Dear Girls Above Me: Inspired by a True Story (3 page)

 … I couldn’t believe it had been a year since the breakup. What had I accomplished in that time? Well, let’s see. I obtained my openwater sailing license. I still had yet to use it, seeing as I didn’t own a boat. But if I was ever forced into an emergency situation where someone needed me to captain a sailboat that was under thirty feet in length, then, with the help of my
Intro to Sailing
textbook, I could probably have pointed the ship in the right direction (depending on the conditions). Other than “sailing,” had I done anything this past
year? I thought not. Anyone who says a breakup brings “inspiration” and a “strong work ethic” is full of shit. The only thing it brought me was misery and an unemployment check (I was fired due to “excessive groaning” while on the clock).

Thankfully, my friends and family gathered around me in this time of need and made sure I got through the year with only a few sudden-outburst scream cries. It’s moments like a breakup where all of a sudden the people you’re close to become incredibly opinionated and don’t censor themselves as to their true feelings. It had always been my understanding that everyone had a deep affection for my ex. Her presence had consistently been requested by my nearest and dearest, who extended open invitations to all birthday parties, weddings, family gatherings, and quinceañeras. She had practically become a part of the family, at least until the second I announced the news that we had split up. Then all bets were off:

Whenever I tried picturing her as my daughter-in-law, I got severely depressed.

—My mom

I wish her the best of luck controlling someone else’s life.

—My dad

I’m pretty sure she was the person who farted at my ninetieth-birthday dinner.

—My grandmother

I always hated her nail polish choices.

—My sister Lilly

I was the one who farted at your grandmother’s ninetieth-birthday dinner.

—My friend Alex

She reminded me of a wounded pigeon, especially when she drank margaritas.

—My mom’s friend Leone

I tried masturbating to her once and could barely keep a hard-on.

—My friend Luke

Maybe they were all right, but still, a year after the fact, I thought about her constantly. I will admit that this longing, to some extent, had to do with the reality that I was dismissed by this person. I’m sure a part of me was seeking her acceptance as a way to deal with my fear of rejection. And if this were the case, then my desire to be with her had nothing to do with true love, but instead it revealed my need to be loved. At least that’s what Dr. Phil discussed in an episode that was surprisingly similar to my situation. I don’t care if that particular show was about a transvestite diving instructor and a Mormon father of twelve, Dr. Phil was talking to me, damn it.

As I lay in bed trying not to think about cute little cartoon sheep (because when I do, I stay awake the whole night obsessively counting them), I opened up my writing notebook (not to be confused with a diary) to a new page. I read on some trashy website that if you physically write out the best part of your day before going to bed each night, then you increase your chances of reaching a deep peaceful sleep. I didn’t necessarily believe this, but as long as no one found out I was doing it, then it didn’t hurt to test the waters. Plus,
I didn’t need to spend any money on this exercise, because for my birthday a few years back, my aunt had given me a beautifully constructed writing notebook. The label called it a diary, but I think that was just a misprint.

I thought for a few minutes, recalling all the motions that formed my day. I reached under my bed, found a pen, and then I wrote this:

The best part of my day … was when I found out that Starbucks is bringing back the Gingerbread Latte this holiday season
.

I smiled on the inside, but I didn’t have enough energy to smile on the outside. I turned off the light and got ready for my night of triumphant slumber.

CHAPTER THREE

“A
ahhhhh!”

A scream woke me up. Then came the following:

“Oh my God, does pubic hair turn gray as you get older?”

Was that God speaking? I wondered. I looked at my cell phone, which read “2:17
A.M.
” If so, what was he doing up so late? Maybe heaven operates in a different time zone? Also, why was he referring to himself in the third person? Oh right, God can do that. He probably invented the third person.

Another voice chimed in. “I sure hope not! Otherwise, I’m gonna schedule a waxing appointment for every week until the day I die.”

Now I was fairly certain this was not God. Instead, these voices came from the two girls who live in the apartment above me (3C), Cathy and Claire. They’d moved in a couple months ago and had quickly become the number one annoyance in my life.

I don’t know if it’s because of the way my apartment is positioned, in the corner on the second floor, or because my building has paper-thin walls, or just because they are freakishly loud talkers, but I’m
able to hear at least a portion of every conversation these girls have with each other. It’s as if I were a fly on the wall at a “no boys allowed” sleepover. Only I don’t get to see anything cool, like a pillow fight or a boob. I’m just forced to listen. People say that your home is supposed to be your safe haven, where you can tune out all the stresses that life throws at you. My home used to be my castle. But with the recent addition of the girls above me, it has become my dungeon.

This situation might be more manageable if I were living below someone like Albert Einstein or Socrates or even Michael Lee Aday, better known as Meat Loaf. Then I would at least be overhearing discussions on world-altering theories, the meaning of life, and what “that” actually means. Instead, I’m living underneath a couple of Kardashian wannabes who spend their time gossiping, starving themselves, and throwing noisy parties. This might have been more amusing to me when I was in my early twenties, but I’m quickly approaching thirty and have zero interest in hearing, “If we don’t go buy tampons in the next hour, I’m going to die of toxic shock syndrome.” I went onto Google to look up toxic shock syndrome and I sorely regret clicking “Images.”

I never had a noise issue with the woman who used to live above me, Mrs. Skiffington. But then, she was approaching three hundred years old, weighed about as much as an apple, and lived all alone with her massive collection of Beanie Babies. I kept expecting that one day I would hear a tiny thump and then I’d know that she had moved way way way upstairs. But it didn’t go like that. My landlord, Mr. Molever, broke the news:

“She’s gone.”

“What?! Oh, no. How did it happen?” I asked.

“She left a note.”

“A note?! Suicide? She couldn’t have waited just a few weeks longer to die of natural causes?” I was in shock.

“What? No, she moved to Florida. Took the Beanie Babies with her.”

“Oh. So what do you mean, she left a note? Who does that for moving?”

“Old people.”

From the incredibly
important knowledge that I’ve gathered, it’s my understanding that Cathy and Claire became “BFFs” when they met freshman year at college. At first I believed they were sisters, because they would refer to each other as “big sis” and “li’l sis.” It wasn’t until what seemed like a hundred loud, obnoxious “sisters” showed up to stay with them one weekend that I realized their “sisterly” bond was formed not in the womb, but in a sorority.

Right away I felt weird about knowing the intimate details of their lives without even having met them. I know that they’re both cranky when they have to wake up before ten
A.M.
I know that it takes five Patrón shots for Cathy to start talking in “fluent Japanese,” even though it sounds more like bad French. I know that Claire thinks her shower singing is “
American Idol
–worthy,” but in actuality, it’s pitchy. I know that they’re both planning to put their children on leashes and hope that when that time comes the rope will be “wireless.” And I know that I’m stuck with these girls for the next year, because they just signed their lease.

Their main source of income comes from their parents. Both families seem to do quite well financially, although I’m a little worried about Cathy. She constantly talks about how she has the biggest crush on her dad’s bookie and that one day she’s going to “ride him
like a racehorse,” which, I believe, would only result in fast-action money laundering and body bags. I would love to give her some neighborly advice, but unfortunately for me, my relationship with the girls is one-sided. In fact, they have no idea I even exist.

For whatever bizarre reason, Cathy and Claire cannot hear me. I’ve tried everything to win their attention: shouting at the top of my lungs (I lost my voice for three days), blowing an air horn (which just blended into the beat of their Katy Perry songs), tap dancing (I think I just wanted any excuse to buy the cool shoes), and banging on my ceiling with any item I could find (my fishbowl was a huge mistake). In the end, I think I figured out what the problem was. It’s the only way this disconnect makes any possible sense. My hypothesis is that my apartment unit is uniquely positioned in some sort of black hole. Things can come in, like annoying conversations from my neighbors, but nothing goes out, like my pleading for them to shut up.

Sometimes I feel bad for the girls because they aren’t exactly the sharpest tools in the shed. In fact, they’re more like a couple of dull butter knives that were left in the grass outside of the shed. Of course, it’s unfair for me to judge, considering the fact that I’m privileged enough to get insight into their uncensored conversations, but at the same time some things aren’t meant to be said aloud.…

“This might be a stupid question, but do fish, like, drink water?”

“Oh my God, the power just went out!
The power just went out!
Turn on the lights, I can’t see!”

“I know we got bin Laden, but my question is, did we ever get the bastards who flew the planes?”

“Have you ever realized that you can’t become a grandma without having kids?”

The first time
I actually laid eyes on Cathy and Claire was in our building’s shared laundry room. I was peacefully folding my boxers and looking around for a lost sock when two familiar voices barged in.

“Honestly, if Kelly talks shit about me one more time, I’m gonna start flirting with her boyfriend, like hard-core,” I believe Cathy said.

If you piss a guy off, he’ll use his fist. I guess if you piss a woman off, she’ll use fucked-up mind games to take you down. I coyly looked up and laid eyes on my two mysterious girls for the first time. In my head, I had pictured them both tall with doctored blond hair, gorgeous in that plastic kind of way, basically Paris Hilton types, but they were nothing of the sort. Both girls were standard height; one had long brown hair while the other was a strawberry blonde. Claire (or the one I identified as Claire from what I remembered of her voice) wore a tight white tank top, cutoff jean short-shorts, and sandals, whereas Cathy was dressed head to toe in her Lululemon workout clothes. They were cute—not in a jaw-dropping kind of way, but they were above average.

I stood there frozen, with a pair of polka-dot boxers halfway folded in my hands. They continued with their conversation on how to ruin poor Kelly’s relationship, as if there weren’t another breathing body in the room. I will admit I was completely captivated by these girls. They were so wrapped up in themselves that they weren’t even conscious of my presence. I felt like a National Geographic documentarian, stumbling across a never-before-seen interaction between two majestic specimens sitting comfortably high on the food chain.
I was able to study them, examine their every move, all from the confines of my folding station.

Unfortunately for me, I suffer from a severe allergy to dryer sheets, which one of my idiotic neighbors had left over as a present for me in the dryer. I tried holding in the sneeze for as long as any human possibly could, but my nose felt as if it were on fire. I let out an enormous convulsive explosion of air through my nose, which echoed through every washer and dryer in the room. I had made myself visible. Cathy and Claire quickly put their discussion on hold and stared at me as if I were a life-form from a distant planet. In this case, I sort of was. I grabbed my folded belongings and kept my head down as I made my way to the exit. A sock fell to the ground, but I left it behind. I figured it was a happy accident, since the dryer had already eaten up the other one. I heard one of them whisper on my way out, “That guy needs to get with the times and make the transition from boxers to boxer briefs immediately.” That was my traumatizing introduction to the girls above me. And I will have you know that I’ve since become a proud owner of Hanes Comfort Flex boxer briefs, even though I do miss the air circulation I once had.

“Look at this
picture. Suri Cruise is wearing the cutest top ever!”

“Sooo cute! She’s been out of the mags for a while; thank God that little fashion diva’s back.”

Really? At two thirty
A.M.
the girls needed to discuss Tom Cruise’s child’s T-shirt? Not that I would condone this type of behavior during the day, but I especially didn’t that second while I was trying to sleep. And now, for whatever nonsensical reason, I could only picture what Suri Cruise’s top might actually look like. Long sleeved with black and white stripes was coming to mind.