Pleasure Unbound

I take a long chug from the bottle. Then another. I stir the powder into my noodles and swallow a few bites, followed by another gulp. It tastes so fucking good. God, I’ve missed drinking.

I miss getting drunk.

I take my bowl and bottle into the den and find the True Crime channel. I’m greeted by a close-up of an attractive guy with shaggy-looking dark brown hair; cold, dark brown eyes; and a mean jawline. Total serial killer material. Only I’m pretty sure this guy only killed his wife. Maybe her lover, too. I don’t remember. I was working here at the Journal when Katie worked this case as an intern with The New York Times. I didn’t know her until the next year when she came on as the new cop’s reporter at the Journal.

I was hired first, and still, I’m the one who got canned.Content is © 2024 NôvelDrama.Org.

“Who cares, Red?” I tip back the bottle to shut my bitter self up.

I sink back into the couch and listen to the sad story of one James Wolfe, a privileged upstate New Yorker who married a celebutant and longtime family friend. Her name was Cookie. Seriously-Cookie. I drink my way through the story of their debauched marriage: menages, swinging, maybe a little bit of BDSM. Naturally, our murdering homeboy was the dom. I listen to college friends of both James and Cookie; officers who worked the crime scene; and the senior crime reporter for the Times. I think that guy was Katie’s superior.

I soak up details of the trial, reacquainting myself with familiar courtroom terms. When I hear the word “redirect,” I start to cry. It’s not logical. It’s silly. But suddenly I miss my old court beat. I pull my computer into my lap, and just to torture myself, I go to the MFA’s website, where I scroll through “W.”‘s breathtaking nature paintings. I cry a little more at ‘Self Portrait of an Owl.’ That one has nice colors.

I slap a mental headline on my distress: ‘Canned reporter chokes to death on $20 wine’

A few minutes later, when I hear how James Wolfe walked free, I do choke. From there, I slip back into my crying jag. Why do some people have things easy while others don’t? Some people get murdered. Some people get fired. Some people starve to death. Kids get cancer. I hate life.

In this frame of mind, I open my computer.

Gertrude:

You have a granddaughter. Remember? I’ve never met you, and you’re getting fucking old. This is me, inviting myself for drinks. I’ll bring the scotch. You send the treasure map to your swanky-ass island.

~Sarah Ryder (known to people in the know as “Red,” on account of my fabulous red hair).

When I wake up with a terrible hangover, I’m not sure if I sent the e-mail to the address posted on The O’Malley Foundation’s website.

But I know for sure I didn’t DVR the special on James Wolfe.

*

Checking my sent box and realizing I did e-mail Gertrude brings a strange relief. I know I’ve cashed in my only chip. I can finally surrender myself to fate.

Sunday morning, I lost my iPad, my flatscreen, my coffee table, and my antique chifferobe for sale on Craig’s List and I called my colleague, letting him know I still don’t have March’s rent money. He offers to let me make a half payment. I tell him I’ll move out in two weeks, and I’ll give him as much as I can when I hand in the key; the rest when I find a new job. I’m not sure where I’ll go, but it doesn’t matter. I can’t stay here.

In the two hours before I meet up with Katie, I list the rest of my furniture, my rugs, my Mikasa dinnerware, two antique mirrors, and my collection of shoes and handbags on Craig’s List.

Minutes later, my phone vibrates with the first of what becomes many e-mail notifications. People want my shit.

While I stand in front of the mirror to get dressed, I realize it’s the first time in a while that I haven’t felt like I’m staring at a loser.

Maybe I’ll end up sleeping on friends’ couches, but at least I’ll know I did everything I could.

I dress in jeans, a thermal shirt, my puffy, navy blue jacket, and my favorite pair of pink and black Nike sneakers, and lock the front door with a growing sense of nostalgia. As I walk the snow-caked sidewalk, headed toward the shops at Beacon Hill, I check my phone. I’ve got $63. 29 in my checking account and $344. 02 in savings. I move all but $5. 00 from my savings into checking and slide my phone back into my pocket.

It’s a gray day, not unusual for March in Boston. The kind of day I never minded when I was working, because writing about art is dramatic and fun, and riding the rail to a museum or a gallery or a show or an auction was part of my daily commute.

Before I reach the cozy little business district surrounding Beacon Hill, I try to brace myself for Katie’s work talk. Katie loves being a reporter. She tweets about the stories she covers almost ’round the clock. She’d

rather check out a crime scene than eat or sleep or fuck her boyfriend, Gage.

Thinking of Gage makes me think of Carl, and I do not need to think of Carl. Carl, who waited until the dim afterglow of some fantastically mediocre Christmas Eve sex to tell me he was leaving me for Sam. Blonde, blue-eyed, freckle-faced Sam from Denver. A ripped bartender with a forearm tattoo of a red-haired mermaid. Sam wears a black apron and an emerald earring. Sam has a cock.

I shove my hands into the pockets of my coat as I pass the narrow streets of Beacon Hill, a cute historical district just two blocks from my apartment. Down one of the streets is the Journal office. Down another, Hugh’s Bar, where we play drunk bingo. I’m headed for another Boston staple: the frozen Frog Pond at Boston Commons. I realize belatedly that I’ve forgotten my ice skates and wonder if I could sell them, too. I doubt it. I let my breath out in a steamy cloud. How pathetic is it that I just want to go back to my apartment and box up clothes for Goodwill? I feel as if my time would be better spent begging for jobs at the shops here than with my best friend.

I follow the sidewalk past bookstores and coffee shops and sandwich shops and offices, moving quickly over the icy ground. A few more blocks and I’m in the snow-caked green space of the Commons. I pass couples holding hands, a woman smoking a pipe, a man in a trench coat, and a mom with two young, coughing kids. And then there’s the pond: decked out with lights strung through the trees around it, dotted by skaters: people laughing, twirling, playing. I spot Katie’s short, curvy figure from fifty yards away and immediately feel warm.

We share a quick hug behind the ice skate rental booth, then exchange five-dollar bills for skates and sit on a covered bench to pull them on.

“How are you ya?” Katie asks as she tugs a boot off. Her eyebrows rise halfway up her forehead, near her blonde hairline.

“Still kicking.”

“We’re worried.” By ‘we,’ she means the Journal crew. That’s how enmeshed we all are. Were. Everything is ‘we.’ Damn, I miss that. I get my first skate over my thick wool sock and shake my head.

“Don’t worry. I’ll land on my feet.” And, because I know Katie and I know she’s a worrier, I dredge up my cheeriest voice and add: “I’ve applied for lots of good jobs in the last few days. A copy editor position at the New York Sentinel and a court reporting job at the Long Island Courier. Eight more jobs in the Boston metro area, including some nanny jobs. Those pay well.”

Katie nods, wearing what she thinks is a poker face, but what is a worried mom’s face?

“If all else fails,” I tell her, “I’ll wait tables at Hugh’s.”

She blows a stray piece of hair off her forehead. “If all else fails, we’ll murder Crissy-” the newbies of the newbie reporters who survived the layoff.

“That doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. She still texting her boyfriend all day?”

“Oh, you know it.”