a moment in the day: just before I get my notice that I'm laid off

I've been sitting, staring at this computer all day, across the room from where the phone sits on the table, trying to work on a project, trying not to be waiting for the phone to ring.

They're going to call me any minute now to lay me off.

We're all getting laid off. I know this deep in my bookseller bones, have felt sure of this ever since we received notice that for some of us, this Covid-19-related, store-closure-related fifteen-day layoff was going to have to be permanent. I knew then, and I know now, in my pessimist heart, that I will not be going back to work.

I know, I know, so I wish they'd just call and get it over with.

I try not to look at the phone.

Fifteen years, I worked there. It suddenly occurs to me that this is exactly the number of years I was in the circus. My only other really lasting gig. The difference is that those fifteen years in the circus made me feel like a loser, and working at Powell's, I felt... well, I don't know if I'm wired to ever feel like a winner, but it did make me feel as close to what the opposite of a loser is, that I could possibly feel.

The phone across the room, the little red light on top that's always on.

When I click into my inbox, there are new emails from a thread of some beloved coworkers I've been talking with, and oh god, three of them have been laid off. They got it in an email, not a phone call. Tears start to wash across my stoic pessimist bookseller eyes. Three women who are some of the most competent women I've ever worked with.

This goddamn virus. And the rest of us are next, I know, I know, but for a second I stop, noticing that their layoffs happened almost an hour ago.

I check my spam folder for mine. Nothing.

I go back to the thread and read the messages of my coworkers, my friends. One of them writes, "I hope if you haven’t gotten an email that means you get to keep your jobs!"

My whole body starts to shake.

I wrap my arms around me. Then push my face into my hands and cry hard.

I cry for them, but I also cry because suddenly, for myself, I feel hope. I can't help it. And hope can be a terrible, dangerous thing.