The Christmas Pact(2)
My question to you, Ida, is… How do I get my mother to stop including me in her letter without making her feel bad?
Signed, Boring in New York,
Riley Kennedy
Above my sorry excuse for a letter was Ida’s response.
Dear Boring,
It sounds to me like your problem isn’t your mom’s Christmas letter—though I do find those to be obnoxious myself. I think if you dig a little deeper, you’ll find that the source of your problem is actually your own life—and the fact that you don’t have one. Sometimes difficult things need to be said, and our friends and family are too polite to say them. That’s what I’m here for and, if you’re honest with yourself, maybe that’s the real reason you wrote to me in the first place…so here’s my advice to you:
Go out and live a little. Give your mother something to write about. Life is too short to be so dull.
Sincerely,
Soraya Morgan
Assistant Advice Columnist—Dear Ida
Seriously? That’s my freakin’ advice?! And from some assistant?
Fuming, it took me all morning and three donuts to calm down enough to respond to both messages.
First, I needed to knock out my response to that idiot, Kennedy. That one was irking me the most.
I hit reply on his email and started typing, my fingers pounding on the keyboard.
Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy.
(It’s so annoying when you do that with my name, by the way.) Your opinion on my private matters is unsolicited and unappreciated.
In answer to your question: “Riley, Riley, Riley, what am I going to do with you?” How about pretend I don’t exist? How about nothing? My emails are none of your business. You don’t need to say a damn thing in order to forward me my messages. Press the forward button and mind your beeswax! Try it sometime.
But since you asked, there IS a reason I’m twenty-seven and single. It’s called having standards.
Also, you have some nerve referring to my mother as a narcissist. You don’t even know my mother. The definition of a narcissist is a person who has an excessive interest in or admiration of themselves. You seem to think quite highly of yourself and your opinions. YOU are the narcissist here.
A few pieces of advice from me to you:
Please don’t “ask around” about what I look like.
Don’t read my messages anymore if they happen to come to you.
And do NOT offer me your opinion when I don’t ask for it.
P.S. I wouldn’t let my sister Olivia, or Sister Mary Alice, for that matter, near you if you were the last man on Earth.
Riley Kennedy
I pressed send and leaned back in my chair, taking a deep breath to compose myself before opening up a new email window. I was on a roll. One down, one to go.
Dear Soraya,
First off…who are you? I wrote to Ida, not some assistant. Therefore, I’m not entirely sure why your opinion should matter to me. In any case, calling someone dull is rude. Yes, I referred to myself as “Boring” in my letter, but that was meant to be self-deprecating. Coming from you, “dull” is an insult. Telling someone to get a life IS AN INSULT. You’re supposed to be doling out advice. All you did was insult me without providing any solution to the problem that I detailed. Not to mention, you’re incompetent. You reversed the names in my email address and sent your response instead to my co-worker, Kennedy Riley, who happens to be very annoying. I am Riley Kennedy. Not Kennedy Riley. This was a breach of confidentiality. And I’m sure Ida would be none too pleased to learn about it.
As a result of your error, my co-worker—like you—seems to think he has the right to dish out advice with zero expertise to back it up. If I wanted advice from people who were not suitable to give it, I would ask a random person on the street—or maybe my morkapoo.
Thanks for nothing.
Riley Kennedy
I pressed send and shut my laptop. Boy, that felt good.
Later that afternoon, I ran into my co-worker and friend, Liliana Lipman, in the lunchroom and filled her in on what had happened. She could hardly believe the balls on that Kennedy guy, either.
She steeped her tea and said, “Well, the holiday party is going to be very interesting this year.”
I frowned. “Why do you say that?”
“You don’t know?”
“Know what?” I picked up my sandwich and bit into it.
She leaned in and whispered, “They’re doing a combined Christmas party this year for the two Manhattan offices..”
Due to space issues, our company housed the fiction and non-fiction departments across town from each other.
I stopped chewing when it hit me. “Um…that’s not good.”
“Looks like you’ll finally get to meet Kennedy Riley face to face.”
My stomach sank. “Shit. I don’t want that at all.”
“I don’t think you’re going to have a choice if he decides to go.”
“Maybe I’ll skip the party. Problem solved.”
“You really think Ames is going to let you get away with that? It’s pretty much mandatory, Riley.”