Memoirs Aren't Fairytales (2 page)

Eric shouted over the music, “We did it, Nicole! We're here!”

All four windows were open, and I leaned my head against the back of the seat. My eyes closed. Wind was rushing through the car, filling it with the smell of smog and fish from the Mystic River.

A clothes hanger was tickling the side of my ear and pulling out strands of my ponytail every time we went over a bump. The metal was cold, and as it touched my hair, it reminded me of my mom's cool hands, brushing the hair out of my face and tucking it behind my ear when she put me to bed as a child.

My hands let go of the bar and I put my arms up in the air, feeling the breeze swish between my fingers. “Hell yeah, we did,” I said.

Our apartment was on the third floor, and we were the only tenants in the building who spoke English. Below us lived the owners of the Chinese restaurant downstairs, and above us were their parents—both sets and a few dogs. Our place was small, about the size of two dorm rooms. The fridge rattled and the oven worked, but the burners didn't. The bathroom was tiny, and the shower never had any hot water.

We were roughing it like we were on a camping trip, but without our parents nagging us to clean up the tent. Our air mattress was a twin, and we wobbled off the edges during the night. It didn't matter if our feet touched or if our arms crossed because we were such good friends. Besides our clothes, Eric's TV and lamp, we had a frying pan, two towels, a fleece blanket, and three pillows. We used the third pillow as a couch. The frying pan cooked eggs and boiled water in the oven, and served as a cereal bowl.

We spent our mornings exploring and getting familiar with the city. Most of the time, we walked everywhere, but it was the middle of summer, so when we needed to cool off, we took the trains. The cars were always full, and finding a seat was rare. We were like clothes being crammed into a hamper. I could feel the other passengers’ eyes scanning my body, and the air exhaled from their noses and mouths would hit my neck and arms. I wasn't claustrophobic; it was the invasion of personal space I didn't like.

On Sunday nights, we hung out with my older brother, Michael. Three years ago, he'd graduated from Yale University and moved to Boston for a finance job. Now, he called himself a hedge fund manager—whatever that meant—and owned a pimped-out condo in the Back Bay, with a doorman and an elevator. He'd buy us beer and pizza, and before we left to go home, he'd hand me a twenty-dollar bill. At first, I told him I didn't need the money, but I took it because he insisted. After a few weeks, I just said thank you and put it straight in my pocket.

By the beginning of the second month, we really did need Michael's money. The cash Eric had saved before we moved and the five hundred my dad had given me the morning we left were almost gone. I had some money in a savings account from when I worked at the coffee shop, but I didn't want to touch that money or tell Eric about it. It was there just in case he got homesick and I needed to cover the full rent.

Eric started bouncing at a club downtown. I called the private elementary school by our apartment when I saw their ad for a long-term substitute teaching position. Elementary education, my major in college, was all I ever wanted to do. But without a degree, they wouldn't hire me. Luckily, Eric's paychecks would cover our rent and electric bill, and Michael's weekly donations bought our tuna and noodles.

I needed to look for other jobs besides teaching, but I didn't like riding the train without Eric or walking to and from the station by myself. Especially since the homeless man at the corner had harassed me. It had happened late at night, when I was walking to the train to visit Eric at work. The man came up behind me, wrapped his arms around my chest and cupped my boobs. I screamed, and his fingers squeezed my nipples. I tried to wiggle out of his grip, but couldn't. He was too strong and so much bigger than me. A woman ran over and hit him over the head with her purse, knocking him to the ground. After the boob incident, Eric said he'd get me a job at the club once a cocktail waitress position opened up. But until then, he'd support us.

On the nights Eric worked, loneliness would transform into paranoia, and every creak in the ceiling made me jump. For eight straight hours, I'd smoke weed and pace the room, checking the door every few minutes to make sure it was locked. So instead of being by myself, I'd hang with my neighbors at the Chinese restaurant downstairs who would liquor me up with scorpion bowls. When I was drunk, sleep came quickly, but it was always interrupted by nightmares. The nightmares had started when I'd moved back into my parents’ house, and the same dream replayed in my head every night. The dreams seemed so real, I was scared to close my eyes again.

One night, I smoked a few bowls before I went to bed. I normally never mixed smoking and heavy drinking, but I was just so tired. All I wanted was a full eight hours of sleep. My screams woke me up. My body was shaking and I was sweating. The blanket underneath me was wet. I sat up, crossed my legs and wrapped my arms around my stomach, swaying back and forth. That was when I felt the pool of water under me. Even during college when I drank myself sick, I had never peed the bed.

I didn't want Eric to know about my accident, so I put the blanket in the shower and poured shampoo all over it. The pee had soaked through the blanket and into the velvet pillow top of the air mattress. I wiped the bed as best as I could and sprayed it with his cologne.

When Eric got home, I was in the bathroom, crouched between the toilet and sink.

“You okay?” he asked. He rocked me with one arm and lit a joint with his other.

I shook my head. “My dream, it felt so real,” I said and hit the joint.

This nightmare was different than the one I usually had. I'd woken up in the woods on top of a mound of snow, and there was a burning and stabbing pain between my legs.

He looked over at the shower and at the sopping blanket covered in shampoo bubbles. “Did you get sick?”

I took another hit and turned my head, blowing the smoke into the shower. At some point, I shrugged my shoulders.

He helped me out of the bathroom and piled all our clothes on the floor.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He took our pillows and put them at the top of the pile. “Making the bed,” he said.

We sat on our new bed, and he lit a second joint since I'd sucked down the first. When it was smoked to the roach clip, we lay back and passed out.

In the morning, he called his manager and asked to be assigned to the door so I could go to work with him. He thought he could cure my nightmares by spending every minute with me and being next to me when I went to bed. It didn't help, but I did start going to work with him. With my book of word searches and his CD player, I'd park myself on a bench by the front of the club.

Jimmy, the owner of the club, asked Eric if he'd work a security gig for a Fourth of July bash at his house in Cape Cod. He offered Eric a hotel room and five hundred bucks for the night. I still didn't have a job—no waitressing spots had opened up yet—and we really needed the money. Eric said he'd do it, and that afternoon he took me to Goodwill and bought me a dress for the party. Jimmy told him not to bring any friends or a date, but somehow Eric would get me in.

The morning of the party, we filled the rabbit with gas and set off for the Cape. We hit so much traffic we had to drive straight to Jimmy's so Eric wouldn't be late for the pre-party meeting. He changed in the car, and after I dropped him off, I drove to the hotel. The room was in Eric's name, but I told the front desk clerk I was Eric's wife and he gave me a key.

I had three hours to get ready for the party so I filled the big Jacuzzi tub and soaked, letting the jets massage me. I washed my hair with the little bottles of shampoo and conditioner and lathered up with shower gel that smelled like honey. I felt like I was at a spa.

I took my time painting my face, making sure my blush was blended with my concealer and my eyelids were smoky with dark shadow. Before I left, I ironed my dress and smoked a bowl.

At the end of Jimmy's long driveway was a valet parking sign. All the cars pulling up were expensive looking. The rabbit would tag me as a party crasher, so I parked it a few streets away and walked up the side of the driveway, through the trees. Eric was working the front door with a clipboard in hand and had told me earlier to walk up behind a couple and pretend I was their daughter. I followed an older couple to the front door, and once Eric checked their names off the list, I was inside.

The house was a palace, with stone pillars in the entryway, staircases on both sides of the room, and tall windows that ran along the back, overlooking Jimmy's private beach. Behind the house, was a big white tent where appetizers were being passed around by waiters in tuxedos. Paper lanterns and candles lit up the tent, and twinkle lights flickered from the surrounding trees.

I waited in line at one of the bars and ordered a glass of champagne. I downed it, and the bartender topped off my glass before I stepped away. There was an empty table at the far end of the tent, by the beach, and I sat down to watch the ocean. I hoped no one would show up to claim this seat.

“Are you a friend of Jimmy's?”

A man with gray hair and glasses, dressed in a white suit sat next to me.

“Yes—” I said and stopped. I had only met Jimmy once. “I know him through a mutual friend.”

“Are you here alone?” He held his hand out for me to shake. “Bernie,” he said.

“Nicole, and I'm here with a friend.”

Should I have told him my real name? For all I knew, Bernie could be Jimmy's brother, and if I got busted, Eric could lose his job.

“Is your friend male or female?” he asked. He eyed me up and down.

“Aren't I a little young for you, Bernie?”

If I wasn't at Eric's boss’ house, I would have told him to fuck off. I didn't date men who were old enough to be my grandfather.

He put his hand on my shoulder and laughed. “My son is here and he's single,” he said. “Stay here and I'll go get him.”

The band had started playing and the dance floor filled up. I wasn't much of a dancer unless I was really drunk, but I was into food, and dinner was arriving at the tables. In front of me, a waiter placed a thick steak, garlic mashed potatoes, and some type of vegetable that didn't look familiar. The tuna noodle casseroles Eric and I had been eating were like mystery meat slop in comparison.

Bernie returned to my side. “Nicole, meet Jefferson, my son.” Jefferson had at least ten years on me. And like his father, he wore glasses and combed his frizzy hair to the side.

Jefferson sat to my left and after shaking my hand, he dove into his plate. While we ate, he asked where I was from and what I did for a living. I said I was a first grade teacher, living in a loft in the South End of the city with a Boston terrier named Pork Chop.

That was the life I'd always hoped for anyway. And it felt good to say it, instead of telling him I was an unemployed college dropout.

My champagne buzz had peaked, but it'd soon be gone from all the food. I had a joint in my purse I was saving for when Eric got off work, but the party could last all night and into the morning so I decided not to wait for him. But I had to lose Jefferson first.

Just as I was about to excuse myself to the bathroom, he pulled out an orange bottle of prescription pills and washed one down with his beer.

“Am I giving you headache?” I asked.

“Adderall,” he said and shook the bottle. The pills rattled inside.

Adderall mixed with a couple hits of strong bud had always given me a wicked good buzz. In college, my roommate and I used the two to cure our hangovers.

I held out my hand.

“You want one?” he asked.

“Oh yeah.”

Since my champagne glass was empty, he handed me his beer, and I washed down the pill.

“You want to sm—”

“I want to show you something,” he said. “Come with me.”

Wherever we were going, we'd have to smoke when we got there.

We stopped at the bar to refill our glasses and walked up the lawn to the house. My feet were tired and sore from wearing heels, but the champagne was helping to numb them.

Inside, couples were sitting on couches and standing in groups talking. Jefferson held my arm, pulling me around the crowds.

The house was a maze of hallways and rooms, and everything was white: the couches and pictures, the sculptures, even the wood floors.

After several turns, Jefferson stopped in front of a closed door. “Are you ready for some fun?”

He looked like one of the guys in the computer class I took in college. And if he was anything like them, I figured we had different definitions of fun.

There was a number pad next to the door. He pressed some buttons and the door slid open. The walls inside the room were covered in little glass tiles that sparkled in the candlelight, and the ceiling was mirrored. A swimming pool took up most of the room, and the lining was so dark the water was black. At least twenty people, men and women, were in the pool, floating in the deep end and standing in the shallow water. All of them were naked. And if they weren't hooking up, touching and kissing, they were watching.

“Come on,” Jefferson said. He stepped into the room, loosening his tie and unbuttoning his shirt.

Skinny-dipping? At Eric's boss' house? I wasn't into it. Jefferson wasn't attractive and neither were any of the men in the pool.

“Real sexy crowd, huh?” Eric whispered in my ear.

I hadn't moved from the doorway.

“I bet that guy in the corner is really turning you on.”

The man Eric was referring to had thick black hair covering his back and a belly the size of Santa's.

I punched his arm, and we both laughed.

“How did you get back here?” Eric asked.

“That guy,” I said and pointed at Jefferson. Jefferson had his pants off and was pulling down his whitey tighties. “He said he wanted to show me something.”

“Sick fuck,” Eric said. “Let's go, the fireworks are about to start, and Jimmy gave me a thirty-minute break to get some grub.”