carpe diem

I dislike buying into franchises. The idea of it just sickens me, really. As an artist, as a musician, as a writer, I am wholly open to small businesses, small ideas that should become big, not in interests of money but in the interest of changing the way people think about things, experience things. A beautiful song or a moving poem can really alter one’s existence, even in the smallest way. A dish, when brought together organically and composed with passion, has the power to end a lover’s quarrel or make you realize, yes maybe you really do like wild mushrooms after all, and ‘well how about that?’

That being said, I did feel like a bit of a hypocrite when I waited in line for about an hour to get into Hooters yesterday.

It’s a cheap gimmick, this I know; (supposedly) small bodied, large breasted women in tiny outfits bringing men of all sizes, from the tiny and meek to the obese and vile, chicken wings and pitchers full of golden, frothy goodness.

At the chance of losing the respect of some of my peers, to defend myself, I certainly didn’t imagine finding myself there. But Rabbit and I were out and about in downtown Campbell, drinking long islands on the patio at the King’s Head, shaking our heads at the disdain of a popular and somewhat divey spot obviously being transformed, baby step at a time, into something Santana Row would swallow up and belch at.

But the drinks were coming quickly and the sun was beating down on us. I was babbling something about Mexico, attempting to coerce a few slutty-looking, uninteresting females to come with us, because we were on our way, we were escaping this provincial town, we were out and gone, we were going to eat carnitas tacos on the beach and drink tequila, singing loudly.

I find that the only time I have the desire to speak to uninteresting people is when I’m drunk. Perhaps I think I will discover something interesting about them, or make something up to make them interesting enough to talk to. This is something that some consider a quirk, or a positive quality. I’m of the opinion that it’s not my nature, which is an anomaly, catastrophic indeed.

In any case, if you couldn’t tell already, he and Beth had had a monstrous battle, wherein neither of them knew what was going to happen in regards to their wedding, which the invitations had already been sent out for months ago. He had packed a bag and said many things in anger, and he was choosing to seize the day and explore the rest of his destiny with the bottle, and well, me.

It wasn’t my idea to go; it just sort of manifested itself. Many people at the Kings Head were discussing the basketball game, which I knew nothing about, but a small group of people got in a few different cars saying they would meet each other at Hooters, which suddenly struck Rabbit as the ultimate way of saying ‘fuck you’ to Beth, something she probably detested and not in the ‘you’re being taken for your dollar’ way, not in the ‘you’re buying into lame marketing’ way, and even more not ‘you’re a chode that agrees with what the general public finds attractive’ way. It was because she was insecure.

As Rabbit once said, she had a small ass. And small tits to match, to be quite honest. Not that I am a fan of the sometimes urban divinity of ‘big ass, big tits’ because usually that equals big woman. But Rabbit wanted to see hooters and so to Hooters we went.

We went when we were drunk enough to not care about waiting in line for an hour. I was flirting with him, horribly so, and I was only halfway worried that I would spot Drew or possibly Johnny. He was responding rather well, which worried me. I thought he would be flirtatious but only in the obviously taken manner, like he always did, more inference than anything.

It wasn’t that way yesterday. I had some fire in me from the long islands and perhaps some anger in me from Johnny’s poor choices and my current stage of abstinence. So after an hour of sun and obscene gestures by motorists, the time came to (finally!) be seated.

Of course! We got a waitress that was cute but by no means stacked. She seemed friendly enough and Rabbit was trying his hardest to bewitch her, but in the condition he was (obviously) in and for how long the restaurant had been open, a little over a week, I was sure she was used to drunk people throwing themselves at her and it wasn’t going to take Rabbit, unshaven, slurring, to change her mind about ignoring them.

She looked to me, hoping for some kind of order rather than the nonsense Rabbit was spewing. She disappeared quickly after I ordered a pitcher of Budweiser.

“What a bitch,” Rabbit said rather loudly, to which I giggled in my palm.

“Just because they’re scantily clad doesn’t mean they want to fuck you,” I rationalized.

“Why the hell not?”

I laughed again.

He seemed sad now, like somewhere in his brain, this plan was going to come together like bits and pieces of a David Lynch film. The engagement would soften up and fall apart and his affair with the Hooters waitress (whose name neither of us remembered) would begin, scathing hot and that would show Beth.

I slapped his back. “Cheer up, mate,” I said, grinning wickedly. “There’s beer on the way.”

That seemed to help a bit. When the pitcher came the waitress wanted our order, which we hadn’t prepared for at all. She seemed a bit irritated at us and I figured we needed to stop acting so drunk or she wouldn’t serve us anymore. But it didn’t seem fair that we had waited in line over an hour and the time it was taking to order was getting her panties in a twist.

Not that their menu is extensive or diverse enough to require a whole hell of a lot of time to decide either. But soon enough we decided on just a ten piece hot wings and an order of nachos. The next time we saw her, our waitress seemed pleased that we finally had made up our minds and had started softening again. I looked around and noticed that she seemed to have a large section. And it certainly was busy. I gave her the benefit of the doubt and stopped thinking ill of her, the place that we had chosen and its ill represented signature perk. I just let the beer go down.

We got through the first pitcher almost immediately after we ordered, so we ordered another. It was sitting well with me, and the air conditioning was working wonders. I had noticed Rabbit had moved considerably closer to me and that thought gave me a chill that was much like how I responded when Drew would make subtle advances.

We drank quickly and laughed a lot. Once or twice I thought I felt Rabbit’s hand on my knee, but it disappeared shortly thereafter, so I had no problem admitting it might have just been wishful thinking. But then, there it was. His fingers, tracing around my knee, circling and swaying upwards, dangerously close to my center.

He leaned over and whispered in my ear. “I want you.”

He was a man of few words. I didn’t know to giggle or to kiss him. I smiled, looked into his eyes and then looked away.

Food. Just in time. The waitress looked at us like both of us were guilty, as if she knew Rabbit was involved. I thought to myself it would have been hilarious if this was a Beth friend and in Rabbit’s state of depression and drunkenness he had merely not noticed. But that was only comical in a rhetorical sense, should that have been the case I’m sure Rabbit’s life as he knew it would come crashing to a halt, and all the ideas he had built about love and home would have to be reconfigured.

I took my time eating, drinking. I wondered if this was what Rabbit really had needed after all. Did he need a new path? Or did he just want the old one tweaked so that he felt freer, less of a pet and more of a man? I wanted to liberate him but knew myself too well; we would have amazing sex, learn much from each other and then go along on our merry ways, changed for the better. But we would never walk down an aisle; I would never bear the children he longed for.

The only thing we would have that we didn’t now was the sex. And sex, although ultimately of gargantuan importance to me, wasn’t something that was hard to come across. The friendship Rabbit and I had, on the other hand, was.

The nachos were greasy, delicious. The wings didn’t live up to the hype.

Another pitcher later and my judgment wavered, as it often does. He snuck a kiss, and although tight-lipped and short-lived, was very sweet, causing warmth and a rumbling inside me.

The next thing I knew my hand was on Rabbit’s jeans, rubbing softly, then ferociously at the newfound firmness. My fingers found the zipper, pulled down slowly, creating a space for him to push through. This was it, this was going to be the make or break moment; the opportunity we would have to save the friendship, prevent all possibilities of awkwardness or hurt feelings later.

Then there it was, lengthy, solid in my warm hand. The look on his face was of torment, of restrained lust and I felt powerful and good. Slowly, carefully, my palm and finger twisted around, back and forth, so as to take my time and not be obvious. We were in a room filled with people, which aided my buzz and desire that much more.

I let go for a minute, lifted my beer glass, drank the ass, just to make him crazy. He poured what was left in the pitcher in both our respective glasses and my hand went back down under the table, a bit colder this time.

I whispered in his ear to talk to me; it would look mighty peculiar if he was just sitting there making faces, silently, my hand not-so-discreetly under the table. He started trying to make small talk which was proving impossible and very obvious, but by then I didn’t care who was paying attention, I was laughing at the two of us, accepting an onslaught of emotions in those small moments.

I wondered if he was thinking about Beth, because I was, if only for fleeting instances. I imagined her on her knees in their bathroom, scrub scrub scrubbing away at the floor that was never white enough; the faint sound of John Mayer in the background, the smell of hibiscus oil and dog shit.

He was pulsing madly, very close. My mind trailed to eight years ago, when I was standing close to this very spot, seating patrons and cleaning menus at Spoons, what Hooters once was. I spent slow hours studying for algebra tests in the back booths, attempting to flirt with the bartender, trying to get free milkshakes.

Knowing less and hoping for more. Now here we were, drunk and lascivious, in the public eye, half-cheating each other, half-cheating ourselves.

And then at last, the check came.

the art of composition

Her skin was moist and pale. I noticed, as her head hung over my shoulder, her face dotted with random freckles, like a jellybean. She was pretty if in an unexpected way. Her martini glass had fallen to the carpet, and the vodka had pooled around the rim at her feet.

I didn’t even know her. But she had been at the show and she had been partying her little heart out. Drew had made a few jokes about her and I getting friendlier but that was just plain out of the question. Nevertheless she had ended up in the back of Drew’s car. Somehow he had crawled his way back into my good books, so all was well, and there we were in my apartment, watching the poor girl drool all over herself.

I smiled and let her head fall onto the softness of the cushion of the couch.

“What will we do with her?” he queried.

“Not much,” I answered, “let her sleep it off.”

He looked at her closely. “She’s not that pretty in the light.”

“None of us are,” I said, walking to the kitchen.

It had turned out that the reason he called me so many times that evening was because he decided he was ready to form a band again, and he thought I was good enough to join him in his new venture.

We had played together a few times in the past week, gone to this show to network and such, ask around for lead singers or drummers. It was pretty slim pickings, but maybe we just weren’t going about it right. The two of us were pretty awkward in crowded situations unless we were drunk, and it cost too much to get drunk good and proper out at any kind of a bar other than a dive.

I asked him ‘What kind of musicians are we going to find in a place like this?”

It was a well known, relatively well-lit establishment. There were some chairs with leopard print on them.

“Well, we’re here, aren’t we?” I didn’t believe the point was valid because we were only there to try and scheme on some future band members. Not that I knew for certain that I wanted to get involved with this newfangled band idea. It was an interesting premise, but with the two of us and our volatile habits, who knew where it would go and if it would even be worth getting into.

We didn’t even quite know what kind of sound we were interested in. Hard rock meets new wave? That seemed pretty generic, or at least not as detailed as I would rather. I wanted to say what you would get if Morrissey had a circle jerk with David Bowie and Trent Reznor while Tom Waits watched. But I didn’t know how that would go over with the prospective band members. The generic idea would sell better.

Anyways, the girl was drunk and we weren’t yet. So we had that to work on. Drew was giving me his sexy eyes, the ones he gives me in between buzzed and drunk, the ones he offers when he’s actually able to provide the kind of sexual contentment that a woman of my voracious appetite deserves and doesn’t get half as of ten as she should.

I thought better of it, gave him a healthy tongue lashing but kept him wanting more. Play his game, I thought, coming out of my clothes only halfway, and then sauntering back to the kitchen to get us the bottle of Jim Beam I had been hiding in my rooster cookie jar.

You might be wondering why a woman who lives alone should hide their liquor. Well with the way Johnny stormed in a few weeks ago, and the way Drew rummages through my booze in the most cavalier fashion, it made sense to be a little careful when it came to my poison. I could keep beer in the fridge, and vodka in the freezer, but my Jimmy was something to store in unexpected spots; Napoleon or my cookie jar.

I brought two short squatty glasses to the table and he joined me. There was something new between us, something chemical and tangible and it felt amazing. I knew it wasn’t love, and for split seconds at a time I believed it could have been lust, but moreover, it was something we didn’t quite have before. Friendship or respect, I couldn’t tell. 

We had jammed a few times and got on rather well. We were laughing again, and it wasn’t just because we were hoping for something more than what we had. It wasn’t him thinking that I was going to be the ruby-lipped slut that would fuck him forever, taking all the cryptic bullshit and head games that he had to offer, and it wasn’t me thinking I could save him and keep him for my own. It was just us enjoying each other, expecting nothing.

I was getting to the point where I couldn’t hold down a friendship with anyone. Everyone was fleeting. Nobody mattered enough for me to keep their number in my phone for very long. After I had lost Gina, I wasn’t exactly asking people to sign my yearbook anymore. The words ‘call me’ were cheap now, man or woman, drunk or not. Friendship was no longer free. Everyone had something to sell.

And now I was looking at Drew through different eyes, trying to decide if he was someone I could hold onto, even if we were both dating other people, even if neither of us were dating anyone.

We were people of the other side, people who could hide in the shadows, and comfortably; that was something that we had that Johnny and I didn’t, that James and I didn’t, that Rabbit and I faked. It was just us and our faults and that was fucking beautiful.

It was painful, but it was like the pain from being tattooed or pierced. It made you feel alive. It felt necessary, sensual. We were completely aware of ourselves and each other. Our mutual acceptance was something I hadn’t experienced in quite a while. Drinking with him, even knowing we might not sleep together, made me feel unbelievably sexy.

Which although wasn’t helping my case, was really, more or less, what I needed these days. Johnny’s drama only made me think of my own mortality—how I could end up a working stiff someday, coming home to frozen dinners and an empty apartment. James and Rabbit just reminded me that some people were happy, no matter how stupid or annoying they were; they merely highlighted my present loneliness.

I looked back to the couch. Man Ray had joined Miriam, whose head had slid to the bottom cushion of the couch, causing her body to stretch out into a slight bit of a fetal position. Her belly had become exposed. Drew’s eyes wandered and made their way back in my direction.

His hand slid up my leg. I smirked at him, pouring us yet another drink. It didn’t mean anything. Perhaps it never would again.

Energy pulsed through my veins as if the Jim Beam had been injected straight there. I pulled my straps up, grabbed my bass, and came back to the table, plucking, hammering away, hammering forever.

Drew was crying. We didn’t talk. There was a song in the works. As usual, we were lacking the words.

portions for foxes

Silly me. Thinking that Rabbit’s birthday party might actually be a party in the traditional sense.

Having met Beth only the one time, when she brought the wine, but hearing of her often, I imagined her intentions consisted of including mostly cardigan-wearing couples, people that wore pretend-ripped jeans and expensive sunglasses. People with neatly manicured nails who played charades.

But then, I thought—hey, this is Rabbit’s party. I hadn’t met many of his friends but they couldn’t all be post-engagement friends. Maybe that fact would save the day.

I looked sadly down at my slightly chipping deep red nails. I thought about the time it would take to fix it, the extra coat, the topcoat, the quick dry. It wasn’t worth it.

Needless to say I was a little anxious before going. I hemmed and hawed, thought of coming up with some horrendous lie about a barbecue I had already committed to but forgot about at the time of her original guilt-tripping (it WAS a little silly to expect everyone to show up on Memorial Day), but in the end, I really had nothing else to do. And it was Rabbit’s birthday. He deserved a good time, and an excuse to drink more than his social two to three beers.

I had never been there before. I knew Beth was very clean, very anal, and it made me curious to think of their abode. I imagined the bathroom with framed photos of flowers and potpourri. Rosewater. Perhaps one of those battery operated zen fountains. The thought made my head ache.

I thought about bringing a bottle of tequila or bourbon, but after further deliberation, I decided it could be considered a bitchy move, and definitely inappropriate for a barbecue, at least of their kind. So I played it safe and brought a few cases of Corona instead. If we had to drink beer, a shitload of it was in order.

The place was a townhouse in the middle of a very yuppie neighborhood. You could hear happy children shouting and smell a mixture of barbecue and lush roses. Three different people were washing their cars in their driveways. I went in for the most part, with an open mind and a sense of humor.

“Feliz cumpleanos!” I shouted, as Rabbit opened the door, grinning. He had shaved. It made me sad, but I tried not to let it show.

I’ve noticed the older you get, the more settled in you get with your lifestyle and your partner, the more that parties seem to focus on food rather than drinks. I knew Rabbit was a good eater and a carnivore for sure, but whereas I expected ice chests filled with different types of beer, perhaps some liquor for mixed drinks like mojitos or margaritas, instead there was a dining table, intimidating with grilled meats and salads of many different varieties. A (store-bought!) chocolate cake was at the end of the table, a quadruple layer fudgy mess.

I glanced at the refrigerator. There were some various photos of babies and small children held up with small round magnets. There was a magnetic memo pad with dog paw prints all over it. There was the wedding invitation. I looked at it closely, as I had not seen it before. He looked different in the photo. He had longer hair, some stubble, looked less groomed.

There wasn’t even any room in the refrigerator for the beer. Rabbit began going through it, taking random things out just to make room, threw a few in the freezer for good measure. Beth was doing her best to put things back in different spots, trying not to grumble, polishing her smile. I noticed a tall glass on the counter, full with brown liquid and ice. It hit me immediately. She was drinking iced tea again. I covered my mouth to keep the giggle from escaping.

It was a beautiful day, I had a cold one in my hand, and the rest was less than worth talking about. But Rabbit seemed like he was having fun, so that was something.

Surprisingly enough as well, the kind of people I really expected weren’t there. It was actually a pretty puzzling group. His best friend, the one he’d known forever, was one of those people who didn’t really have a lot in common with him anymore, but was still around for ‘brotherhood’ type reasons, history and such. He and a small group of friends were there, wearing slightly sideways baseball hats, smoking cigarettes, playing with a large dog. They might have been stoned. I think they were the only smokers at the entire party. I caught bits and pieces of their conversations, which included lots of “hella”s, “dude”s and other less eloquent obscenities.

The rest of the people were quiet and unassuming for the most part; wearing t-shirts, sweaters and jeans, drinking bottled water, taking turns playing Wii and indulging in drumsticks and the abundant fruit salad. They were smiling, helping put things away. I heard someone suggest Cranium.

In the hubbub of the eating, I somehow snagged a spot towards the middle of a sectional couch in front of a black marble coffee table. My eyes searched the surface for a place to set down my Corona. They rested on a clear glass square containing a professional photo of Rabbit and Beth together, with the words ‘Forever’ imprinted at the bottom. I rolled my eyes, chuckled, and set the bottle down, covering their glowing faces.

It was getting to be too much for me. My mind trailed off, thinking of Gina and Seth, the life they had started building together, its foundation of guilt-ridden deceit and their makeshift innocence. This situation certainly wasn’t as formidable as theirs, but it made my stomach turn to think of how manufactured this form of happiness seemed to be.

These people were trying their hardest to do things in the way they thought seemed normal or good. They had a color scheme in their living room, with candles even in the fireplace (evidently, it was just for appearances).

When I thought of a fireplace in a living room, I thought of hot toddies and the smell of singed firewood, bare feet, a black lace bra and wet kisses. I thought earthy, I thought comfortable, sexy. These people thought about the power of white. The contrast of pastels. There were flowers on the wall, just as I suspected, although throughout the entire house rather than only the bathroom. And where I expected potpourri I found scented essential oils instead.

They owned a tiny dog, a breed I wasn’t familiar with, that yipped and yelped and jumped on people constantly. The room spent a good half hour watching her and the larger dog chase each other around the living room. It made me feel old, decrepit, lifeless. They might as well have been showing photos of their grandkids to strangers.

But people did that. I wondered if this was just how it felt to be settled down, if this was what normal people did, and if I was just the crazy one.

The next chunk of time was spent awkwardly silent, people casually commenting how full they were, how everyone was being quiet to ‘let their food digest,’ which I considered to mean that a good deal of these people would probably never really spend that much time talking to each other in real life.

Some had just chosen not to participate in the social mingling game, and I was one of them. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a video game system to disappear into, and even if someone had thrown me a controller I would have been so filled with anxiety to think of everyone watching me play that I would be positively ill.

The trio who had been sitting near me had made their way to the table, found wooden chairs, more suitable dining arrangements. It was just me, the white leather couch and the cartoonish coasters.

Across the room, I noticed Rabbit finishing his Corona. His eyes met mine for a second and then he disappeared among the crowd again. I picked at my drumstick and potato salad, wiped my greasy hands on the pink paper napkin folded neatly in my lap.

Before I knew it, Rabbit was sitting next to me with two more beers, smiling.

“Thanks,” I said, finishing the last gulp in my first bottle, replacing the empty bottle with my newfound one.

“It’s good to see you.” That was all he said. His eyes darted around the room nervously, as his hand crept into the pocket of his loose-fitting jeans and pulled out his flask.

I shook my head automatically. “No cinnamon schnapps for me today!” I laughed.

“It’s not.”

I took a long swig. Jim Beam. And it wasn’t even my birthday.

“Thanks,” I said again, not really knowing what to say. “I needed that.”He looked around the room and sighed deeply. “Me too.”

We didn’t talk much but he sat next to me until I drunkenly mumbled my goodbyes and slinked out. 

When I got to my car, I checked my phone. Drew had called. Seven times.

The beer was gurgling in my stomach. As much fun as it was doing the kinds of things that utilize the daytime hours, I hated the feeling of being drunk before dark, feeling so sleepy that you would waste the entire evening sleeping it off, and possibly have a ten pm hangover.

I felt wretched. I found myself sobbing maniacally, head on the steering wheel. I was thinking about Johnny and the nameless one, Drew and his army of whomever, and Vincent, the self-professed eternally lonely. He had handed that title down to me.

But I was responsible for my loneliness. I despised the traditional; what we were supposed to do, how we were expected to live. But my parents had hated each other. That had to factor in.

I cringed over thinking about how provincial people in love really seemed to be. When I was young, the idea of being in love was exciting and chaotic. It was about taking chances, evolving, and feeling like you could change the fucking world.

Now it was home décor, dogs posing as children, the magic of a perfect salad.

I didn’t know if I even wanted it anymore.

I couldn’t drive. I couldn’t go back in. Nor did I want to call Drew back and find out what possibly could be driving him to call me seven times in one day. I don’t believe, even at the peak of our courtship, he called me seven times in a month.

Maybe he was drunk and lonely too.

I played it safe and dialed a cab company. I walked around the neighborhood, biting my nails and trying not to be spotted by any stragglers. God forbid someone see me; try to offer the sad drunk girl a ride home.

I didn’t say much to the taxi driver, just wiped my eyes and counted the seconds until I was safe in my dark apartment, far from the safe color palette of the townhouse I’d just left behind. I opened my purse to retrieve my phone again, this time noticing the shiny chrome of Rabbit’s flask. The tears started again.

Freedom was so easy to lose.

mirage

This morning my throat hurt. I drank cold water and hot tea and nothing helped.

“Gargle with saltwater,” my mother would say, and a curl would fall down from her carefully placed hair, half up, half down. She would hand me the glass and I could feel her finger accidentally graze mine in a more loving manner than when I was a girl and she went to hold my hand to cross the street.

That didn’t help either, but it made me think of my mother. And that caused a stinging in my face that made my throat hurt more.

I sat on the bed, staring at my phone. I don’t know who I was expecting to call. Perhaps Johnny to tell me it had all been a hoax; perhaps Drew to propose marriage, perhaps Rabbit to confide that he’d decided to leave his fiancé after all, and run away with me to a seedy motel where we would drink and write and he would make money playing pool and poker with men with few teeth and bad hygiene.

I would write the great American novel, or at least make an honest living selling hardcore erotica to men with large trucks and small penises. I would do something that was worthwhile, I was certain of that.

The phone didn’t ring. I sat up and paced around the room. It was a day I had off and there was nothing to do. In most cases, I would sit down and write something, anything; make myself a stiff drink, perhaps spend two hours in the bath carefully shaving. But nothing sang to me. I thought about relieving the other bartender of his duties for the day, just chalking it up to money that I needed. But I didn’t need any money.

Most of my money was spent on booze and I often bought that in bulk anyway. Plus, when you work at a bar four or five days a week you don’t often have to make your own drinks. I thought about going through my closet, preparing an outfit that I would never wear.

In the depths of a trunk of mine, I found a pink polo shirt. A khaki skirt. I clothed myself in them both, regardless of the musty smell. I put on the radio (jesus, how long had it been?!) and danced around, thinking of strawberry daiquiris and hot fudge sundaes.

I thought of two bodies jostling around in Johnny’s SUV, her feet on the dashboard, bright pink toenails, his grimace at her audacity.

How to cook, for me meant a day’s worth of preparation—fresh herbs, vegetables, ingredients. Imagination. Inspiration. Love, almost. I imagined her rosy hands massaging chicken with oil and garlic, throwing it in the oven with some potatoes, doing a victory dance. It would be like breathing in and out, whereas I would sing.

It was official. Johnny had fucked with me on purpose. And I despised him for it. There had not been any reason to make such a huge deal of his moving in with this new girl, when we hadn’t even spoken more than a few words in forever. I would have rather never known, and just had my chuckles upon seeing them together in public. It amused me to imagine their arguments, upon her getting drunk in a matter of minutes, embarrassing him in front of (our!) alcohol-minded friends, having to hold her hair, put her to bed.

I ripped the clothes from my body like they had been on fire, and fired one of the worry balls at my small radio like I was a pitcher for the Yankees. It made a loud cracking noise, began to spark and smoke and the problem had been solved.

I had to get out. But it was too hot to do anything. And now the smell of old, angry smoke was filling the apartment. I picked it up and set it outside.

The hot sun beat down upon my face, and I looked up into that blue infinity, thinking of Hawaiian water; that catamaran Johnny and I rode far into the ocean on Waikiki, where we discovered fish and dolphins and sea turtles nearly as big as us.

Neither the sky nor that ocean was as clean and pure as we thought they were.

Beads of sweat begun to build at my temples. I walked back inside, closed the screen door behind me morosely, like it was my prison cell.

I wanted to call Vincent over to make everything better. But it had turned out that Camille had been positively miserable without him, and had come crawling back to him in the past week. And although they weren’t a perfect match, some part of her apparently made him happy. Sadly enough, it was more than the lay. So he was with her now, probably discussing some vintage of wine or Beatles song, noses upturned. I imagined him staring at the pearls around her neck, thinking of me and my fingers, wrapping around it, choking her. I imagined him giggling, her asking what was so funny and him not being able to respond.

For a moment, my fingers wanted to dial Jack or Daniel’s number. I was horrified by my own desperation. Boredom was one thing. This was quite another.

Feeling rather defeated, I went to the kitchen and made a drink. I took my time for once; muddled the mint, crushed the ice, preparing a beverage suitable for triple digit temperatures. I sat down in Vincent’s chair and took a sip. It was bright and smooth and cold and started to soothe the pain still dancing in my throat.

It was just then that my phone rang. Johnny.

I set the drink down and stared at the backlighting until it turned off.

tears dry on their own

I was listening to Amy Winehouse when Johnny knocked on my door. I nearly dropped my 7&7 when I noticed his eyes through the small glass circle.

It was beyond me how he could have possibly found out where I lived until it struck me that he probably had called my mother. She always liked Johnny, always expected the ring on my finger, the white picket fence, the Sunday brunch by the time I was twenty-five. It was absolutely insane.

I didn’t want to answer the door but I was pretty sure he heard me swear through the thin wood. It came from me in such an organic fashion that there was no stopping the word ‘Shit!’ from spilling over my lips and filling the room with its oblivious lack of class or composure. But I meant it, through and through.

I took a breath and a long gulp, cringed like I was threatened with a fist, and opened the door.

He was holding two red Chinese worry balls in one hand, spinning them at a moderate pace. He had some uneven facial hair, and his eyes were full of wine. He slumped down on the couch for the first time like he had sat there a million times before, and looked up at me, offering his hand.

“What’s the deal?” I queried, because at this point I was worried. I hadn’t spoken to him since that day in the bar where he came in with the pink girl that couldn’t drink. And before that, God knows how long it had been.

“Do you have a drink?”

“Why, yes, I’ve had a few, why do you ask?”

He smiled and nodded. “Same old Jolie.”

I didn’t know what that meant, if it implied an insult or a compliment. I was choosing to take it as an insult because frankly, he didn’t know me at all anymore, and one off the wall comment shouldn’t have been enough for him to assume that he did. Years had passed since he had been a part of my everyday life. People didn’t usually lose their sense of humor.

He stood up and meandered to the kitchen, began rifling through my refrigerator, all the while spinning those worry balls.

The music was loud and the drink had started softening me. I let him find the booze and pour himself a short glass. We sat down at the kitchen table.

“I’m moving in with her.”

Her. It was interesting to me because it had just now hit me that I didn’t even know her name. I mean, it wasn’t that odd because in retrospect I had just thought of her as ‘the pink girl,’ or as ‘the girl scout’ occasionally, but I never had even stopped to think about the fact that her actual name was lost to me.

I raised my glass. “Cheers?” I realized immediately afterward that it had come off as insensitive, immature even. Obviously he was ‘giving me the news’ in a manner that was to prove him still a kind soul. Perhaps he thought I was still in love with him. Which could or could not have been correct. But I was offended by his obvious vanity.

I finished my drink. “Well, cool, I guess. Why’d you track me down to tell me?”

His hand fumbled over the table to find mine. “Because I love you. Because I’ve always loved you and I’ll always love you. But I’m moving in with her and I just wanted to tell you before you found out some other way.”

It was a sweet gesture. My eyes began to sting and it was incredibly frustrating. I fought the wave of emotion that was washing over me. Then there was my victory; I could feel my body rejecting that vulnerability. I breathed deep a few times, stood up to make another drink.

“Well, thanks I guess.”

“You guess?”

“I guess. Well what else should I say?”

“How about what you’re really feeling?”

This was one of many things about Johnny I did not miss. He was very womanlike in the respect that even though we could hardly call each other friends anymore, he wanted to know what I was thinking, what I was feeling. He wanted to know how he affected me, and he wanted me to know how I affected him. Well I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

I shrugged and sort of giggled. “I feel fine about it. We haven’t even talked in a really long time, did you think I was waiting around for you or something?”

He sighed and I smelled the alcohol on his breath.

“I’m like, seeing someone.”

His eyes widened. “Really?” I was of course, half lying. Could you call what I was doing with Drew seeing someone? Probably not. I wasn’t terribly unpopular; I still had my suitors and all. Even James from time to time would be around. But I didn’t have that feeling of home, that exaltation of not having to be out there anymore, searching for the bigger, better thing. I couldn’t even say I was in love, really.

Although I had begun having a love affair with myself, so that was something.

My mind crept to my mother’s reaction; my phoning her, telling her that Johnny was shacking up with a girl scout, and her sobbing uncontrollably. The lecture that would come later. How I should have been more ready to settle down, that if I kept on this path most likely I would grow up to be some spinster or God forbid, cut my hair short and become a lesbian. “He was always such a nice boy…”

The nice boy was way more taken than I thought he was.

I wanted to parade Drew and James and Rabbit in front of him. I wanted to show him a photobooth strip, as well as pictures of us all about town and on vacation, smiling, laughing, like in the photos that come with picture frames. But I didn’t have any photos like that. As a matter of fact, I had no photos at all.

That led me to pondering the importance of photographs. Was that something that only came with serious relationships? That the only people who took pictures together anymore were drunken girls with myspace in mind or people wickedly in love?

We said little else, finished our drinks. He left the worry balls on the table when he left. I don’t know if he merely forgot them or thought I would need them.

I still didn’t know her name.

success is subjective

A policeman called me yesterday. The conversation lasted about an hour and a half, and by the time we were off the phone we both were laughing. It wasn’t a rape case; that was for certain. I felt vindicated and refreshed after hanging up, like he had validated my stance that no, I wasn’t a bad person, that I hadn’t let my best friend in the world get raped. That thought, although irrational, had eaten at me like vicious worms. It had now dissipated; water swirling down the drain.

Rabbit and I decided to celebrate. The pink satin went over my head for the second time, white taffeta billowing around my face and collecting around my waist and down my legs. Rabbit looked rather sharp in his ungodly green-colored suit, which was something to be said indeed. He was also wearing glasses; ‘a touch of the mature,’ he said with an unintelligible accent. I curtsied to him. He took my arm and downtown we went, deeming the evening the ‘drink a bar dry night.’

Of course we would never succeed. But we had high hopes.

Drew called me three times while I was out. I told him I was out with Rabbit, who Drew lovingly calls ‘Squirrel’ instead. I don’t know what to make of him anymore. I see him rarely, but he guilt trips me for it. I thought I had finally gotten the point—that he was too private, not available enough to try for anything even semi-serious, but the green monster reared its ugly head every once in a while. Especially in a likely case of him nursing a pint while watching a game at my bar, overhearing another man’s flirtations, enduring the myriad of nightly come-ons I never was adverse to.

One night he even dropped an empty beer bottle to the ground, claiming it was an accident. I got down on my knees and swept up the broken glass beneath him while he watched me, triumphant, from his stool. I could tell that he felt like he had ownership of me, that I had been his so long that now it would be impossible to be any other way with me. Most days I would give him free drinks and he would tip nicely. Some nights I would go home with him, watch a cheesy old horror movie, make out on the couch. Other nights he would stagger along home with me, and I would watch him sit in Vincent’s chair and strum his guitar while Man Ray would sit on the arm and mew in adoration. Some nights I would pick up my bass and play right along.

But it didn’t feel the same anymore and we both knew it. One night, a while back, I caught him doing meth in his bathroom. I didn’t know the extent of his addiction, if that’s what it was, but this far into whatever we had become, the thought process was not the same as it had been when it started. It was his life; that had been his point all along. He would do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, with whomever he wanted. He stressed this many times. I closed the door quietly behind me and said little for the rest of the evening. We danced that night. And I wondered if the man who danced so limberly and energetically with me then and other evenings were the same. I wondered if I knew him as well as I thought I had.

It wasn’t a pleasant thought. I swept it away.

Rabbit finally stole my phone from me. “He should just marry you.” It was a drunken statement; inappropriate and ill-advised.

“Who says I’m getting married?” I stood up, finished my Jim Beam and slammed the glass on the bar. “I’m never getting married!” To which the crowds cheered.

Rabbit was different. He seemed to believe in happy endings. And once upon a time, I might have felt the same. But things had changed; this was a new Jolie, a better Jolie, a smarter Jolie. Neither man nor woman would fuck me over ever again. I refused to give them the chance. Family, friend or foe.

We stepped outside so he could smoke a cigarette. He seemed distressed.

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked. It sounded much bitchier than I intended.

He seemed to be smoking angrily, with purpose, intent. “Nothing.”

It wasn’t difficult to tell that he was lying. Men lied. It was ingrained in them somewhere. It was part of their DNA. Interestingly enough, until now, I believed that Rabbit was like Vincent in the way that I didn’t think less of him for the reasons I would think less of males in general. But at this moment, I hated him, so full of unprocessed angst, so naively excited to jump into a regrettable marriage, pretending that he wasn’t what I saw that he was.

It was in his eyes. He was miserable. He drank because he didn’t want to be. He was smoking to prove that he wasn’t. None of it made any sense to me. I craved the comfort of the warm stool that I had taken my absence of. I wanted Drew back; I wanted Johnny back. I wanted James to put his cold hands on my welcoming ears and chill me to the very bone. It would be my just deserts.

I thought of all the times Drew told me he didn’t need saving. One day, after plenty of vodka, I disclosed that I had quite a bit of difficulty saying goodbye to people. He walked out on me that day.

I thought of Camille, dressed up even in her home, playing the White Album, drinking wine, using a strand or pearls to beckon a lazy gray cat. Perhaps crying for Vincent, perhaps sleeping with someone much younger, more virile, to feel alive.

I wanted to feel alive. I thought the evening, in our formal clothes, would treat us well, that the drink would keep unpleasant thoughts at bay, that we would forget what worried us, perhaps peoplewatch, make friends or just talk shit. We were to play ungodly music, perhaps a Phil Collins song over and over and over again, until the bar were to kick us out and we would have to take to the streets, doubling over in laughter until we found another hole in the wall to drink from. But it was not to be.

I could tell he wanted to go home. It wasn’t terribly depressing, although mildly so. I had just reached the threshold of drunkenness and the night was clear and cool, perfect for drunks like us.

But the look spoke volumes of home and what that word truly meant to him. His fiancé, a warm bed with pressed sheets and snuggly blankets. A fire in the fireplace, the hum of the dishwasher, blue and white china in the cabinet. Iced tea and hummus a staple in the refrigerator. His and her magazines in the bathroom—Shape and Wired.

He scratched his stubble, biting his lip. “Come on, I’ll buy you one more drink.” We walked in and ordered two doubles. We didn’t say much; just let the brown liquid flow past our tongues and through the caverns of our throats. The burn, which was more than usual, felt good. Deserved.

“You really think you’ll never get married?” He seemed concerned, as if my answer would make or break his evening.

I shrugged. And for some reason, I thought of Johnny; wondered what he was doing, what kind of shy clumsy burlesque routine the pink girl might have mustered up on a day like today.

“Maybe I will,” I said softly, smiling. “Just for you.”

His eyes deserted mine and I had escaped.

sweet jane

It had been years. But there she was. My memories did not fail me; it was time that had changed her face. She had hardened, evolved into a jadedness I now related to. Her words that had once been so pronounced and deliberate flowed into each other into a sort of naked, almost obscene dance. She would never take back anything she said. She meant it all.

And I would be lying to say that I didn’t still love her. But the love was buried within me, like it was with Gina. Perhaps I loved the idea of her, the memory of her.

She lifted her frothy mug of beer and gave me a cheesy grin. “Cheers!” she said, with a lightheartedness I didn’t quite remember. We clinked glasses and sipped.

What I remembered most about her were her terribly sad eyes. They would only come alive when I showed her affection, when I would forgive her for something nasty she had done. I didn’t know how to describe them now. Unforgiving maybe.

She once was very weak and fragile, full of undeniably female emotion and lack of control thereof. That had all changed. We had barely spoken a handful of words but I read her, like I read many.

I looked at her hands. I remembered them pale, with medium length nails, always painted. Her fingernails were now short and unpainted, but still shiny. I didn’t know why I was analyzing her so; there were so many questions I could ask.

But it had been years. There had been much bad blood between us at the end, and I didn’t know what questions I could ask or should ask. The last time, she had stormed out of the park, and the last thing I saw was her back, frosted by a reddish choppy a-line haircut, getting on the bus, not looking back for the world.

I hated her then. I hated her tiny vial of white powder, how she would utilize her nails to ‘dabble in an old favorite.’ How she became so wrapped up in sex it was all she would talk about. How she would insist on some form of inebriation every rare occasion we would spend time together, how she would hail cabs at two in the morning just to get her fix.

They called her my girlfriend. It wasn’t quite so.

If it was possible to feel somewhat comfortable in a classroom, this was where you would. It spoke whispers of college and the décor that came with it—a Joy Division poster on the wall, a worn-out couch in the back of the class, a large cardboard cut-out of Einstein’s face with his tongue out.

English class, in high school, was usually a joke, a chance to read a novel or two you never cared about and would never read again. This class was different. For some reason, the teacher had a clue about what kids wanted to read, which was peculiar, because it seemed he was far from one himself. He even managed to make it interesting.

Jane was sitting on the couch, as usual. There was nothing particularly extraordinary about her. Her large crooked nose was buried in a dark hardback book with several hundred yellowed pages. My friends and I made fun of her from time to time because she barely spoke, and when she did grace us with her verbosity, she would make abstract comments using big words that perhaps half the class had heard (myself being in the half that had, of course), and that the whole class would snicker at.

Not only that, but everyday she wore Birkenstocks. Not that there’s anything explicitly wrong with Birkenstocks, mind you; but in high school, where kids are the cruelest and least accepting, with every outfit you could come up with, was pushing it.

I didn’t pay much attention to her, as she seemed to fit in with that beat-up couch in the back of the classroom, but on Halloween there had been no missing her.

She was wearing an official police uniform, badge, hat, the whole enchilada, with big black boots and a pig snout. I supposed she was trying to make some statement—types like that always seemed to need to make a statement, as I would soon find out later in high school and even more so in college.

Anyway, it was another thing for my friends and I to discuss in cupped palms. And it was all right, because she snickered when my girlfriends and I would get lectured in class, for coming it late, or not at all. I suppose it’s safe to assume we were evenly matched in our hatred.

Well, perhaps hate is a strong word. Distaste may suffice. Yes. We were evenly matched in our distaste.

As it turned out, she was not only in one, but two of my classes. Journalism was the other one. Journalism, in my high school, was an even bigger joke than English. If the class was lucky to get any papers out at all, then we did a good job and all got A’s. So you can imagine I was mighty surprised when kiss-ass honor society Jane strolled in with her schedule.

She sat all by herself, in the corner, which I had anticipated. Personally, I made small talk with a kid named Rex, a punk sophomore that made me laugh and had bright blue eyes and liberty spikes.

It seemed as the days passed on in that class, Jane’s seat strangely moved closer to my own. I knew she and Rex had a few mutual friends, although I struggled to understand how. I was convinced she was devising a plan to wrangle him away from me. Which wasn’t something I was about to let happen.

One day I was telling a story about my weekend and all the humorous chaos that had ensued in my usual way, when I noticed her looking at me, laughing. It was a cackle that filled the room like smoke. I immediately stopped talking and looked around, attempting to assess the situation. Had I something on my face? Had something humorous happened in class that I had missed? Had I spat while speaking? I assumed the worst; after all, it was Jane that was laughing.

She stopped laughing and continued to look at me. I decided to continue looking at her as well for some clue as to what happened. Perhaps she would own up to her rudeness and I could resume my conversation.

But she just stared at me. Two hazel eyes, fixated on my own. She looked down and laughed again, this time quietly. Eventually she spoke. “You’re funny. I hadn’t thought you would be.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Half-compliment, half-insult. I said nothing instead, and half-chuckled, if that makes sense.

She continued then; admitted she had been listening to our conversation (or rather, my end of it), and was surprised and embarrassed that she found herself laughing out loud. And although her explanation was lengthy, and for the most part, explained what happened, I was still at a loss when it came to words. I choked out “Thank you” and sought the words that would end my story. It was only when the conversation ended did she begin to talk to me again.

It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. She ended up talking more to me than Rex, surprisingly. She seemed to have similar taste in movies and music. She followed me to my locker that day after school.

“What are you doing now?” she asked, which once I would have taken as invasive, but for some unknown reason, I didn’t this time.

“Going home.”

“Where’s home?”

“Near the mall.”

”Can I come with you?”

I didn’t know what she was thinking for asking or what I was thinking for saying yes.

Turned out, she came over a lot, at least once or twice a week. She took to my family. She seemed to fit in just as I did. They loved having her, they loved the long weekends she would spend all her time there. We wrote together, shared our old stories and poems. We impressed each other, to both our surprise.

I found myself sitting closer to the beat-up couch in class, passing notes. She wrote me lengthy, interesting letters, ridden with confessions and wit, all in excellent penmanship.

My friends who had once assisted me in the shit-talking about her had begun to think I’d gone soft, or crazy, or both. They felt somewhat betrayed, or at least that’s what I felt when I would feel their eyes on me when we spoke together in the halls. I couldn’t say that I felt guilt by any means, however; in some small way, I felt closer to her than my friends, some of whom I had known for many years.

I had taken an afternoon job near the school, which made after-school visits unlikely. Instead, she walked me from school to work, occasionally stopping somewhere for lunch and more confessions. She called them lunch dates. It was then that I discovered more of the inner workings of Jane, the plethora of drugs she took in younger years, the abuse she’d endured with her stepfather, the strange familiarity she felt with me since her departure from her stepsister, the one person in the world she felt understood her in the midst of her chaos.

She was angry at the world. She was detached from most things and most people. I felt close to her. I hugged her, as we both would often cry, liberating ourselves and each other. In her arms I wondered if this was what love was. I had only imagined the word.

She began to dress differently, more feminine. The Birkenstocks were only now an occasional staple. She wore dresses and nail polish, on her fingers and toes. She wore more makeup. She smiled a lot more; that was the one thing I noticed the most.

In the midst of our evolving friendship, I began dating Johnny. She was very happy for me, and liked him very much, believed him to be worthy of me. We hung out as a group occasionally, and it seemed that he liked her, but thought her a little peculiar. I thought he might have been jealous because it was obvious she was a little possessive. She was always hugging me or holding onto my arm. She even kissed me on the cheek sometimes. I could tell he especially didn’t like that.

Time passed, and she grew irritated with my new boyfriend (now not so new anymore) being around all the time, eating away at my time with her. He would pick me up from school and take me home, and we hung out almost every day. She grew bitter and would say mean things occasionally, acting as if she didn’t even care about me at all anymore. When I went out of my way to see her, she would turn me down or flake on me, or pretend that she forgot all about it.

She took me in the bathroom one day and told me we weren’t good for each other. Now I didn’t know what exactly that had meant but she was trying to slither out of the friendship. We both laughed and cried at how odd the situation had turned. The fact of the matter was yes, she had gone a little crazy since my relationship became more involved, more exclusive, but no, for some reason I couldn’t let her go, no matter how much my friends disliked her, no matter how much the few friends she had disliked me, no matter how we would fight sometimes.

I was worried and ashamed. We made each other mixed tapes constantly, and shared the same bed during sleepovers. One night, a bottle of tequila deep, we found ourselves in our underclothes smoking cigars in her bathtub. Nobody knew how outlandish everything had evolved. Nobody knew we held hands. Nobody knew we experimented writing erotica together, how intense it all became. Nobody knew that her brother called us lesbians, and we would only laugh.

In my heart, I loved Johnny. It evolved naturally and made perfect sense. Jane and I, on the other hand, had evolved at lightning speed and were always panicked, urgent, dire. I loved her on multiple levels but I didn’t know if it meant the same thing. You say I love you to all your closest friends. It was difficult to determine what kind of love it was, and how deep it really ran.

I was doing a poor job trying to balance everything, that much I can admit. My friends were pissed that I was hardly around anymore, and when I spent time with Johnny, Jane would feel lonely and abandoned. When I would spend time with Jane, Johnny would become jealous, especially because he didn’t understand why we spent so much time alone together. So things changed.

She took a backseat to my boyfriend, as things had begun to really get serious in my relationship, and I thought I figured out that Jane was just my best friend. Nothing more. And that to encourage her would only cause more pain and resentment between us. I began to see other friends more, and she actually met someone herself, who she became quite enamored with. We would still write each other occasionally and hang out sometimes, but it was getting close to graduation and I was concerned about what would happen afterwards. Jane had plans on going away to an all-girls’ private school and I figured Johnny and I would go to community college in the fall until we figured out what we really wanted to do; we were evenly yoked in that respect.

In one of my last attempts to keep the peace, I asked her to walk with me for graduation, as we required partners. She denied me, claimed she had already promised someone else the privilege. It stung, but I accepted it, and walked with another close friend of mine, one I’d known since kindergarten. However, I couldn’t help but think she rejected my offer on purpose, out of spite, out of bitterness. I didn’t know how to handle the new situation. Nobody, including Johnny, had ever stimulated me mentally as she had. And I was about to lose that forever.

I tried to see her often in the summer, so we could somehow remain friends after she moved. But it was obvious she hadn’t planned on that. She was getting serious with her boyfriend as well, and she was all too happy to display that to me. She didn’t require my time anymore; she didn’t even desire it. What was worse was that I couldn’t really blame her.

I visited her on her birthday in July, brought her a Billie Holiday pillbox I had picked up in Los Angeles. She seemed grateful, and hugged me, but the distance between us was palpable. It was obvious she had edited the way she interacted with me, perhaps to wean herself, so she could move on and away without the baggage we had collected together, thrown in a huge heaping pile.

A few years passed and she came back to go to school here. This was when she came out of the closet, when she started cutting hair and doing drugs again. And I would see her, but it felt like more than just a few years had passed between us. We didn’t really relate at all anymore. Our interactions felt very deliberate, our friendship felt faked. When we did finally sleep together, it felt like a grudge fuck for the both of us.

She was on a quest to save the world and I was the impoverished student, writer, barfly. She was going to Africa and I was lucky to pay my bills. And that day in the park, I said something that rubbed her the wrong way and off she was.

That was four years ago.

Today I told her what I didn’t have the strength to then.

“We really should have dated in high school.”

Her eyes widened, and she raised her glass to take a large gulp. “But you’re straight.”

Perhaps I was, perhaps she could tell back then. The beer went down easily and soon the conversation did too. She admitted that she had loved me, but things had really changed. This woman was not the girl I had fallen in love with, nor was she the drug addict I had let try to convince me I was still in love.

She was a stranger. We spent the afternoon being self-consumed, talking about ourselves. It was nice getting to know her; it was like making a new friend.

And after losing Gina, after further examining the depth of my loss, what I really needed was a friend.

No bouquet this time

Much has transpired. My birthday came and went quickly, without a hitch, but there is far more left to say, which has not gone hitchless. Last Thursday was the first day of Spring, and the day Gina was to be married. I was not there. My bridesmaid dress still hangs over Vincent’s chair, a pile of pink satin, unworn, unloved. The tags are still on, and yet it is my loss and mine alone because these kinds of things are not returnable. It has been nearly a week and yet my eyes are still red from crying and my spirit has long since been broken. It’s barely three pm, and yet here I am, halfway through a bottle of Jim Beam, like my first night here. But begin at the beginning, that’s what I say.

March 9^th, 2008. Vincent picked me up early, as we had plans to hit the flea market, and thrift stores, if we had time. He hadn’t purchased anything for me, as he said we were going to find my gift out and about that day. It seemed a fine plan, one that was bound to end in Chinese food and excessive drinking, perhaps some surrealist writing games. I had spent the night with Drew the night before so my actual birthday I could spend the entire day with Vincent. Drew’s become rather jealous of Vincent, although he alludes to his spending time with other women himself and he knows to a great extent that my love for Vincent is platonic and nothing but. But men are biologically built to spread their seeds to several, while women are expected to accept it from only one. My acceptance of seeds is my affair, in any case. I was starting to tire of Drew’s mood swings and his belittling of our alleged relationship, but when I spent time with him it was hard to not smile. As the days passed, I found it easier to spend less and less time with him. Which I didn’t know to consider a victory or a severe loss.

I had become better friends with Rabbit, much to Vincent’s disappointment. He and Camille had ‘taken a break’ since he hadn’t left with her the night I kicked her out a couple of weeks ago. His days were more empty now, and so he tried to see as much of me as possible. And most days were full of Vincent. Some contained James, some contained Rabbit. But I was careful to not cross any lines with him. We were friends; we drank, we got into trouble together, got kicked out of bars, stole taxicabs. His girlfriend hadn’t made her presence known again since that day we drank all the wine and became obnoxious together. I suspected she felt something between us, but there was nothing for her to be afraid of. Soon enough, his single days would be over, and I would go back to my normal life. Or perhaps I would meet someone new.

I craved that. I knew it was unhealthy. But leopards can’t change their spots, as they say.

By the end of the day out with Vincent, I ended up with a Morrissey CD, a book of Ginsberg poetry, and a loud neon green trenchcoat that I fell in love with upon my first glance. It was almost new; I could scarcely believe my luck. I thanked Vincent for my newly found treasures, cradled them to my breast like a starving infant.

We ended up in Palo Alto, with warm and welcoming smiles all around at Jing Jing’s. It was the perfect place to spend my birthday. The Szechwan shrimp exploded on my tongue with the heat of a book of matches, but the flavor was familiar and good, and so my heart sang. We ate and drank plenty, and Vincent tipped far more than he should have. I suspected that he had had a bit of a crush on the tiny, proper-looking waitress.

The night ended as pleasantly as it started, to the tune of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass on my turntable, empty wine bottles and lined pages of poetry surrounding us both.

Days passed, and it grew closer and closer to the wedding day. I had accomplished the myriad of tasks on the list Gina had given me, which had put me in the hole about four hundred dollars and used up much of my free time. But I was happy to do it; she had been my best friend for most of my life and I figured if I ever got married she might do me the same honor. I had drunkenly asked her not to get married one night; spilled my guts to her about how little I thought of Seth, told her of the nights he had drunkenly come on to me which I ignored and didn’t tell her for fear of her not believing me, considering me envious instead. The news fell on her face like heavy weights. I felt wretched almost instantly, but felt it would be my conscience compromised had I kept it all inside.

The very next day, she told him everything that I said to her that night. The wedding was on, pinks and greens all around, and nothing more was said.

The bridesmaids on her side were a curious bunch. I was, of course, to be the maid of honor, which showed by my lustrous magenta gown, in contrast to the others’ pale green dresses. One of the girls was Gina’s stepsister, a 15-year-old, while the others were all cousins of Seth’s. Which was not going to allow for a very successful bachelorette party.

Early on, I had gotten the phone numbers of the three women who would actually be able to come out and drink and party, as they all lived a few hours away. I had thought that St. Patrick’s Day, three days before the actual wedding, would serve for the perfect day as it was one of those days it seemed that the entire universe would be out drinking and causing mischief at pubs, bars and clubs. Much to my disappointment, none of them would be able to make it even on the weekend for any kind of bachelorette activity. I had no idea what to do. I didn’t want to approach her; how lame is it for the maid of honor to ASK the bride-to-be what she wants to do for her bachelorette party? I did what I wanted to do even less—I asked Seth.

He suggested that since nothing scandalous or group-wise would be feasible, that I take the opportunity to have a girls’ night, the kind we had in middle school, high school, when we would stay up with the moon and sleep with the sun, the kind we would never have again. I envisioned bowls full of ice cream and chocolate syrup, oreos and chopped up butterfingers. I thought about the rum we would steal, how we would throw it in the blender with the ice cream and candy and tell our parents we were just making milkshakes, and how good the power tasted.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t that bad of an idea. So I spent another two hundred-some odd dollars and got us a hotel room in Santa Clara, one that had a free reception for two hours in the hotel’s bar (which really meant an unlimited amount of free drinks and various junk food). I packed up my DVD player and some movies that had meant marvelous much to us in our youth such as Grease, The Breakfast Club and the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I took my shoebox full of our back and forth letters and notes, and a few of my diaries from days gone by. I packed a few bottles of cheap Chardonnay, some orange juice and a flask sized bottle of adequate vodka for screwdrivers.

I also gathered toiletries, a change of clothes, and a bathing suit as I had been aware of the indoor pool and spa (open till midnight!) we could definitely take advantage of after the reception was over.

My overnight bag and tote were both stuffed, and I was ready to close the years of single friendship we had collected with a bang.

It didn’t take us long to get to Santa Clara. We left early and sped. She took the top down and I could smell the spring coming around the corner. I felt free, younger than I had in a long time, remembering when boys didn’t matter unless they were a stranger on the freeway you were flirting with, and you were flirting with them only because you could.

We checked in and entered our spacious room. It was more like a tiny apartment, a living room area with a pull-out couch, chairs, a dining table, a television set and a small refrigerator. A small hallway connected the living area from a small bathroom and a large bedroom, with an oversized mirror above a king-sized bed and on the closet. The bedroom also contained a TV, this one concealed in an armoire across the room.

The place was perfect for our evening. I began unpacking; putting the wine, vodka and orange juice in the fridge, the DVD player on the table next to the television. We got comfortable, opened some Chardonnay, redressed for the evening. We made our way to the lobby and grabbed two seats at the bar.

The bartender was a tall Asian fellow, well-dressed, no nametag. We introduced ourselves candidly, as young women tend to, offered our hands to the gentleman. We figured we were going to have to get acquainted with him. He was going to be concocting our beverages for two hours or so; it seemed the only thing that made sense.

We started off with a sex on the beach. It was not a drink I would ever choose as it was quite sweet and on the weaker side, but Gina was different than I, and I didn’t want to alienate her. I also wanted to stay on the same level with her, as the night was just beginning.

The two hours that proceeded were full of drinking and laughing, a split Cobb salad, a handful of businessmen that had come over to flirt, to offer to buy drinks (the well cocktails were free, but call liquors had not been), to help us figure out what the wedding song should be.

By the time seven-thirty rolled around (the time the reception was officially over), Tim the bartender, had enjoyed our company so much that he discreetly let us know he would offer us free drinks for another half hour. She had the first wedding dance song narrowed down to Stand by Me, Someone to Watch Over Me, Earth Angel, and I Will Follow You into the Dark (a choice I thought was quite inappropriate given her situation with Chad dying in Iraq).

We were getting fairly drunk, but the promise of poolside pleasures that awaited us kept us chipper and fresh. I mentioned that I had brought some old letters, diaries and photographs and she seemed exuberant at that realization. She threw her tiny arms around my neck, declared her love. Although the bachelorette party wasn’t going the way one normally would, what with male strippers and a limousine full of dumb drunk girls wearing scandalous clothing, it was obvious she was enjoying herself. And what mattered almost as much was that I was enjoying her.

For the first time in a few years, it was just her and I. No boyfriends, no cancelled plans because of boyfriends, no forced double dates. She wasn’t concerned about where he was (although knowing Seth, I would have been, given it was a bachelor party and his integrity seemed easily compromised). She was just having fun. I forgot what it was like to have Gina all to myself. I forgot what Gina was really like. The liquor was softening my vision and I saw a pink haze around her, and tears welled up in my eyes thinking that this Gina would never exist after this night. She would walk down the aisle three days later, and move across the country where he had a job offer. She would get a job utilizing her nursing degree and start trying to get pregnant. She would learn how to cook. She would become obsessed with redesigning the kitchen and the bathroom because they weren’t ‘baby-friendly’ colors. There would be a lot of yellow and green.

And the closest thing I would have to Gina would be if I had the money to visit, when the baby would finally fall asleep and maybe she would sip a margarita with me at the kitchen table, spit-up on her shoulder, eyes on the baby monitor. Seth would gain weight and get wrapped up in work or booze, or other women. And Gina’s parents had divorced, and it had harshly affected her childhood so she vowed to never end her own marriage. So she would stay, loveless, faithful; perhaps she would go to church even more often that she would normally to keep her sanity. If you could even call it that.

I considered it might have been the alcohol. I excused myself to relieve my bladder and my stinging eyes. I collected myself and made my way back to the bar, tipping the bartender, mentioning the pool. Her eyes lit up and we linked arms and said goodbye to the friends we’d made. The goodbye felt final, although I didn’t know any of their names or jobs or any small details you would remember of someone’s life. We made our way back to our room to change.

The events that occurred in the next few hours didn’t seem to mean much at the time; they were fleeting, unimportant; at the very least, not as crucial as the impact that came just the next day. I say this only now because there is much lost in translation—the way that people communicate has always been something that varies from person to person, but one would expect that both parties understand the circumstances that they both experience. As things are, this simply cannot be so.

We drank another screwdriver together in the pool and hot tub area, laughing, making fun of the young boys attempting to flirt with us. We finally made our way back up to the room around a quarter to eleven, when I started attempting to hook up the DVD player so we could watch Grease while we went through all the things that I brought. I became furious almost immediately. There were no hookups for any kind of unit other than a computer. I rang the front desk. They confirmed my angry suspicions. They tried to explain by babbling about the cable connection, but that wasn’t going to help me.

I was upset. I didn’t know what to do. I was willing to bet I would never watch any of these movies with Gina ever again, and I hadn’t in years as it was. She was dancing around the living room in her bathing suit, not seeming to care, talking about chocolate cake and the ice cream concoctions we used to make. “I want chocolate!” she exclaimed, sprawling her arms and legs over the couch.

I rang room service. I read in the guide that room service had to be ordered before eleven. I noted the time. Five minutes till. It rang and rang and rang. No chocolate. No movies. I was again furious. I knew neither of us were in any shape to leave the hotel.

Gina stopped dancing and started brainstorming with me. “If only we had a laptop,” she said, motioning to the refrigerator, hinting at another drink.

“Not yet,” I laughed, still irritated at the present status of things. Then it came to me. Rabbit. He had a laptop, and he had pretty much made it obvious that holidays were spent with the girlfriend and her family, who really didn’t drink. He was the only one that I knew that wouldn’t be drunk at eleven on St. Patrick’s Day.

“How about Rabbit?” She loved the idea.

“Yeah, call him! Tell him to bring chocolate!”

I knew this would work. Rabbit loved getting out of the house. He loved to drink. And he was pretty good friends with the both of us at the moment. I decided we would ask him the favor, give him a drink or two, and send him on his way. It was a bachelorette party, after all. He wasn’t going to be dancing for us, that was for sure.

Rabbit was quick to accept our proposition. He was swinging by the grocery store to grab some brownie or cake from the bakery and then he would be on his way, laptop in hand.

The plan finally seemed to materialize. We had a glass of wine to celebrate. He entered, set up the laptop, offered the chocolate goodness to Gina, who didn’t seem to mind at all that silverware, plastic or otherwise, was neglected. I laughed at her chocolate teeth, frosting bubbling up over her lips while she laid back in the recliner, still in her bathing suit.

“This was a great idea.” I was pretty sure that’s what she said.

We started going through some of the notes while Rabbit poured himself a glass of wine. We discovered one about a crank call that we had made back in sixth grade, to a boy who lived around the corner that had a crush on Gina.

Suddenly, she wanted to crank call someone. Rabbit chimed in. “Yeah, you should call some guy you used to date and tell him you’re at your bachelorette party and you just want to see him one more time before you get married.”

We both laughed. “Then what?” she asked, her eyes wide, her mouth wider.

“Then you tell him where you’re at,” he continued. “But tell him you’re in the room across the way.”

She threw her head back and giggled maniacally. It was a trademark move of Gina’s, one that often took place around Rabbit. For some reason, it rubbed me the wrong way. I didn’t like that I felt that way. I felt like I was becoming jealous, but none of it made any sense. I changed the subject.

“What do you want to watch first?”

“I want to crank call someone!”

Rabbit nodded. “Do it. It’ll be hilarious. You’ll see him through the peephole looking like an asshole either way.”

He of course, meant, if nobody was in the room or someone else was.

There was nobody to call and I told her so. Chad was dead and her other big ex was happily married, oddly enough to a girl that looked a lot like Gina. It would never work.

“Frank?” she asked, putting the cake down.

Frank was not the best idea, but it would provide some entertainment. He was a mutual friend; one that she had casually dated that relentlessly chased her, before and afterwards. His pursuit was for the most part, physical, so I was sure the idea would entice him. He was just dumb enough to fall for it, but I knew he would be furious and I didn’t know if he knew where she lived now or would do anything about it afterwards.

But suddenly, that was the plan. I stopped worrying about things; I had another glass of wine, took a bite of Gina’s crumbly brown mess she had leftover. My mind traveled to wherever Seth was, blonde, gargantuan-breasted strippers or hookers with their asses waving in front of him, the tears of joy running down his face. He was having fun. What was wrong with our fucking with some dumb ex of Gina’s?

“Fuck it,” I said, and threw her cell phone to her.

It was getting late and she was giggling but she went through with it. She gave him the address and he let her know he would be there in twenty minutes. She was laughing like an evil sprite, the kind of laugh you have when you know you are going to turn a man down, when you know you are going to screw someone over. I never really saw her like that before. It was creepy. I wondered if it was Seth’s influence from the past few years, or the lack of mine. I tried to sweep the worry away.

Rabbit poured himself a screwdriver, got comfortable. “You gotta leave after this, ok?” I said, kicking him in the leg. “We’ve got stuff to do!” I wasn’t ready to give up my girl’s night. But there was always time for a prank.

Soon enough, he was there, knocking on the door across the way. All our heads bobbed against the door, fighting for peephole privileges. I was the first one to see him.

His hair was more orange than usual. His hair went back and forth from really bleached blonde to just sort of bleached blonde to orange blonde to light brown. He was always trying to change his appearance; he claimed that he was always doing what was ‘seasonal.’ In most senses of the word, he was a schmuck; the frat boy that only wasn’t because he didn’t go to school.

He was wearing a black button up shirt and khakis. His knock, which I saw as light and casual, became loud enough to hear through the door when Gina’s eye was up to the glass. She giggled and it was loud and I put my hand over her mouth.

It was clear he was becoming frustrated. I saw him delve into his pocket and retrieve his phone. All of a sudden, her phone began flashing and playing music—very, very loudly. For a moment, Gina seemed to forget exactly what was taking place, or did not know it was her phone that was telling on her. Immediately thereafter, she leapt upon it, lying on the couch, turning the music off, laughing again. I was certain we were found out, but Rabbit assured me from the door that he was still knocking on the door across the way.

The knock seemed to last forever, and it didn’t seem as funny anymore. It was desperate, pathetic. By then she had silenced her phone and sat at the table, arms crossed, chewing her lip. “I feel bad,” she then said, realization washing over her face.

I laughed. “Oh come to your senses,” I told her, shaking my head. “This was exactly what was supposed to happen. You’ll probably never have to see him again.”

She stood up. “I want to let him in.”

I stood up, and Rabbit was at my side. “We are not letting him in. That was not the deal.”

“What deal?” she asked angrily. “It was my call to call him and it will be my call to invite him in. It’s MY party.”

I stood in her way, blocking the door. Rabbit was between us. I had an ominous sense of dread building within me, and I felt nauseous. Why was Gina acting this way? She was a passive person, never putting her foot down for anything, especially something foolish.

She pushed me. I didn’t know if the alcohol was finally getting her to a point of aggression or she was just passionate about the moment at hand but I wasn’t budging. She sat down on the floor, listening to the knock grow louder and louder.

“Jolie,” she breathed. “I feel bad. I just want to talk to him. Tell him I’m sorry. And then he’ll go, okay?”

I shook my head. “What’s done is done.”

“Like hell,” she said and pushed me aside with all her might, opening the door (with my weight on it) just enough for him to notice. The door closed swiftly thereafter, but by then, the jig was up.

I moved away. “Don’t do it; this is stupid.”

But she didn’t listen. The door was open and he was inside, hugging me, telling me I looked good but his words hit my ears like I was underwater. I was furious at Gina for changing the entire way the night was going. Her party, her rules. I angrily watched him wipe chocolate out of the corner of her mouth while she laughed. “I’m so sorry about that,” she gushed, flirting. “Thanks for coming, we have to catch up!”

Rabbit introduced himself while Gina whispered in my ear. “Don’t worry, I’m just gonna fuck with his head.”

I didn’t say a word. She ran into the bedroom and jumped onto the bed. “Frank!” He followed her. I followed close behind, making sure the door was open and they were only talking. I walked out into the living room, eyes on the tiny hallway, concerned, quiet.

“What a fucking idiot,” I said to Rabbit as he swilled down the end of his screwdriver. He nodded and said little else. Neither of us knew what to make of this situation. It was so completely not the Gina that I was best friends with. It didn’t make any sense. I had seen her far more drunk and far less foolish and bitchy. I didn’t know if it was the whole Bridezilla thing that often took place, but she was becoming very self-consumed. I wondered if only traces of my Gina were still in there.

I walked down the hallway and made a right into the bathroom. I finished up and washed my hands, probably no longer than a two minute bathroom visit, and by the time I opened the door and re-entered the hallway, the bedroom door was closed and I could hear Gina moaning loudly.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!?” I screamed, trying the knob, pounding on the locked door. Rabbit came quickly, assisting me. Frank opened the door, fully clothed, and I peered inside the room, seeing Gina wrapped up topless in the comforter.

“Get out,” I said, pointing to the door. He said nothing and did as he was told. Rabbit sneered something about kicking his ass but Frank was silent, closing the door behind him.

Gina was still giggling. She got up and walked around the hotel room, breasts hanging out haphazardly, the comforter barely covering her bottom half. “That was a bad idea,” she said, sitting on the floor. “I’m glad you kicked him out.”

I didn’t know what to say. She was getting married in three days. I sat down with her and Rabbit asked her the obvious question. Which was good because I was tired of asking. “Why the hell did you do that?”

She shrugged. “I just wanted to get some.” She said it very matter-of-factly, fleeting. As if it were having a cigarette or seeing a movie. My mind started to put pieces together, things we had experienced together, things she had told me in the past few months and years. I remembered one of my exes confiding in me that she had made out with him at a party that she had come to with her groom-to-be.

The fact that she had acquired herpes through “a dirty barbell” she purchased at a head shop for her clitoral hood piercing. The fact that she tried to get me to have a threesome with the two of them once. This was a side of her I had never seen. A side I never knew existed. I was ashamed. I was disgusted. And even though Seth was probably being rather naughty himself, I thought Gina would at least be remorseful about it.

I helped her dress and we got into bed. Rabbit put the movie back on and we watched it, saying very little. She fell asleep within the hour and Rabbit and I soon followed.

She awoke around six thirty in the morning, panicked. “What if he has something?” she queried. “He didn’t have a condom!”

I was incredulous then. “But YOU have something.”

“Yeah but he didn’t use a condom, he deserves what he gets.”

“So wouldn’t that apply to you as well?”

“Well, I was drunk. And besides, it’s not the girl’s job to have the condom.”

My eyes were wider than I’d ever remembered them being. Rabbit by then had woken up and we both witnessed her phone call to Frank, waking him, just to make sure “he didn’t have any diseases.” She hung up, relieved, without telling him about hers.

She turned over, smiling, and went back to sleep.

I looked at Rabbit and he looked at me. He got out of bed, put his shoes on, shrugged and walked out. “I’ll call you later,” he said to me, and I nodded, with disdain.

When we finally rose around ten, she seemed bummed out. Finally. Pangs of guilt were setting in. She admitted that it had been a mistake, and that she had regretted the decision. Feeling that she had finally come to her senses, I offered my realistic and yet fucked-up advice. “Don’t tell him. It will only cause unnecessary harm.”

Her eyes searched my face for an explanation. I was happy to oblige. “You don’t really even care about Frank; you were just being a dumb drunk girl at a bachelorette party. If you tell him, not only will your wedding be tainted, but so will your honeymoon. If you decide to tell him, wait until after the honeymoon.”

She sighed and nodded.

“What do you think HE did last night anyways?” I didn’t want to say it, but it was true. Men had bad reputations for taking advantage of the final night of freedom, and Seth was someone who would take it all the way. I was certain of it.

We packed and she called Seth to set up lunch plans. I was too tired; I craved the comfort of my own bed and I had a shift later that afternoon. We parted ways, and I didn’t feel bad about it at all. As a matter of fact, I felt relieved that soon Gina would be across the country and that the girl that I knew and loved would be buried within me forever. Seth could have the new one. I didn’t recognize her.

I went home, slid under my comforter and tried to forget the events of the night previously. I thought about Rabbit and what he must have been thinking about marriage since he was getting married soon enough. It must have been disheartening for him. I wondered if he knew the Gina that had shown up last night and still seemed to linger in the morning, once the booze had worn off.

I awoke to the ringing of my phone. It took me a moment to answer but when I did, what I heard was unmistakable. Gina was crying.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, still groggy from sleep.

“Um, I don’t know how to tell you this…”

I knew what happened. She told him. Already! I shook my head, expecting to hear that the wedding was off, that she was miserable; maybe I could talk to Seth? What I never expected to hear in a hundred million years was:

“I’m sorry, but you can’t come to the wedding.”

I heard Seth shouting in the background. It was like some kind of nightmare. I let it out. “What the fuck?”

“Yeah, I told him, and I’m sorry, he won’t marry me unless I do this…” She was whimpering. “He thought you would look out for me.”

He grabbed the phone from her, screamed at me for my irresponsibility. MY irresponsibility. I was beyond shocked. “Why am I responsible for her actions?”

It didn’t matter. Evidently it was all my fault. I had done all I could to keep Frank from coming into that hotel room but because it was HER party and HER call he got to, and because SHE wanted some it was my fault, and because SHE decided to tell him it was my fault. I had done nothing but the blame was mine.

Tears slid down my face like rivers. She got back on the phone and she just kept saying she was sorry. She said she would send me a check for all the money I spent. In the background he was screaming “No you are not!”

“There’s another thing,” she started. “I’m filing a police report.”

No fucking way. “For WHAT, exactly?”

She stopped crying. “For rape.”

The thirteen minutes that followed that sentence all seemed to crash onto each other like waves onto suicide cliffs. I spoke to Seth, Gina and her father. I was forbidden to come to the wedding or else the police would be involved. I had to cease all contact with her forever or else they would push for an accessory to rape charge. Her father had been a cop and lawyer back in his glory days and although now in retirement, he still knew how to intimidate a girl who really knew she had done nothing wrong.

My back had run into her knife. The Mormon that wasn’t had done something stupid and was forced to blame it on her best friend in the entire world to save her marriage. I had been the scapegoat throughout all of high school; the reason she would get in trouble for staying out late, or drinking too much, or going out on dates; and I accepted the title then because all it meant then was that I wasn’t on her parent’s favorites list. To be honest, I had never wanted their blind faith form of respect. They lived in another world and this was how they did things. She got drunk and fucked some idiot and what it meant to them was that her best friend in the entire world, the one she had known her whole life, had aided her rape.

It didn’t make any sense. I said it many times. It didn’t matter. Soon enough the dial tone was singing in my ear and the last thing she said to me was sorry, again. But nothing would ever make up for the betrayal that I had spent twenty years and hundreds of dollars paying for.

port versus chardonnay

Vincent sat there, berating me for my unsurprising foolishness. He and Camille clicked their tongues at me, for not liking Evan, for seeing James, for being the woman I am, vices and virtues and all parts equally detestable. Vincent held a glass of Chardonnay, and I grimaced at the thought of him swirling it around, sticking his nose into the tall glass, sniffing before sipping.

Camille looked on him, beaming, rebuttoning his top button. I sneered.

“I don’t know what to make of you, darling,” she finally spoke, before Vincent could give his opinion, which I cared more about. “James, Rabbit, Drew, oh my.”

She sang it, like in the Wizard of Oz. I don’t think I ever disliked her more.

“Fuck Rabbit,” I said, getting defensive, although I didn’t really know the reason why.

Vincent grinned at me, a greasy smile, one that, if I could, I would rip off with my hands and shove it in my pocket and save for a day I felt wretched. It made me happy, the look of his face.

I took a pull from the port I had opened and passed it on to Vincent. Port was his favorite too. I wanted to show her that I was better than her; my sweet syrupy (elixir of life!) port beat her fruity, buttery Chardonnay. Everybody knew that Chardonnay was for old, bitter broads who drank in the afternoon, those who wished they were younger than they were. I stared at the pearls that had collected around Camille’s neck. I thought about caskets; rich mahogany and gold-plated handles.

I had a warm feeling inside, an angry, bitter, cinnamon feeling. I felt like I felt at Blowfish on New Year’s Eve. I felt like punching Camille right in her pale fat face, making her bleed.

I was drunk. She never ate that soup, she didn’t know. She never saw Evan’s face covered with pizza sauce, listened to his boring stories. She didn’t know anything.

I thought of my pending birthday, only a few days away. I wondered what I would be doing. I thought about Gina and her stupid fiancé, the one that had tried to bed me all those years ago, settled for her. The guilt settled into my mind like sediment from the wine we were drinking. I thought of my decanter, lonely in my cupboard, ceramic, shaped like Napoleon Bonaparte. A find if I ever found one. I wanted to cradle him in my arms, feast from his neck.

James’ face was tattooed in my mind. I felt Drew’s strong hands pinning my wrists down. I took the port back from Vincent, took a long swig.

“Well, what are you going to do?” Her face was full of cynicism, of pity.

“Well no offense, Camille, but I’m going to kick you out of here and make my own decisions from now on, thanks.”

She looked shocked. I didn’t feel as bad as I should have. I looked at Vincent. He looked at her. I challenged him with my eyes, with my body language. He could leave if he wanted to. I didn’t care anymore. Jolie Porter! She was alone, she was a prodigy, she was on her own, she knew what she was doing, which meant she didn’t need to know where she was going, or more importantly, who she was going with. I thought of the down comforter; lazily, sloppily situated on my bed. I felt like sleeping with Vincent then, if even just to sleep, just to be held by someone who loved me. Jolie Porter, the cynic, the wallflower that wasn’t, the future.

Camille took her nasty beige clutch purse and all my worries with her.

Vincent opened a familiar box of Parliaments and showed me a joint. “You’re lovely,” he said, offering it to me.

“I know,” I said, accepting it. “And you’re amazing for not chasing your beaver out of here.”

He lit the end while I sucked, allowing the embers to crackle with a beautiful, calm fury. “Love is love,” he said, and that was all there was to it.

the power of black beans

My hands carefully wrapped around the blue ceramic bowl and brought it close to me so I could breathe in its divine aroma. The steam rose up to greet me and I closed my eyes, savoring its comforting properties before even tasting.

To many people it would just be what it was, a bowl of black bean soup, rich with bell peppers and riddled with corn kernels. But for me, it was heaven, brought to me by James, the cute boy with the horrible date I met just weeks ago.

Last night I had finally summoned the courage to dial those ten little numbers. And he was both happy and excited to see me.

It was a quarter to ten when I arrived at the sunken in, sort of hidden dive bar down the street from my house. It was small, smelled of stale beer and menthol cigarettes, and regardless of its empty parking lot, was usually pretty full by eleven. Tonight there weren’t that many people there yet, just the normal Thursday night crowd, tuning their guitars and getting pumped up for the open mic event, which usually started between ten and ten thirty.

This evening, the bartender, Elena, had an acoustic guitar around her neck while she was working. I took my usual seat, a stool toward the back of the house with a good view of the stage. “Hey, lady,” she said to me, smiling, gesturing at her instrument. “I’m playing tonight.”

“Awesome,” I said, offering an overly enthusiastic grin.

Elena was a lesbian. She had curly, dirty blonde hair that was often pulled back in a bandana or ponytail. She wore ripped jeans and dark, ribbed tank tops that almost always revealed the bright orange or yellow of her bra straps. Anytime I had ever come in with a male, she spent a good chunk of the evening explaining the faults of men in general, and when my companion would exit for a smoke or a bathroom break, the faults she suspected he especially carried. I suspected she had a bit of a crush on me, as I only paid for about half my drinks usually.

“I just wrote a new song yesterday,” she squealed, sort of doing this little jumping-up-and-down dance. “You like Ani, right?”

It was true, I liked Ani DiFranco. But she was the epitome of lesbian rock. I knew where this was going. “Sure.”

“Then you’re gonna love it!” She strummed at her guitar a couple times. “Oh, I’ll save it,” she decided, stopping. “You need a drink, love?”

Did I ever. “The usual, ma’am,” I said, checking my cell phone for the time. If he were punctual, he would be there in 10 minutes. Punctuality was important to me. If I told someone I would be there at nine, I would probably be there at ten till. But boys were boys, boys were different. I have never known a habitually punctual male.

She poured me a Guinness, and started strumming again.

He was five minutes late. He blamed ‘band practice’ for his tardiness. It was alright, considering he was doing open mic, for me, on our first date. I knew I had seen him somewhere before. Turns out he was a regular at my neighborhood dive. I had probably drunkenly played pool with him before, not caring, my mind filled with other silly unmentionables.

He was attractive, tall, thin and sort of pale in comparison to others I had dated, but he had jet black hair, long, neat sideburns and these piercing green eyes that just sort of grabbed you on contact. I discovered during our phone conversation that he was younger than the people I usually dated as well. He seemed to have this sort of emo rocker thing going on. He wore a spiked belt and low rise jeans, with a bit of his boxers peeking out. He played bass. He got big points for that.

“Hey,” he said, setting down his guitar case and winking at me. He sauntered over to give my shoulders a squeeze and to peck me on the cheek.

“Hey you,” I replied, poking him in the ribs lightly.

He lingered in the side of my face for a moment. “God, you smell amazing.”

I smiled. He walked back over to his guitar case and opened it. Along with his precious bass guitar, there was a single white rose. A bit cliché, but he was smooth. I was a little worried where it was going. I gave him a sideways look.

He lifted it out of the case and gave me a suspecting look. “You don’t think this is for you, do you?”

I rolled my eyes amidst my obvious blush.

“Oh no, babe, I brought it for my favorite dyke bartender,” he said pointing at Elena, who was humming to herself and practicing.

She didn’t even bother looking up, flipped him off and went back to strumming.

I grabbed it from him. “Jerk,” I said playfully, smelling my gift. “Thank you.”

“Don’t go getting gushy on me now, girl,” he said, lifting his guitar out of the case now. “I’ve got some rocking to do before we get sexy.” Another wink.

He was kind of cheesy in a sleazy way. Or maybe it was vice versa. However, there was something attractive about it. But I imagined it getting old, grating on me. At this point however, I had a flower in one hand and a Guinness in the other, plus a cute boy making eyes at me playing bass. Things weren’t so bad.

There was usually a pretty good-sized list of people who signed up for open mic. There were a few guys, probably in their fifties, who came in and did covers of classic rock songs, and, depending on how drunk they were, sometimes were pretty decent and made for a good show. There was also an older blonde lady that came in and did everything acoustic, mostly folk songs, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell or sometimes Janis Joplin. And Elena, of course.

And then there was Blank Stare, the trio that I had come to see. It was basically James playing bass, his best friend Jonathan sort of flowing, and another friend of his, a shy, quiet guy whose name I didn’t remember, playing guitar. I had heard they were a decent act when they had practiced, and when the rhymes were written well. I figured a lot of it had come from drunk and stoned conversations and I couldn’t decide whether it was to their advantage or not. I guess I would be able to tell soon.

The rest of the players pretty much changed every week. New people would come in and try their hand at an original song, or attempt a karaoke-like vibe and just do a cover or two. But regardless, people were usually a few beers or cocktails deep by showtime, which always made for an interesting set.

Open mic had officially begun. I was halfway through a Guinness, James’ fingers were playfully stroking my lower back. He whispered in my ear something dirty, which I couldn’t fully understand on account of the first performer. I smiled and stuck my tongue out at him.

It looked like it was going to be a pretty good night. Nobody had done too bad of a job and it looked like the whole house was in good spirits.

Even so, James got nervous before he played. When the person before him started, he grabbed his guitar and go outside and strum a little to himself to get motivated, pumped, or just to see if he still ‘had it.’ He looked mildly stressed, mostly because there had been no serious flops. I understood the concern; nobody wants to be the worst up at an open mic night. But I was relatively confident that Blank Stare wouldn’t be. At least I was hoping.

He blew me a kiss, grabbed his guitar and ran out the door. I chuckled to myself. Then again, by this time I was three beers deep and nursing a vodka soda, so my sense of humor had definitely been tampered with. But I still found it adorable, the beads of sweat forming on his forehead while he paced through performers, and the look of sheer panic that washed over him at this point.

While he was gone I ignored the performers and thought about him. I didn’t know if he was a good person, but he was certainly making me happy, happy in a non-committal way. I wasn’t thinking about him the way I thought about Drew, I wasn’t worrying what he was thinking about me or what I should say or do. He seemed to be doing the same. I was surprised about the flower, surprised about the touching already, surprised about the kiss. It seemed natural, like we had known each other for a long time. I felt like I knew him. I just didn’t.

I sighed, again berating myself for dating someone who was, in most senses of the word, unavailable. I thought of Shawna, his older, alcoholic girlfriend, the redhead I had detested at Slice, the one whose grubby red nailed hands pawed and clawed at Evan like a cat in heat. From what he had mentioned about her, she was probably out with the girls at a club or by herself at home killing a few bottles of wine, smoking a pack or two of cigarettes. I wondered if ever she wished that she were here, out at a dive bar with her sexy green-eyed boy rocking his bass. I wondered if she ever thought about how different they truly seemed to be. Then I wondered; what if he was lying to me about it all?

Would there be a reason to? Did I have a reason to trust him in the first place? My trust wasn’t easily earned but I had believed everything he had said so far, about everything. Until this point I hadn’t even doubted it. “Silly rabbit,” I said to myself.

He had confessed that she had only ever come to see him play once. He seemed depressed when he spoke of her, and that depressed me as well. Not that I wanted to hear the good stuff per se, but he seemed so unhappy that it literally hurt me. This band seemed to be very important to him, one of the only things he seemed to clutch desperately to. And it seemed she couldn’t have cared less.

But I was there. Playing my usual role, the woman who is and does what the girlfriend cannot. It was a sad story. Even I knew it. But this was not about me.

Before I knew it, Blank Stare was up. James shot through the front door, his cheeks pink from excitement and adrenaline. The three headed over to the stage, instruments in hand. James’ eyes were sparkling in my direction as he lifted the guitar strap over his shoulder.

He started playing, occasionally turning his back to the audience for whatever his own reasons happened to be, closing his eyes, getting lost in the melodies. Jonathan was belting out a slough of rhymes about relationships and politics and what have you, and the unremembered band member was impressing me. I wondered about jamming with them. Would that be weird? I felt like I wanted to see more of him. But I wasn’t sure. But I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. From the way he was acting it seemed that he would want me to go home with him. I decided I was going to tell him no.

He came to my house instead. We drank much too much lager and cut up seven limes. He perused my bookshelves with silent envy, which made me cross my arms and bite my lip in happiness and pride. The more I drank, the more my mind pushed forward with an insane energy about it, making me want to go do something, something far from the empty bottles and cans that had flooded my small apartment. I wanted to taste the ocean. I wanted to taste my own tears. I wanted to get lost in the forest; I longed for him to eat me for survival, thinking about how good I tasted and taking his time, lingering over my most tender bits, savoring me.

He spent a long time looking in my kitchen, the way he was looking at my books. I eyed him carefully. Finally, the pieces fit together. “I’m a chef.”

I laughed, then thought ill of myself for doing so.

He just smiled. “Well, an aspiring one. I’m going to culinary school.”

He gave me kudos for my avant-garde kitchen items, my love of garlic and shallots and black beans. He told me he made the best black bean soup I could imagine.

And then there it was, in my unworthy hands. My headache was ravaging me, holding onto me for dear life. It was a morning shift I was not looking forward to. We fell asleep together after nothing more than a few kisses, on the floor. I don’t remember the last bits of our conversation, but I was pretty sure I was drunker than he. And when I woke up, the pounding at my temples had begun. Which was a pretty big deal for me as I’ve become accustomed to not ever being hungover.

But nevermind that. The soup was there, and my stomach was gurgling with regret and emptiness. I completely stopped everything that I was doing and sat down to indulge in its goodness.

I didn’t care about how I was eating it, because I was a girl and he was a boy, because we hadn’t slept together yet, because he didn’t even know what color underwear I had been wearing. My soup spoon was full and soon my mouth was too. The heat was comforting and I was basking in it like children do ice cream cones, melting down their arm in the dead of summer.

I couldn’t bring myself to stop, to tell him thank you, to explain how delicious it was. I was not enveloping it with my mouth or tasting it with my tongue, I was devouring it with my soul, and it felt like it was transforming me into something better, stronger. My eyes met his with glee and gratefulness and regret altogether. For those few moments, the headache was gone and the world seemed like my oyster. James, labret, green eyes, black bean soup. The world was beautiful and bright, stinging my eyes with its glory.

Soon enough it was gone and when I tried to tell him my opinion on it, he shushed me and smiled. I don’t think he needed me to tell him how good it was. The empty bowl, my brown tongue and the relief in my face had been enough, and now my day would be fine, just fine.