Love and Chaos (11 page)

Pia’s birthday is the same day as mine, and it’s not for ages. Our mothers met in the maternity ward, for Pete’s sake; they became friends so we became friends. But I’m glad everyone’s forgotten. I don’t want a big deal about a birthday that I always thought would be a huge milestone of adulthood and is turning out to be a reminder that I’m failing my twenties.

Madeleine screams from upstairs. “The freaking hot water is gone again!”

“Give it twenty minutes!” Julia shouts back.

“I don’t have twenty minutes!”

Coco skips back into the room. Her face is unusually flushed.

“Are you okay?” I say to her.

“I’m great!” she exclaims. “I’m so excited. I asked this guy Ethan I met at my friend from work’s birthday drinks? He’s her roommate’s friend from college’s coworker? He’s nice! He’s said yes.”

“Have you been drinking already?” I look at her closely.

“I pregamed!” She stands up and does a twirl. “WOO!”

I think the pressure of throwing a party is getting to all of us, but we’ve managed to prepare perfectly. Coco has been cooking individual chicken pot pies all day. I picked up some cheeses from Stinky. Pia bought Brooklyn Blackout from Steve’s Ice Cream. Madeleine has been cleaning all day, including vacuuming the inside corners of the sofa and Q-tipping the fridge. Julia bought a bunch of early hydrangeas, her favorite flower, to put on the side table in the front hall. And we’ve invited one “date” each, to make it seem “totally normal.”

“Like a trash-or-treasure party!” Julia said. “Bring a dude you haven’t ever been involved with, and he might be perfect for someone else!”

Coco defied Julia’s trash-or-treasure rules and invited this Ethan guy she’s crushing on, Madeleine asked Heff, a guitar player from the band she sings with, and Jules asked Lev, some coworker from the bank. I literally could not think of a single man to bring that I haven’t ever been involved with. (How depressing is that?) So I just decided my contribution is Sam. Whoever wants him can take him.

Julia is frantically polishing the wineglasses. “These things are refuckingvolting! How do you clean ancient glass? This one has lipstick marks from, like, before I was born.”

“Baking soda and vinegar!” says Coco, running out of the room again. “Soak and scrub!”

“That seems like a lot of work.” Julia puts the glass down.

I look over at her for the first time tonight. “What the
what
are you wearing? Those pants are wrong on, like, eight levels. Were you drunk when you bought them?”

“No! I was fifteen. Fuck! What should I wear then, fucking fashion guru of awesomeness? I hate all my clothes.”

“Come on. I’ll find you something.”

Julia stomps behind me, up to my room. God, she’s tense. She must really like Sam. Is he genuinely that good-looking?

I open my closet and frown as I skim the racks. “Let’s see, you’re bigger than me in the boob department—”

“And the ass department—”

“This is killer.” I pull out a little black dress that I got from the Brooklyn Flea. “Black tights, borrow these shoes. And take your hair out of that damn ponytail.”

Julia takes the clothes obediently. “Turn around. I don’t do the public nudity thing like you and Pia. And I like my ponytail. I get a headache when I take it out.”

“That’s your hair follicles going, ooo, finally! We can stretch!” With my back to Julia while she changes, I do an imitation of hair follicles stretching, and she cracks up.

“You are not the cool bitch I always thought you were, Angie James.”

“And you’re totally the tactless sweetheart I always thought you were, Julia Russotti.”

“Okay, you can turn around now. Is this right?” She’s trying to tie the dress, but she’s doing it all wrong. I take over. “Thanks,” she says, suddenly relaxing a tiny bit. “I’m not good with the whole fashion thing. I fear change. You won’t believe me, but I wore the same jeans every single day in high school. I washed them at night.”

“I believe you, trust me.… So who’s this Lev guy?” I ask, arranging Julia as though she were a doll.

“Lev? No one. I mean, he’s my friend, kind of. I sit next to him at work. I like him, but I don’t
like
like him.… Apart from him, I don’t like any of the guys I work with at all. There are twenty guys on my team, and all of them except Lev treat me like I’m invisible and don’t have a voice, like nothing I say is worth listening to.” She’s babbling now, her nerves kicking in. “Do you know what it’s like to say something and have everyone act like no one has spoken? It fucks with your mind. Um, but I like Sam, I really do. In fact, he’s the first guy I’ve liked since Mason, remember him?” I don’t, but I nod anyway. “Sam is so fucking gorgeous, don’t you think?”

I shrug. “He’s a bit … clean-cut, isn’t he? You know. Preppy. Square.”

“Classic, you mean! He’s like a Ralph Lauren model. Or Abercrombie & Fitch.”

“Julia, Abercrombie & Fitch models are like, twelve years old.”

“Well, whatever. He won’t like me, I know he won’t, they never do. I’m going to be single forever and I will never get any action ever again. My sugar is never going to see another wang.”

“First, if you call them wangs and sugars, then, fucking hell yes, you’re never going to get any action.”

“May I call them both junk? Just generically?”

“No, you may not. Let’s start with penis and vagina and take it from there. Or you can say dick and p—”

“Don’t say that word! I hate that word.”

“Fine. Second, of course he’ll like you! Just be yourself.”

Pretty rich coming from me since I’ve always found my personality at the bottom of a vodka bottle, but whatever.

“Really?” she says. “I just, ugh, it’s so weird.… Putting myself out there is totally out of my comfort zone.”

She’s never talked to me like this before. In the past I would have assumed it’s because her go-to confidante, Pia, isn’t around much, but actually, I know that’s not true anymore. Julia and I are friends now. Real friends.

“I haven’t liked anyone like this in ages. What if he doesn’t like me back?”

“Of course he’ll like you back!” I say. “Sit down. You need eyeliner. When you look tough, you’ll feel tough.”

“Is that your secret to success?” she says, sitting down and closing her eyes.

I take out my eyeliner bag. “Right on. My success.”

Julia glances down. “Whoa. You have, like, sixteen black eyeliners?”

“Yeah. It really depends on my mood. Gel, cake, liquid, pencil…”

“Just make me pretty. Prettier, anyway.”

“You have amazing eyelashes.”

“Why do chicks always say that to each other?”

For a minute or two, while I draw punk-yet-pretty eyeliner around Julia’s eyes, we sit in silence. I’m good at eyeliner. The secret is getting it right into the lashes and waterline, and if you mess it up, just smudge it a bit. Perfect eyeliner is too amateur makeup blogger, you know?

“Look up. Okay, close your eyes.”

“How’s the job stuff going?” asks Julia.

“Hashtag fail. I have officially been rejected by every fashionista in New York City. Okay, open your eyes, look up.”

“You can always get a job at the Gap.”

“Double ha,” I say.

“Madeleine was just kidding, you know,” says Julia. “She thinks you’re still pissed at her.”

“I am, a little,” I say. “That Gap comment the other day was so bitchy and demeaning.”

“She’s lovely, she really is. You just have to get to know her, that’s all.”

“I don’t want to get to know her. She says that shit and it just … it cuts.”

Julia looks at me funny.

“What?” I say.

“Pia told you,” she says in a low voice.

“Told me what?”

“About Madeleine and the … Oh. She didn’t.”

“What?” I cast my mind back. What did I just say? “Cuts? Madeleine
cuts
herself?”

“Not anymore,” says Julia quickly. “Please, forget I said anything.”

I can’t believe Pia didn’t tell me something so big.… Though really, it figures, it’s not like she talks to me lately anyway. But if Madeleine doesn’t do it anymore, then it’s not a problem, right? And why should I worry? She’s not even nice to me. She’s always so goddamn standoffish and sarcastic. I guess I can be, too, but … never mind.

“Look! Beautiful!” I say, handing Julia a mirror.

She takes a moment to gaze at herself. “Wow. If I could press a ‘Like’ button, I would. Thank you, Angelface.”

“You’re welcome, Ju … Ju…” I try to think of something cute to do with her name. “Juicy Fruit?”

She wrinkles her nose at me.

“Don’t make that face or you’ll never get laid.”

At that moment the doorbell rings. Coco whizzes past my door heading upstairs.

“Oh, my god! It’s Ethan! I know it is! Sugar! I’ll be back in a minute!”

“What if it’s Sam? I need to brush my teeth!” Julia runs to the bathroom.

I walk downstairs just as Madeleine opens the front door. It’s Sam and Madeleine’s date, Heff the musician guy. He’s hot, in a skinny, put-the-crack-pipe-down-and-eat-a-fucking-burger kind of way.

“Mad!”

“Heffy!”

Madeleine and Heff hug, leaving Sam and me awkwardly not hugging.

“Sam.”

“Angie.”

Sam leans down to kiss me hello on the cheek. I’m not expecting it, so I sort of jump, and then frown because goddamnit, I am cooler than that.

“Don’t you look all cute when you make an effort,” I say. Sam is all stubbly and scruffy, very different from my first impression of the Nazi Youth, slick, boat-boy (sorry, crew) hair.

“I was just thinking the same about you,” he says.

Yeah, right. I am not looking my best. I’m wearing a secondhand blouse I customized by cutting the sleeves off, the only cheap-ass jeans I could find that weren’t too wrinkled to wear, and Converse, and I braided my hair instead of washing it.

Compared to all my roommates in heels and shiny blowouts, I look boring as hell. Which is new for me. And kind of nice. I realized today that I used to make clothes do the talking for me. I let my leather pants or four-hundred-dollar jeans tell people that I was a tough, important bitch they’d better not fuck with. But for the way I’m feeling at the moment, I don’t want to be noticed at all.

And I don’t own any four-hundred-dollar jeans anymore, anyway.

Sam hands over two bottles of wine just as Coco and Julia bounce downstairs, flushed with excitement, and immediately attack Sam with giggles and bashful questions. I look over at Madeleine, who is talking to Heff about some new band in Williamsburg, but he’s one of those cool types who talks in a low monotone drawl so no one farther than fifteen inches away can hear a goddamn word.

God, where is Pia already? She’s one of those people who makes a party work. She’s the ultimate mixer, like tonic and lemon. I usually hide in the corner at parties, ignore everyone, and drink until I find my personality and/or a guy chats me up. But not tonight.

Julia claps her hands like a headmistress. “Right! Who’s thirsty?”

We dole out Julia’s punch—vodka, canned peach juice, sparkling white wine, and crème de cassis. Sam takes one sip, chokes slightly, and wordlessly accepts the beer I slip him.

Coco is positively flying. “Woo! This punch is punchy! Am I right?”

The doorbell rings, and she leaps to get it.

“Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!”

Coco leads Ethan into the room like a proud owner at a dog show.

“Everyone, this is my date!”

“I’m Ethan,” he says in a Kermit the Frog voice.
“Enchanté.”

Ethan is a short, stocky guy wearing a blue plaid shirt and red plaid trousers. Without irony. (You always need to check for sartorial irony, especially in Brooklyn, but trust me, I know this guy is not being ironic.)

And his conversation is worse than his fashion sense. “So I thought, well, I’ll take the L train, and descended a stairway that led me to a train heading in the wrong direction! I had to ascend to street level and cross to find the train that would take me to the correct destination! Now, take it from a Chicago man: there’s a flaw in the system! In fact, as I was—”

That’s it. I’m having a smoke to kill some time. I sneak out to the front hallway, pull on my fur/army coat, and head outside to the stoop. I can almost-but-not-quite feel the thaw in the March air. Time to lose the fur/army coat soon. Yay. I mentally start going through my jackets and blazers.… Ah, clothes. Always a comfort, especially when I’m feeling alone.

“You know, smoking is bad for you.”

I glance over. It’s Sam, standing next to me, looking out at the night.

“I heard that.” I take a drag and frown. “I don’t actually like cigarettes that much unless I’m drinking.”

“You’re not drinking?”

“Not really. I mean, I haven’t officially ‘quit’ drinking or anything. I hate it when people do that.”

“Yeah, it’s so annoying.”

“I’m just dialing it down for the foreseeable future. Vodka applies pressure to my self-destruct button.”

“Good to know.”

Sam glances over at me, a tiny smile on his face. He’s very self-assured, but not arrogant. An unusual combination, at least in the dudes I’ve known. His nose is ridiculously straight. Like something from a coin. Regal. Or whatever you call noses you see on coins.

At that moment we see Pia and Aidan walking up Union Street toward us, gesturing intensely. Pia looks upset. They’re fighting?

“I can’t believe you’d do this to us—” she’s saying, then glances up. “Angie?”

“Um, hi!” We have to continue the surprise party charade. “Pia, pretend to be shocked, okay? Just count to thirty, come in, and be like, ‘Holy shit!’ Dial up the drama, okay?”

“What? A surprise party? It’s not my birthday!”

Before she can say anything else, I stub out my cigarette on the stoop, grab Sam’s arm, and pull him back into the house. Pia and Aidan might be fighting, but I’ll find out more later.

Sam raises an eyebrow. “It’s not her birthday? This is a
pretend
surprise party?”

I smile at him and shrug, just as Julia lurches around the corner and pounces on Sam. “There you are! Would you like some more punch?” Then she cocks her head. “I hear them! Everyone hide! Hide!”