Page 23 of The Happiness Blueprint
Paul nudges my arm.
“Earth to Alex.”
“Sorry. Listening.”
“Why don’t you get a job again? I mean you have the easiest profession to get a job in. It could help you get back on track with life.”
“I’m not sure I want to go back to being a project manager. Just the thought of all the people it involves gives me a fucking headache.” I used to be in charge of a small team for a large local carpentry firm, a move to further my career and keep up with my friends who all seemed to get fancier and fancier job titles and more professional LinkedIn headshots done. One friend went from banker’s assistant to head of risk investment opportunities. No idea what that even means. Turned out a manager role wasn’t for me. All my time was spent in an office making spreadsheets and phone calls, and my hands were itching to work so badly I offered friends my services on weekends. I was very popular for a while.
“So get a different job. Just a regular one. Do some carpentry work. I’m sure you can start part-time or even freelance. And if you don’t like it, quit. What have you got to lose?”My peace and quiet and mornings playingFIFA. I don’t say this out loud.
The drinks are finished, but neither Paul nor I get up to get another round.
“I know you’re worried. Trust me. I know. I picked you up that day, I drove you there.”There.Fuckingthere.The place where my parents almost didn’t show up. Only to the cafeteria to meet me for a lift home, lattes in hand and best clothes on. They were nervous, didn’t know what to do or why this had happened and were still so focused on losing Calle they couldn’t deal with another crisis. I could swear I saw them look over their shoulders scared to run into someone they knew and have to explain that their son wasn’t there for a broken bone or a fever. No, his buddy had picked him up from work because he had suddenly been found sitting on the floor, shaking like a drug user who’s gone cold turkey. Except it was a panic attack. When I realized Paul had brought me to the ER I knew I’d never set foot at my workplace again. Or any workplace, it seems.
“It would solve the car dilemma,” I say instead of going into that dark territory. I am getting by okay, mainly because I’ve been a squirrel all my life, saving for a rainy day, which came last August finally. But I can’t afford luxuries such as a posh car, or even a beer, without something coming into my account again, which has been subject to one-way traffic the past few months. May not have luxury of ignoring Jobcenter’s emails much longer.
“There you go, then.”
As I step outside and say goodbye to Paul, the rain soaks me in seconds. Life in Sweden is predictable in the best of ways: no war, no earthquakes, no political coups, and so it’s only fair that the weather does not follow suit. I look at myself from the outside for minute. What has become of me? Is that you, Calle? Did you just open the sky and spit cold water on me to saywake up? I shelter by the edge of a house and take my phone out of my pocket to kill time. What the fuck? How did this get here? I didn’t put that entry there. I shoot a text to Paul.
Me: Did you just mess with my phone and tamper with my calendar/plan/life?
Paul: Guilty.
For fuck’s sake. I look at the to-do notes for tomorrow, blinking hard once, hoping they will disappear. They don’t.
• NEW TASK:Look for a job (properly)
• NEW TASK:Apply for job
• NEW TASK:Go to interview/accept job if an option
The rain peters out. The smell of it lingering like in a cool, humid steam room.
Guess I have no choice, then. I am going to break the status quo: I am going to get a job. It will make Dr. Hadid happy, if nothing else. Text Paul,Thanks, buddy.
KLARA
Do I need to get laid?
Google Search I’m Feeling Lucky
I’ve spent the biggest part of the morning out on appointments, and when I finally arrive back at the warehouse, it’s three o’clock. I wave hello to Gunnar who is stacking up boxes using the small forklift, doing a neat job fitting them all in at the end of the parking area. I know that they are for the bathroom in Veberöd and the guest apartment in a basement of a villa in Lund. The guys pick up what they need for each day’s work here instead of storing it in the customer’s limited living space. It’s a much more pleasant system. Appointments are not the only thing I have to manage. There are the keys to each customer’s home, I have to plan the schedule of three other people and organize the material, which has to turn up to the right property at the right time. My dad handed over his black leather-bound calendar as if it were the holy grail, his handwriting neat and precise, line after line all the way up until the autumn. After just a few days it was riddled with my illegible writing so that even I am now struggling to understand my own instructions.
I clutch my reusable metal mug and push open the office door and am just about to say a loud and cheery hello when I freeze, realizing I should be the only person here. The voices of two men, Mateusz and Ram, reach me. Why aren’t they in Lund? I could swear that’s what their schedule says. For sure they have no business in the home office at this time of day. What they say next startles me.
“She’s on her period, that’s for sure.” Who? His wife?Me?
“She needs to get laid, probably hasn’t been shagged in years. So stiff, walking around here like she actually serves a purpose.” They both break into laughter.They are making fun of me.
Do I need to get laid? I know this comment is bad because once I was pointing out to the supermarket staff that some red apples had gotten in with the green apples, and the young boy with an acne-scar-dimpled face said, “Chill. You need to get fucking laid.” Alice took a step forward and said, “Are you offering?” like it was a threat, and the man apologized.Men think that dick is the answer and medicine for everything. Depression? Sore throat? Prescribe some glorious dick,Alice said on the bus home.
I googled it anyway, just to be sure, and the first thing that came up wasCosmopolitansaying that if your bed was taken over by books, magazines, a laptop, hadn’t seen fresh sheets in an eternity and was full of crumbs, then yes, you may need to get laid. I would never tolerate crumbs in my bed: they are worse than the pea that princess had to endure under her mattresses. Hard and crispy and small enough to accidentally get into your knickers.
Now I’m standing frozen. My stomach clenching like a fist. Then I dig deep and get that fist out, ready to fight, hauling it out from where it’s punching me. I walk around the corner.
“Excuse me, gentlemen. Can I have a word, please?” They stare at me and the ground alternatively, as if expecting something to pop out of it. A mole perhaps.
