A March of Marys, day twelve
We meet at a party. I am with Christina and she is not having a good time because she is drunk and hungover and usually kind of miserable.
Welcome back to my substack! We’re celebrating day 12 of A March of Marys, a literary experience where I share a sequential chunk of American Mary, my first novel, right here online every day throughout the month of March. Today’s post was originally published on Everyday Genius in 2014, back when I was still compiling ideas into what would become this book.
If you enjoy my work, the best way to support me is to share my posts on your socials or directly with a friend. And if you aren’t already subscribed, you can start now by entering your email below. My posts are always free and public because I appreciate you for being here!
▲
We meet at a party. I am with Christina and she is not having a good time because she is hungover and usually kind of miserable. We rode our bikes over here together and I am obligated to leave with her. You are standing against the wall next to me and we are watching a guy on a skateboard do a trick in the living room of the party. You are eating a donut and you ask me if I want to lick the chocolate off of your finger. I do it and say I can’t believe I just did that. We go to the landing of the stairwell and make out. I like the way you pull me back by the neck to kiss me and you like how I softly bite your bottom lip. I leave with my miserable friend, but we decide to stay in touch. I bike home and wish I had stayed. You live far away, but you send me an email and we trade addresses. We become penpals, the kind that actually write letters, because it is more romantic. We send letters back and forth for two years, each letter revealing more than the last, with promises to see each other soon, repeatedly and unfulfilled, except for one time when your friend had to be in Philly for a family reunion and you tagged along and came with me to happy hour and my friends were like, why do you like this guy?
*
We meet at a party. I don’t like your Cats t-shirt, but let you dance to ‘Talk Talk’ with me anyway, even though I usually dance to this song with Rebekah when she is with me, and she is with me. You lean into my ear to tell me that you think I am pretty and touch my waist and I like it. We don’t kiss, but you give me your phone number and I give you my email address and three days later you email me to say that you made me a mixtape. I reply by asking if you want to go on a bike ride. You live further down in South Philly than I do. I drink a can of diet coke while biking to your friend’s apartment and I’m not sure why we’re meeting at your friend’s apartment. You give me the mixtape and let me hold it for a few seconds and then you take it back and put it in your cassette player so we can listen to it. You cook us macaroni and cheese to eat for lunch, but I brought a sandwich from Essene and I eat that instead. You talk about vinyl records a lot with your friend who is sitting on the floor. I wish I had brought something to read. We kiss on your friend’s couch after your friend leaves, but I feel bored, like I’m doing something mechanical but not electric. Like chewing. You invite me to a party a few months later and I show up with Christina. I roll and smoke a joint in your bathroom and Christina gets drunk on boxed wine and makes fun of all the cute scene girls at the party because they have ‘three color hair.’ The next week, I accompany Christina to the grocery store in Hatfield where she steals a box of blonde dye, a box of auburn dye, and a box of black dye so she can dye her hair three colors.
*
We meet at a party. It is your party, but I don’t know it walking in. Someone I know from school invited me. I show up alone and you get too drunk and I get too drunk and we wind up together on the second floor landing of your house singing a Postal Service song that I like at the time. I can’t remember if you kiss me because I am too drunk and you are too drunk and you suggest that I sleep with your roommate because he is lonely and I decide that you are not a good person and your girl roommate tries to put me to bed on your couch with a blanket and the lights off, but I get up and unlock my bike and ride home talking to myself, repeating the scenario out loud with commentary like I was supposed to do in acting class that morning and only got on the second take. I get home and drink two diet cokes while looking at my MySpace page and go to sleep. I never hear from you again or even really think about you until I google my email address some years later and see that you used my username for the title of a movie you made and put on YouTube. Shoddy dialogue, poorly edited, featuring (of course) a white dude protagonist who stumbles upon a wondrously quirky girl who helps cure his writer’s block. It has 27 views.
*
We meet at a party. Christina invited me and she knows whose party it is but I have no idea, I just show up. I roll and smoke a joint in the bathroom and bump into Norah, who used to work at the grocery store where I work but got fired because she dyed her hair violet red, and it’s against company policy to have a hair color ‘not found in nature,’ which is bullshit because there are purplish-red flowers in nature. You are standing against the wall, watching a guy on a skateboard do a trick in the living room of the party and I watch you from the other side of the room, in front of the fish tank. Norah complains about her boyfriend and I nod empathetically. You are finishing eating a donut and you don’t notice me looking at you. I don’t notice you looking at me because I’m concentrating on the angelfish periodically. I like the way you dress. I look down and feel my large bangle necklace with my finger and then we meet eyes. It’s getting late and I have class early the next morning, so I get ready to leave, pulling my coat and scarf over my head. You catch me at the door and ask me what my name is. You live far away, but you want to send me an email so I give you my email address. You send me an email and I reply back to ask what your address is and suggest we become penpals, like actually write letters, because it is more romantic. We send letters back and forth for six months, each letter revealing more than the last, with a plan to see each other in the summer, when you move to Brooklyn. I take the Chinatown bus up to Manhattan and we spend a long weekend together walking from museum to park to diner to bedroom and you take it all slowly and I like that and I write a lot of poems about it in a notebook on the bus on the way back because you told me we would be dating if we lived closer and I am about to move to England for a year.
*
We meet at a party. You already know my name, which makes me feel uncomfortable because I don’t think I’d ever seen you before and I don’t find you attractive. You tell me you were in my Survey to British Literature class last semester. I nod and say ‘Oh, yeah, cool’ and excuse myself to the bathroom where I roll and smoke a joint and think about holding out for chaste love like Britomart. Christina is waiting outside of the bathroom because she has to pee, so when I open the door to come out and join the party, I go back into the bathroom with her and sit inside the bathtub to roll another joint while she sits on the toilet and complains to me about this boy we call ‘spindily indily’ because he is tall and skinny and looks like he’s into Sonic Youth. We smoke and gossip and after a while emerge from the bathroom where you are waiting outside. You give me what looks like a hopeful glance, but I’m too busy pretending to be cool with Christina to acknowledge you. Christina and I go to the kitchen where people we know from work are drinking and I play with the cat who lives in the house where the party is. Christina and I leave the party and bike back to her apartment to fall asleep under her Mary-Kate Olson collages.
*
We meet at a party. Well, actually, we meet after I leave the party. You are friends with my friend Chloe, who calls you to pick us up from this haircutting barbeque party in someone’s backyard in Fishtown. Chloe and I took the el to get there, but she thought you might know of a better party happening somewhere else so you drive to Fishtown and pick us up outside of the house after I get an asymmetrical haircut from one of the girls at the party. I didn’t have anything to drink at the party, but Chloe did. I want to do drugs. You have drugs, some kind of pills, and we take them as you drive, me in the passenger seat and Chloe in the backseat singing along to a Weezer song on the radio. You drive us to a house with a swimming pool in the suburbs where some kids you know are tripping on acid or mushrooms, but they don’t have any left over for us. You and I take another one of your pills and everything feels warm and fuzzy, like the soft hair on your arms that I feel closing in on me back at Chloe’s parents’ house on her couch. I don’t really want to, but we’re in the moment and I like feeling worshipped, so I let you kiss me and then hold me when I sleep, still in my sundress and sandals. You tell Chloe the next day that I am tiny and wonderful and really that’s all that I want.
*
We meet at a party. I am with Christina and she is not having a good time because she is drunk and hungover and usually kind of miserable. She says she can never drink tequila again and makes a weird noise when we’re in the kitchen at the party when she sees a bottle of Cuervo Gold on top of the refrigerator. She makes some more weird growling noises, kind of like a grunt and a trill, like a vocal fry of disapproval, and stops when someone tall places a hand towel on top of the bottle to hide it for her. Christina and I rode our bikes over here together from the coffee shop where I sat in a booth and drank a large americano and Christina opened one of the malt liquor energy drinks she bought with her fake real ID from the beer store we all call the ‘cop shop’ across the street from the coffee shop. Christina’s ID is a real ID, but the name on the card and the person in the photo is not her, just another generic white girl. She is never questioned on it. We came to this party to have a good time I guess, but I think we more or less just like the idea of parties because a lot of the time Christina and I end up in a corner talking to each other by cupping a hand to the other’s ear, as if to let everyone else know that this is a private conversation. Sometimes we drink too much and cry and hold each other sitting on whoever’s couch. We rode our bikes here together and I am obligated to leave with her. I’m not really having fun at this party either because I don’t know anyone here besides Christina and I am not drunk, just caffeinated, and I’m feeling on edge, just super aware of everything. I see a green piece of plastic with a skull drawn on it in the bathroom while I’m rolling a joint and I pick it up and admire it and put it in my purse. I go outside and sit on the steps and smoke the joint. A cat that either lives in the house where the party is or is another visitor of the house party comes out of the front door, which had been left partially open, and rubs its head against my knee. I pet the cat and think, you are the only friend I’ve met tonight. I finish the joint and go back to join the party because it is cold outside anyway. I take my coat off and put it behind a chair and I want to socialize, I guess, so I stand against the wall in the living room where there is music playing and other people standing around. You are standing against the wall next to me and we are watching a guy on a skateboard do a trick in the middle of the living room of the party. You say, ‘Hi’ to me. I say ‘Hi,’ and look at you and then the poster of Starry Night on the wall behind us. You are eating a candy bar and you ask me if I want to lick the chocolate off of your finger. I do it and say I can’t believe I just did that. I can’t believe I did that, did I actually do that. We go to the landing of the stairwell and make out. It is dark in the stairwell and we are right next to a window so a little bit of blue light is glowing. You have me against the wall and everything feels hazy, and I like it. I know I like it. Someone passes us in the stairwell going to the bathroom or something, but I’m not embarrassed. I don’t remember how we got back to the party, but we did and maybe that’s when we were watching the guy do a skateboard trick in the living room. Christina finds me and she wants to leave, so I leave with my miserable friend but we decide to stay in touch. I bike home and wish I had stayed. You live far away but you send me an email and I ask if you want to become penpals, like actually write letters, because it is more romantic. We send letters back and forth for some time and I love getting mail from you, it makes me feel like we’re in on each other’s secret even though we don’t really know each other. I guess we want to know each other, or at least that’s what it seems like, because what else would this be? A distraction? A curiosity? We meet up a few times for long weekends and it’s usually fun and exciting, but it also kind of hurts, like getting drunk together and laying in a park looking at the stars at night or walking past the national debt counter and feeling insignificant underneath all those digits. We eventually fall out of touch because of distance and time and it’s easier to get over someone who’s not there.
Missed yesterday’s post? Read it here.