Some girls become Liz. Some girls want to be her. Some just want her. A fictional short story about Liz, Richard and an anonymous anti-hero.
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Liz invites me over for tea every Wednesday even though I tell her every week that I cannot drink tea on Wednesdays and no one drinks tea on Wednesdays.
Except for Liz.
There is no other day of the week that I want to drink tea either. Especially not with Liz.
Liz lives on the corner across the street, up two flights of stairs and down the hall from a man named Richard.
The man named Richard owns the liquor store on the other corner across the other street. His end of Liz’s hallway smells like a degenerate science experiment. An amalgamation of Lucky Strikes and a whole lot of CH3CH2OH.
Liz and the man named Richard couldn’t be more different. He stores dirt beneath his fingernails and often has a piece of lettuce stuck in his left lateral incisor. His voice is rough. Probably from the Lucky Strikes.
I like the man named Richard. He is real. He must have been handsome at one point in time. Say 10, 15 years ago. In a sort of grotesque way, he still is.
Liz is a pain in the ass. I went to Liz’s for tea only once, the first time she invited me. I didn’t know yet that she was a pain in the ass.
I’d never been invited anywhere for tea. I don’t care much for tea, and I don’t believe anyone who says they do.
Is it not just very hot, dirt-flavored water? Like the underside of the man named Richard’s nails might taste if you were to suck on his fingers. Not that I would suck his fingers, but I’d bet there is a woman out there who has, and she remembers doing it every time she takes a sip of tea.
I met Liz one night at a bar in the Lower East Side. The one on Orchard Street with the shuffleboard table and shitty drinks. She looked out of place. A woman like Liz doesn’t hang out in bars with shuffleboard tables and shitty drinks.
I was drunk and feeling tormented about my drunkenness. Among other things.
I believed I was doing a fine job hiding my torment. But Liz approached me, her perfectly pink manicured fingernails wrapped around a perfectly pink glass of rosé. She smelled like a scoop of artisanal vanilla ice cream, and a dainty necklace hung on her collarbone with swooping swirling golden letters that spelled it all out: L-I-Z. What could she possibly want with me who smelled like tequila and looked like an identity crisis dressed in black? Was she going to tell me I was clearly too drunk and suggest I go home? Was she going to hit on me? I wasn’t sure which I hoped for.
Perhaps she was looking for somewhere to put her own torment, if there was anything a woman like Liz could be tormented over, and she thought we could find somewhere together to put our torment.
So, my torment must have been obvious.
I’m Liz.
Okay.
Come over for tea tomorrow?
Tea? On a Wednesday?
Tea. On a Wednesday.
Just tea?
Among other things.
The next day I stood on Liz’s doorstep, having made the journey through the fumes rolling out of the man named Richard’s door.
I pull at the sleeves of my shirt. If only I hadn’t had that last shot of tequila last night. I never would have agreed to this. Who the fuck drinks tea on Wednesdays?
Liz does, that’s who.
I drum my knuckles against the door twice. But softly so maybe she won’t hear the knock, and I can leave. That way, when she asks what happened to me, I could say I knocked twice.
It’s open!
Liz is perched on the edge of her sofa. It’s pristinely white, much like the rest of the room. I’ve never been in a room with so much bright whiteness. It hurts my eyes, and I am suddenly keenly aware of my dirty black boots.
A few steps, in just my socks, drop me into a white velvet chair seated across from Liz.
The man down the hall seems interesting.
Who? Oh, Richard. Isn’t he kind of grotesque? I don’t often think about him.
But I can’t stop thinking about the man named Richard as I sip the hot water that tastes a lot like the dirt under my boots or Richard’s nails, and I consider for a moment that I might be accidentally slurping the entire earth down my throat.
Liz is so perfect. Maybe she is a pain in the ass because I am in love with her. Or I wish I could be more like her. Or I fucking hate her. It’s hard to tell the difference.
Liz talks about her life and dreams and the children she will raise someday in a suburb of Connecticut with a man “probably named Harrison.”
Liz would never sleep with a man like Richard. Neither would I. Never. But I dare to think about it for a fraction of a second, what it would be like to be touched by a man like Richard before quickly shaking the thought from my head.
I’ve spilled my tea.
Liz knows how to clean it up. She has the right type of cleaner for the carpet. I offer to help but my fingers are too clumsy, and I don’t know how to do much of anything. She’s ladylike, even on all fours, cleaning up the mess I made.
So, are you seeing anyone?
Um, well. It’s complicated.
Do I want to fuck Liz? No. It’s something more tender. I really just might be in love with her.
Nothing is ever that complicated!
Liz would think that. Everything is simple for her. Because she is a simply stupid woman.
I am an intellectual and therefore everything is very complicated for me. I determine that she is a pain in the ass because I fucking hate her and I want to leave.
I imagine telling Liz to go fuck herself, and I’d run out of her white apartment down the hall to the man named Richard.
He’d be waiting by the door, a Lucky Strike and bottle of tequila in each hand. He’d let me hide in the fumes until Liz leaves for a date with a guy, probably named Harrison.
We’d get drunk and make fun of her rehearsed laugh, her carpet cleaner and her ugly, frilly dresses. We’d finish a pack of Lucky Strikes, buy a bag of blow and stumble down to the bar on Orchard Street.
We’d be talking shit and sniffing bumps from my unmanicured nails in the bathroom. Mine at least do not have dirt under them.
We’d bother the bartenders with stories of our shared torments.
Cher would be with us, through the bar speaker asking if we believed in life after love to which we’d reply emphatically, YES!
We’d finish the bag and ask around the bar for more blow. We’d find some and agree that ours was better, that WE are better.
We’d play shuffleboard and cause a scene when we lose to a group of 22-year-olds.
We’d get kicked out and with our sorry asses on the curb, drunk and high, we’d share our last cigarette in silence and think about Liz.
We think she’s a phony.
We think she’s a bitch.
We think she’s beautiful.
Richard wishes he could be with a woman like Liz.
I wish I could be a woman like Liz.
We’d glance at each other and consider fucking, then throw our tired heads back in roaring laughter and go home. Me to my own apartment, the man named Richard to his on the corner across the street up two flights of stairs and up the hall from Liz.
But I am a coward.
I don’t tell Liz to go fuck herself and I don’t paint the Lower East Side red with Richard.
I sit and finish the now lukewarm liquid in my cup and listen to Liz’s hopes and dreams.
I thank her for the invitation and agree we should do this again sometime. And every Wednesday when Liz invites me back for more hot dirt water, I tell her I am busy.
