Sexy Beast

by Ella James

  In this frame of mind, I open my computer.

  Gertrude:

  You have a granddaughter. Remember? I’ve never met you, and you’re getting really fucking old. This is me, inviting myself for drinks. I’ll bring the scotch. You send the treasure map to your swanky ass island.

  ~Sarah Ryder (known to people in the know as “Red,” on account of my fabulous red hair).

  When I wake up with a terrible hangover, I’m not sure if I really sent the e-mail to the address posted on The O’Malley Foundation’s web site. But I know for sure I didn’t DVR the special on James Wolfe.

  Checking my sent box and realizing I did, in fact, e-mail Gertrude brings a strange relief. I know I’ve cashed in my only chip. I can finally surrender myself to fate.

  Sunday morning, I list my iPad, my flatscreen, my coffee table, and my antique chifferobe for sale on Craig’s List and I call my landlord, letting him know I still don’t have March’s rent money. He offers to let me make a half payment. I tell him I’ll move out in two weeks, and I’ll give him as much as I can when I hand in the key; the rest when I find a new job. I’m not sure where I’ll go, but it doesn’t really matter. I can’t stay here.

  In the two hours before I meet up with Katie, I list the rest of my furniture, my rugs, my Mikasa dinnerware, two antique mirrors, and my collection of shoes and handbags on Craig’s List.

  Minutes later, my phone vibrates with the first of what becomes many e-mail notifications. People want my shit.

  While I stand in front of the mirror to get dressed, I realize it’s the first time in a while that I haven’t felt like I’m staring at a loser.

  Maybe I’ll end up sleeping on friends’ couches, but at least I’ll know I did everything I could.

  I dress in jeans, a thermal shirt, my puffy, navy blue jacket, and my favorite pair of pink and black Nike sneakers, and lock the front door with a growing sense of nostalgia. As I walk the snow-caked sidewalk, headed toward the shops at Beacon Hill, I check my phone. I’ve got $63.29 in my checking account and $344.02 in savings. I move all but $5.00 from savings into checking and slide my phone back into my pocket.

  It’s a gray day, not unusual for March in Boston. The kind of day I never minded when I was working, because writing about art is dramatic and fun, and riding the rail to a museum or a gallery or a show or an auction was part of my daily commute.

  Before I reach the cozy little business district surrounding Beacon Hill, I try to brace myself for Katie’s work talk. Katie loves being a reporter. She tweets about the stories she covers almost ’round the clock. She’d rather check out a crime scene than eat or sleep or fuck her boyfriend, Gage.

  Thinking of Gage makes me think of Carl, and I do not need to think of Carl. Carl, who waited until the dim afterglow of some fantastically mediocre Christmas Eve sex to tell me he was leaving me for Sam. Blonde, blue-eyed, freckle-faced Sam from Denver. A ripped bartender with a forearm tattoo of a red-haired mermaid. Sam who wears a black apron and an emerald earring. Sam who has a cock.

  I shove my hands into the pockets of my coat as I pass the narrow streets of Beacon Hill, a cute historical district just two blocks from my apartment. Down one of the streets is the Journal office. Down another, Hugh’s Bar, where we play drunk bingo. I’m headed for another Boston staple: the frozen Frog Pond at Boston Commons. I realize belatedly that I’ve forgotten my ice skates and wonder if I could sell them, too. I doubt it. I let my breath out in a steamy cloud. How pathetic is it that I just want to go back to my apartment and box up clothes for Goodwill? That I feel as if my time would be better spent begging for jobs at the shops here than with my best friend?

  I follow the sidewalk past bookstores and coffee shops and sandwich shops and offices, moving quickly over the icy ground. A few more blocks and I’m in the snow-caked green space of the Commons. I pass couples holding hands, a woman smoking a pipe, a man in a trench coat, a mom with two young, coughing kids. And then there’s the pond: decked out with lights strung through the trees around it, dotted by skaters: people laughing, twirling, playing. I spot Katie’s short, curvy figure from fifty yards away and immediately feel warmed.

  We share a quick hug behind the ice skate rental booth, then exchange five dollar bills for skates and sit on a covered bench to pull them on.

  “How are you ya?” Katie asks as she tugs a boot off. Her eyebrows rise halfway up her forehead, near her blonde hairline.

  “Still kicking.”

  “We’re worried.” By ‘we,’ she means the Journal crew. That’s how enmeshed we all are. Were. Everything is ‘we.’ Damn, I miss that. I get my first skate over my thick wool sock and shake my head.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll land on my feet.” And, because I know Katie and I know she’s a worrier, I dredge up my cheeriest voice and add: “I’ve applied for lots of good jobs in the last few days. A copy editor position at the New York Sentinel and a court reporting job at the Long Island Courier. Eight more jobs in the Boston metro area, including some nanny jobs. Those pay really well.”

  Katie nods, wearing what she thinks is a poker-face, but what is actually a worried mom face.

  “If all else fails,” I tell her, “I’ll wait tables at Hugh’s.”

  She blows a stray piece of hair off her forehead. “If all else fails, we’ll murder Crissy—” the newbiest of the newbie reporters who survived the layoff.

  “That doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. She still texting her boyfriend all day?”

  “Oh, you know it.”

  Katie stands up on her skates and holds out a hand for me. We latch arms and hobble past a few half-frozen trees, to a little locker room where we pay fifty cents to stash our shoes. Then we push out onto the frozen pond. It’s cold tonight, so as I glide, the white cloud of my breath floats around my face. Katie is half a pace ahead of me, holding out her arms. She tips her head back, facing the sky, and I feel a pang of envy at how free she seems. Then I feel like an asshole for feeling envious.

  A second later, she turns to face me and smirks. “Want to race?” She nods at the other side of the pond, and I glide out ahead of her.

  “Ready, set, go!” I grin, looking at her over my shoulder, and she lunges toward me. She shoves me back and cries, “Go!”

  “Bitch!”

  Katie’s ahead of me, but she’s got short legs. I gain quickly. As soon as I find my stride, feeling almost happy for the first time in weeks, a little kid trips right in front of me and I almost slice his hand off with my skate. By the time we reach the other side of the pond, Katie has grabbed an older man’s arm in a desperate attempt not to wipe out, and I’ve bumped into a pregnant woman. What can I say? I was blinded by my bangs.

  Katie beats me by a foot or two, and we shove each other a few times, both barely keeping our balance. We’re laughing and panting as we move toward the edge of the pond, looping a boisterous group of college guys.

  When we reach a quieter patch of ice, I turn to her. “I forgot to record your thing.”

  “Was I on it?”

  I drop my head into my hand. “I’m a shitty friend. I fell asleep, so I don’t even know.”

  “You dirty whore.”

  “I know, I know. I suck big, hairy balls.”

  “It’s okay,” she says. “I know you have a lot on your mind.”

  “No it’s not.” We skate side-by-side, and somewhere nearby, there is music; and all around us, people slide by wearing clothes they got from their dressers and closets, talking to people they care about, smiling because they are happy; and suddenly I know—I just fucking know—that things are about to change for me. Big time. I’m not sure how, and I’m too afraid to want to know, but I can feel it. I can sense my path diverging from Katie’s, even as we skate here, side by side.

  My throat feels thick and tight. I think I’m going to cry. Not because I’m scared or sad for myself, but because I really will miss her and the gang from work. We will never be friends the way we were.

  I need
a distraction. “Do you think he did it?”

  “Wuh?”

  “James Wolfe.”

  “Aaaah.” She shakes her head, blonde pigtails bouncing. “I never did.” We bump elbows as we move around the perimeter of the pond. “Mainly because of the whole voice thing. You might not have watched it closely enough to see all the evidence, or not evidence, but there were some pretty serious holes in the case. Most notably this bit about a butler who supposedly heard a man’s voice that didn’t sound how James Wolfe’s voice actually sounds. But as far as whether he actually did it, or ordered it done…” She shakes her head. “I guess I’m just going on a gut feeling.”

  That’s all anyone can go on. James Wolfe hasn’t been seen in six years. “Where do you think he went?”

  Katie shrugs. “Could have been anywhere. I’d get the heck out of the country if I were him.”

  I think once more about the clean-shaven, hard-jawed man with dark brown eyes, and then I push him from my mind. I want to enjoy this night with Katie. So I do. We talk about work, gliding and twirling through the crowd. The head copy editor, Jane, just got engaged to her longtime girlfriend, and last night, Katie got called out to a big heroin bust. We talk about a controversial editorial in The Boston Globe. We pull off our skates and put on our shoes and walk to a coffee shop, where Katie orders a cinnamon bagel and a hot cocoa and I ask for tea; it’s only $2.10.

  “Why aren’t you getting coffee?” Katie bugs her eyes out.

  I smile proudly. “Gave it up.”

  I’m a liar. But I make it home without having to tell her I’m giving up the apartment, without bursting into tears or freezing to death. I don’t even have blisters from the skates.

  The first thing I do is check the job boards and my professional, Sarah Ryder e-mail address. I’ve got four confirmations from the job apps I put through yesterday, but nothing good. No call backs; mostly just spam.

  I check my Red account, the one I used to e-mail Gertrude. No reply. Emboldened by my desperate circumstances, I send another e-mail telling her I was drunk but really would like to meet. Then I read some of her poetry. It’s beautiful stuff, with lines about flowers like solemn children and the terror of a lone cloud.

  I wonder what she’s like now. I wonder if she’d remind me of my mother. It’s that particular curiosity that, first thing Monday morning, drives me to phone Strike magazine in New York City. Gertrude founded it in the mid-1960s: “a journal of enlightenment and issues” aimed at “the contemporary woman.”

  I get an operator and ask for the managing editor, a woman named Zoey Cruella. I’m put through to her assistant, Thomas, a polite guy who seems a few years younger than me. I tell Thomas my sad story, starting with my single-mother rearing and ending with Mom’s untimely death, at 38, of pancreatic cancer.

  “I was thinking of my mom today and I figured, why not try to get Gertrude’s address? I thought you guys might have it. She’s on the magazine’s board, isn’t she?”

  Thomas confirms that indeed she is, but he says he can’t just had it out.

  “So there’s nothing you can do for me?”

  “Just a moment.”

  He returns and says, “I think my boss has found a solution. I’m going to quiz you.”

  “Okay.” I chew my lip. “I’ll do my best.”

  “What was your mother’s full name?”

  “Georgia Anna Deckert.”

  “And your full name?”

  “Sarah Lynn Ryder.”

  “Okay. You’re in business. Please don’t share this, though. It’s only a mailing address—not physical—but Ms. O’Malley values her privacy.”

  An hour later, I’m walking to the mailbox with a good ole fashioned hand-written letter. My hungry stomach hurts with nervousness. Things are feeling more real now that I’ve got less than two weeks with a roof over my head. What if she never replies? What if she does, and she invites me to come see her? What if she could help me get a job?

  I forfeit my pride and call Thomas back, asking if there are any openings at Strike.

  “No,” he says. “I’m sorry.” But he doesn’t sound sorry. He sounds annoyed.

  On a whim, I call my landlord, Dursey. “I’m sorry to bother you again, but I wanted to let you know— I wanted to ask if you know of any jobs and tell you I’d take almost anything. If you have any friends or anything…”

  Silence stretches out between us before finally, Dursey clears his throat.

  “For sure. I’ll let you know.”

  But he won’t. I can tell.

  The days begin to slide through my fingers. My eye starts twitching like it did after Mom died. I stop eating. I just can’t choke food down. I watch my phone and check my e-mail and apply for more jobs. I even go by Hugh’s and ask the owner, Benjamin, if he would hire me.

  “In a heartbeat, honey. But I’ve got no openings right now.”

  One night, in a state of panic, I look up escort services. I’m not super sexually experienced—no more than average, whatever that is—but I like orgasms, and I’m not ugly. I could maybe have sex with carefully vetted strangers if it meant I could afford a small apartment.

  I check college apartment boards, hoping to find a situation where I’d be one of several roommates. Maybe I could get a low rent that way. I e-mail two girls, but get no response.

  A week goes by, a week in which I collect an additional $264 from the sale of various belongings. A week in which I awake in the night, heart beating frantically, and check my inbox with sweaty fingers. A week in which I stand up the Journal crew for bingo.

  On a Wednesday afternoon, I sell most of my clothes, adding a measly $43 to my sad sum. I go door to door again, hitting literally every business on Beacon Hill and the surrounding neighborhoods. I swallow the absolute last smidgen of my pride and frenziedly apply at a work-all-night janitorial service, at a Wendy’s, at a car wash down the street.

  I wish I hadn’t had to sell my Kia to make rent last month. If I still had it, I could expand the door-to-door part of my job hunt.

  On Tuesday, I take the bus to West End and Boston Commons; on Wednesday, Back Bay, and Cambridge. I spend both days walking as far as I can, grabbing job applications from every place with an opening and filling them out on the cold sidewalk, pressing my pen down on my wallet and trying to keep my trembling fingers still enough so my handwriting is readable. I get home at half past two a.m. Thursday, exhausted and trembling from hunger.

  Katie pops up the next day and breezes right into the apartment, which is, accidentally, unlocked.

  She looks around with horror on her face and puts her hands on her hips. “Red, what the hell?”

  I’ve been found out, and I’m slightly mortified, but I shrug and play it off. “I’m moving.”

  “Holy wow.” Her mouth lolls. “Just…holy.”

  I twirl around the almost-empty living room with my arms out. “I’m trying to live simply.”

  “Holy shit, you got evicted, didn’t you? Because Carl left you high and dry.”

  “I didn’t get evicted. I’m moving.”

  “In with Gage and I.”

  “No way.” They live in an 800-square-foot flat and fight and fuck like a pair of rabid cats.

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “Yes!”

  “Katie—”

  “Then where are you going?” she demands.

  “I’ve got plans.”

  “You don’t, Red. Quit putting me off. You’ve been doing it for weeks now and I’m tired of turning a blind eye to this…to this crisis.”

  I roll my eyes. “K, you’re totally over-reacting.”

  She’s not.

  My latest plan involves buying a bus ticket to Florida, where it’s always warm and I can sleep under a dock. I’ll use the free WiFi at coffee shops to apply for jobs. Maybe the Peace Corps.

  So I’m surprised when I blurt out, “I’m going to see my grandmother.”

  “Gertrude?”

&
nbsp; I nod slowly. “Yeah.”

  This will be the easiest way to disappear. So Katie won’t worry. I’ll find a job in Florida, find a fresh start.

  Over the next few hours, I convince Katie this is true. We read Gertrude’s poems aloud, and Katie orders Chinese food, which I devour so quickly I puke it all back up once Katie leaves.

  Late that night, I’m curled up on a blanket in my empty bedroom, wearing the pink iPhone ear buds I used to wear when I wrote at work. I’m lying on my back, my face striped by the streetlight streaming through my blinds. I’m listening to Lana Del Ray, surfing the internet for what will be one of the last times ever on my phone; I’ve just sold it on Craig’s List for $90.

  My leg itches and I reach down to scratch it. One of my nails is jagged. I scrape my calf just a little, and it stings.

  I start to sob. I tug at my hair.

  “How did this happen? What the fuck is wrong with everything?”

  I rip the ear buds from my ears and toss my phone down. I jump up and tug my sneakers on without socks. I stab my arms into my coat and run toward Beacon Hill, where the bar crowd’s out in full force and creepers stand in alleys with their heads lowered. The air is so cold it feels like a corporeal thing.

  I continue toward Boston Commons, and when I reach the pond, I spend five bucks on skates, because why the fuck not? I skate furiously in circles, until the dim stars that wink through spindly tree branches are nothing but a blur, and the faces passing by and the strings of lights and crying of a child and icy wind that slaps my cheeks seem like slivers of some dream.

  This is not my life. It cannot be my life.

  I skate until my feet are numb, and by the time I make it home, my hands are so frostbitten they burn terribly.

  I take a hot shower and bundle up in my blankets. I check my Facebook, my e-mail, and feel the morbid compulsion to check my bank account. I do this fanatically now, sometimes like every five minutes. I’m not sure if I’m trying to motivate or torture or…holy shit.