Turns out the future isn’t any less heteronormative than the present.
“Ah, shit. Well, right on, bro,” he says before popping back in his earbud and starting toward the elevator bay.
Leaving me alone to wonder:What do I do now?
Three days.
It takes me three whole days to fill in the gaps of my memory.
Luckily, full-time rehearsals for my comedy special—which I’m anxiously dreading—don’t start until Wednesday. Jessie—Jessalynn, argh, that’s going to take some getting used to—granted me the privilege of a few hours off today between fittings and photo shoots and interviews and meetings and one mandated session with a chiropractor. (God, I’m old enough to need a chiropractor!) Hours I should be using to learn the script “I” had already written, chock-full of jokes that make me cringe.
So in a stellar act of avoidance, I’m filling my time with healthy amounts of sleuthing about myself. Playing private investigator by snooping into my own life, clicking through photos of me on stages I’ve never seen in cities I’ve never been to beside celebrities whose names I don’t know. They could be politicians or singers or actors and I wouldn’t know a thing.
There’s:
Me on top of a pool table in a dive bar in Nashville.
Me on top of a barn roof in the middle of a cornfield, somewhere in the Midwest.
Me on top of a couch on a late-night talk show, giving major Tom Cruise onOprahenergy.
I’m gathering that my recklessness leads me to stand atop thingsthat generally aren’t meant to be stood upon, which wouldn’t be concerning if in every photo, I wasn’t holding a bottle or a bong or both.
I’m thirty. Shouldn’t I have set the partying ways behind me at this point?
Some of these images are as recent as last week.
Is this why Drew wrote me off? After ditching out on CeeCee’s wedding, did I become a raging party fiend to fill the hole where love used to be?
I wish the questions would stop, especially since every answer only opens another can of stinky, muddy, wriggly worms I can’t seem to hold onto for longer than a second or two.
I’m anew yet the same, changed in body but not in mind. Difficult, but I’m trying to latch on to the comfort of anything I’m familiar with. Too bad the internet is a cesspool of the unknown, and I’m not just talking about the new widgets I’ve been struggling to parse out.
With Milkshake curled around my bare feet with one of his stuffed duck toys, I switch to a new tab and return to my deep dive on Doop. Needing a break from my own face. I read:
The Death of Doop:
How a Lifestyle Brand Became Lifeless
The business went belly-up four years ago. The offices were open one day and closed the next. Most of the employees were unaware their workplace was folding, as is indicated in many social media posts and interviews. There are rumors in deep forums that Doop was working on secret projects and products with no plans of releasing them to market, but they’re all unsubstantiated. While posters are vague about what “secret projects” means, a strong partof me wonders if that secret hallway had anything to do with it and if those crystals that I can’t seem to find anywhere are included.
Two days ago, I tore this place apart looking for them. My penthouse looked as bad as my Astoria bedroom did after the sock-cession. Closets were flung open. Expensive clothes piled high on the floor. Pots and pans littered every countertop and table.
The crystals were nowhere to be found, which leads me to assume they transported me here and then…disappeared? Disintegrated? Are they still under my pillow seven years ago and I’d need to go back in time to get them again?
Thank God I had Antoni and Jerome’s help putting everything back where it belonged, given that I have no idea where anything was to begin with.
The buzzer’s grating growl goes off, echoing through the mammoth apartment, scaring Milkshake from his sleepy, sunshiny spot and waking me from my all-consuming spiral. Groaning, I ask into the high-tech receiver, “Who is it?”
“It’s Drew.”
Those two words send a shock wave through my entire body. I’ve never hit a button faster in my life—the portion of my life I can remember, anyway.
A click sounds on the other end, a door unlocking. Like a teenager, I slide over to the nearest mirror, raking my hands through my hair, and do my best to make myself appear presentable when I haven’t showered, shaved, or changed out of my pajamas. Arguably, Drew has seen me look worse.
Minutes later, Drew stands outside my door with a reusable shopping bag that reads BLOODYGOODBOOKSin one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other. My heart splutters. I can’t help it. He looks even more haggard than he did at the store, but this time there is a tender sort of beauty beneath his new burly, pinned-up look.
“Hi,” he says, tentative.
