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Praise for Jillian

“This book is incredible. The deadpan way it nails what it is to be a human who lies to herself and tells different lies to everyone else makes me want to laugh and scream. It is hilarious and weird, my two favorite qualities in a book.”

—Lindsay Hunter, author of Ugly Girls and Don’t Kiss Me

“Halle Butler’s Jillian is a wry, smart portrait of two women set on separate courses of self-destruction, each of them judging the other on the way down. This is a bold debut, a quick, vicious ride.”

—Cari Luna, author of The Revolution of Every Day

“Goddamn Halle Butler. What she's written here is a hilariously brutal tale of a woman destroying herself with cheery selfishness. I laughed myself nauseous watching the people surrounding Jillian struggle between exasperated judgment and aggravated compassion. Never before have a pair of characters made me so sick with hatred and empathy at once. Butler is writing exactly what I want to read.”

—Jac Jemc, author of My Only Wife and A Different Bed Every Time

“An authentic and beautiful portrait of a self-proclaimed asshole.”

—Chelsea Martin, author of Even Though I Don’t Miss You

“Halle Butler is a self-assured new voice in fiction, bringing fresh humor and originality to her engaging debut.”

—Elizabeth Crane, author of We Only Know So Much

Jillian

Halle Butler

Curbside Splendor

Jillian

Part 1

Part 1

ONE

Jillian was in the rapture of one of her great musings.

“But what I really want is to be a personal assistant, or to go door to door and help people get organized. Not, like, as a psychologist, but I might be good at that, too. More like helping people get the right bins and sort through their stuff. Just go in and help people get organized.”

“You really like organizing?” Megan asked. Megan was not listening. She pronounced it flatly. “You really like organizing.”

“I’m obsessed,” said Jillian. “My house is packed with color-coded boxes and labels and stuff like that.”

“You’re a collector,” said Megan.

Jillian burped, a discreet, air-valve release through her mouth. “Haha, yeah.”

The phone rang. Megan picked it up and said, “Good afternoon, doctors’ office.” The woman on the phone asked if this was Dr. Billings’s office. Megan answered in the affirmative.

“Well, finally,” said the woman. “I left a message on your machine and I did not receive a call within 24 hours as promised.”

“How may I help you?” asked Megan.

“I was beginning to think Dr. Billings was a figment of my mind,” said the woman. “Like I was imagining him, and that maybe I had dreamed leaving the message.”

Megan sniffed.

“But when I checked my call history just now, I saw that I had really called.” Megan didn’t have the energy.

“Umm, hello, hello,” said the woman.

“Yes, how may I help you?” said Megan.

“I’d like to make an appointment, like I said in my message. Should I just start from the top?”

“Could I have your name and availability, please?” said Megan. She thought of her current mindset as “allowing the shit to happen.”

The microwave beeped in the background. The microwave was in the closet where they kept drug samples, and it sat on top of the mini-fridge. People used the mini-fridge to store both lunches and biological samples, side by side. Megan did not like to use the mini-fridge or the microwave. She did not like to think about how the heat from the microwave might combine the side-by-side contents of the mini-fridge.

She thought about the microwave and the mini-fridge while scheduling the appointment, and she also thought about how people affectionately referred to using the microwave as “nuking.”

“All right, Mrs. Davies, we’ll see you next Wednesday at ten,” said Megan.

Jillian walked back to her desk from the microwave, holding her lunch. The lunch came in a small plastic tub and had an indeterminate odor.

Jillian’s desk was large—executive, almost—and made of mahogany colored laminate. Megan’s desk was small and made of glass and cheap, black metal, and Megan had decorated the glass with a fanciful pattern of coffee splatters, adhesive, and various other dribblings. Megan’s desk was placed in the corner between a fax machine and an oversized, locked trash can. She had a nice view of the wall.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” said Jillian, “I love my job.” She peeled the plastic flap off her lunch and slapped it on her desk with a practiced gesture. “But it’s a dream of mine to work on my own terms. And I think, you know, when a person has a passion, they should follow it.”

“Mmmm,” said Megan.

“And since I keep collecting all this organizing stuff, I think it’s pretty clear that it’s a passion, so I’m trying to really listen to it so I can understand what it means for my future.”

Megan squeezed the bridge of her nose.

“I’m sorry?” said Jillian.

“Oh, nothing, I’m sorry. I was talking to my computer.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I do that all the time,” said Jillian. She laughed. “So what do you think of my idea? Do you think about that stuff sometimes?”

“Yeah, I guess. I don’t know about organizers, though,” said Megan. She dropped her voice an octave for the authoritative thrill. “I think sometimes people buy organizers to make themselves feel satisfied with their intentions, rather than to help them organize.”

“Hmmm, that’s interesting,” said Jillian.

“It’s just an opinion.”

“It’s cool how different people are,” said Jillian.

“Yeah, maybe,” said Megan.

“So, Miss Megan, what’s your dream job? Go ahead and describe it to me.”

Jillian was a 35-year-old woman. Megan was 24. They were both sitting in a gastroenterology office in an upper-middle class neighborhood in Chicago.

“Gee, I don’t know,” said Megan. “I guess this.” She widened her eyes at her keyboard. “I guess I would like to have a job that’s easy like this, but maybe with better pay and fewer hours.”

“Awww,” said Jillian.

“What?” said Megan.

“We do hard work.”

MEGAN THREW HER SKIRT on the floor and said, “Jillian.”

Her boyfriend, Randy, was making dinner. He was cutting a zucchini into slices and laying the slices on top of a frozen cheese pizza.

“Today she burped in the middle of a sentence,” said Megan. “Like it was a word in her sentence.”

“Haha,” said Randy. Megan leaned against the kitchen sink.

“jillian!” said Megan, raising her arms.

“Yeesh,” said Randy.

“She thinks she’s going to become a personal organizer.”

“I don’t know what that is,” said Randy.

“Yes you do.”

“Yeah, I guess I do,” said Randy.

“When she told me about it, it occurred to me to say, ‘Well, never in all my life!’”

Megan thought about this and tried to sit on the edge of the sink. “I don’t really know why I wanted to say that. I just want to do my work without having to listen to her dreams.” Megan gestured again. “I don’t want to stress out about her dreams.”

“It’s a really small office, right?” Randy asked. “So, you’re really trapped in there.”

“Completely trapped.”

Megan kept thinking about Jillian and tried to sit on the edge of the sink, but fell backwards into it. She hit her head on the aluminum cabinets. Randy heard this, along with the noise of some dishes.

“You all right?” asked Randy.

Randy walked to the sink, which was attached to the wall shared with the living room. Megan started shaking and said she thought she might throw up. He put his arms around her and lifted her out of the sink. When he looked down into the sink, he cringed.

“I fell on that knife,” said Megan.

“You sure did,” said Randy.

He walked her through the living room while assuring her that she would be fine. Megan’s knees jiggled.

“Here, lie down,” he said. Megan got on her stomach on the bed and Randy pulled her tights down. He looked over at the pile of clothing in the corner of their small, unlit bedroom, hoping to see a pair of sweatpants in the wad.

“I’m going to get something for this,” he said.

“Did I cut myself?” asked Megan.

“You did,” he said.

“I thought so,” she said, and then nearly fainted.

Randy got up from his squat beside the bed and walked to the kitchen. Megan continued to lie on the bed on her stomach, her face pointed at the clothing wad. In the kitchen, where he was getting a bowl of warm water and a roll of masking tape, Randy saw the knife she’d sat on. It was surrounded by watery blood. Next to the knife, floating in a tea cup, was a small crouton.

He went to the bathroom to dry heave and get gauze, Neosporin, and Tylenol.

When he got back to the bedroom, she was sobbing. He set his things on the nightstand and took a moment to look at the underwear around Megan’s ankles.

“Hey, it’s not that bad,” he said. The gash was deep, but not incredibly bloody. He rinsed and dried it, then covered it with a quarter of the tube of Neosporin.

“It really hurts,” she said.

“I know, I know,” he said. He rubbed her head for a minute. “Do you still want me to make that pizza?”

“What? No. Maybe. Maybe I’ll want that pizza later,” she said. “You decide, I don’t know.”

“Ok, I’ll decide,” he said. He wiped her nose and eyes with the extra gauze. She looked like a disgusting dead sea creature. Randy began to smile and wipe the stray hairs out of her face.

“My ass hurts so much,” she sobbed.

“I know it does, honey,” he said.

Megan remembered what she had been talking about when she slid into the sink and said, “Jillian is such a fucking idiot!”

“I know, honey,” said Randy. “She’s a total idiot.”

“No, I’m serious,” she cried. “This is serious!”

“Of course it is,” said Randy.

“I get a dangerous sense of foreboding when I’m around her.” Megan swallowed some spit. “She’s seeping into me! Everything she says and does, whenever she opens her mouth!”

Randy nodded and rubbed Megan’s ears. “I know.”

“But, I won’t let her get to me.”

“That’s good. You should really try to let this all go, it’s not good for you. You talk about her every day. I’m so happy you’re going to brush it off, that’s really mature.”

Megan omitted his statement from her mind. “I’ll turn the tables,” she said. “I’ll enjoy it. Every stupid idea she has is mine now. I’ll savor it, that’s what I’ll do.”

Randy frowned and balled up the snot gauze before tossing it onto the nightstand.

THE BUS PULLED UP to the eight-story medical building on Halsted and Megan had her usual fantasy about remaining on board until the end of the line, but she heaved herself towards the doors of the bus anyway. Slumping along, sort of throwing her feet one after the other, she crossed the street, entered the building, rode the elevator, walked down the hallway, and then stood facing her office door. She stared at it. Then she went inside and there was Jillian.

“Hey, Miss Megan!”

“Hey,” said Megan.

“How was your night, do anything fun? Anything new?”

“Nothing’s really changed since yesterday, no,” said Megan. Megan put her knee on her chair and opened Citrix, the intranet portal that connected her office with the hospital. Citrix was complex and opaque, and to understand it fully a person would probably need to attend a three-day regional seminar. Megan entered her secret username, “Megan,” and her secret password, “password.”

“Well, if you don’t have any news, let me tell you about my crazy night.” Jillian separated out the words “crazy” and “night.” Megan tried to ease her weight slowly down on her injured haunch.

“I am going to get a dog and start my own business,” said Jillian.

“Oh yeah?” said Megan.

“Oh yeah. Do you want to see the dog?”

Megan did not want to see the dog, but she agreed anyway. She walked the two paces to Jillian’s desk and stood there with her arms crossed. Let’s see this fucking dog you fucking moron.

“She’s a special needs puppy,” breathed Jillian. “And she’s dog of the day. It’s a two hundred dollar adoption fee. I don’t really have that much, but I want her so, so bad. Isn’t she cute?”

They both took a second to admire the dog. Megan thought it was a completely idiotic idea. She was, in some ways, ethically opposed to pet ownership.

“Yeah, she’s cute. But the adoption fees are to make sure the new owners can afford dog food and vet bills.” Megan cleared her throat and walked back to her desk. Her foot slipped out of her shoe. “And, if she really is a special needs dog, you know the vet bills are gonna be high. Just saying, might not be the best dog for you. Or, maybe it’s not the best time to get a dog. You have to plan for that stuff.”

“Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure my little boy really wants a dog, and I think the most important thing for a special needs dog to have is love.”

Oh my god, this dog is going to die within a week, thought Megan.

“Oh, and I have to tell you about my idea to work from home.”

Just as a thought experiment, Megan scanned the room for potential weapons. Jillian’s voice came in and out of focus.

“ . . . software I can . . . medical coding from . . . that cool? . . . I can take . . . little companion!”

Megan’s cut was starting to scab, but the scab was still thin and new—that kind of yellow, crystallized pus, like dried snot or eye-crap. It cracked a little when Megan put weight on it.

“It’s going to be so great, I can’t wait for summer. I’m gonna work from home, and I’m gonna have a dog on a leash and my baby in a stroller,” said Jillian. Megan glanced over her shoulder and confirmed that, yes, Jillian did have a faraway look on her face.

“Yep. This summer’s gonna be the best,” said Megan.

Megan started filing the images from the colonoscopies performed the day before. The large volume of documents suggested a kind of drive-through approach to the procedures that Megan found tactless. The images in the folder were the same as they always were. Each patient was represented by a grid of two by two inch photographs of twisting, ribbed tunnels which were sometimes pink and slick, but sometimes filled with crust, sludge, blood, or little hangy-balls of bowel-skin. The one thing she never saw in any of these photos was waste, but sometimes she came across a report with no images and the ghastly description “patient failed to empty completely, reschedule procedure.”

“Hi,” said Jillian. “I’m calling about the software package I saw on your website. Yuh-huh. Yeah, I’m really, um, really interested in it. Yes, ma’am, I am starting my own coding business. Yes, ma’am, medical coding. Yes, I will. Ok. You want me to give you my number?”

Jillian hung up the phone and sighed, thrilled. “Oh, dude, Megan, this is going to be so awesome!”

“Huh?” said Megan.

Jillian gasped. “Oh, I almost forgot! We have twelve patients this afternoon, so get ready! I made up some new registration forms.” Megan could feel Jillian approaching her.

Jillian opened a manila folder under Megan’s face and said, “It’s basically the same as the last one, except for here.” She double-tapped. Jillian’s fingers seemed to get a great sensory thrill from the paper, judging by the way they touched it.

“And this is the new confidentiality agreement.”

“I got it, Jillian,” said Megan. “Thank you. Thank you for doing this.”

“Oh, and since you were late again today, I took your missed calls. You had lots. Let me get those notes for you.”

“Thank you very much,” said Megan.

The doctors arrived ten minutes later, and Megan gave them both a curt, non-verbal greeting. Jillian showed them both the dog.

Later, Jillian received a phone call. Megan observed an immediate shift in tone. Her ears perked.

“No, I’m sorry but that’s not fair,” said Jillian. “It’s not fair, and it’s incorrect.” Pause. “No.”

Megan shifted the weight off her left butt cheek and jiggled her mouse, miming work, but alert to the conversation.

“They told me I didn’t need to pay it.” Jillian paused. “Well, I lost their name, this was three years ago.”

Ah, the fabled “they.” Megan smiled.

“No, I didn’t get it in writing. Well, I guess I’m a trusting person.” Pause. “Ma’am, I feel like it’s very inappropriate for you to contact me at my place of work. I can give you a fax number where you can send me more information, and I will look into it.”

Megan knew what that really meant.

“What? You expect me to pay you nine dollars to send me a form that I’m going to use to pay you two hundred dollars?” Jillian made choking and scoffing noises while she listened to the person on the other end and Megan’s black heart swelled with glee.

“I really feel like you’re taking advantage of me right now and, ma’am, I have a child to take care of and I’m about to get a dog and I have too many expenses right now to pay you nine dollars, let alone two hundred dollars.”

Jillian was becoming clearly angry.

“I am unable to pay over the phone, but I can send you a money order at my earliest convenience. No, I don’t have a credit card. No. No, I don’t have a debit card. I don’t have a checking account.” Pause. “Well, you know what, someone was stealing my identity so that’s why I don’t have one anymore. Yes, I got that taken care of. I will try to send you that money order as soon as I can, but I think you’re being very unfair and rude. Yes, ma’am.”

Jillian let out a stifled scream at the phone after she hung it up, then laughed and said, “My car.”

“Hmm?” said Megan.

“I got a ticket last night for running a red light on my way home and I, you know, didn’t have my license on me, so the cop looked me up in his thingy, and it turned out I have an unpaid fine from an accident I had three years ago. I got bad injuries. Apparently, my license has been suspended for three years, and now I have to pay this frickin’ fine.”

“Geez,” said Megan.

“Yeah. I’m not even supposed to be driving right now, so I have to be real careful on my way home.”

“Yeah, make sure to be real careful,” said Megan.

The patients started coming in.

Jillian said “Noooo problem!” a lot.

Megan said “Sure” a lot.

During down time Jillian would look at the internet, but sometimes she would just sit and stare at the wall.

TWO

Jillian sat at her desk practicing visualizations, as had been suggested to her by a few members of her church group. When someone opened the door, she thought “Action!” and then her face would become bright and her voice would flow easily out of her mouth and she could say, “Oh, hi, how are you?” as if she had no real problems of her own. This ticket thing would not do. That stupid woman at the court office telling her she had to pay nine dollars to get a special form to attach to the money order to get the hold taken off her license. I spent nine dollars on lunch today, she thought. I’m not going to spend nine dollars on a piece of paper. And Miss Prissy-Prim Tight-Lips Megan over there on the other side of the office, what was her problem? But I will have that dog, she said to herself, because the dog was part of the visualization she was doing. Where do you want to see yourself in half a year? In half a year I want to see myself walking down the sidewalk with this internet dog, Carla. Carla would be an ok name. Walking down the sidewalk with Carla, the dog of the day, practically a famous dog. How silly. But this dog was essential, and this dog cost as much as the fine she had to pay as a result of an accident she’d been seriously injured in, and the court should pay her in her opinion, not the other way around.

For the visualizations, she knew she was supposed to pick something that went good with her personality, so that’s why the dog made sense. She was a mother, a nurturer. Also, being a mother meant you had a kid to entertain, which meant you had to give it something to play with, which was why (another reason why) the dog made sense. And she lived outside the city, in an apartment, yes, but still outside the city, and she’d heard city dogs weren’t that happy. She knew she wasn’t going to pick something like “become a rock star in half a year” even though she’d had a pretty good voice as a kid—haha!—and kind of a rock star’s appetites, if you know what I mean. And that would be a good reason to not pick rock star, too. That was her old life and personality. Now she was mom and worker (not just worker, but office manager, since Miss Tight-Lips had no interest in advancement, it seemed) and a dog would suit her just fine, so she would get Carla and a month from now that dog would be frolicking in the medians at the end of her leash.

She would not use a choke collar, obviously.

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