Whispering Wishes (9 page)

“Here’s your costume.”

Say what?

“The bathroom is out the door to the right.
Put this on and then the sign you will twirl is against the wall by the front door. How you choose to twirl it is up to you. You can freestyle all you want to, just please don’t do anything to drop it. I have my iPod here, you can listen to if you’d like, since I doubt you brought yours today.” I’m looking at him with my mouth wide open, but he’s oblivious. “Since you are wearing heels, I’m not going to make you go for a full eight hours today, so how about you just get your feet wet and work for an hour. No pun intended. Hah! Tomorrow you will be more prepared. Oh, and I’m sure you realize this, but you will stand on the corner right in front of our office there.”

I open and close my mouth a few times before sounds come out
. “Stand on a corner? So, the marketing job was for me to dress up in this…”

“Chicken suit.”

Of course it is, “… chicken suit, and twirl a sign. That’s the marketing job. To twirl a sign.”

“That’s right.
Fifty percent of people that come get their taxes done is from walk in’s brought in by sign twirling marketing job. You are very important to the success of our business.”

I’m speechless.
He hands me the chicken suit and I just stare at him for a moment before I reach out and take it from him. “The bathroom again is-“

“I got it.”
I get up and silently walk to the door and as I’m going to the bathroom I catch the eye of the receptionist. She’s doing her best to hide her grin, but it’s not working. I can see the evil in her eyes. I bet she’s the type of girl that takes pictures of people in chicken suits and passes them around to her friends like, look at this idiot. Great. I just stare at her as I make my way to the bathroom, enter, and close the door.

I lean my back against the door.
I screwed myself by walking out of the bank. But there’s no point on reflecting on that. What’s done is done. This job… well I don’t have to do it forever. It can just be until I find something else. It’s just for the money. Just for the fifteen dollars an hour. Holding the costume out in front of me, I see that it also has a mask for my face. Strange that a mask would offer me comfort. At least, no one will even know who I am. Okay, I can do this. I think.

I’ve been hiding
out in the bathroom too long. I know they are going to come knocking sooner or later wondering what the holdup is, and if I’m ever going to come out. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I can just live in here or if I stay here long enough, they will forget I was ever here. There's no window to crawl out through. And if there was, I'd probably just get stuck.

I can’t stop staring at myself in the bathroom mirror.
I literally look like a shorter version of big bird, and instead of a huge head like him, I have a feathered masquerade like mask that goes over my face. Of course it still has an orange beak. Awesome.

There are yellow feathers everywhere.
Just putting the outfit on my body had feathers falling all over the floor. I’m not picking them up, hell no - they can do it. I’m a grown ass woman wearing a leotard covered in yellow and orange feathers. It looks like there are even some sequins sewn in because when I move, it sparkles – God help me. In the pile, there are even some yellow tights, but I refuse to wear them – because that’s nasty. Who knows where they’ve been and who has had them on before me. The least they can do is give me a fresh pair if they expect me to wear them.

Conveniently, they have lockers in the bathroom for me to leave my personal belongings.
The locker has a lock with a key on a keychain that allows me to wrap it around my wrist. At least I don’t have to worry about someone stealing my things. Not that anyone would, but it isn’t like I know any of these people.

I timidly open the bathroom door a crack and peek out.
The office is buzzing with business and everyone appears to be at their desk doing their thing. Some people are on their phones, others on their computers, and there are several clients in the office as well. Oh well, I don’t suppose I can delay this any longer, so I open the door wider and step out.

Almost immediately I hear, “There you are!
I was starting to wonder if you had changed your mind.”

Jumping at the sound of his voice, I turn to face him.
So much for being stealthy. I don’t say a word; just look at him expectantly and with annoyance on my face. Although, can he even see my expression in this get up? Doubtful. I just look like big bird‘s whore.

Mick takes in my appearance, looking at me head to toe.
“You look great. Here’s my iPod for you to borrow, hopefully it has some songs on it you like. Good luck, and by the way, for each client that comes in because of your sign shaking, you will receive a twenty dollar bonus on top of your hourly pay, so good luck and I’ll see you in an hour.”

Nodding my head, I make my way to the door.
Luckily, no one is even looking at me. Even the receptionist is busy on a call. It occurs to me that this is something they are used to; my guess is that they could really care less and I’m giving it more thought than they are. So, instead of worrying what people think, I make my way to the door, grab the sign I see sitting there and walk out. As I take a step to head toward the sidewalk, I come to a jerking stop. I turn around and see that my tail is closed in the door behind me. Brilliant. I open the door to let it out and then make my way to the corner, looking at the song selection on the iPod the whole way.

At least Mick has one thing going for him - his song selection isn’t awful.
There’s a new album from one of my favorite bands, so I start playing it, putting the buds in my ears. The costume doesn’t have pockets so I just shove the iPod down the front of my costume, I don’t know what else to do.

As I make my way to the corner of the intersection, I die a little inside when I see how busy it is.
The business sits on one of the busiest intersections in town. It’s a four way stop light so people will end up stopping at the light right next to me. I realize that a necessary tactic is to not make eye contact with anyone. Anyone at all.

Once I’m standing on the corner – oh God, I never thought I would think that about myself – I hold up the sign and feel at a loss for how to do this.
Shaking the sign back and forth seems like a good idea, so I start by doing that along with a little swaying from side to side. The sign announces the shop is offering discounts to get your taxes done. Why a chicken is necessary as a mascot instead of say… Uncle Sam or the Statue of Liberty, I will never understand. The words on the sign are simple and straight to the point, so people that go by have no trouble reading the sign quickly.

One of my favorite songs comes on and before I realize what I’m doing I really start shaking my stuff.
I hold the sign over my head and shake it around. I even try to do a twirl thing which at first ends in disaster when I drop it. “Shit!” I try to cover up my error by doing a flapping arm chicken dance thing. Someone honks at me – yep nailed it!

As I bend over to pick up the sign, a car honks and someone yells, “NICE ASS!”
I have an overwhelming urge to give them the finger, but somehow I’m thinking that wouldn’t be an acceptable way to advertise the business. I just ignore it and try to twirl it again. I am able to do it easily this time and so I try it again and again. The more I do it, the better I get at it, but then I realize the more I keep twirling it and turning it around, no one can read it. So I tone it down a bit.

I close my eyes and just try to lose myself to the music.
I start dancing and even forget where I am until reality smacks me in the face when someone honks again and yells, “How much for a blow job?”

“Fuck off!” is out of my mouth before I even realize it
. Luckily the jackass just laughs and drives off when the light turns green.

This is so humiliating.
I’m so glad no one has a clue who I am. I pull the iPod out, and take a look at the time. I’m amazed to see that it has already been an hour. It’s great that time went by so fast. That was really easy money when it comes right down to it. A few hours a day of anonymous dancing on a corner, I can handle that and no one even needs to know. I may not even need any other form of exercise.

I’m smiling and feeling pretty good about myself.
I’m proud that I didn’t just run away screaming in horror when I realized what the job truly entailed, because I really wanted to. Instead, I gave it a shot – and weird chicken suit aside – that’s something to be proud of. As I walk through the door to the office with a smile on my face, I see that the receptionist is busy helping a client that’s waiting in the lobby. “Would you like anything to drink?”

Before they can answer she turns to me and says, “Oh hey, great job out there, I really liked some of your moves.”

I turn to her completely taking my mask off in the process and start shaking my ass.
“Oh yeah? It’s because this is the hottest ass chicken you ever did see!” I laugh and happen to look to the side as I turn my head to really get into my shaking and happen to meet the eyes of the person sitting in the lobby.

“Aspen?”

Oh. My. God.
“Wes?” My humiliation is complete.

There is laughter sparkling in his eyes and his smile is enormous
. “I really enjoyed some of those moves as well. If only I had known it was you.”

There are no words.
None. I thought I was speechless before, I was wrong. So, so wrong. I feel heat from my humiliation color my cheeks. “What are you doing here?” I’m finally able to utter.

“I have an appointment to get my taxes done.”

“Oh.
Um, cool.” I give him a brief smile and wave, then turn on my heel and walk to the bathroom to escape, and change my clothes.

“Aspen?”
Wes calls and I stop and close my eyes for a moment, bracing myself before I turn back around.

I face him once more and he looks me up and down, a smirk appears on his lips and he says, “Nice tail.”

I whirl around and stalk back to the bathroom, his laughter following me.

I’m relieved that
when I leave the bathroom to head out, Wes is nowhere to be found. Mick had some paperwork he left for me to sign and I fill it out quickly before dashing to my car.

As soon as I get home, I waste no time going into my kitchen and reaching for the bottle of wine.
I gulp the first glass down like it’s water and then pour a second taking it into the bathroom with me. I feel sticky from my dancing and can’t wait to shower it off.

The semi-cool water feels great on my skin and I imagine it’s also washing off my embarrassment as well.
If only it could. I’m really not sure if I can ever show my face to Wes again. How the hell am I going to? Not that I have anything planned and may never seem him again, but still. I’m so mortified.

I hear my phone ring as I’m in the shower.
It’s probably Mischa wondering how my interview went. I imagine telling her what occurred and can hear her laughter ringing in my ears already. She’s going to laugh so hard she won’t be able to breathe and then she will tell me to come and work for her already. Maybe I should, I don’t know.

I step out of the shower and grab a towel off the rack and dry myself off.
I grab another towel from the linen cupboard and wrap it around my hair. Then I walk toward the mirror, grab my face cream, move close to look in the mirror and gasp in horror.

“NO!
OH NO! NO NO NO NO! WHY? WHY ME?”

It never occurred to me that it was bright and sunny outside when I was dancing on the corner with no sunscreen on.
I thought my nose stung just a bit when I rubbed it with facial soap in the shower, but oh my God. I have sunburn on my nose and a perfect outline of the mask on my face. I look like that awful picture of that celebrity that fell asleep in the sun with her sunglasses on that was in a recent gab tab. I grab the cream off the counter and start rubbing it in all over my face, hoping it helps take away some of the redness so it’s not so obvious later. I wonder if Mischa has some wonder hippie cream or oils that will help.

I grab my wine and take it with me to the be
droom, gulping it down as I put my clothes on. When I pick up my house phone with the intention of calling Mischa, the caller ID reveals that my landlord called while I was in the shower. There’s a message so I play it back, “Hi Aspen, it’s Mona. I need you to give me a call as soon as you can. Thanks.”

That’s strange.
I’m not late on my rent - it’s the middle of the month. Maybe she is going to have someone come out and do some work on the house or something. It’s in great shape but it could really use a fresh coat of paint and I’ve told her a couple times about the garage door being a little crooked on the bottom when it closes. Maybe she’s finally going to get that taken care of.

I dial her back, “Hello?”

“Hi Mona, it’s Aspen. I just got your message.”

“Oh hi, Aspen, thank you for calling me back so soon.”

“Sure, no problem. What’s up?” My brow furrows with my question.

“I have a bit of bad news which I hate to be the bearer of, but such is life.”

“Okay,” I say drawing out the word. I instantly have a bad feeling because it isn’t like I’ve been really lucky in life these days. I have no idea what she could have to tell me.

“I wanted to let you know that I'm mailing a letter to you today, informing you that you need to vacate the property by the end of the month.
Which is in exactly two weeks.”

“Wh-wh-what?”
I stutter. I can’t even form a word let alone a complete thought. “What do you mean? I’m being evicted? Why?”