The Wild One (5 page)

“Do you think I'll ever want to sleep with someone again?” I ask Angie. “I will, right? Ethan just wasn't right, you know? He's a really bad kisser, and his mouth tastes wrong, somehow. I don't know how, just wrong.”

“Well, sugarnuts, if his mouth tastes wrong, you can sure as shit bet his dick wouldn't taste right.” Angie swallows another gulp of martini. “Of course you'll sleep with someone again. And it'll be fucking great. Now. Tell me all of Ethan's dirty little secrets.”

An hour later, we have a plan.

“Text Ethan now! Now!” says Angie. “Invite him to Maddy's gig tonight. We'll nail his balls to the fucking wall.”

“He's not in New York. He's on a train back from Philly. He was there all week for work.”

“Ew. Trains.” Angie wrinkles her nose. “Send the text.”

I tap out the pre-agreed text. Then there's a beeping on the street, and Pia rolls up in Toto, her original Skinny Wheels food truck. She has a small fleet of food trucks now, but Toto is still special to her.

“You're not supposed to park that on the street,” calls Angie. We've had some complaints from the neighbors.

Pia shrugs, walking toward the stoop. “Fuck it. I've had a
merde
day. Is that vodka?”

Pia bounds up the stoop, takes a huge slug of Angie's drink, and then plucks the cigarette out of her mouth and takes a drag.

“Are we having a party?” a voice calls.

Julia and Madeleine are walking up Union Street toward home, still in their work clothes. Julia is wearing her huge gym backpack that would, I swear to God, take out an old lady if she turned too quickly on a crowded subway.

“Coco quit her job and is going to dump Ethan!” calls Angie.

I feel embarrassed to have all the attention on me. “Angie, stop it…”

“Coco. You need to own your drama,” she says sternly.

She's right. Being the opposite of the old me means being loud(er), without caring about the consequences or worrying that I don't deserve people's attention.

I take a deep breath. “I totally quit. And Ethan cheated on me and we're taking revenge tonight!”

“That little shitweasel,” says Julia. “Are you okay? Why didn't you tell me?”

“There was nothing to tell … until now.” I used to tell Julia everything, but she works so hard these days that she's never around. Besides, it's not like I
have
to tell her everything. I'm a grown-up. Adult. Whatever. “I think it's time for me to be wild. Whatever that means.”

“Getting drunk,” says Pia. “At work.”

“Having casual sex,” says Angie. “Also at work.”

“Speaking your mind,” says Madeleine. “No matter what.”

“Telling your boss to fuck off,” says Julia. “Or is that just my fantasy?”

“I already did that,” I say. “Kind of. I mean, I didn't want to hurt her feelings or anything … Hey, how come you're out of the office before nine?”

Julia grins. “You know that deal I was working on until, like, three
A.M
. every night this week? It died. Hundreds of millions of dollars down the drain.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Are you kidding? Best news ever. I thought my boss was going to have an aneurysm. He's such a dick. And I'm not even tired anymore. I just want to get hammered.”

Julie turns to Angie and Pia.

“I want a full makeover for the gig tonight, I want a montage to cheesy music, and I want to pregame. It's the weekend. Fivies!”

“Party Julia is here!” shouts Angie happily. “You can start with this.”

She hands over her martini, and Julia takes a slug and chokes.

“That is disgusting. I'll have a beer.”

“I'm not drinking. I have to rest my voice,” says Madeleine. “Yes. It's a thing.”

Pia reaches out, takes Angie's martini, and tips all of it back into her mouth. She hands back the empty glass and smiles. “Okay, ladybitches. Let's have some goddamn fun.”

 

CHAPTER
6

As you might expect from a group of twenty-something girls, we spend the early part of the evening on an extended makeover session in Angie's room, with alcohol. I mostly watch until Angie suddenly grabs me and puts bright red Chanel lipstick on my lips.

“It looks amazing on you,” Angie says when I protest. “You have perfect skin and teeth, and the
best
lips I have ever seen. Red lipstick should be part of your signature look.”

“What's my signature look?” asks Julia.

“Corporate whore,” says Angie.

“Better than fashion victim,” Julia shoots back.

“I am many things, sweetie, but I am never a victim.” Angie smiles.

“Would you two stop flirting?” Madeleine rolls her eyes.

“Holy shit.” Julia looks at herself in the mirror. “I would totally bang me, if I was a dude. Do you think I should wax my—”

“Whatever the end of that sentence is, the answer is almost certainly no,” says Angie. “There is nothing wrong with a little grass on the playing field, understand?”

“Since when do you like pubic hair?” asks Pia.

“Since I realized it's fucking weird to make my vagina look like it did when I was eight.”

Everyone ruminates on this for a moment. It
is
weird, when you think about it like that. But I just waxed myself in the bathroom with one of those home kits I bought ages ago. I don't even know why I did it, it's just … that's what you do. You know?

“Isn't it … cleaner?” Pia speaks up tentatively.

“If you think it's dirty, then you have issues, ladybitch. Vaginas are perfect. Dudes don't wax their balls, and yet they ask us to nuzzle up to them at the drop of a damn hat.”

Everyone pauses again, I guess to think about nuzzling hairy balls. Retch.

“Fine.” Pia sighs. “I'll stop waxing. There's no one to notice anyway, since my boyfriend lives in another time zone and I never get laid.”

“You know, I never get laid either,” Julia points out. “Sex is not like water, you won't, like, die without it.”

“I am so sick of talking about how much sex everyone is getting or not getting,” says Madeleine. “Come on. I need to get to Potstill so I can set up with the band.”

As we walk to the bar, the girls talk on and on about Aidan and Sam and sex, and my mind turns to my big Ethan plan for this evening. I feel my stomach lurch with nerves. Maybe I'll secretly text Ethan and cancel. I don't think I can go through with it, I really don't.

But I have to, I remind myself strictly. It's the first step toward being the new me. The wild me.

I've walked by Potstill a hundred times and never gone in. In the rich and varied landscape of Brooklyn bars and, more specifically, South Brooklyn bars, Potstill is … well, it's a dump.

It's dirty, for a start, with dusty smeared windows and cracked windowsills, and not in a charming Wild West kind of way, just in a forgotten kind of way. I don't think it's changed since the early '80s, at least. Most places around Gowanus have been hipsterfied by now, but Potstill is still—almost refreshingly—a total dive.

The front part of Potstill is very narrow, opening up to a weird cavernous space at the back where Madeleine's band is setting up. There's a bottle-crammed bar along one wall, and the whole thing is lit by harsh fluorescent bulbs, making everyone look sallow and dull. The walls are green and entirely bare apart from a handful of askew photos of the bar in its heyday thrown up haphazardly in cheap rusted frames.

We walk into the bar and pause, taking it all in.

“What a dump,” comments Angie.

“Maddy, shouldn't you go help the band set up?” says Julia.

“I can't…” Suddenly, Madeleine can hardly speak. “I'm so nervous. All I can do is drink coffee, but I think I overdid it. Look.” Madeleine holds up a visibly shaking hand. “Ugh. I feel sick.”

“Eat some salty potato chips,” says Julia. “Sodium works to counteract the caffeine, and the carbs release serotonin to calm your adrenals. They have some in the bodega on the corner.”

“Is that true?” asks Pia, as Madeleine runs off to the bodega to find potato chips.

“I made it up,” says Julia. “I figure it's probably all in her head, right? So if she thinks she's calmer, she'll be calmer … anyway, fuck, potato chips won't kill her. She's too goddamn skinny.”

Madeleine's band is called Spector. It does hard rock covers of girl group classics from the 1960s, you know, stuff from the Supremes and the Ronettes. Maddy was with another band, but after she stepped in to help out Spector at a gig a few months ago, they recruited her, and that was that. Kind of funny how she's an accountant by day and a singer by night, huh? It's like she's leading a double life.

“I feel so much better,” says Madeleine when she returns, stuffing chips in her mouth. “Maybe that was just nerves. The owner of this place, Gary, also has two bars in Williamsburg. If he likes us, we could get a regular gig with him. But I bet no one even turns up … Amy is going to be
pissed.
”

Amy is the guitar player and unofficial leader of the band, a tall girl with pink hair and black-red lipstick who scares the crap out of me. She's been over to Rookhaven a few times to rehearse with Madeleine.

“Mad! Thank God! I need you!” calls Amy, and Madeleine skips back to where Amy is setting up with Hoff, a stoner/guitar player that was in Maddy's old band too, and Drum, their imaginatively nicknamed drummer.

“Where the hell is the bartender?” says Angie, sitting down on a rickety barstool. “And how shitty is this joint?”

“Very,” says Julia, taking a seat next to her and pulling a mismatched stool over for me. “Shitty McShitterson.”

Looking around, I frown. I don't think it's
that
shitty. The actual bar itself, you know, where the drinks are mixed, is kind of cool. Very old but beautiful wood, with cracked varnish worn down from years of drinking. It's the crappy green walls and the falling-down plasterboard ceiling that's the real problem. It's just a bit dirty, and not cozy or welcoming. And it's too hot and the lighting is just way too bright and white to flatter anyone.

Okay. Maybe it needs a little work.

“It's not old enough to be old-school-adorable shitty and not new enough to be hipster-chic shitty,” says Pia.

“It's not even ironically shitty,” says Angie. “It's just … it's a piece of shitty shit.”

“Thanks, ladies,” speaks up a deep voice, seemingly from nowhere, and we all shriek.

A guy appears from practically underneath the bar. Very tall. Messy dark hair. Stubble. Eyes that are too bloodshot to see what color they are.

Pia and Angie shriek again, enjoying their hysteria. I think they're a little tipsy from our makeover drinks.

“Jesus,” the guy says, pronouncing it
Jaysus.
“I'll get you a drink if you promise to stop screaming. And stop swearing. You're like drunk sailors.”

“Yes, sir,” says Angie obediently.

“We'll have three vodka, lime, and sodas, please, young man,” says Pia. She must be a little drink to be flirting like that.

“This is a
whiskey
bar.” His accent is Irish maybe, or Scottish, I can never tell the difference. “I can offer you a whiskey, more specifically an Irish whiskey, or a whiskey-based cocktail. Or beer. But beer is boring, don't you agree?”

“Beer is cheap, you mean,” says Pia, arching her eyebrow. The bartender winks at her.

“Here,” he says, grabbing some shot glasses and a bottle of whiskey. “Let's drink these and see what happens. On the house.”

Pia and Angie glance at each other and shrug. “Sure thing.”

We all do the shot, including the scruffy bartender. He smiles wolfishly as we all make the predictable “oh, my God WHISKEY!” sounds.

“Tell you what, sugarnuts, why don't you rustle up a whiskey cocktail surprise for us,” says Angie. “Something refreshing that'll take the edge off.”

“You got it, princess. But the name is Joe Nolan. Not sugarnuts.”

“Right on.” Angie is looking at her phone now, ignoring poor Joe entirely. I guess when all guys give you special attention, you don't need to care.

“Are you from Ireland, Joe?” asks Pia politely.

“Ireland by birth, Cork by the grace of God,” Joe deadpans, grabbing bottles and ice and glasses, moving with the fast efficiency of a professional. He slices, pours, and shakes with a sort of cool, detached precision, and we all find ourselves mesmerized, watching him.

“My boyfriend is half Irish,” Pia says. “But he didn't grow up there.”

“Poor bastard,” says Joe. “Ripped from the motherland.” He glances at Angie to see if she's listening. She's not. He slams down four icy-cold mason jars full of a pale yellow liquid. “Cold Hard Toddies.”

“What's in this?” says Pia, sniffing it.

“Jameson Irish whiskey, apple cider, ice, lemon, and a slice of apple.”

“Mason jar. Nice touch,” says Pia.

I see her make a note in her phone:
Mason jars. Recyclable. Discount on next order when you bring it back.
Pia is always working. I can't imagine loving a job that much.

We all take a swig of the Cold Hard Toddy. It tastes worryingly unalcoholic. The kind of drink that you devour with thirsty abandon and then realize you can't see straight. Or think straight. Or walk straight.

“May I please have a glass of water?” I ask, but I'm drowned out by Pia and Angie.

“That is amazing!”

“What's in it again?”

“Whiskey, cider, apple, lemon. Do you want me to write it down?” Joe fills up a glass with ice and water, handing it to me.

“Thanks,” I say in surprise. I didn't think he heard me. He's barely taken his eyes off Pia and Angie, with the kind of lazy grin that you see only on New York City guys who have a
lot
of casual sex.