Mark dropped his hands. “Okay,” he acquiesced. “Can I stand up for a second?”
Willow nodded. “I’ll import these.”
Mark wandered over to her bed and spread out flat on his back. “Prunik asked us over for dinner next Thursday. He and his wife really want to meet you.”
Prunik was Mark’s business partner. Willow looked over her shoulder at him, half smiling. “Why?”
“To prove you exist. I think Prunik’s exact wording in the email was ‘You and your imaginary girlfriend are invited for an Indian feast.’ ”
Willow froze. There it was. Girlfriend. And even though Mark had been casual, joking, when he said it, Willow still felt it sock her in the stomach.
Mark pulled himself to a sitting position. “I don’t want to pressure you or anything. But . . . it’s been eight months.”
“Seven and a half,” she corrected.
He grinned. “You’ve been keeping count? I thought you said that was stupid.”
She blushed and ducked her head. “It is.”
Mark got to his feet and crossed the room to crouch next to her. “I’m fine if you’re not ready. I really am. But . . .”
“But what?”
“I don’t want to sound like a cliché here, but . . . I guess I want to know where this is going. Because if you never want to be my girlfriend, I guess, maybe . . .”
“Maybe what? You’ll break up with me?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” He got to his feet, suddenly frustrated. “It’s been seven and a half months. I’m here half the week, you’re at my place half the week, and everyone at work is always asking about you, how my girlfriend is doing, and I feel like I’m lying when I don’t correct them, you know, and I kind of feel like an idiot.”
Willow got to her feet and wrapped her small hands around his.
Mark. Solid, reliable, trustworthy Mark. The boy who never cheated on his taxes, let alone a girlfriend—at least, as far as she knew. If she could trust anyone, it would be Mark. But still, something whispered dark and low in her ear that trusting Mark—trusting any man—was foolish. “So ask me.”
Realization flickered behind his eyes. He smiled down at her broadly. Then he coughed and cleared his throat, adopting a mock-serious voice. “Willow Alice Hendriksen.”
“Yes?”
“Will you be my girlfriend?”
Fear clung to her ribs. She ignored it. “Yes.”
Mark kissed her softly. She moved her hands up to his head to tangle them in his hair, and soon they were making out hungrily, like they did when they first started dating. He slid his hands to her ass, which was flat, almost like a boy’s. His lips moved down to her neck. She could feel his erection through his pants. He started moving them toward the bed. She resisted. “My period . . .”
He cupped her face in his hands. “So what?”
Willow swallowed. “The girls will be here soon—”
But it was only half a protest. Without warning, Mark moved one arm across her back, one behind her knees, scooping her off her feet. The surprise of it made her squeal, a rare noise, and the two of them stumbled, tumbled onto her bed. Mark’s mouth felt like a hungry live thing. An insatiable creature.
“Wait.” She extracted herself from underneath him, picking her way past clothes and records to the nearest lamp.
“Leave it on,” Mark panted, unbuttoning his fly.
She didn’t answer, switching it off, sending the room into early night.
“I want to see you,” he complained, horniness making him whiny. He tried pulling her slip off, but she resisted. He kissed her, pushing his tongue into her mouth as if to swallow her whole.
Willow closed her eyes, starting the well-worn mental porn that she both hated and couldn’t come without. In her mind’s eye, her breasts were freakishly huge, hideously oversized, like two bulbous watermelons strapped to her chest . . .
“Babe.”
Above her, Mark’s face was open and raw.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“Here.” She kissed him, he kissed her back. “I’m here.”
“Let’s go in front of the mirror.”
“What? No.”
Before she knew what was happening, he was moving them both off the end of her bed to stand in front of her full-length mirror. Willow was so stunned she couldn’t protest when he pulled her slip up, off over her head, his fingers clumsy with excitement. He kissed her neck, rubbing the tip of his cock over her clit. She couldn’t feel it. All she could see was her body, splayed like one of the pinned butterflies on her wall.
Mark eased himself inside her. “Look at you,” he moaned. “Look how fucking hot you are.”
Willow stood inert, staring in horror. Nonexistent breasts that weren’t even a handful, that were more male than female. Disproportionately large thighs that quivered like jelly with each thrust. Giant forehead the size of a serving platter. Why did she grow her bangs out?
Mark moaned again, picking up rhythm. “You’re so fucking hot.”
This was it? This was what he found so erotic—this unspecial collection of limbs and flesh? Not possible. This was grotesque. “No.” She wriggled.
“Baby.” Mark pumped. “Baby, oh shit, I’m going to come—”
“No!” In a panic, she pulled herself from him, stumbling forward and knocking over the mirror.
Mark’s eyes rolled in his head before he snapped back, reaching for her, erection enormous, panting, “What? What’s wrong?”
Willow ran across the room to a chest of drawers.
“Willow?” He was behind her, but not touching her. “What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t like that.” She found a pair of sweats and pulled them on.
“What?”
She whirled to face him. Every emotion sharpened into anger. “I didn’t like that!”
“Fuck, I’m sorry.” Mark ran a hand through his hair, bewildered. “Baby, I’m so sorry.”
The buzzer sounded from the foyer.
“That’s Evie and Krista.” Willow rubbed her face, distressed. She didn’t want Mark to see her like this; so shaken, so undone. “You should go.”
“Can we talk about this?”
“Not now.”
The buzzer sounded again, long and insistent. Krista, for sure.
“Can I shower?”
“Of course. I have to buzz them up.” Willow paused at her bedroom door. For a moment, she thought she might look back at him, to meet the gaze that she knew was on her back.
She didn’t.
7.
They’d met in New York, the summer of 2014. Matteo Hendriksen’s twenty-year-old daughter was getting a small write-up in a big It Girl feature in Salty, and was in the office to get her photo taken. Evie had only been interning for a few weeks when she’d been tasked with helping the girl pick an outfit. Evie still remembered the look on Willow’s face when she knocked on the Fashion Room door, startling her as she whirled around. A pair of bloodred heels dangled from her fingers.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. I’m Evie.” Evie nodded at the shoes. “You find something you like?”
“Oh no! Not these. I just wanted a closer look. They’re so . . . vicious.”
“Jesus.” Evie took one of the shoes out of Willow’s hand. “You could take someone’s eye out with this thing. Death by stiletto.” Evie mimed stabbing with the heel.
Willow giggled. “I know, right? I think high heels are kind of masochistic.”
“Definitely. Shhh,” Evie added, a finger to her lips. “You can be shot for saying something like that around here. Treason of the highest order.”
Willow giggled again. When she did her whole face blossomed.
While Willow was trying on outfits, Evie found her website, and was surprised to discover that the shy, pretty blond girl was actually a good photographer. Her work was understated and moody, with flashes of macabre humor. Evie liked the series on a run-down taxidermy shop with signs like 60%
Off All Rodents and Shell Animals! while the taxidermist himself bizarrely resembled his stuffed, stiff animal preserves. A few magazines—ones infinitely cooler than Salty—had already profiled Willow and published some of her pictures. Evie figured the decision to make Willow an It Girl was a result of this existing approval, Willow’s famous father, and her otherworldly attractiveness. When Evie successfully convinced Features to change Willow’s profile label from Boho Babe to Aspiring Artist, Willow suggested they meet up for a drink. Without blinking, Willow ordered a Johnnie Walker Black. Evie, unnerved that a sort-of-famous girl was sitting across from her, ordered the same. Over the course of the night, they had two more rounds. When the bill came, Evie was horrified to see it was $108. But Willow didn’t even check the total when she handed over a gold credit card. That, Evie thought, is what it’s like to have money.
They spent that summer defying sunshine for dark bars and important conversations about books and art. Willow made Evie feel well-read and insightful. She suspected that was how she was making Willow feel too. She’d secretly Google Willow’s name, scrolling through pictures of her at her father’s film premieres; an awkward teenager in dresses that probably cost more than Evie’s entire wardrobe, wincing at the camera. It seemed so incongruous with the unassuming girl and her curtain of pale blond hair sitting across from her in a divey bar, asking if she’d read The Handmaid’s Tale.
After Evie returned to Sarah Lawrence for her final year of college, they lost touch. Evie assumed she’d never see Willow again. The only contact she received during this time was a late-night voicemail. Willow’s voice sounded wispy in her brief “just wanted to say hey” message. But the most curious part was the background noise. Evie could’ve sworn it was a hospital.
When Evie moved to Brooklyn after graduating in 2015, she didn’t expect Willow to return an email. She did. When they met up for a drink, it was like no time had passed at all. And naturally, Evie didn’t bring up the voicemail. Somehow, it all just added to Willow’s allure.
Krista hurricaned onto Evie’s doorstep at the end of that year, trading law for acting and Boston for New York. Willow invited them both over to the Upper East Side. A foreign land. Evie felt like she’d gone through the Looking Glass and onto a rerun of Gossip Girl. While Evie perched nervously on the edge of a cream leather sofa the size of a sailboat, Krista bounced from room to room like a kid on Christmas morning. “Fuck me, this view is amazing! Look how big that TV is! Fuck off, you have an indoor pool? Dude, what the fuck?”
After some initial awkwardness, Willow got them all wasted on three bottles of Moët, which resulted in a late-night frolic in said pool. That’s how she’d first met Matteo Hendriksen. The intimidating Dutch/American director had made the seminal prisoner-of-war epic, No Time for Tomorrow, starring Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds, which won the Oscar for best director in 1978, and directed Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford in her mom’s favorite love story, Only the Sparrows Know. He was widely accepted as being a cinematic legend. Evie met him while drunkenly attempting a synchronized swimming routine. But he didn’t seem to mind. Later Evie thought he actually seemed pleased Willow had friends.
Now the newness of Willow’s digs had worn off, and Evie barely glanced twice at the Warhol in the foyer. It was simply the place Willow lived with her father and his surprisingly cool girlfriend, Claire. Evie grinned at Willow and asked pointedly, “Is Mark here?” Willow’s just-fucked vibe was obvious: her hair was a mess and she looked a little dazed. Evie glanced at Krista, expecting her to tease Willow too. But her roommate was already on her way to the living room. Odd.
“My day was pretty weird.” Evie followed Krista, slipping off her shoes to stretch out on the sailboat sofa. “I had a recalcitrant moment in our features meeting, which may or may not have led to a new job.”
“Oh really?” Willow curled up at the other end of the sofa, pulling a cushion in front of her.
Evie began summarizing her meeting with Jan, stopping only when a wet-haired Mark appeared from Willow’s bedroom, messenger bag slung over his shoulder.
“Hey, Markie,” Evie sang out.
“Hey, guys.” He dropped a kiss on Willow’s forehead and murmured something in her ear, to which she nodded.
Willow’s so lucky to be dating a guy like Mark, Evie thought idly, rifling through a glass bowl of nuts on the coffee table. Someone interesting and smart, a good guy in a sea of store-brand mediocrity. Plus, he had the whole hot-nerd thing going on. She’d give anything to have afternoon sex be a normal part of her life.
“Have a fun night.” Mark waved as he headed for the elevator.
“Bye, Markie.” Evie was the only one to wave after him.
The apartment seemed oddly quiet. Willow was staring off into space and Krista, who had usually flipped the cable on by now, was glued to her phone, expression intent. “Whatcha doing?” Evie asked her.
Krista replied without looking up. “Looking for someone.”
Evie threw a pecan at her. “Who?”
“Someone I took an improv class with . . . Oh, check it out.” Krista glanced up. “Someone added a photo of us from that party in Bushwick.”
“I don’t remember posing for a photo.” Evie scooted down the sofa toward her roommate. That was the night they’d all drunk a bit too much tequila, before Krista made out with a guy wearing a sombrero. “But then again, I don’t remember getting home.”
“We’re not posing,” Krista replied. She held up the screen.
In the picture, Krista and Willow were both laughing at something Evie had evidently just said. Evie had a dry smirk on her face, while Willow and Krista’s mouths were both open, eyes squinty.
Willow grimaced and looked away, muttering something about needing to get a haircut.
“I am not wearing that dress ever again,” Evie said, blanching at the picture. “It’s too tight in the stomach, I look like friggin’ E.T.”
“At least you don’t have man arms.” Krista tapped at the screen.
“If you have man arms, I have gorilla arms!” Evie exclaimed. “Two meat curtains protruding from my shoulders. And I hate my smile. Me and my handfuls of baked-bean teeth.”
Krista and Willow both chuckled, but Evie felt a tiny stab of guilt. They shouldn’t be doing this. Dissecting themselves. But the picture was just extraordinarily unflattering. So when Krista announced she was untagging herself, Evie found herself joining Willow in saying she’d do the same.
“How hungry are you guys?” Evie glanced around for the TV remote. “Willing to wait for the good Chinese that takes forever, or is it a bad-Chinese-that’s-here-suspiciously-fast night?”
“Holy shit,” whispered Krista, staring at her phone. “That’s her.”
“Who her?” Willow asked.
“Penny,” Krista replied, her voice oddly soft. “I knew her as Penny. Penny Baker.”
“Huh?” Evie scooted back down to look at Krista’s phone. It was a photo of about twenty people, all young-looking and grinning. Krista’s hair was long; it must’ve been from the beginning of the year. A vague memory of an improv class her roommate had taken surfaced.
Krista pointed at a pale, slightly chubby girl who looked more embarrassed than pleased to be posing. “That means . . .” Krista shook her head, confused. “That means . . . she was telling the truth.”
“What truth? Kris, what are you talking about?”
Krista looked up at both girls, eyes comically wide. She hopped to her feet and came to stand self-consciously in front of them. “Something happened to me today. Something kind of weird.”
“Oh shit.” Evie froze. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, nothing like that. I met someone. Penelope—Penny—the girl in the photo. She gave me something. Something . . . big.”
“Big?” Evie repeated. “What, like, money?”
“Maybe.” Krista bit her lip. “Okay, I’m just going to say it. She gave me this.” Krista pulled a small glass bottle from
her pocket. It was a few inches tall and filled with purple liquid. “It’s called Pretty. It makes you . . . pretty.”
Krista seemed so intense and serious that Evie tempered a knee-jerk reaction to make fun of her. After exchanging a quick what the fuck? glance with Willow, Evie hedged, “Like . . . like an herbal thing?”
Krista shook her head. “No, like a real thing. This girl Penny used to be—well, you saw her picture. And I met her again today and, dude, she was fucking beautiful. And it’s all because of this.” Krista held the little bottle aloft again. “One drop lasts for one week. It changes you.”
“I’ve heard of this,” Evie announced. “It’s animal placenta. From Asia. Totally illegal.”
“No.” Krista stamped her foot. “Not animal placenta. It changes you. Into a different person. A totally different person, that’s what happened to Penny!”
“You saw this happen,” Willow clarified. “You saw this woman change into someone else?”
“No, she just told me about it.”
“She just told you about it?” Evie’s frown softened into a smile. She loved Krista, she really, really did. But oh man, sometimes the girl was so mind-blowingly stupid. “Babe, I think someone was playing a joke on you.” Then, “You didn’t give her any money, did you?”
“No! It was a gift. Because I was nice to her. And,” Krista added, “I want to try it.”
“Don’t be dumb, it’s probably poison,” Evie said. “Can we order? I’m friggin’ starving.”
“Eve, don’t you get it? This makes you pretty. Seriously fucking hot.”
“You’re asking me to believe in magic?” There was a sharp edge to Evie’s tone. Willow slid to her feet to go pluck the little bottle from Krista’s hands curiously.
“We don’t know how everything in the universe works!” exclaimed Krista. “What about ghosts? Or twins that have ESP? The Phoenix Lights, Evie, what about the Phoenix Lights?”
“Oh my god.” Evie laughed without humor. “You’re such an idiot.”
“Hey.” Willow looked up from the bottle to frown at Evie in reproach.
“Well, she is.” Evie felt her face start to flush. “Magic is for kids, and besides, you’re already beautiful. It wouldn’t work, anyway.”
The Regulars Page 4