Chapter 3
As the days and weeks ooze onward, I keep coming back to that thing Chris mentioned about whether the ending the characters
want and the ending the audience wants can be the same. It’s not like I’ve been thinking about him or anything, just the premise.
I’m not giving his theory much weight. It’s just like an accountant to try to turn art into math and think that everything
can fit into an overly simplistic Venn diagram. I want to disprove him, but the problem is I haven’t actually made it far
enough in any of the plays I’ve started writing to reach the ending, and even if I did, it’s not like I’d have much of an
audience to test it on.
I’m tempted to debate the whole thing with him just so I can win and let it go, but there are way too many “Chris accountants”
in this city to track him down. Not that I haven’t toppled down a few rabbit-hole internet searches. It’s better that I can’t
find him, though. The only reason I’m pulled to him at all is the sense of the unfamiliar, the magnet in me that sticks to
anything new before inevitably repelling it the next day.
It’s on my mind one afternoon a month or three after the art gallery opening as I head outside to the shared courtyard behind the Inn that we treat as our own private garden.
Occasionally some other tenants from the adjoining apartments will come over and smoke with us, but mostly they just let us do our thing.
It’s pretty clear that the space belongs to us.
Jenni has strung some colored Christmas lights that we leave up year-round, Tara feeds the squirrels all the best Lucky Charms
marshmallows, and Hal is always out there absorbing inspiration from the clouds or typing up some new business proposal. I
sort of float around like an urban nymph doing whatever the fuck I want. Occasionally I even remember to water the weeds that
we call ivy. I like helping them climb up the walls and go wild.
Hal’s out there now in her throne. It’s one of those hanging egg chairs, swinging back and forth to induce creative flow.
Her laptop is perched on her folded legs and she’s punching away at the keyboard.
I start to ask about the character versus audience thing, but she disengages with that I’m-in-the-zone look. She’s been honoring
a burst of entrepreneurial energy, up straight for the past who knows how many hours or days, surviving on cold brew and cold
ramen. I’ve got no idea what Hal’s working on, but she’ll tell me when she’s ready. Poking the bear never works even though
it’s fun.
I pick up Hal’s empty ramen bowl and a stray dishrag to take back inside. But she pounces and claws the rag back from me like
I’ve just stolen her most prized possession.
“What’re you doing?” she shrieks. “That’s the demo!”
“The what?” I ask, taken aback by her attachment to this scraggly little rag.
Hal shrieks again. “It’s the demo for my start-up.”
“Are you inventing a dishrag company?” I guess. “Made for men, so they start doing their fair share of domestic duties?”
“No,” Hal says. “It’s a bra-humbug!”
I ask what a bra-humbug is and she impatiently explains that it’s a bra for people who hate bras.
You know, all the beautiful Scrooges out there like us.
Like a bandeau but actually comfortable and supportive, not just some flimsy fashion statement to please the male gaze.
“And it’s made 100 percent of recycled material. ”
Landfill material might be the better term, but I start to see the vision. That’s the thing with Hal—she’s almost too brilliant. It can take
a while for other people to catch up, even me sometimes.
“Very innovative.” I applaud. “We can get scrappy and plaster your logo onto the Red Rocket, and I’ll give you free advertising
as I speed around the city.”
Hal makes a face like I don’t understand how start-ups work. To be fair, I don’t know a ton but I hate it when she gets all
condescending. She says first she needs to get the frat bro investors to see the vision and hand over the money to scale the
production and build a robust direct-to-consumer sales operation, but it’s an uphill battle.
“Less than 2 percent of venture capital dollars go to women-founded businesses, you know,” she says. Her jaw hardens into
that pissed-off-but-determined-as-anything expression that’s basically a prerequisite for success. It gives me that warm,
proud feeling to be on this ride with her.
“You’ve got this,” I say. “You’re a literal genius.”
“I know,” Hal snaps. “I’ve just got to keep grinding.”
Hal shoos me away, so I walk back inside where Jenni and Tara are sprawled out on the couch, looking as hungover as I feel.
We went out last night to celebrate Jenni quitting her latest job, some gig at a think tank that wasn’t half as creative as
it sounded. She used a portion of her paychecks to buy a Polaroid camera and film, and now she’s going to pursue photography.
It’s all part of the process of elimination to help her find her passion.
“No, it’s not anti-feminist,” Tara’s telling Jenni now as they both gulp giant mugs of something—maybe coffee, maybe whiskey,
probably both.
“Let’s ask EJ,” Tara says and turns toward me. “Do you think it’s anti-feminist for Jenni to ask out her ex-boss Peter?”
I think about it, tip it on one side and then the other to see how it stands, how it falls.
“It’s not anti-feminist,” I decide. “I mean, sure, there’s the concerning power dynamic from your origin story, but the fact that you’re the one asking him out subverts that.
And you don’t work together anymore, so it’s not like you have to do what he says.
He can take directions from you this time around. ”
Tara says yup, that’s exactly what she said too, and Jenni says that settles it, she’ll text him now. “Should I suggest drinks
or coffee?” she wants to know.
I say “drinks” at the same time Tara says “coffee,” and Jenni looks flummoxed.
“Jenni,” I say, “you can do whatever the fuck you want. You don’t need our permission.”
I lay a quick hug on her to make sure she feels my softness. It’s hard to detect sometimes, but they’re not my soulmates for
nothing. They’re fluent in EJ.
“You’re an ooey-gooey marshmallow at the center,” Jenni tells me. “You’re just always coated in charcoal on the outside.”
It’s a pretty good summation, I’ve got to admit. “What can I say, I like the flames and the crunch,” I reply.
“Well, here goes nothing,” Jenni says. She exhales a pent-up breath and starts drafting a text.
“I’ll be out driving,” I say, grabbing the car keys and heading out the front door.
It’s that kind of day where I can’t sit still for too long. Technically I’m sitting when I’m driving, but the rush of the
motion soothes the fidgety feeling. I’m as deranged a driver as you’d expect, but no tickets yet—just a couple dozen warnings
that I always flirt my way out of and call theater rehearsal.
I drive for a while on my own tonight, and then when I get bored of myself, I start picking up riders.
I’m very selective about who I let into my car—no one who’s got an Uber rating above three stars out of five.
The lower the rating, the more interesting the person; it’s basically a scientific correlation.
And it’s not like I’m that concerned about anyone wrecking the Red Rocket.
There’s negligible monetary value left to lose; it’s all emotional at this point.
The bumper is duct-taped together and the wipers smear the chipped windshield with stale ash and dirt.
I accidentally press Accept for someone named Olivia who’s got a 4.9 rating, nearly perfect. I’m about to cancel it, but I’m
already at the pickup destination in the West Village. It’s the corner of Greenwich and West 11th Street, the part of the
city where everyone dresses like they’re expecting to be mistaken for a celebrity at all times.
This woman on the curb, Olivia it must be, is carefully cross-checking my license plate like she already doesn’t trust me.
She’s with a guy who opens the car door for her. It’s just like men to think that they’re being all kind and considerate when
actually they’re just propagating society’s chauvinistic order. Because while chivalry is alive, sexism can’t be dead.
Olivia is nothing but chic and bones. She’d blow away in a mild wind, maybe already has. She’s got that vacancy about her,
no aura at all. I stare her down in the rearview mirror as she gets into the back seat.
She looks like cashmere and smells like cashmere and is the type of person I might’ve been jealous of in middle school, back
before I awakened to the perks of being different. Or maybe she’s someone I’d see now at a fashion week after-party, the kind
of event I’d crash just to piss off the people who are on the list, waiting their turn for admission. We’d start hooking up
until I’d realize there was no flavor to it, no pulse, so I’d dash out before doing anything memorable enough that I’d need
to forget.
Or more likely we’d never start hooking up in the first place because she’s probably never delved deep enough into herself to realize that she’s not totally straight—no one is.
Her parents are definitely the kind of people who make snarky comments about how the world is going to hell with all these gays with blue hair cluttering up the streets.
The guy gets into the car after Olivia. I can’t see his face, but I already know who he is. People like Olivia always date
the same kind of guy.
If it seems like I’m being judgmental, I am. I don’t ride around this city on a high horse saying I don’t judge people. Judging
people sparks joy, so why should I quit?
They buckle their seat belts right away. It makes me want to weave in and out of the other cars even more recklessly than
usual. Olivia clasps both her hands around one of her partner’s arms like she’s clinging for dear life, and I feel a surge
of gratitude that I’m not chained like that to a man.