HOLY WATER

Teddy, 2010

A hotel room is a lonely place. I was playing Vivaldi on my iPhone, which sat charging in the bathroom. Working at the desk while the neon lights outside seemed to call my name. I was susceptible to the light, but I couldn’t close the blinds. That seduction drove me to work harder and faster so I could spend that one night a week in total blackout.

I took a break and called Carole and it went straight to voicemail.

“Hello, this is the voicemail of Carole Chambers. For booking inquiries, please email CaroleChambers@AdaMag.com. Thank you and have the loveliest day.”

“Hi, gorgeous. I love you. Just wanted to say that.” I hung up. I paced the room for fifteen minutes before visiting the whiskey. I poured myself a small amount in the glass tumbler. After three sips, a knock at the door appeared.

I looked through the peephole, and there stood Campbell in her short brown hair. I opened the door to her holding a bottle of white wine. She whispered a greeting and gave me a sly smile. I let her in. I would see Campbell here and there in the office, in the street, at the corner store by the offices purchasing a pack of Chungwas. She dropped the bottle of wine on the top of the dresser. I watched her stand there, we both seemed to shrug in unison.

“Hello,” she greeted me again, this time with exhaustion in her voice.

“How did you find my room number?”

“My husband owns the company. It takes minimal effort to find someone like you.”

She walked to the window while I grabbed a corkscrew from the kitchenette.

I watched her stand idle with her hands on her hips. The screw slipped effortlessly into the cork as I pulled out. Pop. She turned as I poured her a glass.

“Will you have any?”

I pointed to my whiskey sitting next to the wine bottle. We sat in silence for a moment, sipping from our own choices.

“I won’t lie, I was ecstatic to see you.”

“Yes, it was a pleasant surprise to see you, brunette and married.”

“Yes, it must be a bit different seeing me - in this context.”

“Quite a bit,” I said while sipping the whiskey. I felt the chemistry permeate from our bodies. I was attracted to her insanity, her recklessness, but it didn’t work the way that it did before. I looked at her and temptation seemed to erode quickly when I thought of Carole. The girl back home who was waiting for me. The girl with my mother’s ring on her finger. My devotion to her was unwavering and unquestionable. I had the thought to ask her to leave, but professional connection didn’t allow me.. I had to show her an ounce of respect. Luckily, she respected me and had self-awareness.

“Okay, I get it,” she waved her white flag with her white wine.

“Friends?” I asked.

“Certainly.” She sipped from the glass slowly, elegantly, sexually. I questioned my devotion the minute we hit the brakes.

I closed the laptop. She put her heels back on. I laced up the oxfords. I grabbed the door key. We walked into the elevator. We went to the club, the one we used to go to. The one that has since changed names and ownership and had higher cocktail prices.

“Let’s die tonight.” She said with that same mischievous smile. The smile I was once accustomed to.

“I’m in.” I was eager to become accustomed again.

I asked her if any of our old friends would be there. She said no. Shanghai had become a new landscape. It was not the same city I had left. It’s ever-evolving and at a quick pace. The only grand connector stood next to me in the elevator shaft.

We walked into the club which felt electric. Young girls, dressed in Kawaii, danced to electronic dance music as if they were on speed. Young men were holding beers and shouting into each other’s ears with their eyes closed to avert themselves from the light. On the screen above the DJ was a phrase written in Mandarin. Bursting the Chrysanthemum. Chrysanthemum - a slang term for anus. Why was anal sex receiving the grand promotion on the club screen in cherry red? The occurrence confused me, but this was a club, and it was one in the morning. I saw two girls making out on the dance floor, I looked at Campbell. She shrugged, conveying this sense that we both shared now. The sentiment that we were on the precipice of being too old for this place.

We were on the dance floor in business casual. She was whipping her hair, sweating, the buttons on her blouse were becoming more and more undone, revealing her bra. I unbuttoned my shirt slowly, giving her a peek at the veins of my chest. It looked much different since the last time I saw her. I saw her try to avert her eyes, but the shock it caused her was clear to me. We stayed until five in the morning. We were wasted. Once we left, we found ourselves looking for a 24-hour shop to purchase another pack of Chungwas. I don’t know how it happened, but in the chip aisle, I found my hands lingering up her skirt and my fingers touching her underwear. I sobered up enough to pull away. I apologized. She looked at me, she clearly reflected my shame.

“I believe that it is best that we go home,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” I put my head down.

“Don’t be. Clearly we’ve had too much to drink.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I have no sense of self-control.”

“Neither do I,’ she laughed. “We’ve had too much blow.”

We both got in separate cabs. I could still smell her on my hand. When I walked through the hotel room door, there was Carole in pink tights and nothing else. She was drinking a glass of white wine from Campbell’s glass.

“Hi.” She whispered in the same quiet tone that Campbell used.

“Finally,” I said. I slipped the tights off her. I wish I had ripped them. We didn’t go to bed. I called out of work before sunrise.

Carole, 2010

Teddy sleeps better in Shanghai than he does in Los Angeles.

Although I had come to understand that no place is much different from the next, I find that Shanghai is very different from the many places that I had been. On my first morning in Shanghai, I let Teddy sleep in. I went for a walk in the late-spring sun. I found myself in Gucun Park surrounded by cherry blossom trees exiting full bloom, leaves wilting and blowing from the branches. In the distance I could see the Shanghai Tower and the Oriental Pearl. Unlike Los Angeles, it felt like I was stepping into a world in which I was already gone. I didn’t exist here. I existed in LA. I existed in New York. I existed on the shores of the Great Lakes; I existed in Paris - I was dead, gone, on another plane while watching the light shimmer from the towers, blinding me.

An iced coffee was 17 RNB. I purchased a long white dress by Qui Hao that morning. I didn’t look at the price tag but it had to have been $700 USD. It didn’t look like me, but it felt like who I wanted to be in Shanghai. I thought to myself, “this is the dress I will marry Teddy in.” I never showed him the dress, determined to drag him to the justice of the peace. I have come to realize there is no justice of the peace in China. Another honorable figure would have had to do, if this scenario ever came to pass beyond my hypothesis. The dress is long gone, with most of my things from this time period.

One night I stood in a Lawson in a pink dress while Teddy waited in line to purchase Chungwa cigarettes. I remember leaning against a row of chips while I watched him hand over the exact change to the man at the register. He was a very different man at the register. He was a very different man in China. Despite my growing success, I was not a woman of LA while watching him in Lawson. I was a little girl, watching the boy who washed my father’s blood from the cement floor. I tried to make it romantic, but it was terribly impossible. Shanghai was the beginning of the end for me.

He sleeps better in Shanghai than he does in Los Angeles. That never sat right with me.

There were many days and nights that I felt alive. Shanghai wasn’t a cemetery to me.

“I’m taking you somewhere special to meet some of my favorite people.” When he told me this I moved to the bathroom with vigor and purpose. I did my lashes. I slipped on an iridescent blue dress gifted to me by Zac Posen himself. While doing my makeup, my editor texted me telling me that my columns were crafting an invigorating glamor, but a vulnerability that was nearly unheard of at Ada.

“I shouldn’t tell you this, but we are expecting other magazines to reach out to you. We fear we will lose you soon. Expect a new job or an insane raise.”

I tried to stay focused on the good news, but I was trying to stay present in Shanghai. Yes, my writing was well-received - I knew that I wrote my best work when I felt overwhelmed by ideations of suicide. I was receiving good news while applying lip gloss and getting ready for a night that would lead me to morning. All the while, I am wondering where and how I could get a gun and put it in my mouth.

“Oh, we’re putting the China columns under a different name. Giving them their own section online.”

“What’s the name?”

“Bund Bound.”

“Sounds good.” The name was awful, but maybe they knew something I didn’t. Why fight this creative war?

I hung up the phone and strapped myself into my heels.

“Who was that?” Teddy asked me while sipping on whiskey.

“My editor.”

“Going well?”

“I’m getting a raise,” I responded while grabbing the vodka from the fridge. I didn’t want to talk more about it.

He grabbed us a cab to some club in the Bund. It was midnight, the dance floor was crowded with young girls in vibrant tights and busy prints. I was engulfed in a sea of neon. The light caught the iridescence of my dress. I had intended this effect.

“Is this the famous Carole?” a man greeted me and handed me a cocktail. He brushed my shoulder as a respectful greeting. He shook Teddy’s hand. I found myself sipping martinis with a group split between expats and Han businesspeople. They were all in suits and ties; the women were dressed in smart black dresses, white blouses, and pencil skirts. Only one woman was dressed similarly to me. With a brunette messy bob and long purple dress with a slit as tall as a tower.

“Qui Hao?” I said while looking her up and down.

“Good eye.”

“I work in fashion.”

“I know,” she said while taking a sip of her martini.

“Did Teddy tell you?”

“No, I read your column extensively.”

“Oh,” I never knew what to say to that. I still don’t.

While I found Teddy’s peers a bit dull. This woman was both exceptional and threatening. Frequently, that combination is what I look for in a female friend. She was on my level. She knew fashion but could also discuss politics in China, England, and the US. She understood international economics. I didn’t, but she explained it without patronization. She listened intently while I discussed the fashion industry and my column. She kept calling me a journalist, which made me feel good - but I wasn’t a journalist. I was a writer seeking to deliver fashion commentary in an evocative, relevant tone.

“You’re a fashion journalist. Don’t deny the title.”

“What are you?”

“I’m the CEO’s wife.”

We both giggled.

“You wanna dance?”

She removed the train of her dress, creating a mini skirt. Legs for days existed beneath the fabric.

She took my hand and walked me to the dance floor. I turned to Teddy and waved goodbye. He smiled at me as I disappeared into the crowd. Three songs in, I asked for her name. When she answered me, I instantly felt an inexplicable pin jab my abdomen. I had heard her name before.

Without a doubt, I knew I would text Gareth for very little reason but to slowly open the door to illicit and vengeful communication. Teddy slept well that night; I never slept well in Shanghai again. Not after Campbell Kaplan. It wasn’t even about her. In hindsight, I know Campbell acted as a wispy domino that cracked our already faulty foundation.

In my younger years, I thought trust was a thing that was earned. Now I perceive it as something either ubiquitous or absent from a relationship. In my experience, it’s either there or it’s not. In this period of my life, it was never there with Teddy. It wasn’t his fault; I just didn’t trust him. Campbell was the catalyst to this terminal revelation.

Teddy, 2010

We had been back in LA for a few weeks when I first saw her billboard posted up on Santa Monica Boulevard. It was sharp and vibrant, with her red hair blowing in the wind. A cigarette dangling out of her mouth. She was topless, appearing to be completely naked with her arms crossed over her tits.

“CHAMBERS | ADA MAGAZINE” at the bottom of the billboard. Those pink lips holding that cigarette in place made me hard. It also made me concerned. I was worried about what my father and siblings in Akron would think if they saw her like this. It was a topic that would be impossible for me to bring up. Especially now.

“I really hate that you brought me to meet Campbell Kaplan without giving me a heads up or a warning..” It was a fair argument. I could see why she was agitated, but she went from being my ex-girlfriend to my boss’s wife. I couldn’t run from her when I was in China. I worked in her territory. She was higher on the payroll than me. I don’t even know if the boss knew that I fucked his wife extensively last decade.

Since returning stateside, Carole had behaved distantly from me. She threw herself into her work with a velocity that was attractive and petrifying. I didn’t know if I would see her at night. She was either at the table writing a column, or she was going out to an event, or she was packing her bag to catch a flight that I would find out about at the last minute.

“I’ll be back before you know it.” She would say as she walked out the door. I felt emasculated in the wake of her aloof abandonment.

When she was gone and I was home alone in LA, I would walk around the apartment and eat ramen noodles. I’d call my brother. I’d check in with my baby sister. I’d call friends in Shanghai. I’d clean the bungalow. I’d smoke cigarettes in the front yard. I would cook dinner for two, knowing the second portion would end up in Tupperware.

One night I made dinner reservations and cornered her. I told her we had not gone out to eat in ages. I was going to China in 36 hours. I needed to talk to her, eat with her, have sex with her, tell her I loved her. She canceled her work plans to get dinner. I remember what she looked like as she walked out of the bedroom. She was wearing a black dress that hugged her hips and heels.

I took her to an Italian restaurant in Marina Del Rey, trying to remind her that our goal was to get married and purchase property in that neighborhood. A home by the water. She could drink her morning coffee and write while watching the marina moving back and forth peacefully. Our sons and our daughters could play by the water while she smoked cigarettes and watched from afar. I would sneak behind her and kiss her as our children played with water guns and created chalk drawings in the driveway.

The dinner didn’t evoke any of these feelings. I felt farther away from her. She ordered her own cocktail and looked at me to order mine, she always ordered drinks for the both of us. She never let me order my own. The small inaction made me suddenly terrified to return to Shanghai.

“Babe, everything is fine. Work has been a lot. Go to Shanghai, I won’t be here anyway.”

“Where will you be? It bothers me that I never know your schedule.”

“It bothers me that I never know my schedule,” she said dismissively.

“So, where will you be?”

“Paris, then Akron.”

“You’re going home?”

“Yes, I need to see my sister and the girls. I need a reality check.”

The words “reality check” felt threatening - like I no longer belonged in her reality. She ordered bolognese. I ordered linguini with clams. We shared our dishes with each other, primarily in silence. We did not have sex that night. We both went to the airport hours apart. I almost booked a flight to Paris during my first night on the Bund, but I ignored the feelings inside me. I focused on my work and kept my personal phone in the drawer by the bed. She barely contacted me.

Carole, 2010

Paris was different from Los Angeles. It was not sunny. It was faster. The European ambulances went up and down, weaving from arrondissement to arrondissement. People sitting at tables at 11 in the morning sipping on cocktails and smoking cigarettes. Children were running carefree in the Tuileries Garden with ribbon wands. Girls sitting on the steps of the Sacre-Coeur Basilica with two open bottles of red wine.

LA was a prison of responsibility and eternal sunshine. LA was me washing my face in the bathroom with my eyes locked in on my engagement ring in the bathroom. Before my flight to Paris, Gareth called to tell me he had a work trip there that would overlap with mine. I could hear Teddy on the phone in the other room, a work call taking up his time - all of his time. I told Gareth that I was eager to see him, without reluctance.

Landing in Paris, I experienced myself differently. I was more relaxed. I didn’t want to smash my head into the bathroom mirror with pharmaceuticals sitting behind it. I didn’t think of Ted. I landed in Charles de Gaulle with very little turbulence. I walked off the plane with a heavy duffle and a garment bag carrying three dresses. I called a car on the company phone, on the company card. I reached my hotel in Le Marais. I threw the garment bags in the closet and my bag on the floor. I went to the terrace, I looked down. Teddy called. I ignored it. A knock appeared at my door. I answered in jeans and an old band tee.

There was Gareth Khan. A gray suit with a crisp white button-down underneath. His chest was popping out like he had just gone to the gym. He was holding yellow Gerber daisies and wildflowers in a glass vase. A sly smile stretched upon his smug face. He called me a fille americaine as he looked me up and down. I permitted him to walk through the door, cross the threshold. I delivered complaints as he walked in with his left hand in his pocket. The flowers wafted a fragrance that made me think of Ohio and Ted. My lightness was gone. I became heavy. My head was pounding. My grief resurged.

“I wish the bellhop would call me to let me know I had a guest.”

“I wish I had an iota of privacy.”

“This is an abuse of power, Gareth Khan.”

He put the flowers on the side table by the bed. He looked at me nervously, clearly taking my complaints and the volume of my voice seriously. However, he waved his hands up and down, ignoring my protestations. He told me to quit complaining and to get dressed. He decided he was taking me out to dinner. Without reason, I obeyed. I was jetlagged. I was hungry. I liked the attention in the face of my distress.

I was sitting in an indigo bubble dress I bought off the rack and strappy heels by Monique Lhuillier bridal. I had fully accepted that my wedding was a train that wasn’t coming, but this dinner invitation had arrived. Besides, the heels matched the cheap dress. I ordered a filet mignon with asparagus. He ordered the same. He asked me about my plans for Paris. I told him he should know; he had access to my calendar. He had full access to me.

“Menswear Summer 2011 fashion shows. Dinners and drinks with corporate fashion people. Dinner with my editor. Photoshoot on the third day. Doing blow and killing myself before I have to fly back to the States.”

“What’s your column going to be about?” He asked while cutting into his steak without making eye contact.

“I don’t know. Maybe some bullshit about dressing up the man to hide his flaws. If he fails you in life, he can’t fail you in Hermes.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Yeah, well, everything feels pretty fucking stupid these days.”

He grabbed my wrist, my hand which held the knife. He asked me to look at him.

“Take a vacation. Figure out what your next move should be. Figure out your relationship and plan your wedding or leave. Continue writing or find a new path. Stay in LA or get out. Take a break, because I am not keeping you on the payroll to become a glib girl in my office.”

I started to cry and apologize. I admitted that I was collapsing. He said he knew. He picked up the bill and canceled my meetings and photo shoots. He moved my flight to the very next day. When he saw I was going back to Akron he thought that was for the best. He told me to go somewhere quiet, re-center myself. I said I was seeing my sister. “Even better. Be with your family,” he said.

“Good luck, Carole. Call me when you need me.” - the last thing he said to me before I re-entered the States.

My gowns in the garment bags were never opened on that trip. My time in Paris was brief. I hated myself for collapsing internally. I just wanted everything to be fine, it didn’t feel like it was. I didn’t know what was wrong. Teddy didn’t take interest in my work or in the things that I wanted, but it felt deeper than that. Perhaps even simpler. I knew something was wrong. At the time, I didn’t have the wisdom to know that a feeling was proof enough.

I cried off and on during the 13-hour trip. My flight connected in Chicago and I just stood there in the terminal for two hours watching the planes on the tarmac. I called Teddy to check in. I told him I might quit everything. I told him how much I hated LA. How confused I was by our relationship, our wedding or lack thereof. He told me he wished we weren’t doing it over the phone, but he was glad we were doing it now. He knew I was unhappy. I told him I hated Campbell and that another woman had access to him. It all made him feel inaccessible to me.

“Do you still want to marry me?”

“Yes.” I lied because I was uncertain. It wasn’t malicious; I just needed to hold onto the stable life of the bungalow. Despite it feeling like a prison, it felt safer than the airlines, the fashion shows, the deadlines, and the snapping of the cameras. Despite everything I said, nothing was resolved.

I was so desperate that I almost said the words: “If you stop flying to Shanghai, then I will stop flying everywhere else. If you find a simpler job, then I will find a simpler job. We will leave LA. We will go back to Ohio. You can work in insurance. I will be a secretary. I will give you children, and you will build the fence.”

I knew that wasn’t the solution, but I was so close to saying it. If I said it, maybe we would have gotten married.

Catherine picked me up. She was driving a fire-engine-red PT Cruiser. The visual made me want to die: me getting into the hideous car in Ohio. Kid’s toys and baby car seats took up the entire backseat. I just threw my luggage in the trunk and got in the car.

“Honey, you look rough.”

“Yeah, I do. Can I smoke in here?”

“No.” We drove thirty minutes to the house.

Quinn was at work. The girls were with our mother and her friends at a local amusement park. I was sitting in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt I bought on a corner from a street vendor last time I was in Shanghai. Cheap cotton covered in pink hearts. My hair was in a ponytail. Catherine had bagels in the toaster while wearing a blue silk dress. The way she covered the two everything bagels in schmear while I sat there feeling incredibly nauseous. I couldn’t eat.

“You don’t come here unless someone has died or a baby has been born. So, what are you doing here?”

She looked like a serene fairy creature of suburbia just staring into my soul. I swear she was a witch who could pull it out of me. She could tell me what was wrong, what to do, and how to fix it. I spilled my guts all over the table. I begged my sister to save me.

“Do you think maybe you haven’t been chasing Teddy but chasing the path you think you’re supposed to be taking?”

“Probably.”

“You know, when I was in New York - I didn’t feel like myself.”

“You didn’t?”

“No, I feel the most me here - but that doesn’t mean it’s for you.”

She took a sip of her orange juice through a straw, her hair captured in the sunlight. She looked down at my engagement ring formerly owned by Teddy’s mother.

“Who knows, maybe you’re chasing Teddy because he cleaned our father’s brains off the garage floor.”

“That’s crass.” The way I said it came out as a question. She had never been so pithy about our father.

“I’m not wrong.”

“Maybe that’s why you left him.”

“I left him because I didn’t feel like myself with him.”

I took the ring off and put it in a Ziploc bag.

I never put it back on again.

I stayed with my sister for two weeks.

I didn’t talk to Teddy.

Teddy, 2010

I lost the security deposit on the West Hollywood Bungalow because of holes in the drywall. The loss of money was worth it. I wish I had burned the bungalow to the ground. I deeply regret not going to jail for burning down the house on Lexington and Curson.

It was the end of July, and she walked through the door displaying uncharacteristic behavior. Her hair was tangled, she was wearing cut off shorts, a neon pink bikini top, and a Dodgers baseball cap. Her voice sounded like she did endless drugs and smoked a carton of cigarettes. She threw her stuff on the floor and took my mother’s engagement ring out of her carry-on and threw it on the table. She barely made eye contact with me. She purposefully provided very little explanation. She walked through the door and was not on the planet. I never got her back.

“I really don’t want to talk about it. Neither of us are planning the wedding and we are never home.”

“Isn’t this a bit melodramatic?”

“Maybe, but have I been any other way?”

Actually, she had never been that way, but maybe I didn’t know her at all. She smelled like vodka and engine fluid. She ran into the bedroom and locked the door. I never got her back.

That following week Carole was more herself. She had sobered up. She was taking time from work, but she had not changed her mind. She apologized for the way she handled the situation, but she wasn’t happy; something didn’t sit well with her about the relationship. She couldn’t put her finger on it. This explanation pissed me off. It appeared to me that all she wanted was to get out. I would have preferred her to say that she didn’t love me. I even asked her to say it.

“Tell me you don’t love me.”

“I won’t do that!”

“Say it!” I was nearly screaming in her face like a dog.

“Get out of my face or I will literally kill you.”

I grabbed her by the neck and threw her into the kitchen counter. She called me a piece of shit and stormed out of the kitchen, not before she grabbed a kitchen knife and slept with it under her pillow. I lost her trust after the act of violence.

It was many days and nights like this for the rest of our time together. Only one night was peaceful when we sat on opposite sides of the couch and watched Die Hard 2.

“This movie is terrible.”

“Yeah, I don’t know. I love it.”

“Ted, it’s terrible.” She had never called me Ted.

“You love Little Mermaid II.”

After finishing Die Hard 2, we watched Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea.

In Mid-August, Carole moved her stuff out with the assistance of several girlfriends. Catherine flew in to help. I left the bungalow so they could clear out her stuff. I put my mother’s engagement ring in my pocket. I walked into an occult shop and asked a witch to cleanse it. While watching her bless the ring in sage and smoke, I decided to take it off the table mid-ceremony. I had already paid, but the look of this white woman with dreads blessing my mother’s ring with an iced matcha latte on the table next to her. It reflected my own anguish and insanity a bit too well.

“The ceremony isn’t over.”

“Okay,” I said sarcastically.

I stormed out. I ended up walking into a church, dipping the ring in holy water, and calling it a day.

I returned to the bungalow after several hours. It was getting dark. I could hear the cicadas singing the tune, the end of summertime. I remembered the hours I would hold her near the screen door. We would sit in silence while taking in the cicadas’ sounds. We’d watch the lightning bugs hover close to the grass. We’d listen to the Santa Ana winds.

When I walked toward the front of the bungalow, I saw Catherine sitting there with two beers. I stopped dead in my tracks and felt my arms shaking. I was angry. I went to yell, but the wrong emotion came out of my body. Instead of screaming, I started crying. I fell to my knees. She came to my side in the grass and held me.

“I’m so sorry, Teddy.” She kissed my forehead and cradled me back and forth like a child. She walked me into the bungalow, and we played Yahtzee into the night. She told me it wasn’t my fault, nor Carole’s.

“Things really do just fall apart.”

“I know,” I said, while smiling at her. It was the first time I smiled since the night I watched Die Hard 2 with Carole.

Catherine slept in the bed, and I slept on the sofa. She said I was being very generous and I told her I didn’t think I would ever sleep in that bed again. I fell asleep to the voice of John Wayne in The Searchers. The last thing I remember was Natalie Wood in Native American costume. When I woke up Catherine was gone. She left a note.

Call when you need me.

I would never call her. I should have, but I didn’t.

I called out of work for a week. I beat the shit out of the apartment and destroyed many household items. All my money went to drinking.

One day I realized that all my friends were in Shanghai and none of them were in LA. I inquired with my boss about a Visa, and whether I could move to China full-time.

They said they would get on it, but I could come and stay full time if I came into the office 5 days a week. By November, I was fully moved out of the apartment and my items were successfully shipped to Shanghai. I was in the office six days a week, sleeping in a small apartment off of Anfu Road.

In February of the following year, I was unpacking some last-minute boxes, and there it slipped out of a book. That fucking polaroid of her naked body. Five years since that polaroid was snapped. My heart remembered immediately the exact spots where I felt the emotional pain. It played back the song in order. I cried. I broke a few plates. Despite my anger, I did not dispose of the polaroid. I put it back in the book and on the shelf and committed to memorizing which book, so I would never pick it up. I never wanted to see it again, but I could not remove myself from it.

Carole, 2010

I gave up the apartment in DTLA as quickly as I had signed the lease. In September, I put my items in storage and decided to go from location to location for Ada Magazine. I was also writing for other editorials and dipping my feet into the fashion and art broadcasting realm. Luca and I smoked cigarettes outside my storage unit and asked me if I would be coming back to LA soon. I said no.

I officially quit my job at the department store, and I started living off the grid. For the off-season I had committed to staying at a Chateau in Bordeaux that Gareth Khan’s family owned. It had a live-in farmer, chickens, horses and a vehicle I could drive twenty-five minutes into town if I needed any goods or just to get out of rural country life. I was living far away from Los Angeles. I was fully absolved of it. I washed my hands of Hollywood.

Gareth allowed me that fall to take more time, but that I needed to be back on the road working by the new year. I was more than committed to that. I was certain that I would be ready to work by January.

In mid-November, Gareth texted me and said he was in Paris. He asked me to meet him for dinner and drinks. I said yes. I packed a small bag and a garment bag with one dress. I packed a black bodycon dress by Herve Leger. I packed lavender lingerie. I packed a swimsuit. I packed sunscreen and body lotion.

I found myself walking into a discreet restaurant in the tenth arrondissement. I was wearing the Herve Leger with golden jewelry and my red hair in a wavy ponytail. My makeup was minimalistic; I wanted to look naked and bare. I wanted to look clean and clear. I wanted my look to reflect my direct intentions. A mind without haze. I sat waiting with a glass of water and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. There he was in a suit, a long peacoat, and a long tartan scarf.

“Hello, gorgeous.”

“Hi.”

We sat there making fearless eye contact. It was clear that we could’ve easily skipped dinner. We could’ve gone straight back to one of our hotel rooms. We could have walked out and strolled to the hotel hand in hand. We chose to order food and perform decent behavior.

“How are you doing?”

“I miss him, but I feel free.”

“You miss LA?”

“No, don’t make me go back.”

“Babe, you’re never going back.”

“Merci.”

We flirted without caution. I felt free to act as suggestive as I wanted to. We held hands at the table; no one knew who we were. I kept looking to the window in fear that a camera could come by flashing through the window; no one ever came. Gareth knew we were safe here.

He paid the bill. We put on our jackets. He held the door open for me, and we walked out into the night. We took a cab back to my hotel and we quickly made our way to the bed. Only did I come back down to earth to feel the metallic touch of his wedding band as he gripped my thigh to hold it apart from the other. I groaned in dissatisfied bliss.

I watched him hovering over me, thrusting in and out of me. I was thrilled we had finally reached this place. However, while looking at his chest, the stubble on his chin, his animalistic eyes - I realized that Teddy never knew his name, he didn’t know of Gareth Khan. Teddy didn’t know me at all, I didn’t allow him to know me. My eyes started to water at the thought while I was cumming, Gareth didn’t register my emotional shift - he thought I was just in a state of euphoria. When we finished, we shared a cigarette in bed. He asked me to rearrange my schedule to be in a friend’s fashion show tomorrow evening. I nearly declined, but something told me to say yes. I had not walked a runway since Sacai in 2007.

“Say yes?”

“Absolutely.”

I went to the bathroom to rearrange my schedule. I looked at pictures of Teddy. I reread my article that was being published the following week. I sat on the bathroom floor with a toothbrush hanging out my mouth, scrolling the web.

“Gareth?”

“Who’s the designer?”

“Lauritz, a designer from Denmark.”

Less than 24 hours later, I was sitting in a chair in a studio three blocks from the Catacombs. They straightened my hair and aggressively stitched extensions into my skull. They painted pink eye make-up on my face. They put me in neon-pink tights and a sleek, long white dress with slits up to my hips, past my thighs.

They put me in pink heels that color matched the tights. When I looked in the mirror, I was instantly reminded of the tights from the photo shoot that ended up on billboards across the metropolitan United States. I realized the dress looked nearly identical to the one from the fitting at Qui Hao in Shanghai. It had a similar neckline. It had a similar fabric composition. I curled my lip in surrender. My old life would continue to visit me in funny ways.

I walked the runway shimmering in neon light. I couldn’t see anything but the floor in front of me. I prayed to make it to the end and back. I succeeded. The afterparty took place in a wine cellar where they were serving champagne cocktails and there was no line for the bathroom. A famous director spilled red wine all over the Lauritz dress. I paid for it.

Shortly after the show, I moved out of the country home in Bordeaux. On Christmas Day, I was unpacking some items in my small apartment in the 12th arrondissement. I found that I didn’t have enough space for my clothes, so I decided to purge half my items. The stained dress from fashion week was thrown in a bag; that is when I came across the dress from Qui Hao. I put it on one last time and threw it in the same bag. The dress was so big it struggled to fit in the trash bag. I started to irrationally scream.

“I Fucking Hate Teddy Shand and I Fucking Hate the City of Los Angeles and I Hate the Guy Who Spilled Wine on the Lauritz and I Fucking Hate Shanghai and I Fucking Hate My Fucking Life!”

Gareth asked me to dinner on the 27th of December, and paparazzo found us in an embrace outside the restaurant. By the second week of January, his wife asked him for a divorce. Our intimacy expired as quickly as it had begun. We never really liked each other anyway. We just needed to get each other out of our systems.

However, we made excellent business partners, and we continued on the professional path. He was grateful we were caught. He didn’t want to be married anymore. He was tired of living a double life in secret. I was just happy to feel disconnected from men, maybe even the universe. I didn’t want to feel anything - I didn’t think I was capable of love anymore. I was only capable of working, and that’s what I did. I worked.