Marc’s email contacts. He has over 700, most of whom are celebrities that have no business being in contact with him. Danny DeVito is in there, and I copy down his emailaddress before I have to delete it. I put it in a notebook where I keep things like Justin Timberlake’s phone number. I figure when I’m fired or if ever I work up the nerve to quit, I’ll get drunk and call him. If I were to stay here, I could move up. I could hope to do what Ali does, and then maybe manage bands in the future. But if I stay, if I don’t go back to college, then I could easily strand myself here too. I left college because the school I chose never delivered the financial aid they promised, because I couldn’t get a loan, and because the only class I enjoyed was a poetry workshop that met once a week. The professor still read my poems after I withdrew from school. He emailed me suggestions and corrections. He told me to keep writing and reading, even if I could no longer attend class. Since starting this internship, I haven’t written a thing. I can’t remember the last time I read a whole book. In my cubicle, elbows on my desk, I decide that I can’t move to Staten Island and I can’t stay here. I write myself a note: Start looking at colleges again. I put it in my bag. When I pack up my things for the day – a coffee cup from this morning, two notes with names and numbers for Marc’s conference tomorrow – I take note of everyone in their cubicles, Marc and Ali encased in glass to the far right. I walk to the break room to make sure I haven’t left anything in the fridge. (Hello, cake.) I close the door to the refrigerator, collect my things, and leave. A few people say goodbye to me on my way out, but mostly the work continues. For once, Ali and I aren’t the last to leave. I’m sure she will be, eyes glued to her screen until Marc calls from home or the gym and tells her that she can go. She could be there for another few hours. I leave as fast as I can, the elevator doors always taking too long to close. I reach into my bag for my phone, and my hand grazes the stiff gray paper. I take it out when I reach the sidewalk just outside of the building. The letter is almost illegible, scrawled in the hasty, hopeful handwriting of a six-year-old, so Rihanna will never get to see it.
17 ♦ Somersault