THE SECOND HALF OF SEPTEMBER was flat and gray. I never returned to NA. Instead, in the evenings, I lay on the charcoal midcentury modern sofa I’d bought from Nev, staring at the ceiling. Even though my new apartment was chaotic with half-unpacked boxes, it felt very empty. So did I.
I needed drugs—hard ones. I hit up SAME and those guys, whom I’d partied with on and off over the years. They were doing coke at a penthouse in Union Square, and I dropped by. I flirted with their friend, a DJ from Los Angeles. I’d never met him before. He walked me home to Avenue C at dawn. Then he told me he needed a place to stay.
“Well . . .” I said. He was sort of charming.
It had been a long time since I’d brought a guy up. My apartment was a disaster. So was my body.
“What’s that?” he said when he got my Topshop tights off. I’d forgotten the raw pink mess—healing now—on one side of my bikini line. A few weeks ago, I’d gone into a hyperfocused state during a speed binge and done it to myself with tweezers.
I wasn’t sure what to say.
“Self-mutilation,” I finally mumbled.
The DJ from LA shrugged and did his thing anyway—which turned out to be demeaning, marathon “coke sex” that challenged both my dignity and my gag reflex. Still, I gave him my number before I left for work, and we hooked up a few more times. Then he flew back to LA, and I was alone again.
October was even more flat, and darker. I went to dinner at Gemma with girls from the magazine. They talked about Pamela Love. I felt like a space alien. I stared grimly at a pile of arugula. It was the most boring salad in the world.
On the walk home on the Bowery, I listened to “Confessions on a Dance Floor” and tried to resist the . . . ennui that felt like it was about to overcome me like a cloud of poisonous gas. It’s not always going to feel like it does today, I told myself. I absolutely could not give up. I was going to get through this strange, joyless, barren patch. I was going to meet new friends. My ambition would return, too. The “lightning flash” moment with Lesley had been God’s way of telling me: believe. I pulled on a Marlboro Ultra Light. I mean, I just had to be patient.
I repeated this stuff in my head over the next several weeks. And guess what? All that positive thinking really made a difference. Slowly—day by day—I started to feel better: more social, more creative, more at ease around other people. Healthier. I refocused on my career. I even went out on a few dates.
Just kidding! I caved and called Marco.
He walked into my new apartment on a Friday night like he owned the place.
“This is great,” Marco said, nodding. It had been two months since I’d stood at Nev’s window and watched Marco fleeing East Sixth Street.
Now he was looking around. There wasn’t much for him to see. My passport was underneath my mattress. My beloved Louis Vuitton–Stephen Sprouse scarf was inside a kitchen cupboard. I’d secured the closet with a bicycle chain lock. Smaller items—jewelry, pill bottles—were in pillowcases or at the bottom of my hamper. The keys to everything were on a neon-yellow lanyard around my neck. The place felt sufficiently Marco-proof.
Now I could relax and get high with my horrible BFF. We sat cross-legged on the floor by my coffee table. But Marco was no Lester Garbage Head, let’s put it that way. He kept jabbing my arm. The plunger would pull back empty instead of drawing blood.
“OW!” I screeched.
“You have impenetrable veins!” Marco insisted. He was high already.
“No, you are just horrible at this,” I said. “I’ll just snort it—”
“I’m gonna try it in your neck,” Marco said. He pushed my hair away.
“AUGH!” I yelled. “NO!”
“LET ME SHOOT YOU UP IN THE NECK!” Marco said. I smacked the needle out of his hand.
“Get away from me, you freak!” But I was laughing. We were blissed out for two days.
We were up until four in the morning on Sunday. Marco was still sleeping as I glued myself together—as Andy Warhol would say—on Monday morning. I sat on the messy bed and took his hand.
“You look so pretty,” he said, opening his eyes. His hair was soft and fine like a baby’s. The sun was streaming in. I gave him a tiny smooch.
“Look, you can stay and sleep if you want,” I said. “But I’m only giving you one chance. Do you understand?” Marco nodded. “This is a test.” I rubbed the lipstick trace from his head with my thumb. “Do not fuck around.”
“I’ll be good. I swear,” he said. “I’m just so glad that we’re friends again.”
“Me too,” I said.
When I returned at seven, Marco was waiting with neat piles of pills on a mirror. Nothing seemed out of place or missing. I was very pleased. I sat down to do some drugs.
Three days later, I was in the same hole as before.
“AUUUUGHH,” I shrieked. It was five in the morning, and I’d stepped backward and fallen off a drug dealer’s stoop in the West Village. Wham. I hit the ground on West Tenth Street. I was wearing dirty white Sass & Bide jeans. “OW!”
“What happened?” Marco laughed, emerging from the town house. He picked me up and helped me toward Sixth Avenue. I’d just bought us two hundred dollars’ worth of cocaine, and he was on his very best behavior. I leaned up against my best friend, walking at an angle.
“Oww-www,” I moaned. “Let’s take a cab.” We hailed one.
“Second and C!” Marco said to the driver. I was snuggled into his armpit in the backseat. Now we were heading east on Eighth Street. I smelled like Mustela vanilla, Kiehl’s Coriander lotion, and marijuana. As per usual, Marco didn’t smell like anything. He was scrolling through his phone.
“You can still get phenobarbital in Mexico,” he murmured. “I think we should go.”
It was just getting light out when we got to 252 East Second Street. There were peachy streaks in the gray sky.
“Keys, keys . . .” I murmured, patting my pockets. I was wearing an ancient Juicy Couture pea coat with a raccoon fur collar.
“Around your neck,” Marco said helpfully.
“Ahhh . . .” I took the lanyard off slowly and unlocked the door.
We took the elevator to the third floor. My apartment looked like a crime scene. I fixed a Ketel One–and–SunnyD in a laboratory beaker while Marco polished off the smack.
“Jean won’t let me get lip injections,” I babbled. Now I was fussing with a vintage Cramps T-shirt that I’d cut into scraps on too much Vyvanse—trying to safety-pin it back together. “But I want them!” Marco smiled sleepily. “I wouldn’t get big ones—just a little . . . sexy-baby look, you know.” I’d been blathering for five hours straight. “I don’t even think I could have big lip injection-y . . . lip injection-y . . .” What was I talking about? “Lip injection-y . . .”
“Bleerrgrgggg,” Marco . . . well, not said, exactly.
“OW!” I screamed as I jabbed myself in the middle finger.
“Guh,” Marco said. Ooh, I was so happy to be hanging with him again. Then he nodded off and face-planted into the coffee table. Thud. His forehead was on the keyboard of my laptop! The screen was jumping around.
“YO!” I snapped. “WAKE UP AND DO THIS FUCKING COKE YOU MADE ME BUY!” I’d been dipping into it plenty myself. “Here!” I marched over, took the keys from around my neck, and scooped a huge bump from the bag. I shoved it under Marco’s left nostril.
“Ughh,” Marco gurgled.
“Sniff!” I barked like a drill sergeant. (I often get a bit militant on yay sometimes, I must admit.) My hand was unsteady. Marco kept snorting air. “Sniff! Focus! Sniff!” Finally Marco hit the target. I scooped another huge bump. “AGAIN!”
After a few minutes, Marco felt better. He even stood up.
“Let’s smoke the coke,” he said.
“No,” I said. “I don’t have the lung capacity for that.”
“Tinfoil . . .” Marco murmured. He staggered to his feet.
“No, dude,” I said, slurping finger blood. “It’s a waste. You’re going to burn through it all in five minutes.” But Marco wasn’t listening. “I paid for it!” He was hoisting himself to stand on the counter, heading for the hard-to-reach cabinet over the fridge. It didn’t have a lock on it. I’d stashed some drug-related stuff up there—pipes, tinfoil. But wait. How did he know that?
Paranoia latched onto my brain like a giant squid. I started to shake.
“I SAID I DON’T HAVE THE LUNG CAPACITY FOR THAT!” I said as he climbed down from the counter.
“Relax,” Marco said.
“Why—” I could barely talk. “Why do you always know where everything in my apartment is?” I put my hands in my hair. I wanted to pull my entire face off. “You need to get out of here. YOU NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE.”
“What?” Marco said. “Why?” He was acting innocent, but I could see him hardening. The tinfoil was still in his hand. He had climbed down from the counter and was standing by the fridge. “You’re being crazy—”
“AM I?” I screamed. Was I? Marco was shapeshifting in front of me. I couldn’t see him straight. I couldn’t see where he really was. I reached out. Then I snatched my hand away. “AM I?”
“Yes!” Marco said.
“You’ve been going through my stuff while I’m at work. I told you not to do that,” I said. “YOU NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE. I WANT YOU OUT. YOU STEAL FROM ME. YOU STOLE EVERYTHING FROM ME. YOU RUINED EVERYTHING.” My thoughts were spinning like a carnival ride. “I CAN’T FORGIVE YOU. I THOUGHT I COULD BUT I—”
“Stop screaming,” Marco muttered. He was getting up to go.
“JUST LEAVE AND LEAVE ME ALONE!” I started crying. “I HATE YOU. I FUCKING HATE YOU. I CAN’T DO THIS AGAIN. IT’S OVER. PLEASE JUST GO.”
“Whatever, bitch,” Marco snarled. “You need rehab.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I sobbed. Marco was getting his things together, putting them into his stupid Gaultier gym bag. “I know that. I know!”
Now he was putting on his coat. I backed into the kitchen, fumbled in one of my drawers for a knife—I was very coked up, as I said—and braced myself for an attack. But Marco didn’t pull a single stunt. He just stumbled out of my apartment.
The door slammed behind him. I rushed to lock it.
That was easy, I thought.
Ping. I heard the elevator door open. A minute later I peeked out into the hall. Marco was gone.
An hour later, I was sitting on the floor listening to “Cradle of Love” on my headphones and toasting a marshmallow with a BIC lighter.
“Ow!” I hissed, dropping the flaming treat onto my lap. I was still cranked. My fingertips were burned black, and my arm splotchy with yellow bruises from Marco’s amateur-hour injections. “ACK!” I beat the marshmallow with the heel of my palm.
When it was time to get ready for work, I threw on a Tuleh blazer and grabbed my Bottega. Sexy Dexys? Check. MetroCard? Check. Now, where were my keys? When had I last used my— Wait.
Suddenly it felt like Chris Brown was doing backflips in my stomach.
I reached up to my neck.
They weren’t there.
No.
I shook out the bed. I felt up my jacket pockets. I pulled my sofa apart. I dumped out my purse. Finally I had to give up. I left my apartment unlocked.
It was a bright, sunny morning—my least favorite kind. I bought an iced coffee at Little Veselka and wobbled down into the train station at 9:46 a.m. The Thursday production meeting that started in fourteen minutes was by far the most important responsibility of my otherwise easy-breezy job—and I was gonna be late. Again.
Sure enough, I sidled into the conference room at 10:06. The accessories editor was on deck.
“Sup,” Ray Siegel—then a Lucky assistant, now an editor at CR Fashion Book—mouthed.
Ray passed me a piece of paper: the production sheet. Ooh, I just hated that thing! It was double-sided, with two very confusing charts. Everyone else seemed to understand it, but I could never decipher a thing. Not that I could even focus on trying today. I kept thinking about my keys, my keys, my—
“Beauty?” the managing editor, Regan, said.
Ray kicked my dirty ballet flat with her beautiful Burberry wedge.
“Uh,” I said.
Everyone looked at me.
“Beauty?”
“January opener is ‘Strong Brows,’ ” I said slowly.
“We know,” Regan said coolly. “That page shipped three weeks ago.”
“We’re on to February opener,” the assistant managing editor, Faye, said.
“Oh,” I said. I looked at the production sheet. It was supposed to have all the answers! But where? “So the new opener is”—think think think—“ ‘Bronzer combined with Blush’!” What had we called it? “ ‘Brosh’!”
“ ‘Blonzer,’ ” Faye corrected me.
“Blonzer.” I nodded. “Right.” I didn’t understand this meeting! Why did I have to tell these people things they already knew?
“Okay,” said Faye. “So what’s the status?”
“The blonzers . . . are being shot by the photo studio?” I guessed.
“Has it been written? Has Kim approved a photo? Is there a layout?” asked Regan.
I stared at the sheet again.
“I’ll have to get back to you,” I mumbled.
I squirmed through seven more beauty pages like that.
“Thanks, Cat,” Regan said when it was all over. She gave me a steely once-over: taking in my busted face, my dull skin, my under-eye bags.
“Yup.” I smiled.
When the meeting was dismissed and the room started buzzing again, Ray turned to me.
“Well,” she said. “That was incredibly brutal and uncomfortable.”
I chuckled at the absurdity of my failure for a second and then pulled Retrosuperfuture sunnies down over my eyes. Ray laughed, too.
“I’m dead,” I said. “What’s new?”
“Well,” Ray said. “If you were anyone but you, I’d be scared for your job right now.”
“I am scared,” I said. “Come with me to my desk for a minute. I need you to keep making me feel better.”
“What are you doing later?” Ray followed me to the beauty department. She watched me slog through the chaos in my cubicle to get to my desk chair. “God, how does your cubicle get so insanely messy? Where are your interns? Oh, and do you know a good Japanese restaurant in the East Village near where you allegedly live? And why won’t you ever let me come over to your apartment?”
“Too many questions!” I dialed the four-digit extension to the beauty closet but nobody answered. Where were my interns? Someone needed to get me coffee and help me clean my desk. “I barely slept last night! And I don’t go to restaurants.”
Just then my editor in chief came by.
“Marnell,” Kim said right away. “What happened to your knees?”
I took off my sunglasses. I was wearing my white Sass & Bides and the bloodstains from where I’d fallen off the stoop were . . . seeping through them.
“Oh.” I tried to think of something. I was too tired. “I fell off a stoop.” Everyone was looking at me.
“And . . . ?” Ray said.
“It was a freak thing!” I started waving my hands around in the air until I noticed one of them was bleeding, too, at the knuckles, and I put them down. “I was on Waverly Place, I was standing there drinking an iced coffee and talking to some, uh, people and I took a step to the side, and I just fell off the whole stoop.” I looked down at my knees. “And, well, I guess I got my pants all bloodied up.”
“And then you decided to wear those very same pants today.” Ray smirked.
“Look.” I scowled. “I fell and then I was tired, so I didn’t look at my pants.” KF furrowed her brow. “And I think I’m just really dehydrated.” I gulped from an old Poland Spring bottle. “I don’t know what else to say.” My voice cracked. Suddenly I felt hysterical. “I FELL OFF A STOOP. I FELL OFF A STOOP.”
“What is wrong with you?” Ray whispered after Kim had moved on.
“I don’t know,” I said, burying my head in my hands. “I’m gonna get fired.”
“Nah,” Ray said. “They’ll never fire you.” I wasn’t so sure.
“How high was the stoop?”
“I don’t know, Ray,” I said. “It was a stoop! Five steps high.”
Ray let it drop.
“Do you want to work out at Chiquinox with me later?” Ray asked. (That’s Condé-speak for Equinox gym, where I once downward-dogged with Bruce Willis.)
“Um, sure,” I said. “What time?”
“Let’s just go after work,” Ray said. “I—”
My office phone started ringing. Marco’s number was on the caller ID. I snatched up the receiver.
“Snake!” I answered. “Fuck you. I’m meeting you on the street and you’re giving me back my keys, and after that I never want to see you again.”
“I’m coming over later,” he said.
“Oh no, you’re not. You are not coming over there, Marco,” I hissed. “You’re not going anywhere near my fucking house again.” Ray gave me a little wave. I mouthed “good-bye.” “There are consequences to things! Don’t you get it?” No answer. “You are not coming over. I will call the cops. Do not—”
“I’ll be there at six,” he said curtly.
And he hung up.
“GET OUT OF MY LIFE!” I screeched so loud that they could probably hear it in the art department. Jean Godfrey-June definitely heard it: she’d just arrived, and I hadn’t noticed.
“Everything okay?” she said as she sat down at her desk.
“Yup!” I lied. Then we both turned to our computers.
It was a horrible day. I trudged home after work and then sat on the sidewalk outside 252 East Second Street, waiting for someone to let me into the building. A dude in bicycle shorts trotted up with a golden retriever on a leash.
“You can’t sit there,” he said. Like I was a crackhead or something!
“I live here!” I snipped. The golden wagged its tail at me. Stupid dog!
I followed them in and went upstairs. As soon as I opened the door to 3H, I started screaming.
My apartment was cleaned out. The scarves and handbags were off the hooks—gone. My drawer of Ray-Bans and Chanel aviators and Dior rings—gifts from beauty companies—empty. The closet was unlocked. That key had been on my key chain. Armloads of clothes had been taken—the hangers, too. Every drawer and cupboard in the kitchen was open, rifled through.
I raged for approximately seven minutes. Then I pulled it together to call Marco. I needed to stay calm and figure out as much information as I could.
He picked up. I was surprised. (Later, I’d figure out that he liked hearing me suffer.) It was loud where Marco was. Thump-a thump-a. He was driving. That jerk had gone and picked up his dad’s car just so he could rob me!
I thought fast.
“Hey! I just wanted to say sorry for losing it earlier,” I chirped. Marco didn’t say anything. “I’m still at the office. Where are you?”
There was a pause.
“I’m on the FDR,” he said. I knew he was only allowed to borrow the Fiat for a few hours at a time. He was definitely going back to his dad’s with all of my stuff. I needed to give Marco time to get home and—hopefully—unload everything.
“Oh,” I said. My voice quavered. “Well, I’m going over to my sister’s. Hit me up when you’re back downtown.” Then I hung up.
I went up on the roof and paced in circles.
An hour later, I called again.
“Hey, MOTHERFUCKER!” I exploded when he answered. “I’M OUTSIDE THE PRECINCT. I JUST FILED THE POLICE REPORT. I GAVE THEM YOUR DAD’S ADDRESS.” I repeated the address. “I HOPE IT WAS WORTH IT.”
“Yeah right.” He sounded nervous.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” I said.
He hung up. I hurled my BlackBerry into my closet and slumped against the wall.
Our friend Marco thought he was very sneaky; the truth was, his life was so small and predictable that he was easy to track. Ever since he’d lost the apartment on Madison Street, he was always at one of four places: his dad’s basement complex, my house, Carly’s studio, or Trevor’s on East Twenty-Third Street. He terrorized us all equally; and when one of us kicked him out, he would rob us of something, sell it, and buy drugs and maneuver his way into another one of our apartments with them as a peace offering. (Of course, I didn’t learn this until later, when Trevor and I finally compared notes. No wonder he freaked out that time when he learned Trevor and I had hung out!)
By pretending to have called the police, I’d hoped that I’d scared Marco out of the Bronx and back down in Manhattan—into “hiding” at Carly’s or Trevor’s. By my calculations, he hadn’t slept yet. So he was about to crash—hard—somewhere. And that’s when I would pounce.
I went to bed that night, and then woke up in the morning and went to Condé. I texted Trevor around lunchtime.
Have you seen Marco? Mad casual.
He’s been passed out on my bed for twelve hours, Trevor wrote. Bingo.
Don’t ask me how I convinced my estranged sister to leave work early, rent a Zipcar and drive to the Bronx late on a Friday evening. We pulled up to his building at around six o’clock. I banged on the kitchen door of the apartment. Marco’s dad opened it in his undershirt.
I smiled like I wanted to give him a Mary Kay makeover.
I cooed, “Hi!”
“Hello . . .” he said in his Romanian accent.
“I’m so sorry to bother you, but my sister Emily”—she was standing behind me— “and I need to get my things from Marco’s . . . rooms. He was storing some stuff during my move, and we only have the car for another hour.” Marco’s dad looked confused, but he let us in. He even helped me unlatch the door in the kitchen floor that led into Marco’s lair.
“What is this place?” Emily said, taking in the cinder-block walls, the hundreds of Post-its. She’d never met Marco.
I didn’t answer. I was too busy not believing my eyes. Marco hadn’t invited me over in months—since he’d gotten serious with Carly—and now I understood why. Marco’s “quarters” were fucking full of my things. My “Methadone” nameplate necklace (I’d ordered it special) hung on a peg. My Paul McCarthy and Terence Koh books were open on his desk. Even my tear sheets were pinned to his walls! This wasn’t stuff he’d taken recently, I realized. They were items I hadn’t seen in a long time—things I hadn’t even noticed were missing! Some of them dated back to the mouse apartment. My best friend had been stealing from me this whole time.
“RARRRRRRR,” I roared, and just . . . attacked. I grabbed a shopping bag from the corner.
“I’m going to wait in the car,” Emily said, backing away.
I tore that bunker apart. The clothes he’d taken from me the day before weren’t anywhere—so I took things of his. His dope bag “stamp” collection. His binders full of special tear sheets. Then I went upstairs and into the little room where Marco slept and ransacked the dresser drawers. His favorite sheep skin jean jacket. His favorite Black Flag T-shirt. I filled two bags and two laundry baskets; I was out of control. Marco’s dad watched television while I marauded.
I didn’t say good-bye when I was through; I just ran. I threw all of my stuff in the trunk and climbed into the passenger seat of the Zipcar.
“Drive!” I shouted, like we were in an action movie. The adrenaline rush was flat-out narcotic, I had to admit. No wonder Marco committed so many crimes! My sister dutifully peeled away.
I was practically foaming at the mouth the entire drive back to Manhattan.
“It wasn’t everything,” I jabbered. “He still has my best stuff—he has my Prada fringe bag, he has my Balenciaga, Emily. He has Mom’s sheared mink coat!”
“Calm down!” Emily kept saying. “Caitlin! It’s just stuff! Who cares?” She looked freaked out. Raindrops started splattering on the windshield.
I still didn’t have keys, so when we reached my building, Emily and I sat in the car, waiting for someone to come home. I jumped out and accosted a neighbor—who let me in (if only because she was afraid to say no). I propped the door open with a rolled-up Wall Street Journal and darted back and forth through the rain, unloading my haul. When I’d dragged the last laundry basket to the lobby, I turned to run out and thank my sister—but the Zipcar was already halfway down the block.
I got everything into the elevator and upstairs into my place. Then I went into the bathroom. My eyes were wild in the mirror. There was mascara on my forehead and my hair was wet. I swallowed three Adderall at once. They got stuck in my throat, so I leaned down and drank from the faucet. I wasn’t done yet.
Twenty minutes later, I was in the backseat of a cab heading to East Twenty-Third Street. It was still raining.
“Five F, please,” I said to the doorman. “Cat.” He gave me a funny look, but he made the call—then he nodded. I went up to the fifth floor and down the hall. Then I opened Trevor’s unlocked door.
“Hey!” Trevor greeted me. He was sitting on his black leather sofa, rolling a joint on his Stanley Kubrick coffee table book. Marco was passed out with his boots on, lying on his back on the bed across the room. There was a giant black duffel bag—honestly, it was as big as me—right there in the foyer by my feet.
“Is this Marco’s?” I said.
“Yeah,” Trevor said. “Why?”
Well. You know what I did! I scooped that bitch up by the straps and heaved it over my shoulders.
“Hey!” Trevor yelled. “What are you doing?” I didn’t answer—I just sprinted right the hell out of there and all the way to the elevator. It took a minute to arrive—the longest minute ever.
Trevor came running down the hall in his pajama bottoms and a dirty wifebeater.
“You can’t do that!” he was yelling. “You’re stealing from my apartment—”
“GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME, TREVOR!” I screamed. “THIS DOESN’T INVOLVE YOU!” The elevator pinged open. I dragged the huge duffel bag into the elevator like a leopard pulling a carcass into a cave.
“STOP!” Trevor was bugging. “I’LL CALL THE—” Lucky for him, the doors closed before he could get to me. I was ready to claw out his eyes! My heart was going a million miles a minute. (Sorry to keep using that same clichéd expression—but this is an amphetamine memoir.)
It was pouring outside. I hustled to the curb and hailed a cab on Third Avenue. I hauled my cargo into the backseat and smooshed in along with it.
“DRIVE!” I screamed—for the second time that evening—as I slammed the door shut. “ANYWHERE! A MAN IS AFTER ME!” The driver stepped on the gas.
Trevor was calling my cell over and over. I ignored him and unzipped the bag. The first thing I saw was the Lanvin tote that Jean had given me. Marco knew it was my prized possession. That soulless piece of shit.
I dug deeper. There was my Robert Wilson for Louis Vuitton neon-green-and-orange Vernis tote bag. There was my mom’s Fendi chinchilla baguette.
I looked up and saw that we were on one of my favorite blocks in Soho.
“This is good, sir!” I told the driver. He pulled over. I paid and tossed my stuff out onto the sidewalk. Then I sat in a doorway with everything, out of the rain, and got to work. There were plastic grocery bags in Marco’s duffel, and I filled them with my things—and anything of his that I wanted. Screw him, right?
When I was through, the duffel was only half-full. I put it on my back and trudged up the street until I came to the back entrance of the Crosby Hotel, which has a big ledge and a sunken wall of shrubs and what I thought was a hidden Dumpster (it’s actually a handicapped elevator shaft).
Only then did I finally answer one of Marco’s calls.
“Cat!” he cried. “Thank God!” He was panicking. Nothing mattered to Marco more than his stuff. “Where are you? I’m not mad—”
“FUCK YOU!” I shrieked. “HOW DOES IT FEEL, YOU FUCKING BITCH?! HOW DOES IT FEEL?!”
“Where are you?” Marco was begging me. “Please. What are you doing with my stuff?”
“I’M ON THE WEST SIDE HIGHWAY!” I screamed. “I JUST THREW YOUR STUFF INTO THE HUDSON RIVER!”
“What?” Marco said. “No—”
I hung up. Marco kept calling me. I didn’t answer. I just continued walking up Lafayette Street in the rain. The streets were empty. I gazed up at all of the nice, brightly lit apartments full of normal people cooking pork tenderloin or whatever normal people cook. Then I sat down on a stoop to light a cigarette. My hands were shaking so badly I couldn’t strike a match. And I just lost it. I started crying hysterically. What the hell was I doing? I couldn’t believe what I’d done over the past twenty-four hours. Was this really my life? I was as bad as Marco.
He was still calling. I picked up.
“YOUR STUFF IS IN THE GARBAGE BEHIND THE CROSBY HOTEL!” I yelled—but my heart wasn’t in it anymore. “THAT’S THE LAST NICE THING I’M EVER DOING FOR YOU.” I hung up on him once again. Then I looked at the sky for a long time.
It was Friday night. I went home, had my locks changed, and went to sleep. On Monday, I called in sick to work. On Tuesday, I called in sick. On Wednesday, I was in such bad shape at work that the magazine contacted my family. Later that day, my dad drove four hours up from DC to talk me into going away for treatment again. On Thursday, I promised Jean that I was checking into a hospital. I was put on disability leave from Condé Nast. But I just went to bed at home instead. On Friday, Jean e-mailed me and called me, telling me that if I didn’t check in somewhere, she would have to fire me. On Friday evening, I got out of bed, gathered a bunch of beauty products into a plastic bag, and took a taxi to the mental hospital.