32aa by Michelle Cunnah Page B

outletting.
    To outlet: a new verb we created. Here is an example of how it might be used: Today, I plan to go outletting with my good friends Tish and Rachel. To the designer outlets.
    This may seem frivolous in view of everything that has happened over the last few days. My time might be better spent starting the hunt for a new apartment. Or at least packing my things and moving in with Tish later today, as planned. Maybe I should scour The New York Times Sunday edition for possible career opportunities.
    But, you see, apart from the Donna Karan gift voucher burning a hole in my purse (thank you, Rachel), I have (with Rachel’s ranting encouragement last night) gone past the “poor me, why me” stage of rejection and have moved on to anger and resentment. The idea of making life difficult for Adam is very appealing. This is my plan:
Do not move out of his apartment just yet. Why should I cleanly remove all traces of myself before his return from the Bahamas with man-stealing bitch Stella?
Do not leave Cougan & Cray. Would be completely bad career move at this time and my daily presence will serve to remind Adam how badly he has treated me. (Although I will go and see Jacintha Bridges re: Human Resources job tomorrow—don’t want to actually work with Adam.)
    Why should his life continue without even a slight hiccup after the way he’s behaved?
    Another reason I am nurturing dark thoughts about how to complicate Adam’s life and generally be a pain in his side is because Adam just called me. From the Bahamas.
    The phone rings just as I am about to leave the apartment to head for the Fourteenth Street PATH station. And I’m not going to bother picking up because I assume it will be either Katy, calling to find out why we didn’t attend her Mothers Against Sexy (or was it Sexual?) SPAM meeting last night (feel a bit guilty for not turning up to protect her from Marion bloody Lacy but don’t want to make up pathetic, unbelievable excuses to her at this time of the morning), or some bloody bane-of-the-weekend telemarketer.
    I hate it when someone tries to sell me something that I really don’t want or need, and I have such a hard time telling them no because they are so persistent and aggressive. Plus, I always end up feeling sorry for them because it must be a really shit job. Can you imagine sitting there, day in and day out, calling people all across the country and knowing that the best you can expect is verbal abuse?
    This is exactly why I have Caller ID and voicemail. To shield me from the bastard pushy person on the other end, determined to extract cash from me. But I am so pissed to get an “out of area” call at eight on Sunday morning that I pick up, determined to tell “Hello, this is Chuck, how are you today?” to stick his head where the sun don’t shine.
    “Hello,” I bark, ready to vent my spleen on the doomed, hapless Chuck who is, poor soul, only doing his job.
    “Emmeline? Is that you?”
    Oh, God. It’s Adam. Despite harboring dark, vengeful thoughts about him, I am unable to stop the pathetic pittypat of my heart at the sound of his beloved voice. And then reality reasserts itself. This is the same lying, cheating, ionic-bonding Adam who has just wrecked my life.
    “Yes,” I say, curtly, as images of Adam and Stella frolicking wantonly on a Bahamian beach flash in front of me.
    “Thank God. For a moment there I thought it was your dreadful friend, Rachel.”
    Now, insulting my best friend is not a good way to start a telephone conversation after shafting me both at work and at home, and as you might imagine, my temper (which has already been stoked very nicely by Rachel the night before) fires up.
    “Just called to see how your weekend’s going,” he tells me cheerfully. “Did you have a good time on Friday night?”
    Did I have a good time on Friday night? What kind of a weekend am I having? How dare he sound so…so cheerful! He casually ruins my life and my birthday, and then has