To the beach

"We need to talk," my manager told me.  "It's about your performance."  She was preparing to fire me, this had been coming for a while.  "Why don't we go to the beach?"  I said all right and she said, great, we'll go tomorrow.  "I can drive," she said.

I met her in the parking lot the next morning at 8:30.  I had to show up a little early because it was a 45-minute drive to the beach with no traffic.  I stood by the curb waiting.  She pulled up next to me and rolled her window down.  "You ready?"  I nodded.  "I hope you're wearing your swimsuit!"  I was, although it was drizzly, and November.

"I'm excited," she said when we pulled out onto the highway.  She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel in time with the classic rock station she had on.  Her car wasn't any nicer than mine, even though I knew how much money she made, and it was a lot more than I made.  "I haven't been to the shore in so long."

"Me neither."

"It's great to just get away from the office for a little while," she said.  "Things have been tough this year, we're getting hammered by the economy, the head office is on our backs --"  She waved it all away with her hand.  "We can talk about it at the beach."

There were only three other cars in the huge, windy parking lot.  They were all clustered together, like for warmth.  We joined the cluster and she pulled a beach bag out of the trunk and handed me a couple beach chairs.  She had two blue boogie boards in the back seat.  She saw me looking at them -- she said, "for later, if we want them," and gave me a wink.  We walked down the boardwalk towards the ocean.  "Look at that," my boss said.  "No one here!"

I put the beach chairs down in the dry sand.  "I want to get closer to the water," she said, so I picked them up again and moved them further down.  She dug her chair in and sat down and took a big breath.  "This is the life!" she said.  I sat down next to her.

I wanted to talk about what we came here to talk about -- I wanted to get fired and get it over with.  She took out a paperback and started reading from somewhere in the middle.  The book was small and fat and dark green with a picture of a cottage on the cover with a lot of flowers around it.  I didn't have a book or anything so I just dug in the sand next to my chair for a while with a sharp rock, then when I got bored with that I looked at some birds.

After an hour maybe, she sighed and put her book away.  "Beautiful, isn't it?"  I looked a ways down the beach.  I saw two men in business suits yelling at each other, shoes off to the side, their pants rolled up above their ankles.  On the other side of us, a man and a woman were sitting across from each other at a card table set up in the sand, next to their lawyers, signing divorce papers.  "I love coming to the beach.  It really helps me put everything into perspective."  I thought, here it comes.  But instead she said she wanted me to help her make a sand castle.

We set up in the wet sand just a few yards away from the water.  The tide was going out, I think, or else it wasn't really going anywhere at the moment.  The sand was frigid.  "Start out by digging a lake here, then we'll pile the wet sand up to make a foundation for the castle," she said.  She had a couple plastic shovels.  Mine was neon green and hers was neon pink.  Mine snapped off on my third or fourth scoop so I just used my hands.  My manager offered me hers, but I said it was fine, using my hands was fine.

We started to build up a little tower of sand overlooking the lake we'd dug.  We did that for a while and then my boss bought us some frozen lemonades and we stood back a few steps to take it in and figure out what we were going to do next.  "I think we should make it one of those drip castle things," she said.  A kid, maybe ten, ran over and knocked over our tower.  "Hey!" my boss yelled after him.  "Learn some manners!"  She looked a little disappointed, not devastated or anything though.  "That's what happens," she said.  "You build something up and then something comes along totally out of your control and knocks it over."

"Like the company," I offered.

My boss looked confused.  "How so?"

I shrugged.  "I don't know, nothing, I guess."

We walked back to our chairs.  "I thought it would be the tide," she said, "if anything."

We sat down again for a little while.  "Do you want to go for a swim?" she asked.  I shook my head.  She said she just wanted to get her hair wet and stripped down to her suit and waded out into the short, anxious waves.  I saw the divorcing couple stand up from their table; the lawyers shook hands and the woman looked away to wipe tears from her eyes.  A little further down, a judge was sitting Indian-style on a little towel, leafing through a manila folder in front of an apologetic-looking woman in a dirty winter coat.

My manager came back out of the water and toweled off.  "You ought to go in!" she said.  "It's refreshing!"  I told her I was still a little chilly from the lemonade.  She sat down and looked at me.  "Well, I didn't just bring you here for a fun day at the beach."

I said, I know.  I told her I knew I hadn't been doing my job up to her expectations, that I'd been distracted, and that, going forward, I'd do everything I could to do right by my colleagues.  A last-ditch try, mostly for her benefit -- I didn't believe a word.

"Unfortunately, we're past that point," she told me.  "You're smart and capable, and I'd be happy to give you a glowing letter of recommendation.  But we have to let you go."  She blew her nose into her towel and shook sand out of her hair.  "Boy," she said, it's getting windier."

I told her I understood, and she thanked me for understanding.  She dug my termination papers out of her beach bag.  She apologized that they were a little damp and gave me a folded-up newspaper to make it a little easier to sign them.

She asked me if I wanted to take a walk, but I told her I should probably be getting back.  "Already?"  She sounded disappointed -- it was only 3:30.  "Sure," she said.  We got up and I gathered up the beach chairs and she got the bag and we started back to the parking lot.  Halfway back, she grinned and said, "let me make sure I've got those papers!" and rummaged through the bag for a little bit until she found them, and then we went back to the car.

She gestured to the boogie boards in the back seat.  "Last chance!" she said.  I chuckled weakly and said, "not today."  She grinned and said, "I know!  Just kidding!"  We slapped the sand out of our sandals and got back into the car.

"We're getting back a little early," she said.  She told me she'd planned on spending the whole day at the beach.  "I didn't bring a change of clothes today.  Guess I'll have to dry off at my desk!" she laughed  I apologized, but she told me, no, it wasn't my fault.  "It was my bird brain that decided not to plan ahead today!"

She asked me what I thought my next move would be.  I shrugged, told her I didn't know.  "If I ever hear anybody's hiring, I'll be sure to pass your name along."  I told her appreciated that.  "I don't know why it didn't work out here," she said.  I wanted to tell her, it had been four years.  That seemed like a normal amount of time.

"I guess it wasn't meant to be," I said.

She nodded.  "That's a very refreshing attitude."  She squinted and went "hmm" like she was really thinking it over.  "You're a very deep thinker, and that will serve you well."  I thanked her.  It was a relief to have it over with.

We got back to the parking lot.  She reached across me to open my door, then she unbuckled me and booted me in the ass out the door.  "And STAY out!" she cackled.  She peeled out in a muddy puddle and splashed me.  When I got home, someone had broken into my apartment and taken a shit on the floor, but I don't think that had anything to do with getting fired.