I texted my group chat with Georgie and Lydia:
BABES
Today 8:14 AM
did you guys see Ezra’s Instagram post last night?
I asked in case only I could see it, and Ezra was dead, and he was stretching out towards me, confused in the afterlife, the way Miguel had via text messages. Instagram has a messenger, if he was dead I could still communicate with Ezra, and if only I could see the post then I could play off my text to Georgie and Lydia, I could say I was still drunk when I woke up. I remembered that if Ezra was dead and Instagramming, Nozlee probably would be able to see it too, and they could sext behind my back for the rest of Nozlee’s life.
I noticed, in the corner of my screen, a red circle indicating someone had DM’d me through the Instagram messenger. I clicked and at the top of my messages feed I saw the unread one, bolded, from someone with the username ParisInThePM. I clicked on the feed and read:
PARISINTHEPM
Hey I don’t know if you remember me, this is Paris Montgomery, I used to date your friend Ezra.
I saw that post of the Rams can.
Was that outside the house I’m selling? You would’ve seen my sign in the yard.
This is super weird but if I’m right can you text me? 818-976-4545
I’m worried about Ezra.
Anxiety and nausea are a nasty pair, together they make the mind swim and the body move without considering the situation or consequences. I texted Paris back feverishly.
818-976-4545
hey this is Eve
i’m worried about Ezra too
what’s going on
I watched the phone for long seconds, but response bubbles didn’t appear right away, so I let it go dark and dropped it to the bed. I turned on my side, drowsy finally, probably from the mental exertion of the anxiety rush, and stared at my dark phone. It didn’t light up, and I felt myself drifting.
Saturday, 12:49 p.m.
818-976-4545
hey this is Eve
i’m worried about Ezra too
what’s going on
Today 8:55 AM
Can you meet me up later?
I woke up slow and ragged, but the spins had stopped and my hangover was all but gone. The blood was hot and fresh in my head. My text message inbox was ripe and full like a fruit tree, some lemons still hanging, others gone splat on the lawn and jagged sidewalk.
[818-976-4545]
what’s going on
Today 8:55 AM
Can you meet me up later?
sorry I fell asleep, when can you meet up?
BABES
did you guys see Ezra’s Instagram post last night?
Georgie:
I saw it
Cute for Miggy, but he still didn’t text you back, I take it? That’s so fucked up.
Lydia:
i admit i assumed you were making a mountain out of a molehill yesterday when you said something was going on with Ezra, but obviously he’s okay and obviously not texting you. i’m sorry i was skeptical, and i’m so sorry he’s being a dick, especially this weekend.
Lydia was texting long and with no caps, so she must’ve been typing from her computer, probably from bed, probably updating her still-popular Tumblr with pictures of her body in various flattering outfits, inspiration for her still-fervent followers, equal parts thirsty men and other stylish plus-sized women. I imagined her swathed in her striped Mexican blankets; it was a comfort to imagine myself next to her, curled up in her colorful bedroom, her rubbing my back like my mother used to do when I was sick, like Lydia had done after so many breakups. When a friend had been wronged, she was a natural soother, and I liked to be swaddled and soothed when wronged; this was one of the ways that she and I fit together.
BABES
Lydia:
i admit i assumed you were making a mountain out of a molehill yesterday when you said something was going on with Ezra, but obviously he’s okay and obviously not texting you. i’m sorry i was skeptical, and i’m so sorry he’s being a dick, especially this weekend.
Lydia:
so while i was right that he isn’t hurt or dying anywhere, something is going on.
thanks Lydia
my feelings are hurt
Georgie:
Are you going to confront him?
if i can find him!!
Lydia:
he’ll be in Palm Springs with all of us on sunday right?? why not just wait and confront him then, or monday morning?
i appreciate the sentiment but I need to talk to him before sunday
he’s not some random asshole
he’s my best friend
he got broken up with exactly one year after our other best friend passed away
and now he’s not answering me
As I was typing my next text to the group chat, the text notification bubble popped up at the top of my screen, something from Miggy. In case it was important, I stopped typing and clicked the bubble to read the message from Migs.
Miggy
Weed or cigarette?
Not like it matters
whichever, anything
“Passed away”—that’s a pleasant euphemism
that isn’t euphemistic
you did die
I typed, “I just didn’t want to say the words ‘committed suicide’ right then,” then deleted that text. But Miggy, a ghost, still saw it.
Miggy
that isn’t euphemistic
you did die
It’s not an easy thing to say
But it IS the thing
sorry
you know how i get
Scared.
i’m not scared
i’m just…
Euphemistic
Mea culpa
I switched back to my group text, where neither Georgie nor Lydia had responded, perhaps because they had seen my typing ellipsis bubble earlier, and they were giving some space for my next texts to come in.
BABES
he got broken up with exactly one year after our other best friend passed away
and now he’s not answering me
even if he’s physically okay, there could be something really emotionally wrong with him right now
Lydia:
and if there isn’t?
if he just needs space?
if you need space, become an astronaut, don’t be friends with me
I waited there, in that chat window, for something to happen. For the ellipsis bubble to appear, for Lydia to comfort me, for Georgie to comfort me, but nothing happened; the vibrant thing in my hand went inert. The blocks of text, gray and blue, were ordered neatly now, and I thought of them calcifying into bone, the bone manifesting muscle and blood, the muscle and blood necessitating skin. What would my texts look like if they grew a body? Would that body look tall and messy like mine? Or would the body look like someone I fixated on, like Ezra when he was mad, his mouth parted to express is instinctual disbelief that anyone would do anything he didn’t like? Or Nozlee, even, the lines of her long fingers, the curve of her breasts in a stretchy top that made them look as buoyant as buoys, scowling at me from across brunch tables all across Los Angeles when I had to count on my fingers to calculate a tip? Why did I imagine my texts in the bodies of my friends when they were at their most annoyed?
Miggy
i’m just…
Euphemistic
Mea culpa
This is all kinda fucked up, isn’t it?
fuck
ed up how?
Shouldn’t you give your friend space if that’s what he wants?
maybe if he asked for space, he’d get it
I love you so much, but you know that’s never been your vibe
You don’t like to let something percolate
You are frantic to get rid of any bad feeling
speak for yourself
Okay we’re the same
But that doesn’t mean that you’re not going down a bad road right now
Texting Miggy back would only give him more permission to say rough things to me; it was okay to like closeness, to be suspicious of space, in the right context. Anything stripped of context would sound pathological, and it was annoying for him to throw my normal reactions in my face and twist them so they seemed problematic. I closed my message box and went in search of other notifications that needed my attention. My phone’s apps were speckled with red circles adorning their upper-right-hand corners, each circle filled with white numbers: fifteen on Twitter for something clever I’d written drunkenly and promptly forgot; an alarming fifty-six on useless Facebook (why didn’t I have the wherewithal to delete my account or at least remove the app from my phone?); a reasonable ten on Gmail, probably all spam from online clothing stores I bought from once and now pursuing me probably forever and ever with their desperate newsletters: “Half off everything. Seriously.” “These boots will change EVERYTHING.” “Your make-an-entrance dress is here.” “The softest t-shirt ever! Try it for free!!” Despite the thirsty and impersonal subject headings obviously awaiting me, I opened Gmail first, craving the satisfaction of swiftly deleting and decluttering. I found the expected solicitations, but nestled between them was a personal email, and I thought maybe I read it wrong as I scrolled, but no, there it was, an email from Nozlee. Subject heading: Please Don’t Immediately Delete.
I very much wanted to immediately delete. Nozlee couldn’t offer me absolution, just complication. To read the email would be agreeing to allow her perspective to influence mine, and I didn’t want to feel empathy for her. I wanted to prioritize my own terrible emotions.
But the subject heading was so indicative of our intimacy, she knew me to my bones, and I felt the pull of our attachment. Delicately, I clicked.
Hi Eve,
I’m writing to you from Desert Hot Springs, and it won’t cool down even though it’s the middle of the night. I’m typing this on my phone, I’m lying in the dark directly under an air conditioning vent.
I was so hurt when you, especially you, immediately dismissed me after I broke up with Ezra. I know how close you guys are, and how much his friendship means to you, but we are friends too. You are basically my best friend, and I love you, and I’ve been figuring some things out in my life that directly relate to our friendship, that directly relate to why I broke up with Ezra. I knew you’d feel betrayed, but I thought I’d at least be able to have a conversation with you. I deserve that conversation. But because it seems like you obviously won’t give it to me, and because you’ve obviously blocked my cell phone number, I’m going to tell you everything in this email where you can’t avoid it, I won’t let you avoid it like you avoid everything else you—
On protective reflex, I quickly clicked the Trash icon at the top of the screen and got Nozlee’s presumptive bullshit out of my face. Nozlee knew what it would take to get me to open an email, but she didn’t know what it would take to get me to keep reading one; I could avoid whatever the fuck I wanted. I wasn’t required to be confronted by anything I didn’t want to know; I didn’t have to sit with any feelings I didn’t want to sit with.
The email wasn’t completely gone, of course, it was lingering ghost-like in my Trash folder. As I navigated to the Trash folder in my sidebar, before I could permanently delete the email, a text notification popped up at the top of my screen. Paris.
818-976-4545
Today 8:55 AM
Can you meet me up later?
Today 1:17 PM
sorry I fell asleep, when can you meet up?
I can meet you now if you want?
We texted back and forth to coordinate time and location. I needed a little time, I had to shower, I had to walk back to Daniel’s to retrieve my car. Unfortunately, Paris lived in downtown Los Angeles, where parking was impossible and everything smelled like New York City. I suggested Clifton’s Cafeteria, before she could insist on some lesser institution. It was an old bar, full of ghosts, and I’d have to snort some Cascarilla to be steady in there; even though I’d promised Miggy I wouldn’t, I didn’t want to deal with him pushing on me so much.
As we texted, I puttered around my bungalow, getting my shit together; I opened the curtains, I took two Walgreens-brand ibuprofen over the sink with water straight from the tap, wincing at the taste of LA’s ratty swamp water. I threw on my summer jeans with the holes in them and a shirt that one of Bea’s creative, intimidating friends hand-printed; I rolled the sleeves. I noticed that I’d left my lavender candle burning all night, without even putting an intention on it, and it was now gone, burned down to the aluminum bottom of the wick, the glass bottom of the candle holder scorched, and with my nice candle all gone my entire apartment should’ve smelled like a lavender bush, but it didn’t. Or maybe it did, but I’d been inside the smell so long that lavender air read as normal in my brain. Either way, it felt like I’d lost something, no more candle, and no smell to savor.
Behind the scorched glass thing that used to hold my candle, I’d left a small ziplock baggie full of white powder, labeled with Sharpie: C for Cascarilla. I couldn’t remember why I’d bothered to label it, I’d never confuse it with cocaine because I purchased that in much smaller quantities. I picked up the bag, I rubbed at the thin plastic, the C wasn’t in my handwriting. I remembered that Noz had dropped off the bag for me a couple of weeks ago. She’d started grinding her own eggshells like I did, she’d wanted me to test out their effectiveness; I’d forgotten about the task. I didn’t care about completing it now, but I wasn’t picky about the materials I was going to use to blank out, to be alone in my head and as empty as I wanted. I grabbed for my phone.
Miggy
Okay we’re the same
But that doesn’t mean that you’re not going down a bad road right now
i miss you so much
i don’t know what to do about anything
i wish i could take the cascarilla and get rid of all the ghosts except you
i’ll text you when i’m on the other side
Seriously Eve?? You’re going to shut me out AGAIN? You promised you wouldn’t do any at all this weekend, and now you’re going back for another round? Isn’t this supposed to be my fucking weekend?
you don’t own this weekend just because you decided to die on it
That’s so fucking rude.
I never call you out on your bad patterns, and I thought we’d get to spend this weekend at least a little bit together, and all you’ve done is snort ghost-blocker drugs and freak out about Ezra.
I threw my phone away from me, onto my bed, so that I don’t have to feel guilty anymore. Off the top of my bookcase, I pulled down the coaster I’d stolen from an Airbnb in Rosarito during our Mexico vacation, a single Mexican tile, deep blue background patterned with orange and yellow flowers, slick and perfect for doing lines. I brought it to my bed where I sprawled next to it and poured a bit of the Cascarilla onto the tile. As I was arranging two lines with the side of my credit card, my phone lit up, a phone call from Noz. The fucking nerve. If that bitch wanted me, she would get me.
I swiped to answer the call, I turned on speakerphone. “What the hell, Nozlee?” I said, continuing to arrange my lines.
“Miggy texted,” she whispered. Who was she trying to keep from overhearing? She’d probably gone to the desert with on
e of her Shahs of Sunset–style friends, the Iranian Jews she ran with, friends she kept neatly apart from her Eastside white writer friends. “He said you’re about to snort a boatload of Cascarilla. I thought you promised not to do any this weekend?”
“Firstly, I’m taking a tiny bump for practicality, because I have to meet someone at Clifton’s and you know that place is crawling with the desperate ghosts of dead actors.”
Noz started to respond, but I cut her off; I had the upper hand because she couldn’t shout. “Secondly! You lost the right to comment on my lifestyle choices when you broke Ezra’s heart for no good reason.”
U UP? Page 14
