Page 5 of Coming Home for Fall 2
“Alright then. I think I’ll just go unpack a few things.”
“Sounds good. I already put your bags in the bedroom. Oh, but just so you know, if you need to hang anything up, most of your dad’s clothes are in that closet now. He was also using the dresser for some stuff, but I moved all of that out of the way.”
Mallory frowned. “Why was dad’s stuff in his office?”
“Not everything,” Callie clarified. “Just a few things. Our own dresser and closet were getting so overly stuffed. I don’t know how the two of us have managed to accrue so much clothing, it’s just ridiculous, but oh well.”
Mallory found this explanation a bit odd, considering her parents were never known to be big shoppers, but she didn’t feel like getting into yetanotherspat on her first day backin Ferndale. She went first to the bathroom in the hallway to freshen up. Then, in her dad’s office, she opened up her three bags and stared down at the contents of her entire life. Aside from the used, half-broken items of furniture she’d left behind in her apartment, everything in these bags represented all of Mallory’s worldly possessions. Back in the day, she liked the fact that she could pack everything up at a moment’s notice and move, but now, it made her kind of sad.
She had a duffle bag full of clothes, a duffle bag full of odds and ends, and then a computer bag that didn’t even have a computer in it. She’d been using a company laptop at her last job but hadn’t owned her own computer in years. There were a few tattered paperbacks in that bag, a journal she hadn’t opened in months, and a pair of wireless earbuds that no longer worked after she’d accidentally run them through the wash.
Could this really be it? The sum of her life?
She abandoned the project of unpacking and slumped down heavily onto the edge of her bed. By not having all of her things from childhood surrounding her—like she usually did when she returned home and could sleep in her own room—Mallory’s life felt more empty than usual. She closed her eyes, fighting against tears for at least the third time that day, and tried not to think about how badly she’d messed up this time.
She hadn’t just been fired—she’d been blackballed.
It wasn’t that Mallory was particularly fond of working in the world of telemarketing, but it was the kind of job that she could always fall back on. She’d clocked hours for a handful of companies over the years, and the last gig she had in Chicago was by far the best one. Not only did they pay her a decent hourly wage, but the benefits were—well—existent. Most other telemarketing companies didn’t offer anything besides the promise of making big bucks if you sold enough product.
But that company, the one she’d been working for the last three years or so, gave her health insurance and even helped pay for a couple community college classes she took one summer. The only problem was, she was selling weight loss pills that had serious, dangerous side effects, and every time she made a new sale, it was like she was chipping away a little at her own soul.
“I just don’t understand why we have to be targetingcollege studentswith these pills,” she recalled telling her boss, about a month before she was fired. “The last lead list you gave me was ripped from a survey done on college freshmen and sophomores. A survey that was trying to pinpoint why college students are at a higher risk of developing eating disorders, I might add.”
“Yes, and you told them about our student discount for a first month’s supply, right?” asked Donovan, the greedy jerk who started the company nearly a decade before, using the money he’d received in a settlement. Nobody knew exactly what the legal battle was about, but there were rumors he was hit by a delivery truck from a major, international corporation and they wrote him a check just to keep him from talking to the press. “It’s actually a really good deal.”
He apparently hadn’t heard the disdain in her voice when she mentioned the survey.
“When someone really showed interest in buying the supplements, then yeah, I told them about the discount.”
“No, no, no, Mallory! You know better than that. You use the discount tomakethe sale.”
“Yes, I know. I’ve been doing this a long time, Donovan. But that’s kind of what I’m getting at. I’m not sure I feel comfortable making sales off these kids. Why are we offering a student discount on something like this? It doesn’t help them in school, so what’s the point in targeting people at such a young age?”
“That’s not true,” he began. “It can help them with their studies. Statistics show that students gain a lot of weight their first year at university, which in turn can affect their self-esteem and that could make them less engaged in their schoolwork or avoid having much of a social life.” He grinned and tapped the box of supplements sitting in the middle of his desk. “This stuff changes lives.”
Mallory did her best to stifle a laugh. “Okay, listen, Donovan, it’s just the two of us in here. We don’t have to act like this product is the best thing since sliced bread.”
“It’s on the list, for sure,” he insisted. “I’d say it’s in the top ten supplements on the market right now. You’ve read the testimonials!”
“We pay people for those,” she reminded him. “They’re not exactly unbiased…”
Donovan took a seat behind his desk, relaxing his weight into his leather desk chair and tenting his fingers. “What’s really going on, Mallory? Are you fishing for a raise or something? Because I’m really not in a position to give you one at the moment, but we can absolutely talk again in six months.”
“It’s not about money.” Mallory sighed and took a seat when Donovan motioned for her to do so. “I’ve just been having a hard time making sales lately. I feel bad, Donovan. It’s one thing when we call adults who have actually purchased weight loss products in the past, but this is different. These college kids are broke and insecure, and we’re taking advantage of them.”
“Better us than another company,” he argued. “At least our supplements actually work.”
Yeah, because they make everyone too sick to eat.
She kept this comment to herself and when Donovan changed the subject, she let him. A few minutes later, she was dismissed and she tried her darndest to go back to her cubicle and make more sales. She lasted another week, but after gettinga phone call from a crying mother whose daughter ended up in the hospital because she took the pills along with another medication and had a bad reaction, Mallory was done. She quit the very same day, and Donovan took it so personally, he refused to be a professional reference. This left her with virtually no job prospects, and within the month, she was nearly out of money and couldn’t pay rent. So yeah, she wasn’t technically fired, but she might as well have been.
Thinking back on the last night she spent in her studio apartment now, Mallory wasn’t sure whether she should feel grateful or devastated. She hated that apartment. It was full of bugs and there was always a draft, but at least it washers. Now she was back to square one, living at home without any plan for her future or remote idea of what she wanted to do with her life.
She fell back into the mattress with a heavy exhale and stared up at the ceiling.
“I swore I would never end up in this situation again,” she told herself. “But this time, when I leave after the holidays, I’m going to mean it.”
Chapter 3
