by Haley Pearce
Resolved to shake off the negativity that was descending upon me once again, I turned the shower on, as hot as I could. I turned to look in the bathroom mirror as it slowly steamed up. Off came my worn-out sweats, and my baby blue sports bra that I’d had since freshman year. I appraised my body in the foggy mirror. Stressing out over this interview had done wonders for my fitness regimen, that much was for sure. I hadn’t looked so good in years. I’d never been a nymphette stick figure in my life, not even when I was a little girl. I was slim, sure, but never skinny. I never gave the fact of it too much thought. My body had always been healthy, and had always done the things I needed it to do. That was quite enough for me.
I pulled my long ash blonde hair back away from my face. It was longer than I usually kept it, for lack of time to get a haircut. Still, it felt nice to run my fingers through the length of it. I frowned at the slight dark circles looming under my brown eyes. There was nothing to be done but soldier on, though. I stepped into the hot spray of the shower and lathered up. No sooner had I sunk into the delightful embrace of the steaming water than a persistent knock began at the bathroom door.
“I’m in the shower,” I called over the stream. I had only been in there for a few minutes, no way was I forking my spot over yet. But the knock went on, louder and quicker this time. “I’ll be out in a few minutes!” I called again, and for a moment the knocking ceased. Instead, the door flew open with a gust of cool air.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” cried a voice from beyond the shower curtain. “I overslept, and my audition’s in, like, half an hour!”
I poked my head out into the bedroom, wrangling the scowl off my face. Ashlee, my second roommate, was rummaging around under the sink, hauling out hair devices and cosmetics like they were her last defense against the apocalypse. Ashlee had been the third roommate in our undergrad dorm room, and had made the jump with Dara and I when we’d decided to take on the city after graduation. She was an old school triple threat—an actor, singer, and dancer. Ashlee had dominated our undergraduate drama program and been accepted into NYU’s graduate acting program. She booked work all around the city at a seemingly unrelenting clip. I was thrilled that she was finding so much success in the field she loved, and she deserved every single ounce of the success. But her unpredictable schedule did, at times, lead to some domestic snags. Like this moment, for example.
“Shit!” Ashlee said, digging through her piles of beauty supplies, “Where the hell is my lipstick?”
“Um...” I said, pointing the five lipstick containers currently lining the bathroom sink.”
“No,” she sighed, “My good lipstick.”
I shrugged and retreated behind the curtain. I loved Ashlee dearly, and she was by far my most loyal and constant friend. But if you’re trying to keep stress out of your day in preparation for a big interview, talking with an actor is not the best way to go. As I kneaded shampoo through my hair, Ashlee peeked through the shower curtain, grinning sheepishly.
“Sorry Madison,” she said, “I forgot to wish you good luck with your interview.”
I smiled back at her, all forgiven as ever, “You too. With your audition, I mean. What’s it for?”
“Some web series,” she said, “I can hardly keep them all straight.”
“Not the web series you were telling me about yesterday,” I said, “The one with the creepy sexual deviant of a director?”
“That’s the one!” Ashlee said.
“Why would you go to the audition knowing that?” I asked.
Ashlee rolled her eyes playfully, tucking her short platinum blonde hair behind her ear. “Maddie, if I ruled out every audition that had a sketchy director attached to it, I’d never work again. Nor would anyone, I might add. You learn how to deal with it, you know? There are strategies.”
“Like what?” I asked, rinsing out my hair.
“Like today, I’m going to bring Kyle to pretend to be my boyfriend. That way no one will hit on me. Not outright, anyway.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Kyle?” I asked, “Do you really think Kyle could intimidate someone out of doing anything?”
“He scared off that one guy who was giving you trouble at the end of senior year,” Ashlee pointed out.
“That one guy was a twerpy little freshman recovering from mono.”
“Fair point. Anywhere, he’ll be here any—”
The front door buzzer grated through the air of the apartment, and Ashlee ran to let Kyle in. I could hear him bounding up the steps in his typical fashion. Kyle had lived on our floor all through undergrad, and had become our official Guy Friend. He was the one who hung around with us, listened to our romantic dilemmas, and never once made a move. It was pretty much common knowledge that he had been harboring a crush on me since freshman year, and he would be the first to admit it. It was something of a running joke in our little foursome.
I heard the front door swing open and Kyle’s grumpy greeting. It was clearly too early in the morning to have roused him.
“Hey Kyle!” I called from the bathroom. I turned off the water and wrapped a towel around myself just as he poked his head through the doorway. He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at my scantily clad body, and I tossed a loofa playfully at his head. Kyle was a charming guy, when he wanted to be. He’d arrived at undergrad as a total emo kid, all black clothing and gloomy disposition. Over the years, he had definitely grown up; now, he was that cool alternative guy at the party that knew all the best bands before you did, where you could find the best dark and stormy in Manhattan, all that stuff. He was not only one of the best guy friends I had ever had in my life, he was one of my best friends, period.
“Making your acting debut today, huh?” I asked, brushing my hair out of my face. “Be sure to remember the little people when you get your big break.”
“I’ll be sure to thank you in my Oscar speech,” Kyle said, leaning against the door frame. “You ready for the interview?”
“Ready and absolutely beside myself with nerves,” I responded honestly. There was no hiding anything from Kyle, anyway. After all these years, he could read me like a book.”
“You’re gonna kill it,” he said. I smiled, because I believed him—Kyle didn’t bullshit. “You wanna meet up for a drink, afterwards?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said, “I’ll either need something to celebrate with or something with which to drown my sorrows, right?”
“Atta girl,” he said, “How about that place on Eldridge? With all the taxidermy stuff?”
“Ugh,” I said, knowing he was just trying to get under my skin, “How about somewhere without dead animals hanging all over the walls?”
“Fine,” he grumbled, “Our usual spot, then.”
“Our usual spot.”
A red-nailed hand closed down hard on Kyle’s upper arm, and Ashlee appeared at his side, dolled-up and ready to go. She was absolutely stunning in a way that was both unique and conventional. I’d gotten very used to men staring at Ashlee when we walked down the street together, and it never bothered me. As liberal as I considered myself to be, sexual attention always kind of threw me off. Perhaps I was just old fashioned, but could anything good really have come from lust without a deeper admiration, or even affection? My sexual history was scant, to say the least. I’d slept with exactly one man—boy—in my entire life. Ashlee seemed to go through one every six months, and Dara had a new one every Saturday night, at least. I’d long since quit apologizing for my lack of sexual experience. If we as modern women were allowed to sleep with whoever we wanted whenever we wanted, that still covered no one and never.
“We need to go,” Ashlee chirped, bouncing on her heels.
“OK, babe,” Kyle crooned, adopting the sappiest frat bro-esque voice he could muster. Ashlee and I responded with hearty barfing noises.
“Just stick to the script I gave you,” Ashlee said.
“There’s a script?” I asked.
“Of course,” Ashlee said, pulling Kyle ba
ck toward the front door, “I’m a professional.”
“See you later, Maddie,” Kyle called, “Good luck!”
“Break a leg!” Ashlee added.
“Thanks!” I called as the door slammed shut.
I hurried to apply my makeup and arrange my hair into some approximation of an up-do. Corelli was an established firm that managed to stay ahead of the times. My look had to be a perfect cross of classic and contemporary, the past and the future. For someone whose shoe collection consisted of one pair of stilettos from Payless, this was not exactly an easy note to strike. I had labored over my interview ensemble for weeks, ultimately choosing a dress that would have made Brigitte Bardot proud. The internship I was interviewing for was in France, after all—Paris. I thought I could afford to be a little fancy about my outfit. I wasn’t going to walk in there with a cigarette and white gloves, of course, but a little allusion to Paris couldn’t hurt.
Dara and Bryan/Ryan were taking their good sweet time in her bedroom. Their good, sweet, and loud time. As I put the finishing touches on my outfit, Dara’s moaning became something akin to a keen. They must have thought I’d left with Ashlee and Kyle. For all her promiscuity, Dara was still a conscientious roommate when it came to having sex in the apartment. She was never loud or obtrusive when we were around or awake, though there was one time when our kitchen cabinet door got ripped clean off its hinges after one of her beaus had stopped by. We had since instituted the No Sex in the Kitchen rule, just for the sake of cleanliness.
I crept toward the door as love sounds filled the apartment. For all my reluctance to jump in the sack with any old guy, I couldn’t deny that I was intrigued about the whole thing. The one guy I’d slept with was my college boyfriend, Marc. He lived on the floor above me, and after we made eyes a couple of times in the dining hall, he asked me out. I never had a boyfriend before Marc, so when we made it exclusive, I was pretty unprepared for the whole thing. I hadn’t expected to jump right to sleeping together, though looking back, it seemed a bit naive not to. I really enjoyed Marc’s company, and had been perfectly content to lose my virginity to him. That was, of course, before I learned that he was sleeping with some senior from the poetry department who “elevated his thinking”. I was a marketing major. Apparently the only thing I could elevate was sales.
Even once we started sleeping together, I hadn’t been very inspired by Marc as a lover. He’d been attentive at first, knowing that I was new, but I was so skittish and guarded during all of it that I hadn’t even gotten off. Not once. We tended to see to Marc’s orgasms over mine, as a rule. And while I’d never been pressured into doing anything I was opposed to, sex with Marc just hadn’t been that interesting. How could sex that bland exist in a world where Dara seemed to get her mind (and other parts)blown every other night? It was a mystery to me.
I slipped soundlessly out of the apartment and hurried down the stairs. My talking points raced through my head on an endless loop. I prayed to every god I could think of that my interview would go well. I’d been dreaming about this internship for what felt like eons; the chance to spend a summer in Paris would be singularly incredible. I’d never even been away from the East Coast in my life—a European adventure was almost beyond the reach of my imagination. But more than just the cafe’s and gardens, I was also eager to get my foot in the door of the international marketing world. I knew that I was the right girl for the job, if they’d have me. Please, I prayed, please let them have me.
My heels clicked against the sidewalk as I made my way to the subway. The whistles and stares I attracted caught me off guard, and I tried to take them in stride. For the first time, I didn’t feel like a little girl playing dress-up. I felt like a woman with direction, and drive, and places to be. As the subway rolled up to the station, I finally felt like I could truly nail my interview. Nothing could disturb my focus.
* * * * *
Chapter Two
* * * * *
The subway doors slid open and I stepped into the nearest car. The day was still so young that rush hour hadn’t yet taken hold of the city’s public transportation. I lived within walking distance of NYU’s campus, and didn’t have to take the subway on a daily basis. Being whisked up to my interview, even by something so unglamorous as the F train, was exciting, in its way. I was still getting used to life in New York, even a year later. West Chester was about as close to Podunk as you could get on the East Coast, so transitioning to big city life had been something of a challenge.
Thankfully, I hadn’t made the leap alone. Dara, Ashlee and I had been scheming about moving to New York since the day we started undergrad. The move was a no-brainer for Ashlee, who needed to be in the city for her career. And it was a given that Dara would lead a cosmopolitan lifestyle after graduation, whether it was on her dime or her parents’. I was the wildcard in our New York scenario. I didn’t have the connections or financial means to stroll into any lease I wanted. My first four years of college had been supported by my bulletproof GPA and scores of extracurriculars, but after graduation I had no safety net. The three of us had nearly wet ourselves with excitement the week that Ashlee and I received our acceptance letters from NYU. Both of our programs, acting and international marketing, were among the best in the country. But more important than prestige was the fact that we’d all get to stick together through the next chapter of our lives.
Kyle had followed us into the city almost on a whim. He had never been fond of being traditional, and that held for his career as well. The idea of an office job or internship was anathema to Kyle, so from the very beginning of undergrad he’d been building up his status as a freelancer. By the time we graduated, he was already landing great freelance graphic design jobs from small start-ups and companies in the city. He could work remotely from anywhere, but he chose to put himself in the middle of the action with us. We all teased him for tagging along, but professionally, he was ahead of us by leaps and bounds. Kyle was constantly encouraging me to shrug off my marketing focus and embrace the freelance lifestyle.
“You’re feeding into the same system that keeps your family down,” he had once said. “These big marketing firms only serve to make the rich richer.”
“Capitalism didn’t keep my family down,” I’d snapped at him, “Alcohol and my father’s penchant for jail bait did.”
That shut him up, but I could tell that he still disapproved of my career path. To Kyle, and many of our young friends who found themselves incensed about the wealth inequality in the country, my field was disgusting. They couldn’t see past the fact that marketing deals with sales, economy, trends. They couldn’t understand why I wanted international marketing to be my life. From the first few classes I’d taken on the subject, I had been fascinated by the way marketing moved ideas between companies, communities, and countries. That was what I wanted to be a part of for the rest of my life; that perpetual exchange of inspiration, experience, and innovation. I couldn’t care less about making “the big bucks” or fancy titles. I just wanted to be a part of it all.
The F train lumbered to a stop, and most of the passengers rose to leave. As the wave of exiting people flowed out of the train doors, I heard a raised voice among the crowd. Loud, persistent noises were rather commonplace in the city, and I’d learned to ignore them for the most part. As I was digging my interview notes out of my purse, the yelling voice continued to blather on, coming closer and closer to my car. I peered up from my notes and felt my stomach tighten just a hair.
There was a man making his way through the subway station, staggering through the thick crowd with no qualms about running into other passengers. He was nearing middle age, with a mop of greasy brown tangles atop his head and a broad barrel chest. His clothing was threadbare and stained, his face was flushed, and his eyes were glazed over. I could tell by the way he stumbled that he had been drinking, though it was still well before noon. As ashamed as I was to admit it, I couldn’t help but be scornful toward drunks. Obviously, this man’s situa
tion was nothing like what my father’s had been, but the relation was too strong. For the rest of my life, I’d associate drunkenness with weakness of character, with unchecked and dangerous disregard for anyone else. I didn’t know who the subway drunk was, to be sure, but his drunken behavior was enough for me to be wary of him.
To my horror, the man swung into my subway car just as the doors were closing. I dropped my gaze instantly, lest he notice some disdain in my eyes. Grumbling loudly to himself, the drunk fell into a plastic seat opposite me. An unmistakable odor assaulted my nostrils when he sat down—I could smell the booze on him. I would know that smell anywhere. It was the same stink that had clung to my father’s breath most nights, and I couldn’t help but gag on it there in the subway. The drunk across from me reached into the front of his jacket, and for one crazed moment I thought that he was going to pull a gun out. But instead, he extracted a half-empty bottle of vodka and took a mighty pull, smacking his lips against the glass.
I stared down at my notes, though there was no hope in concentrating any longer. The man was mumbling things to himself, occasionally raising his voice to a shout. The handful of other passengers on the train paid the man no mind, though I did see one mother with a young son move incrementally further away from him. It always amazed me how New Yorkers could just turn a blind eye. Once, I’d been in the subway when a young woman had gotten mugged right in front of the entire train. She struggled to hold onto her purse for a good minute before the mugger wrenched it away, and in that time not a single person stepped forward to help her. Not one. On the streets above, the homeless set up their makeshift homes on every other street corner. One morning, I had left my apartment and found a man sleeping over a subway grate in the dead of winter, to soak up the heat from the tunnel. There were many things to love about living in New York, but I hadn’t been there long enough to be able to look away when someone was in trouble.
