Dead End Job by Ingrid Reinke Page A

Seattle, my childhood sun exposure was so low that my chances of getting skin cancer were miniscule. This helped me justify my weekly vitamin D treatment. I keep telling myself that the minute I saw a wrinkle I would quit for good, but for now I was enjoying tan, wrinkle-free skin, and I was determined to live it up.
    I left the tanning bed and went to my gym to sweat it out for exactly forty-three minutes on the elliptical, then headed home and got ready for weekly trivia night with Alex and friends in Ballard, an old waterfront-fishing-neighborhood-turned-hipster-hangout. I needed to talk about what had happened to me, strategize about my date with Rocky, have a couple of drinks, and figure out what the hell I should do next. Alex, with her no-bullshit and very-little-sympathy approach to advice, was just the girl that I wanted to see.
    After a quick shower, I threw my thick hair in a messy bun then pulled on a pair of navy leggings and some tan raffia wedges and a long, loose heather-grey top. I took my hair down, dried my long bangs with a blast from my hairdryer and ran my fingers through the messy waves until it looked windblown and tousled like a Vogue model’s (I may not the thinnest gal out there, but I do have really fantastic hair). At the last minute, I added some cheap but cute bright pink square earrings that I’d found at a flea market and a dash of perfume.
    When I arrived in Ballard, I found Alex outside smoking a cigarette with her lesbian friends, Lisa and Maxine. Alex had an easy, hip vibe about her. She made plenty of money selling dental equipment and was always wearing the latest fashions, which today included spiked Michael Kors heels, a white top and a pair of black, silky shorts that looked expensive and were probably by some uber-trendy designer I had never heard of. She also has several large and colorful tattoos, some visible and some not so visible and what I called a “modern mullet” of blond hair that looked fashionable, cool and effortless, like just about everything else about her. Alex was always chain smoking cigarettes and drinking whiskey and was one of those people who ordered food and then never seemed to eat it. She was pin thin, adorable, smart and successful, but tended to be insecure and would shut down emotionally when it came to men and relationships, so she was perpetually single.  She had recently been dumped by Morgan, a local bartender, whom she had pined after for years. Even though he was never good enough for her, she let the breakup get her down and hadn’t been dating for the last couple of months, which was OK with me because she was one of my only single friends who I could count on not to ditch me for a date night with her husband or long-term boyfriend.
    I had met both Alex and Amanda years ago when we were cocktailing at that horrible nightclub in Seattle’s Belltown area. Even though initially I didn’t have much in common with the two, we bonded over being fondled by gross men and secretly taking tequila shots in the bathroom during work. Years later, I count them, after Beverly and Elin, as my best friends.
    “Hey, girls!” I called out to the group.
    They greeted me with their normal, hipster-y lack of enthusiasm. Apparently, sorority bubbly went out of fashion in Seattle at the same time Starbucks did.
    “Hey, bitch,” said Lisa, noncommittally. She was a tall and strong woman, who currently worked as a bartender/comedian /woman arm wrestler. She was also a total brain, and the reason why we didn’t come in absolute last place every week at trivia. Today, Lisa was wearing a red and black buttoned-up flannel shirt, red heels, red lipstick and tight black skinny jeans. Her dirty-blond hair was pulled back into a neat pony tail, and her bangs had been carefully curled back in 1950s pin-up style. Her tattooed biceps were bulging out of the rolled up sleeves of her top as she smoked.
    Maxine, standing next to Lisa, just nodded her head. She was of medium