Domestic Violets Read Online Free PDF Page B

afternoon. On the other side, the air is fresher and the sun is a little more brilliant in the blue sky. There are always people walking around, driving places, and I wonder if they’ve gone over the wall, too. Are there currently hundreds—thousands—of unmanned cubes and offices in D.C. right now while we all do whatever it is we’re doing here on the outside?
    I worked at MSW for a full six months before I even knew what MSW stood for, which is Management Services Worldwide. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but, in a nutshell, my company helps other companies be better companies. We have courses and expert speakers and pie charts and business models and acronyms and PowerPoint presentations that throw around ear-splitting words like “synergy” and “best practices” and we have Webinars and binders of information and it’s all designed to help your organization work more efficiently. My job, as director of marketing copywriting, is to write ads and press releases and brochures about how if you don’t use MSW your company will sink into bankruptcy, your wife will leave you, and you will die alone beneath a bridge.
    It’s all very fulfilling.
    Like most people who have jobs like mine, it was all meant to be temporary. I would write and publish my novel, and then I’d retire from corporate purgatory and become a member of the Community of American Letters.
    That was seven years ago. In a climate in which simply having a job is an accomplishment, mine represents failure.
    When I arrive at my doctor’s office, I stride toward the reception desk where a woman named Glenda sits. Glenda is an elderly black lady who’s worked for my doctor for as long as he’s been my doctor, but she never seems to recognize me. I can’t blame her though, considering I’ve never made an actual appointment and every time I’m here I claim to be someone different.
    “Can I help you?” she asks.
    “Yes. I’m Paul Hewson, here to see Dr. Mortensen.”
    Paul Hewson is Bono’s real name, incidentally. Last time I was here, I was Gordon Sumner, otherwise known as Sting.
    Glenda looks at a giant desk calendar. Dr. Charlie shares his practice with two ancient doctors, and so everything here seems like something out of an issue of Life magazine.
    “What time was your appointment?”
    I look at my watch, which says 3:45, and so that’s what I say.
    “Well, I’m sorry, Mr. Hewson, I don’t seem to have you down.”
    “Oh, no worries. I can wait awhile.”
    As she jots Bono’s name down, I walk by the waiting room and through a door leading to the examination rooms. An old woman reading Highlights looks up but doesn’t seem concerned that I’m blatantly cutting in line. As obnoxious as this all sounds, it’s actually authorized. Dr. Charlie was my college roommate, and he’s too nice of a guy to tell me that I’m not Barbra Streisand and that maybe I should actually make an appointment like a normal person.
    A few nurses smile at me, assuming that I’m someone else’s problem, as I sneak glances into rooms. One of Charlie’s partners dozes at his desk over a file while listening to Rush Limbaugh. A young mother sits in an examining room with a little boy dressed in only socks and tighty-whitey underwear. She’s ignoring him as he drums on her thigh with tongue depressors. I round a corner and see a poster on the wall diagramming the human respiratory system, which looks very much like the D.C. Metro map. Then I hear Charlie’s voice. He’s yelling, but not in an angry way. I follow the shouting to find my friend standing in a doorway, hollering into a very old man’s ear.
    “Two pills, Mr. Halgas! One in the morning, and one at night before bed!”
    “Twice a day? But I only took the other ones once a day. I don’t like all the pills. I’d prefer just one.”
    “I’d prefer to have more hair and a Bentley, Mr. Halgas. But sometimes we can’t get everything we want. Those last pills weren’t working,