Welcome to Envy Park

Hitting "Send"

This is it, Moira. Stop playing around.

The job applications to three different employers in three different countries were all ready and sitting in my outbox. They’d been there for several weeks now. I had made “Hi! So I’m looking for a job!” phone calls to some friends, because by now everyone had at least one friend or family member in Hong Kong, Bangkok and Phnom Penh (such was my small world), and they had responded by giving me leads. If I wanted to, I could be an English editor in one country, an NGO program assistant in another, and an advertising copywriter in another.

My flatmate Allie told me that this was going to be a problem. She was against my leaving, period, and insisted that I was going through a phase and if I stuck it out six months longer, I’d get over it. Like she did.

What did I want to be, though? I hit “send” on all nine draft emails, and let the universe decide for me.

The other new thing about my email was that Ethan was starting to send me some. It started with a simple web link to a review of the place that served the coffee-flavored cotton candy we tried (they called it “bitter and sweet and right and wrong”), and then a review of the band playing this weekend in NV Park’s central plaza because we saw the poster and didn’t know who they were (apparently they were “the best local pretty boy musician-dancers currently not that there’s much competition”).

I replied for the first time with, “Let’s skip the dancing pretty boys. Unless you really want to see them. I don’t mind being your cover story.”

In the meantime, I needed a job. The not-real kind.

Based on my calculations, I had enough money to live comfortably until Megan arrived. But if I was going to move to another country for the Real Job, I needed some startup money. Plane tickets, spending money, new clothes, all of that needed to be funded.

I didn't like asking my parents for it. As I just learned yet again from dealing with my mother, my plans would have a chance of surviving if they were involved in no way at all.

And then, a reply from Ethan: “I would rather eat ducky duck.”

Of course.

NV Park was right next to a business and commercial area, so I figured I’d take a look around and see what was nearby. Got out of bed bright and somewhat early at ten-thirty. As I waited for the elevator, my beautiful neighbor Lucille came out of 10C.

Lucille was gorgeous. Not just in the “everyone’s beautiful on the inside” sense, but also in the objective, attention-grabbing, in-your-face kind of way. She had the height, hair, and posture of a beauty queen, and maybe she was, and I would have recognized her if I had been more into that. Even I felt fluttery just looking at her. She seemed nice, too. I got her name when we rode the elevator together once before, and she introduced herself in an easygoing way. She had been wheeling a small piece of luggage at the time.

She was doing the same thing right then.

“Leaving again?” I said, as we stepped into the elevator together.

She smiled, and sighed, and shrugged. “Yes, always.”

There were three other guys in the elevator and I could see that they all tried to figure out how to look at her without looking at her, and that was funny.

It was a Saturday, apparently. Car and human traffic was lighter than usual, but apparently NV Park was one of those global workplaces that was always on, all day all week. I crossed the street from our condo complex to the business park area and wondered what it was like to work there. It reminded me a little bit about being in another country.

Which, by the way, always made me uncomfortable when I heard it from other people. Because I didn’t mean oh clean up this place a bit and it looks like a different country! I meant, I always associated working in Manila with living at home, with my parents. And then living in another country with doing my own groceries, paying my own bills, and then seeing them at Christmas. So this was a strange in-between, strange but not unwelcome.

I went into a random building, the closest one, and stood in front of the building directory listing for a few minutes. They were companies I had never heard of, and didn’t seem to have existed six years ago, when I first looked for a job on my own. I had no idea what to do.

My phone rang. “Roxie,” I said.

“Weekend plans?”

“Nothing. I’m going to try and avoid my mother for now.”

“Oh come on. You can’t be mad at her for the Megan thing.”

“She does this to me. She forces my hand. She knows I hate it when she forces my hand.”

“You were planning to leave anyway.”

“Of course.”

“Unless you really weren’t.”

“I sent nine job applications just now. I so am going to leave.”

“Whatever, Moi. I just need to go see my grandma today but after I can pass by for dinner. Do you need anything?”

“I need a job.”

“No, you need money. Nobody needs a job.”

“Fine, I need money. Can you give me money?”

Roxie laughed. “You need to get a job. I’ll see you later.”

The security guard asked me what I wanted, because why was I standing in front of the directory for that long. I said no thanks and headed out, striking that building off my list.

Then I went into the next one, and did the same thing.