From the outside in (part 3)

 I am awoken from my nap by the sound of the phone ringing.  Momentarily confused by which phone requires my attention, I grab both off the nightstand and glare at them accusingly.  The home phone is the offender, but it’s only Will.  I put on a fake, professional voice, “Hearthfalls, Valarie speaking.” 

“Were you asleep?”

“No!  Why would you say that?”  I retort as I stifle a yawn and stretch.

“Whatever.  You were sleeping.  Don’t you have anything to do?” he laughs.

“No.  Well, yes, I could be working on the brochure, but I don’t feel like it.” I say as I walk into the bathroom and look in the mirror.

“Well, if you’re getting paid, don’t you think you should at least be awake?”

“Not necessarily.  If I were at an office, I would probably be getting paid to play on the internet.  I don’t really see a difference.” I argue.  I’m pretty sure I could justify shopping as customer research.  Actually, I have tried that, and he didn’t buy it either.

“Have you even showered today?” he asks.

“Yes.”  I reply angrily and totally lying.

“Sure.” He says, unconvinced, “My mom wants to take us out to dinner tonight.”

“Cool.  Where to?”  I ask as I examine the freckles on my nose that seem to be multiplying overnight.  Nobody else seems to notice them, but I do.  Ands it’s definitely a love hate relationship.

“Probably TaMolly’s.”  Mexican is her favorite, and this one is close to both of our houses.  “I’m leaving work early tonight, be ready at six, and we’ll go pick her up.”

***

After I got home that night in December, Will was supportive.  But I needed a job.  So I did the only thing I could think of, I called my best and oldest friend, Kyle.  He was a photographer for me on yearbook staff in high school, and amazingly, he was able to make a career out of it. 

“Kyle, I did it.  I quit my job.”  I say proudly, and probably a bit more confidently than I felt.

“Awesome.  Now what?”  He asks.

“Well, I was wondering if you needed an assistant.  I can turn on lights and stuff.  I mean, come on, who doesn’t want a photo assistant who has an MBA?  I mean, you must be a kick ass photographer to have that, right?” 

He laughs,  “I really don’t have anything right now, but I will keep that in mind the next big paying gig I get. I can’t always afford an assistant, but when they will pay for one, I might as well have someone there.” 

“Cool.  Thanks. “ Kyle is my in to the industry that I so desperately want to be in – advertising.  He’s not exactly in the industry, but he works with some of the locals on occasion so, he knows more people than I do.  I almost got in back in August, right after I finished my degree.  Kyle told me that while on a shoot with a local creative director, he was told that art directors are a dime a dozen, but a good copywriter is hard to come by.  And considering I only took one very sad design class, I wasn’t fit to be an art director, so I declared myself a copywriter.  I have no real experience in that, unless you count the occasional blog post.  I mean, I’m probably a better writer than the average person, but considering the years of education I have under my belt, very little of it was dedicated to writing.  I took all the usuals, Comp I and II, technical writing, and mass media writing; I made good grades, although to quote my Lit teacher, “Me think she doth protest too much.”  I’m probably a bit more argumentative than I should be.

I hang up with Kyle, feeling a tiny bit better about my options, and hit the internet job pages.  I frequented jobster, monster, hot jobs, and every local paper I could find.  I was hoping I could find a job that doesn’t want a lot of experience but was willing to pay lots of money.  No such luck.