Cat rinsed her hands in the dirty sink and wiped them dry on her jeans. She’d at least had the good sense to strip off her starched white dress. Now, clad in a pair of heavily ripped 501s and equally shredded black T-shirt, Cat was ready to throw the entire evening down the toilet. Sigrid was too—she wore a crop top screenprinted with the emojis for “I love roosters” over her usual high-waisted black cigarette pants and Bensimon slip-ons.
They squeezed out of the bathroom together and marched over to the narrow bar top. Two tattooed, bearded men in identical leather jackets and Buddy Holly eyeglasses were sitting at the corner of the bar, drinking neat whiskeys. They both had motorcycle helmets hanging under their stools and gave off a general aura of handsomeness, although it was difficult to assess how much was natural and how much came from their tough-guys-who-went-to-art-school costumes.
Sigrid turned to Cat and lowered her voice. “Place your bet: let’s call it twenty bucks. I’m going for carpenters? Maybe fabricators. They went to SAIC or RISD. I bet they’re in that studio around the corner that makes giant fake astronaut sets for Moncler and shit.”
“Deal. Because you’re wrong. I’m thinking…menswear, the two straight guys in their class at FIT, raw Japanese denim, and at least one of them is named Jay,” whispered Cat.
“Let’s find out.” Sigrid stuck out her butt and leaned over the bar top, greeting the bartender with a kiss on the cheek. “Callie, can we get two of whatever those guys are drinking?” She winked at the two men, who immediately stood up and walked over.
“I’m Dave, and this is Jay,” said the one with the Nazi Youth haircut as he pointed at the one with the man bun. Cat felt Sigrid laughing over the invisible tin-can telephone of their friendship. They all shook hands, the type of warm and friendly greeting that signaled the beginning of a group adventure—the kind you exchanged on hiking trails or ski lifts.
“Did you guys see those tires burning outside in the empty lot?” asked Sigrid.
“It’s supposed to be an art installation. Some kids from RISD. It’s bullshit, though.”
“Kids from RISD are bullshit?” Cat pretended to be offended.
“We went there, we’re allowed to say that.”
That took all of forty-five seconds, she thought. “Oh yeah? When?”
“We graduated last year,” said Man Bun. “How about you two? Let me guess: Pratt…” He squinted and pointed at Cat first. “You’re majoring in industrial design, and you’re obviously in fashion design.”
Sigrid looked at Cat. Play along, or tell the truth? Cat gave her a smirk that said walk the line.
“Not bad,” Sigrid said, pretending to be impressed. “Well, what year do you think we are?”
“Seniors, you’re definitely seniors,” said Nazi Youth. The two men had a focus like a laser beam, their pure and unadulterated youth aimed directly at Cat and Sigrid.
“That sounds fucking great,” said Sigrid. “Let’s go with that.” Their whiskeys arrived on the bar and Cat and Sigrid raised them simultaneously, knocking the shots back and signaling for another round.
Five hours later they’d closed down Pillow Fort, a bar three blocks away where everyone always seemed to get roofied. James, the obscenely handsome bartender, had locked the front door, and he and Cat took shots off the bar top. Nazi Youth, Man Bun, and Sigrid were all making out in the corner.
“I’m just saying, I really just want to be on the sea, you know? I’ve been building boats all my life. It’s time to really commit.” Shot.
“You should totally fucking do that. Follow your dream! If you think you are a boatbuilder—”
“Shipwright,” he interrupted. Shot.
“Right, shipwright, that’s just who you should fucking be.” She pulled out her pack of cigarettes. “Can I smoke in here?”
He nodded enthusiastically and pulled out a lighter. “Only if I can have a drag.” His blond hair fell down over his face.
Cat climbed up on top of the bar, crossing her legs. He sat across from her and took the same seat, their knees touching. She held up her cigarette for a light, and he lit it before reaching over and pressing his forehead to hers. She held the cigarette to his mouth and he inhaled, their foreheads still touching.
“You’re going to find your truth, James,” she said, really meaning it. “I just know it. You belong in the sea.”
“Cat, you’re the best.” He had the same youthful, sincere energy as Man Bun and Nazi Youth.
I get older, but they stay the same age, Cat thought.
She grinned and climbed into his lap. They kissed messily, the cigarette still between her fingers. Cat vaguely heard the sound of a glass being knocked to the floor but ignored it. Someone—probably Sigrid—turned down the lights and turned up the music. Cat and James took the cue and stumbled through the dark over to the tattered velvet sofa in the bar’s back room, leaving Sigrid and her two men alone in the front of the bar.
Later that morning Hutton woke up to a series of text messages from Callie Court, sent throughout the night after he’d drifted off to sleep.
This set is amazing
Just met Hoodie and the Blowjobs
MADE OUT WITH HOODIE
We could be having a threesome with Hoodie right now
He checked the clock: it was 6:10 a.m. Confident that Callie would be passed out cold at this hour, he texted her back right away with what he thought was an impossible overture.
I was sleeping. Any chance you’re still up? I could swing by before work.
He changed screens, about to reply to a late-night thank-you text from Cat, when Callie wrote back:
Need to sleep soon but wanna get breakfast?
He looked around the apartment. His boxes, still mostly unpacked, were strewn around the edges of the living room; he didn’t have any food in the refrigerator, and he was almost certainly out of coffee.
He threw on a clean pair of running shorts and a threadbare Battle of the Bands T-shirt, packing his work clothes and dress shoes into a backpack as he brushed his teeth. He texted Callie back.
Taking a lap then coming by you, be there in 20, don’t fall asleep!
Callie replied with a photo of her bed.
Run fast
Hutton locked the apartment and looped the park once before sprinting up the westernmost trail of Prospect Park toward Callie’s apartment, a converted turn-of-the century tenement studio on Sterling Place, just off Grand Army Plaza. After buzzing him up, Callie answered the door wrapped in an oversized Turkish towel, her dark-blonde hair still damp from the shower. She reached forward and scratched his beard by way of hello. He grinned and closed the door behind him.
Callie and Hutton had met in college and started sleeping together his senior year—her freshman year—and yet they’d never officially dated or broken up. Hutton’s last relationship hadn’t exactly ended because of Callie…but she certainly hadn’t helped. It was hard to qualify her to anyone else in his life. Men usually thought he was stringing her along; women usually thought they were destined to change their minds about each other and get married. Neither judgment was accurate. He thought of their connection as a true friendship punctuated by bouts of what could only be referred to as breakneck fucking; it wasn’t romantic per se, but it was still meaningful to them both. They’d had various on-and-off periods over the last decade, the most recent off when she’d gone to rehab, but they’d been back on, sort of, for the past four months, hanging out, going to shows, and fooling around.
“I’m so hungry.” She yawned. “Give me two minutes.”
“I’m gonna rinse off,” he told her, and she nodded sleepily. While he showered, Callie rummaged through the antique armoire she used for a closet, pulling on her standard uniform: black lace underpants and matching bra, black Levis, and a plain white V-necked T-shirt. Hutton came out from the bathroom half-dressed, and she knotted his tie.
“Don’t let me get coffee,” she said, grabbing her keys. “I need to sleep after we eat.”
“What did you do last night, anyway?”
“I had a shift at King’s Landing until midnight, then I met up with Libby and Tess. We hit up that new North Korea–themed fried chicken place before going to Grasslands. The show was amazing. They’re so good. Liza, that Indian girl with that cool neck tattoo I keep talking about, was running the bar, so we all went backstage after, and I fully hooked up with Hoodie. Like, in Grasslands, like, behind a curtain. It was so fun. Then we played ping-pong in Joe’s office over on Wythe and drained the keg. Then all of them started doing dope, so I left and came home.”
“You know you’re telling a cop that, right? And I seriously doubt your sponsor would think that it’s okay to even be around drugs.”
“I keep forgetting that I’m not supposed to tell you the truth anymore. You’re so fucking weird, Mark,” she said, slipping on a beat-up pair of leopard-print Vans. “I’ll have you know that Josh, my NA sponsor, is fine with it. He says New York is full of drugs and you can’t spend your whole life trying to avoid them; you just need to know that it’s not part of your life anymore. I happen to agree.”
He kissed her on the forehead, eager to change the subject. “Let’s go get breakfast.”
They left her building and grabbed egg sandwiches from the nearest bodega, eating them on a bench in Grand Army Plaza as the morning crowds of commuters surged around them.
“How’s that guy you’re hanging out with?” he asked.
“It’s good. I mean, it’s a job; it’s not like we’re dating. Hanging with Jonathan is like modeling, except nobody publishes my photo. He just lets me hang out and play around with the clothes. Sometimes he films me, too, but he doesn’t show them to anyone. At least I don’t think he does.”
Hutton laughed. “That’s the shadiest thing you’ve said yet.” He took a huge gulp of coffee and raised his eyebrows.
“It’s not shady. It’s better than modeling, because I don’t have to see myself all the time. It’s like…everywhere I go, there I am, especially when I least expect it,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear with a self-conscious twitch. A bus roared by with Callie’s image stuck to the side, though you couldn’t quite see her face.
She had recently appeared in a Valentino campaign that was plastered all over New York’s transit system. Callie was omewhere between a straight-size and a plus-size model, and the ad made her body look like a big fat girl had been squeezed into a child’s wedding dress. Callie hated it. She watched Hutton watch the bus and thought bitterly about how quickly the thirty grand she’d gotten for the campaign had run out.
“That ad is like a Dalí tit-crease. I still can’t believe it wasn’t photoshopped. In fact, I don’t believe it.”
“I’m sorry you hate it, Cal. I think it’s beautiful. You’re the most beautiful girl in the whole world,” he said sweetly as he shoved the remainder of his sausage, egg, and cheese into his mouth.
Callie balled up their sandwich wrappers and tossed them into the trash. “All right. It’s almost eight. I have to go to bed. Go fight crime, or whatever.”
They stood up and exchanged a warm hug good-bye.
“I’ll call you later,” Hutton said automatically before turning and heading to the 2/3 Line. Callie watched him walk all the way to the subway entrance before she turned to go back to her own building.
Cat’s phone alarm was going off. She pressed the center button.
“SIRI, WHAT TIME IS IT?” she croaked.
“It’s 9:14 a.m.,” said Siri. Oh fuck. She couldn’t be late twice in one week.
Cat felt a hand squeezing her butt. The handsome bartender was draped over her body, his breath a rancid cloud. She shimmied out from under him and leaned against the plywood headboard mounted on the wall, tucking the sheet around herself. It was cold—she’d left the air conditioner running on high again, too fucked up to remember to shut it off.
“Let’s go back to sleep,” he mumbled, pawing idly at an itch on his sculpted chest while his other hand groped the bed to find her body.
“You can go back to sleep, but you need to do it at home—I have to go to work.” Her head was pounding. Her brain had constricted in size and was pulling away from the sides of her skull.
She reached for the two plastic bottles next to her bed, one covered in black gaffer tape and the other in cream-colored masking tape, and popped out two ibuprofen and two acetaminophen. Her tongue was dry and swollen. She wiped the sleep crust off her lips and searched around for her water bottle, but found only a half-empty can of beer. Ugggh.
James looked up at her with his big green eyes, looking extra young and extra pouty. “Can’t I just sleep here?”
Cat was unable to mask her annoyance as she hopped out of bed. “No, I have a million things to do today, sorry,” she snapped, shoving a commemorative plastic cup from a Mets game under the kitchen sink’s shoddy aluminum tap.
“I’m going to take a shower, okay? Here”—she paused and downed her pills—“drink the rest of this water. It’ll help.” She passed him the Mets cup and ran into the bathroom.
Cat sat on the floor of the shower for ten minutes, the water as hot as she could stand. She washed her hair twice, scrubbed the smoke and beer out of her skin with a stiff agave-fiber brush, and combed through a leave-in conditioner. A pile of fresh towels—Cat’s only concession to cleanliness was the laundry service that picked up her clothes and linens once a week—sat in a basket opposite the peeling cast-iron tub she used as a shower. She wrapped one around her body, the other around her head, and stepped back out into the loft with her toothbrush in her mouth.
James slipped past her into the bathroom, closed the door, and turned the fan on. Double ugh. Whatever, she was finished in there anyway. She towel-dried her hair and body, sprayed herself down with the sea water bottle, then applied a heavy coat of children’s SPF 50+ sunblock.
She turned on the light in her closet and searched for the easiest thing she owned, a black silk T-shirt dress from Reformation that everyone constantly mistook for Dries Van Noten. It always looked good, no matter how wrecked she was in the face, and it was appropriate for any situation. Cat moved like a robot in high gear, automatically pulling on her dress, smearing a heavy-coverage cream from Korea all over her skin before lightly applying a swipe of mascara, a coat of clear lip balm, and braiding her hair in an inside-out Mohawk plait. She tried on a resin bead necklace, but the weight suffocated her. No necklaces today, she decided. No bracelets. She turned to a shelf of ceramic ring pyramids, pulled off a dozen gold bands of different sizes, and layered them on between the joints on all her fingers. Good enough.
For eyeglasses she chose a pair of thick, square tortoiseshell Tom Ford frames to distract from her face, applying Visine drops to the redness in her eyes. She found her bag hanging neatly on a hook near her front door. It was 9:50. James was still in the bathroom. She called out to him.
“James, I have to go to work.”
His voice was easy to hear through the bathroom’s cheap hollow-core door. “Okay, one minute,” he said awkwardly.
She checked her phone. Still no text back from Hutton. Cat shut down the air-conditioning, and the air in the loft grew still. The sunbeams coming through the lead-cased windowpanes cast a tic-tac-toe grid onto her floor. She pictured ghost versions of the nine drinks she’d had the night before popping up in the sunbeam grid, like Hollywood Squares. The nine beers and shots sang to the tune of the Golden Girls theme song: Thank you for being a friend, we traveled down your throat and back again, your liver is true, it’s a pal and a confidante. Little bags of cocaine sprinkled their fine-grain snow on top.
“Cigarettes, phone, wallet, metro card, keys,” she said aloud, gathering the items from the apartment. The toilet flushed as she pulled her driver’s license out of last night’s jeans pocket. Finally.
James opened the bathroom door and sauntered proudly out into the loft. He wrapped his arms around Cat’s body. She gave him a friendly pat on the ba
ck, her torso rigid. “Okay, babe,” she chided. “Where’s your shirt? I’m so fucking late.”
“Oh shit, you really are dressed,” he said, frowning, strolling back to the bed and slowly rolling his T-shirt back on. He tried to wrap her in a hug again, but she was already holding the door. She ran down the graffitied cement stairwell and out the front door onto Moore Street. He followed her and grabbed her hands, attempting to pull her into a kiss. Cat pecked him on the cheek and squirmed out of his embrace. As she flew down the block toward the L train, she yelled, “I’ll call you later!”
They both knew she was lying. James sighed and shrugged his shoulders, then ambled toward the coffee shop on the corner to see who was around. After all: it was still technically his after-hours.
Whig Beaton Molton-Mauve Lucas stood on the wooden dock at the Seventy-Ninth Street Boat Basin, sipping her morning coffee and waving good-bye to her daughters. As the pair of towheaded girls hung precariously off the back of their father’s catamaran, Lou prayed that their life jackets would keep them safe all the way to Montauk. They’d be there for three whole weeks, during which time Lou planned to completely throw herself into work. She hoped they wouldn’t be lonely—she knew logically that they wouldn’t be, but she always worried about them anyway, perhaps never more acutely than when she watched them disappear with their father into the world’s vast oceans.
The girls faded into little pink specks. When she was certain they could no longer make her out, Lou stopped waving and turned to climb back up the hill into Riverside Park.
The sun was already beating down on her legs, bare and tanned beneath a pair of slightly oversized ivory crepe Bermuda shorts. By the time she scooted into the driver’s seat of her customized electric Porsche Panamera, she had forgotten her worries, and she sped recklessly down Broadway, narrowly dodging pedestrians as she hit green after green. When she pulled into the service entrance of Cooper House and threw the car into park, an attendant opened her door and helped her out. Lou never parked her own car; it was too stressful.
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