Free As Seen on TV by Sarah Mlynowski Page B

Like I have nothing else to worry about. I’m going home.
    That night I dream about sitting at the diner and Ronald picking hamburger meat with fat fingers out of the space between his two front teeth. He’s telling me that he’s decided to hire Liza’s unborn child instead of me.
    I wake up hot and cold and sweaty, tangled in my clean cotton sheets. It’s 4:00 a.m. I can’t fall back asleep, so instead I shower and go to work.
    I compose the list of things the MBA should do, and then at eight close my door and begin my morning ritual of calling Ronald.
    “Ronald Newman speaking.”
    My mouth is immediately zapped of all moisture. He’s alive! He’s alive!
    Why didn’t he call me if he wasn’t dead?
    “Hi, Ronald,” I say, wishing I had a glass of water nearby. What’s wrong with my mouth? “Sorry to bother you? It’s Sunny Langstein calling? How are you?” Must stop talking in question format.
    Silence. Why is there silence?
    “Sunny,” he says slowly. “I’ve been meaning to (ahem) call you—” Why the ahem? No one likes an ahem. “I have some bad news I’m afraid.”
    Bad news? No one likes bad news.
    “It’s very unfortunate, but we found a candidate with more New York experience.”
    “More what?”
    “More New York experience. Someone more familiar with the bars, the concert venues, the retail stores, the arenas. Television contacts. You don’t have any contacts here, Sunny. We need someone with a higher profile. What would you be bringing to the table?”
    My new business experience in the soda industry? “I…um…didn’t you already offer me the job?”
    “Like I said, the news is unfortunate. My secretary was supposed to call you and send you a fruit basket. Should I assume you never received it?”
    What stupid fruit basket? “Why were you interviewing other candidates after you offered me the job?”
    “You can never give up on finding the perfect candidate,” he says. I wish I’d received the fruit basket. I wish he was in the same room as me. Then I’d hurl an apple at him.
    “I hope this hasn’t caused any inconveniences,” he says.
    I have no job and no place to live, but what inconvenience? “Oh, oh, none at all,” I say in a singsong tone.
    He doesn’t sense my sarcasm. “You never know, we could have another opening any day. Why don’t you give me a call once you’ve settled in the city?”
    I am not going to cry. “Uh-huh,” I say, then add “’Bye.” I hang up. Rage and frustration and disappointment and what-a-fucking-asshole overwhelm me, and I sink into my fabulous swivel chair that now belongs to the fabulous MBA. I stand up and stand directly behind the closed door because it’s the blind spot, the one corner of personal space in the entire office where no one can see in. No job. No apartment. What am I going to do? I lean against my in-case umbrella and tears spill down my cheeks like rain.

The Wonder Years
     
    T his is the history of my parents: Father is in business school. Mother is a nurse. Father is Jewish. Mother is Catholic. Father meets Mother in Brooklyn. Father and Mother fall in love. Mother gets pregnant. Father proposes marriage but insists Mother convert, otherwise Father’s children will not be Jewish. Being Jewish is very important to Father because it’s important to Father’s parents. Father’s father, Daniel, died five years ago and Father promised he would marry Jewish woman. Mother cares more about Father than she does about religion so she agrees. Mother’s parents do not agree. Mother’s parents are horrified that daughter is pregnant and converting and tells Mother to never return home again. Mother converts. Process is far more strenuous than Mother imagined. Mother marries Father anyway. Father gets offered high-paying consultant job in Fort Lauderdale. Mother and Father move to Florida. Mother has baby girl, names her Dana, after Father’s father. Motherwants to return to work but has difficulty finding new