Vagablonde

by Anna Dorn

  It’s not that I’m afraid I can’t operate a car or that I’ll get sick inside. I just don’t want to. This is how my hangovers manifest. Not illness, but disinterest. Like disinterested in being alive, everything it entails, other than aimlessly scrolling Instagram, in a soft bed, in a dark room, Lana Del Rey on repeat.

  I feel a little better by the time I spot Jake’s BMW outside my window.

  Sucking in a deep vape hit, I head outside, where it’s cooler than I expected.

  Deep synths blast from Jake’s car. The neon lights from the Chevron station splash onto the street and I think about an ‘80s horror movie. Is Jake going to kill me tonight? Hopefully.

  “How high are you?” is the first thing Jake says to me when I get in.

  “It’s Christmas, bitch,” I say, then laugh again to myself.

  Jake presses his foot to the pedal. “You’re going to hell.”

  Jake and I are seated in a cozy corner of the restaurant, behind a big Buddha statue, bathed in green and red lights, which feels oddly festive.

  “To Jesus,” I say, lifting my water glass at him.

  “You can’t cheers water,” he says, “especially not to Jesus… Jesus, Prue.”

  “Hey!” I start bobbing to the Thai prayer music. “Where is your Christmas cheer?” I dance some more.

  “You’re so annoying,” he says. “I should have gone home to hang out with my Libertarian mother in La Jolla.” He tries to make eyes with the waiter. “At least she’s a good conversationalist.”

  After we order, Jake asks, “How are things with the old ball and chain?”

  “You know Ellie is perfect,” I say. I tear a piece of my napkin in my lap. “Minus the fact that she wants to have sex with a man.” Another tear. “Or someone who looks like one.”

  “Pardon?” Jake sips his water.

  I sigh. “Okay,” I say. “Once we were at Nora’s.”

  Jake raises his eyebrows, excited for gossip.

  “Calm down,” I say, which only causes him to exaggerate his response. I continue. “So this mannish woman comes marching in, fully stomping.”

  Jake’s brows rise a half inch as the waitress puts a Thai iced tea in front of me and a beer in front of Jake. We switch them and sip.

  “I saw Ellie smile at her, and the butch gave her that weird lesbian diagonal head nod.”

  “I have no idea what that means,” he says.

  I try to mimic it and Jake laughs into his straw, causing milky red liquid to bubble up in the glass. I bring the beer to my lips and the carbonation tickles my tongue, and for a second I’m grateful for this weird Christmas tradition.

  “You people are twisted,” he says.

  “By ‘people’… do you mean lesbians?”

  “Yes!” Jake yells.

  “I can’t believe you’re hate-criming me on Christmas,” I say with a grin.

  “You wish,” he says. “Anyways, so who cares about this butch?”

  “Thanks for understanding,” I say just as the waitress arrives with our orders. Jake’s, a steaming hot plate of brown noodles; mine, two sterile spring rolls, which for the first time I realize are incredibly phallic.

  “Robot penises,” I say, picking up one of the rolls.

  Jake shakes his head. “Can you please finish your fucking story? Actually, you know what? I don’t care anymore. You are beyond lucky to have an angel like Ellie even look at you.”

  “She is an angel!” I say. My high turns on me, and sadness washes over me for a second. I recall Ellie whispering to me about her savior complex. “Do you think she just wants to save me?”

  “One thousand percent,” Jake says, then stuffs a bunch of noodles in his face.

  I say nothing at the time, but I spiral later that night. I stand on the balcony and light a joint and think about how Jake Perez is a piece of shit, a thought that quickly shifts into how I’m a piece of shit. Ellie trying to save me, just like she saved that corny lesbian stomping into Nora’s. As my cats begin to circle around my shins, I think about how Ellie is drawn to toxic masculine energy. This means one of two things, neither of which is good: she’ll leave me, or—worse—I’m that bony butch.

  I remember my reflection in those freaky mirrors at Walgreens and become disinterested in being alive.

  It’s Wednesday and I’m working on the reply brief—I can’t bring myself to touch the “Taften File”—when a text from Jake Perez floats in on iMessage. My body feels shaky and off-balance. I’ve felt like this for the past few days—guilty and strange, also a bit dissociative, like I’m watching myself from the ceiling. I ignore the text and open Gmail.

  I have a new email from Dr. Kim. I open it.

  Hi Prudence,

  Just following up about your medication change. I haven’t heard from you in a couple weeks. I hope everything is okay. Please let me know if you need anything.

  Best,

  Dr. Kim

  I “mark as unread” and tell myself I’ll respond later. Then I open iMessage.

  Um Prue.

  I can see that Jake’s still typing.

  I came across something alarming last night on one of my Tumblr benders.

  Yeah? I type back while refreshing my own Tumblr. A photo of Wyatt Walcott looking swaggy onstage in a plaid miniskirt soothes me.

  Are you alone?

  My shaking intensifies. Yes, I type back.

  I debated whether or not to show you this, but I think it’s best you know.

  I want to jump up and run away from the computer, but my body is too heavy. The next text is a Tumblr link leading me to a set of three images on a page called Ixland Prinxexxa. The photos are bluish and hazy and atmospheric. A thin, pale naked body contorted in various abstract positions against a twilight background, a pool the same dreamy color as the sky reflected in it. I click the link again, refresh it, to ensure I’m looking at the right photos.

  Then I see something familiar: a tattoo of the roman numerals XXVII on the rib cage, just like mine (I got it to symbolize the start of my Saturn’s Return). I stare closer at the body, which is slightly blurred around the edges. On photo two, I can see the neck and I zoom in. I see a familiar chain, which reads in tiny gold script VAGABLONDE.

  Fuck. It’s me.

  In Palm Springs.

  And I look good.

  I’m pacing in circles around Echo Park Lake, holding my phone and thinking about texting people. But I don’t know who to text. Jake Perez wants me to call the police. Yeah, right. I’m a criminal defense attorney, I would never prosecute anyone—especially not for something this small. Honestly, the photos are beautiful. I look classy and hardly recognizable. What concerns me is that I don’t remember it, and I don’t know who took them.

  It has to be Beau, I think as I watch two ducks fight over a piece of bread in the lake. The air is cooling and the sky is darkening, and I decide I can be in my house again. There are a lot of people in groups, circles of friends talking and laughing. They sicken me.

  I clutch my phone and notice a text from Jax.

  Omg Yumiko bitcchhhhhhhh

  My stomach tightens. I’ll respond later.

  When I return to my apartment, I turn off my phone. I’m scared to go back to my laptop. Without electronics, I’m unsure what to do. I walk over to the bookshelf and stare at it. I pick up Middlesex and put it back: too earnest. I pick up Play It As It Lays and put it back: too bleak. I pick up My Brilliant Friend and put it back: too universally beloved. I pick up The Queer Art of Failure and put it back: too close to home.

  I’ve always loved the idea of reading but I’ve never actually enjoyed it. It’s hard for me to sit still. I get antsy and think about my own ideas. The narrative in my head quickly becomes bigger and more intense than the one on the page. Next thing I know I’m braiding my hair and staring out the window and writing a screenplay in my head. When I tell people I don’t like to read, they always say, “How did you get through law school?” And I say, “Control-F, babe.”


  My phone rings, which is bizarre because I’m almost positive I turned it off. It’s Ellie. I remember I never called her back the other morning.

  “Hi, angel,” I say, feeling terrible about myself.

  “Hi,” she says. Her voice is hesitant and she sounds sad. “Are you okay?”

  For a second, I become paranoid she somehow saw the photos. But that’s unlikely, right? I mean, it’s not like the post went viral. It has 2,356 notes on Tumblr. That’s like a small college in New England. How did Jake find it anyway? I guess he spends a lot of time on the computer, doing god knows what. I make a mental note to find out what his job is.

  “I’m great!” I say. One of the cats smashes into the glass door from the balcony and I jump.

  “Okay,” she says.

  I’ve never heard her be this quiet. She’s my tough power betch. Surely she’s furious with me.

  “It seems like you need space?”

  She’s doing that thing girls do when everything they say sounds like a question. “Uptalk” is the technical term, and I can’t stand it. Like, at least pretend to be confident.

  “Why do you say that?” I ask.

  “Because you haven’t been calling or texting me,” she says. “I’ve made every single attempt at contacting you since I left. It’s like if I stopped you wouldn’t even notice.”

  I say nothing.

  “And work fucking sucks right now,” she says. It sounds like she’s crying and I hate myself. I still don’t even know what she’s doing in New York. I’ve been too preoccupied with my own dumb brain. “And on Christmas I was so sad and alone and I called you thinking you’d perk me up and you acted like you hardly knew who I was.”

  She blows her nose. The other cat comes in and jumps at the other cat.

  “And it sounded like there was a girl with you,” she says. “Are you cheating on me?”

  I swallow. What scares me is that I’m not even sure. Explanations start to pour out of my mouth. “I feel like I’m falling apart.” I can’t tell whether I’m saying this because it’s true or because I just don’t want to lose her. “Going off Celexa has been harder than I thought.”

  “Wait,” says Ellie. “I thought you just went down a dose.”

  “Right,” I say. “That’s what I meant.” I don’t know why I lie. I guess I don’t want her to know I went completely off my meds without psychiatrist supervision. “It’s been rough. I’ve been having lots of unusual feelings,” I say, recalling my unexpected horniness the other day. “I think I’ve been self-medicating, to cope with the Celexa withdrawal and with the fact that I’m expected to be ‘on’ and around people all the time. Jax is always with a crew of a billion people. He records late at night and he’s always on cocaine and his friends scare me.” My voice is shaky and I’m not crying exactly, but I think it might sound like I am. “There’s this really creepy pale man and I think he tried to take advantage of me in Palm Springs.” I don’t tell her about the nude photos.

  But she responds well because Ellie is a Cancer and Cancers love effusive emotional displays. “Aw, honey,” she says. “I’m so sorry.”

  We talk a bit more and she tells me it’s normal to feel overwhelmed right now, that I shouldn’t be so hard on myself, and that she’ll send someone to beat up Beau for me. For a second I feel like she’s my mom. Not my actual mom, but the mom I always wanted. Someone who would acknowledge my emotions and protect me from danger. Someone I could be vulnerable to without feeling mortified.

  The words “savior complex” pop into my head and I push them away.

  When we finally hang up, I look at my phone and have seventeen unread texts. Jax put me on a group thread with Nina and Pilar and Yumiko and an unknown number, which I assume is Beau’s and which fills me with disgust. I’m not really a group chat gal, but it would be inappropriate to remove myself. I scroll to the top of the thread to the first text from Jax.

  Guyz, I’m almost done with “Dearly Queerly.” It’s FIRE. Come over tonight at 9 for a listening party/workshop (if needed, which tbh I don’t think so bc like I said… FLAMES).

  I don’t read the other texts in the thread. I guess I have to show up. I mean, this is my career. I’m thirty and I don’t have a hit single. No manager. No agent. I’ve never played a live show. All I have is a low-paying legal job and a girlfriend I treat like crap. I need to take this seriously, but I really just want to go to bed.

  It’s 7:00 now. I squash my anxiety with amphetamines and beer, put on Frank Ocean’s Blonde, and draw pink circles in between sips. When it’s time to leave, I’m in good spirits. And by that I mean I feel almost nothing.

  SEVEN

  I’m the first person to arrive at Jax’s but it doesn’t bother me. I’ve never cared about being fashionably late. I’m always fashionable; time has nothing to do with it.

  “Vagaaaa,” Jax says when he answers the door, embracing me. “I’ve missed you.” I think this is a crazy thing to say because I just saw him five days ago. But Jax likes to feel connected to people in a way I don’t think I’ll ever understand.

  He’s dressed like a Kardashian: beige joggers and a long beige shirt and a beige Supreme hat. All beige from head to toe.

  “Very Yeezy,” I say.

  “I’m so happy,” Jax says. He seems to be shaking. I remember his comment about knowing Wyatt Walcott from some sort of treatment center and wonder if he’s manic. “I really want to get this track in some important hands,” he says. “I wish I knew where Metro Boomin lived.” He cocks his head back down the hallway. “Beau!” he shouts. “Get me Metro Boomin’s address— STAT!” His cackles fill the hallway.

  “I don’t know where he lives,” I say. “But I do know we share a birthday.” I just found this out today.

  Jax does that weird tongue click that always frightens me, then leads me to the kitchen.

  “Oh,” he says, cracking open two beers. “So Nina has a lot of clout in the music journalism world. I want this track to get Pitchfork’s Best New Music. Nina could make that happen. But we have to charm her.” He hands me a beer. “And luckily she’s charmed by you.”

  My stomach tightens. I think about the nude photos from Palm Springs and wonder if Nina was there.

  “You okay, Vaga?” Jax asks.

  I’m staring vacantly and blink, then do a little jump. “I’m great!” I say. I sip my beer. “I’ll turn up the flirt.”

  Nina is the last to arrive. She’s wearing gold-framed glasses and carrying a Moleskine. Her presence seems to put Jax and Pilar on edge.

  “Hello, darling,” Jax says, hugging Nina deeply. He puts a joint behind her ear. She gives it back.

  “I’m going clearheaded tonight,” she says.

  I try to count how many beers I’ve had tonight. Four, I think. That’s fine. I can operate a car after four slowly consumed beers. At least according to my strange personal rule system.

  “You look ravishing,” Pilar says as she kisses Nina’s cheek. “Like a sexy Susan Sontag.”

  Everyone else hugs Nina and compliments her. When it’s my turn, Jax gives me a look that says, Pressure’s on.

  “You look nice,” I whisper in Nina’s ear as I give her a withholding hug designed to tease. I worry I miscalculated, fumbled the ball, until Nina smiles at her shoes and turns slightly pink. Jax gives me another look, one that says, Nailed it.

  “Shall we convene in the salon?” Jax asks. He lights a cigarette and puffs with intensity. When he exhales, he unleashes a hacking cough.

  Nina just nods, and the rest of us follow.

  Soon we’re gathered around the monitors. Nina and Jax sit in chairs, everyone else on the floor. Pilar leans on me and I lean back on her, feeling momentarily safe. I take a moment to thank the nonexistent higher power that Beau is not here. For a second I hope something horrible has happened to him. He overdosed or got hit by a bus. But then I feel bad. I don’t want the boy to die, but I would like him to disappear. Couldn’t he get fucked up and take advant
age of people just as easily in New York?

  The beat drops in. It’s minimalist and stripped down, just like I like it. Yumiko is on the intro, speaking in a Cockney accent. Yumiko Houndstooth is shiny af. Jax Jameson is shiny. Pilar, shiny. Vagablonde. Shiny af. Then she unleashes this little scream that sounds unhinged and perfect. AHHH.

  Everyone is gripped and Yumiko laughs to herself on the floor. She’s wearing the same outfit as the other night. Her hair is greasy and matted in a way that makes clear she hasn’t showered or changed.

  This weird vibrating machine comes in that makes the beat that much more haunting. It’s hot. Experimental and industrial. Yeezus-esque.

  I hear my voice and I want to close my ears, but I force myself to appear cool and pretend to listen. I think I sound annoying and stupid, but I always feel this way. I close my eyes and try to pretend I’m on a beach. Pilar squeezes my knee. Then Yumiko punches me lightly on the arm. Nina eyes me with a blank expression, and wind comes in from the crack in the window and I shiver.

  Nina leaves almost immediately after we listen to the song. We’re all on edge and decide to drink it off.

  “She liked it, right?” Jax says after about an hour.

  “Obviously,” Pilar says coolly as she leans over a white line on a gold tray, an image that gives me déjà vu at this point, and likely for the foreseeable future.

  “It’s proper fire, mate!” Yumiko shouts in her Cockney accent, then swigs from her mini whiskey bottle.

  I don’t take them too seriously. They’re coked up and high on themselves. It’s impossible to judge your own work. I learned this at an early age. I had a minor panic attack onstage while performing Annie’s “Tomorrow” at my third grade talent show. Afterward, I locked myself in the handicapped bathroom to brood and no one understood why. “I was perfect,” they said.

  “Put it on again,” Pilar says. She rubs some cocaine on her gums.

  Jax hardly waits for her to finish before the minimalist beat fills the apartment. We’re all bouncing, filled with excitement and nervous energy.

  Shiny af.

  Yumiko asks me to come outside with her to smoke a cigarette, which is bizarre because I’ve never seen her smoke one. I follow her to the elevator. On the sidewalk, she lights what must be her fifth blunt of the evening. “So are you actually my lawyer or what?”