Love and Chaos: A Brooklyn Girls Novel

by Burgess, Gemma

  Sam shrugs. “Find a passion, talk your way in, then impress the boss.”

  “Talk my way in? Like how?”

  “Well … okay, I’m about to talk about me here, so, sorry if it’s boring—”

  “Apology accepted.”

  “Oh, thanks. So … I never sailed, you know, growing up, but I’d always wanted to. And I didn’t have any other burning ambitions and I really wanted to, uh, get away for a while. My life was kind of … imploding. So I bought a one-way ticket to Trinidad, made some friends at bars the sailing crews all hung out in, and talked my way onto a yacht that was being delivered to the Bahamas. I just copied everyone else and learned on the job. Then, the new owner liked me, and that was that. Three years at sea and counting.”

  “And you love it?”

  Sam thinks for a second, his gray eyes staring into the distance. “When I am sailing, I wake up looking forward to the day.”

  “Huh,” I respond thoughtfully, frowning.

  “You frown a lot.”

  “So do you! You’re gonna need Botox by thirty.”

  “That’s so sweet of you to say.” He pauses and takes a sip of beer. “This whole thing is to set me up with Julia, right?”

  “No. Maybe.” Pause. “Yes.”

  He laughs, his face lighting up. “Really? I was only kidding. The entire night? Just for me?”

  “Not exactly,” I lie, suddenly feeling disloyal to Julia. “It really is Pia’s birthday. Soon. Ish.”

  He raises an eyebrow at me. I raise mine back.

  “There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you,” says Sam. “How did you end up with that crowd, on that yacht, at that party? You didn’t exactly fit in.”

  I smile, but my face suddenly feels locked with tension. Didn’t fit in with a bunch of girls who tread the fine line between fun and fuck-for-money.

  Even thinking about it makes me shudder.

  “You okay? You look like you’re about to ralph.”

  “I’m fine.… Do people still say ‘ralph’?”

  “Oh yeah. All the time.… Seriously, though, what were you doing there? Right from the start I knew something wasn’t right. You swagger up, looking hungover and lost and pissed as hell, smoking a cigarette and wearing studded Converse. Unlike the other girls, you had no fake tan, no fake breasts, no fake teeth.… Are they your friends?”

  “Hell no, I’d never met them before. It just sort of happened. I’ve known Stef a long time, I trusted him, I shouldn’t have. End of story.” I take a swig of my drink, hoping Sam will say something. He doesn’t. And for some goddamn reason, I find myself gabbling. “So from now on, I’m avoiding rich kids forever. You know, they’re all entitled asshats who just lie to get what they want. Um, enough about me. Where are you from, Sam?”

  I know nothing about him. Except that he works on yachts and is living on a friend’s floor in Fort Greene, broke and between jobs.

  “Ohio.”

  “Ohio? Are you serious? Tell me more.”

  “Do you really need details? I’m Sam. Just Sam.”

  “And I’m Angie. Just Angie.”

  “So, how about I set you up on a blind date dinner party with one of my buddies, Just Angie? See how you like it.”

  “Oh … no. I’m not dating right now, Just Sam. I have made too many bad decisions with, uh, the dudes.”

  “If you can’t date anyone nice, don’t date anyone at all, is that it?”

  “Something like that. I want to be single. But I totally think you should ask Julia for a drink or something. She’s really hilarious.” I pause and see Julia on the other side of the living room shouting “Fivies!” and forcing Heff to high-five her.

  “She seems great, but really, uh, I’m not looking for anything, either. I just broke up with someone.”

  “Details, please.”

  “Her name’s Katie. We went to college together and sort of did a long-distance thing, but it got complicated, you know. It’s hard to stay in touch when you’re at sea for weeks on end.… She’s in Paris right now. Studying.”

  He shows me a photo on his phone.

  I’m impressed. “Her friends are all doing that duckface-kiss pose but she’s just smiling normally. She looks like the kind of girl I could have a drink with.”

  When it’s his real smile, Sam’s entire face is taken over by it, like a little kid’s drawing. I grin back, and get the strangest, nicest, warmest feeling. I like this guy, I realize. As a friend. Purely as a friend. Which has never happened before in my entire life.

  What a novelty.

  “Do you want to be friends?” I say, the words out before I can assess how weird I sound. “I mean, seriously. Let’s just not do that whole sexual-tension thing. No drunk kissing, no one-night regrets, no Dawson Does Joey. Let’s just be friends.”

  “Friends?”

  “Friends. Tomorrow, you should come over here and we’ll have a Freaks and Geeks marathon or something.”

  “I love that show,” Sam says, his face totally serious. “It was a travesty they canceled it.… Are you asking me out on a friend date? Is this what grown-ups do?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I guess I am. And I guess it is.”

  I look around at everyone. Madeleine and Heff are lying on the floor giggling helplessly at Julia, who is doing the worm dance move, Ethan the Cheesemaker has passed out on the sofa next to a still-sleeping Lev, Pia and Aidan are missing, presumably fighting, and Coco is standing on a chair, singing and prancing like a pony on speed.

  “They’re usually not like this,” I say to Sam. “Someone must have spiked the ice.”

  At that moment Coco shouts “WOO!” jumps off the chair, and falls on the floor.

  That’s a strange dance move.

  Then she starts convulsing, throwing her head back violently, her entire body going rigid like she’s being electrocuted, and starts making choking sounds.

  Holy shit. Coco is overdosing.

  CHAPTER 17

  We all stare in shock for a few seconds until Sam takes charge. “Call 911. Now.”

  He crouches down next to her while I kneel, get out my phone, and dial 911. I put my hand on her forehead: her skin is boiling hot and damp with perspiration.

  Julia is freaking out. “Coco! Coco! Oh my God ohmygodohmygod…”

  “Calm down,” says Sam. “She’s fine, she’ll be fine. Coco? Can you hear me?”

  He puts his ear to her mouth, then feels her neck for a pulse.

  The operator answers. “We need an ambulance—” I start talking her through what just happened. The operator instructs me to put Coco in the recovery position, which Sam has already done, and then check her vitals.

  “She’s, uh, she’s breathing, but she’s not a great color, and she’s still unconscious,” I say, as Sam instructs me. He seems to know exactly what to do.

  “What has she taken?” asks the operator.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “She’s been acting weird tonight, but I’ve only seen her drinking alcohol—”

  Coco starts convulsing again, puke bubbling out of her mouth. Sam turns her on her side, and, still unconscious, she retches a foamy mess of booze and cheese and crackers.

  “Jesus,” I murmur.

  Sam rolls her back and puts his ear to her mouth again, trying to hear or feel her breath.

  “She’s breathing, but she’s out cold,” he says. “And her pulse is racing.”

  I’m talking to the operator calmly on the outside, but inside, I’m freaking out. This is my fault. I’ve been totally neglecting Coco. And I haven’t talked about it before now because, well, it’s her business, not mine, and I never tell other people’s secrets, but she had an abortion a few months ago and confided in Pia and me. We helped her go to Planned Parenthood, the whole thing. She was sort of quiet and sad over the winter, but hell, everyone’s quiet and sad over the winter, right? And she had an abortion, I mean, that’ll make you feel pretty goddamn sad for a while. I’ve had one, too. About eight
years ago. The guy was a bartender from a vacation I took with Pia and her family. I try not to think about it, ever. I guess I figured Coco would be the same.

  “I need to know what she’s taken,” says the operator.

  How the hell would I know? I never have any idea what’s really going on with anybody else!

  But maybe I should have asked, I realize, looking at Coco’s little body lying on the floor. She’s younger than me, she’s infinitely more naive and inexperienced, she’s just a baby, really.… We should be looking after her better.

  We should all be looking after one another better.

  Suddenly, Coco opens her eyes, convulses, and starts puking again. Sam quickly turns her on her side.

  The operator is talking again. “Ma’am? Drugs, alcohol, prescription medication?”

  “Um, I don’t know, I’ll find out, I’ll find out.” I hand the phone to Sam and stand up. “I’m going to search her room.”

  He nods, wiping away her puke, and turns to Julia. “Get me a wet towel.”

  Julia nods frantically and runs away, completely freaking out the way that über-bossy people always do in a genuine emergency. Madeleine and Heff are staring at Coco in stoned shock. Ethan the Cheesemaker is passed out on the sofa, totally useless, next to a still-sleeping Lev. And I guess Pia is still outside fighting with Aidan. The only people here who can really help are Sam and me. Fuck.

  I hurry up to Coco’s room, taking the stairs three at a time. It’s an adorable room: all sloping ceilings and book-lined windowsills. Feeling like a thief, I open the drawers to her nightstand: books, lip balm, tissues, an old keychain, photos of her mom (she passed away when Coco was nine or something). Then I try her desk drawers. Pencils, pens, scissors … nothing else.

  I look around. If I were Coco, where would I hide drugs? I wouldn’t have drugs, comes the answer right back. Unless they were prescription. And I’d think of them as medicine, so I’d keep them with my Band-Aids and cough medicine.

  Where the hell are her toiletries? I look around and finally see that hanging on the back of Coco’s bedroom door is one of those plastic shoe storage things, you know the kind? With all the little pockets? But she’s using it for toiletries, not shoes. I go through each pocket one by one. Moisturizer, face scrub, razors, deodorant, hairbrush, hair bands, sunscreen … and finally, pills.

  Demerol and Xanax.

  Of course.

  I grab the pills and head back downstairs. The paramedics have arrived; they’re in the living room asking Sam questions. Coco’s eyes are open now, and her skin is a pale gray-blue, like someone has bled the color out of her with some faulty Photoshop app.

  “I’ll go to the hospital with her,” I say to Sam.

  “I’ll come, too,” he says.

  “I’m going, too!” says Julia. “She’s my sister.”

  So, somehow, the three of us end up in the ER.

  Coco is put straight into a hospital bed, and the three of us sit around her, curtains drawn. Doctors come in and out, calm and preoccupied, concerned and cold. She’s having palpitations, so they want to monitor her heart. And she’s still not breathing properly, so they’ve attached an oxygen mask to her face, plus a drip in her arm to replenish her fluids. She’s conscious again, but the oxygen mask means she can’t talk. Her eyes look even bigger and more blue than usual, and tears are running down her face and pooling around the edge of the mask.

  I’ve never been in an ER before. It’s not like on TV and in movies: a lot quieter, more mundane. No gunshot wounds, no stabbings. Just ordinary, run-of-the-mill people who hurt themselves. I can hear the family at the next bed whispering to one another in Spanish, and an old lady talking in Russian down the hall. How scary it must be to be in a hospital speaking a foreign language.

  The three of us are sitting in silence, sipping the sweet, metallic-tasting hospital coffee Sam bought, murmuring to one another in that intimate shorthand you use in the wake of an emergency. Strange how a crisis can fast-forward a friendship. Right now, I feel like Sam is one of us.

  I take out the bottles of Demerol and Xanax that I found in Coco’s room.

  “Xanax?” says Julia. She hadn’t noticed it before. “Oh God, poor Coco, this is my fault, it’s my fault, it’s my fault.…”

  Sam reaches out and grabs Julia by the shoulder. “It’s not your fault. These things happen. Drink your coffee.”

  Julia obediently picks up her coffee and takes a sip.

  “Good girl,” says Sam.

  “Don’t ‘good girl’ me, my friend,” says Julia. “I’m twenty-fucking-three-years old.”

  “Good … woman?”

  “That’s more like it.”

  We sit there in silence a while longer.

  “I hate hospitals,” says Julia finally.

  “Me too,” says Sam. “I think everyone does.”

  “No, I really hate them. My mom died in a hospital. They wouldn’t release her, even though she really wanted to go home for the last few days. Isn’t that mean? It was so mean.” Julia is talking in the tiniest voice I’ve ever heard from her, and her breath catches. “I think about it all the time.”

  Sam pauses. “How…”

  “Breast cancer.”

  “I’m really sorry,” he says, and rather than sounding rote or formulaic the way those words usually do, it sounds real. Then, in a strangely paternal gesture, he reaches over, pulling Julia into a half hug, their little plastic hospital chairs clanging together. Like a daddy owl pulling a baby owl under his wing. “But you know Coco will be fine.”

  Julia looks over at Coco, now sleeping quietly. “Why would she need a prescription painkiller?”

  Oh, my God. Coco never told her sister about the abortion. I never even thought about it, really. I was too busy thinking about Mani, who’d just broken up with me, and partying every minute that I could to obliterate all the emotions I didn’t want to deal with.… Coco and Julia are incredibly close, how could she not tell her only sister something so important?

  Because Coco thought she wouldn’t understand. That she’d disapprove, and judge, and make Coco feel even worse. It’s Coco’s secret. Of all people, I can understand that.

  So I just shrug. “Who knows? They hand those things out like candy. Didn’t she get her wisdom teeth out last year?”

  “Uh, yeah, I guess.” Julia frowns. She doesn’t seem surprised about the Xanax. She must have known about that.

  Then a doctor comes back in and checks on Coco again. They decide to keep her overnight, for observation.

  “What’s really scary is that she was so out of it,” says Julia to the doctor. “What if we hadn’t been there? What if she’d been doing that with a bunch of people she didn’t know? Anything could have happened to her!”

  Three thousand dollars. The Soho Grand hotel. And I still don’t know what happened that night. I shake my head, as if to clear it, getting a strange look from Sam.

  “About a quarter of our admissions are related to alcohol and prescription abuse,” says the doctor. “Sometimes more. With your permission, I’ll dispose of those leftover pills safely. If she doesn’t need them, it’s best not to have them in the house.”

  Julia hands over the pills and the doctor leaves. Then she turns to us.

  “You guys should go home, get some sleep. Thank you so much, Sam. Thank you.”

  Sam leans forward and gives Julia another hug, rumpling her hair as he does it. Her face changes from stress to bliss when she’s in his arms. Wow, she really likes him. I hope he does ask her out.

  “You sure you want to stay here by yourself?” I say to Julia.

  “Totally,” she says, and surprises me by grabbing me for a hug, too. I’m a non-hugger, I come from a long line of non-huggers—but I hug her back out of instinct. It’s like putting on warm socks straight out of the dryer. A sort of ahhhh feeling.

  “Angie, I’ll escort you home,” Sam says, as we’re walking out of the hospital.

  “Dude, I’m fine.
I don’t need a chaperone.”

  “That wasn’t really my point. We’re outside a hospital in the middle of the night, in one of the not-so-nice areas of Brooklyn. You’d probably get home fine, but you might not. Why take a risk?”

  I sigh. “Fine. Have it your way. Jesus, do you do everything right? And how do you know what’s nice and not nice in Brooklyn? You’ve been here, like, a week.” Sam makes a snorting sound and doesn’t answer.

  The air outside is cold and crisp, but sort of sweet. A nice change after the stale chemical smell of the hospital. I pull my fur/army coat tighter around me.

  “So, talk me through your friends,” says Sam as we walk. “Coco’s younger than the rest of you, right?”

  “Yep,” I say. “She’s twenty-one, Jules is twenty-three. They’re from upstate New York.”

  “Julia is the overprotective big sister. Coco is the little one looking for approval, huh?”

  “More or less. God, I hope she’s okay.”

  “She will be,” says Sam. “She just made a mistake, that’s all.”

  “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  “One brother. And Pia’s your best friend? The drama queen?”

  “Um, yeah. Our moms met in the hospital when they were having us, we have the same birthday.”

  “The same birthday … that was not the reason for tonight’s surprise party. Because I was that reason.” He pauses. “I feel so important.”

  I start to giggle. “Um, well, yeah, so, Pia and I both turn twenty-three in April. And Madeleine is … I don’t know, actually. We’re not that close. She’s hard to talk to. Unfriendly. Sometimes downright bitchy.”

  “I thought she was just shy,” he says. “Whenever someone is sort of cold and controlled like that, making weird little comments, I figure they’re shy and awkward. Trying to impress people.”

  This idea surprises me. “You might be right. I assume that what you see is what you get.”

  “That’s a nice theory. But it can backfire in all sorts of ways.”

  I think about Stef, and the yacht, and all the mistakes I’ve made in the past by not bothering to look below the surface of anything, by not getting to know guys before I … Well, by not getting to know guys. That will never happen again.