The Roxy Letters

by Mary Pauline Lowry

  “Ugh,” I said. “A pun is worse than a pussy.”

  “I’ll say,” he agreed.

  While I wanted to get the last word in, right then I was overcome by a sneeze storm. With Charlize in my arms, I was hard-pressed to contain my sneeze juice, which Texas gracefully sidestepped. I could practically feel his suppressed laughter as I sneezed through the dog gate to the exam room.

  I blame you, Everett, for my lack of a final retort, as you are the virus monkey who brought this cold to our house. Thanks to you, my natural wit was buried under an avalanche of disgusting sneezes. I’m not sure yet what you can do to repay me on your return from San Antonio, but it will likely involve a pint of vegan gelato and a (purely platonic!) foot rub.

  Snottily,

  Roxy

  P.S. Charlize Theron has a respiratory infection and needs to be force-fed a horse pill every morning. So perhaps your efforts to get back in my good graces could start there. The happy news is the vet tech expects a full—if not speedy—recovery.

  P.P.S. PATRICK JUST TEXTED ME! He noticed I haven’t been at work lately and got my number from Nelson! He just wanted to know if I’m okay! If I wasn’t a walking sneeze, I’d ask him what he’s up to for the Fourth. I’m beyond thrilled he’s thinking of me!

  July 5, 2012

  Dear Everett,

  Thank you for the rent—only five days late!—and for loaning me your copy of the brand-new Dear Sugar book to keep me occupied until this head cold recedes! (You’re the only man I’ve ever met who loves Cheryl Strayed’s compassionate and inspiring advice as much as I do!) Today as I lay on the couch, reading and sipping beer to ease my sore throat, Dear Sugar’s exhortation that “the best thing you can possibly do with your life is to tackle the motherfucking shit out of it” reminded me that the thing I most want to tackle (to the ground) is the new Lululemon. As Dear Sugar encouraged me (and all her readers) to get “unstuck,” I began to ponder my lack of direction and general sense of malaise. Perhaps the answer lies in my righteous anger! Perhaps my Great Work just might be to rid the intersection of Sixth Street and Lamar Boulevard of that corporate-as-fuck Lululemon and return it to a local business in tune with the funky nature of Austin!

  That’s when I remembered today was the grand opening of the Lululemon! As I felt the symptoms of my cold finally lift, I decided to follow Dear Sugar’s advice. I would get off the couch! I would get unstuck like a motherfucker and go survey my enemy—so I pedaled down to the Lululemon, locked up my bike, and went inside. I was going to try on a pair of those stupid tights, a recon mission. (To sabotage a place, first you must know it well.) So I picked out a pair of capri tights and headed to the dressing rooms. Once I had them on, I turned around to look in the mirror and my breath caught in my throat at the sight before me. My ass has never looked so incredible.

  I was like: “Damn, girl.”

  A voice trilled through the dressing room curtain: “Do you need anything? Another size?”

  “I need fresh eyes to admire this ass of a vixen,” I said, pulling the curtain aside with a flourish.

  For a split second, my mind struggled to connect the familiar face of the saleswoman with the trauma I had so recently endured. But within a moment I knew she was the redhead who’d caused all the recent drama in my life. I’d like to chalk up running into her in such a way to the trickster interventions of a certain goddess (Hecate), but Lululemon and Whole Foods sit catty-cornered from each other and I’m sure all the Lulu employees saunter across the street to Whole Foods for their lunch breaks.

  “What’s up, Crumb Cake?” I said. Her face registered recognition as well. But it was hard to read what else was in her expression. Curiosity? Excitement? Disdain?

  “My name is Artemis.”

  “Well, Artemis, I guess it’s my turn to assault you at work.”

  She rolled her eyes and said in the fakest voice imaginable, “Those are so flattering on you. A perfect fit.” She paused for a moment, and then spoke in a normal voice. “That’s the thing about this place. You want to hate it because of its pseudofeminist messaging and ridiculous prices, but the clothes look so damn good. Those are actually great on you.”

  “I was just thinking the same thing!” I said, before I remembered she was supposed to be my enemy. I couldn’t help but picture how she’d paused at the exit of Whole Foods to give me that conspiratorial wave, as if somehow we were both in on some great cosmic joke. “Why do you even work here?”

  “I started at the Lulu in Barton Creek Mall about a month ago. But this new store is a better location.”

  “No, I mean, why do you work at a Lululemon at all?”

  “I get to tell women they look beautiful all day, which in this society is revolutionary in and of itself. And I get a crazy discount on clothes for one of my alter egos.”

  “Alter egos?” I asked. I glanced at her bare left hand—the cherry-tomato-sized diamond had left the scene.

  She saw my gaze. “Oh, I’m actually not married,” she said.

  Now I was really intrigued. “Then why were you wearing that gargantuan engagement ring?” I asked. “Please explain.”

  She leaned in, lowering her voice. “I wear a fake ring and full Lulu when I go to Whole Foods so I can be my trophy wife alter ego! As a trophy wife, it’s so much easier to get hot guys that work there to bang me in the parking lot. Okay, I admit it—I’ve only been sleeping with two cashiers lately. But I swear every male Whole Foods employee is hot for trophy wife.”

  Everett, I’ve been crushing on Patrick in Beer Alley for MONTHS and haven’t gotten past idle coworker chitchat. Meanwhile, all this Queen has to do is stop in for a green juice and she’s consummating the deed before she leaves the premises. Clearly I’d misjudged her. “Really?” I said.

  “Yeah. I’m pretty sure ‘trophy wife’ is a top-five fetish for underemployed artist types.”

  “What are the other four?”

  “Debutantes and cheerleaders—I count those as one type since there’s so much overlap. Lead singers of all-girl punk rock bands. If the guys are white, then black girls with natural hair—I can’t pull off that one. And fixed-gear bike-riding girls with lots of memorial tats to their dead daddies—of course.”

  “Of course,” I murmured. I was too impressed to say anything else.

  “That last one’s not my strong suit either. May I ask—did you get fired? I mean, after the crumb cake incident?”

  “Nah, two weeks’ suspension. I mean, my boss fired me, but then I blackmailed him.” I didn’t want to admit to myself that I hoped she was impressed.

  “I did you a favor. You’re destined for greater things than that job.”

  I studied her. I had the bizarre, delightful, and slightly intoxicating sense she could really see me. “I hope you’re right about that.”

  “Oh, girl, I am. You’ll see.”

  “One thing: Why did you say ‘Mmmm, crumb cake’ when you ate that piece of tuna burger?”

  “When I’m trolling Whole Foods as my trophy wife alter ego, I go totally in character. You think a rich housewife so desperate for a hot lay that she’d fuck a Whole Foods cashier in the parking lot could stand her life if she was actually sensorily grounded in her body?”

  “Wow,” I said. I was stunned we’d had the exact same thought—it was as if we’d experienced some kind of intense (if limited) mind-meld.

  Artemis glanced at her watch. “My shift’s almost over. I have to head out to go teach my aerial dance class.”

  An aerial dance class sounds exciting! It made me realize I haven’t had the mojo to actually try anything new in months. I suddenly imagined Artemis as a gateway to adventure, to a wellspring of energy I haven’t been able to tap into of late. “Well, it was nice to meet you,” I said.

  “It went better this time, didn’t it?” She winked at me, and then she was gone.

  I changed out of the tights and biked off slowly, thinking about the strange encounter. When I got home, I found a pair o
f Lululemon shorts stuffed in the bottom of my backpack. And while I would give myself a gold star for stealing something out of that shit den, I didn’t take them. I wouldn’t be caught dead in public in them either (less because of brand disloyalty and more because the shorts don’t have the sculpting power of the tights), but I’m wearing them around the house right now because they remind me of my new Great Work.

  And I can’t seem to get Artemis out of my mind. Her sassiness, her alter ego, the fact that she has no trouble quenching her libidinous urges with real-live guys rather than a purple merman. I have a feeling she has much to teach me. It’s ironic the first woman I’ve wanted to befriend in ages works at a store I’m beginning to feel it’s my destiny to vanquish. But perhaps she could help me somehow in my quest to drive that stupid fucking store from that revered location. I’m sort of kicking myself I didn’t ask for her number!

  Everett, the more I think about it, the more I feel sure—I need Artemis (a.k.a. the Artist Formerly Known as Crumb Cake) to be my friend.

  Exhilaratedly yours,

  Roxy

  CHAPTER TWO

  July 6, 2012

  Dear Everett,

  Those fucking tweakers kept me up all night! They were on their patio, talking and blasting music—which I’m guessing you didn’t hear since you sleep like a darted elephant. I went outside at 2 a.m. and told them to shut the fuck up, which was met with a volley of “Ooooh! We are in troubles!” from the tweaker minions, and a resounding, “You shut up, cunt!” from Captain Tweaker.

  Afterward, I lay in bed wide awake with rage and did not sleep until dawn. This morning when I finally dragged myself from bed, you had already left the house without picking up the beer cans the tweakers lobbed into our backyard. Several tweakers were still partying on the patio, but Captain Tweaker was loudly leaning a ladder against the roof of his house. Once he was on the roof, he disappeared out of sight, so I ducked into your bedroom to see if I could see him better from your window. That’s when I noticed you’d left behind my backpack that you borrowed.

  I liberated it and inside I found—along with spare change, receipts for ThunderCloud Subs, and the other usual detritus that follows you everywhere—a box of blue medical gloves and a fifteen-minute lab timer.

  Everett! Why didn’t you tell me you are in school? I imagine you putting on your gloves and timing how fast it takes you to draw blood from your patient. Or maybe you are studying to be a vet tech? You are so good with the furballs. Their love for you is the reason you still have a roof over your head, and it makes cosmic sense that the benefits your love of animals brings to your life would expand to include a steady job. Or perhaps you are in school to be a vet acupuncturist and you have fifteen minutes to needle each animal? I cannot wait to grill you about this, but since you once again aren’t home (I swear we hang out less now than before you moved in!), I’m taking my pen to paper as I sip my morning coffee.

  “Who? What? When? Where? Why?” I demand. Tell me everything.

  But wait—perhaps you haven’t shared your return to school because you fear failure. You worry if I know of your aspirations and am rooting for you, it will become a sort of pressure that will inevitably create a block preventing you from doing your best work. You’ve told me about your brief stint at community college, how your mother’s high hopes and your abusive stepfather’s disdain percolated in your subconscious until you could not pull it together to drag yourself to class, much less complete your assignments. And when you received your grades, that row of Fs proved to you what you had always suspected about yourself.

  Don’t worry, Everett. I will never let you know how proud I am of you. I will root for you silently and with all the love a friend, former lover, and landlady can provide. I will not let on that I understand how hard you are working to improve yourself, your situation, your income, your life!

  But in my heart I know you are striving to overcome the abuse you have suffered, as well as the low self-esteem that arrived in its wake. And I will eagerly await the day you come home with a certificate or diploma from whatever trade school or technical program you are currently attending. Then together we will celebrate your victory over the deep darkness of the unconscious mind, that writhing octopus that seeks to wrap you in its tentacles and drag you down to the watery darkness. Until then, Everett, I am deeply and sympathetically,

  Your friend,

  Roxy

  P.S. After I found the backpack, I again peered out your bedroom window to see that all the tweakers had gone inside, leaving their idiotic leader, Captain Tweaker, alone on the roof, likely taping a brick of meth to the inside of his chimney. As the chimney did indeed block his view of both my house and his side yard, I ran outside and through the gate. I swiftly pulled his ladder from the roof and laid it on the ground before darting back inside. I then enjoyed my second cup of coffee while peeking out the blinds to watch him wailing, grinding his rotten teeth, and shaking his fist at the sky until his brethren emerged to once again raise the ladder so he could climb down. I also called 311 and reported that the meth heads next door are always cooking in that decaying van permanently parked in front of their house.

  P.P.S. Two hours have gone by and still no sign of the cops. In the worldview of the popos, white tweakers are clearly immune to the arm of the law.

  P.P.P.S. For a moment I slipped and left this letter for you on the kitchen table, but then remembered I must hide it—along with my new knowledge of your current schooling and ambitions—from you. I am therefore going to secret it away in the last place you’d ever look—my period underwear drawer.

  July 8, 2012

  Dear Everett,

  Since my new Dear Sugar–inspired philosophy is to “tackle the motherfucking shit” out of Lululemon, I decided I need to study my enemy with care. And so, since I’m still suspended from work and have nothing better to do, I rode my bike over to the corner of Sixth and Lamar to survey that crap store I am so eager to vanquish.

  Okay, okay, you always see through me. I was also just really curious about that girl goddess Artemis, huntress of men. It’s rare for me to meet a woman so intriguing. I cannot help it if I want to befriend her.

  I cruised the store, fingering workout tops and tights as if I were a Silk Road trader, until I glimpsed Artemis’s red ponytail. She came right toward me and said, in a delightfully fake voice that implied I was in on her joke, “May I help you today, miss? Perhaps you’d like to try our new Chase Me Onesie? It’s only $118.”

  “I was thinking the Lost in Pace skirt at $125 would be more my style,” I said. I managed to suppress my giggle, but a little snort escaped my nose.

  “The fact that you’ll look adorable in it will help you suffer through hot yoga and another day in the life of materialism that grips you like a vice,” Artemis said. “It’s what I tell all our regulars.” Everett, that grrrl has been reading my mail!

  “Since I’m still suspended from work, I’ve got more time than I know what to do with. So let me know if you’d ever wanna grab a coffee or a drink or whatever,” I said.

  I tried to sound casual, Everett, but I wasn’t breathing. You know when you asked me out the first time? And later you told me it was like your heart had stopped because you were so hopeful? I felt like that, but in a platonic friend sort of a way. Artemis just shrugged and said, “Maybe.”

  But she did give me her cell number—her last name is Starla, Artemis Starla—and I left the store on cloud nineteen!

  Floatingly,

  Roxy

  P.S. While I am leaving this letter on the kitchen table for you, I hope you come home tonight at a decent-enough hour for me to recount this story to you again in person!

  July 10, 2012

  Dear Everett,

  I’ve been meaning to get this off my (very sexy) chest for a while. While I am happy enough to have you living here—as long as you pay me rent—it’s important for you to know once and for all that I will not be getting back together with you. So
please stop making jokes about how great it will be when we finally realize we are meant for each other. And while I enjoy an occasional “You look pretty,” I feel the number of compliments you have been giving me recently exceeds that of a normal landlady/room-renter relationship.

  It’s true that I am eager to break the man-fast that has followed in the wake of my being unceremoniously dumped by Brant Bitterbrush, and have been enjoying your company immensely, but I do not think it’s a good idea for you and I to hook up again. The reason is not, as you claim, a difference in education or class, or that you don’t have a traditional career (or any career at all). Nor is it because you have an unlikely (and anachronistic) passion for heavy metal, or even because when we were dating and I tried to take you out for drinks with my college pals Yolanda, Rose, Kate, and Barclay, you always clammed up completely, morphing into what they perceived as a total dud. It’s more that as a couple we lack the kind of sexual chemistry we would need to sustain us through the vagaries of this world.

  Therefore, please take this letter as a heartening reminder that we are now platonic friends, and keep alive the hope that you will find someone who is a better match for you than I.

  Officially,

  Roxy

  P.S. I texted Artemis Starla and she has not texted me back!

  July 11, 2012

  Dear Everett,

  Now that I know you are off bettering yourself, I hardly notice when you aren’t home. Also, though your rent is almost two weeks late, I am choosing to hold my tongue, pregnant as I am with the knowledge of your efforts to improve your situation. So this letter, already full of secrets I must keep from you, is destined not for the kitchen table, but for a dark corner of my period underwear drawer, which tells no tales.

  It’s 8 p.m. and I’m having a much-needed mug of chilled red wine, purchased with my Whole Foods employee discount. Today was a weird one. I was back at work for the first time after my suspension and a little nervous Dirty Steve would be mad at me for the tiny but righteous blackmailing episode. However, he seemed to be taking it in stride (though when I tried to grill him about his brush with the law, he gave me a “talk to the hand” gesture).