Citizen Girl (20 page)

Grateful that the front door is propped open with a brick, I dart inside Buster’s lobby and press for the elevator. Behind me a woman in a trench coat and sneakers wheels in a small suitcase, a bungee cord precariously holding a boom box on top. ‘Phew.’ She blows a blonde curl off her face. ‘What a night. I hate working St Patrick’s—’ Her cell rings. ‘Hey, honey. Uh-huh, uh-huh … Well, put him on.’ She pulls a tube of red lip-gloss out of her pocket and swipes it on, rubbing her lips together as she leans back against the wall, her voice softening to a comforting semi-whisper, ‘Hi, Christopher, now be a good boy for Daddy, and go have your dreams so you can tell Mommy all about them.’ She wheels in
next to me and we both reach for the ‘4’ button. Transferring the phone to her shoulder, she opens the outside pocket of her well-worn case and pulls out a pair of gold stilettos. ‘Only three more. I’ll be home around four … No, Ed’s sick … Honey, please don’t start, they’ll send another bodyguard when they can, but I can’t wait any longer or I’m gonna lose this gig. I’ll call you after.’ She shoves her sneakers in the suitcase and grimaces as she slips swollen feet into the heels. The elevator stops and the door rattles open.

We start down the hall in the same direction, the highly audible moans of either a deeply pleasured or deeply pained woman growing louder with each step. ‘
YES! YES! YES!
’ Oddly, we both stop in front of 4A. She presses the doorbell, then unties her coat, goose-pimpled skin popping out over her tight vinyl top. ‘
GIVE IT TO ME! DO IT! DO IT!!
’

‘Dude, he’s got both fists up her ass!’ Boisterous male voices spring at us through the door.

‘He’s up to his elbow! That’s fucking insane!’ I hear Luke laughing. ‘Hey, who wants to fist the stripper?’

Exchanging silent glances, we both step back. Whipping her coat closed, the woman reaches for her phone, her finger hesitating over the send button as the door swings open with a fresh burst of male cheers and Luke appears, ringed by a cloud of cigar smoke. He looks us up and down before calling over his shoulder, ‘She’s here!’

The woman drops the phone in her pocket and fixes Luke with a steely gaze. ‘Only dancing. Just like at a club, no touching. Got it?’ He nods and she braves a wide
smile. ‘Okay, boys,’ she yells out, rolling into the dark apartment and taking a deep breath as she leads the way for both of us. ‘Who’s the groom? I want to party all night long!’ I place the kid in a tuxedo tee shirt, wearing an inflatable ball-and-chain around his neck, as Sam from the Slipper Room. ‘Where should I plug this in?’ The woman holds up the boom box.

‘Just get that ugly-ass coat off! Let’s see what we got!’

I scan the room for Buster, but am caught by the television screen, where a shaved vulva looks to be in the final stages of birthing a large man, with only his forearm left to expel. Buster enters from the bedroom examining a plastic bong. ‘Dudes, it’s tapped.’ He sees me and blanches.

I turn on my heel as the boom box fires up.

‘Shit! Wait—’

Buster slams out after me, catching up as I pound for the elevator. ‘G! What’re you doing here?’

‘I don’t even – I can’t even—’ I throw my palm up in his face, unable to look at him.

‘It’s just a bachelor party!’ he shrugs incredulously.

‘Fine! Great! I’m leaving.’ The elevator door opens and I escape, but he slips in after me, quickly pushing the black ‘PH’ button.

‘Jesus,
wait a second
.’ He lifts his baseball hat to roughly tousle his hair as the car jerks upwards. ‘Can we just talk about this? I didn’t know you were coming over—’

‘And that makes this okay?’ I uselessly jab at the ‘L’.

‘You have nothing to be jealous of.’

‘
Jealous?!
That you can pay someone to fake wanting
you for money to feed her child?
Jealous?!
Yes, two fists, please. I can never get enough. God, let me off this elevator—’ I shove past him onto a stairwell, slamming through the exit door to a dormant roof garden. I pace a large lap around the barbed wire perimeter before I realize there’s no other exit.

‘Look,’ he calls across the roof, ‘I helped you find a place! I hog-tied my roommates into helping you move! And now you think I’m an asshole just because I’m having fun with some guys and there’s some stupid porno on, which we’re barely even watching. Well, if that’s what you think, then there’s nothing I can do—’

‘Except not be one!’

‘
It’s not my party!
And she’s just dancing, there’s no child! Everyone has bachelor parties – I don’t understand why you’re so pissed at me.’

‘Because I am!’ I stride back to him. ‘I don’t want you to be this boy! I just spent the afternoon listening to co-eds fight for the right to fuck you, trekked through an onslaught of disgustingly personal commentary from the general male population, and arrived here to see a woman getting her anus torn, a woman who may or may not be doing it of her own volition—’

‘Jesus! That tape was Luke’s idea! I wasn’t even watching it—’

‘And fisting the stripper, were you going to be around for that? Oh, sorry, am I keeping you? You don’t want to miss the ceremonial donning of the latex glove.’

‘Luke’s just talking smack. They’ve all been here drinking for hours. She’s just gonna dance. She’s gonna dance
for twenty minutes and go home and I’m gonna clean up after all of them …’

The wind gusts, my hair cutting across my face as I lose steam, his defense weakening my conviction until I’m nothing but an uninvited harridan shrieking on his roof. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking,’ I lie, all hopes of a bottle of wine and mind-obliterating sex vanishing. ‘I shouldn’t have come. I don’t know you.’

He blows out a long breath. ‘But I want you to,’ he says quietly, sticking his hands deep into his pockets. ‘I’m sorry. I really don’t want to … upset you.’ Fighting against a tide of so much conspiring to upset me, his lanky frame swims into view, borne to me by the floodlight. He shivers in the darkness.

‘What’s going on down there – I’m not okay with it,’ I say quietly, clear on this much.

‘I hear you.’ He reaches out for me, gingerly taking my hand. I look in his eyes as his thumb runs delicately over my skin. ‘I really feel something here.’

‘I do, too. And I hate we can’t ever seem to get past … this.’

Pulling me to him, his other hand slides up my arm to my cheek. He takes my bag off my shoulder and sets it down. ‘I’m so glad you came here – that you just came over. I felt like a shit for running out of your place. It’s been an insane week and Luke’s freaking out with the whole unemployment thing and I kind of have to look out for him—’

I stop him, taking his face in my hands, forcing him to look at me as I try to gauge his sincerity.

He smiles softly, staring into my eyes. And then we’re kissing – backing up towards the brick wall. ‘Let me not be that boy,’ he says, before pressing his mouth onto my neck. My fingers find their way into his hair as his warm hands slip under my skirt and I’m filled with the resolution to obliterate the past fifteen minutes from my memory right along with the rest of this day.

‘Um, Buster?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Could you not be that boy at my apartment? ’Cause it’s freezing up here.’

8. The F-Word

‘Guy, hi. Hope you had a good weekend. I emailed you the findings from the first focus group and wanted to schedule a time to go over them in person as they were slightly different than we anticipated. I’m free so, uh, whenever is good for you.’

‘Hey, Buster. Good for me? Thanks for asking. Yes, very. And I’m sure my futon is recovering nicely. I’ll pass along your concern as soon as I have a chance.’

‘Hi, Guy, I’m calling because I see you haven’t had a chance to open my email so maybe we could schedule a lunch date. I’ve completed four more focus groups now and the results are pretty static. I’m emailing them over so … I’m here, whenever you’re free.’

‘B, of course I’m free. If you get the movie, I’ll pick up the wine. Say, eight thirty? My futon sends its regards.’

‘Guy, I’m just going to send along a revised plan for making us more appealing to feminists, in case you didn’t read my email yesterday. I think this document would be a better use of your time. Again, just a few changes MC could make. I’ll be at my desk. Look forward to your feedback. Sorry, it’s, ummmm, Thursday evening.’

*

‘Girl,’ Guy leans over the MC kitchen counter the next evening, drumming a cabinet door, pa-duh-bum, before tipping back out of sight. ‘Let’s catch up.’

‘Coming!’ I abandon my search for a plastic fork and skibble into his office after him.

‘What’s the status?’ He opens his steaming take-out platter. ‘Where are we?’

‘I’m not sure what you’ve read of my emails …’

‘Skimmed’em.’ He tears open ketchup packets with his teeth.

‘Well, over all, the focus groups have been really informative. Essentially, MC has a significant following.’

‘And?’ he asks, mouth full.

‘It’s more of a “but”.’

‘Cut to it, Girl.’

‘These women don’t associate themselves with
Ms.,
to the extent that adding
Ms.
to your site could turn off a large proportion of your users.’

‘I thought you were polling the feminists?’ he asks, sticking a fat French fry in his mouth.

‘I tried. But, unfortunately, it seems that self-identified “feminists” are primarily an older generation, as represented by the women you met at the conference. And they’re generally a skeptical bunch – savvy women who don’t leap on a product bandwagon just’cause it rolls by. Suspect of advertising in a manipulative marketplace, they put significant value in Gloria’s brand. Bottom line, they might come, but only if they’re following her. And even then there are additional changes we need to make for the site to be palatable.’

He coughs, his Coke going down the wrong pipe, ‘Palatable?’

‘You okay?’

He waves me on.

‘I’ve outlined them in further detail than was in yesterday’s email.’ I study his face for signs of recognition. ‘We have some soundbites.’ His brow lifts. ‘Sort of short and sweet and not really from Gloria’s camp —’

‘Lose Gloria,’ he interrupts, wrapping both hands around an overstuffed cheeseburger and biting into it. He chews, wiping his ketchup-covered mouth with a napkin. He swallows. ‘What else?’

‘Well, I’ve covered all the college campuses in the five boroughs. The results were pretty consistent. Sorry, lose Gloria?’

‘Good. Consistent is good.’ He wipes a glob of ketchup from his chin. My stomach growls as I remember the pasta growing cold on my desk.

‘Yes, but I only found a handful of young
Ms.
readers—’

‘You’re getting way too hung up on this
Ms.
thing. I want a, you know, young feminist appeal, that’s all. You’re over-thinking.’

‘But I was only able to find a handful of young feminists. That was really the overwhelming—’

‘Overwhelming?’ He cocks his head at my hyperbole.

‘And they don’t like the MC site. At all. Guy, I’m concerned that without the
Ms.
archive we don’t have a whole lot to hang our hat on.’

‘Don’t be.’ He reaches for his Coke and takes a swig.

‘Okay.’
Why
? ‘So, why, exactly? I mean, if you’re not able to get Gloria to —’

‘Jesus! Fuck Gloria.’ He stares across the desk at me. ‘I don’t want to talk about her anymore.’ He wipes his fingers and tosses the napkin in a long arc, just missing my head and, yet again, fully missing the trash can behind me.

I reach down to retrieve the sticky wad and deposit it into his wastebasket. ‘I’m sorry. If we could just take a tiny step back. You asked me to help you get the
Ms.
archive on the site, to rebrand —’

‘
Ms., Ms., Ms.
’ He scowls at me like a petulant child.

‘You did say
Ms.
…’

‘Girl, I’m not going to have a conversation where we’re quoting each other back and forth because I don’t have to.’

‘Okay,’ I say, fumbling for footing, ‘so what should I be working on?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I can take these issue-oriented additions directly to the web designers. And I’m happy to reach out to the breast cancer organizations —’

‘You know what? I do have a homework assignment for you.’

I click my pen open.

‘Stop thinking.’

‘Sorry?’

‘
Stop. Thinking
,’ he repeats in frustration. He stands and arches his back. ‘Shit, is it seven already?’ He runs both hands through his hair. Panic swirls up through my pumps.

‘Okay, I’ll just …’ I feel myself shrinking, Alice-style, until he’ll be able to pick me up with his fingers and blow me into his wastebasket. And most likely miss. ‘I can work on other things for you, Guy.’

‘I gotta go.’ He tightens his tie knot.

‘Did you ever have a chance to read my pitch, because it’s all spelled out there. I’m just concerned about where we crossed wires.’

‘So am I.’ He tugs a ream of files from his bag, tossing them forcefully onto the desk. ‘I talked till I was fucking blue in the face. I offered your
Ms.
Steinem the fucking world. That woman has no vision and no sense of humor. Have I even read her magazine?’ He flushes at the memory. ‘As if you don’t get the whole fucking sob story from the first three pages.’ He whips his headset off the desk. ‘
She’s
not selling them anything – what kind of bullshit is that?! Everybody’s selling something. And if you think you’re not you’re totally fucking deluded. Complete waste of my fucking time. Both of you.’

The blood drains from my face.

Must stay composed. Must pick up bag. Must take all I can. Download files. Turn off computer. Lock emptied desk. Wave. Smile. Leave.