Love and Chaos (20 page)

I nod. “Cosmopolitans taste like crap. That’s the weird thing about them.” I catch the bartender’s eye. He’s a huge hulk of a guy, in a perfectly pressed shirt and tie. “Two Heinekens, please.”

The first sip of a supercold beer is always the sweetest. I take a sip and sigh. What a long, boring day. My blisters are throbbing, but I guess it would be kind of gross to apply fresh blister thingies right here at the bar.

Coco has started tearing pieces of her beer’s label off with her fingernails. Nerves? I never have any idea how she’s really feeling, since she’s always sweetly smiling. Maybe it’s time I found out.

“Do you want to talk about the dinner party med meltdown, Coco?”

“No,” she says, and then looks at me and forces a little laugh out. “I just had a headache before the party, you know? So I took the Demerol they gave me at the clinic back in December.”

“Have you told Julia about it?”

“She would never understand,” Coco mumbles.

“Okay. Where did you get the Xanax? Was it prescribed to you?” I feel like a school counselor.

“I found it,” she says carefully, ripping off another tiny shard of her beer label. “I just found it lying around.”

Well, that’s obviously not true. But I won’t push her. “So why did you take it?”

“I thought it might make me less nervous,” she says. “It’s an antianxiety med, right? And I was feeling very anxious before the dinner party, about the cooking, and about Jonah, you know, because I asked him to be my date and he said no, and then I felt nervous about Ethan.”

“Right. Ethan.”

“My therapist thinks he sounds like he’d be very positive for me,” she says, slightly defensively.

“You’re in therapy?”

“Yeah. Um, they offered it, so I said yes,” she says in a very low voice.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?” Vic’s words of advice from the night I got back to Rookhaven spill out of my mouth. “It’s much easier to let go of your worries when you share them with the people you love.”

Coco looks at me, her eyes filling with tears, and she puts her face in her hands. As usual, when faced with a crying friend, I’m not sure what to do, and particularly not in the middle of a crowded Midtown Manhattan bar. I get her a big wad of cocktail napkins from the bartender, who doesn’t seem fazed to have a girl crying hysterically in his bar, and then stroke her arm in what I hope is a comforting manner. After a few minutes, she dries her eyes.

“Sorry,” she says. “Sorry, Angie, you must think I’m such a freaking loser.”

“Trust me. I don’t.”

A slick, suited guy is suddenly standing almost on top of us. “Ladies! Don’t cry, I’m here now.”

I stare at him, hoping he can read the fuck-off message in my eyes.

Apparently he can’t.

“I was thinking—”

“No.”

“You haven’t even heard what I—”

“No.”

His smile drops. “What’s your fucking problem?”

“My problem is that my friend and I are not in the market for a date rape tonight, thank you.”

“What the fuck? Are you getting your fucking period or something? I—”

“That’s enough, buddy,” calls the bartender. “Leave the ladies alone.”

He slinks off, and I wink at Coco. She is giggling helplessly. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

“I know,” I say. “Sometimes I open my mouth and shit like that just comes out. Are you okay?”

“Yes … no … I mean, yes, I’m fine like, right this second, but when I’m alone, I don’t feel okay … and I’ve been having trouble sleeping, and it’s so hard to feel happy when you’re tired all the time, and I know it’s a process, it’s a process, my therapist keeps saying it’s a process, but you know, I just … can’t imagine … feeling normal again.”

“Of course you will!”

“I’ve been thinking about antidepressants, what do you think about that?” Before I can say anything, she continues quickly. “I went on them after my mom died, but then they made me gain weight and gave me crazy dreams, which kind of made me more depressed, though I guess I could try another kind, you know?”

“Um … so you just keep trying different kinds until you find one that fits, like Goldilocks and the Three Medicated Bears?”

But Coco isn’t listening. “My dad says everyone needs to feel sad sometimes, that it’s part of being human, you know? He says that all great art and literature is created by people who feel things deeply, who experience love and hate and heartbreak and jealousy and loneliness and, you know, everything, so people taking antidepressants are cutting themselves off from real human emotions. They’re making themselves, like, nonhuman. That’s why I went to MoMA tonight, I thought maybe art would make me feel better.…”

“Did it?”

“A little. But then I think about the future, I think about going home for another sleepless night, and getting up tomorrow and going to work again surrounded by children and having no adult conversations, and I feel so alone and so exhausted.” Coco takes a deep breath. “I don’t want to keep feeling this way. I want to feel
better
.”

I chew my lip, hesitating. Fuck it. “I had one, you know. An abortion.”

“You did? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know why I didn’t tell you before. I guess, um, oh, I don’t know.” I pause, not wanting to tell her the truth: that sharing secrets, or problems, or issues, has always made me feel weak. “He was the first guy I slept with. A bartender while I was on vacation with Pia and her parents. I didn’t plan on having sex with him, you know. I was really drunk and feeling sort of crazy. I don’t even remember it really.”

“Why were you feeling crazy?”

“I’d gone home at the start of the summer and my dad had moved out. Annabel—that’s my mother—she kept saying he was away on business, but I didn’t believe her, and he wouldn’t answer my calls.” I stare into space, remembering. “And then she sent me on vacation with Pia and her folks without asking me. I felt … I don’t know. Crazy. I wanted to go completely out of control because I had no control over anything in my life, you know?”

“But your parents stayed together.”

“Dad came to see me at school the next semester and told me everything was fine, and by the next vacation he was back in the house.”

“And you got an abortion.…”

“In a town near my boarding school,” I say. “I had a fake ID so they thought I was twenty-one. It wasn’t hard.”

“That makes me feel so much better, is that weird? Did you feel bad afterward?”

“I felt sad, but it was the right choice for me,” I say. “Mostly I was relieved.”

“I did some reading online, and I got so upset—”

“Never read about anything controversial online, Coco,” I say. “That’s where all the freaks come out to play. It’s your body, it’s your choice. If they spent half as much energy helping people in need as they do condemning them, the world would be a better place.”

Coco nods. But she doesn’t look convinced. “Abstinence is the only form of birth control that works,” she says, clearly repeating something she’s read.

“Abstinence is a myth,” I say. “Humans fuck, Coco. It’s the way the world works. We always have, we always will. And women have always tried to prevent conception.… Ancient Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, people in the Middle Ages, in Shakespeare’s time, they all had birth control, and when it failed, they had abortions, though they were incredibly dangerous and women died, like, all the time.” I put a cigarette in the corner of my mouth. “It’s part of human nature. We fuck.”

“Oh,” Coco says in a tiny voice. She looks slightly shocked. I need to tone down the swearing.

“Sorry, honey. I’m just saying … sex is sex. The urge to do it is what has kept the human species alive for millions of years. But now we have the right and the ability to choose when and where we have babies. We’re not animals.”

Coco nods. “That makes sense. I guess.”

Then I remember something else Vic said. “You’ve got to let regrets and worries go, honey. Otherwise you’ll spend your whole life thinking about them.”

“But
how
do I let them go?” Coco stares at me, willing me to have an answer.
“How?”

I don’t want to disappoint her, but I don’t want to lie, either. So I shrug. “I wish I knew.”

Coco sighs and picks up her beer. We clink a little silent cheers.

“So, are you gonna see Ethan the Chees—I mean, Ethan again?”

“I hope so!” She smiles. “He’s so smart and nice! And my therapist says I have, um, self-esteem issues, so he’d be great for me.”

“We all have self-esteem issues,” I say. “They come with tits.”

“You don’t. You’re gorgeous. Men always look at you. Right now, I can see, like, seven guys in this bar looking at you.”

Sam pops into my head. Sam asked Julia out. Weird.

I force myself back to the present and shake my head. “They don’t like me. They just like … my outside. They like my shell.”

“How many times have you been in love?”

“Oh, Coconut. I don’t know. A dozen times … and also never.”

Coco stares at me. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

I take a sip of my drink, thinking. “I mean … I always think I’m in love … but if you’re in love, you should be happy, right? I wasn’t. I was always trying to please these guys who could never be pleased. I was always stressed, always putting them first, and doing anything I could to make them not break up with me, but trying to act really cool about it all. It was exhausting. That can’t be love. Sometimes I even felt … a little psycho. And I don’t even know if I was myself around them, not really. I don’t think any of them ever really knew me at all.”

Coco nods thoughtfully. “I don’t think Eric knew me, either. Or Jonah … Maybe Ethan does, or will.… I think you need to be friends first, like Julia and Sam!” she says. “I hope they fall in love. Julia really wants a relationship.”

“Yeah, totally, me too,” I say, staring at my drink. Julia and Sam. Sam and Julia.

“I’m so glad you and Julia have gotten to know each other better,” says Coco. “You’re both so cool. You’re the leaders of the house, you know?”

I laugh out loud. “I am not the leader of anything!”

“Yes you are,” she says insistently. “Pia is never around anymore. But you and Jules are the ones who make everyone laugh. Plus, you’re the cool one.”

I smile. Only Coco would see the world in terms of cool and not cool.

“And you’re really good for Julia. You know, the makeover stuff, and introducing her to Sam. You’re a good friend.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Coco’s uncomplicated approval, and the idea of me being a good friend, makes me feel happier than I have in a long, long time. “Let’s go home,” I say.

“Okay!” She hops off her stool obediently. “Thanks, Angie. You really made me feel better about everything.”

“Anytime, ladybitch.”

“You’ve never called me that before!” Coco is beaming. “I love it … ladybitch.”

On the subway home, I reflect on the ever-been-in-love question. I don’t think I’ve ever been truly, madly, deeply in love. Or in a real relationship
,
one that really meant something, one that made me truly happy. Maybe I’m simply not capable of it. Which just makes me thank God, yet again, that I’ve decided to be single now.

So I’m glad Sam’s going out with Julia.

I hope they’ll be very happy together.

CHAPTER
26

“When can we see your band?”

“Never.” Madeleine calmly looks at her cards. “I get stage fright when people I know are watching.”

“Maybe we should blindfold you.”

“Maybe we should gag
you
.”

Julia takes a slug of wine. “Angie, are you sure I look okay?”

I glance at her. “Perfect.”

It’s Saturday night, and we’re all in the kitchen at Rookhaven, having wine and playing poker before our Celebrate Pia’s Singledom Night Out (subtitled Make Her Stop Crying Just for a Few Goddamn Hours for Fuck’s Sake).

Well, almost all of us.

Julia is going on her date with Sam instead.

“I’m not nervous.” Julia flicks her perfect blowout-by-Coco.

Madeleine smirks. “That’s why you made Angie spend four hours shopping in SoHo with you for the right outfit?”

“I liked it,” I say. Which is mostly true.

The shopping part was fine. And Jules bought me lunch at Café Habana to say thank you. But then she kept asking me questions about Sam. And really, all I know is he’s from Ohio, he dropped out of college, he learned how to sail on the job, he’s currently sleeping on his buddy’s floor, he’s my friend, and I’ve been avoiding his calls ever since he asked Julia out. But I don’t own him! He can do whatever he wants. Right?

The rest of today, I’ve just been sewing and trying not to think about him. I altered Drakey’s little slip dress, the one Sam liked, and I’m wearing it tonight. It felt so good to
do
something again, to be creating things, to take myself outside my head … The only time I’ve felt at peace in days is when I’ve been sewing. Just like Vic said.

“I feel…” Julia takes a deep breath, waiting for everyone to pay attention to her again. “I feel certain, in my soul, that it’s going to be good. That’s probably a sign, right? They say when you know, you know.”

At this, Pia, who has barely spoken all day, makes a gulping sound, her huge brown eyes filling with tears. Any mention of romance, men, or breakups, and she loses her shit. Seriously, it’s like every dramatic soap opera meltdown you’ve ever seen, in one woman. She came into my bedroom at 4:00
A.M.
, weeping, saying that she couldn’t sleep alone, that the universe was against her, that she’d never love again. She was asleep and snoring within six seconds. Even Sam didn’t snore … argh. Don’t think about Sam.

“Oh God! My makeup…” Pia tilts her head back to stop the tears from ruining her eyeliner. “Damn you, Aidan, for breaking my heart,” she whispers at the ceiling. “Damn you to hell.”

“Have you talked to him today?” asks Madeleine.

“He keeps calling. I keep not answering.” Pia slaps her palm on the table. “Fuck Aidan! Tonight is about my ego-driven, God-given right to drink hard spirits while enjoying the restorative power of the male gaze.”