Love and Chaos: A Brooklyn Girls Novel

by Burgess, Gemma

  I have to pick the bag apart and resew it four times, but by about 6:00 P.M. and after the rest of the vodka, it’s just how I want it. Perfectly sized to fit my phone, keys, cigarettes, money, and lipstick, with a little flat handle so it sort of hugs my hand just right, and padded with extra layers of scarves so it scrunches softly. The rain is hammering down outside, it’s freezing cold and dark and endlessly, endlessly February. But right now I don’t care. I’m sewing something out of almost nothing, making the dreams in my head into reality, creating something new and real and lovely.

  My phone rings. I glance at it and quickly press “Ignore.” Annabel. My mother. Probably calling to give me shit for leaving the other day. I don’t want to talk to her until my dad calls me. I haven’t heard from him yet, but maybe he’s waiting until we can talk in person. He usually comes to New York about once a month for work.

  The combination of hangover and vodka suddenly has me starving. So I smile at my handiwork once more, and then head down to the kitchen for some raisin toast with extra butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar (one of the best things in the whole world, by the way).

  Three thousand dollars. Three thousand dollars.

  It’s not like I’m a bad person just for blacking out, right?

  My vodka stash in the freezer has run out, so I open a bottle of Merlot that someone brought home. It’s pretty nasty—very acidic, which Merlot shouldn’t be (I know I sound like a wine fuckwit, and I’m at peace with that). But it’s wet and alcoholic and that is what I need to survive the rest of the day. I’ll buy another to replace it. As I’m pulling out the cork, I notice that the old green curtains above the kitchen window are torn. Like, seriously torn. I could fix them! That would be a good peace offering for Julia. Maybe she’d like me again.

  So I climb on the kitchen counter, slightly unsteadily, carefully take down the curtains, pick up my toast and wine, and with the curtains tucked under my arm, head back upstairs.

  La-di-dah! Thank hell for booze, right? I bet it would be easy to make new curtains for my bedroom, too. Maybe I could—Oh … shit.

  I tripped and spilled wine everywhere. All over the curtains, and the carpet and wallpaper outside Julia’s and Pia’s rooms. It’s all one big, red stain.

  I’ll just hand wash the old curtains now and then fix them and then deal with the other cleanup later. The curtains probably need cleaning anyway, right? They’re like a hundred years old!

  I try to wash them. I really do. But the stain won’t come out.

  Wait! Brain wave! I’ll make curtains out of that new yellow cotton I just ordered instead. It’d be an even better peace offering for Julia, and yellow would look great in the kitchen! Yes!

  I should always drink and sew.

  Because then, an hour later, when I head back down to the kitchen to hang our brand-new, beautiful yellow curtains, I feel warm and loose and absogoddamnlutely peachy keen.

  I climb up onto the counter, wobbling slightly. The kitchen so looks different from up here! And I carefully reach up to rehang the curtains.

  BANG!

  The front door slams, surprising me. I lose my balance and instinctively grab at the curtains as I fall backward off the counter and whoomp hit my head on a chair or the table or something, ripping down the entire curtain rail off the window frame at the same time. I land hard on my back, plaster and paint and wood chips showering over my body like confetti.

  The pain is immediate.

  Like the shrieking.

  Julia. Of course. “What the fuck are you doing!? You’ve destroyed my fucking kitchen!”

  I can’t move, so I just lie on the floor and close my eyes, my head bangbangbanging. It really hurts. I can feel the throbbing reverberating in my cheekbones, the shock of the fall bringing a painful lump to my throat and tears to my eyes. What kind of person cries after she falls over? What am I, some kind of sissy?

  God, I feel so detached from myself. It’s like I’m watching myself lying prostrate and alone on the kitchen floor. Alone. Always, always alone.

  I wonder when my dad will call.

  “You’re drunk again,” Julia says. “And you reek of cigarettes.”

  I move my arms up, slowly, over my head, so that I’m hiding my face in the crook of both elbows. Maybe if I lie here long enough she’ll go away. I wish I wasn’t here.

  Then I hear the front door bang again. It’s Pia. On the phone with Aidan, as usual.

  “No, you pick a restaurant. Why? Because I am not the goddess of food!… Ha, you are a sweet talker.…” I hear her footsteps approach the kitchen. “Oh … merde. Aidan? I’ll call you back.”

  Julia: “She’s drunk.”

  Pia: “Angie, are you okay?”

  Julia: “She’s fine! She’s like one of those alcoholics who survive tornados!”

  Julia leaves the room; I can hear her stompstompstomping up the stairs. “Sort it out, Pia! This is your goddamn problem!”

  I’m not Pia’s problem. I’m not anyone’s problem except my own.

  “Ladybitch?” Pia says softly. But I don’t reply. I don’t even move. I can’t. I just lie still, in my bubble of aloneness, my arms still covering my face, and listen to the whompthump of the pain in my head, and a weird rocking feeling in the base of my throat. A tear escapes my right eye and runs down to my ear. “Angie? Do you want to talk?”

  Something warm and sticky is running down behind my ear, different from the silky tickle of tears. Blood.

  “JESUS CHRIST!” Julia shouts. “The landing is trashed! What the hell is that?”

  Oh God. The wine. I forgot to clean it up.

  “This won’t come out! It’s dried on the carpet. And the wallpaper is stained. How dare that fucking ice queen treat my home like this!”

  “Calm down, Jules,” says Pia. I hear her open the cabinet under the sink and pull out cleaning products. “Angie, I love you, but you’re going to have to start talking to me. Now.”

  Right. Because she’d totally listen right now. And stick around more than five minutes after I stopped talking. What’s the point of ever sharing problems with anyone? People always just leave, and then they have your secrets, and you can never get them back.

  “Angie. I mean it.”

  I ignore her, my arms still hiding my face. When she leaves, I slowly roll over to my tummy and feel my head to figure out where the blood is coming from. A little graze to the temple, that’s all. The kitchen linoleum is cold against my face. From this weird angle I can see that it’s gritty with dirt, it needs sweeping or Swiffering or mopping or something, and it’s probably my turn. I haven’t even looked at the stupid chore sheet in weeks.

  Three thousand dollars.

  Don’t think about it.

  “She’s a fucking liability, Pia,” I can hear Jules saying upstairs. “She’s unreliable, she’s selfish, she just does whatever the hell she wants to do and everyone else can go fuck themselves. I can’t take living with her much longer.”

  “Would you give it a rest, Jules? She’s been my best friend since we were born.”

  “And she’s always drunk. She’s got a problem, Pia.”

  “She is not always drunk. Sheesh! And you call me a drama queen. She’s just … tough to get to know.”

  “Tough as nails and cold as ice, you mean.”

  I don’t want to be here anymore.

  I stand up, steadying myself against the counter. Woo! Head rush. I grab a kitchen towel, hold it to my bleeding temple, and rush upstairs as quickly as I can—past the first floor landing where Jules and Pia are cleaning the carpet and wallpaper—to my room. I grab my big duffel and swiftly throw in my clutch, bikinis, summer dresses, heels, travel toiletry kit, makeup bag, and passport. At the last minute I add two packs of Marlboro Lights, take one cigarette out and put it in the corner of my lips, and grab my open bottle of wine. Then I change out of my dad’s Princeton sweater and pull on a white cashmere sweater, my fur/army coat, and sunglasses.

  Duffel over my shoulder, I
head downstairs, lighting my cigarette as I go.

  “Where are you going?” snaps Julia.

  I exhale my cigarette smoke and take a swig of the wine, my face twitching with the effort of a cold smile. “I’m going to the fucking beach.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Good decision.

  Coming to Turks and Caicos was a good decision.

  Right?

  Yes.

  I called Stef the moment I left the house.

  It sounded like he was in a bathroom. “Babe! Hosting a gathering at my place. And my friend Hal is throwing a party tomorrow. He’s dying to meet you!”

  I wanted to ask him who I slept with at the Soho Grand. I wanted to ask him if he knew why someone would give me three thousand dollars for no reason. But I didn’t. I just shut up, drank my wine straight from the bottle, gave the driver a twenty to let me smoke in his cab, and tried not to think about it. Tried very, very hard.

  Stef greeted me with a handful of pills and a bottle of Grey Goose. The next few hours became a blur. A party, a car, an airport, a plane charter, people laughing and shrieking. I just kept my sunglasses on and tried to look in control.

  For a split second, as we boarded the plane, I wanted to turn around and run back to Rookhaven.

  But I said I was going to the beach. And I hate going back on my word.

  I sat in a corner and zoned out while everyone else partied, and next thing I knew, we’d landed. Everything had the glow of early dawn, and I could smell the ocean. We were finally in Turks and Caicos, a tiny, rustic, decidedly un–New York group of islands somewhere in the Caribbean. Sunshine and bare feet. Exactly what I need.

  Forty days till I turn twenty-three.

  Within minutes of landing, we’re in open-top jeeps on the way to the party. I’m in the back of the smaller jeep, next to some Swedish guy called Lars, but he’s been on the phone most of the time. Stef’s sitting up front. He’s hungover, I think, and very quiet underneath his straw boater hat. (“It’s ironic!” he said, when I raised an eyebrow at it. “If you have to explain that it’s ironic, it’s probably not,” I replied.)

  I love—love—the Caribbean. I love sandy roadsides and paint-chipped houses and blue skies that look like they stretch forever. I love the big, strange blocky buildings that pop up now and again by the side of the highway, banks and hospitals and supermarkets, with parking lots that could fit hundreds, as though they’re expecting a population boom any minute now. I love the eye-achingly bright light and the way the air feels so pure and warm when you breathe.…

  I’m so fucking over New York.

  And I’m really over Brooklyn.

  The hot sun on my bare skin right this second is possibly the best thing I’ve ever felt. I’m sitting on my fur/army coat, wearing a little white sundress that I put on when we landed, and my studded Converse because I forgot to pack my flip-flops. With every breath of warm salty air, I can feel my bones thaw, my jaw relax, and the cold anxiety in my soul ease, for the first time in weeks.

  When we arrive at Turtle Cove Marina, it’s shiny and new and weirdly out of place in the shabby warmth of the rest of the island. Three young men wearing white polo T-shirts, shorts, and knee-high white socks—the kind of crew uniform that tends to indicate someone’s working on a very, very, very big boat—come and grab our bags.

  Everyone surges ahead, racing down the pier as though there’s a prize at the end. There are eight of us in total: four other girls, all about my age, all gorgeous, all acting like best friends but ignoring me, all constantly reglossing suspiciously plump lips. Plus Swedish Lars, some guy called Beecher who kept cracking unfunny jokes about the mile high club while we were taking off in New York, and, of course, Stef. And me.

  Three thousand dollars.

  Don’t think about it.

  I look ahead and see a worryingly shitty-looking speedboat onto which our luggage is being loaded by the boat boys. The girls start squealing.

  “Where the fuck did you find them?” I murmur to Stef.

  “Old friends, babe, old friends.”

  Stef looks like shit. Pale and blotchy, with cracked skin in the corners of his mouth. It hits me that I’ve never seen him in daylight before. And I’ve known him for six years.

  Wow. The realization stops me for a moment.

  What am I doing here? Taking a vacation with Stef, the Jovial Medicated Playboy, and a cast of strangers?

  Standing still, trying to gather whatever wits I have left, I watch everyone else surge ahead. The girls step from the pier into the speedboat, all squealing with excitement or fear or both, even though the boat is barely rocking at all and the boat boys are on hand to help them. One is offering them glasses of champagne.

  But where are they taking us?

  And where is the host? Hal, or whatever his name is?

  Is getting on a tiny speedboat with people I don’t really know the worst idea ever? Or the best, given my reality right now?

  To stall for thinking time, I light a cigarette.

  “Hey, you can’t smoke on the marina,” shouts a voice. I look over. One of the boat boys. Tall, tan, clean-cut, blond, ridiculously chiseled, as though he was bioengineered as an example of perfect all-American manhood. “Fire hazard. Gas spills.”

  I look around. The pier is totally dry beneath my studded Converse.

  He reads my mind. “I know, it’s not likely. I’m just saying, it’s against the rules. You’ll get a fine.”

  “The rules? Whose rules? What are you, some kind of nautical Nazi Youth?”

  He raises his eyebrows in surprise, and then assumes the professional all-American mask again. “Something like that.”

  I take one last drag of my cigarette, stub it out, and walk toward the speedboat, ignoring him. How bad can a yacht party be when some angel-faced boat boy is freaking out about a stupid cigarette? This is just another rich guy’s folly. Some loaded, insecure friend of Stef who wants to impress his friends and a bunch of girls by showing them a good time in the Caribbean sunshine. Bet you twenty bucks this Hal guy wears his shirt undone to midchest and says things like “island time, mon.”

  Once on board the speedboat, I grab a glass of champagne. Cheers to me.

  And like I say, it’s a good decision. Because the minute we clear the marina, the yacht—sorry, the superyacht—we’re about to board comes into view. It’s stunning, like something out of a movie, over 250 feet long, with three tiers stacked up like a wedding cake.

  “A staff of eighteen for the comfort of up to twelve guests.” A rote speech from one of the boat boys. I look around for my clean-cut goody-two-shoes. He’s up front, staring into the wind. “Equipped with a swimming pool and a helipad, the Hamartia also boasts nine staterooms, including an indoor cinema and a fully equipped gymnasium with two state-of-the-art Pilates reformers.”

  “Oh, gnarly. I can work on my core,” I say, to no one in particular. Which is good, because no one is listening.

  “I am literally freaking out, you guys!” one of the girls squeals. “Literally. This is me, literally freaking out.”

  We pull up to the Hamartia and go on board. It’s even bigger up close: shiny, white, and immaculately clean, like a bathroom turned inside out.

  The other girls are squeaking and clapping their hands, and then accept yet more champagne from another boat boy. The crew is all men, I notice. And the host is nowhere in sight.

  Something isn’t right.

  I turn to Stef. “What are we really doing here?”

  He smiles, looking as unattractive as I’ve ever seen him. “Just good fun, babe.”

  Hmm.

  Thinking, I gaze out at the view. We’re a long way from shore. I can just make out the luxury hotels along Grace Bay beach, some with cabanas set up out front. People lined up working on their tans, or their marriages, or whatever people go on vacation to do.

  There are three other yachts within swimming distance, and I can see a family running around on one, the daddy showing hi
s kids how to do the mainsail, or some shit like that. My father taught me to sail, too. He taught me to sail but can’t bother to call and tell me about the divorce.

  My parents are divorcing. Wow. Every now and again it hits me, however much I try to ignore it. He hasn’t called, and I haven’t called my mother back.… It’s like our family died or something.

  I suddenly have a thumping headache that the champagne won’t help. Caffeine. I need caffeine. And sugar.

  “Could I please get some Coke?” I ask the boat boy offering the champagne, a short guy with a terrible cliché of a goatee.

  “Si.” Goatee draws a little one-inch-square plastic packet of white powder from his pocket and drops it into my hand. I stare at it for a second.

  “No, um, a Coca-Cola,” I say, staring at it. Cocaine. Fuck me, the crew is actually handing out drugs?

  “I’ll take that for later,” says Stef, smoothly pocketing it. He swings an arm around my back. It’s annoyingly ownership-like, but reassuringly protective at the same time. “I’m going to bed with Dr. Ambien and Dr. Dramamine, babe. See you in eight hours.”

  “Uh—okay—” I say, suddenly feeling panicky. Stef is my only link to quasi-normality.

  “Just enjoy yourself, hon,” Stef gives my waist a little squeeze and heads belowdecks.

  I look over and see that clean-cut boat boy staring at me again, but I ignore him. I am in control of this situation. I can handle this. I can handle anything.

  “I’ll take you to your cabins,” says Goatee, and we all follow him, the girls shrieking all the way down.

  The décor below deck is sort of pan-Asian, with dim, sexy lighting, Chinese illustrations, Thai sculptures, and Japanese blossom prints on the bed. Interior decorators don’t always care about the cultural sanctity of their creations, I’ve noticed.

  The girls pair off to sleep in doubles together. I’m given my own room, a single with a tiny en suite. Three bottles of Coca-Cola are already waiting in a bucket of ice on my dresser. Wow. That’s good service.

  With the door shut and locked, I lie down on the bed, still wearing my Converse and sunglasses. I have that numb thoughtless inertia that I always get after a heavy night of meds and booze. I should really stop doing it. I will, I will stop …