Exes and Ohs

by Shallon Lester

  The real trouble started with the reality show. My editors had pitched a half-baked reality show idea—Who Wants to Be a Gossip Columnist?!—to a production company. But after interviewing me, the producers decided that my odd, awkward life was worth a closer look and my boss’s concept didn’t have legs. Over the next year, Crossroads Television and I developed a pitch and a pilot, and eventually landed ourselves a full-on TV series at MTV—without the Daily News.

  But as my involvement in the world of television deepened, so did my bosses’ resentment. Even though the network had no interest in including the newspaper in the show’s plot, the paper started demanding royalties and executive producer credits, only to be laughed off by the production company. So if they couldn’t squeeze money out of the show, they would squeeze misery out of me.

  Boss A would routinely ask me to write stories or do interviews that would get me in trouble with the higher-ups, presumably with the intention of getting me fired, but who knows. Everyone who ran that place was so nutty I wouldn’t be surprised if they were taking orders from a magical elf named Fiskers only they could see.

  Boss B, meanwhile, made me feel like I was slowly losing my mind. One morning she made it clear that I was not to RSVP for events without asking permission first—I should wait until they were assigned to me.

  Eight minutes later, she asked huffily why I didn’t have any parties on the calendar.

  “Uhhh, well, you said I can’t RSVP to things, so …?”

  “Shallon. You need to be a little bit more proactive.”

  She said that a lot to me, and when she did, I would furrow my brow, nod resolutely, and begin opening and closing my file cabinets and shuffling papers randomly around my desk. There was no point in arguing. What would I say? “Leave me alone, I bring in great stories”? I didn’t.

  Maybe I wasn’t the most “proactive” girl in the newsroom, but when Boss B said I had “no natural curiosity,” well, that was just false. I am a very curious girl—just not about anything that mattered to them.

  How many peanut butter cups can I eat before I feel nauseous and guilty? (eleven)

  How long can I lurk outside my ex-boyfriend’s building before the doorman gets antsy and calls the cops? (forty-five minutes)

  Is red food coloring an acceptable substitute for cheek stain? (No)

  “If your heart isn’t in it, then why don’t you just quit?” my friends asked me. Well, you see, rent cannot be paid with hugs and smiles, nor can health insurance premiums. And admittedly, there was a big part of me that wanted to stick it out. I wanted to be a writer, after all, and this was a good gig for a girl from Orange County.

  But the worst was the managing editor, the Sea Hag. I called her that because I’m scared of the ocean, and I was scared of her. Also, the water holds all sorts of creepy, terrifying creatures who would gobble you up for no reason, as would she.

  Sea Hag fancied herself the next Anna Wintour but really, she wasn’t ruthless and brilliant, she was just a lonely old bully. It wouldn’t take much to catch her evil eye. A grandmotherly German woman with too-strong perfume, the food blogger who once misspelled “brûlée,” a features writer who had the gall to adopt a baby without the Sea Hag’s permission—they all found themselves in her crosshairs. But she despised me most of all, and I had no idea why.

  It was more than just a case of a manager being displeased with an employee—she hated me with the searing tenacity generally reserved for feuding teenage girls and Jihadists. If I was merely a failure as a reporter, why not just fire me? No no, the Sea Hag liked to keep me around to humiliate and berate in front of the rest of the staff.

  I took the Sea Hag’s abuse, for the most part, because I believed very strongly in the ethical goal of the paper, and even now I still do. While the management might have been a gaggle of demon harpies, the actual reporters and writers were brilliant. The paper consistently churns out fair and neutral stories, calls out corruption, and has a pretty kick-ass horoscope page too. Plus, unlike a lot of other New York–based tabloids, no one there ever seemed keen on really ruining anyone’s life. Except for mine, of course.

  Once the powers that be realized I was essentially useless as a reporter, they tried to figure out what niche I could fill. That niche, as it turned out, was hookers: when news broke of Eliot Spitzer’s affair with a prostitute, I was the first person they turned to in hopes of identifying her.

  Why they thought I, Idiot Employee of the Century, would somehow be able to triangulate which skank Spitzer nailed was beyond me. The only info we had on her at the time was that she was a brown-haired girl who went by Kristen.

  “Well, Shallon,” the Sea Hag asked expectantly, “who do you know?”

  “Who do I know … that is a prostitute?”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Uh, yes. You know, when we hired you, you presented us with this whooooole long list of sources and you need to pony up.”

  That list of sources was largely exaggerated, but even so I was pretty sure none of the people on the roster were hos or pimps. I thought about pointing this out, but my bosses had never labored under the oppressive umbrella of logic or fairness, so I just gritted my teeth and started to Google.

  While my coworker culled every sleazeball source he knew, I signed up for a VIP membership to TheEroticReview.com so I could read evaluations of hookers and try to figure out who our Kristen was.

  The irony was, I often compared my gossip job to prostitution. Going to parties, like sex, is great when you do it for fun, when you feel like it. But when you have to because someone is paying you, it becomes twisted and unbearable.

  At least, that’s how I’d always thought of prostitution. On the website, I braced myself for gross, misogynistic tales about guys making escorts wear the mask from Scream, or a saddle, or a bag over their head. I mean, isn’t that why men see hookers—to play out the fantasies their wives or girlfriends would never allow?

  No, actually. It sure wasn’t.

  I read comment after comment about guys who were just delighted that their girl allowed them to give her presents, massages, oral sex—things that seem to have been the pot at the end of the rainbow for “normal,” non-sex-working women since the dawn of time.

  I’ve been lonely since I broke up with my fiancée, but Ashleigh made me feel like a man again. I brought some oils and she let me rub her feet for awhile. I almost forgot about sex! She had to remind me—I could’ve just rubbed her down for hours!—PoliSciProf

  In comparison, I once had a guy walk out on a date with me because I was left-handed and he thought that was “uncomfortably close to being handicapped.” Then there was the guy who wrote:

  Julie has THE MOST perfect tits I’ve ever seen—I called down to the concierge and had him send someone out to La Perla, this chick needed to be dressed well. Def A+!—justme67

  My ex-boyfriend, on the other hand, got me a pair of onesie pajamas with feet last Christmas, but when I discovered that they were a little too short he said, “I don’t think these were meant for someone as big as you.” Another favorite was:

  Kassie showed up on time wearing a very sexy sweater dress that really showed her beautiful body. We got to know each other for a few minutes and retired to the bed for some snuggling and making out.—panero_da_ghost

  Whereas last Halloween I dated a German guy with a goatee who wondered how girls felt when they kissed someone with facial hair. So, as a “joke,” he bought me a fake mustache to wear one night while we hooked up. A Hitler mustache.

  And of course, these whores also were getting a cool $800 for their 45 minutes of “work.” I, on the other hand, worked incessantly—fourteen-hour days—at the expense of my integrity, for a mere pittance. I strutted around the city’s dark, fetid streets like a ten-dollar whore, sacrificing way too much for way too little—a blind item here, a cheating rumor there—running furtively back to my bosses like they were some abusive pimp I was desperate to impress. The more I read Erotic Re
views, the harder it became to stomach the disparity between the hookers’ lives and mine. I was young, educated, pretty, and accomplished … and couldn’t keep a boyfriend to save my goddamned life. And yet somehow, there was a whole secret coven of these idiotic girls—failed actresses and models, waifish eastern European sluts with bad teeth, coke whores supporting a habit—and they were living my out my dream life.

  How on earth was this possible? Were bubble baths and spooning really the clandestine desires Manhattan men were harboring? And willing to pay to actualize?!

  I thought about my own sexual calamities—a banker who sweat so much in bed that I made him wear Under Armour; a waiter who suggested (unsuccessfully) that eight P.M. on Thursdays be “golden shower hour”; a guy we’ll just call “Shave-y Davy”—and suddenly this whole hooker mystery made a lot more sense.

  Men in New York have the luxury of living out their perverse fantasies every day, right out in the open. Girls here have learned to take what they can get. We are the true whores, not Kristen. We are the ones who lie down and take it, in the vain hope that love will be exchanged, instead of cash. And at the end of the night we’ll blame it all on our madam, the city herself, who tells us that this is what New York is all about—excess and hedonism—and it’s our job to put up with it.

  Treating a woman well is the city’s true underbelly.

  Cómo Se Dice “I Wish I Was Dead”?

  If it hadn’t happened to me, I would have laughed.

  It was eleven P.M. on February 13, the night before Valentine’s Day, and I was getting dumped. Again.

  Precisely one year before, my then-boyfriend Jack had pulled the plug on our four-month relationship, saying cryptically, “You’re the only thing that makes me happy. I can’t do this anymore.”

  Uh, what? Our relationship had been intense. We’d spent only three nights apart since the day we met and seemed to be heading in the “settling down” direction, which terrified and excited me all at the same time. Usually I managed to sabotage any relationship moving toward real commitment, but with Jack I wanted to make it work. Looking back, I’m really not sure why. The only place we really connected was the bedroom. Outside of those four walls Jack and I functioned like a brooding teenage boy and his obsequious mother.

  I would rub his back and ask about his day and he’d roll his eyes, grumbling that I “wouldn’t understand.” Please. He was a writer for The Onion, not a triage surgeon.

  But, like any fawning toady desperate to please, I kept trying. I brought him a T-shirt from my trip to the Super Bowl, only to later find it sopping up a puddle in his room. He told me my taste in music sucked, that I read stupid magazines, and that my optimism grated on his nerves—and I let him.

  “I think he’s jealous of you,” Pfeiffer said one day, glancing pitifully at the unwanted cookies I’d baked him.

  Jealous? Of what?

  On paper, Jack was better than me in almost every way—he had a better education, made more money, had a bigger apartment in a cooler neighborhood. And yet, Pfeiffer was right; he resented me because I was inexplicably happier. I laughed easily and squealed over puppies and could derive immense pleasure from nothing more than a bag of candy and reruns of Tool Academy. But Jack, on the other hand, was a malcontent. In his eyes, the world had somehow wronged him, and no amount of Giants T-shirts or back rubs could ever make up for it.

  But when the lights went out, we were unstoppable. The only problem with a relationship based on sex is that eventually you have to stop having it. You have to do things like eat and run errands, which can lead to conversing with the other person. And that really wasn’t our strong suit.

  I knew we were doomed the day my agent told me MTV wanted to film a pilot of my reality show. I called Jack, elated with the possibility of escaping my gossip job.

  “If you do this,” he said gravely, “I will lose all respect for you and never speak to you again, do you understand me?”

  If this kid thought I was going to turn down my chance for fame in exchange for a lifetime of condescending snorts, he was dead fucking wrong. If I wanted out, this was my chance. But for some reason the thought of breaking up right then made me nauseous with misery. I just wasn’t ready. I’m the kind of girl who has to learn things the hardest of hard ways. I give the people I love third, fourth, fiftieth chances.

  I should have dumped you when I had the chance, I thought bitterly, months later, as I listened to him break up with me. I had put up with so much of his griping baloney, downplayed so many of my achievements to spare his ego, and for what? For him to leave me? On Valentine’s Day? Really??

  I called my levelheaded friend Danielle sobbing, looking for some translation of his “You’re the only thing that makes me happy” line.

  “It scares him that you’re his foundation of happiness,” she said patiently, “because he knows you’re too good for him and will eventually move on.”

  Ah. A variation of the classic girl theory “He just likes you too much.” Pfft, right. How many times have my friends handed me that sack of hot crap? There are a lot of things I love too much—grilled cheese, underage lead singers, Coinstar machines—and the last thing I’m inclined to do is cut them out of my life. But for some reason, I’ll buy into this wonky logic when it comes to boys. Like most girls, I’d much rather gag down a load of total BS than try to figure out and fix my shortcomings.

  So there I was, alone and heartbroken on Valentine’s Day 2008. And lucky me, a year later I got the chance to do it all over again!

  Kyle was the exact opposite of Jack. He was young and buoyant and charming almost to the point of douchebaggery.

  “You know, it’s just a matter of time until you catch him wearing a Bedazzled Ed Hardy hoodie,” Pfeiffy said, warning me. She was probably right, but I didn’t care. I was just so thrilled to have a boyfriend who didn’t outwardly despise me.

  When I met Kyle, I had been dating a frenemy of his named Ben. I adored Ben, but he also seemed to mostly hate having me around. But, unlike Jack, he didn’t even want to get me naked all that often. Kyle heard rumors of my unhappiness and saw a golden opportunity to humiliate Ben and get laid.

  In hindsight, this kind of malevolent multitasking should have been a red flag. But like I said, I felt lucky to date a guy who thought I was hot and cared whether or not I got sold into white slavery.

  As pushy and neurotic as I am in most situations, I’m a very laissez-faire girlfriend. I have never asked any guy “Where is this going?” or tried to put a label on things. Well, at least not to his face anyway. Among my friends, any dude who so much as kisses me earns the label of “boyfriend.” And if I’m drunk and there’s some sneering girl sniffing around, he’ll be described as my “very serious and rich fiancé … who has a yacht.”

  And what’s the harm in that? No one has the right to interpret your situation for you. “Love,” “boyfriend,” “broken up”—these titles are just words, and totally subjective ones at that. One girl’s booty call is another girl’s satisfying relationship, and vice versa.

  It was early December, and for our third date Kyle took me on a Christmassy tour of Manhattan. We put on ugly, snowmen sweaters and drank hot chocolate at a Christmas-themed bar he called the “reindeer barn.” Under a bough of mistletoe, he suggested I meet his family.

  “We’re both from California,” he said offhandedly, as if it were law that all California residents eventually meet each other’s relatives. “And I want to get to know your mom too. But this will take our relationship from mellow to intense. Are you ready for that?”

  I stared at him dimly. No one had ever asked me that before. My hands-off approach to my boyfriends tended to work a little too well. They generally made all the decisions (like when to stop calling) without ever bothering to inform me.

  “Are you … trying to be funny? Is this a trick?”

  He laughed, his green eyes sparkling. That was the thing with Kyle; nothing rattled him. Most New York guys would rathe
r drink their own urine than say something honest and vulnerable to a woman. And if they did, and she responded with anything other than slobbering gratitude, he’d delete her number. But Kyle wasn’t afraid to say anything. Not even on Valentine’s Day. Not even, as I would discover, to break my heart.

  The post-holiday deterioration of our relationship had been swift and confusing. We had met each other’s parents, and as I watched him laugh and joke with his five siblings in their own warm, silly language, I fell totally in love with him and his large, boisterous Catholic family. As an only child, that kind of happy chaos was totally foreign to me, and it wasn’t until I met his clan that I realized how much I longed for it. Maybe that played a role in our downfall—once you see how affectionate and giving a man can be, you start demanding that he treat you the same way, all the time. But I wasn’t his family. I was just some girl he was dating, easily lost and overlooked in his family’s bustling household.

  Despite his theory that meeting the fam would make our romance more intense, things stayed very much the same. Maybe we just had different ideas of intensity. I took it to mean drive-through wedding chapels and matching tattoos. He was thinking more along the lines of posting pictures of us on Facebook.

  It didn’t help that I was severely stressed out at work. My bosses at the newspaper had turned hating me into an art form, and Kyle’s analgesic optimism became the only bright spot in my life. At the end of my tether, I fell back on Kyle. I needed him to numb my reality, but no matter how much he gave me, it was never enough. I needed him to assuage every little insult or sideways glance I got on the job. But he was just one man up against a psychotic girlfriend and a whole corporation full of demons.

  Suddenly, I understood Jack’s abrupt departure. I had become the Jack in my relationship with Kyle—moody, selfish, and a real fucking downer.