Vagablonde

by Anna Dorn

  My dad pauses like he’s expecting me to say something, but I have no words.

  “We’re in shock, Prue,” my dad says. “How did you hide this from us?” His volume rises like he’s expecting an answer.

  “I tried to tell you I’m an artist,” I say quietly. I feel like I’m five years old, giving my mom a painting she’s too “tired” to receive.

  “We don’t understand,” my dad says. “You went to a top ten law school, you graduated in the top of your class. You won the National Moot Court Competition.” Honestly, I’d forgotten about that awful competition; it was so embarrassing. “You were supposed to follow in my footsteps. You should be working at a top law firm making six figures, preparing to buy a house.”

  “I don’t want a house!” I say without thinking. My rage escalates. I always knew my dad felt this way, but he’s never been so explicit. Despite my difficulty catching my breath, I partly feel good. There’s no longer an elephant in the room. My father is gravely disappointed with me, and he’s finally being honest about it. My mom may as well be a ghost.

  “Well,” he says, “what do you want?”

  I rack my brain for how to answer. I’m used to giving my parents an edited version of myself, one I think they want. I try to imagine Jax asking me the same, and I realize I also edit myself for him. For my parents: I’m dutiful, achieving, innocent. For Jax: I’m performative, irreverent, unhinged. But which is the real me? Is there a real me? What do I want? Surprising myself, I start to cry.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  My dad twice threatens to send me to rehab, and I am forced to swallow my tears and jerk back into performance mode. I fall into the role fairly easily, despite the dread and rage gripping my stomach, as I’ve been playing it my whole life. Pretending I’m in a courtroom, I explain to my parents that my career, while not what they expected, could not be more thriving. I tell them that I’ve been featured in all the major music outlets, that the perfect label put out my first EP, that one of the “Big Three” agencies booked my first show. I tell them that I have enough money in my bank account to support myself for at least the next six months (I have no idea) and that I can only assume more money will be coming in soon (again, conjecture). I even at one point compare myself to my dad’s hero, Bob Dylan, whom I despise, but it seems to get him on my side. I end the call with a promise to stop doing uppers and to start seeing my psychiatrist again. My mom says nothing the entire time.

  The next few days I spend mostly curled up with the cats, making various depressive playlists and eating cereal and napping. The only time I feel good is just before I fall asleep, just after a carbo-load, curtains closed and fan on full blast. They say sleep is the cousin of death, which I guess makes me basically dead.

  On the third day, Jax lights up the Kingdom thread about our “next steps,” which frightens me. I’ve committed myself to avoiding uppers, and I’m nervous about handling Shiny AF without them. But I’ve also been restless without a purpose. Messy as it was, at least during “Shiny Season,” there was a tangible goal. We’ve already recorded and released the EP. We got Best New Music and a FADER feature. We had our first show. Now, we’re in limbo.

  Without my old pharmaceutical cocktail, I’ve been filling the void with cereal.

  Brazilian baile funk pours onto my street from a trembling Lincoln.

  “You look good,” says Yumiko when I hop in the car. “Healthy.”

  I shrug. “Healthy” has always felt like a euphemism for “fat” to me, but it feels okay right now. I don’t have a good sense of how I appear to others, but the external consensus is that I’ve been skeletal, pale, near death. I needed to down a few boxes of cereal in a short time span, but I vow not to make a habit of it.

  The song coming out of the speakers snatches me from my thoughts, and the drop takes me back in time: I’m a first-year in law school and I’m on Molly in a sweaty club in downtown San Francisco. Back when I did drugs exclusively on special occasions.

  “Holy shit, is this Jeffree’s Volume…” I purse my lips in thought. Jeffree’s were the mixtapes Mad Decent used to release periodically, before Diplo got cheesy and tragic. “Volume 4?”

  “Girl’s got an ear!” Yumiko shouts, then her expression becomes serious. “I’m so sad about Tom.”

  “Tom?” I ask.

  As Yumiko revs the ignition and starts rolling out of the parking lot, I realize she’s talking about Diplo.

  “Oh, you know him?” I ask, trying to sound casual, I’m not totally sure why. I remember the article about Yumiko being the “Queen of the Philly Underground.” Mad Decent originated in Philly, so I quickly connect the dots.

  “I more than knew him…” she says, then grins.

  “Oh my god,” I say. “You fucked Diplo.”

  She unleashes a diabolical laugh.

  “And you’re sad because… he sold out?” I ask.

  “In the worst way!” she yells, then cuts in front of another driver.

  “Yeah, I went to a Mad Decent block party a few years ago,” I say. “My law school friend invited me, and there wasn’t much to do in Berkeley, so I went. Diplo was so embarrassing. I just remember he kept jumping up and down and raising his hands like he was headlining Electric Daisy Carnival or something tragic like that. His backup dancers were fire, but I kept wanting Dip—Tom—to leave the stage.”

  Yumiko unleashes another laugh as she merges onto the freeway. “Oh my god, the jumping!”

  My stomach tightens as I think about whether there is a tragic Diplo narrative in my future. I mean, at least he’s rich as hell, but… “Do you think he’s happy?” I find myself asking without thinking.

  “Fuck no!” says Yumiko as she swerves around another car. We aren’t late, so I guess she just wants adrenaline. “Also”—she lowers her voice to a whisper—”he’s got a small dick.”

  We both laugh, unhinged and wild, as Yumiko speeds along the 110. For a second, I feel like I’m in Montana, safe and grandiose and enveloped by the heavens.

  Jax greets us with wide, manic eyes. He’s wearing a floor-length leopard-print coat over a black T-shirt dress, velour loafers on his feet.

  “This look,” Yumiko says as she embraces him in a big hug.

  I stand, nervous for my turn. “And if it isn’t my star,” Jax says before pulling me into his coat. I feel trapped and wait quietly for him to release me. I recall the early days of the Kingdom, when I actually wanted him to hug me.

  In the other room, Pilar and Beau are playing cards. Pilar sips a tea. I guess everyone is coming down. Except Jax, whose bloodshot eyes and dilated pupils suggest continued upper abuse and little or no sleep.

  “Gather ‘round, my people,” he says, widening his arms.

  My heartbeat quickens. I think I see Pilar roll her eyes. She lights a thin blue cigarette.

  “Our next move,” he says, “is crucial.”

  Yumiko nods furiously. I imagine she’s thinking of Diplo. Tom.

  “Our dominos are perfectly aligned,” he says. “One wrong move, and they fall—we fade into obscurity.”

  I think about how dominos look pretty and peaceful when they fall.

  “But if we make the right moves,” he says, “we build an empire.”

  I look at Pilar, who is looking out the window.

  Beau gets up and goes to the kitchen. I pray he’s getting PBRs.

  “I was at a show downtown last night,” Jax says. His stamina for partying confounds me. “And I saw Kreayshawn.”

  Anger washes over Yumiko’s face. I remember her pushing that conference table phone at the Wicked Ice meeting and try not to laugh. I don’t want Pilar to roll her eyes at me.

  “I have to admit it caused me to spiral a bit,” Jax says. “She was with some ugly dude, looking cheap as hell. No crew, no security, no charisma.”

  I imagine Jax as a preacher, calling out from his pulpit: the Church of Dina.

  Then I recall telling my parents that I’m thriving.
>
  I’m thirty years old; I shouldn’t care what my parents think. Did Kanye care what his parents thought? Actually, I think his dad was out of the picture and his mom was quite proud of him until she tragically passed away. Bad example. Andy Warhol? Ugh, I’m pretty sure his parents were super proud. Whatever.

  Beau returns with four cold beers and I want to kiss him, then quickly become disgusted by the thought. I haven’t had a drink in days, and a beer is just what I need right now. The bubbles calm me. PBR is low alcohol anyway. It’s basically seltzer water. The point is to avoid uppers.

  I look around the room and watch the blue light bounce off various surfaces: the tin on the ceiling, the shoji panes, the coffee table. I recall Jake’s comment about “prolonged adolescence.”

  At the same time I crack my beer open, Pilar shoos hers away. I wonder what’s going on with her.

  “The time is now to go on a tour,” Jax says. “The hype is high. We boost our audience, get them wanting more, then come home and record our debut album.”

  Listening to him talk makes me feel exhausted. Does a tour involve living on a bus? I don’t think I can handle that. Is Jax going to expect me to perform for him all the time? Dance with him and listen to his sermons and laugh at his jokes? Make me hug him? I once again become nostalgic for my old life, where I just typed alone in my apartment and got paid to be salty to the US government. Are the only lives we want the ones we aren’t living?

  “Beau,” Jax says, “can you get us another meeting with CAA in the next few days?”

  Beau shrugs his pale, bony shoulders. “Probably.”

  I shiver thinking about going back into that sterile building, having to talk to those indistinguishable white men inside a glass box of panic.

  “Perfect. And in the meantime,” Jax says, eyes lighting up, “we party.”

  “I have to work,” says Pilar, getting up. I’ve never been so envious of someone for having a job before.

  “You’ll be missed,” Jax says, an intense glint in his eye, “my love.”

  Pilar says nothing but blows us all kisses, then floats out of the room. I want to grab her and say, Take me with you.

  I pull out my phone and text Yumiko, Can we leave? But she never checks her phone. So I get up and head toward the fire escape. Yumiko follows.

  “Can we get out of here?” I ask as soon as she lights her blunt. Pink sky rises behind the palms in the distance.

  Yumiko looks back at me a little confused.

  “I’m trying to be, you know… “ I stumble for the words. “More healthy.” I pause for a second, embarrassed. “If you want to stay, I can take a Ly—”

  “I got you,” Yumiko says. She puts out her blunt, then puts it behind her ear.

  Jax looks kind of upset when we announce that we’re leaving. For a second I feel guilty. Then Beau pulls out a tiny bag of white powder and starts shaking it, and Jax quickly becomes distracted, like a cat eyeing a toy. As soon as the bag opens, we slip out.

  I don’t hear from Jax or anyone in the Kingdom for roughly a week, which feels like a blessing. I need some “me time,” which all time once was. I’m happy to have my schedule back, to be free of “Shiny Season.” I go to Crystal’s dance class with Yumiko. I watch old What’s Up with the Walcotts episodes with the cats, experiencing a newfound appreciation for having both of them together. I text Jake several times and he doesn’t respond. Andy Warhol’s voice loops through my brain with increasing regularity: “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes.”

  After writing Dr. Kim a dramatic email using the phrases “minor mental breakdown” and “light addiction issues,” he gets me an appointment with a therapist on the East Side who has a comforting affinity for turquoise. She quickly identifies in me a “concerning need for external validation.”

  “Well, where the hell else am I supposed to get it from?” I ask.

  She unleashes a hearty laugh, as if I’m joking, which I’m not.

  I give myself permission not to think about the future until I hear back from Jax. When he finally calls another meeting at the Kingdom, dread sinks in. I don’t want to go back to that drug den and listen to him preach at us. When I tell this to Yumiko, she says, “Why don’t you just quit and go solo?”

  “I need Jax,” I say. “I need the group.”

  “No, you don’t,” she says. “They need you.”

  We go to the meeting regardless but decide to meet on the fire escape if and when either of us needs to, well, escape.

  Jax greets us with wider and more manic eyes than the previous week. He’s wearing the same leopard-print coat over what appears to be a woman’s bathing suit. I note the faint residue of white powder on the collar of his coat, which I take care to avoid when he wraps me inside a claustrophobic hug.

  Pilar isn’t here yet, and I realize this is the first time I’ve been in the Kingdom without her. It often seemed like she lived here. While we wait, we sip PBRs with Beau. Yumiko chats at Beau, and I zone out, imagine Nina rolling joints on the coffee table. I feel a weird pang, like I miss her, but then I remember how she betrayed me.

  Jax keeps pacing around the apartment, ducking in and out of various areas—the kitchen, behind the shoji panes, his bedroom. Each time he emerges from his bedroom with wider eyes, and I wonder whether he’s doing something harder than Dina in there. Then I decide it’s none of my business.

  Pilar arrives in a blue coat and a cloud of smoke. She seems annoyed. Not the unflustered Gemini fairy I’ve been partying with the past few months. Jax lunges at her for a hug, and Pilar deftly converts it into an air-kiss. I look at Yumiko to privately acknowledge the tension, but she’s busy talking with Beau about Grand Theft Auto. Yumiko can talk to anyone about anything.

  Jax spreads his arm wide when we’re all seated before him. He’s wearing more jewelry than when we arrived. “My babies. I missed my babies.”

  Pilar lights a fresh cigarette. “Why are we here?”

  “Okay,” he says, pacing toward the shoji panes. Jax gestures toward Beau, who is cutting a line of white powder with surgical precision on a gold tray in front of him.

  “Wicked Ice is ghosting us,” Beau says flatly.

  “It’s okayyyyyyyyy,” Jax says, rushing back toward us. “We just need a plan.” Then he disappears back into his bedroom.

  Pilar sighs. “How long is this going to take?”

  Before anyone can respond, Jax charges out of the bedroom without the leopard-print coat. He’s just wearing the woman’s bathing suit and thigh-high socks, crystal pendants clinking as he walks—no struts—into the room. He’s on a runway, nearly voguing.

  “Baby Beau,” Jax says, reaching his arm toward him in a way that could be read as a dance move. “Can you get us another meeting at CAA?”

  “I can try to set something up in the next few weeks,” Beau says.

  “No, I mean like now,” Jax says, then eyes us with suspicion. “What time is it?”

  I jump at the opportunity for a concrete task and pull out my iPhone. “Six thirty,” I say dutifully.

  Beau moves a hand through his greasy hair. “Okay, so I hit up my guy at CAA,” he says slowly. “He said Shiny AF needs an album before you go on tour.” He leans over and sucks a line up his nose, then brushes his nostril. The whole performance is revolting. Then he continues speaking. “He was kind of… evasive.”

  Pilar shrugs. “So what? Agents are busy.” She exhales a stream of pale smoke toward the cracked window.

  I look at Yumiko to fill the silence.

  “Maybe we should take some time,” Yumiko says, “think about other projects.”

  “That makes sense,” says Pilar.

  I’m surprised by both of these statements, but I also feel comforted by the idea of “time,” of “other projects.”

  Jax crouches down, puts his head in his hands, starts shaking slightly. I reach nervously for my PBR, but it’s empty. Usually I’m pretty wasted around Jax and his behavior is e
ntertaining, if not inspiring. But now, basically sober, I don’t feel amused.

  “It’s okay!” Jax jumps up and spreads his pale, tattooed arms. “We’ll go tomorrow,” Jax says. “First thing tomorrow.” Then he bursts into laughter, does a plié, skips off toward his bedroom. In the doorframe, he turns toward us. “If they don’t respond”— he laughs again—”we’ll just show up.” Then he shuts the door behind him.

  “Okay, what the fuck is he on?” Pilar asks Beau.

  Beau shrugs.

  Pilar gets up close to him, blowing smoke in his face. “What,” she says, “is he on?”

  “There’s no snow right now,” says Beau, and I think about how lame he sounds, like a coke dealer in the NYU dorms. “So we got some crystal.” He smiles and his teeth are nearly gray, much like his skin. “It’s really good,” he says. He gestures toward the tray. “Do you want to try?”

  Pilar slaps Beau right across the face, which is cathartic to watch. I’ve wanted to slap his dumb face so many times. I look at Yumiko and she seems similarly delighted.

  Beau unleashes a high-pitched scream like a baby, then grabs his face. “Bitch, that hurt,” he whines.

  Pilar is now standing over Beau, who is curled up in pain on the couch. “You remember what happened last time he did meth, right?”

  Beau shrugs.

  Pilar hits him again, this time on the arm, slightly less hard. “I fucking can’t with you,” she says. “We’re too old for this shit. People our age have babies, families, mortgages.”

  It’s kind of an old-fashioned point. I had no idea Pilar was so conservative.

  She grabs her purse and puts out her cigarette. “Call me if you need me to take him somewhere,” she says to Beau, “but only if it’s an emergency.” Her heels click toward the door, echoing on the concrete floors.

  “Fire escape?” Yumiko says to me when Pilar is gone.

  I nod and jump up. Just then, Jax reemerges from his bedroom.

  “Who wants shots?” he asks. He’s holding several empty shot glasses, no liquor in sight, hips shimmying to a nonexistent beat.