Story of My Life (14 page)

Anyway, Jeannie knows I won’t hit Pops up no matter what and I remind her.

You could always get another abortion, says Jeannie. Call Skip.

I don’t know why, this really cracks us up, we both go into hysterics. I’m laughing so hard I’m practically crying.

Tell him the rates have gone up, Jeannie goes. Tell him it costs six thousand now.

We’re like rolling on the floor.

I love Jeannie.

Why don’t
you
get an abortion? I go.

But Jeannie says she hasn’t slept with anybody but Frank and she never wants to speak to him again and anyway he wants to have kids, he’d just try again to convince her to marry him.

I’m like, Dean’s feeling really guilty right now. He’d probably finance an abortion and throw in a free trip to Bermuda.

I fill Jeannie in on the whole Cassie Hane episode and she’s like, fucking
men,
and I go, really. But after a minute I feel kind of guilty talking that way even though Dean’s a liar and a wimp and a totally worthless shit, I really like him anyway. Jesus, I must be getting soppy in my old age or something. Next thing you know I’ll be making goo-goo sounds and saying,
it’s so precious
whenever a baby comes on TV. But don’t hold your breath.

What are you doing tonight? Jeannie says.

And I’m like, I was thinking about letting Dean be my sex slave.

And she says, has he gone down on you yet?

And I go, that’ll be my one of my first commands.

Let’s make a list, Jeannie says.

And I’m like, whatever happened to my vibrator kit, anyway?

Suddenly the phone rings and we both dive for it and Jeannie gets it first but I pull it away from her and she’s screaming in my ear.

So how’s my little postmodern girl? Dean goes. That’s what he calls me sometimes. I love it. Hearing his voice makes me real happy for about two seconds but then I feel a little pissed, right? because, you know, it’s the same voice that lied to me. I’m being a little frosty during the chit-chat, so he gets down to important business, which is basically that Didi’s cousin Phil has been looking into the whole Didi situation, I don’t know how, and finally figured out that I wasn’t bullshitting when I said she had a problem. Anyway, Phil already made an appointment for her with this specialist who’s like the best in the world or something, but he needs our help. One thing he can’t understand is where she’s getting the money, he’s talked to Didi’s mother and father and they have no idea how she could be financing this big a habit—it’s not like she has a job—and Phil wants to know if she’s getting heavily in debt or fucking some dealer or what?

That’s easy, I go. She was in that Pepsi ad about a year ago and she gets residuals. I’ve seen the checks in her purse, two hundred, four hundred, they come in a couple of times a week and she cashes them in about a nanosecond.

That’s one mystery solved, Dean goes. The other thing Phil wants to know is who’s dealing it to her. Does she have a lot of dealers or mainly one?

I can’t tell him that, I go.

Dean goes, look, you want to help Didi, right? Phil isn’t going to turn the guy in or anything. He just wants to call him and tell him not to sell to Didi anymore.

I go, Emile isn’t like a social worker or something, you know. You expect him to just go, oh, dear, cocaine is bad for her, she’s actually abusing it, well, that’s very disturbing and I won’t sell her any more?

Believe me, Dean says, Phil knows how to convince him.

I’m still a little dubious, I mean this seems to go against all the rules of friendship and drug abuse, but then I realize it doesn’t really and if Didi winds up dead I’ll be partly responsible, and Emile’s a total creep and major reptile anyway. So yeah, okay, I tell Dean what he wants to know. But I also tell him that I don’t see how in hell Phil’s going to get her into rehab and I also say I’m really going to be furious if my name ever comes up. I know it’s for Didi’s own good, but I still feel kind of like I’m betraying her and I know that’s how she’d feel if she ever found out.

So what are you doing tonight? Dean goes after we’ve taken care of the Didi problem.

And I explain to him that he’s taking me out for an incredibly expensive meal and that he’ll receive further instructions
after he picks me up and brings me about two dozen long-stemmed red roses from my favorite florist.

We’re still getting incoming calls a couple days later but I figure it’s only a day or two before they cut us off completely. The landlord’s lawyer has sent a letter telling us to be out by the end of the week. I’m like totally depressed. I don’t even have subway fare. I’m so depressed I don’t even go to class this morning—no way I’m walking sixty blocks, plus I just wouldn’t be any good so I stay home and watch the soaps. When Jeannie gets in she’s acting really weird, zipping around the apartment like a trapped bird or something, bouncing off the walls, tidying things, giving me shit for having my clothes thrown all over the place. Like, now what’s her problem?

Finally she goes, Alison, I got my half of the money.

That’s cool, I go. Did your father come through?

She nods.

Only half? I go.

My half, she goes.

Suddenly I don’t like the way she’s talking one little bit. Jeannie, I say, let me just point out for your benefit that I gave you the rent for March and April and you spent it. So let’s not have any of this
my half
shit. If you’re going to start using fractions on me then you better say my three-quarters or my seven-eighths.

Jeannie and the higher math. She never even heard of fractions until she started buying eighths and quarters from Emile.

Well, I could only get half out of my father, she goes. And that was on the condition that you pay the rest or else I have to find a new roommate. He thinks you’re irresponsible.

I’m like, I must be dreaming. Has Jeannie lost her mind or is it me? I go, he thinks
I’m
irresponsible? Me? I didn’t spend the goddamned rent money. Why does he think I’m irresponsible?

It was the only way I could get the money, she goes.

What was the only way? I go. Let me guess, you told him that I spent the rent money.

She doesn’t say anything.

That’s it, isn’t it? You bitch, I go, I can’t believe you’d do that to me. That’s really the lowest.

It was the only way I could get any money out of him, she whines. He wouldn’t have given me anything otherwise.

I’m like, you’re such a liar, Jeannie. I’m completely surrounded by liars.

I mean, I know you can’t trust men, and families are a lie from the start, based on the totally ridiculous notion that two people can be faithful to each other, but what else have you got in the world to count on besides friends? That’s about it, in my book, and when your friends start lying and cheating on you, Jesus, it’s hard not to be a total cynic.

It’s like, you can’t trust anybody, and if somebody you know doesn’t fuck you over it’s just because the price of selling you down the river was never high enough.

I’m sorry, Jeannie goes.

Just fuck off, okay? I go. I don’t want to hear it.

Jeannie starts to cry. Oh, Alison, she blubbers.

She tries to take my hand but I push hers away.

I’ll tell you something else, I go. If I ever fucked you over I wouldn’t be a wimp about it and start bawling. If I ever decide to treat you like you treated me I’ll know exactly why I’m doing it and I won’t think twice and I’ll laugh in your stupid face. That’s the difference between you and me. You’re a bitch but you’re not even good at it. And you better be good if you fuck with me. Because when it comes to being bad, I go, I’m good.

Let her chew on that for a while. I’m out of here. I’m so mad I can’t believe it.

I walk over to Dean’s place, which is like ten blocks but I don’t have cabfare. I don’t have shit. Thirty-five cents, four cigarettes and a barrette. Reminds me of that REM song, “It’s the End of the World As We Know It.”

I stop in front of a phone module, you could hardly call them booths, these weird little open-air units they have in New York now. Anyway, I call Francesca and get her machine—story of my life, talking to machines—which blows a quarter so now I’ve got like ten cents left. So I call Alex, my old squeeze, collect in Virginia. He answers and accepts charges and I’m like, I must be dreaming—something in my life today that didn’t fuck up. Unbelievable.

Alex is like, Alison, what’s happening?

And I go, what isn’t happening? If it sucks, it’s happened to me lately. I’m thinking of declaring myself a disaster area, you know, so I can get federal funds.

So I tell him about Dean and Jeannie and he’s real sympathetic, I don’t know, it’s just nice to have someone on my side. We’re best of friends now, I don’t know what I’d do without Alex, jump out a window probably. When you’ve known somebody half your life and slept with them for a quarter, I mean—you get close. He knows me better than anybody. Same with him for me. He’s family. Just ask Mom or Rebecca. They both were like, share and share alike. Popping up naked all over the place, like—oh dear, excuse me, I didn’t know Alex was here, how very embarrassing, let me just very slowly cover myself with this teeny little towel after he’s had a nice long look. I start thinking about this stuff while we’re talking when he suddenly says, listen, Alison, would you be real upset if I came up to visit you guys?

And I’m like, that would be wonderful. And then suddenly I figure something out and I go, what do you mean, you guys?

And he says, you and Jeannie.

You don’t even know Jeannie, I say. I mean, you’ve never met her.

I’ve talked to her on the phone, he goes.

You want to come up here and fuck Jeannie, I say. That’s it, right? If that’s the story, just say so.

I wouldn’t even think of it if it wasn’t cool with you, he says. Look, you sound upset, forget it, I’d never do anything to hurt you.

I don’t know, at first it’s like my stomach just drops out of my body and bounces on a little string just above the pavement. Alex was my first love. Hell, he was my only love and he helped me get over some things from my childhood, I mean when I met him my attitude about sex was what the early settlers must have thought about scalping—basically you’d rather be dead. Alex helped me over that, which is another reason this thing feels weird, him having the hots for Jeannie. If it were any other guy, no problem, hop right on. But then I think, well, why not, what do I care? If Alex wants to do it, he should, I don’t believe in unrequited lust and it’s not like we’re going out anymore or like we have been for a long time. I can handle it, plus it would be good for Jeannie, even though I’m furious at her she’s still my oldest friend on the planet and she hasn’t been laid by anybody but Frank in years and just in case she’s thinking of getting back together with him this should show her that a secure future with Frank is like two weeks in Philadelphia except longer.

Come on up, I say. It’ll be good to see you.

I’ll call my travel agent and talk to you guys tomorrow. Meantime, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.

Which maybe rules out murder, obviously not much else.

I think Dean’s doorman kind of likes me, he winks at me and lets me go right up. Guy’s from one of those Communist countries that sounds like a disease, what’s it called, where they
used to have vampires and Dean’s always loaning him money because he’s completely in debt to these Korean gamblers who are going to kill him. Welcome to the free world, Igor.

Alison, Dean goes, when he opens the door. He’s like, what a nice surprise. He looks a little worried, like he’s got somebody in his bed already or something, but I guess maybe he’s just nervous about where we stand or maybe it’s my expression, which probably looks like a psycho killer about now, anyway he lets me in, kisses me on the cheek.

What’s the matter? I go.

I don’t know, he goes. The bond market is really bad.

You losing money?

He nods. So here we are, two seriously depressed units.

The phone starts ringing.

How about you? he goes. Are you okay?

Oh, yeah, I’m just super, I go, really sarcastic.

What’s the problem? he says.

What isn’t a problem? I go. That bitch Jeannie . . .

The answering machine picks up and after the beep I’m treated to this silky lingerie voice going, Dean, it’s Cassie, returning your call. I had the greatest dream about you, I can’t wait to tell you. I’ll be in tonight. Call me, angel. Don’t leave a kinky message, though, cause Peter knows my access code.

Dean shrugs, looking helpless, like—can I help it if they throw themselves at me?

Can I get you something? he goes. He looks kind of scared.

I’m just standing there in the hallway trying to decide what to do, whether to just turn around and leave. And I’m remembering that Cassie Hane goes out with Peter Finnegan, which suddenly is giving me some big ideas.

Alison? he goes. Are you all right? What’s the matter?

Fuck me, I go.

What? he says.

Let’s fuck, I go. Let’s just go into your bedroom and fuck, okay?

So we do. So I go in and lie down on the bed and he comes in and undresses me and plays with me. I don’t play with him but he doesn’t seem to mind—he better not—he gets inside me and I clench my teeth and grind against him and practically carve my initials in his back. I have my eyes closed, I don’t even look at him, and when I come it’s good but it’s not enough, not nearly, he comes with a sort of a shout and rolls off. I give him about three minutes, then I grab his cock and start yanking—he better have eaten his eggs today, he’s going to need them, I pull on his cock like it’s attached to a busted cigarette machine and I’m having a nicotine fit, he winces and gasps through his teeth, then I climb on top of him and hump and ride, he doesn’t know how lucky he is, the jerk, horsewomen have muscles he never dreamed of, doesn’t deserve, and after about ten minutes I come but I keep my mouth shut about it, this isn’t one of those beautiful sharing experiences, this is something else entirely.

Then he comes. Alison, he goes. Alison Alison Alison.