Melancholy's Captive

By Laurie Clark

Life falling apart? Obsessed with getting revenge on your enemies and can't stop thinking about their horrible haircuts? Debt piling up? Hating your job? Absolutely no self-confidence, which pretty much means you feel like you can't do anything at all and therefore you're not sure what to do next?

 

Why not chuck it all, stay home in your jammies, and write a romance novel? Except, without so much romance, because you don't know how to do that. And, plagued with doubts every step of the way. And always thinking about your debt – never forget about the debt!

 

What if the Universe told you to write a romance novel instead of getting a real job? Would you listen, or would you take another soul-sucking job and force yourself to go to it, with a fake smile pasted on your face every day?

 

Will the heroine in Melancholy's Captive make the right decision? Which path will she take? Read the book and find out!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Laurie Clark
• Release date: Aug 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223985778

Laurie Clark

Laurie Clark is an award-winning writer. She loves her kid, her passel of animals, and all things supernatural. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Book preview

HOME AND HOBSON ('S CHOICE)

FINALLY, WE ARE back in Albuquerque. I am given hugs from my mother and father, and they and Peanut (who is a native New Yorker) are happy to meet.

I make home base on their couch — everyone needs time to recover when things have come crashing down, right? I don’t do much, at first. I just sit there and try not to think.

When daytime TV only seems to make it worse and makes me question not only my sanity but the future of the human race, I get up. Peanut and I go for walks and contemplate life.

Albuquerque hasn't changed a lot since I left to chase my dreams in New York. I can finally get some good green chile, which is very noticeably absent in New York City. People are still friendly, for the most part. Businesses have closed and new ones have opened. People have had hard times but have survived, it seems. Life has gone on for them (I assume), and I envy them — surely their hard times are over. They have overcome them and are living happy, perfect lives while I am still in the muck.

After 2 weeks, the nagging finally begins, as I knew it would.

Don't you think it is time you start looking for a job? My father says, with the bluntness of a father.

How can I explain it to him? The years of having jobs I've hated and never feeling like I belonged. This last job was the closest I have come to being happy and that somehow came crashing down. It is all very raw still. I can't imagine dealing with people. I was never good at it to begin with, and now it seems way too overwhelming.

Looking for a job. Going for the interview. Going in on the first day and starting all over, with all the doubts and worries and fears and insecurities that come with it. I don't have the energy for all of that. I have absolutely no energy and no confidence. Why is it that I have neither of those right when I need them the most? Why does it work out that way?

But, I am a grown up so I'm supposed to have a job, right? I am supposed to go somewhere every day, for 40 hours a week, for 40 years or so, and suck it up, even if I hate every minute. Right?

I am living on savings, and somehow I am OK with that. When I sit down to pay my credit card bills and I have to transfer money into my checking account from my savings I am not, but most of the rest of the time I am. It is not as scary as I thought it would be, at least not yet.

It is probably not the best time to find a place of my own, but I have to. I want my own place, my own space, and my own stuff. It is part of the healing process, I tell my parents to try to soften the blow of their beloved daughter leaving their home (again), but instead of being offended they don’t seem to think anything about it at all. They have been doing this parenting thing for years and nothing fazes them anymore.

My grandmother had a little house, and she left it to my mother when she died. They were going to fix it up and rent it out, but they tell me that if I want to I can stay there. It sounds great. They will let me stay rent free, but want me to take care of any repairs that pop up, in their typical parental fashion (they are always practical, after all). Sounds good, and I am staying there for free, so I can't be too picky. And how many repairs can one house have, right?

I guess I should be happy they don't seem to be worried about me and my lack of a job. Apparently they must believe in me or have some sort of faith in me or they would be begging me to live with them still, right? I mean, I would hope that if I was a total loser they would want to take care of me because they know I can’t take care of myself.

My new house is small, but that's OK. It's just me and Peanut, after all, and I don't need extra room to throw wild parties. At first it is a place full of fond memories of my grandmother, but it very quickly becomes a place of refuge from the cruel world. I splurge and buy a brand new mattress (the bed frame will have to wait) and then a few other things at a thrift store. I manage to make it look pretty cute despite being poor, I think. It will serve my purposes.

Now that some of the trauma of my major life changes has died down, it is kind of nice to be alone (alone except for Peanut, of course).

Every day I get up, pour some coffee, and start perusing the internet job sites. I am trying to be picky, in the hopes of averting another disaster. Or maybe I'm just putting off applying to anything, in the hopes of averting another disaster.

I waiver between panic (what kind of a person doesn't have a job and is fine with that? What is wrong with me?) and a zen-like calm (the right job will come along any day now and my whole life will come together. Snap!).

Sometimes it is all too much and I have to turn off the computer and just stare out the window, trying not to think of anything but usually ending up crying pitifully, the tears rolling easily down my cheeks, warm and salty.

Very soon, however, despite my lack of initiative, I get a job interview at a small company that specializes in marketing for dentists around the country. Seriously, that's what they do. Who knew that dentists needed so much marketing?

They love me. They should love me. It is a rare, once-in-a-lifetime-kick-ass interview. Against all odds, and contrary to everything going on in my head, I am poised and confident. All the stuff I actually do know about (writing), I present as if I do, actually, know something about it.

Every job interview I've ever had where they don't ask those stupid questions (What's your worst quality? What kind of a tree would you be if you were a tree? that kind of crap) I have aced, and I have gotten the job. It's true! When it is just me and the interviewer talking, they can't wait to hire me. And that's the kind of interview this was.

They leave a message offering me the job, and I spend all afternoon desperately trying to call them back to tell them I'll take it, but I can’t get through. There was something wrong with their phones, I find out later. Perhaps this was a sign, one that I should not have ignored.

I'm supposed to have a job, right? Everyone is supposed to have a job, someplace to go every day. I take it.

JOBS AND JUJU

MY FIRST DAY. They seem to be very concerned about training me, not just to work in their office, but to have a new personality, even though they loved me enough to hire me so you would think I was already what they wanted. They are impressing upon me how important it is to be responsible and how I should greet each day with enthusiasm and dive into each task with abandon.

I already am responsible, and somehow their lectures do the opposite of inspire me. I don't think anyone feels like being enthusiastic just because someone is telling them to be enthusiastic. It seems to have the opposite effect, I have found. This seems like a bad sign (another bad sign, I guess I should say) and a bad way to start a new job.

I am an introvert, and they seem determined to make me into an extrovert. I think people think they are doing you a favor, when they try to change you into an extrovert. Like somehow extroverts are better, and you should be happy to join their ranks. Like if you’re an introvert you might make people unhappy or uncomfortable, and it is your responsibility to not let that happen.

In part of their drive to make sure I turn into an extrovert, a perfect worker who doesn't waste a second of the day and someone who is super-enthused about everything, they watch me very closely. They hover and comment on my every move. Sometimes they comment on the same move four or five times. They nitpick about every word; even worse, people who have never written a word in their lives and who haven't had a grammar class in 30 years are nitpicking about every word. I don't say anything. They are the bosses, after all, and I am trying to carefully pick my battles after the last job experience I had. In the back of my head, determined to live there for perhaps the rest of my life, is the thought, however small, that perhaps