First came the Layoffs, a joint story from me and Rochelle Shapiro

Originally published back in 2004 and I just dug it out!

The Authors

Caroline Leavitt's, latest novel is "Girls In Trouble" (St. Martin's Press). She is the author of seven others, including "Living Other Lives" and "Coming Back To Me." A book columnist for Boston Globe, she lives in hoboken, NJ. she can be found online at www.carolineleavitt.com

Rochelle Jewell Shapiro's novel "Miriam the Medium" will be published by Simon & Schuster in May. Her essays have appeared in Newsweek and the New York Times Magazine. She lives in Great Neck and can be found online at www.miriamthemedium.com

BY ROCHELLE JEWELL SHAPIRO AND CAROLINE LEAVITT

(Original publication: February 26, 2004)

It seemed as if the best people took the hit. Carl, from editorial, who was famous for the slogan "Soak Up The Shades of Studley's Cotton Towels," who worked through lunch and took home a briefcase of work for weekends, got his notice. He ran his hands through his thicket of curls — he never had time for haircuts — and then slowly packed up his desk. He came out and said, "I want to say, good…" and then, to everyone's horror, he began to cry.

Next wide-eyed Amy with her feathery blonde hair and high-girlish voice, the cheerful art director who was known for the way she placed household items among the towels, got her notice right before she was supposed to depart for a Club Med vacation she'd already put on her overextended American Express. "I am so going to have to go to Debtor's Anonymous," she said.

Candace was terrified that she was next. "Last hired, last fired," and she was at the bottom rung of the copywriters, one of 40 working for Studley's Towels, a company known only because if you sent them a color or a fabric swatch, no matter how odd a shade, they'd replicate it, and send you a half-dozen matching towels. Candace couldn't afford to be out of work, not even for a day. Not with the way her husband Jerry gambled. Six years of marriage had put them into near bankruptcy. Jerry made a decent enough salary as a customer service rep for an auto parts firm — or at least he would have if he ever managed not to bet half of it away each week. They owed on the car, the apartment — because God knew they couldn't save enough to afford a house — and all he would do about it was promise her that he'd stop.

She should leave him, she knew, but the horrible fact was, she still thought she loved him. He left her sweet notes under her pillow and in the lunch bag she took to work. Sometimes she saw him gazing at her as if he couldn't believe his good fortune. How could she leave? When her mother was dying of pancreatic cancer, Jerry had been glued to Candace's side, rubbing her back, stroking her hair, holding Candace's hand when her mother gasped her last words, "At least I know my Candace won't be alone."

Sometimes she questioned her mother's final sentiment, because more and more, she was solo, but she tried not to show her misery. It didn't pay. Not with Jerry, who ignored it, and not at work, where any sort of unhappiness made Lamb — the secret name they all had for the meek little creative director — whitewash it into something else.

"Ah, a cold," Lamb said when he saw Candace's red eyes. "Got the new name for the chartreuse towels yet?" he asked, quickly changing the subject.

"You didn't ask me for one," Candace said.

"You have to anticipate things," Lamb said, his pale brow crinkling.

Oh, but she did anticipate things. She anticipated a marshal padlocking her door, or a loan shark shooting Jerry in the head. Some days, it shamed her the way the second anticipation carried with it such a thrill. Today, she only felt fear. She ran a hand along her hair, greasy and dark, tied up in a long knot, because she had been worrying so hard this morning, she'd forgotten to wash out the cream rinse. Forcing a smile, she said, "Charm-treuse."

"That's the way to do it," Lamb said happily.

•

By the time she got home, even if racing forms were sticking out of Jerry's pocket, she was afraid to allow herself to rage at him, because what if she couldn't stop by the next morning? She had to be able to work. And what if her anger drove him away for good? There was the rent, the electric bill, the car payments. And the impending layoffs.

That's why Candace was shocked when Lamb hired a new secretary, an older woman named Doreen, with frizzy hair that looked like she borrowed some of their yellow blaze dye. She wore sweaters that were too young for her, and way too tight, with ruffles and plunging necklines. Everyone was a little afraid of her. It was rumored she lived in a single-room occupancy hotel, in a bad part of town, that she'd never even been a secretary before, and that the only reason Lamb had hired her was because he felt sorry for her. If you asked for supplies, she snapped at you, and when she finally gave them to you, she handed out leaky pens or staplers that didn't work. She scowled if you didn't answer her calls to you on the first ring and it was rumored that she was the one calling up the staff she didn't like and repeatedly hanging up on them.

Rounding the corner one day, Candace spotted Doreen, barreling towards her. Candace nodded politely, stepping aside and giving Doreen room.

"You don't say hello?" Doreen said. "Whatdoya think I am, the wall?"

Candace, exhausted from fighting with Jerry, rolled her eyes.

"How dare you make that face at me!" Doreen said.

Aspirin, Candace thought, and went to her office to search for some. The phone rang, but as soon as she said hello, whoever it was slammed down the receiver. Another ring, and this time she heard faint harsh breathing before the hang-up. Doreen, she thought wearily. When the third ring came, Candace shut her eyes, leaning her head against the receiver. "What," she said flatly.

"You tell your husband he has two days to pay," a man said. Candace gripped the phone, heard the dial tone, and then put her head on the desk and cried.

Jerry wasn't home that night, but he left a note. "Inventory. Don't wait up," and all Candace could think was what kind of inventory, horse track or poker?

The next day, the moment Candace sat at her desk, the phone rang. "If I don't get my money in 48 hours, I'll break some arms," a voice growled. Slamming the phone down, she looked up to see Doreen, who handed her a layout scribbled all over in red. "Didn't take marketing long to hate it," Doreen said.

Candace stared at the layout, shocked. Where was her headline? Why wasn't the new art in place? The feature towel was supposed to be Blue Sky, and this one was Butter! "Wait, wait — this isn't the version I gave you last night to deliver," she said.

"Only version there is," Doreen said and that was when Candace turned to her computer and pulled up the file. "It's wrong here, too!" she said, astonished. "Someone must have changed what I did!" Baffled, she looked at Doreen and then saw the smirk. "You! Did you do this?"

"You accusing me of something?"

"Get out of my office—" Candace said, biting down on her tongue before she said something she'd regret. She'd print this file, and then find her original. She'd bring them both to Lamb and let him deal with it — and with Doreen.

"You can't dismiss me like that —"

"Leave. My. Office. Now."

And that was when Doreen leaned forward and slapped Candace, full in the face. Shocked, Candace's hands flew to her cheeks. "We'll see who leaves," Doreen said, turning on her heels and storming out.

Candace headed for Lamb. Doreen wasn't at her desk outside his office. In fact, she was nowhere in sight, but still, Candace, wanting to be careful, shut Lamb's office door behind her, spilling out what had just happened

He cleared his throat, ruffled papers. "Well," he said. "You can do the layout over, can't you? Deliver it yourself?"

"That's not the point—"

"Look," Lamb said, lowering his voice, "between you and me, I'd love to see her fired. But she's in her 50s and there's all kinds of laws today. We could be accused of ageism. And she's got this problem I can't go into. She'd sue us blind if we even issued a warning."

Candace blinked. "She hit me!"

Lamb looked away for a moment. "Did anyone else see it? Otherwise it's just your word against hers."

"You won't do anything?" she asked, astonished.

"Much as I'd love to, my hands are tied," he said, threading his fingers together, almost as if he were praying for help.

•

Usually she got home an hour or so before Jerry, but that evening, he was at the apartment door the same time she was, his eyes bright, his smile playful. "We have to talk," she said wearily, and then she rested one hand on the door, the way she always did in order to get the key to fit right, and the door swung open. Candace froze at the threshold. Books were thrown all over the floor, pictures smashed. The TV was gone. The stereo and the CD player. Jerry strode in, and she tried to grab for his arm, just missing. "The robbers could still be there!" she whispered, but he was at the phone. "Police? I want to report a robbery," he said.

She came tentatively inside, sinking down into the only one of the chairs that hadn't been sliced open, and then Jerry hung up and began dialing again. "Insurance company," he said to her, his voice almost jaunty and Candace couldn't help thinking. Jerry knew. He knew. He's going to use the insurance claim to pay the loan shark.

By the time Jerry got off the phone, Candace was packing.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Leaving you," she said. "You lie. You gamble. You endanger us."

Exasperated, he grabbed her hands. "I just got us money. Enough to pay our debts and have a little left over."

She tugged her hands free and folded a sweater.

"You can't leave. How am I supposed to keep carrying the rent on my own, pay the bills?"

"Haven't a clue," she said, and all she could think was it was her money he couldn't live without, not her.

"But where are you going?" he asked, and that stopped her for a moment. The bank, she decided. To make sure he couldn't get into her account. Then a lawyer. And then, her friend June in Hoboken, who always said Candace could stay with as long as she liked. The air sparkled around her with possibility.

Of course, at work, she didn't tell anyone, but Doreen seemed to sniff it out, hanging around Candace, tapping the picture of Jerry Candace hadn't yet taken down from her bulletin board.

"What a hunk," Doreen said. "Bet you worry about other women."

Candace winced. Doreen's words hurt more than the slap had. Leaving Jerry was one thing, imagining him with another woman was something else.

"Another layoff today," Doreen said, and then Lamb strode into the room, his smile wobbly, and Doreen laughed so meaningfully, Candace stood up.

"Am I being laid off?" Candace blurted.

"Why, what kind of a question is that?" Lamb sputtered, but he wouldn't meet her eyes.

Why, he's scared, Candace thought. He can't even tell me the truth, and suddenly, she was tired of always waiting for another bad thing to happen to her, tired of always waiting for the blow she knew was coming.

"I quit," she said, and walked out of her office, surprising both of them, and herself.

•

Candace couldn't count on Jerry to give her anything, and she wouldn't sponge off her friend. Until she could find something better, she took the first job she saw, as a waitress at Chock Full O' Nuts. The pay wasn't much, but she wasn't paying rent at June's.

She had been working two months when she woke up and suddenly noticed something new. That tightness in her stomach. The pulsing headaches. They were gone. She could walk into work and not instinctively duck her head. People either left her alone or smiled at her and made small talk. And at the end of the day, she was done. She could come home and open the door and not be terrified that something would be wrong. When the phone rang, it wasn't someone yelling at her about money, but more often than not, it was a friend. An invitation. Sometimes a lead on a better job. And at the end of each week, she had a paycheck to show for it, a check she put into a brand new bank account, money that wasn't going anywhere unless she herself took it out.

She was pouring coffee when the door jangled open and there was Doreen, in a bright red suit, her yellow hair puffed out. She headed right for Candace's station, even though the place was half empty. She tapped red lacquered nails on the counter. "I'd like some service," she said. "Coffee and a donut and if it's stale, I'm sending it back."

Candace gave her one of the cream filled and the fresh coffee. She swabbed the counter and all the while she felt Doreen studying her, but it was like her skin was Teflon, and everything slid right off. She began to hum. Sometime a thing as simple as a clean counter could soothe you.

"I hope you're happy," Doreen said, standing, buttoning up her jacket. She turned away before Candace could answer, could tell her that no, she wasn't exactly happy. At least not yet. But maybe she was headed that way. She picked up the dirty saucer and saw the nickel tip there, meant to be another slap in her face. Candace picked it up and walked over to the gumball machine and slid in the coin. A candy rolled out. Purple. Her very favorite. •

Copyright 2004 The Journal News, a Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper serving Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties in New York.

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