PIF-ing. The sallow blue computer pages were so uninspiring. I moaned. I pictured her telling me she wanted me caught up by the end of today.
I’m not going in. Not today . Admittedly, it was a good union job and it paid my mortgage. I’d been there so long that I was at the top pay step, on the peon scale anyhow.
Bet Cynthia would make me bring a doctor’s note, explaining my absence. Even though they had the inpatient bill by now. Not that it would even be opened for eleven weeks. The mailroom was that backed up. All the time. In my nineteen years there, I’d actually caught up on my PIF’s around six times. Maybe eight? And Cynthia always found me more work in
Where I belonged ? Oh how I wished I didn’t belong there. I didn’t, did I? In the Payne family. How I came from them, I had no idea. I was nothing like them. Maybe I was adopted? That would be great. No, my birth certificate was black and white. I was begot from Chloe Lambert and Nathan Payne. The all-American couple. Sure, they clothed and fed and sheltered me, kissed my booboos, sent me to public school and drove me to church. But they always treated me like the odd girl out.
Tammy and Perry were always more important. And they were invariably in trouble. Nothing Momma’s money couldn’t remedy. Chirping hatchlings devouring the regurgitation.
I wished I belonged here. Right here. If here was real, that is. I would have had a much more glamorous job in the forties. Maybe I could’ve been a switchboard operator? That would’ve been fun. I heard men used to dial the operator just to have a girl to talk to. Maybe I could’ve made dates with some classy guys. Yeah, perhaps switchboard operator was not much better than being a file clerk in the peon job category but, hey, it would’ve been more enjoyable. I knew it would have.
Or maybe I’d have been a girl newspaper reporter. War correspondent. No, not that. Dangerous. How about covering the gossip scene in Hollywood? Yeah, that’d have been great. Interviewing Cary Grant and William Powell and hey, why not, Vera Blandings. At least that way I’d have known what the first love of my father’s life had been like. I wonder why they broke up.
And I’d write Pulitzer Prize-winning articles for the front page, on important issues of the day. Wouldn’t I be something? And I’d be respected. And I’d have friends. Witty, intellectual friends. We’d go to parties and premieres and jet set. Not just an email relationship with a roommate that I’d never actually seen face-to-face. I didn’t even know what Ashley looked like. Probably heavy, with short hair. Taller than me though. Everyone was taller than me.
It would have been fun living in the forties with my dream man. He wouldn’t have let me miss our wedding. Mr. and Mrs. Jones. Mrs. Donna Jones. I couldn’t wait to drop my maiden name. I wasn’t going to hyphenate. Speaking of my Mr. Jones, where did he evaporate off to? He’d said I would meet someone from Momma’s past. Check. Been there, met Bill Blandings. Now I was done.
The wind roared in. I heard music. Oh no. Not that one—yep. The darned “Donna” song again.
~*~
I blinked my eyes open, shielding my face with one hand. An annoying bell rang out. And rang and rang. I opened my eyes all the way and focused on the canopy of my queen-sized bed. Big Ben blared on the nightstand. Six o’clock. Thursday morning. Exactly a week since my accident. I have to go to work. I reached for the wind-up alarm and smashed the little pin in the back to shut it off.
But I didn’t want to go to work today. I didn’t want to ever go to work again. I knew Cynthia didn’t delegate my filing to anyone else in my absence. There were probably a hundred and seventy baskets of Place-In-Files to pigeonhole. I hated PIF-ing. The sallow blue computer pages were so uninspiring. I moaned. I pictured her telling me she wanted me caught up by the end of today.
I’m not going in. Not today . Admittedly, it was a good union job and it paid my mortgage. I’d been there so long that I was at the top pay step, on the peon scale anyhow.
Bet Cynthia would make me bring a doctor’s note, explaining my absence. Even though they had the inpatient bill by now. Not that it would even be opened for eleven weeks. The mailroom was that backed up. All the time. In my nineteen years there, I’d actually caught up on my PIF’s around six times. Maybe eight? And Cynthia always found me more work in
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