Love and Chaos (14 page)

Madeleine sighs again. “That’s so awful. Of all the people for it to happen to … Who was the dude?”

“That guy Eric.” Pia wrinkles her nose up with distaste. “The little fuckwipe.”

“Urgh,” says Madeleine.

We all sit in silence for a moment.

“Well, Coco will be home tomorrow, good as new, right? And it was a mistake!” I say. “I think we should just … let her forget about it. Not bring it up. That’s what I would want.”

“Coco might be different,” Pia points out. “Maybe she’ll want to talk about it.”

“Well, if she does, then we’ll listen,” I say. “We’ll be here for Coco if she wants to talk about it. But she’s probably really embarrassed, you know. She’ll be ashamed, because it’s not like she does it all the time, it was an accident. She didn’t really know what she was doing, it’s not like she’s a bad person! It was a weird situation, and it just sort of snowballed, and next thing you know, boom! She had no control over what was going on, she didn’t know what was happening, but it was a mistake, a one-off, it won’t happen again! You know?”

Pia and Madeleine stare at me. I try to catch my breath. Was I ranting?

Finally, Pia speaks. “Are we talking about Coco or you?”

I’ve nervously torn a tissue into tiny little pieces in my hand while rambling. I jump up and put it in the trash.

Time to change the subject. “Anyway, what happened with Aidan?”

Pia sighs, tears automatically springing to her eyes. “He’s got a work project. In San Francisco. He might be there awhile.… Like, a year. Or longer. And I just, I, um … I don’t know what to do.”

“You’ll be fine!” says Madeleine.

“He’ll be back every weekend!” I echo. “You work so hard anyway, you’ll just have more time to spend here at Rookhaven. With us.”

“No, he won’t be back,” she says. “He’s subletting his place here. He’s taking his dog, Angie. His
dog
.” She pauses dramatically, letting the dog factor sink in. “He’s basically … he’s leaving. And he didn’t even discuss it with me. He didn’t ask me what I thought, he just took the project. I thought we were about to move in together and he was just thinking about his job! What does that say about our relationship?”

“Nothing!” Madeleine and I say in supportive unison.

“He’s career-focused! So are you!”

“And it’s not like you’re married!” I add. “You practically just got together!”

“You can do the long-distance thing. You can text and IM and Skype and FaceTime and—”

“No!” Pia shakes her head adamantly. “The long-distance thing never, ever works. You both know it as well as I do. It’s like couples that take a trial separation, or a ‘break.’ What’s the fucking point? It’s just the beginning of the end. He’s the first guy I’ve ever truly, truly loved, but I’m just trying to be a realist here. I think…” Her eyes well up again. “I think we’re going to break up.”

“Don’t plan for a breakup before it happens.” Madeleine pauses. “Listen to me, giving relationship advice. I’ve never even been in love. Not really.”

“What about that dude at Brown? The math major?”

“Sebastian? Pia, that was three years ago.”

“What about Heffy? The guy from the band tonight?”

Madeleine shakes her head. “The same total disconnect I’ve felt with every guy I’ve ever known. Heff said he’s got a girl back in Florida but he’d be happy for a ‘casual bang’ now and again. I was so stoned I didn’t even know what to say. I just stared at him.”

Pia cracks up. “I was hoping you’d bring that up! Dude, I
literally
never thought I’d see you stoned.”

“I thought maybe it would give me a reason to laugh,” says Madeleine. She looks up and meets our eyes. “Wow, how pathetic does that sound?”

At that we all crack up and laugh for such a long time that Madeleine starts drooling. Which makes us laugh more. I have an endorphin rush from laughing; I feel heady and good all over. I actually like Madeleine right now. Amazing what a crisis and a lot of booze will do.

Later on, I’m lying in bed thinking how I’ve never had a conversation that long with Madeleine before. Ever. And I’ve been living with her since August last year. I never thought about her at all, really. I never really thought about Coco, or how she was dealing with her problems after Eric and the abortion. I never thought about how Julia felt about her job. I never thought about how Pia and Aidan’s relationship was going or if they’d move in together. I never thought about anybody else.

I only thought about me. My relationships, my problems, my life.

From now on, I’m not going to be the loner in the corner, smoking cigarettes and drinking vodka and shuffling cards. I’m going to be a good friend, I really am. To Pia and Julia and Coco. Even to Madeleine. I’m going to be single, always, no matter what. And I’m going to get a job.

(This time, I mean it.)

CHAPTER
19

I’m trying again.

That’s how success works, right? You get knocked down, then you get up, dust yourself off, and try again. That’s what Pia’s always saying, anyway. And that chick had some knocks from hell last year.

There’s a fashion PR agency called Maven in SoHo. They are my (new) ideal employer (if I can’t work with a designer, then work with people who talk about those designers all day, right?). Their accounts are my favorite labels, they have satellite offices in London and Paris (Paris!), and they have a really cool website. I sent them my résumé by e-mail and snail mail, I tried to start conversations with them on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and I’ve called. Every day. For weeks now.

Nothing.

So now I’m trying it the old-fashioned way.

Bribery.

Sam is helping me out. He texted to see what I was doing a couple of days after the dinner party, and I replied “seeking gainful employment.” There’s less than a month now till I turn twenty-three, so time is running out. Anyway, he offered to help.

And that’s how we ended up standing outside the Maven office building on Broome Street. I’m holding twenty coffees on a tray and shouting, “Free nonfat lattes with every CV!”

My aim? Just to make someone look at me twice as a potential employee. If they even gave me one chance, just one day of work, I
know
I could prove myself to them. (Well, I don’t really know that for sure. But I’m not going to show my self-doubt now, right?)

Sam is next to me, holding twenty copies of my CV, which has been written, edited, and proofed to within an inch of its life by everyone at Rookhaven. So far, the only people to take a latte have been the doorman and someone who I’m pretty sure was going to a different company entirely. (No one wearing Crocs works in fashion, it’s just a fact.)

“Free latte with every CV!” I say, as a guy takes a latte, who almost-but-not-quite looks a bit like that famous sleazy British photographer who makes everyone look slutty.

“The latte is free! The CV’ll cost ya!” shouts Sam.

“No ad-libbing,” I hiss.

“Not helping? Okay. I’ll shut up now. How about I stand on the lower step, like I’m your personal assistant.”

Sam smiles winningly at me. He’s dressed up in a very sharp suit and a crisply ironed shirt. He’s lost that annoyingly innocent clean-cut look that was my first impression of him and instead looks sort of aloof and sharp, like a young Wall Street bloodsucker. He’s been getting a lot of attention from passing women.

“Nice shoes,” I comment. “J. M. Westons, right? My father wears them. How the hell did you afford them?”

“My roommate is the same size as me, he works in finance. Where did you get those sexy little things?”

I look down at my feet. Manolos that once belonged to Annabel. “My mother.”

A stunning woman saunters past. She has perfect caramel-highlighted hair trailing over one shoulder and long, long legs in tight jeans, and stares at Sam so hard I think she might trip.

“You are getting some serious eye fucks, Samuel,” I comment. “You should dress well more often.”

“Eye fucks? Oh, that’s nice. That’s real nice. Well, you’re getting a lot of stares, too, Angela.”

“My full name is Angelique, bitch. I hate being called Angela.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I stepped it up today, after my grungy errors with Candie Stokes. I’m wearing white Theory pants that I bought for my job interview with a photographer last year, a white turtleneck, and a little slim-sleeved leather jacket that came from Zara but could be designer. (I hope.) Plus that gold clutch I made from secondhand scarves, and my usual out-for-the-day oversize white tote with everything I own in it. There are girls like me all over New York, all lugging sofa-size bags with our lives inside, like glossy little snails.

Finally, around 9:30
A.M.
, the fashion girls start arriving. I can spot them a mile off: they’re wearing some of the hottest items from the last five seasons with casual “this old thing?” aplomb, as though they were wearing something from Gap. Acne, Lanvin, Equipment, Alexander Wang, Current/Elliott, A.P.C., and a lot of Rick Owens. I even see four women carrying the Proenza Schouler PS1 satchels, which go for a couple of grand a pop, minimum. But I also see recognizable pieces from H&M, Topshop, J.Crew, and American Apparel. Real fashion people mix high and low. Only wannabes do head-to-toe labels.

Sartorial observances aside, I can see that the arrival schedule demonstrates the hierarchy. The younger ones come first. Mostly my age, mostly smoking, mostly gorgeous, as though they could have been models but something tiny—a too-long chin, a too-snub nose, or a too-traditional prettiness—kept them from achieving supermodel success. They’re mostly in flats, and some pause at the front door and throw on a pair of heels.

“Take a latte!” I exclaim, while they’re shoeless and defenseless. “My name is Angie James. If you need an intern or assistant or someone to fetch you coffee, please remember me!”

“This latte is cold,” says a chic, pointy-faced girl about my age, wearing one of the Marni for H&M skirts from a few years ago.

“Well, put some ice in it and pretend it’s summer,” I say.

She grins, revealing a snaggletooth. “I wish.” Why does imperfect dentistry always make someone seem more likeable?

“Great skirt,” I say quickly. “Marni for H&M, right?”

“Right,” she says, looking surprised. “I slept outside the store overnight to get it. I’m obsessed with Marni.”

“I missed the best pieces from the Marni collaboration, but I got the jacket from the Versace one,” I say. “I’m obsessed with Versace, like, 1990 to 1992.”

“Oh, me too! Hey,
love
the clutch, whose is that?” Her phone beeps. “Shit, I gotta run. Good luck!”

I turn back to Sam, who gives me the thumbs-up.

Then the midlevel women come, most of them intimidatingly glossy-haired, some shouting on the phone, some quietly texting. All too busy to stop and talk, though three of them take a latte and a CV. One, a brunette with a dark bob, says “Thank you,” and actually appears to read over my CV as she walks into the building.

And finally, a town car pulls up, and out steps a black-haired woman wearing Lanvin (I think)—and a mink coat. It’s the owner and director of Maven PR, Cynthia Maven. (I Googled her.)

“Ms. Maven, I have a latte for you?” I say, with my best and brightest smile. “It’s free with my CV!”

Her head moves slightly toward me and she takes a latte and a CV, barely breaking stride, and disappears into the building.

I turn to Sam and sigh.

“Well, so much for that idea. I am never going to get a job.”

“Of course you are.”

“No, I’m really not, Sam. I’m underqualified, underexperienced, and probably underdressed. I just … I can’t compete.”

“You think that now, but then, one day, you’ll get your break. And that’s when your future begins.”

“Wow. That is some serious Hallmark card shit right there.”

“Thanks. Now it’s my turn,” he says. “Do you know how the subway system works? I need to get downtown.”

“You don’t know Manhattan at all?”

“I prefer Brooklyn.”

“God, really? I only live in Brooklyn because I can’t afford Manhattan,” I say. “Manhattan is way more glamorous.”

Sam laughs. “You think? Well, from what I’ve seen, Brooklyn is kinder. Manhattan can be a total bitch. Come on, help me out. I gotta go see a man about a crew job.”

“A blow job?”

“A
crew
job. I’m straight, Angie. You know that.”

“Do I?” I say. “You suit up pretty well for a straight dude. And you’re still refusing to ask Julia out.”

“Dude, you’ve got to get over the Julia thing. Not gonna happen.”

“Why not? Give me one good reason.”

“Maybe I’m still hung up on Katie.”

“Your ex? She’s in Paris! One date! What’s the difference? Come on. Grow a pair.”

“This from the girl who has sworn off relationships.”

I ignore him, and we take the subway downtown. Then, as we’re sitting side by side, and I’m looking at everyone around me and wondering why fluorescent lighting was invented when it’s just so uglifying, Sam turns to me.

“So what happened with the last guy you fell in love with?”

“What?”

“Just making conversation, Angela. Wondering why you don’t trust men.”

“What?” I say. “What kind of a dude talks about love, Samuel? You’re like a chick. Why don’t we just make some fucking s’mores and swap our traveling pants?”

“I was wondering why you seem a little bitter.”

“Ouch.”

“Just tell me. I mean—” Sam checks himself, as if wary of being too arrogant. “If you want to talk about it.”

I pause. Fuck it. For once I do feel like sharing. “The last guy I thought I was in love with was named Mani. But he was just using me. I think maybe … dudes have always used me. But it’s my fault.”

“How is it your fault?”

“Um, because I choose to let them treat me that way. I just sit back and hope everything will be perfect and real and lasting if I behave just right.” I take a deep breath. I don’t know why I’m confessing all to Sam, but I can’t help it. “I make the wrong choices. I put myself in situations where … where these guys treat me like nothing, you know, like shit. But I’m not shit.” I suddenly hear a break in my voice. “I’m
not
nothing.” Stop talking, Angie, Jesus.