by Anna Dorn
Beau just laughs really hard, like it’s a bit.
“We’re gonna smoke a cigarette real quick,” I say, grabbing Yumiko’s arm. We slide out the window onto the fire escape.
“He’s full-blown manic,” Yumiko says.
“I want to leave,” I say. “But is that irresponsible?” I pull out a cigarette and light it, but don’t inhale. I’m trying to quit cigarettes, but I don’t want Jax to think we’re being shady. “Or, like… immoral?” I recall how Jax never so much as texted me when I fainted at the Teragram.
Yumiko shakes her head. “It’s called taking care of ourselves.”
The next day, I’m reading an article on “blonde privilege” when Jake finally responds to one of my text messages. We haven’t spoken since I escaped his car the night of the show.
Glad you’re alive, he says.
I’m sorry is all I can come up with. I can’t believe this is the first time I’m saying it. Now that I’m more clearheaded, I feel insane for how I behaved that night. He was trying to help me.
Jax is doing meth, I type. I think he’s having some kind of… episode.
Jesus Christ, he writes. The typing bubbles appear, disappear, reappear. What are you doing right now?
When I arrive at Echo Park Lake, Jake is sitting in a patch of shade near the paddleboat station, under some tall palms. I approach with hesitation.
“You look good,” he says. I experience déjà vu, back to the time we were in my apartment before Dead Stars at the Mirror Box and a thousand times before that. I run my fingers through my hair and think about my blonde privilege and whether I should dye my hair back to its natural color, which is, like, beige. It’s ugly, but less ugly, conceptually, I think, than bleaching it to resemble a Northern European child.
I shrug. “You look the same,” I say.
He unleashes a laugh, and my muscles relax a bit. Then I sit down beside him on a gray fleece blanket.
“You didn’t bring me anything?” Jake asks, raising his dark eyebrow in a way that might read to the average person as intimidating but that I find very comforting.
I shrug. “Still insufferable,” I say.
“You know Virgos are supposed to be generous.” He looks up at the sky, then back at me. “You’re very atypical in that sense.”
I slap him on the arm. “I’m sorry Scorpios are so predictable,” I say. I await his reaction nervously, wondering if we’re okay to start joking around again. When he reveals a sliver of a smile, I continue. “Brood, be salty… never stop thinking about sex.”
Jake performatively attaches his gaze to a muscly twenty-something jogging around the lake.
“Latte thief?” I ask. It’s an old inside joke. This cheesy gay in a rainbow-flag T-shirt stole Jake’s latte once at the Peet’s on Telegraph in Downtown Berkeley, and it’s been our code for homo ever since. I guess we haven’t used it in a while because homosexuality feels kind of passé these days. Everyone is fluid, gender is fake, blah blah blah. Being gay was so much more interesting when it was taboo.
“One thousand percent,” says Jake.
I’m suddenly transported back to the Thai restaurant on Christmas, when I asked Jake if he thought Ellie just wanted to save me and he had an identical reaction. Then I remember Ellie calling me “immature,” what Jake calls my “prolonged adolescence,” and how I mutilate my hair to resemble both a child and a colonist. I sink into self-hatred and long for a pill to lift me out of it.
“Are you okay?” he asks. He opens his Nalgene and takes a sip of water. For a second, I’m transported back to college, to Jake and me sharing a joint in the Berkeley Hills and watching the fog roll in over the Golden Gate Bridge.
“Not really,” I say. It feels refreshing to be honest. I’ve wanted to say this my whole life but didn’t realize it was an option.
“Are you doing anything about it?” he asks.
“I’m back in therapy,” I say. “My therapist loves turquoise.”
“Very Berkeley,” he says.
“Exactly,” I say. I pick up a clump of grass, then flick it a few feet away. “Do you think I should dye my hair?” I ask. Talking about my hair, which is pretty and dead, is easier than talking about my feelings, which are ugly and alive. “You know, to make it look less… infantile?”
Jake shrugs. “You know I’m no expert on matters of aesthetics.” I knew this, but I didn’t know he knew it about himself. “Maybe you could ask one of your bandmates,” he says.
The suggestion makes me uneasy. I recall Jax’s mismatching pendants clacking to the strange beat inside his head. “I’m thinking about going back on my SSRIs,” I say.
“I thought you just went down a dose,” he says with a concerned tone.
I keep my focus on the grass, which I’m picking neurotically. “I threw them away,” I say quietly.
“Prue, you should be medicated,” he says. I’m not looking at him, but I know his eyes are big. “I say this as a friend—a concerned friend.”
I sigh. “But they’re poison. Yumiko told me they contain toxic compounds.”
“Are you seriously taking medical advice from your gun-slinging client?”
“Former client,” I say, still picking. “And yeah. She’s smart.”
“Did the grass do something to you?” Jake asks. “You know the planet doesn’t need any extra help being destroyed by humans.”
I stop picking and refocus on my shoelaces, tying and retying.
“Toxic doesn’t mean anything,” he says. “Water is toxic in large enough amounts.”
I finally look up at him, comforted. His eyes are warm and present, a sharp opposition to the glassy glares of the Kingdom.
“I assume she’s thinking they’re toxic because they’re synthetic,” he says. “But so is most of the food you eat, and people are living longer than ever.”
“But what about the fact most pharmaceuticals are produced by corporations, which only care about profit?”
“Jesus, Prue,” Jake says in a way that makes me remember how much I’ve missed him. I think about making a T-shirt that says, JESUS, PRUE, and giving it to him for his birthday. “I thought you were over your Marxist phase,” Jake continues.
“It just seems sick that the drugs provided to alleviate the drudgery of late capitalism are mediated by the capitalist profit center that is the pharmaceutical industry,” I say, obscuring my feelings with pseudo-intellectual nonsense.
“Do I have to remind you again how much you’ve benefitted from capitalism, Miss Granny Paid for Law School?”
I’m about to launch into rebuttal mode, reminding him that capitalism has succeeded in large part with the help of the nuclear family, which functions by systematically devaluing women, but I decide to drop the intellectual façade and say what I’m really feeling. “I guess I’m worried I could be happier and healthier unmedicated,” I say, “but I’ll never have the courage to find out.”
“I don’t know,” he says. “I feel about SSRIs kind of like how I feel about Diet Coke. Like maybe they’re marginally bad for me but not enough to outweigh the good.”
I think about the Diet Coke I drank this morning, the nice chemical burn it left in the back of my throat, the moderate high from the caffeine.
One of those freaky geese starts charging at us. Jake shoos it away, then turns toward me.
“Live your art and take your meds,” he says.
The day before my appointment with Dr. Kim, LA experiences a major heat wave. My apartment doesn’t have AC, so I bring my three massive fans out of the closet and keep them on full blast. Periodically, I roll ice cubes on my face, then roll them along the cats’ fur. Missy likes it better than Ennui. I can tell them apart now.
As I ice, I look at pictures of snowy New York on Instagram with mild bemusement. People complain about the heat waves in LA, but I love them. The heat relaxes me. I feel like I’m a desert lizard, or at the Korean spa.
When Yumiko calls, I answer in a haze.
; “Get your suit on, betch,” she shrieks, “we’re going to the beach!”
“Really?” I ask. I never go to the beach in LA. It’s so far away. I was spoiled by my childhood, when I’d spend my summers at my grandmother’s house in the Outer Banks. The ocean was her front yard, and the beach was private. The idea of sitting in traffic for an hour to get to a crowded public beach seems unappealing. The Pacific is so cold and there is too much kelp.
“Yesssss,” she says.
As a bead of sweat rolls down from my armpit, I agree.
“I’m picking you up in an hour!”
When Yumiko texts to say she’s outside, I’m preparing to hit my vape pen. I pause to peek out the window to look for the Lincoln, but I don’t see it. Instead I see Beau’s G-Wagen. I put the vape back in my tote bag without taking a drag.
I want to back out, but the car is outside, and guilt compels my legs to move down the stairs, albeit very slowly.
“Vagaaaaaa,” Jax yells out the window when he sees me. He’s smoking a cigarette, and his hair is not in its usual braids. Instead, it’s wild and voluminous, partially dreaded. He’s wearing a leopard-print one-piece bathing suit and maybe ten crystal prayer bead necklaces.
I force a weak smile, feeling kind of awkward as I’ve been ignoring his texts. He’s been sending a lot of weirdly punctuated paragraphs filled with oblique references to the Illuminati. I might find them interesting if they didn’t scare me so much.
My stomach sinks when Beau nods his sickly-looking head at me.
Yumiko flings open the back seat door and my heart starts to race. Am I really about to get in a car with a driver who is probably on meth?
“We don’t have all day, slut!” Yumiko shouts at my slow-moving body.
I move even slower to punish her.
When Beau starts driving, I open my Notes app and write: I can’t believe you didn’t tell me they were coming… This could be dangerous! I hand the phone to Yumiko. I know better than to text her at this point.
As Jax belts Britney Spears in the front seat, Yumiko begins typing back on the app. She hands the phone back to me, and I look down at it apprehensively. They’re sober. Stash ran out.
I’m a little relieved but still uncomfortable. And skeptical.
Jax whips around toward us and I jump a little. He looks me in the eye, chuckles, then continues singing “Everytime.”
You sure? I type on the Notes app.
Jax turns his head back around, and I notice a large chunk of his hair is missing—a spot of bright white scalp surrounded by jagged pieces of coarse black hair.
I hand the phone back to Yumiko.
“I need you, baby,” Jax sings while looking directly into my eyes.
Yumiko just looks at me and shrugs.
We swerve through Topanga Canyon to a tiny beach in Malibu that Jax claims is a “Kingdom secret.” Getting there involves shimmying through a bougainvillea bush onto what appears to be a private path. We’re surely trespassing, but I don’t care when I spot the first glimpse of water, sparkling rolls of turquoise. I hear a wave crash and genuinely start to smile, an experience so foreign to me that for a second I think I’m having a stroke.
The air is salty and the sand feels warm on my feet and the beach is practically empty.
Yumiko runs straight toward the water, and without really thinking, I follow. I can’t remember the last time I ran.
The water is freezing but refreshing, like the cold plunge at a Korean spa. Yumiko dives into a crashing wave, shrieking when she emerges. Her voice seems to skip across the water like a thin rock, and for a second I remember being onstage with her. Although I thought that I was dying at the time, the memory feels pleasant at this moment.
“Oh my god,” she yells. “It feels so good!” She floats up into a wave, and I dive into it just before it crashes.
We stay in the same spot for a few minutes, treading water and drifting with the tide. I stare at the line where the ocean meets the atmosphere and feel like I’m looking at a Rothko. The water rocks me like a baby, back and forth, up and down.
Yumiko jumps on my shoulders and pushes me under. When I emerge, I’m facing the boys on the beach. They look nearly translucent. I watch Jax dance like a maniac.
I stay in the water a little longer than Yumiko. I just want to be alone out here. Normally I’m just alone in my bed, and this is a more profound version of that. Because I’m, like, in the world.
When my fingers turn white, I return to the crew. They’re on a big, neon-striped Mexican blanket. Jax dances in circles around its perimeter.
There is no music playing.
Beau and Yumiko are sharing a blunt and yapping about some video game. I feel a brief and intense moment of hatred for Beau, for enabling Jax, for making out with Nina in front of my face on multiple occasions, for constantly taking Yumiko’s attention from me. She’s just trying to be nice. He obviously has zero qualms when it comes to taking advantage of people. Everyone is just a little pawn in his twisted game.
I lie down on a patch of sand, pointedly beside, and not on, the blanket, then sink into the warm sand, an exfoliant. I’m going to be so beautiful after this trip, I think as I put a towel over my face so no one will talk to me.
Just as I’m fully reclined, Jax hovers over me. “Vagaaaaa,” he sings. Before I can respond or be annoyed, he starts monologuing. “We need to talk about our next steps, okay? We have to figure out a plan.”
The towel is still on my face, but I can see his silhouette moving a lot. He’s towering over me, and I start to feel afraid.
“Our boy Beau”—he chuckles—”he’s getting us a meeting soon.”
He moves his hands toward me quickly and I rip the towel off my face.
He laughs again. “No need to be afraid, my dearrrr”—singing again.
I want to ask him for some personal space, but I’ve never done that before, and I have no idea how.
“My phone isn’t working,” he says, holding it over my face. “You can see the screen is all cracked.”
It’s not.
“I hate that I can’t communicate with you.”
He can.
Jax’s face drops, like he might cry, and he plops down on the patch of blanket next to me.
I want to run back into the water, but instead I put the towel back on my face. I’ve been ignoring Jax the way Jake was ignoring me. Modern society, I decide, is just a never-ending cycle of ignoring people for a vague illusion of control and going crazy when the same is done to you.
“Vaga,” Jax whispers, lifting the towel slightly to reach my ear, “I’ve been seeing Pac in my dreams.”
“Hey!” I yank the towel from his hands. “Whatever you’re on is killing my vibe.” I’m proud of myself for being firm.
Jax just starts laughing manically. “I’m sober, Vaga,” he says. “I don’t do drugs anymore! I want to be present.” He pauses, pulling a crystal pendant off his neck and putting it around mine; we lock eyes. “Like Madonna.”
If he’s really sober, something else is going on. He seems fully dissociated. I recall Pilar telling the boys to call her if it becomes an emergency. Are we there yet?
“Should I dye my hair?” I ask to change the subject to something neutral and nonthreatening.
Jax shrieks and I jump a little. “Nooooooo!” he squeals. “Your hair is your everything, Vaga. You look like a doll.” He reaches down to pet my hair. “My perfect little doll.”
I jerk away, feeling degraded and afraid, like the blonde who dies first in a horror film. Jake always tells me I fit that archetype “to a T.”
“Vaga, I’m so glad I found you,” Jax continues. “I’ve been waiting for you my whole life. You’re all I’ve ever wanted and needed.”
I prepare to be murdered.
Jax jumps up, grabs my hand, and starts tugging it. “I need you, baby.” He’s singing again.
I try to pull my hand away and look over at Beau and Yumiko to snatch them from their idio
tic gamer talk.
“Come on, Prue,” he begs, still yanking my arm. “We’re going to the water. I need to baptize you.”
I pull back harder, but he’s much stronger than me.
“We need to wash the devil off our hands,” Jax says. Just as he starts lifting me off the sand, Beau appears above him and pulls him back.
“Back off her, man,” Beau says.
“But I need her, baby,” Jax says again as he tries to wrestle out of Beau’s grip. Beau pulls back, and Jax starts to get aggressive.
“Hey,” Beau says to Yumiko, while trying to restrain Jax, “can you hand me the prescription bottle in that backpack? I think he needs a Klonopin.”
Jax only becomes more aggressive. “I don’t take drugs!” he shouts. He tries to free himself from Beau’s grasp. “I don’t take drugs, I don’t take drugs.” He just keeps repeating it, like a mantra, each time becoming softer. Eventually, he’s crying. “I don’t take drugs.” He falls down onto the blanket, curls up into a ball, and starts shaking, still cooing. “I don’t take drugs, I don’t take drugs, I don’t take drugs.”
“I think we need to call Pilar,” Beau says.
TWENTY-ONE
As winter turns to spring, Jax is admitted into a residential treatment facility, my Twitter followers drop by half, and I dye my hair back to its natural color. Shiny AF fades into obscurity. Wicked Ice drops us. CAA drops us. We were “of a moment,” they tell us, “and that moment is gone.”
Soon I’m back under those awful fluorescents, waiting in a line that refuses to budge, staring at @WYATTLOOK to avoid the dire scene around me. My present mood could best be described as “abysmal.” I’m in the pharmacy section of Walgreens to pick up my dreaded Celexa. Back to square one. The biggest mind-fuck of SRRIs is that when you go on and off them, they cause the very symptoms they’re meant to cure—anxiety and depression and suicidal ideation—for up to a month. Dr. Kim prescribes me extra Klonopin to deal with the transition, which I plan to take as prescribed.
I press the home button on my phone and see a text from Nina. Be there in 5. Nina called me a few days ago to tell me she’s writing another piece on Shiny AF.