Citizen Girl (21 page)

On the street I flail madly for a cab in a flurry of fat snowflakes, my terror coming out in an interpretive dance performed for the oncoming traffic. An appreciative cab pulls up in a torrent of slush.

‘Where to?’

‘First stop Twenty-Seventh and Seventh and then we’re heading uptown. Thanks.’ I look over at the dashboard
clock, in complete disbelief that instead of fleeing home to implode, I have three minutes to pull my shell-shocked self together for Buster and our first formal outing as a ‘couple’. I run my fingertips in deep circles over my forehead, trying to stave off the budding migraine.

Buster hunches against the snow in the doorway of YGames, bouncing slightly to keep warm. Spotting the cab, he folds in, reaching for me. A surge of hormones rush my brain, battering at my professional insecurities. ‘How are you?’ he asks, his cold lips still close to mine.

‘Getting fired.’

‘Shit.’ He tilts away to look in my eyes, the snowflakes at the tips of his eyelashes melting. ‘How do you know?’

‘Long story.’ I pull him back to me, determined to preserve the lulling buzz.

‘Next stop Eighty-Third and Second, please,’ he calls up to the driver before whispering into my hair. ‘Tell me what happened.’

I weave my fingers through his, my mouth finding his again. ‘Do we have to go to this party?’ I mumble.

‘I said we’d stop by. It’s my college crew and I want you to meet the rest of them.’

‘Let’s just go to my place.’ I grip his thigh, roving higher. ‘I’m not in the mood to talk.’

He clamps his hand down on mine. ‘I’ve made it a whole –’ he glances at his watch – ‘twelve hours outside your apartment. I’d like to see if I can go at least another three, if you don’t mind.’

‘Okay,’ I say, unsure how to take that.

‘Look, I’ve slept at your place every night this week —’

‘Because you have seven roommates who don’t like me—’

‘Seven roommates who think I’ve fallen off the fucking planet. I’ve gotta check in.’ We crawl up Sixth Avenue. Outside the blurry window, maintenance men toss salt at the ankles of the last straggling office-workers. ‘Besides,’ he says huskily, sliding his hand across my stomach. ‘It would be a shame not to take this dress out for a spin.’

‘Hey, dude!’ The cashmere V-necked host throws open the door, music blowing over us as he tugs Buster into a bear hug.

‘Chris, this is G, the one I told you about.’

‘Ve-ry niiiice,’ Chris says, slapping Buster on the back as he blatantly appraises me. ‘Drinks are in the kitchen, smokes on the balcony, and yeah, just help yourselves!’

‘Pleasure,’ I lie, and follow Buster inside the boxy apartment, where, between the scuffed parquet floor and smoke-tinged stucco ceiling, beer memorabilia is holding its own as the only attempt at décor. In addition, all the lights have been extinguished for that junior-high-rec-room ambience, save the kitchen, which is interrogation-bright. We weave through cliques of Buster’s former classmates and the people they’ve picked up since college, catching sight of Tim and Trevor on the seventies leather couch, their hands performing reconnaissance under the skirts of the women beside them. Luke raps on the balcony door from where he crouches in the snow with the other smokers, waving at Buster and managing a contrite smile in my direction. Progress.

‘Hey, Jill!’ Buster exchanges cheek kisses with a brunette in a frumpy suit who steps back to let us into her circle. ‘Jill, this is G.’

‘So nice to meet you.’ I take her hand.

‘Jill dated Tim senior year,’ Buster fills in.

‘Dating is such a nice way of putting it,’ she grimaces, making me at least thankful that I’m not at some Wesleyan ex-fest right now. ‘This is my group from Bear Stearns.’ She gestures to her companions, all decked in their drab corporate finest.

‘How’s that going?’ Buster asks.

‘Moderately less hellacious. We’re taking the red-eye back to Pittsburgh in the morning for week five of due diligence. And you?’ She addresses me as Buster excuses himself.

‘Oh, I work for My Company,’ I say, mustering the conviction of a woman who is not a
complete fucking waste of time
.

‘The web portal?’ One of her companions looks down his thin nose over his plastic cup.

‘Yeah.’

‘Ooph,’ Jill sucks in air through clenched teeth.

The other one pats my shoulder. ‘They came out of the bust really strong.’

‘MC was one of my top picks two years ago, but …’ Jill reaches out to examine a pretzel from a wooden bowl as they all shrug. I gulp down the rest of my whiskey. ‘Although I heard they’ve had a change in management and are shifting direction – trying to go up against the Big Five.’

‘Still Five? Isn’t it the Big Two?’ The wrinkled Brooks Brothers crew crack each other up. I rattle the ice cubes in my cup. Someone should go up against the Big Five, with their money and their Diet Coke and their money.

‘What do you do there?’ Jill asks.
Where
did Buster
go
?

‘They’re moving in a more feminist direction —’

Jill snorts. I barrel on, ‘Well, the plan was to bring in
Ms.
magazine so it made sense – does make sense. It’s viable. There are millions of women who use the site and I’ve been, you know, running focus groups and conferences and I …’
Am a complete fucking waste of time
. ‘Will you excuse me?’

I snake towards the bathroom, coming upon a less intimidating clump of dreadlocks and Rage Against the Machine tee shirts in the hallway. I slow, spotting one one of Kira’s old roommates among them. ‘Hi!’

She turns her face, revealing the left side tattooed like a Maori warrior and I realize my mistake. ‘Sorry, I thought you … looked familiar,’ I shrug. She turns back to the story I’ve interrupted.

‘Wow, man, that’s heavy,’ a snarly beard nods in empathy.

‘So, after I helped her deliver the afterbirth,’ a woman says with quiet intensity, ‘we managed to get her back to the village before the guerillas resumed fighting.’ She turns to eye my dress and heels. ‘Are you with Busted?’

‘I am.’ I extend my weary hand in greeting. ‘Sounds like you’ve been on an amazing trip.’

‘It wasn’t a “trip”. I was
working
there. What do
you
do?’ And it’s time for a second drink.

I’m emptying the last drops of crappy Jack Daniel’s into my cup as a traveling clique arrives in the kitchen for a refill. ‘So, I told my boss this afternoon there’s
no way
I can get this project down to twenty-five million,’ says a petite blonde wearing a tight quilted jacket over the Nanette Lepore dress I’ve been coveting. ‘He’s going to have to get them to cough up the extra five. Um, excuse me?’ I make myself flat against the damp Formica so she and her squillion-dollar budget can pass. She pours herself a seltzer with her tiny ringed fingers. ‘And if he wants Mary-Kate and Ashley, then
forget it
, unless he can get them for scale. It’s just been the
shittiest
week.’ The crowd nods appreciatively. I look out the pass-through to the balcony and lock eyes with Luke, who somehow manages to leer at her and me simultaneously. ‘Losing Ron Howard was just such a blow.’ She shakes her head, her blonde bob brushing my cheek as she sighs.

I down another drink before pushing out of the crowded kitchenette. Weaving a bit, I steady myself against the wall, dislodging a taped
Deer Hunter
poster before I feel my way to the coat-covered bed, curling up in a fetal position beneath the blinking neon Heineken sign and letting the room swirl away from me.

The keys still in the door, I swipe twice before my hand finds the switch. Blinking as the garish overhead illuminates all the boxes still stacked against the wall, I flip the light back off.

Buster gently peels my coat from my slumped body and walks inside. He pauses to look around, then drapes
both coats over a box containing the yet-to-be-assembled Ikea dinette set. Unable to move from the front door, I stare at my strange apartment, the piles of laundry, the takeout containers rinsed and piled by the sink, the new sheet packaging sticking up out of the trashcan. And everywhere boxes: half opened, half unpacked.

He holds out his hand from the living room. ‘Care to join me?’

I nod, but remain rooted. He comes around me to lock the door before bending down on his knee to lift one of my feet, then the other, gingerly out of its heel. My bare feet sink down onto the wood as he stands back up, wrapping me in a slow bear hug. I lean against him and breathe in his now familiar smell of Downy Fabric Softener and boy.

Then tears are streaming down my face and soaking into his sweater. ‘Hey. Hey, now,’ he murmurs into my hair. I pull back from him, my hands covering my face, my shoulders shaking. ‘Okay.’ He reaches to hold my elbows, bending down to see between my fingers, ‘No more parties for you.’

‘No. It’s not. It’s not that. It’s just —’

‘It’s just that you’ve had too much to drink,’ he says gently.

‘No. Well, yes, probably that. And I miss my own fucking friends so much I can barely breathe. But it’s that I’m going to
get fired … again
. I was doing great at what I thought he wanted and now he says he doesn’t want that and if he won’t
do
any of my suggestions then it’ll only be rebranded in my head.’

‘G, it’s Friday. You don’t have to worry about this tonight.’

‘I can’t bear the firing, not again, I can’t …’ I wipe my nose on my hand, unable to finish the thought aloud.

Buster leans into the kitchen. ‘Tissues?’

‘Cupboard to the left of the sink.’

‘Gotcha.’ He re-emerges with a box of Kleenex. ‘You got a permit for all those paper products?’ He pulls one out and hands it to me.

‘My mom’s strictly for the environment,’ I sniffle, ‘so it was only one disgustingly overtaxed cloth napkin per customer in our house. This is kind of my I’m-a-capitalist and-a-grown-up-now splurge.’

‘Well, in that case,’ he reaches for a roll of paper towel, ‘live it up.’ I laugh for a moment before the tears return. ‘You should go in on Monday and make your case.’

‘My case?’ I look up at him over my tissue.

‘For why they’d be assholes to fire you. Here, let’s make some notes.’ He flips on a lamp.

‘Now?’ I ask halfheartedly. ‘I thought we were going to hang out?’

‘It’s cool,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘I’ll make coffee and camp out in the bedroom. Then you can come find me when you’ve got it on paper. Sound like a plan?’

I sniffle again, looking up at him, his dirty blond hair surrounded by a halo of bright light from the floor lamp. ‘Really? Is it really cool?’

‘Yeah, I’m beat, I could use a nap. As long as you give me a little flash – I’m good for an hour or two.’ Red-nosed, I untie my wrap and shimmy my dress open as he
sighs deeply and then banishes me to my makeshift desk with his hand over his eyes. ‘Too hot. Much too hot,’ I hear him mutter as he opens the freezer for the Lavazza.

At first my fingers just wiggle in space over the keyboard as I stare at the blinking cursor and will the whiskey cloud to thin. I pull the old pitch from my purse and flip through its pages … Feminist, he
said
young feminist. I drum my fingers on the plastic cover … Hello Kitty … Playboy … What would make them want to stick with a feminist site? … How to keep them comfortable? … I snort, envisioning articles on
feminist
tanning-beds,
feminist
crash-dieting,
feminist
boob jobs … I stare up at the ceiling, letting out a slow stream of air … Okay, Guy, feminism for the new economy …

Then, very slowly, I start to write the pitch that would entice those students to re-imagine the history of lip-gloss as a saga of empowerment. Better yet, re-imagine empowerment as the history of lip-gloss. Soon, I’m speedily pounding out paragraphs, sifting through my notes from the sessions and quoting anything that might help me get back in. My dress still open, my body hunched over the laptop, I don’t once lift my head, not even to sip the coffee Buster left on the box beside me before padding to bed. Once I’ve finished I comb the text, Grace’s red pen looming.

An ambulance wails by on the street below, stirring me to look up to where steel-blue light breaks over the building across the avenue. I stand, crack my back, and take a gulp of freezing coffee before pressing ‘print’. The
pages slide out, wafting into a pile on the floor, where I crouch down to reread them before shuffling the proposal neatly together.

I squint to check the clock on the laptop screen: five forty-one; I hesitate for only a second before clicking ‘print’ a second time. Suddenly, I need this thing out and over so badly I can barely swallow. Not another minute can tick by with these men stuck under the illusion that I’m expendable. Do not pass go, do not collect nothin’. Leaving Buster in deep slumber, I grab my coat and run for the elevator, heels in hand.

As the cab pulls away from Guy’s Tribeca condominium, I stare at the remaining document in my lap with heightened certainty. After 411-ing from a barely functional phone booth –
got
to get a cell – I take the cab up to Rex’s townhouse on East Sixty-Fourth and, with a deafeningly pounding heart, slide the second copy through the mail slot of his black lacquered door.

I skip giddily down the slate steps, holding the wrought-iron fence open, and take a deep, deep breath in the chilly gray light of the early East Side morning. Stepping back into the waiting cab, I pull my coat tighter around me, wrapping it around my naked legs as I lean against the frosted window and drop promptly to sleep.

Alone on Sunday night, relaxed after a weekend finally spent putting my apartment to rights and enjoying some daytime hours with Buster, I light a few pillar candles on my newly assembled Ikea dining table and carry one
into the bathroom with me, killing the overheads as I go. I turn on the shower, letting the steam blanket the tiles as I slip out of my robe.

The hot water is rinsing away my conditioner when I hear the squawk of the buzzer. I grab my towel off the toilet seat and slip-slide into the hall, wrapping it tightly around me as I buzz in the Chinese food deliveryman. I unlock the door and pull my wallet from my purse, rubbing the water out of my eyes as I count out singles—