by Cat Marnell
“Bleerrgrgggg,” Marco . . . well, not said, exactly.
“OW!” I screamed as I jabbed myself in the middle finger.
“Guh,” Marco said. Ooh, I was so happy to be hanging with him again. Then he nodded off and face-planted into the coffee table. Thud. His forehead was on the keyboard of my laptop! The screen was jumping around.
“YO!” I snapped. “WAKE UP AND DO THIS FUCKING COKE YOU MADE ME BUY!” I’d been dipping into it plenty myself. “Here!” I marched over, took the keys from around my neck, and scooped a huge bump from the bag. I shoved it under Marco’s left nostril.
“Ughh,” Marco gurgled.
“Sniff!” I barked like a drill sergeant. (I often get a bit militant on yay sometimes, I must admit.) My hand was unsteady. Marco kept snorting air. “Sniff! Focus! Sniff!” Finally Marco hit the target. I scooped another huge bump. “AGAIN!”
After a few minutes, Marco felt better. He even stood up.
“Let’s smoke the coke,” he said.
“No,” I said. “I don’t have the lung capacity for that.”
“Tinfoil . . .” Marco murmured. He staggered to his feet.
“No, dude,” I said, slurping finger blood. “It’s a waste. You’re going to burn through it all in five minutes.” But Marco wasn’t listening. “I paid for it!” He was hoisting himself to stand on the counter, heading for the hard-to-reach cabinet over the fridge. It didn’t have a lock on it. I’d stashed some drug-related stuff up there—pipes, tinfoil. But wait. How did he know that?
Paranoia latched onto my brain like a giant squid. I started to shake.
“I SAID I DON’T HAVE THE LUNG CAPACITY FOR THAT!” I said as he climbed down from the counter.
“Relax,” Marco said.
“Why—” I could barely talk. “Why do you always know where everything in my apartment is?” I put my hands in my hair. I wanted to pull my entire face off. “You need to get out of here. YOU NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE.”
“What?” Marco said. “Why?” He was acting innocent, but I could see him hardening. The tinfoil was still in his hand. He had climbed down from the counter and was standing by the fridge. “You’re being crazy—”
“AM I?” I screamed. Was I? Marco was shapeshifting in front of me. I couldn’t see him straight. I couldn’t see where he really was. I reached out. Then I snatched my hand away. “AM I?”
“Yes!” Marco said.
“You’ve been going through my stuff while I’m at work. I told you not to do that,” I said. “YOU NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE. I WANT YOU OUT. YOU STEAL FROM ME. YOU STOLE EVERYTHING FROM ME. YOU RUINED EVERYTHING.” My thoughts were spinning like a carnival ride. “I CAN’T FORGIVE YOU. I THOUGHT I COULD BUT I—”
“Stop screaming,” Marco muttered. He was getting up to go.
“JUST LEAVE AND LEAVE ME ALONE!” I started crying. “I HATE YOU. I FUCKING HATE YOU. I CAN’T DO THIS AGAIN. IT’S OVER. PLEASE JUST GO.”
“Whatever, bitch,” Marco snarled. “You need rehab.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I sobbed. Marco was getting his things together, putting them into his stupid Gaultier gym bag. “I know that. I know!”
Now he was putting on his coat. I backed into the kitchen, fumbled in one of my drawers for a knife—I was very coked up, as I said—and braced myself for an attack. But Marco didn’t pull a single stunt. He just stumbled out of my apartment.
The door slammed behind him. I rushed to lock it.
That was easy, I thought.
Ping. I heard the elevator door open. A minute later I peeked out into the hall. Marco was gone.
* * *
An hour later, I was sitting on the floor listening to “Cradle of Love” on my headphones and toasting a marshmallow with a BIC lighter.
“Ow!” I hissed, dropping the flaming treat onto my lap. I was still cranked. My fingertips were burned black, and my arm splotchy with yellow bruises from Marco’s amateur-hour injections. “ACK!” I beat the marshmallow with the heel of my palm.
When it was time to get ready for work, I threw on a Tuleh blazer and grabbed my Bottega. Sexy Dexys? Check. MetroCard? Check. Now, where were my keys? When had I last used my— Wait.
Suddenly it felt like Chris Brown was doing backflips in my stomach.
I reached up to my neck.
They weren’t there.
No.
I shook out the bed. I felt up my jacket pockets. I pulled my sofa apart. I dumped out my purse. Finally I had to give up. I left my apartment unlocked.
It was a bright, sunny morning—my least favorite kind. I bought an iced coffee at Little Veselka and wobbled down into the train station at 9:46 a.m. The Thursday production meeting that started in fourteen minutes was by far the most important responsibility of my otherwise easy-breezy job—and I was gonna be late. Again.
Sure enough, I sidled into the conference room at 10:06. The accessories editor was on deck.
“Sup,” Ray Siegel—then a Lucky assistant, now an editor at CR Fashion Book—mouthed.
Ray passed me a piece of paper: the production sheet. Ooh, I just hated that thing! It was double-sided, with two very confusing charts. Everyone else seemed to understand it, but I could never decipher a thing. Not that I could even focus on trying today. I kept thinking about my keys, my keys, my—
“Beauty?” the managing editor, Regan, said.
Ray kicked my dirty ballet flat with her beautiful Burberry wedge.
“Uh,” I said.
Everyone looked at me.
“Beauty?”
“January opener is ‘Strong Brows,’ ” I said slowly.
“We know,” Regan said coolly. “That page shipped three weeks ago.”
“We’re on to February opener,” the assistant managing editor, Faye, said.
“Oh,” I said. I looked at the production sheet. It was supposed to have all the answers! But where? “So the new opener is”—think think think—“ ‘Bronzer combined with Blush’!” What had we called it? “ ‘Brosh’!”
“ ‘Blonzer,’ ” Faye corrected me.
“Blonzer.” I nodded. “Right.” I didn’t understand this meeting! Why did I have to tell these people things they already knew?
“Okay,” said Faye. “So what’s the status?”
“The blonzers . . . are being shot by the photo studio?” I guessed.
“Has it been written? Has Kim approved a photo? Is there a layout?” asked Regan.
I stared at the sheet again.
“I’ll have to get back to you,” I mumbled.
I squirmed through seven more beauty pages like that.
“Thanks, Cat,” Regan said when it was all over. She gave me a steely once-over: taking in my busted face, my dull skin, my under-eye bags.
“Yup.” I smiled.
When the meeting was dismissed and the room started buzzing again, Ray turned to me.
“Well,” she said. “That was incredibly brutal and uncomfortable.”
I chuckled at the absurdity of my failure for a second and then pulled Retrosuperfuture sunnies down over my eyes. Ray laughed, too.
“I’m dead,” I said. “What’s new?”
“Well,” Ray said. “If you were anyone but you, I’d be scared for your job right now.”
“I am scared,” I said. “Come with me to my desk for a minute. I need you to keep making me feel better.”
“What are you doing later?” Ray followed me to the beauty department. She watched me slog through the chaos in my cubicle to get to my desk chair. “God, how does your cubicle get so insanely messy? Where are your interns? Oh, and do you know a good Japanese restaurant in the East Village near where you allegedly live? And why won’t you ever let me come over to your apartment?”
“Too many questions!” I dialed the four-digit extensio
n to the beauty closet but nobody answered. Where were my interns? Someone needed to get me coffee and help me clean my desk. “I barely slept last night! And I don’t go to restaurants.”
Just then my editor in chief came by.
“Marnell,” Kim said right away. “What happened to your knees?”
I took off my sunglasses. I was wearing my white Sass & Bides and the bloodstains from where I’d fallen off the stoop were . . . seeping through them.
“Oh.” I tried to think of something. I was too tired. “I fell off a stoop.” Everyone was looking at me.
“And . . . ?” Ray said.
“It was a freak thing!” I started waving my hands around in the air until I noticed one of them was bleeding, too, at the knuckles, and I put them down. “I was on Waverly Place, I was standing there drinking an iced coffee and talking to some, uh, people and I took a step to the side, and I just fell off the whole stoop.” I looked down at my knees. “And, well, I guess I got my pants all bloodied up.”
“And then you decided to wear those very same pants today.” Ray smirked.
“Look.” I scowled. “I fell and then I was tired, so I didn’t look at my pants.” KF furrowed her brow. “And I think I’m just really dehydrated.” I gulped from an old Poland Spring bottle. “I don’t know what else to say.” My voice cracked. Suddenly I felt hysterical. “I FELL OFF A STOOP. I FELL OFF A STOOP.”
“What is wrong with you?” Ray whispered after Kim had moved on.
“I don’t know,” I said, burying my head in my hands. “I’m gonna get fired.”
“Nah,” Ray said. “They’ll never fire you.” I wasn’t so sure.
“How high was the stoop?”
“I don’t know, Ray,” I said. “It was a stoop! Five steps high.”
Ray let it drop.
“Do you want to work out at Chiquinox with me later?” Ray asked. (That’s Condé-speak for Equinox gym, where I once downward-dogged with Bruce Willis.)
“Um, sure,” I said. “What time?”
“Let’s just go after work,” Ray said. “I—”
My office phone started ringing. Marco’s number was on the caller ID. I snatched up the receiver.
“Snake!” I answered. “Fuck you. I’m meeting you on the street and you’re giving me back my keys, and after that I never want to see you again.”
“I’m coming over later,” he said.
“Oh no, you’re not. You are not coming over there, Marco,” I hissed. “You’re not going anywhere near my fucking house again.” Ray gave me a little wave. I mouthed “good-bye.” “There are consequences to things! Don’t you get it?” No answer. “You are not coming over. I will call the cops. Do not—”
“I’ll be there at six,” he said curtly.
And he hung up.
“GET OUT OF MY LIFE!” I screeched so loud that they could probably hear it in the art department. Jean Godfrey-June definitely heard it: she’d just arrived, and I hadn’t noticed.
“Everything okay?” she said as she sat down at her desk.
“Yup!” I lied. Then we both turned to our computers.
* * *
It was a horrible day. I trudged home after work and then sat on the sidewalk outside 252 East Second Street, waiting for someone to let me into the building. A dude in bicycle shorts trotted up with a golden retriever on a leash.
“You can’t sit there,” he said. Like I was a crackhead or something!
“I live here!” I snipped. The golden wagged its tail at me. Stupid dog!
I followed them in and went upstairs. As soon as I opened the door to 3H, I started screaming.
My apartment was cleaned out. The scarves and handbags were off the hooks—gone. My drawer of Ray-Bans and Chanel aviators and Dior rings—gifts from beauty companies—empty. The closet was unlocked. That key had been on my key chain. Armloads of clothes had been taken—the hangers, too. Every drawer and cupboard in the kitchen was open, rifled through.
I raged for approximately seven minutes. Then I pulled it together to call Marco. I needed to stay calm and figure out as much information as I could.
He picked up. I was surprised. (Later, I’d figure out that he liked hearing me suffer.) It was loud where Marco was. Thump-a thump-a. He was driving. That jerk had gone and picked up his dad’s car just so he could rob me!
I thought fast.
“Hey! I just wanted to say sorry for losing it earlier,” I chirped. Marco didn’t say anything. “I’m still at the office. Where are you?”
There was a pause.
“I’m on the FDR,” he said. I knew he was only allowed to borrow the Fiat for a few hours at a time. He was definitely going back to his dad’s with all of my stuff. I needed to give Marco time to get home and—hopefully—unload everything.
“Oh,” I said. My voice quavered. “Well, I’m going over to my sister’s. Hit me up when you’re back downtown.” Then I hung up.
I went up on the roof and paced in circles.
An hour later, I called again.
“Hey, MOTHERFUCKER!” I exploded when he answered. “I’M OUTSIDE THE PRECINCT. I JUST FILED THE POLICE REPORT. I GAVE THEM YOUR DAD’S ADDRESS.” I repeated the address. “I HOPE IT WAS WORTH IT.”
“Yeah right.” He sounded nervous.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” I said.
He hung up. I hurled my BlackBerry into my closet and slumped against the wall.
* * *
Our friend Marco thought he was very sneaky; the truth was, his life was so small and predictable that he was easy to track. Ever since he’d lost the apartment on Madison Street, he was always at one of four places: his dad’s basement complex, my house, Carly’s studio, or Trevor’s on East Twenty-Third Street. He terrorized us all equally; and when one of us kicked him out, he would rob us of something, sell it, and buy drugs and maneuver his way into another one of our apartments with them as a peace offering. (Of course, I didn’t learn this until later, when Trevor and I finally compared notes. No wonder he freaked out that time when he learned Trevor and I had hung out!)
By pretending to have called the police, I’d hoped that I’d scared Marco out of the Bronx and back down in Manhattan—into “hiding” at Carly’s or Trevor’s. By my calculations, he hadn’t slept yet. So he was about to crash—hard—somewhere. And that’s when I would pounce.
I went to bed that night, and then woke up in the morning and went to Condé. I texted Trevor around lunchtime.
Have you seen Marco? Mad casual.
He’s been passed out on my bed for twelve hours, Trevor wrote. Bingo.
Don’t ask me how I convinced my estranged sister to leave work early, rent a Zipcar and drive to the Bronx late on a Friday evening. We pulled up to his building at around six o’clock. I banged on the kitchen door of the apartment. Marco’s dad opened it in his undershirt.
I smiled like I wanted to give him a Mary Kay makeover.
I cooed, “Hi!”
“Hello . . .” he said in his Romanian accent.
“I’m so sorry to bother you, but my sister Emily”—she was standing behind me— “and I need to get my things from Marco’s . . . rooms. He was storing some stuff during my move, and we only have the car for another hour.” Marco’s dad looked confused, but he let us in. He even helped me unlatch the door in the kitchen floor that led into Marco’s lair.
“What is this place?” Emily said, taking in the cinder-block walls, the hundreds of Post-its. She’d never met Marco.
I didn’t answer. I was too busy not believing my eyes. Marco hadn’t invited me over in months—since he’d gotten serious with Carly—and now I understood why. Marco’s “quarters” were fucking full of my things. My “Methadone” nameplate necklace (I’d ordered it special) hung on a peg. My Paul McCarthy and Terence Koh books were open on his desk. Even m
y tear sheets were pinned to his walls! This wasn’t stuff he’d taken recently, I realized. They were items I hadn’t seen in a long time—things I hadn’t even noticed were missing! Some of them dated back to the mouse apartment. My best friend had been stealing from me this whole time.
“RARRRRRRR,” I roared, and just . . . attacked. I grabbed a shopping bag from the corner.
“I’m going to wait in the car,” Emily said, backing away.
I tore that bunker apart. The clothes he’d taken from me the day before weren’t anywhere—so I took things of his. His dope bag “stamp” collection. His binders full of special tear sheets. Then I went upstairs and into the little room where Marco slept and ransacked the dresser drawers. His favorite sheep skin jean jacket. His favorite Black Flag T-shirt. I filled two bags and two laundry baskets; I was out of control. Marco’s dad watched television while I marauded.
I didn’t say good-bye when I was through; I just ran. I threw all of my stuff in the trunk and climbed into the passenger seat of the Zipcar.
“Drive!” I shouted, like we were in an action movie. The adrenaline rush was flat-out narcotic, I had to admit. No wonder Marco committed so many crimes! My sister dutifully peeled away.
I was practically foaming at the mouth the entire drive back to Manhattan.
“It wasn’t everything,” I jabbered. “He still has my best stuff—he has my Prada fringe bag, he has my Balenciaga, Emily. He has Mom’s sheared mink coat!”
“Calm down!” Emily kept saying. “Caitlin! It’s just stuff! Who cares?” She looked freaked out. Raindrops started splattering on the windshield.
I still didn’t have keys, so when we reached my building, Emily and I sat in the car, waiting for someone to come home. I jumped out and accosted a neighbor—who let me in (if only because she was afraid to say no). I propped the door open with a rolled-up Wall Street Journal and darted back and forth through the rain, unloading my haul. When I’d dragged the last laundry basket to the lobby, I turned to run out and thank my sister—but the Zipcar was already halfway down the block.
I got everything into the elevator and upstairs into my place. Then I went into the bathroom. My eyes were wild in the mirror. There was mascara on my forehead and my hair was wet. I swallowed three Adderall at once. They got stuck in my throat, so I leaned down and drank from the faucet. I wasn’t done yet.