Vagablonde

ONE

I’m still clinging to the memory of those twinks on Sunset telling me I was beautiful as I stare at my reflection in the mirrors above the pharmacy section of Walgreens. Turning so my ass faces the mirror, I fixate on the bulging line of fat that curls out around my underwear. I’m wearing those Kappa track pants that were popular when I was a kid—you know, the design with the naked bodies back-to-back. But they aren’t flattering, and I don’t play soccer anymore. I’m a thirty-year-old attorney. Wearing track pants at 3:00 P.M. on a Tuesday.

Two nights ago I was smoking a cigarette outside a neighborhood dive bar. There was a Dodgers game, so traffic was flowing. Two pretty boys in matching Mariah Carey tank tops approached begging for cigs, and I offered up two Parliaments. As one was lighting up, the other called me beautiful. The memory comforts me, although I know I shouldn’t attach too much weight to it. I bend the truth constantly when I want something. I once told a cheesy lesbian in a fedora that I adored her Pink Floyd T-shirt—a bold and reckless lie, but at least I got the Marlboro.

The Walgreens fluorescents burn my eyes. I cover my face as though I’m being hounded by paparazzi, a game I like to play when I’m alone, which is most of the time. The line is long as hell. Pharmacists are the slowest people on earth. I pull my phone out of my purse. A text from Ellie, my perfect girlfriend. I’m a Virgo, so I don’t take perfection lightly.

Guess who just announced a secret show tomorrow night, my love?

My heart does a little flutter. Not much excites me these days, but a charismatic woman onstage still does it for me. Ellie does PR for musicians, so she’s constantly getting us into shows no one else knows about.

I tap my foot on the linoleum, scratch my head, contort my expression into something cartoonish, pretending I’m in a sitcom. Another game I like to play when I’m alone.

The typing bubbles appear. She’s not going to wait for me to guess. That’s okay. I’m coming up blank.

Dead Stars.

I gasp. I guess audibly, because the woman in front of me turns around and shoots me a look. I raise my eyebrows at her with an expression that says, Nothing to see here, honey. Once she turns back around, I return to my private excitement, try not to make another noise that draws attention.

Dead Stars is my absolute favorite band of the past year, but I’ve yet to see them live. It’s the project of Wyatt Walcott. She was on this reality TV show about her family, What’s Up with the Walcotts, which I pretended to watch ironically but really I cried during at least four episodes. After it ended, Wyatt left Calabasas for Echo Park—my neighborhood—and started a synth-pop band with her friend Agnes, this MIT dropout and total babe. I pray I run into them, like, every day.

My phone lights up with another text from Ellie, snatching me from my hyperlooped thoughts.

At Mirror Box!!

Mirror Box is a strip club, one of those LA establishments (rumor has it Tarantino wrote Pulp Fiction there). The only time Ellie and I got into a fight was when I was too tired to see her favorite dancer (Cinnamon? Saffron?). I haven’t been able to break it to Ellie, but I don’t care for strip clubs. I go for her, but honestly, I hate drinking in a place where everyone’s gaze is directed at something other than moi. Also, feminism, whatever. But I’ll go for Wyatt.

I look up from my phone and my gaze meets the mirrors again. Jesus, isn’t there anywhere else to look? If I was that type of person, I’d write a letter to Walgreens explaining that if they want to sell things to discerning Virgos such as myself, they must make a better effort to make the lighting conditions more flattering.

I’m here to pick up my Celexa. I’ve been thinking of going off my SSRIs lately, but this lighting is making me feel crazy as hell, like I couldn’t fathom facing the harsh world without chemical assistance. I watch the pharmacist, who is slightly too pretty to be a pharmacist, move as though she is walking through jelly. The line hasn’t budged. Fuck it. My pills don’t run out for a few days anyway. I just like to be prepared.

I ditch the line and slide my B-complex vitamins and May-belline Great Lash mascara into my purse while avoiding eye contact with the too-pretty pharmacist. My energy lightens as I leave the pharmacy area, and I smile at the security guard on my way out, unconcerned about the two stolen items in my purse. There are lots of things I’m guilty about, but stealing roughly fifteen dollars’ worth of necessary products from an objectively evil corporation is not one of them. It’s more political activism than anything.

In the parking lot, I think I’ll finally ask Dr. Kim about getting off my SSRIs.

Why? Because I’m thriving.

I hop in my Saab and rev the ignition, then pull onto Sunset, heading toward Dr. Kim’s office on the West Side. The sun is blazing that frightening Los Angeles yellow, the type that makes palm fronds resemble shiny strips of plastic about to burst into flames. As I drive, I listen to a guided meditation from my Insight Timer app and wonder whether Dr. Kim has ever been to Echo Park. He probably thinks it’s still gang territory.

My mind wanders when I meditate. I attended meditation class once after it was recommended to me by a number of medical professionals. I told my teacher that I sometimes love my mind’s crazy thoughts, and she told me I was inviting delusions. I never went back after that. I don’t need a teacher to meditate. Sit there, breathe. It’s not rocket science.

I’ve been thinking about psychotropic medication a lot lately. I’ve had a ten-year reliance on SSRIs—first Lexapro, now Celexa. A lot of people say, If you were a diabetic, you wouldn’t hesitate to take your insulin, but I don’t care for this metaphor. Doctors seem to understand diabetes much better than they understand the human brain. I worry the pills are doing nothing at best, poisoning me at worst. What if I have some amazing personality or hidden creative genius that’s being suppressed? And then there’s the fact that the stuff is relatively new, meaning they don’t know much about long-term effects. I’m not trying to grow an extra limb anytime soon.

I refocus my attention on the audio: Visualize your energy shining brightly like the sun.

I roll my eyes and shut off the meditation. This one sucks. I have zero tolerance for cheese. I just need someone with a soft, monotone voice to say, over and over again, Everything is just perfect.

Tupac blasts from KDAY, glaring in its contrast: All eyez on me.

Per usual, Dr. Kim greets me with a handshake. He’s very formal— stoic, bordering on robotic. I love this about him.

Hello, Prudence, he says, and I jump a little. No one calls me Prudence, not even my parents. It’s Prue, unless it’s an official document. My name is hilarious because I’m kind of a slut, at least historically.

Dr. Kim takes me into his office and I sit across from him on a stiff gray couch. I briefly take in the view of tall palm trees reflected in shiny windows. I feel grateful I left the East Coast. Whoever says they value brick buildings can go jump off one in my opinion.

How is it going? he asks.

Good, I say. Great, actually. I gather my freshly dyed platinum-blond hair into a bun on top of my head. It feels straw-like, but that’s to be expected after a new dye job. My caseload is picking up, which means more money.

For work, I write court-appointed criminal appeals for the State of California from the comfort of my bedroom. I don’t make much, but it’s enough until my inheritance.

I’ve been writing a lot, I say.

Great, says Dr. Kim. Short stories or what?

Oh god, no. I giggle. I was born in the eighties. I write raps.

Dr. Kim cocks his head to the ceiling. I don’t blame him for being confused, but really rap and the law aren’t as different as you’d think. They’re both adversarial, rooted in social unrest. I’m right, you’re wrong, here’s why. (The law uses more roman numerals.) I wasn’t the only rapper in law school, but I was definitely the best. There was this corny bitch who wore hoop earrings that said MEAGHAN in the center and rapped in a Queens accent despite being from Connecticut. When Sotomayor came to speak to our class, Meaghan cornered her with her awkward bars, necessitating Secret Service intervention. We’re on different levels. I was written up on Stereogum once.

I don’t expect much time to pass before I start popping— I pause, realizing I’m talking to a fifty-something-year-old man and not one of my friends. —err, before my music career takes off. Ellie got me in the studio to feature on her friend Micah’s upcoming album. He’s about to blow up, and I only imagine I will with him.

That sounds great, he says. And your love life?

I stifle a giggle. Dr. Kim always asks me about my love life and it always makes me want to laugh.

My relationship is great, I say.

That’s wonderful, says Dr. Kim. He straightens his tie.

I know, I say. I let my hair out of the bun and it falls onto my shoulders, dancing in waves illuminated by light from the windows. I imagine I look sexy as hell and wonder whether Dr. Kim ever thinks about fucking me. I can’t exactly pinpoint his sexuality, but sexuality isn’t real anyway.

I like the new ‘do, by the way, he says.

Again, I stifle a laugh, then give my head a little shake. Thank you, I say. It’s for the music. My rap name has always been Vagablonde, but Ellie recently sat me down and broke the news to me that I’m really a dirty blonde. If I want to keep the name, she told me, I should have the hair to back it up.

It’s very… striking, Dr. Kim says. Definite homo. How are things with your therapist… He pauses, looks down at the legal pad on his lap. Ms…. Lumpkin?

Oh, I hardly go to her anymore, I say.

Dr. Kim just handles my meds. Barbara Lumpkin (she has the personality to match the name) is seven dollars a session on my insurance, and I go to her for cognitive behavioral therapy on an as-needed basis. We don’t really connect—I get the strong sense that she hates me, which in turn makes me think, Who can blame her? and I’m no expert but I’m pretty sure that’s not how your therapist should make you feel. But seven dollars a session! And besides, I’m thriving. But she’s fine. I don’t want to alarm Dr. Kim.

He nods, looks up from his legal pad. Is everything good medication-wise?

Well, that’s something I wanted to talk to you about. I pause, looking down at my dusty Converse sneakers. Then I look up, right in Dr. Kim’s eyes. I’m thinking of going off my Celexa.

Oh? His face is calm. He probably doesn’t give a fuck whether I’m on my medication. It’s just work to him. It’s like when someone asks me for legal advice. My reaction is always: Cool, tell me less. Also, people are always trying to talk to me about a contract, and frankly, I’ve never read one.

Why’s that? Dr. Kim asks.

Because I’m doing great! Then I take a breath to steady myself. I probably shouldn’t appear manic while asking my doctor to go off my meds. I’ve been on SSRIs since college, I say with my steady lawyer voice. I’m thirty now, so that’s about ten years. It scares me, the idea of being on it for life. Now seems like a good time as any to try living without it.

Dr. Kim says nothing, then looks down at the legal pad again. So you’re on forty milligrams now?

I nod.

Why don’t we first try going down a bit—say, twenty milligrams—and see how that makes you feel?

For a second, I’m defeated. I wanted to be off—to have the confidence that I can handle the world without potent and mostly unstudied chemicals. Almost all my friends are on SSRIs, so I’m not exactly ashamed, but I would feel a lot better if I was off them. I’d feel powerful and tough and superior, three of my favorite feelings. But going cold turkey might be extreme. Dr. Kim is highly credentialed and very rational. I decide to trust him. That sounds reasonable, I finally say. Then I think about the pharmacy section of Walgreens and feel ill.

Great, he says, I’ll write it out now. He begins scribbling in his lap. Alternatively, you can just break your current dosage in half.

I nod, excited by the potential theatrics of this situation. Let’s follow up in a few weeks to see if you notice any changes.

Dr. Kim hands me the script and I hand him a check and I’m out of there. He’s very efficient, and that’s why I pay him the big bucks.

The next morning I go on a hike with Jake Perez, my best friend from UC Berkeley (where I went for college and law school, which makes me something they call a Double Bear). He picks me up in his vintage black BMW, which is by far the sexiest thing about Jake Perez. He inherited it when his dad passed away in college. This was a few weeks after we became friends. I was drawn to how callous Jake was about the whole thing. He referred to his dead dad as a charmless bigot, but he felt blessed to inherit his sexy car and enough money to start his own business. I’m not entirely sure what Jake does. Something to do with computers. The nice thing is that we both can make our own schedules, and he gets me out of my apartment during the day.

Soon we’re ascending the dusty trails of Griffith Park, talking about SSRIs while weaving around packs of tourists.

I think it’s a terrible idea, he says when I tell him my news about weaning off.

My psychiatrist, a medical doctor—I pause for dramatic effect—disagrees. Our friendship mostly revolves around theatrical pauses.

Please, says Jake Perez. Never trust a psychiatrist. You know the whole field was invented by a cokehead.

Well, if not Freud, then who should I trust? I ask.

Me! he yells. A hawk swoops overhead.

But I’m thriving, I say.

Are you? he asks.

Yes, I say. I have a great girlfriend. My career is about to pop off.

Defending criminals? Jake asks as we turn the corner. He has difficulty grasping my job, that I’m a selfless crusader against injustice. Jake isn’t one for nuance.

My music career. I frown.

Oh, says Jake. You’re still rapping? He also has trouble comprehending my compulsion to create. He’s left-brained. Yes, bitch, I say.

Typical Leo rising, Jake says. Our tendency to want to make sense of a random world by trying to put people into neat astrological boxes is among our primary bonds. We’re also obsessed with sociopaths and pretty movies where nothing happens. Our generation is plagued by prolonged adolescence. He pauses. That’s not a value judgment. Just a fact.

Jake loves to qualify obvious value judgments as not value judgments. I know what he’s getting at, that you’re supposed to have your rapper phase at seventeen.

Speaking of prolonged adolescence, I say, brushing off his barely couched denunciation, wanna come to a show tonight?

What show? Jake asks. Hey, can you slow down?

I look back and he’s hunched over, leaning on his knees, heaving. Jake has trouble keeping up with me, on the trails and in most other ways. I start tapping my foot on the dust as I wait for him to catch up. Dead Stars, I say.

Never heard of them, Jake says in between heavy breaths, and now it’s my turn to heave.

It’s Wyatt Walcott! I practically shout.

Who? he says. And now I know he’s just trying to piss me off, which Jake Perez is very good at doing. In fact, I’d say he’s an expert at it. Maybe that’s why we’re friends. He makes me feel something. Even if it’s mostly rage, it’s better than the drudgery of daily existence.

I slap him on the arm and he yelps. I like that Jake is so much bigger than me (most people are) that it’s fine if I hit him. When life gives you a frail frame, weaponize it. That’s what I always say.

Oh, he says. That reality TV girl. That teenager you worship.

She isn’t a teenager, I say. She’s twenty-four. And Dead Stars is her newish band. You’d like it.

Jake’s taste in music isn’t exactly on trend. It isn’t bad, I mean, we’re friends, after all. But it’s not really party music, more like the type of thing you would hear in an ‘80s horror movie, synthy and ominous and all that. It’s fun for writing and feeling terrified, less for drinking. But Dead Stars is bizarre enough that there might be some overlap.

They use a Buchla, I say.

Huh? Jake asks.

I grin a little. It was one of the first synths. It was created in Berkeley in the sixties, around the same time the Moog was invented in New York.

Oh yeah, says Jake, the Moog.

I knew this would get him because Jake is pretentious and he hates when I know things he doesn’t.

I think I had a class with Buchla’s son my freshman year.

I’m pretty sure he’s lying to overcompensate for his ignorance, which I love. They’re blowing up, I say.

You say that about everyone, Jake says as he kicks a beige rock. I watch the rock skip, thinking its color reminds me of Kanye’s forays into fashion.

No, I don’t. I peer back at the city below us. Various clusters of nondescript buildings, the ocean sparkling in the distance. Our city is perfect, I say.

Are you serious? Jake says. Don’t you see all that nasty smog?

It’s pretty, I say. I gaze into the gooey band between the buildings and the clouds. The way the colors get caught in it.

Prue, Jake Perez says, getting all in my face. It’s killing you.

The sky is turning neon pink outside my window as Ellie cuts lines on a photo of Mary-Kate’s face from the Olsen coffee table book, Influence. My angel is no cokehead, okay, but she indulges on special occasions, and Dead Stars at the Mirror Box is one. I’m not really a cocaine enthusiast myself—I’m too old for street drugs—but I enjoy the ritual.

My one-bedroom apartment holds the usual suspects: Jake Perez, Ellie, my two perfect black cats, Missy and Ennui (confession: I can’t tell them apart), and a twenty-four-year-old PR girl whose name I can’t recall. Chantal? Ashton? Mackenzie? Suddenly it’s dark. I stand up and flick on my neon sign of a palm tree, which casts the room in a turquoise glow—Vagablonde Blue— and makes the sky out the windows appear reddish pink.

You look… amazing, Jake Perez says, eyeing me up and down. He tells this to everyone after a glass of wine. Literally everyone.

Thank you, I say while looking at my dusty black Timber-lands. LA is covered in dust. I think my eyeliner looks decent tonight. I’m bad at drawing straight lines. But today I watched a YouTube tutorial that prompted me to put Scotch tape on my face, and I think it worked.

Jake Perez raises a thick black eyebrow at me. It’s all eyebrow talk in this town, I swear.

Chantal(?) sits on the carpet chipping at her black nailpolish. One of the cats seemingly notices her boredom and circles her theatrically, like, Look at me.

Who is this little guy? she asks, stroking Missy or Ennui. The other cat hops out from under the couch. Thank god. I prefer to introduce them in tandem as to not reveal my ignorance as to which is which. One cat paws the other in the face.

These girls, I say, "or women, are Missy and Ennui."

Chantal(?) scrunches up her face. Ennui?

It’s French, I say.

Je sais, she says. But ‘ennui’ means ‘boredom.’ Why would you name your cat ‘boredom’?

I roll my eyes. Twenty-four-year-olds understand nothing. Except for Wyatt Walcott, of course. But she’s been prematurely aged by superstardom.

Cigarette? she asks. I follow the boring pretty girl to my tree-lined balcony and flick on the periwinkle string lights. A warm Santa Ana wind hits and the moon peeks through the leaves. Through the trees boasts a stunning view of the Chevron station.

It’s so nice out here, says Chantal. She’s wearing a sheer white shirt that parades her obnoxious twenty-four-year-old nipples.

I’ll be right back, I say. I go into my room and take off my bra.

"Cig for moi?" I ask—again, rhetorically—when I return. I remember that we’re about to see Wyatt Walcott with a microphone onstage and my blood starts swimming freestyle through my veins.

A cigarette emerges, as if by magic, from its carton. I position it in my lips in a way that begs a light. Chantal(?) giggles, then lights. Her laugh is high-pitched and breathy, a noise that exudes insecurity.

After listening to Chantal(?) complain about her non-relationship with some philosophy major barista fuccboi, I pull out the power move I tend to use around younger and more attractive women. Oh, but you haven’t even had your Saturn’s Return!

Huh?

The girl eyes me with concern while I explain that the universe is about to beat the shit out of her. In my return, I explain, I fell in love with a straight woman who strung me along like a fish on a hook. I also got poison oak all over my body. Twice. But I emerged wiser and more elegant—just look at me! I flip my bright blonde hair.

Smoking without me? Ellie emerges from inside. For the first time I realize her hair is tied back in two French braids.

Celeste did them, she says, clocking my gaze. Ah, Celeste. I was close!

Nice. I drop my cigarette in the ashtray, flip my hair again, and return inside.

Jake Perez is sitting on an armchair with crossed legs and a full glass of bloodred wine, refreshing Tumblr on his phone. He’s dressed like a vampire. Jake’s a Scorpio, so he’s very morbid.

Ellie tilts her head toward the ceiling and sucks air into her nostrils with the grace of Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction. Turquoise light bounces off her blonde curls. (Yes, I’m a blonde girl dating a blonde girl—imagine what Kanye would think!). No one seems to notice as I head into my bathroom, remembering it’s time to take my medication.

I return to the room with a salmon-colored forty-milligram pill in my palm. For the sake of dramatic gesture, I lay it on Mary-Kate’s eyelash, beside the white powdery vestige of a line. I take Ellie’s AmEx and chop the pill in half.

I just cut my SSRI dosage in half, I announce proudly, then place the pill on my tongue. Celeste is back, eyeing me with a blank expression. She probably doesn’t even know what an SSRI is; she’s on something newer and hipper.

I chug down the pill with my Lagunitas IPA, wondering what Dr. Kim would think.

Mazel, says Celeste. I love you, says Ellie.

Prue, says Jake Perez, finally looking up from his phone. I cannot emphasize my disapproval enough.

Often when I see a show, I’m overcome with envy. I stand frustrated and fuming, chugging Bud Light and thinking about how I could have done a better job. But with Dead Stars, I’m just… happy. Wyatt and Agnes deserve to be there, glowing under soft neon pinks and oozing charm. Sitting at a small table toward the front and surrounded by mirrors, I’m shocked to find I’m not even tempted to look at my reflection.

The girls are wearing outfits that evoke lingerie, I suppose to cater to the fact that we’re at a strip club. Agnes wears neon-pink lace; Wyatt, a black silk robe. Wyatt flips her flowing dirty-blonde hair from side to side as she croons about millennial malaise. The girls take turns slinking around the gold pole in the stage’s center, less in the manner of strippers and more like eleven-year-olds at recess.

But the main star is the Buchla, this huge machine with primary-colored wires sticking out in all different directions. I can tell Jake Perez is mesmerized by the machine, which is reflected in the mirrors surrounding the stage. For a second I become panicked looking at all the wires, become afraid that the singularity is here, that the robots are taking over. But then I see Agnes manipulate them around with such confidence and grace, creating soothing sounds from the chaos. Agnes can conquer the machines. She will protect us. She went to MIT, and I read online that she’s a Mensan.

Afterward, Ellie gets us backstage, where she immediately dives into the fray, floating around and chatting with other industry people in her typical self-assured manner. Celeste does the same, but it seems less sexy and more sycophantic. Jake and I plop awkwardly on a black leather couch in the corner of the room and watch Agnes and Wyatt entertain a revolving circle of admirers. Ellie keeps coming over and urging me to go talk to Wyatt, but I’m too scared. I don’t want to seem like a crazed fan. But standing fifteen feet away clutching a Bud Light and staring at her probably doesn’t look any better.

Can we head? I ask Ellie the next time she comes over to me. I can only spend so long ogling the life of someone more successful before I need to peace out. Jake’s already left. He hates people even more than I do.

Already?! she exclaims. She always likes to stay out longer