667 Ways to F*ck Up My Life

by Lucy Woodhull

  This silly little project of mine had begun to go viral. Thousands of blog followers. I was close to one hundred thousand Twitter followers. I wasn’t just me and my brilliance—I think a lot of people were stuck in situations they didn’t like and dreamed of saying ‘fuck off’ to everyone and everything. People were living vicariously through me.

  261. I was living the nightmare

  Strangers had started telling me how they’d been bold at work, or stood up for themselves with their own jerky partner. All these people taking inspiration from me ruining my life… It was magical. Maybe some other mousy woman would read my misadventures and realize there was more to life than blending into the wall.

  262. There was having some motherfucking fun, too

  I threw on comfy work clothes and, on the way to JaVaVaVoom, texted Mel to get together after my shift to sew destruction upon Taylor via his mother. We agreed to meet at an all-night Internet café in Brooklyn for maximum anonymity.

  263. Anticipation of getting some small form of justice for all the women that scum had abused…

  264. Priceless

  My bones, they were a-chilled by the time I got into work. I pushed open the door and swept inside, a whole fifteen minutes early—

  265. Sorry for my punctuality, fuck-up list

  —When I heard scattered applause. I looked up to see if we’d been visited by a celebrity when I realized the staff cheered for me. Hunter pointed to a photocopy behind the bar, and there I lay, on the sidewalk, next to my own vomit. Every one of my fellow drones began whooping.

  I bowed, my face wide with the most embarrassed grin of my life.

  266. My dad would be so ashamed

  267. No decent man would marry a sidewalk drunkard!

  268. Good

  “I have so many people to thank,” I said. I came around the bar and addressed my adoring public. “My friend Mel, who insisted on the keg stands. The two twin guys who bravely bought us Martinis despite the fact that we could not even remember the fake names we gave them.” Lacey giggled at this one. “My dignity, for being on vacation in the Bahamas. Thank you for the warm tribute. And fuck you all.”

  The entire coffee shop began applauding then, and I gave a Queen Elizabeth wave on the way to the back. I searched my heart for some sense of regret. But I didn’t care. Not even a little. What was I going to do about it now, anyway? I deserved the ribbing and, truth be told, a glow warmed me to know that I’d behaved like a twenty-something for once instead of a biddy.

  Had I well and truly thrown the old Dagmar out with the bathwater?

  I tied an apron around my person and Hunter pointed me toward the register. “Have at it, loser,” he said by way of welcome. “Later on, I’m going to teach you about the different beans of Asia.”

  A woman approached the register. She wore a scarlet suit and black fedora over a glorious mane of purple afro. The white baby hairs at her temples were the only indication she might not be my contemporary—her deep brown, almost onyx skin was flawless. I said, “You look snazzy as hell! What can I get you today?”

  She quirked an eyebrow and leaned forward to peer at my name tag. “Dagmar. Dagmar, that’s a rare name. Did you, by any chance, work for Carmichael Burns?”

  My eyes widened. “Who’s asking? You can’t be his new girlfriend—you’re wearing too many clothes.”

  She snorted. “And I’m about seven decades too old for him. Marlene Hodgkins, Hysterical Books.”

  I took her proffered shake and nearly yanked her over the counter with the force of my enthusiasm. My stomach leaped into my throat, but not from alcohol poisoning for once. “Dagmar Kostopoulos. Yes, I was his right hand. Until it wandered, so to speak.”

  Marlene nodded. “Damn shame. That Kardashian salad book has shockingly tasty recipes, and is hilarious. Was the humor you? Khandye seems bland as toast.”

  My mouth dropped to be remembered, and by a woman who was so amazing in the field. Hysterical Books promoted women writers and released some of the boldest, most fun writing by women for women out there. They took chances on voices that the big five ordinarily wouldn’t, usually to great success. And Marlene was their queen, a.k.a. editor in chief. As such, my hands fluttered nervously. “I’m flattered beyond belief. I’ve been a huge fan of your press for a long, long time.”

  “I never forget a name, or a piece of literary gossip.” She glanced around, but nobody was queueing up behind her. “And thank you. Have you decided to quit books completely? Or is this temporary?”

  I shrugged. My every instinct screamed to lie to make myself appear less terrible, but that was the old Dagmar. Giselle told the truth. Kind of. “I’m having a life crisis. So I’m… I’m fucking up.”

  Her eyebrows shot up again. She had such an expressive face! I bet she wasn’t much of a liar with a countenance like that. She leaned against the counter to peer at me closer. “Fucking up how?”

  “Well…” This time, I leaned closer. “I decided that being the dutiful assistant editor had gotten me nowhere, so I wanted to try living like a boss. My old one, to be specific. I tried to bang my new boss”—I pointed with my head in Hunter’s direction—“during my job interview. I got rubber burn from the dress I wore, and he said no anyway.”

  She blinked once, twice, her speckled brown eyes alighting with palpable curiosity. “Too bad—brother is fine as hell.”

  “Right?”

  “Why, though? To see why Carmichael did it? Or just for fun?”

  I cocked one hip and contemplated this. “I— It was the latter, really. But maybe it was the former, too. Holy shit, could that have really been the reason?”

  “Dagmar, I love it. When I was thirty-one, I took a year abroad in Italy to, eh, ‘fuck up,’ as you so perfectly put it.” She’d said ‘fuck’ like a society matron tasting the word—a strange, but enjoyable, canapé. “They kicked me out, and then I wrote a book about it. My passport was barred for ten years.”

  I clapped my hands and laughed and laughed. “You’re a level up. I’m not worthy!”

  She graced me with an adorable single shoulder shrug and ordered her coffee. I jumped off the register to make it myself. Even if I never touched a book again, it was nice to know there were people out there fighting the good fight for talented authors, and not being scumbags about it. Unless in Italy, where apparently all bets were off.

  When I handed her latte over, I said, “Please come by again.”

  “I will. Keep fucking up. Women don’t allow themselves to do that nearly enough.”

  I actually had to take a step back and turn—tears had sprung to my eyes. Was this woman my fairy bookmother? I’d never in my life been given permission to make mistakes by an authority figure. And, even though I was practically living a performance art piece at the moment, I still hadn’t thought of it as the right thing to do per se. Dudes called it ‘finding themselves’ then they went to Thailand for a month to pay for sex and drunkenly barf words on a typewriter.

  Marlene made me feel proud of my ridiculousness. No hookers needed.

  “Hey, Dag,” Hunter called. “How about you do your fucking up in the bathroom? Some kid yakked in there, and I think you’re the perfect person to handle it.”

  269. Dagmar Kostopoulos, professional barf expert

  While I mopped up vomit, I naturally considered Taylor. We would screw that Taylor good right after work. Well, not screw. Ew.

  Chapter Ten

  F*ck-Ups Two-Seventy through Two-Ninety-Nine

  Going Full Austen

  It was midnight in the city that never sleeps. So, naturally, Mel and I were not asleep.

  I didn’t have to work the next day, and her office was closed until next week. Publishing doesn’t work over the holidays—or, in general, a lot of the time. Rimshot.

  We met at the Internet café, and I handed her a glass of rosé the moment she walked in the door. “Hair of the dog,” I said.

  She examined the pink liquid. “Hair of the poodle might
be more specific.” She set her purse down and sat at our desk. “Your post about lying to SSWG got picked up by Buzzfeed.”

  I nearly dropped the wine bottle I was using for a top-off. “What?”

  After taking a huge swallow of pink, she said, “Yeah. Some writer there included you in a list of the top five new funny women of the Internet. Our readership has quadrupled just today.”

  “Wow!”

  While we toasted my dubious blog’s success, my stomach squirmed like a fibbing fibber who fibs. Wow for me, but not Yash. Yash. He was way too sweet to be the butt of lies uttered by a deceiving deceiver and celebrated by a million strangers.

  But I buried that guilt way, way deep down. Guilt did not get a girl onto Buzzfeed. My whole life had a bright yellow Win badge on it now, and if fake Internet recognition wasn’t a sign of Win-ning, then I didn’t know what was.

  270. Really

  271. I had no idea

  Besides, I thought while swallowing more guilt—it tasted like rosé—I would never speak with Yash again. He might be hurt, but how sad could he really be after a one-night stand?

  My phone buzzed. Mel intercepted it and said, “Yash says you were the best first night of sex in his life, and he’s counting the minutes until he can see you again.”

  272. Shove that feeling way…way down

  273. Past my heart

  274. Which was currently experiencing a burning sensation

  275. Like an STD

  276. Of emotion

  “That’s…fine,” I said. She crooked an eyebrow. “Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em Giselle, that’s what they call me.”

  “Who calls you?”

  “The one I loved and left. I mean, the one I indifferent-ed and left.” I shrugged indifferent-ed-ly. “A lady’s imagination is very rapid—it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”

  My best friend blinked at me. “O-kay.”

  I cleared my throat. “Do you see how I’m super good at sex stuff, though?”

  “That’s my Giselle.”

  I changed the subject. Expertly. “Now let’s ruin an asshole’s relationship with his mother.”

  Mel cracked her knuckles and went to work. Soon we had a dummy email account called TaylorRoofiesWomen. We figured that would get Mom’s attention.

  “Poor Mom,” I said.

  “Poor roofied women,” she replied.

  I raised my glass to her point.

  Like Amelia Earhart, we bravely took off for unknown parts. The parts in smutty pictures.

  Mel typed ‘Dear Mrs. Walters—’

  “Very good,” I commended. “Be sure to blind copy Charlie.”

  We started to compose the email, but something nagged at my brain. “Do you really think,” I asked, “that he’ll stop? Maybe we should send these to the cops.”

  “I don’t want to get arrested for breaking and entering.”

  “Well, what if I just did it myself? I could always say that…that I switched our drinks, so that he got the roofie he tried to give to me. That’s a pretty smart way to not get roofied when you’re out with a dude you don’t know.”

  “That is clever, if you order the same drink he does. But still… Wait.” She smiled, slow and sneaky, and got that sparkly, wicked look that inspired me to stretch my evil imagination. “What if we sent them to DirtyLinens.com? That site will go to court to keep sources private—they’ve done it before. A story on a site that huge would force the cops to investigate…hopefully keeping us out of it.”

  “The poor girls. They’d be in the newspaper, too.”

  “Yeah, I can’t imagine the site would show their faces, though.”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  Mel sat up on her leg. “We can’t just let him keep doing this! I know there’s a thousand guys out there doing the same thing every night, but maybe exposing one will help people everywhere to stop scumbags.”

  “And I could blog about doing that after the story comes out.”

  “Yes!”

  “So…” I leaned back in my chair. “So we just send them to DirtyLinens.com? I can’t really believe they’d have a hard time finding a girl drugged by him for corroboration.”

  She nodded. “Yes, I think we have an obligation to womanity. Mom can read about her precious boy online.”

  We toasted again and drafted a note to the gossip site, included all the photos—even number five, the most vomitus photo ever created—and told the whole story of how he operated.

  Mel began drinking straight from the wine bottle. I felt that I was becoming a good influence on her.

  277. Shaping the drunken future leaders of tomorrow

  I searched DirtyLinens for stories about the Walters family. One reporter in particular seemed to hate them, including cousin Archie, who routinely got arrested with hookers and blow. This reporter was a woman, so we concluded that she was the ideal recipient for this particular mail bomb.

  My cursor hovering over the Send button, I said, “I hope you can do the right thing, Abby Anderson of DirtyLinens.”

  Mel saluted the screen. “God speed.”

  “Or maybe Satan speed. The morality of what we’re doing is vague.”

  My BFF shook her head. “Nope. We’re taking down a piece of shit.”

  I hit Send and we saluted each other with a drink. Again.

  “Hey,” I said after swallowing, “wanna plaster his neighborhood with these pictures so everyone knows he’s a drugging piece of crap?”

  Her eyes got wide. “Uh…no. Not a good idea.”

  “We’d blur the ladies’ faces.”

  “Nope.”

  “Key his car?” I bounced in my seat. “Set fire to it?”

  A guy at the computer across from us flicked his gaze up in alarm. “Mind your own business,” I spat at him, and he returned to his porn or whatever.

  278. Damn it feels good to be a gangster

  “You’re a little scary as Giselle, you know that, right?”

  I cackled and cackled, my heart feeling light as a feather, vengeful as a demon.

  My phone buzzed and Mel glanced at it again. “You’re going to have to tell this guy it’s over. He’s begging to see you again tomorrow…er, tonight. It’s already tomorrow.”

  I shrugged and logged off the computer completely, erasing the browsing history as well. As I grabbed my purse, I said, “A girl likes to be crossed a little in love now and then.”

  Mel practically shoved me out of the door. The cold air smelled like snow. “It’s happening again, Dag. You need to dump this guy—for the good of both of you.”

  “What’s happening? I’m totally going to dump him. I mean…like…after one more date. Just to get him out of my system, you know?”

  We took off toward her place and she muttered, “It’s Greg from sophomore year all over again.”

  I stopped on the sidewalk, and a guy nearly plowed me over from behind. When we’d untangled, I spun on Mel. “That’s not true.”

  “You’re going—”

  “Don’t say it!”

  “Full Austen. You are already Full Austen for him! After two dates. It took two months with Greg.”

  I began walking again. Okay, stomping. No. No Austen! I shook my head when Mel caught up to me. I assured her, “I am in control of this situation. I will be calm. I will be mistress of myself.”

  She ran in front and shoved her pointy finger in my face. “Again!”

  “Shut up! I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control.”

  “Then end it, Emma. Now.” She shoved her hand in my back pocket and handed me my phone. “Do you remember what you did with Greg?”

  I shook my head. To all of it. I snatched my phone. “I will dump Yash…tomorrow. I can’t dump him at one a.m.! He won’t be able to sleep. He needs his sleep to write.” I gritted my teeth. “And Greg was a misunderstanding.”

  “You showed up at his house party dressed as Elizabeth Bennett and asked him to dance because ‘T
o be fond of dancing was a certain step toward falling in love.’ Thank God the Internet wasn’t such a thing then, or else that photo would be the first thing in your Google search results for all time.”

  I started to crumple. “But he was so nice in poetry class.” I took off walking again. “Besides, this is completely different. Yash actually likes me. And knows my name. Kind of.”

  Mel fell into step beside me, her air slightly less hostile. “You have a tendency to go too far. You’re kinda scary with this Taylor thing. It’s weird, really—you’re either super beige or every color in the rainbow with bonus firecrackers.”

  I stopped short, my formerly light heart plummeting like an anvil. Oh, hell. She was right. She pulled me in for a hug and I squeezed her back. You couldn’t get mad at a friend good enough to call you on your shit.

  My phone buzzed again, but, instead of a text this time, Yash was calling.

  “Don’t panic,” Mel said.

  “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee,” I keened. Oh, God, I was going to vomit my own heart onto my shoes. I slid the answer button. “Hi, Yash,” I whispered.

  “Hi, I hope it’s not too late to call?”

  I shook my head. “No. I never mind when you call.”

  Mel stomped her foot beside me and slid her finger across her throat. It was the most adorable threat I’d ever gotten.

  I began the terrible speech, “Uh…listen—”

  “I just called to say that I cannot stop thinking about you. And wishing you were here.” He laughed. “Reminds me of ‘to wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect.’ Can I expect you soon, sexy Giselle?”

  My breath caught. My eyes went wide. He’d just Sense and Sensibility’d me! “And how do you expect me?” I asked.

  Mel began having some sort of anger fit. I passed her and sped into my own delusion.

  Yash said, “I expect you to come over right this minute. I want to taste you again.”

  I clapped my hand over my mouth, and I really, really could not breathe then.