I have transcribed to you here exactly what I heard because I rewound the machine and wrote it down right after the message ended. At first I thought “What a lying bitch!” I couldn’t believe my ears. I paused the following messages just to absorb what I heard, to let it soak in, to gather my thoughts. Donna had been calling me three times a week for the past few months. In fact, she’d been calling me since we met at one of my Tuesday nights at Salon. How could she lie about us not having had sex? And the part about being afraid to be alone with me? We had had an intimate dinner together that same week. She’s one of those corporate chicks who try to pull off the serious career woman and crazy club girl image at the same time. She’s such a fake. Without me she’d never know where the party was. She showed me games on her Palm Pilot all night for fuck’s sake. I was so bored I thought I was going to die. And anyway, her ass has gotten so big from sitting in her cubicle all day that I’m embarrassed to be seen with her. I didn’t want people thinking she’s my girlfriend or anything, not with that ass. She wanted me to take her to a Beastie Boys party after dinner and I lied and said I didn’t know people at the door too well and could only get myself in. She totally wanted me, too. How could she be so fake every time she sees me if she really thinks I’m stupid? What a fake fucking cunt.

I was so pissed off. I washed my face in the kitchen sink, slicked back my hair and hit play again, hoping to drain Donna’s message down the sink of my mind and fill my head with the contents of the next message. She wasn’t even worth the bad thoughts I was having. She was just so, so insignificant. Such a zero.