Kitabı oku: «A Girl Called Shameless», sayfa 3
So . . . we should do the same. We should demand comprehensive revenge porn legislation. It’s the only thing that would provide an adequate deterrent for guys seeking to destroy a woman’s reputation. These laws already exist to varying degrees in other states, but the South in general is yet to follow suit. And with far-right senators like Ted Vaughan in office, change is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
Yet a plan is formulating in my mind. I’m aware I’ve been sat in silence for several minutes, and things round the table have gotten a little awkward, so I lay my palms flat on the sugar-dusted table, fingers splayed, and say, “I have an idea.”
“Always dangerous,” Ajita says. “Go on.”
“I think we need to arrange a meeting with Ted Vaughan.”
Meg blinks twice in quick succession, pushing her glasses up her nose. “The senator?”
“The father of the dude you banged on a garden bench?” Ajita adds.
I nod once, solemn as a nun. “The one and only.”
Nothing is ever going to change. Not unless we force it to.
Wednesday 4 January
7.45 a.m.
Despite last night’s wild sequence of events – namely landing a job and experiencing severe second-hand pain on Hazel’s behalf – I leave the diner and walk home in good snuff. [For the uninitiated, this is entertaining old slang for “in a good mood”. I am not sure if you can culturally appropriate Middle Ages England, but if you can, please send the Tudors my apologies.]
We spend the rest of the BBB meeting drafting an email to Ted Vaughan’s office, requesting a meeting to discuss the state’s condemnable lack of revenge porn legislation. We even use words like “legislation”, to give off the illusion of savvy. The BBB email account pings immediately with an auto response: someone will get back to us in three–five business days. The impatient imp who nests inside my skull wants to march down to the office right now and demand they see us this very instant, but I beat down the impulse [geddit?] for once. We all know I’m not fantastic at will power, or generally behaving like an adult in any way, shape or form. So we must consider this show of spectacular restraint a win.
Having a plan makes me feel fierce and determined, rather than angry and helpless. I cling to it like a life raft.
Hazel’s sex tape is the talk of the town. The guy who leaked it – a former jock nicknamed Bakehead on account of his well-documented pot habit – is apparently her ex-boyfriend. He cheated on her, she wouldn’t take him back, so he sent their sex tape to everyone he knew. She filmed it in trust, and that trust was shattered.
Lots of girls have left the group chat in a show of solidarity, but plenty haven’t. The follow-up messages are now into the hundreds. The majority are lewd, crude and skin-crawlingly vulgar, although there are a handful of brave souls who’ve chimed in and called out the guy who started the group chat, labeling him a pitiful bully and a pathetic, immature dick. But those are few and far between. It’s mainly water-squirt emojis.
Carson, God bless his soul, commented saying, “Hey, man, this is uncool. Delete it, right now.” It remains undeleted, but I appreciate his sticking up for Hazel nonetheless – because as soon as he does a few of his teammates follow his lead. It’s nice seeing guys actually call each other on their bullshit, and even nicer when it’s your boyfriend leading the rally cry.
Even Danny – who has abstained from the general internet since I found out he leaked my nude pictures to the entire world – has heard the news, on account of the fact it’s a small-ass town, and you can’t even take a dump without your neighbor speculating over its consistency.
Despite the fact we haven’t spoken in months, he messages me the following:
Hey. Heard about Hazel. Hope you’re both okay.
I sigh and shove my cell phone back in my pocket, breathing in the crisp winter air and vague scent of log fires. I don’t think there is a Pulitzer Prize for uninspiring text messages, but if there were, I think this dry-as-toast attempt would definitely make the shortlist.
In fact, all this text does is stoke my fiery rage. No, neither of us are okay, and it’s all your fucking fault. How dare you massage your own conscience like this.
To be honest, I don’t even care about Danny. I know who the good people in my life are, and he is not one of them. His support, or lack thereof, means nothing to me anymore. [Hold that thought, past me.]
Even though we have a plan of action and having an outlet for my anger is already alleviating its intensity, I’m still dreading school today. I can’t watch Hazel suffer like I did. I can’t go through the stares and the whispers and the laughs all over again. My emotional armor isn’t robust enough – there are chinks and holes from the open fire it endured for months on end.
But I’m an O’Neill. We get by. We always have, and always will. So instead of letting fear and anger paralyze me, I’m going to go into the kitchen, make coffee for Betty and me, and tell her the news about my new part-time job. I’m briefly concerned the excitement will cause her to shit herself right there in the kitchen, so I take a mop just in case. The last thing we need is Dumbledore using a poop as a chew toy. Again.
RIP, couch. May angels lead you in.
3.17 p.m.
School is nowhere near as bad as it has the potential to be, which is probably the first time those words have ever left my mouth/fingers.
Hazel stays home. I don’t blame her. Rumors are flying around about the awful shit that’s happened to her since the tape was sent around. She was instantly fired from her weekend job at Hollister, and her ultra-religious parents have grounded her so severely that she’s not even allowed to be on the cheerleading squad anymore. She’s an honors student, by all accounts, with lofty career ambitions. Does she feel like her future has been snatched away from her, like I did? Like I still do, in my darkest moments?
At least Hazel’s friends seem to be rallying around her. The squad are on a letter-writing campaign – to Hazel’s parents, begging them to let her back on the team, and to Hollister HQ, demanding she get her job back. Carson’s teammate’s mom knows a guy who’s high up at Abercrombie & Fitch, and offers to reach out to him explaining the situation. Baxter and a couple other guys on the soccer team corner Bakehead and threaten to kick his teeth in if he doesn’t delete the group chat. He obliges, thank God, but the damage is largely done. The tape is burned into everyone’s minds forever – and saved to camera rolls all over town. It’s only a matter of time before someone shares it wider.
As a general rule people suck. Hazel’s locker has been adorned with pompoms, flimsy underwear and a strip of condoms. Ajita, Meg and I help her friends hastily tear all of this down and stuff it in an overflowing garbage can, to the soundtrack of many loud “booooooo”s from the assortment of teenage dirtbags around us. The entire time we’re working, chills run up and down my arms, pooling in the palms of my hands. Watching this unfold all over again is like a waking nightmare I can never outrun.
At lunch I take myself away to the restroom and huddle in the cubicle, typing out an email to Hazel using her school address. I remember the way the scandal made me feel so alone, as though nobody else on the planet, much less in this tiny town, could understand the pain of what I was going through. If I can save Hazel from that intensely lonely sensation, it’ll be worth it.
Hey Hazel,
I just wanted to say that I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I know it feels like your entire world is crashing down, like you might die from the shame of it, but I promise it gets better. It really does. People have very low attention spans and will honestly forget about it way quicker than you think. Even if you wind up on BuzzFeed, like yours truly.
If you do ever want to talk to someone who genuinely gets what you’re going through, I’m always here. It’s not that I think I’m the authority on the situation – of course I’m not. I can only speak from my own experiences, and I know everyone is so different. But yeah, I understand what this very specific pain feels like, so if there’s anything I can do just let me know.
Izzy
Look! Not one single trace of sarcasm in the entire two paragraphs! Better text Ajita a dirty joke, stat.
Hey. Why does Santa Claus have such a big sack?
Her reply buzzes almost immediately.
I don’t know. I don’t celebrate Christmas, you culturally insensitive asshole. Xo
Me: Okay, well, the answer was because he only comes once a year, but you’ve kind of ruined the moment.
6.45 p.m.
Betty’s working late tonight, and Ajita is going to some kind of tragic athletics meet with her hideously talented brother Prajesh, so I decide to spend the evening working on my screenplay. My agent just sent me notes on the revisions I did over the holidays, and I’m excited to roll up my writerly sleeves and get stuck in.
However, just as I’ve boiled the kettle for a literal gallon of cocoa, there’s a knock at the door. Carson.
“Hey,” he says, smiling, cute as a button in his pizza place uniform. He’s still wearing the pepperoni-themed baseball cap, even though he hates it. He knows it makes me smile, so he wears it whenever he can. I will never get tired of his sausage. [Yes, this entire paragraph was leading up to that innuendo. Why am I like this?]
“Just finished work?” I ask, leaning in for a smooch. He smells of oregano.
“Nah, I just wear this for kicks,” he mumbles, lips pressed against mine.
Dumbledore dashes restlessly round our ankles. He’s hyper with pent-up energy, since I haven’t had a chance to take him out properly over the last few days. Reluctantly I pull away from Carson. “Hey, I need to walk the pooch. Wanna come? It’s fine if not. If you’ve gotta get home or whatever.”
He bends down to play-wrestle with Dumbledore, who pants excitedly. “Nah. I’ll come with.” The dog immediately rolls onto his back in mock defeat, and wriggles in delight as Carson rubs his chubby little belly.
“Awesome,” I say. “I’ll just grab his wizard’s robes.”
To his credit Carson is completely unfazed by this. He’s immune to my family’s weirdness, which I sort of kind of love about him. [Don’t tell him I used the L-word in a sentence describing him, because I work very hard on my reputation as an aloof sloth-type figure, and don’t want it to be ruined now.]
While we walk to the nearby park, I fill Carson in on both the BBB and the job developments. “Anyway, the combination of the two almost rendered my darling grandmother incontinent. Thankfully she managed to control the situation, which is good, because the last thing we need is a medical emergency.”
“How would that be a medical emergency?” he asks. “Do I even want to know?”
“I meant for Dumbledore,” I explain, shoving my hands deep into my pockets, still clutching Dumbledore’s leash. I watch him waddle ahead of us, little buttocks bouncing up and down, determined to show off in front of Carson. “Speaking of medical emergencies, have I told you about the time I had a tumor in fifth grade?”
His eyebrows shoot up into his beanie. “You had a tumor? How could I not know that?”
I maintain a serious expression. “I mean, it turned out to be a gummy bear lodged behind my uvula. But it could have been a tumor. At least it gave the ER folks a good laugh.”
Carson snorts extravagantly. “You got taken to the emergency room for a malswallowed gummy bear?”
“Firstly, ‘malswallowed’ is not a word, although it should be, so thank you for the entertaining new vocabulary. Secondly, in my defense, it was a fizzy gummy bear. That shit stings. Anyway, the school nurse was convinced I was dying. I wrote my will while waiting for the CAT scan.”
Carson’s dimples make an appearance as he grins. “Oh yeah? And what was on this will?”
“I requested a Viking burial, and left my worldly possessions to a rhino sanctuary I saw on a documentary that day. I’m not sure why I thought a herd of orphaned rhinoceri would have use for my Justin Bieber CDs, but there you go.”
By the time we arrive the park is almost deserted. It’s around midway between my housing community and Carson’s place, and it’s like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie. The swingsets and slides are rusty and worn, and there’s a rocket-shaped jungle gym graffitied with ugly slurs. The sandboxes are equal part tiny rocks and cigarette butts. There’s a swimming bath that hasn’t been used in years, so has been transformed into a charming skate park/drug den hybrid. And yet at this time of year, with the moon shining on the sparkling layer of frost coating the park, it’s weirdly beautiful. And, you know, harrowing.
The whole place is empty, because it’s way too cold for even the most hardcore teenage delinquents. We leave Dumbledore to roam around and do his business. He promptly takes a piss against a Confederate statue. Good dog.
Carson and I pull up a pew on a memorial bench, dedicated to the only properly famous guy from our neighborhood – a celebrated anti-apartheid protester who died in a South African prison. [I’ve always found it ridiculous how the powers that be decided he was only worthy of a bench, not the entire park. I’d give him the entire state, if it were my call to make, which is probably why it is not my call to make.]
“Anyway, at least now we’ll be able to afford pet insurance, with this new job of mine,” I announce merrily. “Dumbledore can eat all the delicious turds he likes. And, hey, maybe I can afford a new toothbrush! Mine has had alopecia for several years now.”
“Shit, things have been so bad you can’t afford a toothbrush?”
I shrug. “I’m used to it. Many apologies that you must kiss this improperly washed mouth of mine.”
Dumbledore ambles back over to us, dropping a carefully selected rock at Carson’s feet and looking up expectantly. He’s a rescue dog – obviously, because how the Dickens could Betty and I afford a pedigree dachshund – and he’s always had a rock fetish. He often carries them home with him in his cheek pouches, like a hamster, and nestles them into his dog bed with him. Bless.
Carson picks up the rock and throws it in the direction of the permanently lopsided seesaw. Dumbledore chases it as fast as his tiny legs can carry him, which is not fast in the slightest. Since it’s pitch dark, finding the same rock again should keep him entertained for a while.
“Man, I had no idea things were ever that desperate.” Quietly he adds, “I wish I could help out more. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t ever apologize for that,” I say, louder than I mean to. He looks taken aback by my belligerence. [Belligerence! Check out that thesaurus usage!] “I just mean you have your own shit to worry about,” I add hastily, softer now. “You shouldn’t have to take care of me too.”
“But I want to. You’re cold?” he asks, watching my leg bounce up and down in a bid to warm up. He takes off his oversized sweater and hands it to me, flashing a strip of toned brown belly skin as he does, and I feel a familiar jolt of longing.
Although maybe I just have a thing for benches at this point.
9.14 p.m.
With Betty not around to crow about water bills I take a longer, hotter shower than usual, before spending the night the way I planned to: editing my screenplay. I mean, right after I finish writing this blog post. And checking social media. And making hot cocoa. The scandal changed many things about me, but not my talent for procrastination.
Finally, after completing the most pointless and unnecessary of tasks, I curl up in my tiny single bed and get to work, throwing my hair up into a messy bun. Instagram girls somehow make messy buns look like the sexiest thing on this earth but I assure you mine just makes me look like I’m wearing a swimming cap, which is not my dream aesthetic. [No offense if you’re reading this, Michael Phelps. Which I don’t know why you would be, but still.]
Friday 6 January
9.51 a.m.
Since I stayed up half the night manically whizzing through script edits – writing in a new character and removing another entirely – I’m glad our first class of the day is drama. It’s the only thing I’m remotely good at academically, and we never have homework because Mrs Crannon is one of those blessed “learn-by-doing” advocates. So I can coast by pretty easily on zero winks of sleep.
We’re studying the script of Guys and Dolls in prep for our midterm exams. Unfortunately studying theater is not just about goofing off on stage and attempting Jazz-era Brooklyn accents. We actually have to write essays on things like narrative arc, which if you ask me is incredibly unreasonable, although as an aspiring a screenwriter it’s probably a useful exercise. So we’re sitting in a circle in Mrs Crannon’s classroom and doing a read-through from the playbook before we start analyzing and breaking everything down.
I’ve been cast as Miss Adelaide, one of the two female leads, while Ajita is a Nepali Sarah Brown, because Mrs Crannon is not one of those absurd people who use “historical accuracy” to justify their racism. She’s also cast a Chinese-American girl called Sharon in the famously white male role of Lieutenant Brannigan. This decision angered Danny greatly, as he’s been relegated to an ensemble part. He’s still stewing about it now. In fact, if he stews for much longer, he’s in real danger of becoming a casserole.
Mrs Crannon has dashed backstage to grab a stack of fur coats to help us get into character, and also because the radiators are broken so the classroom temperature is currently subzero. When she left she told us to start the read-through without her, but of course, as a roomful of lazy/horny teenagers, this is not the course of action we ultimately take, instead opting to chat among ourselves on topics of our choice. For instance, I’m chatting to Ajita about the possibility of lip-syncing my singing parts, because although Miss Adelaide is an alto role, I still cannot hit the high notes without sounding like a meerkat with a softball bat shoved up its ass. Right when I’m doing my very best meerkat-with-a-softball-bat-shoved-up-its-ass impression, much to Ajita’s delight and merriment, Danny chooses this precise moment to come over to us.
Ajita’s euphoric expression takes on a vaguely murderous vibe as she watches him approach, but still the useless shrew does not think to warn me about the incoming douchebag. So I’m still howling “aaaaayyeeeeeee-yeeeeee-yaaaaaaaaahhhhh” when he taps me on the shoulder.
“Hey, Iz,” he says as woodenly as, I don’t know, a didgeridoo.
My skin bristles at the use of my old nickname. Shouldn’t he have lost nickname privileges when he systematically ruined my life?
“Daniel,” I say coolly to illustrate the point in my patented passive aggressive manner.
He’s wearing that ancient Pokémon T-shirt I got once him. It’s been washed so many times that the Pikachu’s face is vaguely haunting. “You didn’t reply to my text.”
“Didn’t I?” I reply, milder than a chicken korma, even though the mere sight of him is enough to send me into a rage-induced coma. [Does that rhyme? Should I abandon screenwriting to pen profound and poignant poetry? Rupi Kaur makes it look very easy.]
“Uh, no.” Danny scratches a tiny scab on his upper arm, and the top layer comes away. He winces as poppy-red blood blooms in its place. GOOD. BLEED, DOUCHEBAG. [I did warn you about the rage.] “Anyway, just wanted to say that I’m here. You know. If you need anything. Which you probably don’t. But, uh, yeah.”
“She’s fine,” Ajita butts in. “Carson and I have her back. Anything else?”
At the mention of Carson’s name Danny’s benign demeanor is shattered. He stands up straighter and injects some venom into his voice. “Right. Fine. Sorry for wasting your time then.” And he flounces away again. I’m trying to think of something funny to say about flouncing, but I’m tired as hell. Maybe one day I’ll stop hating Danny as much as I do right now, but that moment seems very far in the future indeed.
“You know, sometimes I think I might miss the guy,” I mutter to Ajita, who’s staring viciously at Danny’s back as he walks away. “But then I remember his personality and think better of it.”
12.59 p.m.
Holy guacamole and for the love of nachos! We’re grabbing lunch in the cafeteria when all three of our phones ping with an extremely exciting email notification at the same time. I immediately drop mine into the bowl of soup in front of me.
We got a meeting with Ted Vaughan’s office! A political staffer is going to sit down with us next week to discuss our concerns. Gahhhhh! We genuinely did not think this would happen. I’m literally already nervous.
Part of me is glad we’re not meeting with Vaughan himself. After everything he’s done since the photo emerged of me banging his son on a garden bench – all the high-and-mighty speeches about family values and degenerate youths – I don’t think I’d be able to resist launching across his desk and tearing out his esophagus with my bare teeth.
Anyway, I’m distracted from the nerves somewhat by the rescue mission we must now perform to recover my phone from its oniony fate. Ajita fishes it out the bowl with her bare hands and I rinse it off in my cup of water, which is admittedly not the wisest move but you remember the thing about me not being the sharpest erection in the shed/brothel?
Thankfully Meg produces a bag of dried rice from her purse, and we shove my phone into it for the foreseeable future. When I enquire as to why on earth Meg was carrying said bag of rice around with her to begin with she merely replies: “I’ve been friends with you for, what, three months now? And this is the fourth time you’ve dropped your phone in soup.”
She has a point.
2.04 p.m.
Phone now successfully resuscitated, we’re leaving geography class when Carson crops up behind me and squeezes my shoulders. I jump a little, like I’ve received a mild electric shock, but soon relax when I see it’s him. [For some reason I’m more easily startled since the sex scandal. I have no idea why, but it’s like I’m constantly just a tiny bit on edge.]
He’s wearing his hyperactive puppy expression in full force, and opens our conversation with, “So is it just me, or is Mr Richardson even more Peru-obsessed than usual?” [Context: our geography teacher once trekked Machu Picchu, and not a single class goes by without some kind of reference to his journey of a lifetime. Like, if anyone can find a way to relate glacier formations to the Temple of the Sun, it’s him.]
“Do you think we should tell him it’s highly offensive for a white man to dress as an Incan emperor?” I ask. Not that he’s done this yet, so attached is he to his staple uniform of plaid shirts and beige chinos, but give it time.
Carson laughs his smooth, easy laugh. “You all set for diner training tonight?”
“Think so,” I say, just as a bubble of nerves pops in my belly. “Just picked up some plain black pants at a thrift store, and they’ll provide me with a couple shirts. So I think I have everything I need uniform-wise.”
We stroll toward Carson’s locker, where he’s picking up books for math. “You’ll be great.”
I slip my hand into his and give it a grateful squeeze. “Thanks. Although as a bona fide slacker in all things, I’m marginally concerned at having to perform actual manual labor. Do my limbs even work that way?”
He laughs and drops my hand so he can enter his locker combo. “You’re no slacker, O’Neill. Just selective in what you spend your energy on. However, they do know you gotta be fed every half-hour else you turn into Medusa incarnate, right?”
I shove him playfully, and he shoves me back, and then I’m squealing as he grips me in a bear hug and pretends to eat my shoulder, and oh God we’re one of those obnoxious couples everyone hates but I just don’t care because it’s so fucking nice.
In all seriousness I’m actually excited to start work at the diner. Betty and I are no strangers to being poor. We’re not. Things that other people take for granted – things they consider necessities, like batteries for the TV remote – are luxuries to us. And to be fair I’ve never known any different, so it doesn’t bother me that much. We get by.
For me and Betty what it comes down to is this: we’ve always managed to stay afloat, and that’s all that matters really. But now, with me working too, maybe life will be better than just staying afloat. Maybe we’ll be able to go out to the movies, or get takeout from the fancy Chinese restaurant uptown. The thought makes me fizz with excitement. It really does.
I mean, I’d even resigned myself to being poor forever. Poverty is a cycle, by design. Let’s take shoes, for example. Reasonably wealthy people can afford to buy a decent pair of shoes made from leather or, I don’t know, dragonhide, which will last them a few years. But the lower working class cannot. We buy cheap, terrible shoes made from awful materials and stitched together by exploited southeast Asian kids. And they fall apart within months, and we have to buy more cheap terrible shoes because we need shoes, damn it, and we end up spending way more than the wealthy middle-class people ever did. All because we couldn’t afford the initial upfront cost of a $100 pair of shoes. So we stay poor, because we’re forever using our only slivers of disposable income plugging the shoe-shaped holes in our lives. It’s impossible to ever save money, to ever work yourself out of the poverty pit. Because shoes.
Anyway, “shoes” is starting to not sound like a word, so I’m going to move on. TL;DR, bring on my first ever shift.
3.42 p.m.
The perks of spending half my life at the diner and being bought overpriced milkshakes by Ajita is that training is actually pretty straightforward. I already know the menu inside out, and also the price list, because that’s what happens when you have no mullah. You look at the price before the actual item.
Anyway, it transpires that the only thing I really need training on is the till system, but as a digital native who’s grown up with intuitive technology skills, it’s a breeze. So after three and a half hours of training, now I’m sitting in the back wolfing down some chili cheese fries. Betty never mentioned the free food! This changes everything. In fact, I might never leave the diner. I was here all the time anyway – at least now I’m getting paid for the privilege.
Once I get off break, I’m going to be shadowing another hostess just to get a feel for how she manages her section of tables, and I’ve also been charged with taking down the Christmas decorations when it gets quieter later. Part of me will be sad to see the derp elf go. He really does bring a certain level of festivity/insanity to proceedings.
Do we think anyone will notice if I leave him front of house to play hostess while I hide in a corner and work on my screenplay? If you strain extra hard, it does almost sound like he’s saying, “May I take your order?” instead of “herpy herr-lerr-durrrssss”.
Although if you don’t strain quite hard enough, it more resembles “herpes her like dicks”, so that’s perhaps a bit of a gamble. Back to the drawing board we go.
7.24 p.m.
So I’m crouched behind the tinsel tree, trying to find the best way to dismantle its clunky base, when Ajita and Meg arrive in the diner, greeted by the increasingly dogged drone of the derp elf.
The petulant third-grader inside of me is all, “RUDE! How dare they hang out without ME? I hope they both break out in hives!” And the even more petulant second-grader inside of me is all, “How dare Ajita give me shit for inviting Meg to act in our show, then betray me like this?”
In any case, even though they must’ve come in here to pay me a visit, they don’t see me wedged under the tree with my ass crack on display to every Google Earth drone in the state. Nor do they appear to be looking for me particularly hard. Instead they just park up in a booth nearby and chatter away about what burgers they’re going to order.
“I feel like you can’t go wrong with a chicken mayo,” Meg says. “I mean, usually I would posit that any and all lettuce has been summoned to this earth by Lucifer himself. But you can’t beat a bit of crunchy iceberg in a southern fried chicken burger.”
“Fair point,” Ajita agrees. “On behalf of vegetarians everywhere, I accept your stance that lettuce is the devil’s work. In fact, I believe every vegetable on this earth, up to but not including the humble potato, is just plain arrogant. Like, they know they’re nutritious. They know they’re better than you.”
I feel a sharp pang of . . . something. Maybe FOMO [Fear Of Missing Out, if we have any grandmas in the house], but I don’t know, it’s a little more than that. Why is this bothering me so much?
8.52 p.m.
Lol, never mind. Period just started. As you were.
9.04 p.m.
After I clear up the tinsel debris and whizz through the rest of the decoration removal, and obviously stop and say hey to Ajita and Meg for as long as possible without being hung, drawn and quartered by my manager, I head back to the kitchen with several buckets of potatoes to peel and leave in water for tomorrow, which is a great relief. I’m irritable and exhausted and my feet hurt from pounding hard tiles, so to be in a quiet corner of the kitchen alone is a blessing from above. Literally if you asked me whether I would rather have sex or peel vegetables right now, I would be elbow deep in potato skins before you’d even finished your sentence. [Does “elbow deep in potato skins” sound vaguely rude to you? Or am I just delirious at this point?]
