chapter 1. chapter 2. chapter 3. chapter 4 part 1. part 2. chapter 5. chapter 6.
Subscribe to read Unclosed Mouths, my first novella about dearths of emotion on the Hudson. Or my mean girl opinion columns. Or this essay that turned out to be about love but I had no idea at the time.
"That's like on Entourage when they fired Ari," Bart says, over the phone.
"No, it isn't, because she was lying. It's something else completely."
"Well, that's basically what Beth told me when I asked."
"What!"
"Yeah, back when we started dating you were bugging me about Myra so I asked. ICM does shit like that. That's how that Star Trek guy died. Just kidding."
"Why didn’t you tell me-"
"I gotta go. Let's talk when I get back." Click.
I am standing behind Donnie's, flakes of snow whipping down the alleyway. For the last few days I have slept like a baby. It's the only thing that gets Myra off my mind, sleep. Eve dumped me on New Years and I barely noticed.
She said we had little in common. She felt I didn't know her well. That we were just having sex. We hadn't done much beyond our initial courtship. Eve was right, and I let her go without any fuss. Unfortunately, Jane has been texting me, as if on command. They want an answer to their ultimatum that I don't think I can give. I just want to go back to school. I promised Donnie three more weeks and I can't piss him off. This is the only job I've had that's in any way relevant to my studies.
That night I knocked a kid unconscious Mena and I had sex. I was barely there. She came. She cried after, but she said it was a 'liberating' cry. Her mom is upstate, not in Sweden. I misheard. And Myra didn't shoot anybody. After I hit that kid, the kid in denim punched me in the back of the head. Myra was driving by and flashed her van's sirens. I told her Mena’s. The rest I dreamt. Why her van has sirens, I do not know.
Donnie’s has limited hours in January. I eat halal behind the desk, where I man the storefront alone. It’s 3 PM and already dark. Tracy’s texting me about a Zendo in Hudson she’s been going to. Sitting long thinking about sitting. She says it’d be good for me. I am pretty high-strung.
"I'm a disaster. I'm cruel." Jane is gathering the beer bottles that seem to line their bedroom in a plastic bag. It's a small room, and as I sit on the bed Jane has to lean over me to get at some of them.
"You're not a disaster, Jane… Are you sure you don't need help-"
"No, no. I'm okay."
"You're not cruel. You're maybe, unthinking."
"You're saying I'm a lunkhead?" They smile. "That I'm some dunce."
I laugh. "I'm the cruel one. You're the dumb one. No… You're a little quick to the draw."
Jane makes a face, the bottles clinking. "Sure, but how are you cruel? You're well-meaning, considerate, or not that, but you don't relish in hurting other people."
"I don't."
"It's the opposite. You're anguished about it. Maybe too much."
"Bart says that. I joke, though. I poke people right in their centers."
"That's an unattractive quality in a man."
"It's a sign of my comfort with somebody. I'm like a hedgehog. I get it from my mom-"
Jane sits beside me. "You're not mean to me. Are you not comfortable with me?"
I stutter. That doesn't mean anything, right? I wasn't particularly barbed with Eve. I was bored, sure, but I wasn't mean. Or Miranda. Is that fucked, that my mind is going to other people first. To old lays, like some noir detective. As if I handed Jane the gun and they fired through my liver. Jane's great.
"I've been working on it," I say, finally.
"I'm only a little jealous."
"Well, I've been around a bit."
"Yeah, you're ran through, Joy."
"I want to do this."
"Shut up. I need a drink."
Jane heads to the kitchen.
"Vodka rocks?" says their mom. She's on the couch behind one of those new MacBooks, tapping away at something over precariously-perched reading glasses. Jane's mom is still red in the face from a holiday trip to Bali. She's important to a firm of which I cannot remember the name.
"No, I'm making an old-fashioned."
"No, Janey, I want a vodka rocks."
"Joy, can you grab the vodka. It's on the fridge. Shit, do you want a drink?"
"Do you have beer?"
"Anything for you, baby. I've got-" They've opened the fridge under my armpit. "Peroni, Stella, and a couple Red Stripes…"
"Why do you have Red Stripe?"
"My mom likes it."
Beth is in town and Bart still isn't and she wants to hang out with me. She came by Donnie's on a flurried, wet day and brought Rachel and I a six-pack. No one browsing has bothered Beth by the time we've had a few.
"Bart is an insane person, in that sense," Beth is saying. "He willed us into existence. He got on the subreddit and thought, 'I'm gonna fuck the Nickelodeon girl.'"
"He's a madman."
"But no, he's not pathological or anything, actually. We just got along nice, and hung out a few times. There was a show at the Hudson Basilica and he kissed me."
"Scandalous…"
"I didn't talk to him for a bit after that."
One kid, a small teenager dwarfed by their quilted work jacket, has Beth sign her notebook when she's buying a shirt. I get off at 4 and walk with Beth to her new studio on the Bowery. She warmly greets an old woman outside a deli.
Beth walks gingerly, as if she were inspecting her surroundings for changes. At one point she points up at a brick building, where paint has been sloshed along its side, spelling out TRAK or TROK. "That's new," Beth says. "Cool," she coos, childlike.
"Do you walk a lot in L.A.," I say.
"Around the neighborhood. Not really. I used to drive a little Saab."
She buys a Diet Coke from the newsstand in front of her apartment building, and then spins around to ask if he has the new New Yorker. He doesn't. I feel as if I am following Beth around for some video. As if she's promoting something. Not from how we hang or how she carries herself even. I have just not been able to separate Beth from the bundle of pixels on my TV.
There's a Dogface sticker by her doorknob. I focus on it as she jiggles her key in the lock.
"Shoes," she says, absently, pointing at a wooden rack in the vestibule. I undo my Converse, slush and street salt now burned into the canvas. Beth kicks patent leather Mary Janes off her hiking socks without a thought.
"Nice place," I say, not voicing any other questions. Beth looks at me for a moment.
"It's a gift from my agent. I did a comedy."
"Oh yeah."
"I try not to do 'em. It reminds me of childhood. I'm a grown-up." She laughs.
Beth sits in an armchair under a tall set of windows across the room. It faces away from her bed, a full adorned with one pillow and a comforter. Stacks of books line the room. The counter that is the kitchen has two burners, a toaster and a coffee machine. The studio is dark, lots of wood and brick and granite.
She slides the window open a bit and lights a cigarette.
"Want one?" she asks, breaking an odd silence.
"Sure." I've been having trouble quitting. I walk over from the counter I was leaning on. "Should I like, smoke by the window?"
"Just ash here," she says, beckoning to the ceramic on the windowsill beside her.
I sit down on the floor below the window. Beth lights my cigarette, a Spirit.
"Oh shit, do you want a drink or something?"
"Yeah, sure."
"I've got tequila, mostly. Whole bunch of sodas. You're a beer guy, right? Feel like Bart said you were a beer guy. I have-" She stops, bending over into her fridge. "A six pack of Peroni? Leftover from a party… when I moved in, I think?"
"Peroni's cool."
"I'll have one myself."
Beth opens both at the counter and we sit back down beside each other. Beth picks her cigarette back up from the ashtray. It's gone out, I notice, stretching up to ash my own, and I watch her relight it.
"So what's up with tonight? You doing anything?"
"You're the celebrity."
"Fuck, man, I don't know anybody."
"Yeah, you do, Beth."
"Fucking… Miranda's in town, I think."
I gulp. A bit of beer splashes on my chin. "Oh yeah?"
"Shit, are you guys alright? She sorta left you hanging, huh?"
"No, it's alright. Just haven't spoken to her since she left New York."
Beth nods. "She's back. She's single. Berlin was great. That's all I know."
"She played Panorama Bar, right?"
"Yes, baby," she says, in an funny voice. "Can I text her?"
"Go for it." I burp. "You mind if I make coffee?"
"I don't have any right now. I have some Celsius, some Guyaki, maybe a Red Bull in the fridge."
"Thanks." I get up. "I'm pretty buzzed already."
The doorbell buzzes as I'm in the fridge. "That was fast," Beth says, stepping lightly over to the front door. She peers into the little LCD. "Oh, Trent's here."
A moment later he's walking his bike into Beth's hallway. Beth hugs him before he's set it against the wall. "What's up," he says. "I was in the neighborhood."
"Hanging with Joy," she says, motioning to me. We shake hands, Trent and I, and he remarks that we've met.
"At the thing for uh, her thing-"
"Trent," Beth says, "you don't remember?"
"Shitstorm, with Jimmy."
"Thank you."
"What are we drinking?"
We sit around the windowsill and Beth and Trent talk fast. "New Balance sent me these," says Trent. "I never got slimed," says Beth. "I fucked a girl in the bathroom and got banned from there," Trent says. "Janglepop won't come back, it just won't ever leave again, like hardcore." "I think NoBudge is randomly sick." "I bet they're haunted by 9/11 victims." "I wish no one outside of New York could know about this shit." "I used to get free Juul pods but they cut marketing awhile back." "I literally had never heard them because I was an Eagle Scout and not on Tumblr." "I prefer the Glock 19, to be honest."
I'm peering into my bottle of beer. "So what's happening with the podcast," I say.
Beth shrugs. "We're recording in a couple days."
"What are we talking about," says Trent.
"You know… Culture," she says, beginning to giggle, "and politics."
They laugh together.
"People love to hear about the mundane nature of our lives," Beth says. "Don't really know why. They could listen to audiobooks."
"I'd never listen to a podcast," Trent says. "No offense to you guys."
"Tracy's coming on," Beth says.
"Oh yeah?" I say. I didn't know.
"Yeah, Bart played me some stuff, and I really liked it, and I asked if she wanted to hang in the city and she said no because I'm a celebrity."
Trent sits up. "That's not what happened at all. You like, threatened her so she'd send you a box of merch. You swindled her out of 50 dollars."
"And now she's gonna come on my podcast to talk about college DIY. I am very intrigued by guitars and amplifiers. And I'm going to wear that Dogface t-shirt on Good Morning America or something, I swear. The longsleeve that says 'Dogface... Vomitspit' or something." I believe her. Watching Beth talk is strange.
"Uh, so, anyway I met my first Italian this week."
"Beth, I'm Italian."
"You're Italian," I remark.
"I went to a Nets game-"
"Oh, yeah, courtside, right?"
"No, Trent, regular seats. My agent buys me cars and apartments and tells me how brilliant an actress I am. Not tickets. Anywho, I'm in line for a drink, a soda or something, because I'm parched, and I'm walking around and, usually, here, no one who isn't fucked in the head says anything to me if I'm like doing something, because they get it-"
"New York," Trent says, "Who cares?"
"Right, well, I am a star, I'm not washed-up or anything you're implying."
"Come on, girl, you are nearly Miranda Cosgrove."
"You bitch." She laughs. "You Parson fuck. You should have been an accountant."
"Nobody's-nobody's an accountant anymore."
"Yes, they are."
"Yeah," I say. "My friend Rahan graduated last year and he's-well, no, he's a quant…"
Trent snorts. "You didn't even get to pick, Beth."
"No, I picked. I was the highest paid kid on TV in 2009 and now I do independents."
"Well, iCarly was... And Amazon Studios is not independent."
"That was only two times and only one of them was bad. The editor was some braindead moron. Someone's kid."
The doorbell buzzes. Beth gets up, laughing, and stomps over. "It's Mena." She holds a button down, leaning her elbow and forearm against the wall. "Trent and Joy are here."
Beth sits back down and says, excitedly, that Mena has White Claw.
"Watching the weight," Trent says.
"Save it for the podcast," she says.
I sit back and reckon that I haven't listened to the podcast much since I met Beth last summer. Miranda called in once to talk about how no one does anything in Berlin on Sundays. I listened to that coming into the city for Thanksgiving. Or leaving the city.
Mena greets everybody - she knows Trent from an internship - and sits beside me. She turns to me. "How's it going. She bite your head off yet?"
"No, Beth has been very nice. We've been hanging out all day." Beth beams at me. Trent is lighting a cigarette.
"She's not usually nice."
Beth leans down from her chair and punches Mena in the arm. "Ow!"
"I so am nice," Beth says.
"You can't hit me like that Beth, I'm an only child."
Mena's voice soothes me, and I can feel tension escaping my body. Or the energy drink is hitting.
We cheers with our White Claws to "fame and fortune," Mena's words. Trent spits it back into the can and says, "Blegh," as if he were a child, only to swig it again and swallow it, which is funny.
"I've got something for you," Trent says to Mena, his back hunched and his hands fidgeting as they sit beside each other.
"No, you don't." She smiles, covering her mouth with her hand.
"I swear, I swear, it's a short about a quiet girl, and you've got the face for it."
"I don't act," Mena starts. "And…" She rolls her head about, looking at the ceiling for an excuse. "I have to go back to Oberlin in a week."
"We could figure something out."
"What happened to your hand," she says, grasping it lightly. There is a scab across two of Trent's knuckles. I look at Beth and she cocks an eyebrow.
"There's a model who wasn't pleased with my taste in his women."
"Uh, huh?" Mena's eyes widen.
"Come on, you're a smart girl…"
Beth laughs. "Trent, you smug fuck. Do not Matt Dillon my friend here. She's still a kid."
Mena covers her mouth again, speaking through her hand. "Beth, I am aghast. I would never do anything with Trent." Trent grins.
"Well, he is single."
"Beth, stop."
"No, no," I say. "It's alright."
"Joy!" Mena says.
Beth, forearms on her knees, head tilted towards me, lamplight going through her hanging hair: "What are you talking about?"
Mena: "It's nothing."
Trent: "Did you guys go out?"
Me and Mena, in unison: "No!"
Beth, still by me: "You fucked her?"
I shake my head.
Beth: "God, you're sick."
Mena: "Beth, that's not funny."
Beth: "I'm not joking. He took advantage of you."
Mena: "No, he didn’t. It was my idea. It's fine."
Beth: "Really?"
Mena: "I… wanted it. Joy's a good guy."
Beth: "Okay."
Mena: "Just a fling thing."
Trent, singsongy: "Booty call."
"Yeah," I mumble.
We sit in Soup N' Burger almost in silence. I am ready for Miranda now, I am thinking, over and over. Forget what Myra said. Mena has a milkshake and Trent a turkey burger wrapped in lettuce. I have the matzoh ball soup. Beth has eggs and a Caesar salad.
"What's the deal with Sasha," Trent says. "Asian girl from that thing."
"She's more my ex's friend," I say.
"Oh yeah?"
"Want her IG? I'm sure she remembers you."
"Sure."
Beth writes an email, apologizing the whole time. Mena, beside me in the booth, slurps her shake and stares off onto the street.
"You good?" I say.
"I'm just looking at those kids over there," she says, nodding towards a group of college-aged girls in pleather jackets and torn jeans. "Who are they dressed like?" She looks at me with earnest eyes.
"Uh, like punks that died 30 years ago. People they've never thought about. But it's no big deal, right? Some guys find it hot."
"Not me," says Trent. "Whoever you're talking about."
"Trent likes 30-year-olds that dress like skateboarders," Beth says, not looking up from her phone.
"I like when a girl has fun with it," I say.
"Oh, okay, Mr. Diplomat," Mena says. "We're good, right?"
"Of course," I say. "We just didn't talk about it."
"I'm alright with that. For now."
"That's great," I say. It feels as if there is something heavy at the back of my throat. Mena's face contorts as she sucks on the paper straw. The hollow rumble of shake heading up it is steady and centering. I'm a little nauseated from the texture of the matzoh and all the alcohol in my stomach. Today has turned into a bit of a bender. With a famous person, no less. Like some sort of daydream, drink and never get drunk, the girl from TV knows my name, Mena no longer wants to fuck me-shit. I try to focus on the sucking sound but I can tell Mena is nearly done with her shake.
"MY MOTHER WAS IN THE DECLINE OF CIVILIZATION MOVIE" reads marker scrawl on the window of the empty storefront on Broadway that was once an American Apparel. Beth's called a car.
There's a talking head interview Beth did for VFILES in 2013 that was periodically posted on the subreddit.
"My dad was in a skate gang in the eighties," Beth says, bobbing about a bit with flush cheeks. Her shoulder-length hair is dipdyed green, like that of her "Front Bunker" character. The show was still on air at the time.
"See, he did time in prison, state, for, um, drug stuff.
"And he got out and wanted to go straight and his fucking... peckerwood buddy-" cut "Can you say that?" She laughs.
"Okay, his friend, his name was literally like, Snake, or Viper, he got him this job at a shop in Venice, and it like, saved his life" cut "It's a happy ending, yeah. Still skates around on his big boards."