me a coffee and three Advil. “Let me know if you need anything else,” she says and skips out of my bedroom.
I heave myself up and wash the pills down with the coffee. My glamorous silk chemise is twisted up around my waist, exposing the ugly stretched-out panties I wear when Jack’s not here. I’m still wearing my bra and the straps have left deep red grooves on my shoulders. Eva is humming in the kitchen.
I shower then call Ted and tell him I’m running late and to entertain the Bootcampers until Eva and I arrive. I like Ted-the-helpful-tagalong much better than Ted-the-angry-Apples-Are-Tasty-e-mailing ranter.
I want to wear my glasses and my baggy vintage men’s 501s that some crazy Japanese guy offered to buy off my ass on the spot at a gig last summer for four hundred American dollars, but I don’t. I shimmy into a cute summer wrap dress. I seal the plunging V-neck with a piece of the stickiest double-sided tape until it’s semi-respectable-looking and my tits aren’t entirely popping out. I make up my face and scrunch up my hair until it looks artfully tousled, but it’s lopsided. I want my ponytails. I strap on sandals with heels, but there’s no way my contacts are going in. I put on my prescription Ray-Bans and vow not to take them off until after sundown.
Every time Precious Finger laughs her shrill laugh at breakfast I feel like someone is stabbing an ice pick into my ears. Who knew such a sound could come out of a tiny, squirrelly woman? I can only imagine what kinds of offensive noises she was making last night, undoubtedly naked and writhing with her undoubtedly shaved pussy impaled on Zeitgeist’s skinny stub. I can imagine this but I don’t want to. What I want to do is throw up or lie on the floor or call Jack and tell him to get the next flight to Montreal so he can make me tea and pet my head.
I pick at my bagel and let Eva tell the group about the day’s itinerary: shopping, eating, music. “And tomorrow—” she’s getting them all worked up now “—we’ve arranged an exclusive tour of the Snap offices and a roundtable discussion with some great examples of the city’s most stylish DOs.”
This is news. Trend Mecca Bootcamp Sunday is usually homework day, when I spend time with the participants arranging their photographs and notes into a sort of scrapbook that they can take back to their bosses as proof that the weekend was ten grand well spent. And it’s the day we hand out the goody bags, which is my favorite part because it means that shortly they’ll all be getting on airplanes and going home. Trend Mecca Bootcamp Sunday is not for Snap tours and roundtables. I glare at Ted from behind my sunglasses but he doesn’t notice so I kick him under the table. He points to Eva and gives me the thumbs-up sign. It takes all my willpower not to grab a serrated knife off the table, hold his hand down and saw off his fucking thumb.
“It was just an idea we came up with last night. I told her it was impossible, we could never assemble the right people in time for a Sunday roundtable, but she called this morning and said she’d taken care of it. What was I supposed to say? I thought she ran it by you.”
“She did not run it by me,” I hiss. We’re outside the bagel place. Eva is a few feet away chatting up the group while I smoke and bitch at Ted.
“Are you sure, Sara?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“You were pretty drunk last night.”
This is true, but I’m sure I would remember agreeing to something like this. It’s not the sort of thing I’d be likely to forget unless of course Eva was talking about it while I was talking about Lila’s magazines. Fuck me hard with Zeitgeist’s skinny-stub dick—I don’t know what to say. “Well, she told me about it, but I thought she meant for the next Bootcamp.”
Ted looks relieved. I am a lying dirtbag with possible blackout issues. No more hard liquor. No more drinking till I’m drunk. Wine and beer only, and only with food. Ted and I join the others and walk up the street to our first shopping stop of the day. The straps of my high-heeled sandals rub against my feet and I can feel the blisters bubbling up.
By midafternoon I’m gimping behind the group like I have some kind of palsy. Women pass and either smile in empathy or sneer at my stupidity. The men—the straight men—are oblivious: they’re staring at my tits, which refused to be contained by the stickiest double-sided tape and are pushing out of my clingy wrap dress. I sit down once we reach the Snap store. I rarely come here—it’s too weird, all the staff know who I am and act skittish and extra friendly when I visit so I don’t except on Bootcamp weekends and that’s only because Ted reminds me that the Bootcampers always drop serious cash. It’s better to endure a stop at the Snap store than to contend with bitchy Ted, who inevitably shows up in my office the following Monday saying something like I have a bee in my bonnet or I have a bone to pick with you. He thinks this is funny but is never actually amused if the company store wasn’t on the tour.
This particular Bootcamp weekend I am delighted, ecstatic, positively aglow that we’ve stopped at the Snap store, as I can get off my fucking feet. I survey the shop and notice we are stocking an excellent selection of limited-edition sneakers, the sight of which make my feet throb more and I long for an axe and an epidural to numb my lower half so I won’t feel the pain when I lob off my swollen, blistery feet.
We’re also selling pairs of hand-knit, mismatched argyle socks and this is most helpful—I’ll need something to cauterize my stumps before I shove them into a pair of three-hundred-dollar hip-hop-fantastic sneakers. I’ll be like one of those ladies I see walking to the Metro station in the morning, dressed in a skirt suit with socks and sneakers, the practical pumps she’ll change into at the office stuffed in the plastic Gap bag she carries. I could be one of those ladies, but better, with good clothes and expensive sneakers and hand-knit mismatched argyle socks that the Gap-bag ladies don’t know they want yet but they will in about eight to twelve months. I could make myself a DO and parents everywhere would write me hateful letters because after seeing me as a Snap DO their kid bought in to the amputation-is-awesome hype and now there’s nothing they can do to get their child’s feet back. They’ll never be in the Olympics unless it’s the Special Olympics and that’s just not the same no matter what anyone says.
I’m trying to think of the closest axe store when my cell rings. I’m disappointed when the caller ID comes up as Genevieve and not Jack and then I’m sure I’m a dirtbag whose feet deserve to be chopped off without an epidural.
“Hey, Gen. What’s up?”
“You haven’t called me back.”
“Yeah, sorry. It’s Bootcamp weekend.” Gen called yesterday. I picked the message up at the bar but couldn’t hear a thing. I remember this with total clarity and it’s a gold-star moment on a dark and unforgiving day.
“I know it’s Bootcamp weekend. I don’t know why you need Ted there, but fine, whatever. It’s work, I know. But I need to know if you’re coming to the party.”
“Right. The party.” I have no idea what she’s talking about. And why is Ted telling her I need him here? “What’s the date again?”
“Next Saturday at eleven—a.m.”
“Of course, eleven a.m. It’s not like you’d have a party at eleven p.m.,” I say.
“We used to.” Gen’s voice is very small.
“Are you okay?”
“Of course. I’m fine. I’ll let you go.” She’s snuffling, but I have to go—the group is heading out the door.
“Are
