The bar looks kind of like a stage set now, the way bars always do when they’re empty, the lights are on, and you’re sober. It’s just the same as it was that time I met Stef here, with one change: above the bar, in a cursive script, is ANGIE’S SECRET spelled out in pink neon.
Looking at it makes me feel sick.
Leading the way, I walk straight to the back of the room, where there’s a tiny unisex bathroom.
It’s locked.
“Shit!” I say.
“Don’t worry,” says Madeleine. “I can pick locks.”
“Where the fuck did you learn how to pick a lock?” asks Pia.
Madeleine arches an eyebrow. “You don’t know everything about me, Pia. So it looks like a single-pin pick will do fine. Anyone got a bobby pin?”
Pia takes a pin out of her chignon.
“And I just need…” Madeleine runs to the bar, picks up a knife, throws it down, then grabs a corkscrew. “Aha!” She hurries back. “Give me two minutes.”
But all she needs is thirty seconds. Click, click, click, the lock is done.
“Hurry,” says Pia. “It’s, like, 7:30. Even the latest of the late-night bars probably need someone in early to set up.”
“Okay, okay.” I open the door and look in the bathroom. It’s just a communal sink with a huge mirror and two toilet stalls. I can’t see a TV screen, or a DVD player, or even a laptop, anywhere.
The girls push past me. “Did you find it? Let’s get out of here!”
“It’s not here,” I say, feeling a lump of desperation in my throat. “There’s no screen, there’s nothing. Anyway, what am I even thinking? They would have made copies of any tape.… It’s digital, it’s probably on the Internet. I can never destroy everything. There’ll always be a copy somewhere. What were we thinking, driving up here like fucking vigilantes?”
Julia is frowning. “Something’s weird about this room.… Look, why is the mirror angled up? Mirrors are usually angled down so that it’s flattering to the person looking at their reflection, right?”
I gaze at the mirror. “So?”
“So … it’s like it’s designed to reflect something high on the opposite wall. You see?”
“What are you, Nancy fucking Drew?” says Madeleine.
Julia doesn’t respond. Instead, she turns around and looks at the blank opposite wall, then swivels back to the mirror, and looks up.
And then I see it. There’s a hole the size of a quarter in the wall above the mirror.
“It’s next door,” she says. “The camera. It’s projecting the movie onto the wall and reflected in the mirror. So that when you’re in the bathroom, you can see the movie, no matter which way you’re facing.”
We all file out of the tiny bathroom. Next door to it is another door … the janitor’s closet.
“Hairpin! Hairpin!” says Madeleine, holding her hand out like a surgeon in an operating theater.
“Fuck the hairpin,” Julia says, and kicks the lock on the door, very hard, with all her strength. On the third kick, I can hear wood splintering, and the door falls open.
Inside is a bucket full of cleaning products and a few crates of mixers. And when we look up, a tiny newly made shelf containing a vintage-looking movie camera.
“That’s a Super 8 home movie camera,” says Pia. “Aidan has a bunch of movies his folks made of him when he was a baby; it tapes and plays back from the same machine.… Super 8 has that grainy old-fashioned look, you know? It’s totally popular again.”
“Oh, good,” I say. “So I was filmed having sex without my knowledge, but at least I look cool?”
“Well, it’s unlikely that those losers bothered to transfer the film to digital, so that’s a bonus.”
“Get the fucking camera and let’s go already,” says Julia.
I reach up, knocking the camera off the shelf. It clatters to the floor.
“Oops. I think I broke it,” I say, making a pretend-anguish face at the girls.
Julia grins and stamps on it so hard it breaks into three pieces. “Oops. I think I broke it more.”
“Okay, can we do this back at Union Street?” Pia interrupts.
Everyone files out as I pick up the broken camera, and then they all turn around and walk back into the bar.
The other girls are frozen in front of me.
I look at them in confusion. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”
Then I see why they’re not moving.
Emmett, Busey, and Stef. Blocking the exit.
“Hello, Angie,” says Stef. “Looks like you’ve discovered our secret.”
CHAPTER 41
“How could you do that to me?” I stride right up to Stef. “You filmed me! Having sex! Do you really fucking hate me that much? What did I ever do to you?”
“Hey, it wasn’t me, babe!” He puts his hands up and takes a step back. “I was as surprised as you were. Well maybe not as surprised…”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I swear.”
I turn to Emmett and Busey, feeling like I might collapse from stress and anger. “You evil assholes,” I stammer. “I could have you arrested.”
“You’re overreacting,” says Busey, his chubby cheeks wobbling with every word. “It’s really a beautiful movie. Very sixties, very classic. You should be proud.”
I gasp, feeling like I’ve been hit.
“I thought you were into it.” Emmett looks bored. “I set the camera up while you were in the bathroom. You never even noticed.… You were pretty wild.”
I try to speak, but only a choking sound comes out, and tears flow down my face. I can’t bear this. I can’t. I don’t know what to do.
“You piece of shit,” says Julia. “How dare you take advantage of Angie like that! How dare you show a sex tape in your disgusting bar, like she was some kind of porn star!”
Busey smirks. “If the shoe fits—”
“Shut the hell up,” says Pia, her voice low and threatening. “Don’t you dare say that shit about my best friend, you fat fuck.”
“We’re leaving,” Madeleine adds. “And we’re taking the camera.”
“By the way,” Coco says, “my boyfriend works for the Department of Health, in the Bureau of Food Safety and Community Sanitation. Bet you twenty bucks you’ll lose your liquor license and be shut down within the month.”
“What liquor license?” Stef says under his breath, then looks up and sees that we all heard.
Coco looks at him, then back at Busey and Emmett. “I’d say you’re pretty screwed, assholes.”
Coco is one tough broad when she wants to be.
Just as we reach the curtain, Julia stops, turns around, walks back to Stef, and slaps him, once, very hard across the face.
“Hey—”
“That’s for everything you did to my friend. She’s a good person. She didn’t deserve it.”
When we get up to the street, I feel a heady euphoria. Victory! But before I can celebrate, I need to do one thing.
With shaking hands, I find the latch and open the camera, slip my finger into the film, and pull it all out by hand. Ribbons upon ribbons of film come out, quickly spooling in a huge pile at my feet. I start jumping and stamping on it, and then all the girls join in, laughing with the sort of relieved hysteria that you get when you’ve just escaped a scary, ridiculous, weird situation.
“We’re throwing this film off the Brooklyn Bridge,” says Julia. “And then we’re going home. I need a drink.”
“We really shouldn’t litter,” says Coco. “We’ll cut it into tiny pieces at home instead.”
“Let’s get pizza,” says Pia. “My treat.”
I know what she’s thinking. It’s confession time. Pia and I are leaving Rookhaven.
As I’m getting into Toto the food truck, I spot Stef’s car parked just down the street. His red Ferrari 308 GTS. The thing that means the most to him in the entire world.
I have an idea.
Without pausing, I str
ide into the deli next to the café, buy a two-liter bottle of Coca-Cola, walk over to the car, open the gas cap, open the Coke bottle, and pour every last drop of sugary, engine-frying Coca-Cola into the gas tank. Glug, glug, glug.
“What the fuck are you doing?” shouts Pia from the truck.
I don’t reply. When every last drop is in the tank, I turn around and walk back to the truck, smiling to myself. Stef’s precious car is fried.
Revenge. Is. Awesome.
Then we drive back to Rookhaven, sit down at the kitchen table, order pizza from Bartolo’s, open a bottle of wine, and attack the film with scissors.
“No vodka tonight, Angie?” Madeleine teases me, as she slices up frame after frame. “No cucumber, no sea salt? No cigarette tucked between your lips?”
I smirk at her. I finally understand Madeleine. She’s trying to be funny. It just comes out as bitchy sometimes. “Not tonight. Tonight, I want to toast to you guys. Thank you. I could not have survived that without you.”
We all raise our glasses and clink, with all the obligatory intense-eye-contact-or-seven-years-bad-sex stuff.
Then the pizza arrives, and after we all take our first bite, Pia and I exchange a glance. It’s time to tell everyone.
“I’m moving to San Francisco to be with Aidan,” she says.
“I’m moving to L.A. to be with myself.” I raise an eyebrow. “God, that’s depressing.”
“What?” Julia, Madeleine, and Coco exclaim in unison.
“Why?” Coco is distraught. “You’re leaving? Both of you?”
“I just … I’m miserable without him,” says Pia. “If you love someone, you want to be with them. Right?”
“What about your job?” asks Julia. “They’re letting you work from San Francisco?”
“Um, no,” says Pia. She looks up guiltily. “I asked my boss today. She said that she needed me here in New York, with the rest of the company.”
“So you quit working at Carus?” Julia is horrified. “That’s it?”
I’m stunned, too. Pia didn’t tell me that her boss said no to the proposed San Francisco move. She’d walk away from her perfect career—when it’s so impossible to find a job right now? Let alone one as amazing as hers?
“Not yet,” Pia admits. “I couldn’t bring myself to actually resign. After she said no to the move, I said, oh of course, I was just wondering if it was an option, yada yada.… But I will. Tomorrow.”
“How could you quit the job that you worked so hard to get?” I slam my palm on the table so hard that everyone jumps. “You earned that job, Pia. You went through hell to get it.”
“And we went through hell with you!” points out Madeleine.
“Oh man, I know, I know…” Pia looks at the ceiling in anguish. “I love my job. I mean, I really love it, and I’ve only just begun to realize my potential.… And I’m good at it! Finally, for once, I’m actually good at something. It’s where I’m supposed to be, I’m sure of it … but I also feel like I’m supposed to be with Aidan. I love him.”
“I guess you have to choose,” says Madeleine. “Work or love?”
“I hate that!” says Pia. “Why should I be the one making sacrifices? Why can’t he give up his stupid job to stay with me? What fucking decade are we living in?” She takes a slug of wine and sighs dramatically.
“And what about you, Angie?” Julia turns to me. “You’re just going to fill Rookhaven with flowers and leave?”
“Just when we were finally getting to know you?” adds Madeleine.
“Come on, you guys,” I say, looking at them uncomfortably. “You know I’m never going to make a life here. A real life. I can’t get a job. And I can’t keep working at places like the goddamn Gap or be a personal slave to rich bitches like Cornelia or that psycho bitch photographer, you know? I need to feel like I’m on the right track, like my life has direction, a purpose. And I don’t.”
There’s silence. No one seems able to argue with me. This makes me crumble a little bit inside. I sort of hoped—half hoped, maybe—that one of them would tell me she didn’t want me to go, that they simply wouldn’t allow it. But why would they try to argue me out of anything? It’s never worked before.
“What about Sam?” asks Julia.
“Sam is a liar.” I stare at my plate. Talking about my emotions makes me feel so fucking awkward. “I have no feelings for him. I thought I did, and I was wrong, he’s a liar. I was, you know, projecting.” Yeah. That’s a good word. I’m just not completely sure what it means.
“He’s crazy about you, you know,” says Julia.
I look up. “What?”
“On our date he kept mentioning you, or asking if I knew where you were, because he hadn’t been able to get in touch with you.… I swear we only turned up at the bar because I said you were there and he insisted we go. Our date wasn’t a real date; it was just dinner with a guy who happened to be into one of my friends.”
“Oh,” I say in a tiny voice, trying to process all this. “Well, he should have been up-front with you. Why did he go out with you, if he wasn’t interested? He’s still a bastard.”
“He’s not. I saw him when I got home from work tonight. He’s been cleaning up Vic’s place. He said he was sorry, that he thought we were on the same page with being more friends than anything else. He said he thought he’d be able to get you and his brother Pete to come to dinner, too. Make a happy little foursome. He was about to tell you all about his family stuff. He never liked me like that.”
“Ouch,” says Pia. “Jules, that bites.”
“No, it’s fine,” says Julia, rubbing her temples and frowning. “He was so honest, I couldn’t even be upset.… I don’t even know if I liked him all that much, either. I just wanted to like someone so badly.…” She sighs. “I would really like a boyfriend. That’s all.”
There’s a long pause.
“So, Sam has a brother?” Pia says finally. “Do they look alike?”
Jules cracks up. “I know! That was the first thing I thought, too!”
We all eat in thoughtful silence for a while. I’m thinking about Sam, trying to figure out how I feel and what I should do, but there are just too many emotions jumbled inside me. Too much has happened in the past twenty-four hours. I feel like I could get into bed and sleep for a week. And I still need a job. I need a real life, a life that’s heading somewhere. That’s the bottom line.
“God, I love Bartolo’s,” says Julia, when the pizza is all gone. “But it always leaves me in the mood for something sweet, you know?”
“I know!” says Madeleine. I frown at her. Madeleine practically never eats sugar. “I could really do with, hmm, let me think, something pink and white, with icing, and candles.…”
Suddenly I notice Coco is at the fridge, pulling out a cake. “Ta-da! For Pia and Angie! Birthday cake!”
“I thought I wouldn’t get a cake this year!” Pia is delighted. “Happy twenty-third birthday to us!”
Coco lights the candles, everyone sings “Happy Birthday,” and then Pia and I take deep breaths, close our eyes, and blow out the candles.
“Don’t forget to make a wish!” shouts Julia.
I wish to create a life that will make me happy.
The wish comes, unbidden, into my head. If I’d had time to think about it, I would have wished for something more specific, like a job that pays $150,000 a year and a house with a private chef and a rooftop goddamn swimming pool.
Or even just a job. But that’ll never happen in New York. So I guess my wish will take me to L.A.
Then I open my eyes and look around at the girls. They’re my family now. I don’t want to say good-bye to them.
This is what it all boils down to: I don’t want to leave, but I feel like I have to.
What the hell am I going to do?
CHAPTER 42
I barely slept last night.
Again.
I have that dull exhaustion faceache behind my eye sockets, you know the kind I mean? The k
ind that can only be relieved by about twenty-four hours of sleep and then a gallon of espresso. But it won’t be happening here. Every time I closed my eyes last night, a kaleidoscope of images rushed through my brain. Everything that’s happened, everything I wish I could erase, everything I wish I could ask Sam, everything …
A few things have become clear, in the restless thinkfest that was my night.
First, I was wrong.
(Again.)
Yes, Sam lied about who he was and where he was from.
But he obviously had reasons. His father, his mother … I don’t know the full story. But I should have stuck around to find out. I should have given him the benefit of the doubt. Just like I should have stuck around with my mom that day she told me about the divorce, and I should have stuck around Rookhaven the night that Julia and I had the fight in the kitchen. But I didn’t. My instincts said run.
So I ran.
I’m always led by instinct. Ruled by it, really. I always thought it was just who I was, I thought it was part of my personality. Unpredictable. Mercurial. Sometimes it’s not such a bad idea, like getting away from the yacht in Turks. But sometimes—more often—it is.
So is it a bad idea, leaving Brooklyn, when I can’t get a real job in New York? Or is it logical? I honestly can’t tell what’s rational and what’s crazy anymore, or what’s smart and what’s stupid. There are too many choices. It’s all too confusing, and I have this terrible fear, deep down inside, that I’ll make the wrong choice and always regret it.
And now, it’s Wednesday morning. Everyone else in the world is getting up, going to their jobs, earning money, having a life that’s worth living.
Except me.
I need some air.
So I get out of bed, take a very quick shower, and pull on jeans, my studded Converse, and a white blouse. I got up at 3:00 A.M. and finished altering the neckline. It’s so pretty. Maybe it’ll bring me luck.
Then I grab my old Zara leather jacket, and throw my keys, money, phone, and lip balm in the pocket, since Cornelia still has my damn gold clutch, and leave Rookhaven without running into anyone else. I walk slowly down Union Street as the sun rises, getting that quiet buzz you feel when you’re the only person awake and the world feels like your secret. Brooklyn seems fresh and clean and full of promise.
Love and Chaos: A Brooklyn Girls Novel Page 26