Your Big Break Read Free

her in front of the Golden Gate Bridge.” His voice is quavering.
    â€œJason,” I begin, “do you need me to—”
    He holds up a hand to silence me. “No, I can do this.” He continues digging through the bag, taking stock of everything. “I see she’s kept all the jewelry I’ve given her.”
    They always do .
    Jason narrows his eyes. “You must get some sick pleasure out of dumping me. For her,” he clarifies.
    I’ve heard this one before. “Believe me, nothing could be further from the truth.”
    â€œThat’s crap. Isn’t this what you do? Profit off of other people’s misery?”
    â€œI’m a communications specialist,” I say. “I help facilitate a smooth ending to a troubled relationship.”
    â€œAnd how many ‘smooth endings’ have you facilitated this month, Dani? Do tell.”
    If you include all the kiss-off phone calls, e-mails, and in-person meetings, I believe the total comes to thirty-three. But who’s counting? “Jason, my intentions are to help you. Lucy still cares about you, but she thinks you’re better off as friends.”
    â€œThat’s pathetic. She’s pathetic for hiring someone to dump me.”
    â€œBelieve me, there are worse ways to break up with people.”
    â€œYeah, right.” He snorts. “What do you know?”
    â€œA lot, actually. This is my area of expertise,” I remind him. “I’ve seen people pull all kinds of breakup moves: leaving their lover on Valentine’s Day, a birthday, at Christmas.”
    There are dozens of crappy ways to dump someone: via e-mail, cell phone text message, AOL Instant Messenger, postcard, or Post-It; on an answering machine; through a friend; over dinner. But by far the most popular method seems to be the duck-and-run.
    â€œMost people pull the old ‘drop off the face of the earth’ routine,” I tell Jason. “They decide to dump someone, and, rather than tell the person, they just avoid them and hope they’ll take the hint. At least Lucy’s being straightforward.” I smile sympathetically. “I wish my last boyfriend had hired someone to break things off.”
    Jason looks skeptical.
    â€œThe way he did it was publicly humiliating.”
    For the first time since we’ve met, Jason relaxes a bit. “Why, what’d he do? Take out a billboard?”
    â€œYou’re not far off. He dumped me on the radio.”
    I’m leading into The Story—my own personal breakup horror tale that is sure to put Jason at ease. All of the employees of Your Big Break Inc. have one, and we pull them out when things get sticky. The only difference is mine’s one hundred percent true. My two coworkers embellished theirs.
    â€œDid your boyfriend call up and dedicate ’N Sync’s Bye Bye Bye to you? No, wait, let me guess! It was Fuck Off by Kid Rock.
    I give him a tight smile; that is kind of funny. “It was Ben Folds Five’s Song for the Dumped . My ex-boyfriend was a DJ at WBCN,” I say, citing Boston’s biggest rock station. “He broke up with me on-air during the drive-time show.”
    In the eleven months since it happened, I must have told The Story a hundred times. Now it almost seems as though it happened to someone else. “I hadn’t heard from Garrett for over two weeks.” I lean across the table and lower my voice conspiratorially. “I’d been leaving messages at his house, calling him at work, the whole nine yards. Then I turn on my radio one day after work and—boom! There he is, talking about how he’d gotten laid the night before by some Hooters waitress.”
    â€œHe obviously wasn’t referring to you!”
    My hands instinctively fly up to cover my less-than-ample breasts, and Jason’s cheeks turn pink.
    â€œOh, God, I didn’t mean it like that . Nothing I say ever comes out right.”