“It’s a lot more than that,” I say, possibly losing her interest and maybe slurring a bit but I can’t tell. I grab at a piece of bread in the hopes I can reverse the buzz. “There’s a trivia element and we get to design our own team sweatshirts.”
“Not only do you want me to do cardio on TV, but you want me to wear a polyester blend? I get hot too easily. Hard pass,” she says.
“It’s light cardio at best!”
Alexia shakes her head again, more seriously this time.
“But it’s one hundred thousand dollars!”
“For sixty minutes of on-screen humiliation!” Her voice is a little too loud for my liking. I’m having flashbacks to my breakup with Buckley. I’ve spent four weeks trying to block out those all-encompassing feelings of dread. Four weeks crashing in Dad’s guest room, trying to plot out my life without routine or order.
A one-hundred-thousand-dollar cash prize could help me get out of debt and start a new, single life. Aside from miraculously winning the lottery, this is the only solid thought I’ve had in ages for how to pull myself out of this dank, dark hole of despair without a rope.
“Look, it’s not just that,” she says before blotting her lips with her napkin and setting it on the table, which seems like a bad sign. “If I audition for a TV show withyou, what will...what will Buckley think?”
His name is a bullet that lodges itself inside the weakest chamber of my heart. “Nothing,” I choke out. “He didn’t want to do it. He didn’t want to be with me. Why should he care?” The sharp pang of missing him even if he’s blocked me on all social media and sent me packing strikes my stomach.
She cringes, but it doesn’t read like sympathy. “As a friend to you both,” she says, not entirely sounding like she means thebothpart, which causes my whole body to tense. “I can’t pick sides. Doing this with you would be like kicking Buckley in the balls and laughing in his face. Completely unfair.”
But isn’t that what Buckley did to me? Leaving me all by myself in that restaurant was a brutal blow I haven’t completely recovered from. Perhaps I should’ve known college sweetheartdom was an unsustainable sugar rush.
“I get it,” I say, resolved because I tried to fight the inevitable in Manhattan, and it blew up in my face, and sad because what she’s trying to say in as little words as possible is that she was Buckley’s friend first. Her allegiances are with him. No matter how convincing and rehearsed my argument may be, she’s not going to switch sides all of a sudden. In the breakup battle, Buckley won her.
It’s time to face the facts: I’m a loser. I lost Mom, I lost Buckley, I’ve lost Alexia, and now, by default, I’ve lostMadcap Marketby not even getting to audition. Failure sits on my shoulders and announces itself to all the other diners in our vicinity.
“Thanks for understanding. I’m glad we did this,” she says with a slightly condescending lilt, placing her hand on top of my balled fist on the table. I shrink further into myself. “Now, let’s get the bill. I’m beat.”
I’ve massacred the minibar.
Empty tiny bottles are spilled all over the floor. They tell you not to mix your medicines but I’m self-medicating with vodka, rum, and scotch tonight, mixing and matching at will, and nobody is going to stop me!
I’m sitting propped up against the bed on the gross, scratchy carpet that probably hasn’t been steam cleaned in centuries. The muted TV is set to the Game Show Network. Not that I’m fully watching a rerun ofBaggage, a dating show where three potential suitors open suitcases containing their emotional secrets, but it would feel apt if I were, wouldn’t it? Isn’t that why Buckley left me and Alexia turned me down? Too much baggage?
There is a basket of snacks on the work desk with a price guide stuck in a stand in front of it. I peer at the list, which is frustrating since I’m tipsy and the letters are blurry. What I can see is outrageous. $5.00 for a snack pack of Goldfish. What, are they plated in actual gold?
I bite the bullet and use my teeth to rip open the pack. The cheesy crackers spill out all over my stomach. I snatch them up before they hit the ground like a ravenous dog. This is what it’s come to: me, alone, drunk, on the floor, eating an entire pack of children’s crackers.
“All Too Well (Ten Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version)” by Taylor Swift starts back in on its loop. I’ve lost count, though I’d say this is the fifth time it’s played tonight. It’s the perfect soul-crushing soundtrack for a romantic breakup and a friend breakup in the matter of a month.
Alexia didn’t say as much when she left me outside the tapas restaurant, but there was finality in the air when she hugged me. Without Buckley in common, she wordlessly said, we are better off as strangers. At least that’s how it felt. Especially when I suggested we get together once more before I fly home since I’m touring the town solo and she said, “I’ll text you.”
I know that text is never coming just like I know Buckley isn’t coming back and Mom is gone andMadcap Marketis completely out of the question. All my best-laid plans drowned with tiny bottles. What joy.
Around midnight, the phone on the bedside table rings. Its trill is jarring. I fumble to pull it from its cradle. “Hello?” I groan.
“Sir, we’ve gotten several noise complaints about your room. We’re going to need you to stop blasting sad bops on a loop. It’s disturbing the other guests,” the oddly familiar voice says from the other side.
“Sorry my sorrow is sodisturbing.”
“Great song choice, though,” the man says. “Guessing the tapas didn’t pan out?”
“Leo?” I place the voice even in my dazed state. “Why are you calling me? You said yourself you don’t even work for this hotel.” I take the handset off the table, cradling it like it’s a baby, propping the phone between my ear and my shoulder.
“I was just about to leave when the receptionist asked me to do her a solid and call the sobbing sad boy in 412. I had a feeling it was you.” I hate how validated he sounds for having perceived my inevitable upset. Should I have seen it coming, too? Should I have seen Mom’s death, my and Buckley’s breakup? Is everyone else clairvoyant but me?
“Were you all placing bets or something?” A coating of dust flies up off the handset making me sneeze. Leo blesses me. At first, I think it’s a kindness, considering the way I’m feeling, but then I realize that’s what normal humans say to other humans when they sneeze.
I’m a goddamn mess.
