Matchmakers 2.0 (A Novel Nibbles title) (8 page)

Chapter 15

You can get a lot done in a day when you don’t have a job.  I decided to take the first day after I got fired to sleep in and stay in my pajamas all day.

That got old fast, so I sat down to do some math.  I don’t have a very expensive life.  My apartment is in a great old building, and rent is cheap.  It’s sort of wedged in between a really expensive university and a pretty rough neighborhood.  If you ignore the crack houses a couple of blocks away, they mostly ignore you.  Same goes for the college students in BMWs.

With my severance package,
Match the Loser
winnings, and modest savings, I wasn’t going to be homeless any time soon.  My biggest monthly budget item, besides rent, is yarn.

That’s what gave me the idea to wander down to the knitting store.  I left half an hour later with a part-time job and the much more important employee discount. 

By the time I got back from the knitting store, I had offers of more work from both Miri and Derrick.  Derrick wants me to consult on their geeks-find-love project.  They have venture-capital funding already, so it’s even well-paid consulting.  My Ph.D. in guppy biology rides again.

Miri wants me to run a hip knitting club out of her store.  Not nearly so well-paid, but I’ll get employee discounts there, too.  I’ll be able to buy Sam’s books for cheap.

It was hard to get despondent when I had three part-time jobs on tap less than twenty-four hours after being fired.  And none of them involved cleaning guppy tanks, which I swore I’d never do again. 

Since they added up to enough to pay my rent and grocery bill, I moved on to more important things.

I knocked on Sam’s door.  He looked surprised to see me in the middle of the afternoon.  At least I wasn’t still in my pajamas.

“Hi, you.  Come on in.  Want some pizza?”

I’d eaten lunch at exactly 12:10 p.m. five days a week for the last three years.  I was going to have to take lessons on living off-the-clock.  Sam seemed like a suitable mentor.

“I got fired yesterday.”

He handed me a slice.  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

I shrugged.  “Just a thing.  It was really weird timing right after I won
Match the Loser
, though.”

He grinned.  “You won?  That’s awesome.  Why’d they fire you?”

“Lots of big HR words.  They’re getting rid of the whole team.  Since Derrick and Miri had already quit, there wasn’t much team left to terminate.  I think, technically, I was laid off, not fired.”

“Are you bitter and twisted?”  This is why I like him; he doesn’t ask the dumb questions.

“I tried over breakfast, but then I realized they’d saved me from long days sitting in the match room by myself with stacks of client files piled to the ceiling.”

He laughed.  “Replace client files with books, and you pretty much just described my life.”

I shook my head slowly.  “Nope.  You do what you choose, and you really enjoy what you do.  Big difference.  I’m not a matchmaker.  I was just a girl with the right degree who needed a job.”

Sam played with my hair.  “So, what are you?”

Serious moment.  “I’m trying to get a handle on that.  I got a part-time job at the knitting store, and that feels like me.”

He nodded.  “That’s great.  You can flood the world with felted seahorses.”  End of serious moment.

“I have a couple other part-time gigs too, but I’m about to have more free time than I’ve had in years.”

He tried to look very solemn.  “Bummer.”

I grinned.  “I figure I’d better devote some time to keeping you happy.  If I’m going to be working in a knitting store, you’re the last single guy I’m ever going to meet.”

He tried to look very solemn again.  “Bummer.  About being the last guy, I mean.  Feel free to devote all the time you want to me.” 

I could feel the goopy grin on my face, I just couldn’t do anything about it. For a while, the pizza didn’t get much attention.

“I guess I owe MatchMakers twice,” he said. “For finding you, and for firing you.”

I still had the goopy grin.  “Enjoy it while it lasts.  Eventually my winnings will run out, and I might have to find a real job.”

He wiggled his eyebrows.  “I could hire you as my research assistant.”

It didn’t sound like such a bad offer. 

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