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in issue twelve:
Synchronicity
Scintillations
The Phone Call
Finding Feathers
Did God Land Me
   This Waitress Gig?
Letting Good Happen
Continuous
   Synchronicity
Unexpected Inspiration
Rubber Band Fairy
Bird on My Shoulder
Listen To Your Body
Letters to
   My Younger Self
Books That Changed
   My Life
Moody Girl

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Zack Luchetti: Artwork
Ally Moll: Rock My World
Forrest Norvell:
Traces
Egghead Party Time
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space
Locke Berkebile:
Lightcycle
NY Subway
Produce District

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future issues
Issue 13: Danger
Issue 14: Home
Issue 15: Transitions

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The Phone Call
Shana Perry Norris

I turned the key machine off and listened to its whirring hum die down into silence while I stared out the wall of glass windows along the front of the store. Outside, cars sped by into the warm November afternoon. There were no customers in the little locksmith shop and so I had a moment alone, just me and the key machine and a thousand or so uncut key blanks on the wall behind me. I could cut keys in my sleep, though working the ancient cash register was still a daily battle. Whenever the usual three or four customers a day filed into the shop, I smiled and pretended to focus on my task, but my thoughts were of climbing the roof of the building and pelting people with key blanks.

Two years in college had given me a degree in graphic arts, but the brightly lit office with the plush purple couch I had dreamed of during classes had not materialized. I found myself every morning in a tiny shop along a backwoods highway. I had hoped to work in web design and build websites for numerous companies, but in the small North Carolina town in which I lived, jobs like that were scarce.

So when my cousin offered me a part-time job as an office assistant for the locksmith service he managed, I took it and told myself that I needed the money. Answering phones and making keys for a few hours each afternoon was better than nothing, right?

Except it wasn't just a few hours each afternoon. The morning assistant decided to quit only two weeks after I started, meaning I got a promotion – full-time office manager. I ran the store, answered phones, made keys and took customers' orders, and kept the record books organized and up-to-date while my cousin, the locksmith, was out on calls. It was fine until a notice arrived from the state tax department saying we had not filed our required quarterly tax statements. The former office manager had left without training me on the finer points of bookkeeping and accounting: How was I supposed to know anything about quarterly tax statements? In college, I had drawn with colored pencils during classes. I had no clue how to fill out a tax form.

For five months I forced myself into the office each day, bringing books and magazines to keep myself busy when there were no customers, which was most of the day. The owner of the business moved out of state before I was hired and the business had gone downhill. I fielded calls and letters everyday from companies we bought supplies from, demanding payments on the key blanks we had ordered. We had no money to pay the bills and no key blanks to make keys for customers.

The job was leading me nowhere except to a very early grave. I checked the help wanted ads in the newspaper every morning, but there was never anyone looking for a graphic artist. The company's stress at not being able to pay the bills or buy new supplies became my stress. I knew things were bad before I arrived, but I still felt that the company’s failure was a reflection on me.

After five long months of learning little more than how to recognize keys by sight, I was flipping through an issue of Cosmopolitan when the office phone rang. I picked it up, expecting it to be another person locked out of their car.

It was one of my graphics instructors from college.

He asked for me specifically. I almost dropped the phone. I thought that he was calling to tell me a mistake had been made on my grades and that I had failed a class, and they were taking back my degree.

He made small talk at first, asking how I was and what I had been doing since graduation. I told him about the office job and then realized how idiotic I sounded – of course he knew about the office job, he had called me at work!

"You should have called me to let me know you needed a job," he told me. "A graphics job, I mean. I would have helped you find one."

I stammered for a moment, trying to think of an excuse for why I hadn't asked him for help. The truth was, the thought had never occurred to me. Once I accepted my diploma, my brain had put college completely in the past and I never thought to ask my instructors for help in finding a job.

"I do have an offer you may be interested in," he said. He told me he had received a call from Greg, one of my former classmates. "He works for an Internet company here in town and he called to ask if I knew of anyone who would be interested in a web design position there."

Interested? I wanted to scream into the phone that of course I was interested. My head was already thinking, "Hallelujah, free at last!"

I wrote down the number he gave me and circled it for emphasis. Before I hung up the phone I promised my instructor I would call him for help if this offer fell through. Then, I called Greg. We talked for a moment and I set up a time that afternoon to meet with Greg and his boss.

After I hung up, my stomach twisted into tight knots. I needed to leave work early to pick up my portfolio to take with me to the interview. I was worried about what excuse I could give my cousin for leaving work. I had always put a lot of pressure on myself to make other people happy and not anger or disappoint them, so I didn't want to come right out and tell my cousin that I was going to a job interview. I also didn't want to abandon him with all the company's problems. I could tell he was just as stressed as I was about the company's future.

I called my cousin and told him I needed to leave fifteen minutes early to get a few things done. He didn't question it, which I was thankful for. I hung up the phone and sat back in my chair. I began to regret calling my classmate. As much as I wanted to take advantage of this new opportunity that had plopped itself right into my lap, I knew I couldn't just leave my cousin like that. We weren't especially close, but I hated the thought of having to face him during family gatherings if I left him to sink with this company.

The phone startled me from my thoughts.

"Hey, Shana." It was my cousin, the locksmith. "I've been thinking. You may want to start looking for another job."

My stomach started doing somersaults.

He told me that he was tired of dealing with the company's financial problems and planned to quit. He didn’t want me to be left dealing with the company’s problems alone.

I couldn't help laughing. I laughed for a long time and my apprehension of the moment before dissipated as the sound spread throughout the office.

That afternoon I went to the interview and presented my portfolio. Greg’s boss hesitated as she looked at me across the long table.

"Well," she said, "you haven't held a graphic design job before..."

"Shana is a hard worker," Greg spoke up. As creative manager, he sat in on the interview. "She's very talented and she always got her work done in class."

I resisted the urge to jump up and hug him. I smiled politely and looked back at his boss. Goosebumps prickled along my arms, but I wasn't certain whether they were from nervousness or too much air conditioning in the room.

"Well," the boss said again, "if Greg thinks you can do this, I'm willing to take a chance."

My cheeks hurt from the smile that stretched across my face as I walked out of the building that afternoon. I took the offer they gave me without hesitation.

I've worked with the Internet company for three years now. There isn't a purple couch, but there is a pink computer in the corner and I haven't yet considered pelting customers with monitors.