Will do wont be easy.
What a hero.
The next morning I call Manpower temp agency to tell them that Jill, who was supposed to be working at some insurance company, is deathly ill. I try to keep it vague so as not to permanently ensnare her in any employment-threatening deception. The next thing I do is go downstairs and propose my ingenious Cautionary Tale slash Redemption Story idea to Natalie.
She shoots it down.
“Boys being dogs?” she says. “That’s not news.”
But when I report that her name is on the chart, with two X’s (one for Perm and one for Alvarez), she has a complete change of heart.
Her exact words are, “I can’t believe that pair of grade-B hamburgers put my name on a chart!”
The story’s a go. While I’m waiting for Larson to deliver the chart, Natalie phones Perm, Alvarez, and Sasha and tells them she’s doing portraits of the “hottest hipsters in Brooklyn,” and would they consider posing for her photographer friend. What they don’t know is that they are going to be exposed as the girl-trading ass faces they are by being styled in preposterous clothes. Can you even imagine what chubby Sasha is going to look like stuffed into vinyl jeans?
Vinyl jeans.
And the best part of this diabolical plan is that I get to offer the job of styling these unwitting scumholes to my awesomely talented girlfriend. Forget about being the assistant to the assistant. This is a real gig. She’s getting a credit for it. Man, she is going to worship me.
So on Thursday afternoon I’m walking home from my favorite Polish meat market with my favorite type of kielbasa when Natalie texts me the following:
Perm and gang are all go! Shooting Sat. Book Ramie. Wheres effing chart! Dont fail me! Xoxo
It’s all down to me now. Or, more specifically, it’s down to Larson. Talk about a weak link in the chain. Allegedly, he’s not even speaking to the girl-traders anymore. Somehow he has to hot-finger the chart—the actual chart—away from them. Natalie was clear on that point. She doesn’t want to publish a reproduction. She wants the genuine article, complete with beer stains and finger smudges.
It’s day five of my phase, which already makes this a long one. Chances are I’ll be gone tomorrow. If Larson doesn’t make good on the chart today, the whole project could go kerplewy.
That night, I’m waiting for Ramie to get home from Paris, grateful that I’ll get at least one night with her (a night I intend to exploit to the fullest). I’ve cleaned the apartment, showered, dressed in freshly laundered clothes, and even put some stuff in my hair so it doesn’t poke out all over my head. As I sip ginger ale in anticipation of her arrival, it gives me the opportunity to appreciate the multifaceted benevolence of my work. Provided Larson doesn’t screw the whole thing up by failing to deliver the chart, I can lay claim not only to saving Natalie’s magazine but also to defending womankind and getting Ramie a killer assignment. I am, one could argue, a bona fide gift to the women of this world. Women, you’re welcome.
When I hear Ramie’s keys in the door, I put the ginger ale down and have one quick look at myself in the darkened window. I want to be a force of benevolence in the world, but I don’t want to look like one. I want to look like a dangerous sexual animal. Which I do. Ramie gets the door open, kicks her suitcase across the threshold, then collapses across it.
“Bed,” is all she says.
I rush over, pull her up off the suitcase, and drag her to the couch with me.
“So tired,” she says. “So deeply tired.”
I try to sit her up, but she’s like deadweight. “Rames?” I say.
She looks up at me, smiles sleepily, then nestles her head in my lap and curls up like a cat. The apartment door is still open, having caught on the edge of her suitcase.
“You smell different,” I say.
“Stella,” she says. “Free sample. Sleeping now.”
“Rames,” I say. I shake her gently, and she groans. “Ramie, I have some big news for you.”
“Uh-huh,” she says. She nestles further onto my lap and covers her face with her hand.
“Ramie?”
She groans again. I take a sniff of her new perfume.
“I don’t like it,” I say.
“Yeah,” she says. “It’s nice, isn’t it?”
“I said I don’t like it.”
“Good night,” she says.
I give up and let her sleep on me for about half an hour, then gently slide out from underneath her and drag the suitcase into her room.
About an hour later Ramie wakes up, totally confused, and stumbles to the bathroom. I hear the shower turn on, followed by a scream. When I run inside, Ramie is stepping backward out of the shower.
“It’s cold!” she says.
I wrap her in a towel and sit her down on the closed toilet seat.
“Jeeze, Rames,” I say. “Did you leave your brain in Paris? It takes a minute for the water to heat up.”
Ramie nods with her eyes closed. “Can I have a bath instead?”
“Sure,” I say. I run the water for her. “But only if I can watch.”
She’s too jet-lagged to resist.
Once she slides in, Ramie can do little more than lie back in the tub while I wash her. But after a while she starts to revive.
“Paris,” she says. “Mon dieu! It was so cool. We shot this muse, named Debra, at the Ritz. Do you know that muse is an actual job? Mal, you would not believe the amount of couture. I mean she actually wears couture. All the time.”
I let her talk while my hands wander all over her body under the guise of hygiene. I don’t understand anything she’s talking about, but I’m not sure this matters. I think she just needs to download it all so she can clear space in her brain. This is good, because I am about to fill her brain with an inspirational tale of my own.
“Marguerite says school doesn’t even matter,” she says. “Marguerite thinks I should just move to Paris.”
“What?”
“Don’t worry,” she says. “My parents would deeply kill me if I did that.” She starts to get out of the tub. I back up and watch her as she dries off. “What are you looking at?” She wraps the towel around herself coyly, then heads into her bedroom. I follow close on her heels. When she opens her underwear drawer, I close it gently.
“Don’t bother,” I say.
She looks at me.
“When I tell you the amazing thing I have done—not just for you personally, but for the universe as a whole—you won’t be able to resist making love to me.”
“What are you talking about?” she says.
I take her hand and sit her down on the edge of the bed. Ramie furrows her brow in suspicion.
“What?” I say. “You think you’re the only one with stuff to do? I have stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“Important stuff,” I say.
“Such as?”
“Prepare to be dazzled,” I say. Then, as I pace back and forth in front of her, I reveal the whole ingenious plot, including Ramie’s part in it all. While I tell my tale, I strip down to my boxer shorts in order to speed things along to the next inevitable step.
“Natalie’s going to call the story ‘Sleeping with the Enemy,’” I say. “Oh, and she’s getting vinyl jeans for Sasha—you know, the chubby guy?”
The chubby guy you thought was cute, I think, but I don’t say that aloud.
“So?” I say. “What do you think?”
Ramie remains sitting, her towel wrapped chastely around her body, her face frozen in an expression I can’t quite place. After a prolonged pause, she says, “I can’t believe you did that.”
“What do you mean?” I say.
She stares in silence for a second. “I don’t know what’s worse,” she says. “The fact that you told Ian Jill would have sex with him if he stole the chart, or—”
“No, no, no,” I interrupt. “Ramie, I was lying to Larson. I thought I made that clear. Of course Jill’s not going to have sex with h
im. She’s completely over him. I was only saying that to motivate him.”
“You sent him a text,” she says. “That he thinks is from Jill.”
“Yeah?” I say. “So?”
“So how do you think Jill is going to feel about that?”
“Well …” Truthfully, I didn’t even consider this. It was outside the parameters of the project.
Ramie gets up from the bed and whips off her towel. But before I’m able to hope that at last the hero-worship sex is to begin, she starts dressing.
“I don’t understand, Ramie. I thought you’d love this.”
She laughs joylessly as she slides her long, delicious legs into some jeans.
“Wait,” I say. “Just wait.” I grab her wrist.
She freezes for a second as she stares at my hand; then she looks up at me.
“Why are you so mad?” I say. “I didn’t think Jill would mind. She’s not dating him or anything. It’s completely over between them.”
Ramie looks down and shakes her head. “It’s not just that,” she says.
“What is it, then?”
She pulls her wrist free. “Never mind,” she says. “You wouldn’t understand.” She pulls a sweater on and storms out of the room.
I follow her into the living room. “What do you mean I wouldn’t understand?”
At the front door, she slides into her coat.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“Marguerite’s.”
I press myself into the front door to block her escape. “Ramie,” I say. “I don’t understand what’s going on here. I got you a job. Did you not hear that part?”
Ramie finishes zipping up her coat, then stares at me coldly.
“What?” I say. “Why are you looking at me like that? Did I not get you a job?”
“Yes,” she says. “You got me a job satirizing fashion.”
“Huh?”
“Thanks a lot,” she says. “It warms my heart to know that you have such a high opinion of my work.”
She grabs the doorknob and yanks at it, but the weight of my body prevents the door from opening.
“Will you please move? I want to go.”
“Where?” I say.
She sighs impatiently. “I already told you. Marguerite’s.”
“Of course,” I say. “Is she your new BFF or something? Are you dumping Jill too?”
“Do you realize how paranoid you sound?”
“I’m just curious,” I say. “Is Jill even your best friend anymore? Because it doesn’t seem like you appreciate her very much.”
“Oh, you’re one to talk,” she says. “You don’t have any idea how much Jill’s sacrificed for you.”
“Really?” I say. “Oh, that’s right. How could I possibly know how much Jill’s sacrificed. It’s not like I remember everything!”
“Your memory is a lot more selective than you realize,” she says. “Will you please move?”
“No,” I say.
“I’m going to Marguerite’s.”
“You know, I don’t think it’s such a great idea for you to be running off to foreign countries with this teacher’s assistant. What about your classes? What kind of an example is she setting?”
“What are you, my mother?” she says. “Marguerite is a working stylist. Not that this means anything to you, because you obviously think fashion is a joke, which, by the way, is a total cliché and a typically male thing to think.”
I back off with my hands raised. “Whoa,” I say. “Where did all this come from?”
But Ramie takes the opportunity to open the door and slip through.
“Ramie!” I shout after her.
She runs down the stairs without answering. I’m about to run after her when I realize I’m still in my underwear. I rush back inside and throw on my jeans and sneakers. The buzzer sounds.
I press the button hoping for Ramie, but it’s Larson.
“I’ve got the chart,” he says.
I buzz him in, then go to the window and watch Ramie walk off down the sidewalk. I open the window and shout her name, but she doesn’t hear me.
When I open the door for Larson, he has this dumb smile on his face. “You would not believe what I had to go through to get this thing,” he says. “I can basically never talk to Sasha again.”
I take it from him. “Is that a loss?”
He shrugs. “Actually, I was getting kind of sick of him.” He looks over my shoulder into the apartment.
“She’s not back yet,” I say.
He looks dejected.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’ll be sure to tell her what a hero you are.” I shut the door.
Two seconds later I open it, and he’s still standing there, confused.
“Can I ask you a question?” I say.
He nods.
“Why’d you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Steal the chart?”
“Dude,” he says. “You asked me to.”
“I know,” I say. “But did you do it because it’s the right thing to do or because you think it’ll get you laid?”
Larson stares at me with this wide-eyed look, as if he’s expecting me to lunge at him or something.
“I’m just curious,” I say. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell Jill.” He starts backing away. “You are one seriously disturbed brother.”
“Hey,” I say. “You didn’t answer the question.”
All I hear is the sound of his lopey footsteps descending the stairs.
“He promised Ian I’d have sex with him?”
Ramie nods. We’re packed like sardines into this ultrahip art opening in some grungy fifth-floor gallery in Chelsea. Ramie’s just filled me in on the precise details, as far as she knows them, regarding Jack and Ian’s chart-for-sex scheme.
I have to shout because dance music is blaring from another room. “Like, actual sex?”
“Yup!” she shouts back. “How much do you remember?”
I awoke this morning with only dim memories of the incidents in question and had no time to meditate, because I was immediately summoned to a law firm in midtown by Trish from Manpower, who kept asking me if I was sure I felt okay.
“Not much!” I shout. “He came five days early! Did you know that?”
She nods.
“He had brunch with my parents!”
“I know!” she says. “You’re remembering a lot more now! Aren’t you!”
It’s not an appropriate venue for discussing anything that can’t be shouted one syllable at a time, so Ramie takes my hand and leads me away. I assume she’s taking me to a quiet bathroom or hallway, but instead, she leads me toward the music to another room, where a throbbing mass of artfully dressed-down people sway and pulse as if they were one giant organism.
“Come on!” she mouths. She clings to my wrist and slices through the crowd. In the center of the mass is a tall, beautiful redhead dancing by herself. Ramie shouts an introduction to Marguerite, then ignores me for the next half hour in order to dance with her.
To avoid feeling like a fool, I sway awkwardly from side to side just behind Ramie. Because I had to come directly from work, I’m still wearing my wage slave uniform, which consists of a boring gray skirt suit and a plain white shirt. I only had time to dash into a cheap accessories store and buy a wide black corset belt. It improves the silhouette somewhat, but I still look like someone’s secretary.
Anyway, I didn’t come here to dance. I came here to get the details from Ramie on Jack’s last phase, details I deeply need. Ramie, however, is committed to losing herself in both the music and the reflected stunningness of her stunning friend Marguerite. They’re the stars of the dance floor. Every single guy in the room wants them. Probably some girls too. Not that they care. They’re just having fun, which only makes them more starlike.
Slowly, I inch my way out of their halo to the perimeter of the dance floor to watch them. It must be incredible to have so much sex appeal that you can safe
ly ignore it. I think it’s down to confidence. Ramie didn’t have to change anything about herself in order to fit in here. She’s a beautiful fish in a pond designed for her survival.
If I were a lesser person, I’d be jealous.
That night when I get home, I meditate into Jackspace and uncover most of the details myself. I’m getting very good at it now, for better and worse.
Ramie spends the rest of my phase crashing at Marguerite’s. It’s just easier, she explains, because it’s so close to school. Sometimes I worry that I’m losing Ramie to Marguerite. (Jack worried about this too, which, in a way, is kind of sweet of him.) But I know how important it is for Ramie to get ahead in her career, and I don’t want to hold her back.
Don’t worry, I’m not “marinating in self-pity” or anything (yes, I dug out that Jackthought). With Ramie gone, the apartment has never been cleaner. Plus, without much in the way of a social life, I can work a lot of overtime, which, at time and a half, is fattening up my bank account quite nicely. The extra discretionary cash, when combined with the money my mom left with Jack, has allowed me to buy not only those boots I’ve been lusting after, but also a sexy new pencil skirt to go with them. Perfect for a date, should such an event occur.
All in all, I’m embracing Ramie’s absence because it allows me to embark on a new chapter in my life, a chapter I have entitled “Dealing with Stuff in a Solo Type Fashion Because Your BFF Has Other Stuff to Do.”
I have elected not to deal with the fact that my cycles are getting more and more irregular all the time. Not because it’s acceptable to me, but rather because there is not a single thing I can do about it. There is no point in obsessing over things you can’t change, a lesson I have learned over the years.
Nor have I elected to deal with the recklessness and stupidity of Jack’s behavior vis-à-vis Ian. Reckless and Stupid are Jack’s patron saints. Without their guidance, I’m not sure he’d ever do anything. But I can’t be too mad at him. He meant well. His sin is one of ignorance, not malice. In fact, the more I get to know Jack, the more I realize that in some ways, his weaknesses are identical to his strengths. He’s only able to embark on bold and reckless acts of bravado because he doesn’t know any better. I wonder what he’ll be like when he does.
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