Charlene

Charlene is the main character and the second person narrator of the short story. Ever since earning her college degree in an undisclosed field, Charlene has worked as “a secretary” for a company called Karma-Kola. Because she is not using her degree, she is convinced that all of her coworkers and superiors hold her “in contempt for having a degree and being a failure anyway. It is like having a degree in failure” (6). Although Charlene’s job is ancillary to her experiences throughout the short story, her despair over the job bleeds into her personal life. This is, for example, why Charlene starts revising resumes and searching for new jobs when she starts to worry about her affair.

At the start of the short story, Charlene meets a man while waiting for the bus. They start to date not long later. After attending roughly 10 “cultural events” with the...