Severance

It’s November in New York and the last day of Candace’s contract with Spectra. She has fulfilled her terms and the money has been deposited. She wonders if it even matters, recalling that her father used to say that “work is its own reward” (273).

Passing a looted Henri Bendel store, Candace remembers visiting it once before, on the day that she tried to quit her job at Spectra. A year in, she told Michael she didn’t see herself working as a product coordinator forever. Michael condescendingly implied that she was lucky to have found the Spectra job and advised her to take a few days off to consider her decision. Leaving the offices, she walked into Henri Bendel and looked at the ethereal clothes, imagining them to be made by artisans somewhere in the Italian countryside. Turning over the tags, however, she discovered that all the clothing was made in the same countries to which Spectra outsources their labor. In that moment, she realized that “no matter where you go, you can’t escape the realities of this world.” (276) The following Monday, she returned to Spectra.

Candace passes by a Juicy Couture. Like Henri Bendel, the store has been looted, and the corpse of the fevered saleswoman lies bludgeoned inside. Candace realizes that she must leave New York for the sake of her baby. She walks to the Lincoln Tunnel, where she spots Eddie’s cab driving slowly down the street. Inside, she finds a fevered Eddie. She pulls him out of the car and drives away from New York.

Revisiting the memory, Candace admits that it’s possible Eddie wasn’t fevered but just slowing down to help her. She didn’t pay too much attention, because “all [she] thought about was [herself]” (278).

In the mall, Candace gets up and puts on a jacket, preparing to enact her plan of stealing Bob’s car key from the Hot Topic where he sleeps. She makes her way to Hot Topic, where she is disappointed not to find the key anywhere. As she bends down to search, Bob exits the Hot Topic with a blank expression, carrying the car keys on his belt loop.

When Bob doesn’t react to Candace, she suspects that he is sleepwalking. As she follows him quietly down to the first floor, however, she realizes that he is fevered. Suddenly furious, she takes the keys from him and beats him viciously. Once he is bleeding on the ground, she runs out to the parking lot and drives away in his car.

After driving directionless for a while, Candace decides to go toward Chicago, where she’ll rest and plan out her next move. She drives along Milwaukee Avenue, feeling a sense of familiarity. It’s as if the stories Jonathan told her about his teenage years in Chicago have “seeped into [her] own memories” (286). She recalls that he told her “the first place you live alone […] is the first place you become yourself” (286). Candace has been wandering for years, “searching for something that will never settle [her] (287), but she wants a different life for baby Luna. She wants to stay in one place to raise her daughter.

As she enters Chicago, she realizes that she has been there once before—she and her mother accompanied her father on a business trip to the city. Candace recalls how the receptionist in the lobby of an office building spoke with condescending slowness to them, prompting them to leave the building. Once outside, they speculated on what their lives could be like if they lived in Chicago. Ruifang told Candace that she would work in an office building like the one they just vacated, but only if Candace would stay home.

Candace imagines herself living her mother’s “alternate life” working in Chicago. She reflects on what it truly means to live in a city, participating in its commerce and its rituals. Several blocks later, the car runs out of fuel. Climbing out, Candace starts walking toward downtown Chicago.