When you move to LA, there are three things you should know: weed is legal, everyone is skinny, and the mosquitoes will bite you in the ankle, not like in New York where they go right for the squishy part of your arm. There were mornings when I would wake up with zit-looking marks near my feet, so I would take my sharpest nail and cut the bite in half, taking the itch away, along with my white French tip. Then I would wonder when the fuck I got bitten because although I went for quick morning swims, after that I would either stay in my apartment for most of the day, eating popcorn I had purposely burned in the microwave, or I would be working at Cupeez coffee shop, hoping to take a famous person’s order. If there were bugs in my bedroom I didn’t notice, which confused me because usually, I did notice. I noticed lies and sad-happy people, but by the mosquitos in LA, I was fooled.
The summer felt like a fever dream, a whole year when, in reality, it had only been two months of my life. The air in LA was polluted, but the ocean was sea green. It was clear and wet and made my hands feel smooth. Some days I would put on a bikini just to run my fingers through the water, which on most days, was warm. The nights were cold. The friends I had made there reminded me of cars, always moving, and moving fast. My roommate Nina was the fastest; everyone knew she was wild. She would do things like snort coke from the top of laundry machines, go to the bars and then end up on the curb late at night, alone. She resembled a tiny Russian doll yet seemed fearless anyway. Her smile was a sentence and every time she left a room, it felt like she was fleeing. I had never met someone who looked so alive.
She appeared carefree in every photo and smoked cigarettes with a particular ease. Her drink of choice was vodka water and she worked out early in the mornings, around 7 am, and still never seemed to sleep. I often wondered what Nina was really doing when she was out, even when she told me. Her eyes were the color of the ocean but whenever I looked at her, I just saw the foam.
My friends from New York had no idea what it was really like. They saw the pictures I posted and heard the stories I would tell, but they didn’t know Nina, they didn’t know what we did, and they didn’t really know me either, with the exception of maybe Henry Palmer. They didn’t know that I was writing fashion blogs barefoot on foreign sand and still feeling like I was somehow missing out.
“How do you do it, Grace?” Henry would ask. He was one of the few people I knew who shared my anxieties about money, and who didn’t view vacations as some sort of given. “How can you afford it?”
I told him that I had a lot in savings, that I found work in LA and that my parents chipped in, which was true, but most days I felt like I was barely scraping by. I worked at Cupeez Coffee five days a week. I made $30 per fashion blog, for a flashy LA magazine called The Wanderist. I wrote metaphors about concealers and made celebrity closets sound interesting, but the real reason I wasn’t homeless was because of Nina. Her parents were rich and lent us rent money whenever it was needed. That, and because Nina taught me how to pout my lips and pose in angles that made men melt. Clothing brands paid for us to wear their string bikinis on Instagram, and men paid to see our photos on a site that wasn’t known for clothing. The whole thing skeeved me out, but Nina was as much an entrepreneur as she was privileged, and the money from social media gave us enough to spend per month on whatever drinks or food or cigarettes we wanted. It wasn’t exciting or scary. It just was. I knew I would go back to New York in the fall, to the aggressive drivers and the seagulls crowding the parking lots.
****
That summer I hated my name. Grace sounded so boring, like I was some girl who went to church after school and didn’t believe in wearing makeup. People always looked like their name, and I thought boring was just about the worst thing a girl could be. Henry Palmer’s name was fitting — in high school he was one of those basketball players who was also a real nerd. And Nina was a name you got addicted to, Nina, Nina, Nina, a beautiful nag you couldn’t quite push away.
We first went out together on a Thursday, when the clouds were half-blocking the sun. After a long shift I walked into our apartment, my hair in a greasy braid, and I was wearing my coffee-stained black apron. Shoes were spread around the floor like clues in a house being searched. “I can’t decide which ones to wear,” Nina said, sitting crisscross applesauce on the floor. She sounded stressed, like a mother frantically blow-drying her hair before her daughter’s soccer game, yelling “just a minute” down the stairs. But she had the body language of a child who never had to wait long for her ride after school.
“These,” I said, pointing to her cheetah high tops. The heels made her legs look toned and they would look good with her leather pants, which seemed to be her go-to. I asked her where she was going and if I could join; I was in the mood for a drink. And she said yes, yes. She was going to The Stache on 4th Street with a few friends she knew from college. Nina was an LA girl, a graduate of UCLA, but grew up in Sacramento, which she called the lazy part of
California. I didn’t know what she meant by that. Everyone I had met thought that my being from New York was cool, even though I lived on Long Island and wasn’t technically from the city. I felt pride in having an experience they did not, a distant place to call home.
I put on a sheer black party top from my days in college, and a short maroon skirt that made my legs look long and my thigh gap noticeable. Nina was shorter in stature, her bottom half much thicker, but that’s what all guys seemed to want now anyway: thick short girls they could throw around in bed.
On the cab ride to The Stache, we didn’t speak a single word. Nina looked out the window the whole time in a way that didn’t feel rude or personal, only necessary. The sky was nightingale and the fog covered the stars. Nina reapplied her maroon lipstick, took a deep breath, and then we were out.
She skipped to the entrance and smiled flirtatiously at the large bouncer with a fedora. He scanned our IDs and when he said “go in” it still felt like a relief, even though I was 22 and had nothing to hide. We walked in and scanned the bar. Three men and two women, all around our age, waved us over to meet them at a big round booth, with a lamp shaped like a giant white chocolate Hershey Kiss.
“What’s up guys?” Nina said cheerfully, squeezing effortlessly into the booth. “This is my roommate Grace.”
“Grace,” one of the men repeated loudly, in a hard-Italian sounding voice. “Nice to meet you, Grace.”
“You too,” I said. He wore a gold chain and a thin long sleeve with the buttons undone at the top. If I saw him in New York I might have thought he was from New Jersey, a wannabe Paulie D with cheesy taste in clothes and girls. The girls all said hi at what felt like the same time: happily, and slightly insincere. I sat down.
“Are you from here?” the blonde in a low, neat ponytail asked.
“No,” I said. “I’m actually from New York.”
“What? Shut up!”
“Yep,” I laughed.
“So how do you know Nina?”
“We met on a dating app for friends, actually.”
“Really?”
“No, it’s common now,” one of the other girls said. “I know a lot of people who’ve done
it.”
“Yeah, I got a journalism internship here for the summer, and it’s LA, you know, so I couldn’t pass that up. Nina said she could use a roommate and she seemed cool so–”
“Yeah,” a man now sitting next to Nina said, breaking their own conversation. “She’s kind of cool. I guess.” Then he scrunched his nose and smiled at her. His pointy face made me think of a bird. I didn’t know who he was or if they were a thing or what.
The Italian was talking to no one, and then he started talking to me. He sipped his Corona coolly, with a lime at the top of his bottle, and he asked if I made money the same way Nina did.
I looked at Nina because I didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Here,” she said, leaning over the table. “I’ll show you.” On her phone she scrolled through her OnlyFans and showed me her curvy nudes with no shame, her captions filled with fire emojis and dot dot dots. “You should make one too,” she said. “You’d be a natural,” and her voice was all breathy and important.
We took lemon shots and kept ordering, taking advantage of the open tab. I told Nina I couldn’t afford any more and she said, “no worries, they’re on me.” So, I ordered beers and a porn star martini and by the end of the night, I was a goner. I never got the Italian’s name, but I did get his number, a 323 when I was a 631. He said he was originally from New Jersey, which was so predictable I could have laughed. He had an outgoing disposition and looked like he’d be both aggressive and silent in bed. I handed back his phone and he gave me a wink.
Henry Palmer was never a winker, but he had light brown eyes that melted like watercolor paint when he laughed. His arms were skinny, but he was tall and hard-working. He worked as a bartender at a Long Island Yacht Club with a scholarship to get his MBA at Duke next fall. I often imagined him driving home from work, with one hand on the wheel, looking serious yet boyish at the same time. Rolling a joint alone in his shed. I had spent my 20s so far trying to figure out if he was deeper than I gave him credit for, or not that fucking deep at all. Just a sort-of dick I happened to find endearing, who knew who I was and only sometimes seemed to want me. I posted a picture with Nina that night, in the bathroom mirror with the gold rims, and he slid up and said that she was hot. He didn’t mean it as a slight, but it felt like he did. A few hours later I deleted the post and told Nina that I hated bathroom selfies.
That night we danced our way home, a mile down the block until we eventually hailed a cab. Back in our apartment, with the fairy lights and J-Cole posters on the wall, she showed me how to take a nude without really taking a nude, revealing the curves of my breast with my lace Target bra still on. “You don’t even have to use your real name,” she whispered deviously. I went to bed in my room, Nina in the other, published my OnlyFans account and felt my waist under the covers, confirming it was as thin as everyone else’s I saw in the bar that night. I went to bed feeling like I was in the ocean, rocking back and forth in the waves until I eventually went under, into the deep sleep that only happens when you feel drunk and elated, knowing the next morning you’d be hungover and a little sad.
****
Running. When I thought of Henry, that’s what I thought of; us running barefoot on the beach, me saying “race ya” even though I knew he’d win. I liked the way he looked when he was in front of me — bow-legged, tall, and determined like a little kid. Each time I was pissed at him, for not pursuing me and stuff like that, all it took was one look at his angular nose and deep-set brown eyes and I wouldn’t remember a thing.
We took long walks on the boardwalk by Long Beach, where middle schoolers loitered and old men smoked by the restrooms. We ate mint ice cream and awkwardly squeezed onto Henry’s small beach towel, watched the stars together, and listened to the hard waves crash. He told me I was the only person he felt comfortable with, the friend he enjoyed most in the world, and at the moment it felt so good, but on the way home all I could think was just love me, just love me, just love me, and then I’d want to throw something.
****
At Cupeez, I wore my brown hair pulled-back, tinted Burt’s Bees, and a black apron that covered my ass, making my legs look thin and little girl-ish. I was great at making lattes, but my boss Johnny wanted me in front of the counter, taking orders and saying, “that will be right out for you, sir.” It was a mundane job that felt thrilling in the same way working as a hostess did back at home; watching my rat-faced manager pour drinks at the bar while I greeted people at the door, spying on whoever came in that day.
I made up stories for the customers who entered. The man who ordered vanilla chai had a moody girlfriend in bed at home, waiting for her coffee and the plan B that he paid for. The middle-aged woman who drank black iced coffee did yoga every day before work. She had a son she secretly hated because he got kicked out of college and talked about “the struggle” as if it wasn’t self-inflicted. And every Tuesday, three teenage girls came in, ordered cold brews or sweet tea, and sat at the same table by the window, gossiping while making petty hand gestures. I figured one of them had to have hated the rest—there was always a girl who hated the rest. I decided it was the one at the end of the booth, the redhead who only ever went to the bathroom when there was a long line.
After work, I wrote. I got paid my small amount and had Zoom calls with the curly-haired editor, who joked that curls were classy and that I should wear my hair naturally more often. I never listened. I wrote blogs for her and welcomed her praise of my fluidity in writing, and then I’d go home to my little apartment on 6th Avenue and call Nina’s name to see if she was home. She only was half the time.
When she wasn’t there, I called my parents who asked how my blog internship was going, and if I was enjoying working at the coffee shop. I said yes, and then my mom said she thought Nina was pretty. That she looked like fun but not too much fun, she hoped, ha ha. The only other person I really kept in touch with was Henry. Other people I snapped and texted, but Henry liked to hear his friends’ voices on the phone. We talked and shared stories and each time I would lie on my bed, smiling at the ceiling as we chatted. Naturally, I left some stories out.
“Sounds amazing,” he said. “Like you’re really living.”
And I was. I was living and I was lying, going to bars with Nina and her film camera in her small hand, capturing “the moment” and then editing the moment afterwards.
We wore clothes that we were paid to wear and partied like we were running out of time, like our youth was slipping away from us even though we were only 22. We were constantly bar hopping and dancing on tables like they were our own. I didn’t do coke and I didn’t do shrooms, but watching Nina do it, her doll-like eyes growing even larger, it felt like I might as well have. There was a night when she didn’t come home; she went off with some producer who told her she had a “spark” and then they were gone. The only thing she sent me was “I’ll see you in the morning,” a quick text with a shared link to her location, a hotel in Glendale, with a 4.8-star rating on Yelp.
I didn’t know what was wrong with her. Why such a pretty girl chased small highs and underwhelming people. But then again, so did I. When I was alone, I wanted to call sweet-voiced Henry, but I ended up texting the Italian from The Stache instead because he was a body who wanted to be there. He had a smooth way of talking that made him seem older than he actually was. When he was on top of me, his glossy black eyes reminded me of a stuffed animal’s. He moaned when I wrapped my legs around him during missionary, and he told me that I felt good and tight and wet. His name, I learned, was Steve.
One morning Nina saw him leave as she was walking in. She opened the door without ceremony, said “damn Grace”, and then made herself a bowl of cereal.
****
Henry’s mother was the type of nurse who became friends with her patients because they adored her and she actually got to know them. In college I won an award for my writing, a poem I titled “Dry Sand ” and she slipped a “congrats” card in my mailbox, with a blue smiley sticker and a Starbucks gift card. Henry’s father was sweet, pure, and a little naive; whenever I walked through the front door, he said “you kids have fun” like we were secretly up to no good. But
Henry and I would just play Scattergories in his old-fashioned basement, watch The Walking Dead and laugh when the annoying characters died. Once I’d leave, Henry would always walk me to the door. I’d catch a glimpse of the Palmer Christmas card on my way out and feel foolish for staring a little too long.
Radio silence. Each time I mentioned another guy to Henry, that’s what I would hear, unless I was describing a really bad date, because those stories he found funny. We laughed about the fishing rod I broke with Hayden and the gluten-free mama’s boy, but whenever I told Henry about a guy I thought had potential, he would only ever say “nice” and not much else. The room would fall silent and then he would comment on the weather or the food we were eating or something like that. I’d feel empowered until he’d greet me with indifference a week later, a quiet dagger to my gut.
****
$500.
That’s how much I made after taking a timed picture in the shower, with a string white bikini, an open mouth, and a caption that said nothing but “wet.”
$300.
I made that much for wearing a cheap striped t-shirt, with high-waisted ripped jeans and fishnet tights peeking out from underneath. “Use my code, Grace121 for 10% off on your next purchase!” I felt annoying, but it was also kind of a flex; one that said, “I’m attractive, and companies are paying me because of it.”
$100 for a video chat, a few strangers with usernames like MonsterCock and DominantDaddy asked. I never said yes, but I’ll admit I was tempted and a little flattered.
What really worried me was the ease of it all. The quick snap of a sexy photo and seeing the likes, the comments, and eventually, the money roll in. That the praise, no matter how creepy or twisted, I found validating. When I was sixteen, I was a chubby girl; thick in the wrong places and not that funny, not that fun, only smart and not in a way that stood out.
$30 per blog. Steve kept asking me to read my stuff; he asked if I ever wrote anything other than blogs. I told him I journaled before bed and won a poetry contest in college, but then he would start to kiss me, and the discussion would end. His kisses were fast and sloppy, full of tongue.
I posted a picture with him on Instagram, a picture of us laughing in a graffiti-stained alley. My girlfriends from home told me he was hot, and I said yeah, he was. But all Nina said was that I could do better, and I thought, who the hell are you to judge? I should have known she meant it as a compliment. But I wanted to feel wronged.
****
On a Friday night after work, Nina and I went to Bolita and nursed espresso martinis. It was only 9 pm and the regular young crowd hadn’t quite arrived yet. Men in navy suits held beer bottles in their hands, watching baseball on TV and cheering when there was a good play, groaning loudly when there wasn’t. In the booth next to us, there were two people who looked around our age, making polite conversation. The lighting was dim, and I assumed it was a first date.
Nina drank her martini slowly, unlike her usual self. She savored the creamy coffee foam at the top.
“My ex is going to be in the movies,” Nina said. She stared at the red brick wall in front of us. She took a long sip of her martini.
“What?” I asked.
“My ex is going to be in the movies.”
I waited for her to give me more context. I figured there was someone from back home; she would write ominous tweets at 2 am, addressing them to some guy she never named. She wrote about him like he was somewhere very far away. Like she had been forgotten. Then she would delete them the next morning.
Nina looked at me. She brushed her red hair to the other side of her head and rested her small chin on her palm. Her lips were full and voluptuous. She wouldn’t lie if you asked her if she got them done.
“I heard he went to an open audition today, for some new movie on Showtime. He did it randomly. Probably because his favorite Subway sandwich was sold out or something, and he walked by, saw a casting line, and thought huh, let me see what this is about.”
“And he got a part?”
“Not yet. But I bet he will.”
“How do you know?”
“Because,” Nina said, taking her last sip. “He’s the type of person who would audition on a whim and get the part.”
“Let’s go,” she told me, getting out of her chair and not bothering to push it back in.
We ended up at a gas station. We bought two cans of Four Lokos and a sad-looking pack of Hostess cupcakes. We sipped our drinks on the curb and the air had started to mist; the type of fog that occurs when the clouds want to rain but aren’t quite ready, because they’re waiting for just the right moment to pour.
I spilled my drink down my V-neck shirt and I wasn’t wearing a bra, so I said “fuck,” and Nina laughed her careless laugh, leaning back as she did.
“You could be in the movies too, you know,” she told me. “You’ve got that sexy mysterious thing going on.” I smiled but dismissed the idea.
“Nina, you’re the most magnetic person I know. If it would be anyone, it would be you.”
“Nah,” she said, shaking her head. “I have bad luck.”
I didn’t tell her that I understood, even though I did. I stayed mysterious for a few minutes longer, and it felt good.
****
Steve started to come by our apartment a lot, in pajamas or suits or athletic shorts. He was a trainer at the gym and that made me uneasy, thinking of all the stomachs he saw that were even more toned than my own. He did fitness training in the morning and something with investing afterward; I’m not sure what because I zoned out during those conversations, and Steve talked a lot. He opened our refrigerator as if it was his and took out water and green grapes and beers with no shame. When Nina was around, he acted a little louder. He teased her for her height, for all the clothes on her bedroom floor, and in those moments, I furrowed my eyebrows and wanted her gone.
In my bedroom, I would first do him, and then he would attempt to return the favor. One time Steve finished and said I was too nice, that I gave blow jobs like I was afraid of his dick. So, the next time I tried to seem more into it; I made seductive eyes the way I imagined Nina would have, and then I remembered her slow sips of her martini, her lucky movie star boy, and I thought of her as an imposter, an imposter in pretty skin.
Steve always cuddled me after we were done. He kissed me on the forehead and told me he loved me, his little East Coast girl. I felt like a toy, but a favorite toy, nonetheless. So I kept him. I told myself it was out of boredom but for the first time in a while, my life was exciting: exciting, exciting, exciting. The words morphed into an unsure echo.
****
With Nina and her friends, we played Never Have I Ever. The game started with ten fingers and ended in revelations, memories, and probably some lies. As we sipped from our blue beer cans, we would go around the table and say something we had never done but imagined someone else had. If you were guilty, your finger went down. Playing usually took a long time; people loved the opportunity to sound interesting.
I revealed that I had never done coke and that I had never been handcuffed in bed. They all laughed like they were so bad and that made me feel embarrassed, but also clean by comparison. A few guys looked at me like they were impressed, and Steve just smiled at me like a horny teenager with an obvious smile, as if to say, “I can change that.” Julia said she had never been arrested, Kev said he had never done anal, and Nina revealed that she had never slept with more than three people.
“What?” I said, unable to help myself. My finger stayed up.
“Yep,” Nina said, with a little pride. “I do a lot of things. But sex I don’t do casually.”
I took a long sip of my Mic Ultra, said “oh, good for you,” and then pointed out that it was Julia’s turn next. We were supposed to go out to the bars after, but we cracked open a window and took some edible gummies instead. I fell asleep on my bedroom carpet.
****
By the time SZA released her August album, Henry had a new girl; she was cute and small and looked kind. She had nose freckles, toned arms, and a smile that was inherently carefree. A name that suited her like movies on a rainy night. I found out about her on a Monday morning after a swim, with a pink towel wrapped around my hair, peeing on the toilet. Henry never posted, but for her, he did. They took a picture by the boardwalk in Port Jeff, with the white boats in the background. I used to go there as a child and imagine my rescue if I ever fell off the dock and into the water below.
“How’d you guys meet?” I texted him, partly because I wanted to know and partly to save face. I couldn’t bear to listen over the phone. He told me that she worked at the Yacht Club, that they got drinks after work one day and “one thing led to another”. I told him I was happy for him, I really was, and then I smoked a blunt, masturbated, and cried. I posted a selfie on OnlyFans, read the comments, and then took a shower because I felt gross. Henry was in a relationship and I was just a stupid girl in LA, posting scanty photos and living in the shadows I casted myself in.
But he looked happy.
****
The week before I left LA, I got bit by mosquitos three times. Once on my ankle, and then twice on the bottom of my feet. No ointment or nail cutting I did helped. I went out to the bars every night, sipped champagne, and took flash pictures with Nina; two best friends who weren’t best friends, but maybe could have been. My internship was over. I knew it would all, eventually, be over.
I said goodbye to Steve. He saw me typing on my laptop, working on an article, and said that if I ever needed someone to edit my work, to fix any grammar, he’d be happy to help. I laughed, told him to go fuck himself, and never saw his chest hair or gold chain again.
I deleted my OnlyFans. I stopped the Instagram promotions. After my last shift at Cupeez, I read a book my mother gave me on a hammock by the ocean. I ran my hands through the green water and then dived right in, finally allowing my body to feel clean.
As I was packing away my things, my J-Cole posters, and my tiny clothes, I looked at Nina, who was applying maroon lipstick in her mirror. She said she was meeting up with someone, and then she flicked a lighter at her glass bong and inhaled. She looked so pretty, so innocent, and my first thought was “what a waste.”
“Aren’t you tired of it all?” I asked.
She just looked at me. “Tired of what?” Her question felt like a challenge.
“All of this. The going out, the guys, the drinking, the drugs. It’s just too much and it’s honestly not even fun. It’s boring. You think you’re so interesting, but this is boring.”
Nina looked at me for what felt like a long time. “You sound a lot more miserable than I am, Grace.”
And then I just started to cry. I fell on my knees, and I cried. My damp back slid down the drawers and the dishwasher, and Nina hugged me as I caved into myself like a baby. I always thought of Nina as the wild one. But it turns out she was the kinder one too.
****
On the plane ride to New York there was a whining toddler, a smelly salad, and an old man in khakis who flirted with the flight attendant. I stared out the window, listened to music at full volume, and kept restarting songs because I wasn’t paying close enough attention.
For a while, I blamed everything on Henry and the fact that he didn’t choose me. I blamed Nina for her influence and the culture she introduced me to. But the truth is that there was no good reason for what I did that summer. They were just excuses. I wanted to be both who I was and who I wasn’t, and I was trying to move without realizing I was stuck.
Coming home to New York, sleeping underneath my pink plaid sheets felt like taking off a padded bra after too long of a day in the harsh sun. In September I went to grad school and sat in crowded lecture halls, with one leg crossed over the other. I stayed friends with Henry from a distance and whenever Nina posted, I got this heavy feeling in my stomach, liked her smiling picture, and then I took one of my own.