I shifted from one leg to the other impatiently, weighing my chances of escape. What would happen if I worked my way over to a window and forced my way out? No good, because not only were we stuck between stations but we were underground as well. The thought of emerging into the tiny dark space of the tunnel only to be hemmed in by a cold metal train was even worse than the claustrophobia I was starting to suffer where I was.
Thinking like this was the only way I could distract myself from the tension that grew inside of me with every passing minute. Since I was still in my probation period in a very strict corporate environment, I knew everything I did was being quietly watched and carefully noted. I was doing everything I could to stay in their favor because I desperately needed to keep the job. Being late was not an option.
Up until very recently I've been scraping by, faking my way through every irregular temp job that I could get and waiting tables as often as I could at night. Up until a few months ago, my hope for a stable future was fading rapidly.
My best friend and I were collapsed on his sofa after a night of pub crawling. In other words, a Saturday night just like any other. He was a waiter too but Saturday nights always went to the staff that had been around the longest, and neither one of us was even close to qualifying for that.
We always ended the night on his sofa, talking for a little while before passing out. But for some reason Rick wouldn't settle down. He kept pacing around his apartment, talking half to me and half to himself. He was hyper enough that he was disrupting my mellow, sleepy state and I didn't like it.
"What the hell is with you?" I grumbled at him.
"I hate this town. We need to get out of here. Do you know we do the same thing every damn day of every week, over and over and over? Aren't you sick of it?"
I managed a half-hearted shrug. "Yeah. So? Why would it be different anywhere else?"
"Why wouldn't it? I can't stand being here anymore, neither of us can find any kind of steady work, so what's the point in staying? At least we could do something new and have a better chance than we do now. Nothing ever changes here. It'll be the same place when we're 80 years old as it is now."
I figured he was just drunk and raving and he'd get over it when he sobered up. So I half-listened to him and tried to watch TV at the same time. Eventually he sat down with me and we both fell asleep.
But the next night Rick hadn't changed his mind. To my surprise, he had started making real plans.
"I'm gone. End of the month. Are you coming with me?" He sounded so determined I started to believe we could pull it off. I'd dreamt about getting out of this town for years but leaving had always seemed like something I could imagine but never actually do.
Since Rick had been talking this way I had started thinking. It didn't take me long to see I had no good reason to stay, especially without him around.
So we did it. Moved to the city. We got a tiny apartment together and we both got work as waiters. Just to keep the money coming in for awhile, we told each other. I spent my days looking for programming work and my nights in the restaurant. We started to meet new people and we were having a lot of fun. Things were going great, except on the job front. It was just like it had been for me since I finished high school. I was making just enough for what I needed but never getting ahead. I tried to stay hopeful but as the weeks passed it got harder and harder.
Then one morning I got a call from a company I was hoping to work for. They wanted to see me as soon as possible and so I went in that afternoon. I wasn't very hopeful since I had only applied there the day before, and usually when that happens they just want to check you out for no good reason. I made a bet with myself about how long it would take for the interviewer to tell me I'd be kept on file.
To my absolute shock, I got hired on the spot. Turns out they had just fired someone, and the boss told me he didn't want to fuck around with Human Resources and wait while they took their time finding a suitable replacement.
"Don't disappoint me," he said, scrutinizing me as though I was keeping a secret from him and he wanted to know what it was.
My department was very busy and I always felt like the manager was keeping an eye on me a lot more so than anyone else. At first I didn't think much of it because I was the newest hire. But normally that kind of thing wears off after your first day and they forget you even exist. I was well into my second month and still feeling like I was under the microscope when the boss called me into his office on a Friday afternoon.
"So, Roberts, catch me up. How's it going with you? Everything okay?"
"Absolutely, sir, everything's great. I'm happy that you gave me the opportunity to—"
He cut me off with a wave of his hand. "What I want to know is, can you see yourself sticking around for the long haul? Or are you looking at your position here as a stopover on your way somewhere else?"
