The Regulars

by Georgia Clark

  She grabbed the Pretty.

  It was intact, dripping wet, now lying innocently in the palm of her hand. Her mind whirred frantically.

  It had gone down the gutter, she had seen it.

  The gutters that had flooded.

  The gutters that had vomited their insides onto the street, flooding the gallery. Quickly, before Meredith wondered what she was staring at, she slipped the Pretty back into her pocket and sloshed forward.

  Krista and Mark stood on the street corner, tipping water out of their shoes silently.

  The return to the apartment would be unbearably tense . . .

  “Evie?” A voice spoke her name, so low and lyrical that it almost sounded unreal.

  Willow stood on the other edge of the water, looking like a ghost in her long black dress.

  “Willow!” Evie started running toward her, hearing Krista and Mark cry out too, their feet smacking the concrete as all three of them raced for her. “Willow!”

  Evie threw her arms around the girl in violent relief, squeezing until Willow let out a cry. Evie felt like laughing and crying, and when she pulled back she realized she was doing both.

  “Willow!” Krista screeched like a chimpanzee, leaping onto them, and the three rocked, almost toppling.

  “You’re alive, thank god you’re alive,” Evie kept gasping. She held Willow by her shoulders, only now realizing how ruined her dress was.

  “Dude, where are your shoes?” Krista stared at Willow’s scratched, red bare feet.

  Willow shook her head, eyes brimming, trying to smile. “I’ve always hated high heels.”

  “We’ve been looking for you all day,” Evie babbled. “We thought you were—Where were you?”

  Willow’s eyes turned inward, and she shivered slightly. When she met Evie’s gaze, her voice sounded fortified. “Somewhere I’m not going again.”

  Evie had one hand on Willow, one hand on Krista, and as she stood there, still panting, still trying to tame her breath, she realized each of them was clinging on to the other two. All three of them were wet and muddy and flushed. And for the first time since it all started, they were all Regular. Reborn, once again, having survived the storm.

  Willow’s gaze shifted over the girls’ shoulders.

  Mark was standing behind their trio. His face was white.

  Evie threaded her fingers into Krista’s. “We’ll wait on the corner for you.”

  Evie tugged Krista away, leaving Mark and Willow to face each other.

  For several long moments, they both just stood there. I ruined it, Willow thought. I had it, and then I burned it down.

  “You scared me, Will,” Mark said. “You really fucking scared me.”

  Willow bit down slowly on her bottom lip. He was such a good person, and she’d poisoned him. “I know.”

  Mark took a step forward, unsure. “Sometimes I think loving you makes me sick, you know? That there’s something wrong with me.”

  In a voice that didn’t ask for pity, that was simply stating the truth, she said, “I am sick.”

  Mark nodded, continuously, before drawing in a breath and blowing it out. His shoulders relaxed. The tension started to visibly drain from his body. He was looking at her as though he seemed to really see her. As if he knew her better than she knew herself. He said, “Then maybe we can be sick together.”

  And then he held out his hand.

  75.

  Evie was waiting for the lights to change when the construction workers began catcalling her.

  “Hey, sexy! Give us a smile!”

  “C’mon, honey! One little smile.”

  Evie stared straight ahead, hoping her nonreaction would be enough to make them stop.

  “Oh, come on, love!”

  “Smile for the man!”

  Her fingernails bit into her palm. The men wolf-whistled, laughing.

  “C’mon, baby! Hey! Hey—”

  “Jesus Christ, shut the fuck up!” Evie whirled on them. “I am trying to make the world a better place for your daughters. So they won’t be harassed in the street by jerks like you! So the least you can do is show me some goddamn respect!”

  The two men looked completely taken aback. They were both in their forties, slightly overweight, wearing scruffy orange safety vests. “Calm down, honey.”

  “Yeah, it’s a compliment.”

  “No, it’s not!” Evie snapped. “Your attention is unwanted by me, I have given you no signs that I want it, I do not encourage it, and deep down, you know it makes me uncomfortable.” A few people stopped to watch them. “I am a human being, like you. I have problems, like you. So just do me a fucking solid, and shut the fuck up.” And now she stepped toward the pair, enunciating clearly. “Stop yelling at women in the street. We don’t like it.” She waved her hands to indicate the small crowd of New Yorkers watching. “No one likes it.”

  The group broke into scattered applause. The two men shifted, embarrassed. Evie gave them one final glare and crossed the street.

  When Evie strolled into the Salty offices, there was a stranger sitting at her desk. A freelancer, whom Ella-Mae had hired.

  “I didn’t know you’d be back today,” the girl said apologetically. “No one told me—”

  “Evie!” Ella-Mae stood behind them both, holding a stack of glossy page proofs. A strange expression of surprise, relief, and distaste colored her face. “You’re back.” Around them, girls clicked past in perfectly pressed blouses and matching shades of lipstick. Ella-Mae cocked her head at Evie. “You look . . . different.”

  Evie regarded her coolly. “Different how?”

  “Just . . . different. Did you change your hair?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” Ella-Mae hesitated for just a moment before handing Evie the printouts. “You can start on these. And I’ll need that final copy on the spa feature by noon.”

  “The what feature?”

  “The spa feature,” Ella-Mae repeated. “It was due last week.”

  “Oh, the day-spa thing!” Evie remembered, starting to laugh. “The Arab Spring mix-up.” It seemed like a lifetime ago.

  “It better be good, because I do not have time to rewrite it today, I’m totally swamped.” Ella-Mae wiped an invisible piece of hair away from her face delicately. “And I’m going to need you to type up my notes from the Real Girl feature about the girl who ate nothing but lipstick for a year—”

  Evie handed the page proofs back. “First, you can type up your own notes, Ella-Mae. That’s actually your job and it’s ridiculous I’ve been doing it for so long. Second, I’m not going to do the spa feature.”

  Ella-Mae blinked in icy shock. “Why not?”

  Evie shrugged, speaking matter-of-factly. “I’ve got better things to do.”

  “So.” Jan tented her fingers. “What did you want to discuss?”

  At first, her boss had been concerned about her absence. When Evie failed to produce a life-or-death situation to have caused said absence, this became annoyance, bordering heavily on suspicion. But justifying her disappearance wasn’t why Evie was there. Instead, she’d told Jan she needed to take advantage of the you-can-talk-to-me-about-anything policy. “I’ve been thinking,” Evie said. “About Salty. And it being empowering for women.”

  “Yes?”

  “I can’t agree. I’ve thought a lot about it, and I can’t agree.”

  The editor-in-chief’s British accent made her response sound neat and formal. “Why not?”

  Evie counted her reasons off on her fingers. “One: way too much focus on pleasing dudes. Way. Too. Much. And as someone who is”—Evie drew in a half breath—“bisexual with a chance of gay, it’s just not for me.”

  Jan’s tone was unreadable. “Fair enough.”

  “Two: you can have all the ‘you go, girl!’ rhetoric you want, but at the end of the day, Salty’s ethos is rooted in materialism. You want to be happy? Treat yourself to a new purse. Sexy? Long-lash mascara. Clever? New eyeglass frames. And this shouldn�
�t be surprising, because Salty is in the pockets of its advertisers. And that’s not just bad for the meager earnings most of our readers make. Studies prove people who pursue wealth and material possessions tend to be less satisfied, more unhappy. We think buying things will make us feel better, but it won’t.” Evie lifted her palms up. “Consumerism is a drug. Magazines are enablers.”

  Jan looked amused, as if Evie were a pet who’d learned a new trick. “I don’t know if I’d go that far.”

  “I would,” Evie said. “And this brings me to point three. Why are readers so susceptible to buying all the sh—stuff in these pages? Because they don’t look like this.” Evie picked up a copy of the new issue that had come out while she’d been away. On the cover, Selena Gomez puckered candy-pink lips into a kiss, one finger curled around an aggressively glossy tendril of hair. “Or this.” She flipped it open to a random page: three laughing girls in bikinis by a pool. Stomachs as hard as shields. Chewing-gum-commercial smiles. “Or this.” Another page: a beautifully sad girl staring out a window, hands clasped gently around a cup of tea. “Salty is still insanely prescriptive when it comes to body image and pretty faces. It’s clear skin, big tits, white is right, look like a preteen, fuck like a porn star. And sure, our readers know these images are Photoshopped, they know these girls are models. But I don’t think we acknowledge just how easy it is to internalize these messages. That this is pretty. And regular people are ugly.”

  Jan’s expression had hardened a little. “That’s certainly a unique perspective.”

  “I don’t think it is unique.”

  “Regardless, I think I’ve heard—”

  “No, please. I really need to get this off my chest.” Evie leaned forward intently. “I think a lot of women view themselves as unattractive when they’re not. They’re just regular. But this is what I can’t stop thinking about.” She leveled her gaze at Jan. “One in three women on this planet is beaten, abused, or raped. One in three. That’s over a billion women.”

  “I’m aware of the statistics.” Jan’s voice was becoming progressively steelier.

  Evie picked up the new issue, reading the cover lines. “ ‘MEOW! Meet Your Inner Bad Girl!’ ‘Is Facebook KILLING Your Sex Life?’” Evie dropped the magazine. “Is this helping? Is this addressing that? I know we run the odd anti–sexual harassment story, but in the scheme of things, I don’t think it is helping.”

  “All right, Evie. No need to make a fool of yourself—”

  “Salty pretends feminism is over: we won, so now we can be fuck-puppets with no consequences—”

  “Evie, I said, enough.”

  “But that’s just not true!” It was only now Evie realized her heart was racing, her insides bubbling with adrenaline. Jan was telling her to stop but she couldn’t. “I can’t devote my energy to it anymore. I respect myself too much. I quit.”

  Jan sat rigidly in her chair. Her expression had become so sharp she looked like she could cut something. “After that little speech, I can’t say I’m sorry to see you go.” Evie could hear the metal in her voice. “And don’t even ask about a letter of recommendation. Or a job anywhere in this building.”

  Evie absorbed the blow without flinching, her body still fizzing with the thrill of unfiltered honesty. She nodded, bloodlessly, like they’d just settled a particularly dull business transaction. The office was deathly silent as she got to her feet. But at the doorway, she paused. Evie Selby would usually escape quickly and quietly after something so caustic. But Chloe had taught her just how to push the envelope when it came to getting what you want. “I have one last question. In the auditions for Extra Salt, the day before you met my roommate, why didn’t you ask me?”

  “Ask you what?”

  “To audition. We’d just seen Tiffany or Brittany or someone, and you asked if I knew anyone. Why didn’t you give me the chance to audition?” Evie braced herself. Part of her didn’t want to hear this. But another part of her had to know.

  Jan narrowed her eyes, and for a second Evie thought she’d refuse to answer. But to her surprise, Jan said, “I seem to recall that I did. I asked if you knew anyone. You said you didn’t.”

  Evie blinked in surprise, playing back the memory. Jan asking her if she knew anyone they should get in. Evie saying they should audition her roommate.

  “If you want something,” Jan continued, “you have to speak up.” She arched an eyebrow at Evie meaningfully. “The world doesn’t owe you any favors. But it will bend to your will.”

  Evie nodded. “Okay. Thanks.”

  “Now kindly get the fuck out of my office.” Jan’s smile was predatory. “I have a magazine to run.”

  76.

  The grounds of Columbia University were distinguished but relaxed, like an elder statesman at a tea party. The fall term had yet to commence, so only a handful of students dotted the tidy campus. Willow rarely came this far uptown. Everything seemed raw and hard and bright, but she was making an effort to relax, to stay calm, to breathe. A girl wearing baggy overalls and a messy topknot directed her to the Cinema Studies Department.

  To say Claire looked shocked when Willow tapped nervously on her office door was an understatement of gigantic proportions. The pencil that’d been lodged between her lips clattered onto her desk. “Willow!”

  “Sorry.” Willow hung limply in the doorway. “Hope I’m not interrupting.”

  “No! No, I was just, uh, preparing my lecture notes. Come in, please.”

  The office was tiny, walled up by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. There wasn’t really room for the three potted plants that crowded the space, but they were there anyway. Claire swiped a chair free of a stack of notes and an empty sushi box. “Have a seat.”

  Willow sat, positioning her small backpack under the chair. The script she’d been rehearsing on the subway vanished. Maybe this was a mistake.

  “It’s good to see you.” Claire licked her lips, eyes darting. “Can I get you something? There’s a coffee machine in the hall—”

  “No, thanks.” Willow met Claire’s concerned, confused gaze. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

  Claire’s face twitched in surprise. “Oh, Willow. You don’t have to—”

  “No, I do,” Willow said. “I’ve been really unfair. My dad and you . . . I think you’re good for him. I know you’re good for him,” she corrected herself. “You make him happy. And, I guess he makes you happy too.”

  Claire’s cheeks colored pink. “Yes, he does. I love your dad, Willow.”

  Willow nodded, her hair falling into her eyes until she tucked it behind her ears. “I know.” She shifted in her chair, trying to sound confident. Mature. “I’m moving out.”

  “Oh. Oh, that’s . . . uh . . .”

  “Good.” Willow supplied for her, smiling. “That’s good. I mean, I’m twenty-two. It’s time.”

  “Can you afford it?”

  Willow nodded. She’d sold a staggering forty-eight prints at her opening. Even though the flood had ruined her exhibition, she could still print pictures from the computer files. The combined total would be enough to find a decent studio somewhere in Manhattan, for at least a year. But this news wasn’t the real reason she’d come. “Have you spoken to my dad?”

  Claire gave a small, sympathetic sigh. “I have. He told me about your argument.”

  “Does he hate me?”

  “Hate you? No. I think he’s worried more that you hate him.”

  Willow hugged her arms around herself. “I don’t hate him.”

  The window in Claire’s office looked over a small leafy courtyard where a few students sat reading in the late-afternoon sunlight, sipping iced coffees. It was calm here. Peaceful. Willow wondered if Columbia had a photography program, and how hard it would be to get in. “What are you doing tomorrow night?” Willow asked.

  “Tomorrow night? Nothing.”

  “I was thinking, maybe we could get some food. You, me, and Dad.”

  Claire’s face lifted. She has a nic
e face, Willow thought. You could tell she was smart. “I’d really like that, Willow. Yes.”

  “I’ll make a reservation somewhere.” Willow stood quickly, wanting to leave before she changed her mind. “I should let you get back to work.” She shouldered her backpack, turning to leave, surprised to realize it was almost reluctantly that she did so. “Does it ever get any easier?”

  “Does what get any easier?”

  Willow shrugged, tracing the doorframe with a fingertip. “Just . . . everything.” Life. The world. Other people.

  Claire tapped her pencil against her desk, a rat-tat-tat of firing synapses. “I don’t know if it gets easier. But I think you get better at dealing with it.”

  Willow hoped this was true. It had to be. “See you back at the apartment.”

  The hallway was empty when she walked down it. But strangely, she didn’t feel alone.

  77.

  somethingsnarky.net: Your Weekly Shot of Snark

  Greetings Snarksters,

  I’m baaaack. Lock up your daughters.

  I’m sure you’re wondering where I bet you never even noticed that I’ve been MIA for the past month or so. And I’d love to tell you that was because I contracted some supercool rare disease or they finally discovered that I am the Lindbergh baby, but the truth is . . . I was Having A Grand Adventure. Here’s what I learned:

  1. Love lifts you up where we belong, but it can also break you into teeny, tiny pieces, and then you need your best friend and a bunch of wine to put you back together again.

  2. People listen to you if you’re confident.

  3. Standing up for what you believe is supercalifragi—You get it.

  4. The world will bend to your will, if you tell it to.

  5. My soul is not a piece of coal. It is a jackalope.

  That’s all for now. I’ll post something proper soon.

  Your friend and savior,

  Madame Snark

  Evie posted it and switched off her phone.

  She was sitting in the front of Frankie’s Gin Joint, a local bar she’d only ever been to at night. Dappled afternoon light patterned the worn wooden bench that faced the street. She was the only person there. On the stool next to her was a plastic crate containing all her work crap. Drinking a beer on a Monday afternoon felt downright indulgent. Almost reckless. Definitely free.