Chapter 16
LYSSA
In Wellington, I sat at an outdoor table at an amazing seafood restaurant with Lia and Cilla, comparing our boutique shopping hauls.
After seeing WOW—the show which made us say the title at least a hundred times—we walked along the waterfront, licking ice creams that made me think of Mike.
We braved the city’s notorious wind to hike up to the best viewpoint of the whole city, and then later that night watched even braver souls take a Fall (Autumn, they called it!) dip in the freezing harbor.
Lia had to go home after Wellington, but Cilla and I continued our adventure.
On the flight to the South Island to go to Queenstown, I demolished the tiny cookie the flight attendant gave me and tried not to miss Mike. You couldn’t miss what you literally had never had.
But as Cilla and I sipped and spat our way through the vineyards of Otago, I had to admit that I did miss Mike, and the feeling was made so much worse by the knowledge that I’d only had a taste of what was possible between us.
I’d found real pleasure in Mike’s arms—or in his bathtub, struggling for air under his hand, if you wanted to be technical about it.
But neither of us could afford to be pulled off course.
We were both too ambitious, too set on our respective courses.
Compromise wasn’t a word in either of our vocabularies.
His shoe theory had merit.
As I bounced around on a jet boat over the Shotover River, while Cilla waved to me from the viewing platform, I resolved to put my focus back on my career. No more mustachioed-man-pining from me. I was moving forward.
Although, when I was soaking in an outdoor tub at a luxury spa overlooking the Queenstown mountain range, it was impossible not to think about my last bathing experience.
Since that sexual triumph, I’d masturbated by myself successfully three times.
Three! Hello empowerment! Later that same night, I’d masturbated again (this time I didn’t reach the same kind of peak, but that was okay because I still liked it), and I used the resulting rush of endorphins to apply for every fashion job in New York that I could find.
Cilla could have been annoyed at me for being a bit distracted as we took in some of the most amazing tourist experiences New Zealand had to offer.
But she was a delightfully low maintenance companion, just happy to be along for the ride.
At first, I’d had to twist her arm to get her to come with me—she’d baulked at letting me pay for everything, but I explained she’d be doing me a favor by keeping me company and helping me get footage.
Cilla only had a stalled renovation project waiting for her back in Woodville, lucky for me, so she was free as a bird.
Call me selfish, but I was glad of that.
I didn’t want to be alone. Not now, and honestly?
Not ever. I’d spent my whole childhood alone, and I was over it.
The bravest thing I’d ever done was take off to the other side of the world without anyone with me.
But as soon as I’d met people here, I negated my own milestone by latching onto anyone who showed me kindness, glomming onto them like the clam thingies that Cilla and I had eaten with champagne last night.
Some people just weren’t capable of being alone, and I was one of them.
I didn’t feel bad about maxing out Mom’s credit card to ensure I had company on my adventure. She didn’t care, she never checked her statements. And money was made up, anyway.
At first it might have seemed odd to my followers that my travel companion was a sixty-five-year-old woman, but Cilla, with her floral dresses and orange hair twisted in a chignon, matched my brand and looked great on camera.
When we did an Instagram live from the balcony of our hotel, my followers fell in love with her, seeing her as a kind of fashion mother figure.
(Clearly, I wasn’t the only fashion girlie whose trauma was maternally imparted.)
This was something Cilla picked up on.
She asked me about it over dinner at a luxury restaurant where the dishes were inspired by Aotearoa’s wild game and native plants.
“Are you in touch with your family, Lyssa?”
I would rather talk about Cilla’s renovation—I had an idea for using floral contact paper on the vertical risers of her stairwell—than I would about my family, but her expression suggested she wouldn’t be deterred.
I swallowed the last of my mānuka honey and cheddar roll before I answered. Cheese rolls were a South Island delicacy, I’d learned. At the airport they were six dollars each, but this upscale restaurant had an expensive version that was worth every penny.
“We’re not close. She and my stepdad—he married my mom when I was three—still live in Connecticut where I grew up. Mom lectures there, and Charles is a poet. If you’re not text on paper, and preferably also very old or linguistically significant, you’re not of interest to them.”
“I’m not close with my family either,” Cilla said after a mouthful of her venison tartare. “They were deeply disappointed to learn bisexuality wasn’t a phase I would grow out of.” She licked her fork. “I tried to tell them. But bigots’ ears are painted on.”
“I know,” I said with feeling.
Cilla eyed me. “I looked you up on the interwebs. Lia showed me how. If you don’t mind me saying so, Lyssa, there are some very rude little cunts sending you comments.”
The party of German tourists at the table next to ours gasped and fell to a hushed silence. One older woman looked particularly aghast.
Cilla leaned across the chasm between our tables and patted her arm. “It’s just an expression, pet. It’s neutral. There are plenty of lovely cunts walking this Earth too.”
The Germans didn’t look reassured.
Luckily, our main courses arrived. I had slow-cooked wild boar belly with aromatic spices and plum, and Cilla had a mānuka honey baked trout with roast kūmara purée. Kūmara was sweet potato, the waiter explained. Both dishes smelled divine.
“I’ve heard Kiwis say that word before,” I told Cilla. “The c-word. But it still shocks me.”
Cilla wasn’t listening, her eyes were wide after her first forkful of trout. “Fuck me, this is delicious!”
The Germans next to us looked newly scandalized, and I giggled.
When Cilla’s eyes finished rolling back, she continued. “I know you would have heard worse language staying with Mike.” Then she remembered he wasn’t my first Holliday—so to speak. “And living with Caroline!”
“Caroline doesn’t swear,” I told her. “She says old Hollywood stars’ names instead.
It makes talking to her very distracting.
” Especially for me. I’d always lose track of what she was saying.
“But the c-word still makes my breath catch.” I took a mouthful of my own delicious dinner and savored the moment.
“It’s thought William Shakespeare had a vocabulary of around 30,000 words, which was more than 6 times the average at that point in time.
To the best of my knowledge”—with a nervous look at the Germans I dropped my voice to a whisper—“ cunt wasn’t one of them.
” I straightened. “But to be sure, I’d have to ask my mom, the Shakespearean professor, and that’s not happening. ”
Cilla studied me. “You’re a sad soul in cheerful clothing, Lyssa Luxe.”
I ate quietly for a while, stunned by Cilla’s perceptiveness.
“No one has ever seen me so accurately,” I said finally. “Not seen me, seen me. They usually see my clothes.”
For example, when we’d arrived at the restaurant earlier tonight, the server called my earrings, which were Barbie heads sprayed with neon paint, “Memorable.”
I reacted like it was a compliment, but Cilla said it wasn’t.
“Tell me how you got started in fashion,” she prompted.
“I had a fashion blog when I was a teenager, and posted my outfits of the day.” My mind flitted back to the combinations I had styled—extravagant tulle fascinators with odd stockings, chunky knits and lace dresses.
“Everyone in my school thought I was out of my mind, but it was haute couture , darling.”
“How did you start your blog?”
“It’s a long story.”
Cilla motioned for me to go ahead.
“One time I thrifted a pair of ugly orthopedic ballet flats and painted them different colors. One was half red and half blue, the other was half green and half yellow. I got bullied mercilessly for them and ran home in tears. Mom was home—she was never usually home, but she was on research sabbatical that year, so I went from never seeing her to seeing her every single day. I tried to explain what had happened and why I’d come home early.
I had this vision of her wrapping me in her arms and telling me to wear all the weird shoes I wanted.
But all she said was that perhaps I would have an easier time with the other kids if my grades were better. ”
Cilla made a what-the-fuck face.
I nodded. “That night, she sat me at the kitchen table and made me write out pages of Macbeth by hand. It didn’t stop other kids from making fun of me. At all.”
“That would have made me hate Macbeth ,” Cilla said.
I made a face. “It made me hate her.”
I’d never said that out loud before. The truth was like a balloon animal slipping from my Gran’s hands before she could tie it, and whizzing away.
“I don’t mind Macbeth ,” I continued. “But I still feel like I’m sitting at that kitchen table whenever I hear the dagger speech.
Later that night, I uploaded my first outfit to the internet.
Page hits were slow at first—it took forever to get 100, but those hundred people really loved my painted shoes.
Ten thousand came quickly. Then 20,000. In my final year of high school I started really focusing on growing my channels and making videos.
I had 500,000 subscribers by the time I graduated and moved to New York.
I took my time learning the city and making connections.
Then a few brands sponsored my tuition at fashion school.
When I was twenty-five, I landed the Bossi internship.
It wasn’t my mom’s preferred career for me, but she could accept that I was at the top of my field, and she wasn’t going to let her daughter live in a neighborhood that wasn’t literary .
Over her dead body. Honestly, I think she was hoping that rubbing elbows with NYU students all the time would inspire a shift in careers. ”
“You’ve had a very prodigious career.”
If I hadn’t been raised by a Shakespearean academic and a poet, I wouldn’t have known what that word meant. Or that it was true.
“I guess I have.” Then the wine pairings that had accompanied our dinner courses made me confess, “But now I feel like a star that’s all burned up. Like, I was too bright too soon, and now I’m finished. My best achievements are behind me, and I didn’t even recognize that at the time.”
Cilla tilted her head. “Is that what you think when you look at me?”
I frowned. “What?”
“That I’m all done?”
Her meaning clicked. “No! Of course not.”
“Right. Because you would be wrong. And ageist.”
“I’m sorry.”
She waved this off with a hand tipped with bright coral polish.
“It takes time to get the things you know in your brain to sink through to your heart. But hear me, Lyssa Luxe.” She pointed at me.
“I’ve got a shitload more to accomplish in my life, and so do you.
Fetishizing youth, particularly as it pertains to creativity and intersects with fuckability, is patriarchy in a hat.
To which we say: Get bent, you silly…?”
When she trailed off meaningfully, we said it together.
“Cunts!”
After that, the waiter asked if we would like our dessert to go. I was about to decline, but Cilla explained that what he was really saying, in a very Kiwi way, was please get the fuck out .
The Germans must have complained.
Worth it.