I’m going home. You’re leaving in the morning, right? I’ll come say goodbye. Rice Ass flew up suddenly behind her. Her face, undeniably striking, gorgeous even, pushed through Ziggy’s orange hair as if through a fringed curtain. She rested her chin on Ziggy’s shoulder.
Thanks for the party! she cried cheerily. She shot a wink at Quinn. Let’s go, she pulled Ziggy by her studded belt backward out the door. Michelle listened to them clatter down the stairs, their voices rising giddily from the sidewalk below the window.
Ugh, I can’t believe she’d go home with that person! Quinn spat.
Ugh, I Can’t Believe You Care! Michelle raged, a fresh batch of tears exploding from her eyes. She’s Like A Trashy Fucking Dime-A-Dozen Stripper! Gross! And If I Had A Best Friend, Which I Do Not, It Would Be Ziggy, So Shut Up!
Quinn put her hands up to ward off Michelle’s charging emotions. Sorry, sorry. She reached out and actually petted Michelle’s head. Quinn was a Libra, she couldn’t bear for the upset to linger. She’s actually a sex-work activist, that girl, Quinn said. She does really cool work. She’s unionizing the club she works at. She read your book, she really likes you. She couldn’t believe she was at your party.
Ugh! Michelle cried. She didn’t know what to say to all of this, so she made unattractive animal noises instead. Ugh! Ack! Ech! She slammed her head back down on the futon and cried. She cried for her room, which was not hers anymore. She cried for the bookstore, which had employed her in spite of her being so unemployable, just because they thought it was cool that she’d written a book. Now who would employ her? She cried for the friends who had come to her party, who she had all but ignored in the face of Quinn’s flirtations. She cried for the friends who hadn’t come to her party because they weren’t really her friends anymore, just people she used to be friends with, how had that happened, how had Michelle allowed them to drift away? She cried because Quinn’s giant palm was resting on her thigh and it didn’t mean anything.
Quinn was thinking the exact same thoughts as Michelle: that their whole connection was a mistake born of drugs, that if not for Quinn’s weakness of will she would be back with her husband where she belonged, plucking tender pops from a warm bowl of popcorn, snuggling. You know, she began, I think I’m going to head home.
What? Michelle was alarmed.
Don’t worry, I’ll still drive you to Los Angeles, okay?
You Have To, Michelle begged desperately. You Really, Really Have To.
I don’t actually have to, Quinn corrected her. She was glad this person was leaving. When Michelle was gone Quinn would go to Kabuki hot springs and spend all day in the sauna. She would find kale, somewhere she would find it, and she would eat it. She had had her dalliance with heroin, maybe she’d write some poems about it. It had been crazy and Quinn had been looking for crazy. But she was done. She craved feeling her husband beside her, the sleeping bulk of him, like snuggling down with a bear in the woods. She found her jacket on Michelle’s floor, red leather with extreme snaps and lapels. No one looking at Quinn would ever think she had a husband and you know what? Quinn thought that was cool.
See you in the morning. Get some sleep. Quinn crouched beside her crying friend and gave her hair a ruffle. Michelle shrugged it off. Sometimes Michelle felt like everyone else was a poser and she was the only authentic person in the whole world. She was 100 percent on this. There was nowhere else for her to be, no husband to return to, nothing safe, nothing anywhere. It was a lonely thought. She fell asleep trying to make it feel triumphant.
14
Michelle woke in the morning to the noise of Ziggy hip-chucking the bedroom door open. Layers of paint kept it stuck to the jamb, it required a bit of violence to pop open. The punch of it giving way stirred Michelle, alone on her futon. Her sinuses, clogged with snot and cocaine, had drained into the left side of her head as she slept, and so her face looked lopsided, puffier on that end, like a fun-house mirror or the boy from Mask. Ziggy walked into the room with two coffees steaming from their paper cups. Rise and shine, LA woman. It was incredible how well Ziggy functioned. Her neck was spotted with hickeys as if with leprosy. Her goggles held her unwashed hair back from her face, which was scrubbed clean. Ziggy used fancy face wash that heated up as it lathered. She smelled like the inside of an Aveda salon. Michelle did not know how she did it. She had been up all night fucking that girl and had arrived exactly on time to awaken Michelle, with coffee. Michelle lowered her face into the steaming cup and let the bitter cloud rouse her.
Your married woman’s outside and ready to go, Ziggy said. You excited?
Michelle shrugged. Do I Look Like Mask? she asked, touching the swollen roll of her face. Like Eric Stoltz In The Movie Mask? Where He Has That Disease, You Know, It Makes His Face All Bumpy?
And Cher is his mom? Ziggy asked. And she’s like a biker and gets him a hooker for his birthday?
Yeah!
I fucking love that movie. Ziggy pulled a pack of Camels from the ass of her white jeans and lit up in the empty room.
But Do I Look Like That?
Ziggy squinted at her friend. I don’t know, she said slowly. I don’t think you look like Cher.
No, Do I Look Like The Boy, The Boy In Mask!
Oh god! Ziggy snorted a cloud of smoke from her nose. No, you don’t look like the boy in Mask. Why? Because you were crying?
You Can Tell?
Ziggy nodded. Michelle drank her coffee.
You didn’t have a great going-away party?
Michelle’s finger shot out and poked the mottled skin of Ziggy’s neck. You Did.
That girl’s crazy, Ziggy said with a grin. She rubbed her neck and winced. She bit my fucking throat off. She drew on her cigarette like an asthmatic sucking on an inhaler and tossed the butt out the window. I should get back there, I left her outside in her car.
Who? That Girl?
Lelrine, yeah. She’s out front with Quinn.
That Girl! That Girl!
Yeah. Ziggy shrugged.
God, I Fucking Hate That Girl!
Ziggy looked unfazed. She likes you. She brought your book, she wants you to sign it.
Ugh! Michelle cried and reinserted herself into the futon, sinking her face into the pillow. Ack! Ech! Ziggy kicked her gently with the toe of her motorcycle boot.