The Unexpected Salami: A Novel by Laurie Gwen Shapiro Read Free Book Online
Authors: Laurie Gwen Shapiro
bait that my parents would move permanently to their condo in Florida. Now I’m back on the road to nowhere—instead of having a plethora of middle management editing jobs in the offering, I’ve returned to a job market where the only ads are for situations wanted—I can only temp. I desperately miss my quasi-boyfriend, Colin, who’s fifteen thousand miles away working in a copy shop, and I hate myself and my friends, although they think I’m as adorably sardonic and top-of-the-world as always. My mother thinks I’m a freak for not having an ounce of concern for the murder of my roommate, which by the way, I witnessed. He was a pig though.A fucked-up pig heroin addict thief asshole. And I’m at a loss about where I can go. I’m fucking around again with every Joe, Dick, or Harry I meet on a plane or at a party—I can’t make a decision about grad school, let alone what to do to make hours go faster—”
“I see,” Danny said, signaling for our check.
“That’s it? That’s what you say after devouring my miserable life story? You pump it out of me and then that’s it?”
“Whoa!” the legendary Danny Death said, looking like he didn’t have time for whiners. “You need to get some fucking perspective. Decisions don’t mean shit. Once you’ve made one, ride it for its dimensions. So you’ve cut your first tooth. Why should I feel sorry for you? You speak well, you have great tits, you’ve had high adventure. You’re able to live in another country for two years without mention of a serious job—”
“I had savings from my New York editing job, plus I waitressed—that’s not fair.”
“But you knew you could wire home to Mommy and Daddy if you needed to. True?”
“True.” Fuck him, the bastard.
“So, you had a place to come home to, and it wasn’t a hick-town hell in West Virginia. And as for the murder, it sounds like you got a kick out of it. If the guy was an asshole, he deserved it.”
“Fuck
you
,” I squeaked, my eyes steady on the table’s yellow polka-dotted contact paper that would make a homemaker scream in horror if she’d bought an old house and opened her cabinets. “What right do you have to say that to me?” Sometimes it takes a nihilist to really shape you up.
• • •
My life wasn’t blueberry pie, but over the next week, I felt more grounded. I called my mother to say hi, and she sounded delighted at this unforced cheer. I even managed a trip to the Forty-second Street library’s map room to look at the newest acquisitions.
“Haven’t seen you in years,” Jorge, the map librarian, said. On a shelf behind his desk was a bumper sticker that said
Happiness is knowing how to read a road map
. “Rachel, right? I have great scarves to show you. Soldiers secured them around their necks in World War Two. The scarves had maps on them in case they got lost in the jungle.”
I spread out the silky samples he brought me on the table and entered their space. I imagined myself as a pilot lost in the jungles of the Philippines with only a map of Luzon to guide me. Colin had known what I meant by my map space: he’d said that as a child he’d gone with his cousin to the beach, and as each boat passed, they’d enter a fantasy of journey.
The librarian came over to retrieve the scarves. I asked him to bring out an 1890s map of Melbourne the way one would order an after-dinner sherry. Nepean Highway, the expressway where I drove Colin’s panel van on the day Stuart was shot, was marked Nepean Road. The hallmarks of the gentrified inner suburbs were lifetimes away—Fitzroy’s artist cafés and tapas bars, St. Kilda’s pastel art deco homes, and the outdoor Sunday thrift market at Camberwell, where Colin scooped up a ketchup-stained cookbook for me. (It was inscribed “the kitchen of Mrs. Newton-John”; a chocolate walnut cake was marked “Olivia’s favorite” in red pencil.)
An afternoon of geographical escape and pleasure; I was in a bona fide good mood.
“I see,” Danny said, signaling for our check.
“That’s it? That’s what you say after devouring my miserable life story? You pump it out of me and then that’s it?”
“Whoa!” the legendary Danny Death said, looking like he didn’t have time for whiners. “You need to get some fucking perspective. Decisions don’t mean shit. Once you’ve made one, ride it for its dimensions. So you’ve cut your first tooth. Why should I feel sorry for you? You speak well, you have great tits, you’ve had high adventure. You’re able to live in another country for two years without mention of a serious job—”
“I had savings from my New York editing job, plus I waitressed—that’s not fair.”
“But you knew you could wire home to Mommy and Daddy if you needed to. True?”
“True.” Fuck him, the bastard.
“So, you had a place to come home to, and it wasn’t a hick-town hell in West Virginia. And as for the murder, it sounds like you got a kick out of it. If the guy was an asshole, he deserved it.”
“Fuck
you
,” I squeaked, my eyes steady on the table’s yellow polka-dotted contact paper that would make a homemaker scream in horror if she’d bought an old house and opened her cabinets. “What right do you have to say that to me?” Sometimes it takes a nihilist to really shape you up.
• • •
My life wasn’t blueberry pie, but over the next week, I felt more grounded. I called my mother to say hi, and she sounded delighted at this unforced cheer. I even managed a trip to the Forty-second Street library’s map room to look at the newest acquisitions.
“Haven’t seen you in years,” Jorge, the map librarian, said. On a shelf behind his desk was a bumper sticker that said
Happiness is knowing how to read a road map
. “Rachel, right? I have great scarves to show you. Soldiers secured them around their necks in World War Two. The scarves had maps on them in case they got lost in the jungle.”
I spread out the silky samples he brought me on the table and entered their space. I imagined myself as a pilot lost in the jungles of the Philippines with only a map of Luzon to guide me. Colin had known what I meant by my map space: he’d said that as a child he’d gone with his cousin to the beach, and as each boat passed, they’d enter a fantasy of journey.
The librarian came over to retrieve the scarves. I asked him to bring out an 1890s map of Melbourne the way one would order an after-dinner sherry. Nepean Highway, the expressway where I drove Colin’s panel van on the day Stuart was shot, was marked Nepean Road. The hallmarks of the gentrified inner suburbs were lifetimes away—Fitzroy’s artist cafés and tapas bars, St. Kilda’s pastel art deco homes, and the outdoor Sunday thrift market at Camberwell, where Colin scooped up a ketchup-stained cookbook for me. (It was inscribed “the kitchen of Mrs. Newton-John”; a chocolate walnut cake was marked “Olivia’s favorite” in red pencil.)
An afternoon of geographical escape and pleasure; I was in a bona fide good mood.