Okay Princess
Sunday
Lying supine on Tom’s couch. The apartment is warm and smells like dog and my thighs are sticking to the leather cushions and the wheeze in my chest is wearing on me and I’m so hungry, haven’t eaten since whenever, and all I want to do is get into my car and split open the brown bag of plantain chips sitting in the backseat, waiting for me, and smoke a joint and drive to Hollywood. But Tom is dragging. We dropped Ben off at his apartment late, a little before midnight maybe, and now it’s one in the morning and we’ve been sitting around Tom’s apartment for what feels like forever and he keeps saying that we’re going to leave soon but it’s been an hour and soon still hasn’t come.
It is twilight in Hollywood and strangely quiet and neither of us can sleep. We eat pasta for dinner (breakfast?) in my big white bed and watch Mulholland Drive. Tom has never seen Mulholland Drive before and he’s not doing a very good job at paying attention. Camilla is in Betty’s aunt’s bedroom, crying, nervous about her trouble, and Tom rolls his eyes at the screen. This girl, she’s always upset. I try explaining to him about the car accident and her memory loss but he just sighs.
We come to consciousness and find that it’s later in the morning than we’d like. We are lying in the crypt together and it’s hard to move but we do. He gets into the shower and then irons his shirt in my bedroom and I feed the cats and brush my teeth and stare into the mirror and decide that I feel okay about my reflection for a girl who hasn’t prioritized her hygiene in something like three weeks.
Tom goes to work and I take the dog for a walk. I am wearing silver flip flops and a black cardigan with brown cropped leggings and my leggings have no pockets and so I’ve got a red Bic lighter tucked into my waistband and the dog leash tied around my wrist and a joint in my mouth and my keys in one hand and my phone and vape in the other. My mother calls and I don’t have the dexterity to pick up.
I spend the hours between eleven and four o’clock alone in Tom’s apartment, cleaning up my diaries and smoking joints. I sit at the desk stoned and try to remember the last time a day passed where I didn’t get stoned and can’t remember and feel pathetic for a few minutes and then forget about it all. I play with the dog and walk to the liquor store and buy sparkling water and canned espresso and drink both at Tom’s desk and write, write, write until I notice the time and realize I will be late for work. My cough is so wet and I don’t feel like getting dressed but I put my ballet flats on and a little black dress with a big sweater and get into my car.
Tom is driving 101 miles per hour up the 101-North and talking loudly over a Freddie Gibbs song about money. I stare out the window and can’t find the moon. The night is dark and the wind is blowing and I feel suddenly empty inside and, for a few minutes, try to figure out why but can’t and stop trying.
Monday
Tom is in his work clothes, driving my car down Melrose towards La Cienega towards the 10-West. He is supposed to be at his desk in three minutes but it’s going to be more like thirty. We are stuck in a turn lane at the clogged intersection behind a semi truck with a big orange NORMS logo on the side and there’s this gorgeous advertisement on the back. A big beautiful picture of pancakes with syrup and a perfect pat of butter on a white plate, and white text below that reads caught you looking at our tasty hotcakes. Stupid text. So stupid that it puts me in a bad mood. Plus Tom is telling me a story he’s told me twice or thrice before and a song I like is playing and I want to turn the volume up but can’t because it’d be rude.
My mother calls and I pick up and she says you haven’t been calling, you must be in love. Which I deny.
The girl I’m sitting next to at the Erewhon tonic bar on Wilshire Boulevard is so young and tan and there are six Cartier bracelets stacked like Egyptian burial jewelery up her left wrist. I am waiting for a crushed cococcino (organic espresso, organic coconut cream, scratch vanilla syrup, organic coconut whip) and she is waiting for six Hailey Bieber smoothies. I know that she is waiting for six Hailey Bieber smoothies because she’s already gotten up from the little wooden stool twice to check in with the weary baristas about her wait time. What are you waiting on? They ask. Ummmm, like six Hailey Bieber smoothies. I get bored and stand up and pace the aisles and collect dried mango, propolis lozenges and two coconut granola macro bars and purchase them and by the time I’m finished at the register, my drink is ready and the girl is gone.
I get into the car with my cococcino and drive down Bundy to Tom’s apartment. I light a joint and roll down all four windows and listen to “Beverly Laurel” by Tame Impala and when I turn up his street there is a perfect parking spot. I walk upstairs with my vape and my wallet and my keys and use the key he put on my ring last night to unlock the front door and leash the dog. I am wearing beat up black ballet flats and little navy and white striped shorts and the Gold’s Gym tee shirt I bought at Squaresville a couple of months ago. My hair is French pinned in a pile on top of my head and I have big sunglasses on and I am stoned and it’s mostly warm outside but sometimes there is a breeze that spreads goosebumps across my exposed thighs. Lilac jacaranda petals litter the sidewalks and the jasmine is blooming and mostly I feel good but I have this feeling like the other shoe is going to drop soon.
I am doing laps around the Brandy Melville at The Grove and I’m stoned and still have my big sunglasses on because before I left the car, I caught a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror and didn’t feel so good about what I saw. I pile clothing up into my arms without much thought or discretion and then tap my card at the checkout for three-hundred and sixty-four dollars. I feel nothing. The girl at the register shoves all of my new things into a big black bag. The Brandy Melville at The Grove does not have any dressing rooms and so I do not know what any of my new things will look like on. I will find out in an hour or two, I guess, after I shower. Want to straighten my hair. Want to pluck my eyebrows. I think: VANITY NOT SANITY WILL SAVE ME. I drive up Fairfax to Hollywood and pull on to McCadden and idle my car in front of Starbucks and place an order on my phone for a four shot hot americano. I make it back to the bungalow a little before two o’clock. I get stoned on the back steps and pet the cats and get into the bath and stay there for too long and then dry off and try on all of my new things and decide to wear one of the stupid new black cotton dresses I just bought to work with slingback kitten heels.
Work is slow. I drink cold coffee with cream. Max leaves without saying goodbye to me. Dan points out the short hem of my new dress and says that what I am wearing is probably against dress code but good for morale. I slice the skin of my ring finger open with the box cutter and don’t bleed somehow. I call my mother in the break room and she doesn’t pick up and I think she must be in love.
It’s eleven o’clock and there is an accident on the 10, I think. Tom is driving and we are listening to a Cocteau Twins song and trying to get up the on-ramp but we aren’t moving at all and neither is anybody else. A sea of red brake lights extends as far as the eye can see. Every thirty seconds we inch up a foot or two and the GPS tells us that it’s going to take forty-minutes to get back to Hollywood, double the usual at this time of night, and we aren’t sure what’s going on exactly because we can’t see far enough ahead, but we are sure it’s something. We never find out because we sober up and remember that we can simply exit and take the streets. So we pull off on Bundy and there’s this Asian guy with his hazards on in the middle of the street and the front of his car is freshly smashed and he looks so distressed and like maybe he’s been crying. A hit and run, Tom says. I did that to someone once.
Tuesday
We make it back to my apartment sometime after midnight. It’s raining a little and we find the Chinese food he ordered in the car waiting at my door step in a damp paper bag. We go inside and undress and turn the lights off and get into bed and eat cream cheese wontons and spicy eggplant and spring rolls and beef with broccoli and watch that movie with SZA and Keke Palmer where they are desperate for rent money and decide that we hate it and fall asleep.
Tom’s alarm goes off at eleven. He gets up and goes into my kitchen with his laptop and sits at the nook and works while I sit in the bath and cleanse myself and look at my phone. Cal sends a picture of the cat lying in a patch of sunlight in his bedroom and a message that says miss you and it makes me sad for a few minutes and then nauseous for an hour. But then I dry off and moisturize and roll perfume oil all over and feel better. I emerge from the bathroom in my towel and Tom’s still working so I put on the pink cotton spaghetti strap top I bought yesterday and ballet flats and walk down the little hill to the smoke shop. It’s Jim behind the counter instead of the autistic white guy for what feels like the first time in a long time, months maybe, and I ask him where he’s been and he smiles at me and says here, where have you been? He tells me that he works mornings, five days a week, sometimes six. And when I tell him that I guess lately I’ve been sleeping in he smiles and rolls his eyes and says okay princess. He hands me three packs of virginia tobacco Juul pods and only charges me for one and then I walk to Intelligentisa and order two hot dirty chais with whole milk, a brownie cookie and a croissant from the trans girl behind the register. She’s wearing a mini skirt with a hem so short that it’s stressing me out and “A Horse with No Name” by America is playing over the speaker system and I walk uphill back to the apartment singing the la la las of the chorus in my head. La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la.
It’s almost four o’clock and we are heading back to the west side in Tom’s car. It’s cloudy out and grey and a little bit cold and I am wearing a white dress with black polka dots and kitten heels which is really stupid of me considering the weather and the plan we made to take the dog out for a walk. We stop at Herbarium on La Brea to buy one single joint because traffic is bad and we are all out of weed and want to be high. We drive past his old neighborhood and he slows down in front of a beautiful apartment building with trees and a green yard and points at one of the balconies and says a guy was shot in the head there and then keeps driving. It takes an hour to get to Venice and we pull straight into the lot of the dispensary he likes. The security guard looks great. White button up and dark wayfarers. He gives me a hug and tells me that his mother is sick and that he’s been having a terrible day. Tom tells him that he’s sorry to hear that and then asks him if he can use his employee discount on us and the security guard says no, that the girl on shift at the register is strict. And then later, when we don’t have a lighter and the security guard runs to get one, Tom looks at me and says when someone denies you a favor once, they are much more likely to come through the second time.
Tom asks me if I’d like to sleep in my bed or his and I say mine. So we leash the dog and put him into the backseat of the car and drive all the way back to Hollywood. I am so hungry and there is so much traffic, we spend something like an hour on La Brea, and Tom is restless. We pass Jeffrey Deitch and I think of Gabriel and feel a little bit sick but only for a second. Tom parks the car in the red outside of my apartment and we run inside. I feed the cats and take off my dress and put on track pants and my Gimaguas hoodie instead, more appropriate for a walk, and then we go back outside into the last of the sunlight. I lead Tom and the dog down Franklin and then up Holly through the tunnel and deep into the Hollywood Dell, all the way up Weidlake to the Mulholland Reservoir. The houses in the Dell are so nice and the view of the city up high between the properties is like magic. Pink sky, sparkling lights. We make it to the top just as the sun is setting and there’s this fat guy in a water department truck idling by the entrance who stops us from going through. Tom says can we just look at the water and the fat guy turns his engine on and shakes his head no. So we walk back down the winding hill and through the tunnel in the dark to my apartment.
I ask Tom if he’s hungry and he is and then I ask him if he wants to go to my favorite restaurant and he says he does so we drop the dog off and walk to Superba. We sit inside and when Tom asks me to order for us since It’s my favorite, I oblige. The waiter comes over and I ask for two olive oil washed martinis and bread with butter and salt and fresh cheese and brussel sprouts and rigatoni bolognese. The waiter says those are all of my favorite things and I feel pleased. Tom loves the food and hates his martini so I drink both and by the time the glasses are empty I’m drunk. We eat our plates clean and then order two cappuccinos and a piece of chocolate cake for dessert and eat those plates clean too.
Wednesday
The alarm goes off at eight and again at eight thirty and again at eighty fifty-five. At nine, Tom gets up and goes into the living room and takes a meeting from his laptop. I wash my face and put on track pants and a tank top and ballet flats and leash the dog and go out through the kitchen door with a joint and a lighter and a roll of the dog’s shit bags and my headphones and my wallet and my phone and my keys and walk west down Franklin Boulevard. I listen to “Gardena’s Finest” by D. Savage on a loop and pass Highland and the Magic Castle and that beautiful church with the angel’s trumpet flower tree out front where I used to pick up my ex girlfriend from AA meetings and Joan Didion’s old house and go up into Wattles Garden Park. I sit in the grass and light my joint and call Cal. He tells me that the cat has fleas and that work is going well and that he misses me. He asks me if I want to come over and I lie and tell him that I have to be at work in an hour. He says poor baby and then we hang up and I feel sick to my stomach and stare out into the smog for a long time until I forget and start to wonder if I got a tan.
We spend the hours between noon and three smoking and laying. He showers and then I shower and then we sit in my bed, smoke two or three joints, listen to music, talk about music, argue about music. Tom doesn’t have to work today but I do and so eventually we get into his car and he drives me to Santa Monica. I take sips from a flat bottle of sparkling Mountain Valley and look at the time and know that I am late and spend most of the drive trying to come up with something nice to say to Amy when I walk in late but can’t come up with anything.
Work bores me. Someone leaves a passive aggressive pastel sticky note on my desk. I eat pretzel goldfish and drink break room coffee. Ken falls ill and has to go home early. Tom stops by with cowboy brew for me. The new girl earnestly asks me if I am a model and so I decide that I like her immediately. I teach her how to scan invoices and show her the places where she can hit her vape without anybody knowing. I get bored and go to the bathroom and draw on eyeliner. It is an easy night and I am free before nine. Tom picks me up in the alley and hands me a lit joint and I haven’t smoked anything since this morning so I get a little too high and anxious and start to feel suffocated by my greasy hair and, generally, my life.
Tom and I sit for dinner at a steak house chain in Marina Del Rey. Our waitress is a hey mamas lesbian who keeps calling Tom boss. What can I get for you, boss? The lights are low and the space is all industrial, gears and wood panels and exposed pipes, and there’s rock music playing a little too loud overhead. We drink beer and eat ahi nachos and caesar salad with grilled chicken and fish and chips and talk about money and sex for an hour and then Tom pays the check and we get into the car and drive to Hollywood. For dessert: refrigerated dates in my dark bedroom.
Thursday