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I tried different ways to spend my money—online gambling, shopping sprees—but it all felt a bit forced. I didn’t want or need more clothes; the only places I ever went, besides the club, were Trader Joe’s and the YMCA pool. I didn’t need knee-high boots or complicated athleisurewear to shop for chips. My one sartorial outlet was the lingerie I wore for work, the virginal teddies and psychedelic bikinis, schoolgirl skirts and short-lived stockings. There was a boutique in Daly City called Candyland where Dino and I would shop for lingerie together, Dino walking slowly as if in a botanical garden. Using my stripper cash to buy more stripper clothes felt like a mean joke, a glittery ouroboros. So I washed my old stockings in the kitchen sink and filled a coffee tin to the brim with balled ones.
lol
After our drink we made out in the park, next to a group of elders line-dancing to a dusty boom box. We faced away and got freaky. To the tune of Cher, he stuck his head under my T-shirt and gnawed on my nipples. Kids called us names from the playground. We didn’t care. It was after dark and the laws of the city had shifted. As soon as night fell, parks became the province of the raw and depraved. Lovebirds and junkies ruled in peace, each party ignoring the other’s fumblings, the misbuttoned shirts and fucked-up hair. We would return the park to the children at dawn. Dino turned and waved his arms over his head. I’m a vampire! he yelled, causing the kids to scatter. The elders, unbothered, kept grooving. They danced in their many sweaters while Dino and I frotted with our pants and shoes on.
cute
Over the course of our affair, maroon became a code word of sorts, a stand-in for devotion. Are you feeling maroon? I might text him after a long day with no contact. He would write me back promptly: Maroon on my mind. He would tell me when and where to meet him for dinner, then add: I have a reservation for two under Mr. Maroon. It was the closest he came to saying he loved me. I have a craving, he would text me at two or three in the morning, when he’d been drinking alone, the one person still up in his household. Only maroon will do.
cute
There was a bartender named Jax who liked to drink. He drank so much he tasted inhuman, like pencil erasers and steel. Mazzy detested him. His texts always came after midnight, when I knew he was blackout. I was a cross between a booty call and a suicide hotline. Still, I replied. He was so much nicer over text than in person. He sent me kissy emojis, memes of puppies in baskets, links to Joan Armatrading songs. We never sexted, just exchanged inspirational quotes. Be Gentle with Yourself, for You Are a Child of the Earth … Who knows how he’d saved my number in his phone? Needy Ho, Long Hair. Always Texts Back. A string of emojis I’d be too afraid to decode.
lol
And then there was Dino, with his grade-A ketamine. Our two-year romance. The kicked-off shoes. The roses in the wallpaper, sliding down the wall. K-hole conversations with angels and demons and post office workers. Daylight creeping under blackout curtains. Trapdoors opened in the carpet (whoosh). Kate Bush on the stereo, Cocteau Twins, Slowdive, anything swoopy and round with girls’ screams. How time felt like a pack of cards, shuffled in that Vegas way. The hours swooped and gooped around us like fallen ice-cream cones. We kissed and became millionaires. I rearranged my teeth to speak: You are my Lotto ticket. A stick of incense burns forever, stuck into an orange.
I flip through them when I’m lonely or sad, these snapshots of our love affair. It felt famous and rare. Yes, it fell apart. Our relationship petered out like a song from a car driving by—there’s a term for that, I think, the eerie warpage of sound as it swells and dies. The Doppler Effect, like the title of a noir novel. The ending was far less eventful. Nothing major or tragic; I just bowed out. I guess you could say I got spooked, by the demands of his love, by the encroaching finale. The electric days had come and gone, that period of grace and squalor. His body didn’t cease to amaze me, those long, easeful limbs, but it stopped seeming real after a while. I came to feel like I was watching a movie of him. As with any movie, my attention strayed. When he touched me, I felt far away. What’s up? he asked, eyes dark with fear. Cheesy phrases occurred to me: I wanna be free; I’m afraid of your love. They were too embarrassing to say aloud; instead I shook my head and shrugged, the cruelest act of all.
After our first date in Chinatown, I couldn’t wait to tell Mazzy about Dino, how he was The One. I called her the next day until she picked up. I’d just gotten home from the library and made myself a pauper’s dinner: fried rice with mayonnaise, a bit of dried dill on top. Everything tasted good to me then. I ate it out of the pot while sitting on the fire escape, watching the fog roll in. Half the city was hot lilac, the other shushed and gray. I sat with my bare legs dangling over traffic, playing chicken with my slippers. If I could keep Mazzy on the phone with me, my bedroom wouldn’t seem so empty and soon enough I’d be asleep.
What I noticed immediately was her long blond hair; it had the sheen of buttered toast. She stood with one hand on the pole, one hip cocked. Her eyes were blank, lips loose. She didn’t do any pole tricks, barely looked at the crowd. She didn’t act flirty or sultry or brash; nor did she act timid, the knock-kneed Bambi shtick. She moved as if she were alone, undressing in her bedroom. Her underwear was simple, a white satin bra with matching thong, a thin gold necklace with the letter E. For the entirety of my life I’ve been jealous of girls with thin gold necklaces; they always seem to have it all, a beauty that invites and never frightens. I stood there watching her, rapt as a client. There was a touch of teenage arrogance to her gestures, the belief that death did not apply, mixed with an almost genteel grace. I could picture her crossing the floor with a book on her head. I could picture her flashing the gardener just for fun. She was soft-spoken, churlish, sleepy, raw. Like the sticker I’d put on my childhood notebook: 90% ANGEL.
It wasn’t just that she was pretty, but how—hearty, blond, bountiful. Round-hipped in white blouses. She looked like amber waves of grain, like prize roses and all-you-can-eat. Her legs were an infrastructural feat, something you drive for miles to see. It was patriotic to want to fuck her. If she were to go missing, every news station in America would jump on the story. They’d flash her headshot every hour, on the hour. Posters would list her height, weight, cup size, star sign. Men would call the tip line just to heavy-breathe. After a week she’d be found in a Vegas motel, wearing only a men’s button-down that she’d tied at the waist. The mayor would give her a key to the city. She might get her face on a stamp.
I leaned in. How about something a little more private? We could go to the back …
He stared at me, his voice plain and clear. Why would I have ground beef, he said, when I can get rib eye at home?
I don’t know, I said. I tried to stay calm, though my stomach lurched. Maybe because you’re hungry right now?
He let out a laugh. Sorry, he said. I had a snack before I got here. He made the gesture of jerking off, one quick wrenching motion. I noticed his gold wedding band. Better value.
Of course. Disgust and embarrassment bubbled inside me. I turned away for a moment, not wanting him to see me shake. Then I stood up straight and forced a smile.
Well, I said, have fun.
Later I’d see Arabella dancing on his lap, her ponytail grazing the floor. He had that same dead look in his eyes. He kept his stupid blazer on. I guess he must’ve gotten hungry.
this is the guy who works at dropbox. rough
I have a memory of my mother, aimlessly driving, drumming her hands on the steering wheel. She wears her hair in a bun held in place by a pencil. She’s the only person I’ve ever met who does this. She’s picked me up late from school once again. At this point she’s stopped giving excuses for why. Now she’s singing along to the song on the radio. The first time ever I kissed your mouth …
I’m shocked to discover she knows about love. I must be nine years old. At this point my father has been dead (or “gone away,” as we said) for two years. Up until now I’d assumed that love was something set aside for me, a muggy world of affect from which she, as my mother, was barred. It was nothing personal. She belonged to a world of grown-up things like cars and work, while I belonged to a secret underworld of romance and desire. Now I’m forced to reconsider her, this prettyish woman in sweatpants, her grave-colored hair. Wisps of it frame her thin face. She’s lost so much weight. She catches me staring and smiles.
sweet