Free As Seen on TV by Sarah Mlynowski Page A

something tomorrow.”
    By Wednesday at five-thirty, I’m starting to get a wee bit edgy. After biting my nails until my fingers are raw and red, something I haven’t done since I was twelve, I call Soda Star.
    “Thank you for calling Soda Star. Our office hours are nine to five, Monday through Friday. If you know your party’s extension, please dial now. Otherwise, press one to leave a message for marketing, two for operations, three for sales…”
    Ten minutes later: “If you do not know the department you wish to speak to, please dial the first four letters of the person’s last name you wish to reach. Have a nice day.”
    “N” is six. “E” is three. “W” is…where’s “W”?
    “I’m sorry, you lazy moron, you’ve run out of time.” The phone disconnects.
    Bitch. I hang up and plan my attack. First, I write the numbers on a Post-it note, and then I redial.
    “Thank you for calling Soda Star. Our office hours are nine to five, Monday through—”
    Why does she tell me every possible number combination except for the one that means fast forward? Do all Soda Star employees get off on hearing themselves talk?
    Finally I reach Ronald Newman’s voice mail.
    In my frantic attempt to come across as utterly cheerful and imperturbable, I end up sounding pathetically desperate. “This is Sunny Langstein calling? I just wanted to catch up and make sure all the papers are in order? I gave notice here so I’m all set to start in two and a half weeks? Looking forward to hearing from you?” And then I repeat my home number, office number and cell number. Twice.
    When I arrive at my office on Thursday morning, Liza is sitting cross-legged on my desk. “Guess what!” she says, patting her stomach. I’m not sure if she’s talking to me or to the baby.
    “What?”
    “I found your replacement. She’s fabulous. She has no work experience, but just finished her MBA. An MBA! I’ve always wanted someone with an MBA to work for me. Isn’t that exciting?”
    “Exciting,” I say, and flip the power button on my computer.
    “And she can start on Monday, giving you five days overlap to train her. Isn’t that fabulous?”
    “Fabulous,” I say somewhat warily. A small pang tweaks through my body, like I swallowed water too fast and it went down the wrong pipe. How did she find someone so quickly?
    Am I that replaceable?
    I call in for my home messages. The message on my machine from Jocelyn tells me that she has great news:
    “My niece just got evicted from her apartment last week—well, that’s not the great part of course, no one likes getting evicted—but she wants to move in by October fifteenth! So you’re off the hook for half of October’s rent, which I know will please you. But you have to move out by the fourteenth, okay? Isn’t that perfect timing!”
    I call Ronald again. I don’t want to leave a message, again, so I hang up on his voice mail. And then I call my home answering service, again, and my cell answering service, in case Ronald is too dim-witted to realize that during working hours I am at the office.
    “You have no new messages you big, fat, pathetic, jobless loser.”
    I repeat this process at eleven. And at two. And at 2:30. At 3:30. At 4:00. At 4:15. At 4:21 my heart is beating louder than call waiting and I can’t take it anymore. I leave another message.
    What’s his problem? I’ve always gotten anything I applied for. I had a full scholarship to the University of Florida. I wasassistant head of swimming at camp. The youngest assistant manager at Panda. I was voted treasurer of my high school student body. My boyfriend wants me to move in with him, dammit.
    “Sunny,” Liza points her pointy, pregnant head into my office. “Tomorrow, can you start writing up descriptions for everything you do?”
    “What?”
    “For the new MBA. It would help if she had To-Do lists. If you could write out everything you do and how you do it, that would be fabulous. Thanks.”
    Great.