Don't Let Me Die In A Motel 6 or One Woman's Struggle Through The Great Recession Read Online Free PDF Page B

friend’s funeral.
    "W ell," I sighed, "I haven't bee n able to find a job, even as a consultant. I spend eight hours a day looking on the Web."
    "She's really trying," Rachel said, reinforcing t hat I wasn't a freeloading bum.
    "The creditors aren’t challenging the bankruptcy, and I told Nigel he should move back to North Bend and live rent free until they foreclose."
    " Good idea. "
    "How's Aurora?” Rachel had the knack of alway s bringing up the subject you didn't want to hear .
    "Not great. She attacked Nigel at Target, then hid in the bathroom. The police had to get her out."
    Rachel shook her head.
    "B ut everyone thinks the rape thing is a lie."
    "A bsolutely."
    This was Aurora's latest stunt. I had rented the movie Speak , where a high school-aged Kristen Stewart is raped and tells no one about it. Finally, she hands her mother a note. As Aurora handed one to Nigel.
    Her tale was more fabulous than Aesop. She had been walking on a horse trail in Issaquah, and two men had run up , thrown her to the ground, and raped her. Conveniently, she never saw their faces. Medic al tests had come back negative; the police didn't believe her – not even her own doctor . When I ’d questioned her, she said there had been no penetration.
    "Aurora, do you know what rape is?"
    She looked up at me innocently. She knew. Lying was the sharpest arrow at the top of her s urvivor's quiver.
    "I don't even care what goes on up there," I told Rachel , and I meant it. Nigel and Aurora filled me with anxiety – and that wasn't easy on 40 milligrams of Paxil a day. "I just want a job," I sighed , and I could feel the tears commingle with the chlorinated drops on my face. "I've never had so much trouble. Usually, I apply and I get it. Now, I can't even get an interview. And the studios don't want me. They're too busy laying off their o wn. Sony just cut 10% .” I could hear my voice b r eak.
    "Don't be a victim."
    "What?"
    "Don't be a victim."
    I looked at Miles across my sister's profile, and something prehensile rose in me : the desire to maim and kill. This is why, America, we shouldn’t keep guns handy.
    VICTIM? Me, who had worked for thirty-three years without a break; who pursued the job sear ch with the relentless will of a Terminator? Who had labored for a solid, respect ed Bank that went POOF! o ne day and left behind only dust mites? !
    A shaking kind of hate filled me. There was Miles, who had known very little hardship in his life , beyond the death of his father . Th is had been compensated by early su ccess as a Drum Wizard and D esigner extraordinaire; the building up of a successful business with Rachel that had offices around the globe; this house, with two Lexi in the three-car garage; a marriage to his childhood sweetheart, whom he'd me t at thirteen (His sister and I introduced them); two perfect boys who were proving to be clones of Dad: math/science nerd s who played in the school band and had already been to Europe, Japan, and Australia.
    He looked over at me smugly. My life had not been partitioned into the neat l ittle compartments that Rachel arranged (she even had a cover for her vacuum ). I was not able to schedule my days down to the minute and have it all work out. Things like a lunatic daughter and even crazier husband , broke n legs, cancer, being laid off , kept getting in the way . In other words:  Life. I was seriously off-schedu le, and in these peoples’ eyes that was a sin. I was fifty years old, and had nothing.
    I don't remember what I said to Miles. What I wanted to say was : how dare you, you little shit?! All over America, people are losing their jobs, their homes, their retirement, because capitalists LIKE YOU are more than happy to lay off every employee before letting a single gardener go. In effect, Rachel and Miles were protected by an immense shield made of human fles h, like Loki with his boat of fingernails.
    Didn't Miles read beyond his technical manuals: that we were swirling in the