THIRTY
“Wait… just hold on,” I say into the receiver. I get up to close the bedroom door so that I can actually hear what Dahlia is trying to tell me. “Barry, turn the fucking TV down!” I yell into the hallway, before slamming the door hard enough to break the molding. Splinters of wood and paint tumble to the floor.
I throw myself across the bed. My mood is pretty black today. I’m tired and cranky. I haven’t made decent money in a few weeks. It’s just after noon in early November. From what I can see out the window, the weather outside is gray and uninviting.
“I’m sorry, hon. You have to start over.”
“I’m leaving at the end of the week,” she says.
“This week?”
Dahlia has mentioned her move to me before, but it still feels like it’s happening really fast. It makes me sad. Although we’ve only hung out a handful of times, Dahlia is the only person left at the club that I feel close to.
Clarissa and I don’t ever talk anymore. I don’t know exactly what she told that boyfriend of hers about me, her and Mitchell. But I can guess. Anthony threatened to leave her if she ever spoke to me again.
“Yeah. This week,” Dahlia says. “I got rid of most of the furniture already. I’m boarding the plane on Friday.”
“Damn it, girl, I’m gonna miss you. Are you sure you have to do this? L.A. is no place to kick dope.”
“New York is even worse. I’m not making money here, and it’s getting cold. I think the climate there is better for me. Plus, if it really comes down to it, I can move back in with my parents.” She pauses. “So do you wanna come over and say goodbye?”
“Yeah, how’s Thursday?”
“Thursday’s fine. Hey… are you holding at all?” she wants to know.
“I could be. I’ll make a couple calls. How about you? Make me a swap. Or we could both throw something in.”
“Sure.”
“Okay. I’ll see you, then,” I say, and hang up.
I lie on the bed staring at the ceiling. I’m pretty fried. It’s been nuts here twenty-four-seven.
This apartment isn’t big enough for so many bodies. I’m really stressed out all the time. And that’s because I’m the only one paying for anything.
I’ve stopped doing any “extras” in the VIP room. Why should I be so flexible with my boundaries? Alannah doesn’t even bother lap dancing to earn her keep. But I’ve been losing customers left and right to Sloane, Brittany, Natasha, and all the other girls who have fewer scruples.
To compensate, I’ve been spending everything I do make. I buy pot, coke, acid, mushrooms, ecstasy, and sometimes heroin. In addition to these indulgences, which take place on my own time, I’m usually drunk at Angels before the middle of every shift.
Alannah has been spending a lot of her time out, presumably at Chloe’s place on the Upper West Side. Their friendship appears to have cropped up pretty recently. Up until a few weeks ago, I don’t think I ever saw them speak to each other. Now they’re practically inseparable.
Chloe and her boyfriend do a lot more coke than I do – which I have to say is often quite a feat – and I have a feeling Alannah is hot on the heels of their excess.
Alannah has been getting on my last nerve. It’s as if she’s doing it on purpose. She lets that nightmare of a dog she’s got run all over my apartment. She’s rarely home, so I usually have to feed him. And she still hasn’t lifted a finger to paper train the little beast. She yeses me to death every time I tell her to leave him in the kitchen. Then she “forgets” to lock him up.
She also borrows my clothes on a regular basis without asking, like an evil kid sister. They’re all too tight for her and she returns them stretched out – or worse. A few days ago, she went on a date with Roy and arrived the next morning wearing my best pair of jeans. The new ones that I hadn’t even gotten to wear yet. They were stained with his jizz.
“He didn’t even make me come,” she sulked. “And he has a small dick, did I tell you that? Sometimes I really miss Blue Eyes.”
When she said that, I grabbed my jeans, walked into my bedroom and slammed the door. Then I whipped an empty vodka bottle out the window and into the street before I could quell the desperate urge to shatter something. Luckily the street was empty.
Now, Barry breaks my reverie by walking in without knocking. He starts rummaging around on my nightstand, looking for cigarettes.
I sigh with exasperation. “We don’t have any more.”
“Give me money. I’ll go get some,” he says.
“I don’t have any money on me, Barry. You’re gonna have to wait until I go to the ATM.”
“Not working tonight?”
“I’m fucking beat. I’m gonna get a note from the croaker down the block, maybe take the rest of the week off.”
“He’s not a croaker,” Barry says. “He’s never given you a ‘scrip for anything good.”
“Whatever. I hate it when you correct me.”
“Give me the ATM card.”
“Jesus, Barry, can’t you wait?”
He groans, and sits down on the bed.
“Where’s Alannah?” I mutter. “Ask her if you can borrow five bucks.”
“Blood from a stone,” Barry says.
I shrug. “Get a job?”
“This one’s full time, baby.”
“Barry, I’m not your job.”
He rolls his eyes. “How long are you gonna let that girl take advantage of you, anyway?”
“Oh, come on! Quit pushing my buttons today. I’m not in the mood.”
“She has you figured out, all right.”
I stand up. “What are you babbling about?”
“You know she has more money than she lets on, don’t you? She’s playing you like a fiddle.”
“Barry, just stop.”
“Hey, I just don’t want to see you get hurt, that’s all. Look how many of these whores have burned you already.”
He scratches his chin, then his neck, then his back. When was the last time he showered? I decide that I don’t really want to know. I’ve seen him go without one for as long as three weeks.
“Alannah doesn’t have any money. I see her at work every night. She doesn’t make any,” I say.
“I don’t buy it. Even if she only makes a hundred bucks – hell – seventy-five – a night, she can afford to contribute here. Has she paid you for the clothes yet?”
The irony that he’s the one voicing this stuff appears to be totally lost on him.
“She’s still paying off the dog,” I answer.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Think about this for a second: she has no money for food, clothes, or rent. But she can afford to buy a thousand dollar dog?”
I’m silent. The fucking deadbeat has a point.
“She doesn’t respect you at all,” he continues. “Ever notice the way she sneers at you whenever you talk to her?”
I exhale, falling back down on the mattress. “Barry, I don’t want to deal with this right now. I think I’m gonna go to the salon, get my hair trimmed, and maybe get a massage. Are you coming with me?”
He shrugs. “If you buy me a pack of cigarettes.”
I look around the room. The place is a mess, and I’ve been too tired to clean up. I’m still not sure exactly what Barry does all night when Alannah and I are at the club. It certainly isn’t housework.
“Come on,” I agree, getting up off the bed. “Hey, it’s quiet out there. Did she come home yet?”
Barry shakes his head. “Just say the word and I’ll search her bag,” he offers.
“No, Barry! Christ!”
“I’m just saying.”
“Can we just go, please?” I groan.
When we return home, we are locked out of the apartment.
I jiggle the handle on the door incredulously. There is a second deadbolt, but it never gets used because nobody has the key for it. It only locks from the inside.
“What the fuck?” I exclaim, pounding heavily. I can hear music coming from inside the place. “Alannah!” I shout.
“What did I tell you?” Barry remarks, not seeming the least bit disturbed.
“Shut up, will you? … ALANNAH!”
I throw my body against the door, once, twice, then again. Right. As if ninety pounds of soaking wet fury, no matter how passionate it is, will push a tenement door off its hinges.
When the door abruptly opens, I almost fall into the apartment.
“Oh, hey, ma. I didn’t hear you come home,” Alannah says innocently. I walk past her into the hallway, where I drop my shopping bags in a heap next to the hall closet.
Her expression is impassive, and I struggle to match it with my own.
“Would you… please… turn… down… the music,” I quietly articulate. My tone is dry. I’ve had just about enough.
Her little rat dog runs out from my bedroom, yapping, and nips at my ankles. Alannah goes into the living room to switch off the radio. I pick up her dog by the scruff of the neck. He whines. I drop him savagely over the gate and onto the kitchen floor. Then I follow her into the living room. In the eerie quiet that has just replaced all that loud meringue music, my voice sounds to me like it is echoing off the walls.
“Planned Parenthood called,” I say, changing the subject.
She looks at me blankly.
“They have your test results,” I tell her.
She doesn’t say anything.
“For the HIV test? Remember? You can pick them up any day this week. I’ll drive you down there if you want.”
Alannah stares out the window.
“So what day are we going?” I ask.
“I dunno.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I ain’t gonna die anytime soon,” Alannah says.
My jaw drops. “Are you fucking serious?”
“I don’t wanna know, okay?” she says irritably. “So just forget it.”
“Whatever, then. Suit yourself,” I snap, turning to walk out of the room. “Barry, run me a hot bath,” I call out.
“Aren’t we going to work soon?” Alannah protests.
I stop. “Alannah, I’m not going to work tonight. I think I may be coming down with something.”
“You mean I have to take the subway?” she asks. “By myself?”
“If you’d like, I can send Barry to go with you,” I tell her.
She does sneer. Well I’ll be goddamned – in my own apartment, even. Fucking Barry was right.
“No, ma, that’s okay. I can get there all right, I guess.”
“Good.”
She turns her back on me and starts folding clothes, moving them from her duffel bag to plastic bags, and then placing the plastic bags back into the larger bag. It looks like she’s found herself some busy work so that she won’t have to talk to me.
“Alannah, why was the door locked?” I ask.
She whips her head around again to look at me. In her eyes, I can see a hatred that’s barely contained.
“I don’t know,” she says evenly. “Must’ve been an accident.”
She’s well aware that I know she’s full of shit. It’s like she’s taunting me with it.
“Was it an accident that your dog was running loose in the apartment, too?” I persist.
She doesn’t answer me, and continues to fold her dresses.
“Come on, Alannah, this isn’t about me. This is about all of us. This is about not having to step on nasty, bloody dog shit in every single room. This is about my cats not catching something from your dog. It’s unsanitary and disgusting. We all live here.”
She mutters something inaudible under her breath.
I lean closer. “Care to repeat that?”
“I said that we all live here, but everything always has to be your way,” she says.
I want to punch this bitch in the face.
“Of course it’s going to be my way!” I bark. “I’m the only person bringing in any money! Didn’t we say that if you were here for more than a month, you’d start paying rent?”
Alannah zips up her bag, and slips into her coat. “You know I don’t have the money.”
“Hey, you know, you could have paid me before you bought the damned dog,” I say.
She walks past me. “You asked me to move in, remember? You wanted me here. And you’re the one who told me I should have a pet.”
“That’s not exactly… I mean, Jesus, Alannah!”
“I’m going to work,” she says, and strolls out the still-open front door, her keys jangling.
The door slams behind her, but not hard enough for me to tell whether she slammed it on purpose.
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April 5th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
I love this story. It’s real life and none of that fairy tale bs. But…after thirty chapters I kind of feel like it’s not going anywhere, we know her character pretty well by now but nothing is changing. She’s doing drugs, getting taken advantage of, and hating her life pretty much. At first when she went to audition for the band I was hopeful SOMETHING was going to happen, like she was going to throw everything down and decide she was tired of hating her life and what she did for a living. Hopefully something will happen to change everything. Keep writing though, you are doing a great job. I like how the characters are built and the story itself is written.
April 6th, 2009 at 4:12 am
Hi Alicia,
That’s an interesting point and I’m glad you’ve raised it. I’m sure there are many strengths and weaknesses in this manuscript based on the way I decided to tell the story, which is episodic rather than tied to one overall story arc. And, as the writer, I’m too close to see either the strengths or the weaknesses.
But I did write this with a certain feel in mind. Emily feels, in essence, that she’s over the cliff and still falling. To her, there aren’t any peaks and valleys. It’s just a long way down.
I’m happy to hear about the parts you like, and also that you’ve found the story engaging so far. I do hope the plot itself will draw you back in, because I’m pretty sure the payoff at the end is worth it. Especially if you like fiction that reads like real life, rather than a fairy tale. *wink*
Thanks so much for reading, and I really hope you continue to do so.