“I vow to love and honor you all the days of my life,” Jenni says. “Until a billionaire proposes—then I’m cashing out,” she adds with a grin.
“Business proposals only,” Hal clarifies.
“Till death—or death by bridal shower games—do us part,” I close out.
We punch our fists in the air, 3D versions of the mural on our wall.
“Welcome to the resistance, bitches and witches,” I whisper happily. “Let the Friendship Soulmate Revolution begin.”
We sit back in the glow, slowly lowering our fists and breathing a collective sigh of relief that something as old-fashioned as matrimony will never steal us from each other.
Chapter 2
All winter we flit in and out of the Inn, staying at a base level of buzzed so we don’t feel the cold slap our legs through the runs in our tights, the holes in our jeans.
The pact brings us even closer together. We get all the benefits of lifelong commitment without any of the daily confinement.
We never bring anyone back to the Inn with us, though. It’s one of the only ground rules we have, along with always restocking the freezer drawer with a new carton of vegan ice cream before you finish the prior one. We try to be vegan for environmental reasons, but we’re too poor to be fully vegan, so sometimes dairy ice cream finds its way in. And once it’s there, we’re not going to throw it out. That’s even worse for the earth, so we’re morally compelled to finish it.
Staying over at our lovers’ places rather than bringing them home helps us keep the power since we can be the ones to escape before dawn. Plus, there’s the bunk bed situation and paper-thin walls to deal with. The Inn isn’t exactly renowned for its privacy, but it’s the only square footage in the world that we actually own, or at least lease. That’s why we’re so adamant about not letting outsiders disrupt the energy. And the kind of people we go for would definitely disrupt it. That’s why they catch our attention.
I tend to like other theatrical types because they’re not confined by a preconceived sense of self. They’re down, or up, toplay with neon-light personalities, knowing they can drop them or draw new ones whenever they want. I do it too, parading sides of myself I’ve never unveiled before or making up new sides altogether, conjuring wings that I wear to fly high, high, higher into the night before the sun burns off the fragile magic of the moon.
I’m addicted to the rush, but the thrill is never as sharp, the sensations never as exquisite, the second time around. Even if my brain doesn’t remember, my body does, and I can always guess at least half of what’s about to happen, so I let my flings fizzle into nothing before they try to tell me we had something.
I collect lovers like travelers collect postcards, looking back fondly on the quaint, two-dimensional images that never have to be ruined by the reality of tourists and sewage and scaffolding.
The Redstockings don’t all share my allergy to monogamy. They’ll usually pair up with someone for a little stretch of time before the itch to quit them kicks in. My way is kinder when you think about it. At least I never give anyone the impression that I might commit.
For a few weeks now, Hal’s been seeing this rich college girl from the Manhattan debutante circle. Hal is attracted to a certain lifestyle, says it can’t be helped; it’s just the natural consequence of having grown up on a bankrupt blueberry farm. She can spin that story for all it’s worth. It got old a while ago, but she just keeps embellishing it.
One night in February, or maybe it’s March, Hal invites us to Williamsburg for the opening of a modern art gallery that this girl’s parents own. Usually we’d say no because we’re anti-Williamsburg. It’s a grotesquely bougie neighborhood that brands itself as bohemian. The tidy streets are stuffed with formulaictrust-fund artists who aren’t actually artists at all because true art comes only from necessity, from lacking, from having no other choice than to take the pain inside you and eject it in a new shape.
A decade or two ago, Williamsburg really was a wonderful cluster of creatives, but enter gentrification and all the actual artists got priced out to deeper parts of Brooklyn. Bushwick, for instance, which is why we’ve found our people here.
We agree to venture into Williamsburg tonight, though, because of the free drinks and munchies promised. And we’re also kind of curious to catch a look at Hal’s girl. It’s rare that any of our lovers last long enough for an introduction, so it’s hard to pass by the opportunity to scope.
The gallery is exactly what you’d expect—a yawningly square space rimmed with abstract paintings so bad that people start believing they’re good just because the alternative is too obvious. The con artist is easy to spot. He’s surrounded by a sheeny orb of admirers, each fawning over his work because the person next to them is fawning over it and New York isn’t a place where you want to be left out of a trend.
A particular kind of disgust fills me as I watch. No doubt this silver-spoon swindler has booked a lavish vacation to Barbados with the profits. Or maybe he’s already too wealthy, so he’ll donate the money to charity just so everyone will coo over what a good person he is. I’m not jealous; I just don’t like frauds.
Even if my parents knew anyone in show biz, which they don’t, I wouldn’t let them catapult me to stardom. It would taint it for me. Success is respectable only if you have to suffer for it, sweat for it, spit in the face of the critics who rejected you time and time again, and carve your own path with the machete you stole when they were sleeping the day away in their Hamptons mansion.
I don’t warm up to Hal’s girl. She’s all bubbles and chic. It seems like she’s using Hal to check the box of the sexually experimentalcollege experience, though to be fair, Hal’s using her for the rich-people perks, so I guess you can call it even.
The two of them pair off, and Tara and Jenni go to the bathroom for a coke break. I hang back, not in the mood for it tonight, not in the mood for anything I’ve done before.
I scan the crowd for anyone interesting to mingle with. No one stands out. Half the people are in suits, clearly thinking themselves very hipster for having taken an Uber out of Manhattan all the way intoBrooklyn. It’s all so predictable that I could rock myself to sleep right here, but drinking sounds better.
It’s an open bar. I order two cocktails. One with rum and the other with vodka because I don’t like even pairs. Carrying one in each hand, I pace the perimeter of the gallery, tilting my head and trying to imagine myself swimming in the artwork. None of the pieces give me that feeling of lava lapping up against my naked body, which is how I verify they’re no good, not that I didn’t know that before.
This old guy starts following me from painting to painting. It’s like he thinks I don’t notice him stalking me, so I round on him and ask what his deal is.
He eats me alive with his eyes, from my tits to my toes and back up again. I wish I could fold my arms to cover my chest, but I’m double-fisting the drinks, and why would I drop a drink for a man?
“I’ve been observing you as I soak in the art,” he says. “You’re a beautiful sight.”
I’m wearing these great corduroy overalls of Tara’s. We share a closet, which means we share a wardrobe, and it’s mostly full of costume fragments that Tara takes home from her different shows. My hair is streaked with maroon, and I’ve got some gold flash tats crawling up my neck. I don’t do real tats because of the commitment. Turquoise contacts enhance my dull gray eyes. I look like a fucking vision, and I don’t need this pig to validate that.
