I pictured her room, chockablock with stuff, and puzzled over this apparent contradiction.
Anna continued. When she was younger she had cared so much about getting new things and keeping them obsessively organized, but at some point she’d made a decision. Why should possessions control her? “None of it matters anyway,” she had realized. “Things, like money, could all be lost in an instant.”
I was glad to hear Anna say this. It made me think that she wasn’t precious about the trappings of her wealth. “You can’t take it with you,” I said in agreement.
* * *
So, on this particular Wednesday, I had already joined Anna to exercise, eat breakfast, and hunt for apartments. In three and a half days, I had spent more time with her than I did with most of my best friends over the course of a month. Still, our marathon day together wasn’t over. Garbage pamphlets in tow, we grabbed a bite to eat before going to the nail salon. In Blue Ribbon Sushi, on Sullivan Street, we sat at the bar. At eye level, just in front of us, colorful cuts of seafood were displayed in a curved window. I stared at a lone octopus tentacle on a plate, admiring its spectacular array of tiny suction cups. Simultaneously repulsed and delighted, I took an iPhone photo to document it.
“I like sushi, but it’s kind of new to me,” I confessed. “My mom doesn’t like fish, so we never ate it growing up.” To me, that octopus tentacle looked like a severed monster’s tongue—it did nothing to pique my appetite.
Anna had eaten sushi often with Hunter, she said, so I left the ordering up to her. Ordinarily, I’d have chosen something on the “safe side”—like a California roll or rock-shrimp tempura—but I was happy for an excuse to try something new (so long as it was tentacle-free). She rattled off the names of unfamiliar-sounding dishes like an expert: hamachi, spicy scallop hand rolls, uni, ikura, and two glasses of white wine.
Anna was frequently giving me an education in popular culture references. At this meal, for instance, she was surprised to learn that I knew nothing about Danielle Bregoli, a young teenager who’d recently become famous for coining the phrase “Cash me outside, how ’bout dat” on an episode of Dr. Phil. Anna played me the segment, entitled “I Want to Give Up My Car-Stealing, Knife-Wielding, Twerking 13-Year-Old Daughter Who Tried to Frame Me for a Crime.” While we waited for our food, she showed me the YouTube clip, in which Bregoli, a baby-faced teenager with flat-ironed hair and huge hoop earrings, described her bad behavior without an ounce of remorse. When she noticed members of the talk show audience laughing at her, Bregoli smugly called them “hoes” and dared them to catch her outside. When Dr. Phil asked what she meant by that, Bregoli’s mother chimed in to clarify: it “means she’ll go outside and do what she has to do.”
I guess Bregoli’s bravado, and her self-proclaimed “street” talk, made the scene funny. I watched as Anna laughed. I wanted to see the humor in the same way that she did, but Bregoli reminded me of people from my middle school, kids who came from tough neighborhoods, from tough families, who acted out in class because they craved attention so badly that they got it however they could. It made me sad. Noting my mixed reaction, Anna quickly pointed out Bregoli’s resulting fame, citing her Instagram account as evidence. But this bit of information only made me feel worse. The show’s ostensible purpose had been to teach this girl that her delinquent behavior had negative consequences. Instead, it had made her “Internet famous.”
I was aware of my own disapproval and was afraid it made me prudish, so I actively worked to dismiss it. Why did I have to take everything so seriously? Did it matter? Couldn’t I just go along with the joke?
The dynamic of my friendship with Anna was beginning to fall into place. She challenged me to be less uptight and less judgmental, to cut loose and have fun. At the same time, she invited me into her world of hotels, restaurants, and offbeat activities. I became both her audience and companion. I guess part of me aspired to be more like her.
* * *
I paid the bill for lunch, and on our way to get pedicures, we perfunctorily evaluated our fingernails in the back seat of an Uber. Anna’s looked like pumpkin seeds, painted a sandy nude tone and filed to a dull central point. “I figured it out,” she said, referring to their shape. “I keep them this way and they don’t break.” Anna had a signature fidget—she did it when her mind seemed to wander—as she demonstrated just then in the car. She would use the fingers of one hand to pinch the nails on her other, like making two shadow puppets kiss.
“It drives my father crazy,” she said, aware that I was looking. He thought her habit gave the impression that something was wrong with her, she said. Her face broke into a grin as she wondered aloud if he was right.
On the inside of Anna’s right wrist was a tattoo, in black ink, a cartoon outline of a ribbon tied into a bow. I’d seen it before but never asked about its significance. “How long have you had that tattoo?” I said.
Anna had gotten it when she was young, she told me, as an ode to Marie Antoinette. She had written an essay about the ill-fated queen for school, and developed a subsequent fascination. I couldn’t imagine why she’d have looked up to a woman rumored to have said, “Let them eat cake,” when she heard people were starving, so I thought of Anna instead as a fifteen-year-old, watching Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette and idealizing Kirsten Dunst. Surely, that was the Marie Antoinette she idolized.
“I’ve had it for so long, I barely notice it anymore,” she told me. Her tone was suddenly dismissive, implying that her admiration for such a person had faded.
We arrived at Golden Tree Nails & Spa, which I had chosen because the staff was always so nice and attentive. We entered to a wave of hellos and proceeded to the shelves of multicolored polish. Bordeaux red was my pick. I can’t recall Anna’s. We sat next to each other in massage chairs, looking down at our phones while our technicians filled the water basins at our feet, testing the temperature and readying their tools. Anna, who had a way of making routine activities into an adventure, announced she wanted some wine.
“Go for it,” I said, agreeing to join her for a glass. I was already a little light-headed from the glass of wine at lunchtime, but I went along with her plan, as usual. Anna ordered a bottle of white wine through an app on her phone to be delivered directly to the nail salon. We sat quietly as our feet were groomed and the automated chairs massaged our backs.
Anna broke the silence. “We should do the infrared sauna,” she suggested. She’d mentioned this before. From what I understood, it was like a microwave, using infrared light to heat bodies from within. I had no idea what that meant.
“Let’s do it,” I said, up for anything.
Anna held her phone with her left hand while the nails of her right clicked against the screen. “They have an opening for tonight,” she reported. She made the booking at an infrared spa called HigherDOSE.
“Great,” I replied.
As Anna and I sat at drying stations, a woman entered the nail salon holding a black plastic bag. Anna waved to catch her attention. “Postmates?” the woman asked.
“Yeah,” said Anna. At this point, we were rushed to make our infrared appointment, so without opening the wine, I paid for our pedicures and we left in a hurry. On our way out, Anna grabbed two plastic cups from a stack beside the water dispenser, and in the back seat of our Uber—aux cable plugged in, rap music playing—she twisted off the cap of the wine bottle and poured each of us a cup. Drinking in a car made me uncomfortable, but I kept it to myself.
* * *
We finished our cups as we arrived at East First Street. The infrared spa was located within a shop called the Alchemist’s Kitchen, which looked closed. But we found the front door unlocked and entered past an unmanned tonic bar. Farther inside, there were shelves displaying a hodgepodge of herbal cure-alls: tinctures, ointments, palo santo, and sage. Anna and I were the only ones there. We proceeded directly to a staircase in the back of the room and located a HigherDOSE check-in desk downstairs.
Ther
e was a Shailene Woodley lookalike stationed at the counter. “Is this your first time?” she asked. Her voice was raspy and mellow.
“Has anyone ever told you that you look like Shailene Woodley?” I blurted out. I was a little bit tipsy.
“Yes,” she laughed; it happened all the time. “My name’s Becca, though.”
She started to describe what we could expect in the sauna. “Don’t worry if you notice black marks on your towel,” she said. “The heat is great for detoxing, and you might release heavy metals as you sweat.” She pulled towels down from a closet shelf as she spoke and then led us into a private room.
The square interior was dark and quiet with a wooden booth at its center. There was a faux candle, water dispenser, and drinking glasses on a table in the corner of the room, along with a small bowl from which Becca lifted a remote. “This is how you adjust the booth’s colors,” she said, pushing a button. She then picked up a laminated guide to chromotherapy and outlined the vibrational energy created by each color. Blue, for example, is said to promote relaxation and alleviate pain; whereas red increases the pulse and supports circulatory functions. I was skeptical but intrigued and egged her on by asking questions. Anna couldn’t have cared less. Next, Becca lifted a little cord from the bowl and told us how it could be used to play music. Anna listened to this part.
Finally, she left us alone to begin our treatment. I stepped to the far side of the sauna booth to undress privately and then wrapped myself in a white towel. Anna stood on the opposite side of the booth and did the same. Then she removed the wine from her Balenciaga tote bag and poured it into the two glasses on the table. I monkeyed around with a spray bottle and stepped through a mist of rose water to accept my cup as it was offered.
Opening the booth’s glass door made a sound like the opening of a shower, as the magnetic closures popped apart. Inside, the two of us sat on a wooden bench with our shoulders just a hand’s distance apart. “Do you wanna deejay?” I asked Anna. And, as usual, she did. This time, she chose a more varied playlist than her usual Eminem-centric rotation.
Ten minutes into the forty-five-minute session, we were drenched. If someone had entered the room at that moment, they’d have seen two red-faced girls in white towels sweating profusely with their hair in topknots, taking sips of wine between giggles as they listened to music inside of a light box that changed color every few minutes. It sounds like a lot, I know, but it really was a blast.
Occasionally, Anna would sing along to a song under her breath, songs that I hadn’t expected she would like, such as Bob Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.” These songs reminded Anna of Olivier Zahm, she said, the editor in chief from Purple magazine, where she’d interned. She told me that he’d played music like that when they rode in the car together. It didn’t occur to me to ask where they’d been driving—maybe I assumed it was around Paris or to Purple’s printer, which Anna had said was not far from her hometown in Germany.
Anna told me much more about her life than I told her about mine, which was fine by me. I’ve been a private person since I was a little kid and was happy to be the listener.
Drinking wine in a sauna is a bad idea. Anna and I had joked about it, telling ourselves that the combination would make us break even—that we’d sweat out the toxins as we took them on board—but in reality we grew woozy from dehydration. I was the first one to tap out. I switched to water, and by the end of our session, even without more wine, both of us were spent. Our feet left sweat puddles on the floor as we stepped out from the sauna. Once we’d showered off, we sat for a moment to cool down. Then, on opposite sides of the booth, we laughed at how hard it was to put our clothing back on, skinny jeans on wet legs.
We carried our warmth into the cold night air. Steam rose from our bodies as we waited for a car. We ended the evening with a nightcap at the Library, back at 11 Howard. I drank a green juice, while Anna had a glass of wine. What a bizarre and full Wednesday it had been, a day which otherwise, without Anna, would have been run-of-the-mill. I didn’t know that much about her, nor she about me, but Anna and I had found our rhythm, and in the course of a single day, we had established the activities and places that would be central to our friendship in the months to come.
Chapter 5
Deluge
* * *
My role at the twenty-third annual Vanity Fair Oscar party was to assist Justin, the magazine’s staff photographer. Thanks to my colleagues in the fashion department, I would wear a borrowed navy-blue velvet A-line dress, made by Valentino, with a draped neckline and thin straps that crisscrossed on my back. I couldn’t wait. I was in Los Angeles on Sunday morning, the day of the event, sitting in the spa at the Montage Beverly Hills hotel, when I heard from Anna.
Had a sauna this morning alone, she wrote, referring to the infrared spa we’d been to together. Omg I just looked [it] up and you can buy the whole cabin for like 1k. She sent a website link as proof.
Amazing, I responded enthusiastically. I’m in the hotel sauna now!
I didn’t take Anna’s discovery very seriously—she lived in a hotel; where would she put a sauna? Then her next text arrived: I’ll find out if I can put it in my hotel somewhere. It totally makes sense to buy your own. Laughing out loud as I shook my head, I read her message twice before responding. (What was it she’d said about unnecessary stuff?)
Haha I wonder if they’ll let you, I texted back.
I’m just gonna order it and say oh I didn’t realize it’s that big.
Asking for forgiveness, not permission. I knew that routine. But a thousand-dollar infrared sauna delivered to her hotel? I wasn’t sure if she was kidding. Over time, I would learn that Anna often had ideas that sounded like jokes. She would laugh at them, too, before pushing them forward to see how far they could go. (In this instance, her idea went all the way. Four months later, 11 Howard would open a HigherDOSE location inside the hotel, thanks to her suggestion.) Anna’s grandiosity, though sometimes confounding, had a tendency to work in her favor.
I carried on with my day. I walked to a salon and had my hair styled into a loose braid that fell over my right shoulder. Then, back at the hotel, I joined a couple of my coworkers to have our makeup done by a professional. Alone in my room for the finishing touches, I squeezed into shape-wear, strapped on my patent-leather Marni platform sandals (with a five-inch block heel), and finally slipped on my dress. Then came the tricky part: I sucked in and twisted around while attempting to fasten my zipper. Halfway up, it snagged. I battled with it for a few minutes but, already late, I was forced to give up.
Vanity Fair’s party would be held in a pavilion connected to the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. Arriving at half-past four, I shimmied past colleagues to keep my back hidden. Ryan was the first friend I saw. “Help!” I cheeped, then spun around, inhaled, and stuck out my elbows. He gave the zipper a yank and it rose. Properly dressed and ready at last, I met Justin and we got to work.
The Oscars ceremony ended with a colossal snafu, an envelope mix-up that caused Faye Dunaway to mistakenly declare La La Land, rather than Moonlight, the year’s best picture. The botched announcement resulted in an interrupted acceptance speech and a quick reversal that left more than 30 million television viewers cringing.
By the time guests arrived to the Vanity Fair party, full of adrenaline following the drama they had just witnessed, they were most definitely ready for a drink. White-coated servers holding trays of Dom Pérignon greeted them just inside the door. Movie stars, fashion icons, politicians, musicians, athletes, and moguls soon filled the room. The pages of the magazine came to life.
My job was the real-life, Hollywood edition of “Where’s Waldo?: Spot the Oscars.” They were in the hands of Emma Stone, Casey Affleck, Viola Davis, and Mahershala Ali, among others. I circled the room, scanning faces and nudging Justin when I saw a moment requiring a shot. The space became a dreamscape of celebrities—Mick Jagger, Scarlett Johansson, Matt Damon, Mary J. Blige, Tom F
ord, Elon Musk, Jackie Chan—many of whom mingled in unexpected groupings, like Amy Adams with Vin Diesel, Pharrell Williams with Charlize Theron and Salma Hayek, Jony Ive with Katy Perry.
By two a.m., the party was winding down—here and there a few people still lingered, clutching their Oscars, riding the jubilant wave of a night’s victory all the way into morning. When the room was nearly empty, I took off my shoes and walked barefoot to the car service line. Back at the hotel, I fell immediately into bed, and woke up hours later in a mess of bobby pins and fake eyelashes.
* * *
Anna didn’t ask me about the party. Aside from our conversation about the sauna, she texted only broad questions, such as How is LA or How is it going. I liked that she didn’t pressure me to divulge any of the gossipy details of my occasionally glamorous work life. Instead she focused on making plans together for when I got back. I’m with Kacy at 6:30am next week Monday Tuesday Friday, she wrote. You’re welcome to join.
Determined to elevate her fitness regimen, Anna had done research and discovered that celebrity fitness trainer Kacy Duke had gotten Dakota Johnson in shape for her role in Fifty Shades Darker. Unfazed by a private session’s $300 price tag, Anna had begun working out with Kacy while I was away.
I know you’re only back Monday night, she said, so [come] either Tuesday or Friday.
My Friend Anna Page 7