Vagablonde

by Anna Dorn

  Then a text from Ellie. BNM BITCH!!!!!! <3 <3 <3

  I almost call her but I don’t. I imagine a life where I have a private jet and surprise Ellie with a room at the Plaza. I prefer my daydreams because I can’t cheat on them.

  It’s very anticlimactic that I have to go get my smog checked that afternoon. This is my last day to do it before my registration expires. When I start the car, my whole body is shaking, mostly with excitement, but also anxiety because I remember that Celeste might have been at that party and might have seen me and Nina kiss.

  But it’s hard to be anxious when the best thing just happened to me ever. I mean, Best New Music. I’ve been dreaming about this since I was seventeen. I want to go back and shake that girl who had to quit choir because of her panic attacks and say, “Girl, just you wait.”

  It’s 2:15 when I turn onto Sunset. The only place that’s open today is on the West Side, which I tend to take great pains to avoid during the day. Once I merge from the 110 onto the 10, everything looks shiny and harsh, like the highway might catch on fire. I look out at the San Gabriel Mountains in the distance and wonder how they look from space. Then I feel dizzy and my stomach clenches.

  A car cuts in front of me and I feel like I’m on a battlefield. The walls on the edges of the highway resemble a slate fortress. I’m trapped in between. I’m in a death field. My peripheral vision zooms out, dissociates, and suddenly I’m viewing myself from above. A tiny car winding, twisting, through a maze of highways, on a rock spinning in space. My hands are sweating so hard it’s difficult to clutch the wheel. My breath is doing that thing where I know I’m breathing but I don’t feel any air coming in. This is a panic attack. Logically, I know this. But I still feel terrified. And also angry. I thought I was over this shit.

  A car zooms past me and I think, I’m going to die on this highway.

  A freeway sign gets bigger as I approach, then disappears. These rapidly changing signs are ominous. The sky is too bright. The concrete is too harsh. These drivers are too aggressive. The sun hurts my eyes. I watch a bird swoop across the highway with a small animal hanging from its mouth. The world is a vicious, terrifying place. Everyone is out for prey.

  I reach for my Altoid tin and open it with difficulty. My hands are sweaty and shaky, but I still manage to get two into my palm, then I force them into my mouth. I hope the mints will distract me. But my heart just starts beating even harder.

  I think about pulling over but that terrifies me. I don’t think I can handle it. I just need to stay on the highway until I get to my exit. Driving isn’t hard, I tell myself. Drunk people do it all the time. Then I worry about losing consciousness. I attempt to focus on a calming image, a palm tree. A healthy one. But I can’t find one. These leaves look like plastic. They’re too bright. They’re going to catch on fire, I’m sure of it.

  A text from Ellie pops up on my phone. Almost simultaneously, another one from Nina.

  I’m going to die, I think.

  And I deserve it.

  I somehow make it to the smog place alive. I’m still shaking when I get there, breathing shallow. I’m terrified about driving back to the East Side. I never want to drive again. I think about calling Barbara Lumpkin, my therapist, but I know she’ll only make me feel terrible about myself. Ellie can normally calm me down, but I can’t call her now. I can’t even bring myself to check her text. I consider calling my mom for some reason, then I remember how hard it was to get her to let me see a psychiatrist when I got those panic attacks as a kid. “I don’t understand why you can’t just calm down,” she’d always say. I mean, me neither. That’s why I needed help.

  I walk with difficulty to the front desk and tell the man I need my smog checked. He makes me feel the way I always feel in any type of car place: like a fucking idiot. I’m a great candidate for being taken advantage of. A mechanic could be like, You need a new set of wings, and I’d be like swipe.

  “Your car is really dirty,” he says.

  Normally I’d say something sassy, but at the moment I can’t manage anything but focusing on staying conscious. It’s really hot in here and there’s a water cooler in the corner. I practically lunge at it. I fill my cup, chug, refill. I do this a few times.

  “Thirsty?” the idiot man asks.

  “Always,” I say. I think about Nina’s review to calm myself down. I’m a seductive alien. This doesn’t help and instead makes me think of outer space. At least I’m inside and can’t see Earth. Maybe this is all a computer simulation. That’s what Elon Musk thinks and it comforts me. I’d rather be a computer than a human.

  “So you need a smog check,” he says.

  Did I stutter the first time? I wonder for a second if the man notices that I feel death is imminent, but no one ever notices my panic. The last time I had a panic attack I was driving to Vegas with Jake Perez for his birthday. I will never do that again. Nevada is all one color, a dusty brown. We were in bumper-to-bumper traffic and I felt trapped and there was nowhere to look. I quietly told Jake to hand me a Klonopin, which thank god I had in my purse. Later he told me it was “the most elegant panic attack he’d ever seen.”

  The man walks over to my car. He’s very slow-moving, like a pharmacist, and he smells like stale coffee. “It’ll take about twenty minutes. You’re welcome to hang out here.” He points to a single leather chair in front of a coffee table with some car magazines on it. Yuck.

  I sit and pull out my phone. Two more texts from Ellie. I can’t bring myself to check them. Instead I go on Twitter and scroll through @WYATTLOOK until the man calls my name.

  “Your cylinder needs to be replaced,” he says.

  I look at him blankly. “Okay,” I say. “I thought you were just checking the smog.”

  “I was,” he says. “You passed, but I noticed your cylinder is shot.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Can I still drive it?”

  “Not for very long,” he says. “You need to get it fixed as soon as possible.”

  Jesus Christ. I was already terrified to drive home and now this. I’m going to expect death the entire way. But I push forward.

  On the drive I alternate between being furious at myself and thinking I’m about to die.

  You should not have stopped taking your medication, you fucking idiot.

  Your cylinder is going to explode and an aggressive driver is going to run you over.

  You’re going to pass out at the wheel.

  You’re having a panic attack and it’s all your fault.

  You’re having a panic attack and you are a weak individual.

  You aren’t getting any air to your brain and you’ll probably have a stroke.

  You sabotaged things with the one person in the world who makes you feel safe.

  Something is about to implode.

  It’s either your cylinder or your brain or the universe.

  You’re going to die in this car.

  And you deserve it.

  At home, I consider taking a Klonopin but I don’t. I just hold it in my hand for a few seconds and then put it back in the bottle. I have a weird relationship with Klonopin. It’s the one drug I actually need and I won’t take it unless the situation is dire. Adderall I’ll take with abandon because it’s purely recreational and therefore seems safer. I don’t know.

  I lie on my bed and the cats comfort me for once. One lies on each side of my stomach and our breathing starts to sync up. I wonder if they sense my fear. Cats are smarter than humans, especially when it comes to emotions.

  I put on Lana Del Rey and finally feel ready to check my texts from Ellie, which are as bad as I expected. Comically bad. They are the worst texts I could possibly receive from her.

  Celeste saw you kiss Nina last night.

  I don’t want to speak to you until I’m back.

  I call Jake Perez when I get the news.

  “I don’t blame her,” he says. “Something is up with you.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask. One of the cats pounces o
n my stomach. The afternoon light casts a shadow of my plant on my wall.

  “Prue,” he says. I imagine him furrowing his brow. “You’re my best friend and I can hardly get ahold of you.”

  “Oh,” I say. I pet my hair to self-soothe.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “I’m great,” I say. “Did you see I got Best New Music?”

  “I meant about Ellie,” he says. “I thought she was the one.” He coughs. It borders on a laugh. “Or whatever.”

  I’ve never been great at accessing my emotions at the moment of a breakup, or at any moment really. The last time someone I cared about broke up with me I was twenty-six. My law school boyfriend. I was madly in love with him, although I’ve lost touch with that version of myself. The one who wanted to marry a Silicon Valley lawyer whom my parents would love. He told me I wasn’t “marriage material.” He was right.

  “There is no such thing as the one,” I say.

  Jake Perez and I go to Taix, a restaurant that’s been around since the 1920s or something. It looks like a dingy ski lodge in the French Alps. We sit by a fire and under a TV playing some sport. Jake Perez orders the roasted chicken and I order a Caesar salad and we both order martinis—dry, Bombay Sapphire.

  “Congratulations,” Jake Perez says once we get our drinks.

  This is the first time tonight he’s said something nice to me. On the drive over, he mainly ripped into me, told me I was “self-sabotaging with abandon.” I didn’t object.

  “This is your dream, right?” he asks. “How does it feel?”

  I sip my martini and my body shakes as it goes down. “Normal,” I say.

  “So you expected it?” he asks, and this feels like a trap.

  “You didn’t?!” I shake his biceps playfully.

  He shrugs me off. “No,” he says. “I really didn’t.”

  I roll my eyes and pull out my phone. There’s a text from Jax. I can feel Jake Perez’s judgmental eyes on me.

  Pitchfork party tonight!!! Kingdom @ 9.

  Lord. Another party. It’s New Year’s Day! And I’ve had a panic attack and been broken up with. I can’t possibly attend another party at the Kingdom.

  “Your new degenerate friends?” Jake Perez asks.

  I roll my eyes. “We’re artists,” I say, then immediately hate myself.

  Our food arrives and Jake Perez grabs his knife to cut the chicken in a way that scares me for a moment. I remember being on the highway, convinced I was going to die. I shouldn’t be out, I think. I should be resting.

  I take a bite of my Caesar, and the salty, creamy dressing provides a brief moment of ease. I sip my martini. Everything is going to be okay.

  I text Jax back. Wouldn’t miss it!

  I bring Jake Perez along because he said we need to “work on our friendship.” But really I think he just wants to keep an eye on me. We walk into the Kingdom to the sound of my voice.

  “Wow,” Jake says to me as Jax leads us down the hallway. I can’t tell if he’s talking about my seductive alien rapping or Jax’s cavernous apartment or the fact that he’s wearing a dress. Jake is conservative, at least aesthetically. He’s from San Diego.

  I get déjà vu as we enter the main room. “This is Jake,” I say to the group. Everyone looks at him confused and makes vague attempts at smiles.

  “Jake,” Jax says finally. “Like Jax… but more simple.” He chuckles, and then Beau chuckles, and then Jake glares at both of them. I’m embarrassed that I brought him here. Jake won’t be able to charm them like Yumiko could. He isn’t messy enough.

  “Yes, I’m aware my name is common,” says Jake, and everyone just stares at him blankly.

  Yumiko enters through the window, crawling in from the fire escape. Last time I thought she’d just been smoking on the fire escape, but now I think this is just how she enters. She’s so extra.

  Jake eyes Yumiko like she’s from outer space. Yumiko opens her mouth at the same time her shriek comes in from the song and it gives me chills.

  Jax walks in with an armful of PBRs and begins doling them out.

  “Oh, no thanks,” says Jake. “I don’t drink beer.”

  Jax shrugs. “I have tequila.”

  Yumiko says, “I have whiskey.”

  “I’m okay,” says Jake Perez. Then he gives me a weird look.

  Once Jax has handed out the beers, the song restarts. He lights a cigarette.

  “I’ll take one of those,” Jake says. This is Jake Perez’s worst habit. He’s a smoker who refuses to buy cigarettes.

  Jake walks over toward the window and smokes while watching Shiny AF dance like maniacs under the disco ball. We scream and howl and grunt and grind. Nina and Jake, the Scorpios, stand in the corner watching us with judgmental expressions. I haven’t spoken to Nina yet, and her presence makes me uneasy. I try not to look at her or think about the fact that Pilar was right about her being a sexy Susan Sontag. I mean, Susan Sontag was already sexy. But Nina has that vibe, like she’s thinking about something really important and she’d be running intellectual laps around you if she wasn’t so withholding.

  After about the fifth playing of “Dearly Queerly,” Jake Perez announces he has to go. I’m torn. I don’t want to stay in the Kingdom. I can’t be left alone with drugs and Nina right now.

  In an unusual moment of strength, I say, “Me too.”

  In the car I start to cry.

  “Thank god,” says Jake Perez. “You’re a human being.”

  I ask Jake if I can sleep over at his house and he says yes. We crawl into his bed with a bowl of popcorn and small glasses of fancy scotch. He projects Call Me by Your Name onto the wall. We saw it in theaters when it first came out and were both obsessed, along with the rest of the coastal elite.

  During one of many scenes in which the boys are flirting about classical music, I pick up my phone. Jake Perez raises his eyebrows at me when I check it. He believes in “unplugging” during films. I refresh Twitter and I have a hundred new followers. My phone lights up with a text from Nina. Why did you leave?

  I need a night off, I text back.

  I was hoping we could celebrate, she texts back. I feel Jake’s eyes on me and I turn off my phone.

  I know the movie is about the boys, but I have a crush on the mom. She’s always smoking cigarettes in all denim and speaking a thousand different languages and being sexy as hell. When her son gets sad because “the American” boy has to go home, she just pets his hair. Then the dad gives this horrible speech that Jake Perez and most people seem to love. I find it gratuitous.

  The last scene always gets me. Elio, the younger and more beautiful boy, is crying in front of the fire while Sufjan Stevens plays. This is a few months after the love affair and he’s really started to lean into his gay identity. Oliver, “the American,” calls to announce that he’s engaged. To a woman, probably. The fucker. I’ve been there. I can’t tell you how many times a woman has left me to be hetero.

  The cool thing about this movie is that it perfectly shows how with your first gay experience, it can really be with anyone. It’s not really about the other person—Oliver is just kind of a blank slate with a nice ass. My first girlfriend was this horrible masculine woman named Sam. This was around the time Lindsay Lohan was dating Sam Ronson, which was pretty much the only thing that gave me the courage to do it. My Sam was mean as hell and didn’t have a job and was always calling me at work to yell at me. I put up with it because I was infatuated, less with her than with the fact that she was my girlfriend and she had huge breasts—something I’d never experienced given my own are, like, nonexistent. And I think it was the same with Elio. Not that he didn’t have some nice memories. Oliver was confident and charming; Sam was funny as hell when she wanted to be. But mostly Oliver was a tight ass and Sam was big breasts, which she unfortunately kept contained in a sports bra.

  Anyway, in the last scene, Elio just cries for what feels like ten minutes. The movie is superlong and you’d think I’d be like, When
is this going to fucking end? but instead I’m cool with watching him cry and cry. The fire casts a golden glow on Elio’s face and he keeps biting his lip to keep from losing it. In the background, his hot mom sets the table. And at the very end, Elio does this little smile and it’s just the most precious thing I’ve ever seen. That is love, that is life. Mostly pain, punctuated by tiny moments of pleasure, normally based on random synapses firing in our brains.

  In the morning I decide to really bite the bullet and finish Yumiko’s brief. The argument is pretty simple. The police lacked reasonable suspicion for the pat-down. The officer’s “hunch” that she looked “suspicious” was insufficient to justify the detention under the law. The only issue is Yumiko’s outbursts on the stand, but that shouldn’t have any legal relevance. Unfortunately judges are human beings, and the fact that this white girl was threatening everyone will make the court less likely to see our side. I write, “That Ms. Taften was agitated on the stand—an apparent response to the stressful courtroom atmosphere—has zero relevance to the legal issues at hand.” In between sentences I check Twitter and watch my followers gradually increase, a drug that feels not unlike amphetamines. I have 738. Not exactly Lindsay Lohan, but it’s a noticeable increase from the 245 I had before. Intermittently, I type “Dearly Queerly” into the search field to see what the people are saying. The responses vary.

  Dearly queerly is straight up fire.

  Dearly queerly is aural assault.

  It’s only been one day but I can already tell Dearly Queerly is the best track of 2018.

  Dearly Queerly is the dumbest fucking name I’ve ever heard.

  That’s the point you cretin! I type in the reply box, then take a screenshot and close the browser without uploading.

  I think about the scene in Grey Gardens when Edie Beale is sifting through a pile of trash and tells the Maysleses, “This is all art.”

  At around noon the Kingdom group chat starts popping off.

  Wicked Ice wants to meet with us, Beau writes. I’m kind of surprised he writes “us,” as if he’s part of Shiny AF. I thought he was just our drug guy. How does he know people at Wicked Ice? The indie LA label. Kelela, Yaeji… fuck, I’m pretty sure they signed Dead Stars. I cannot believe this is happening.