Love and Chaos: A Brooklyn Girls Novel

by Burgess, Gemma

  Madeleine gazes at me. “Is that a withering look?” I say. “Because it needs practice. You just look a bit lost and constipated. Maybe you should—Oh, no, wait. Now that’s withering.”

  Madeleine ignores me.

  “How about you, Coconut?” I look over at Coco. “Good day shaping young hearts and minds?”

  She grins at me, all freckles and blond bob and oven mitts, and her usual layers and layers of dark “hide me!” clothes. “I got peed on.”

  “Someone took a piss on you?” I pause. “People pay good money for that.”

  “Ew! Gross! He is four years old! And it was a mistake. I hope.”

  No one asks me how my day was, and they all go back to their own things, so I get up and open the freezer, where I always keep a spare bottle of Belvedere, and fix myself another three-finger vodka on the rocks, with a slice of cucumber and a few crumbs of sea salt. My dad taught me this drink; we drank it together at the Minetta Tavern last time he was in Manhattan, about a month ago. But he didn’t say anything about a divorce.

  Cheers to me.

  Several swigs later, I take a cigarette out of my pack and prop it in the corner of my mouth, and look around at the girls, so calm and happy together, so sure of one another and their place in the world. I can’t remember the last time I felt like that. Is there anything worse than feeling alone when you’re surrounded by your friends?

  My phone buzzes. Finally! A text from Stef. Just woke up. Making a plan. xoxo

  It’s weird the way he ends texts with xoxo, I think, making myself another drink. He’s like a chick.

  “Oh, Angie, there’s mail for you.” Julia points at some packages on the sideboard. “What the hell do you keep ordering?”

  “Stuff.” I start opening them. Buttons from a little store in Savannah, a bolt of yellow cotton from a dress shop in Jersey, and a gorgeous 1930s ivory lace wedding dress that I bought for two hundred dollars on eBay when I was drunk last weekend.

  Julia screws her face up at the dress. “Wow. That is fucking disgusting.”

  This riles me up for some reason, though the shoulder pads and puffed sleeves are a little Anne of Green Gables meets Dynasty. “This lace is exquisite,” I snap. “And the bodice structure is divine, so I’m gonna take the sleeves off and make a little top.”

  “Good luck with that,” says Julia, with a laugh in her voice, which annoys me more.

  “I’m not taking fashion advice from someone who wears a double-breasted green pantsuit to work.”

  “This pantsuit is from Macy’s! And who died and made you Karla Lagerfeld?”

  “You mean Karl Lagerfeld.”

  “I know that! I was making a joke.”

  “Really? What was the punch line?”

  “Kids, play nice,” says Pia, a warning in her voice.

  “I am nice,” says Julia. “Angie’s the one living in a vodka-fueled dream world. I can’t even remember the last time I saw her sober.”

  “That is a total lie! I was sober when I saw you this morning! As you headed out the door with your pantsuit and gym bag and laptop like the one percent banker drone that you are!”

  “Okay, that’s enough!” Pia says. “Both of you say you’re sorry and make up.”

  I stand up. “Fuck that. I’m out of here.”

  I slug my vodka, run upstairs, throw on my sexiest white dress from Isabel Marant, some extremely high heels, my fur/army coat, take a moment to smear on some more black eyeliner, and stomp down to the front door. I love wearing white. It makes me feel clean and pure, like nothing can touch me.

  I can hear the girls talking happily again in the kitchen, ruffles smoothed over, conversation ebbing and flowing the way it should. Without me.

  For a second, just as I close the front door, I’m overwhelmed by the urge to run back and apologize for being a drunk brat. To find my place as part of the group, with all the ease and laughter and fun that entails … But I don’t fit with them. Not really. Pia was my only tie to them, and she doesn’t even act like she likes me these days. Though I don’t like me much these days, either.

  Anyway, I already said I was leaving. I need to stick to my word.

  I call Stef from the cab. This time, he answers.

  “My angel. Got a secret bar for you. Corner of Tenth Avenue and Forty-sixth Street. Go into a café called Westies and through the red door at the back.”

  He always knows the best places.

  I quickly check my outfit in the cab; this is a great dress. Short, white, with a sort of punk-hipster-Parisian attitude. I tried to copy it last week but failed; I can’t get the arms quite right.

  And by the way, I tried to get a job in fashion when I first got to New York. I sent my résumé and photos of the stuff I’ve made and some designs I’d been sketching to all my favorite New York fashion designers. No response. So then I sent all the same stuff to my second-favorite designers. Then my third favorites. And so on. No one even replied. I don’t have a fashion degree—my parents wanted me to get (I quote) a “normal” education first—and I don’t have any direct fashion experience at all. I thought maybe I could leapfrog over from my job with the food photographer I worked for last year, but then she fired me. (Well, I quit. But she would have fired me anyway.)

  The problem is that when you’re starting out, there’s nowhere to start. And there are thousands—maybe tens of thousands—of twenty-two-year-old girls who want to work in fashion in New York. Girls who do little fashion illustrations and take photos and love clothes. I’m a total cliché. And I hate that. I feel … different. I can’t explain it, I’m just sure I am.

  So I never talk about my secret fashion career dream. It’s easier that way. Secretly wanting something and not getting it is one thing. I can handle that; I’m good at it. But talking about wanting it, putting it out there, making it real … and then not getting it? I couldn’t deal with that much failure.

  The café, Westies, is in Hell’s Kitchen, an area of Manhattan I’m not that familiar with, but it seems appropriate today. The streets are freezing and empty, heaped with filthy, blackened snow. Manhattan looks mean in February.

  Stef’s car is parked outside. Predictably, it’s his pride and joy, a red Ferrari 308 GTS. It’s a gorgeous car, I admit. A little “look at me!” for my taste, but he loves it.

  I stride into the empty café—past greasy counters and scabby cupcakes on a dirty cake stand—to the back wall, open the red door, walk down some stairs that smell strangely like cabbage and yeast, past a dark red velvet curtain, and find myself in a warm, dark little room.

  There’s a ladder against a wall, where someone’s been putting up dark red wallpaper. A handful of small round tables, a mirrored bar, candles, and the Ramones playing in the background. The perfect secret after-hours bar.

  Stef’s the only person in here, and he’s sitting at the bar. He’s cute, though a little simian for my liking. Overconfident and overintense with the eye contact. You know the type.

  “What’s up?” I greet him with a triple cheek kiss, the way Stef always does.

  “Nothing, my angel,” he says, running his hand through his hair and lighting a cigarette. Wow, this must be a secret bar if they let you smoke inside. “How’s life with Cornie? It’s so cute that you work for her. Does she say yoo-hoo every morning when she sees you?”

  “She’s away.” Stef is part of that Upper East Side Manhattan rich kid crowd that all know one another, always have and always will, and so is Cornelia. “I need to make some money, fast.”

  “You wanna split an Adderall?”

  “Sure.” I look around. “So who do I have to blow to get a drink around here?”

  “You’re funny. This is my buddy’s place. It’s not open to the public yet, but the bar’s fully stocked. Help yourself.” Stef takes out his wallet, looking for his pills. He has a sort of cracked drawl, so he sounds permanently amused and slightly stoned. He probably is. “Fix me something while you’re at it. I’m going to the bathroom.�
��

  Two dirty vodka martinis and half an Adderall later, the world is a lot smoother.

  I like Stef, I really do. I think he’s a nice guy underneath the slightly sleazy exterior. There’s nothing between us, either, which is so refreshing.

  And he’s been good for meeting guys. That’s how I met Mani last year. He’s the one who bought me this dress, actually. He liked shopping. He also dumped me without a second thought or a follow-up phone call. I really thought we were in a serious relationship, so I guess I was, um, stunned by that. The previous guy, Marc, had been married, and messed me around for a long time, but I thought Mani was the real thing. He wasn’t. I sort of partied my way through November to get over it. Then just before Christmas I began sort-of seeing another friend of Stef’s called Jessop, from L.A. But he only called me when he was in New York, which was rarely, and it fizzled out.

  My love life is like a cheap match. Lots of sparks but the flame never catches. I pretend I don’t care, of course. Even when I’m dying inside, I just put a cigarette in my mouth and say something stupid and flippant, and no one can ever tell. Well, Pia can. Or used to.

  “You are very good at making dirty martinis, Angie,” says Stef, taking another sip of his drink.

  “One of my not-so-hidden talents,” I reply. Alcohol always makes me cocky.

  “I’ll just bet.”

  “Hey guys,” says a voice as two guys, one heavy and one skinny, walk into the bar.

  “Angie, this is Busey and Emmett. Emmett is the owner of this particular establishment.”

  “Hey,” I say. “Love the place. Does it have a name?”

  “Not yet,” says Emmett, the skinnier guy, fixing himself a drink in that self-consciously arrogant way that guys who own bars always do. “Why? Got any ideas?”

  “Name it after me,” I say. “The Angie.”

  The guys laugh. “Fuck it, why not?” Emmett smiles, holding my gaze just a fraction too long. “Maybe I will.”

  “Emmett, a word in my office?” says Busey. I look over. He’s racking up lines on one of the little round tables. Ugh, I am so over coke.

  “Angie? Ladies first.”

  “Not for me,” I say. “Not my bag.”

  “I’m good for now, buddy,” Stef takes out a little leather purse. “Let’s have a smoke, and then I’ve got a couple of parties for us.”

  “Okay,” I say. “What are we smoking?” It doesn’t look like plain old weed.

  “That’s for me to know and you to enjoy.”

  For a second, I wonder if I should. I’ve been drinking since, what, 2:00 P.M.? And Adderall sometimes makes me a little crazy.

  Then I think about why I started drinking. And about the fact that my father still hasn’t called. I don’t want to feel alone right now.

  “My folks are splitting up,” I say to Stef, accepting the joint.

  “Mazel tov! Welcome to the club. Let’s celebrate.”

  CHAPTER 3

  I wake up naked. And alone.

  The first thing I think is: forty-one days till I turn twenty-three.

  The second thing I think is: something is wrong.

  I’m not sleeping on my pillow. I always have the same pillow. It fits my head perfectly. This pillow is higher, firmer.

  I open my eyes and sit up real fast, my heart hammering with panic. Where the hell am I? Big bed, square windows, taupe blinds, huge TV, desk, one of those weird phones with the Line 1 and Line 2 buttons.

  A hotel room. NakedinahotelroomIamnakedinahotelroom.

  Okay, breathe, Angie, breathe …

  On the nightstand there’s a little notepad with SOHO GRAND printed on it. I know that hotel. It’s in downtown Manhattan. And the clock says it’s 10:00 A.M.

  Fuck.

  What am I doing here?

  I try to remember last night.

  We hung out in the bar with no name for a while, drank more, then we met some friends of his—an Italian guy? And was the chick Croatian? Something like that. Then we were in some new bar on Lafayette, or maybe it was Hudson? Or did we get a cab uptown?

  Nothing. I remember nothing.

  With a sick thud somewhere deep inside me, I see the indent of a head in the other pillow. I didn’t sleep here alone.

  Maybe the pillow just does that. Or maybe I started the night sleeping on that side.

  I head to the bathroom to pee. The wallpaper has cool little cartoon drawings of birds. Nice. It’d make a cute fabric print actually.

  Then, with an even sicker thud than before, I see something in the bottom of the toilet bowl.

  A discarded condom.

  Stef, probably. We’ve had sex before. It was years ago, at a house party in Boston, and it was not pleasant, but shit happens. At least we used a condom.

  Goddamnit. I always end up sleeping with my male friends. A couple of drinks, I think maybe I have feelings for them, they give me that look and then … boom. It’s totally wrong, I know. But I always seem to do it. I always think that this time it’ll be different. I’m a sexual optimist.

  I quickly shower, lathering soap all over my body to obliterate the sticky drunk-sex-morning-after feeling, and use the hotel shampoo and conditioner. My hair is pale blond, almost white, and very long, and it responds well to almost any hair product. As does my liver with almost any booze. Ha.

  I wish I had a toothbrush. I look like shit, but I can make a quasi–smoky eye by rubbing yesterday’s mascara and eyeliner around my eyelid. Part panda, part rock groupie. Fine.

  It’s when I’m getting dressed that I notice it, right over on the TV cabinet.

  My cell phone, propped carefully over a Soho Grand envelope with “A xx” written on the front.

  First I pick up my phone. Two missed calls and a text from Pia wondering where I am. She didn’t even bother to get in touch until this morning. Thanks a lot, ladybitch. If she left the house drunk and upset, I’d sure as hell chase her. Though she wouldn’t do that, of course. Not anymore.

  Then I open the envelope.

  It’s full of hundred-dollar bills. Thirty of them.

  Three thousand fucking dollars.

  I count it again quickly, my skin burning strangely at the sight of so much cash. It’s such a tiny stack of notes, but just imagine what I could buy with it.… Holy shit, that’s a lot of money. That’s more than Cornelia gave me every month. When she remembered.

  Three thousand dollars.

  I pause, looking out the hotel window over SoHo. I can see over the downtown rooftops, some with those funny Manhattan water thingies on top, and a bit of West Broadway, and people walking and shopping and going to Felix for brunch and leading ordinary days that probably didn’t start naked, alone, and confused in a hotel room.

  Why would Stef give me three thousand dollars?

  Then my phone buzzes again.

  It’s Stef.

  Hey kitten! Great night. Sorry for bailing, but hope you two had fun.…;-) Heading to a party in Turks tomorrow if you want to come. xoxo

  What does he mean “hope you two had fun”? Two who? Who two? And he bailed? So I didn’t sleep with him? And the money isn’t from him? Who is it from? Who the fuck did I sleep with?

  I turn the envelope over again. No signature. Nothing else.

  I feel sick.

  I don’t want to think about it, so I quickly throw my white dress back on, tie my wet hair into a tight little knot and secure it with the Soho Grand pencil, put the “A xx” envelope in my fur/army coat, and leave the room. I hope I don’t see Mani. He used to hang out in the lobby here a lot. He was so—Urgh, why am I thinking about my ex-boyfriend at a time like this?

  Five-inch heels before noon: not cool. The Soho Grand lobby, at least, is kind of sexy and dusky, so I don’t feel too out of place, but once I’m outside, the freezing white glare of the February morning is horrific.

  I feel like everyone is looking at me and thinking, Slut. I try my usual walk-of-shame trick of dialing up the attitude and pretending I’m too gnar
ly for this shit, but it doesn’t work.

  Deep inside my body I’m nauseous … in my soul, or heart, or brain, or something. Cold and itchy.

  I always do the wrong thing. Always.

  It’s always an accident.

  But it’s always wrong.

  A tall doorman with kind eyes puts me in a taxi, and I say, “Union Street, Brooklyn, please.”

  And then as the cab starts driving, I lean forward, bury my face in my knees so the driver can’t see me, and cry.

  CHAPTER 4

  When I get home, I throw my dress and shoes in the very back of my closet so I don’t have to think about them again. Then I put on my favorite old jeans and a pale gray rowing sweater that belonged to my dad when he was at Princeton. I saved it from being thrown out in one of Annabel’s house purges years ago, and I wear it on special occasions, when my soul is cold and anxious and I really need comforting. It’s like sartorial Xanax.

  Three thousand dollars. Three thousand dollars.

  Grabbing my latest romance novel, Heart Crossing, I glance at the back.

  Angry, petulant Ivy hated the imperious Captain Drummond almost as much as she hated love. When the only way to save her invalid aunt is to marry the captain, she thinks she knows what to expect. But she didn’t know she was about to meet her match.…

  They always meet their match in the blurbs, have you ever noticed?

  Yeah, I know it’s seriously uncool to read romance novels, and yeah, I know that it’s lame that the dude is always a rich guy and the chick is always a secretary and all that. I don’t care. A good romance novel is simple, predictable, and makes me smile. Perfect escapism.

  Except today, it’s not helping me escape. I keep starting paragraphs and halfway through, I’ve already forgotten what I’ve read.

  Three thousand dollars.

  I can’t bear to be alone with my thoughts today. And there’s only one solution.

  Cheers to me.

  Swigging vodka periodically and smoking out my window when the urge takes me, I play around with some vintage silky scarves covered in faded gold Art Deco prints that I picked up last week at Brownstone Treasures, this little place on Court Street, and sew them into a cool little clutch bag.