Make The Light

No Shrink, Exorcist - Part 2

“If we cancel Dr. Marty this week,” I said. “It should work.”

“That’s fine. I’ll still meet Marty.”

“Really?” I followed her out of the service station.

Meet Marty, meet Marty, meet Marty.

Why sing?

Meet Marty, meet Marty, meet Marty.

Shut up, Face.

“Yeah, I need to talk to him about a project I’m researching for Ray?”

“Who’s Ray?” I repeated myself as I opened her car door. Crumbs were on my seat.

“He’s head of sales.” She waited while I brushed out the crumbs. I left the Starbucks muffin bags on the passenger side floor.

“Oh,” I shut my door. She shut hers. “Was this a promotion?” I asked.

“No, just additional responsibility. But it’s good. How was your day?”

Her car started right away. Mine struggled to start. I hope that the service station would fix the problem like the had fixed the rattle. If not, I’d have to take my car somewhere else.

“My clients are idiots. Campaigns and politics turns everybody into paranoid lunatics. Another client tried to volunteer my services for a Senate race.”

“That’s good.” She accelerated abruptly, jumping into rush hour traffic. We couldn’t slide into the left turn lane so we’d probably miss the next light, too.

“I’m too busy. The clients and political hacks are dangerously stupid. All of them want heroic words but none care about what they’re saying or promising. It’s disgusting.”

“That’s all you ever say.”

“It’s disgusting and stupid. What’s worse is that they let me put silly ideas in the text but crap all over good writing. They don’t notice what’s being said, just how.”

“Tom.”

“How busy are you going to be?” We moved and stopped six or seven cars from the front of the left turn lane. We might not even make the next light.

“What?”

“With your promotion?”

“It’s not a promotion.” I wondered why she wasn’t more enthusiastic.

“It sure sounds like it. Are you going to get paid more?”

“Not yet.”

“You should ask to get paid more,” I said. She accelerated abruptly once again. We made the light easily. I asked, “How busy are you going to be?”

“Busy.”

“We need to drop life coaching.”

“No.” She was focused on the rush hour traffic.

“Then I’m going to quit. You go.”

“It was your idea.”

“It was impulsive and stupid. I can’t stand how in one silly moment I did something so inane.”

“It wasn’t insane.” We missed another light.

“Inane,” I said, pronouncing carefully.

“You’re an asshole. You quit life coaching once a week. Just do the work and stop complaining.”

“I do the work.”

“It took you a month to come up with a name.”

“So?” I tried to will the light green.

“And ‘Face’ is all you could come up with.”

“Fuck Face.”

“Your an ass and that name sucks.”

… continued

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No Shrink, Exorcist

Part 2: Make The Light
Part 1: Dee Motion