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Like the internet needs another Molly.

The Best Time I Might Have Seen Lena Dunham at the Boatel

“The drinks are four dollars now,” said the bartender in the parking lot of the Boatel, a man with a long grey beard and a lazy voice.  The girl standing next to me handed over a twenty. This was a problem. There was no change.

He flailed around, hand caught in the tip jar like the raccoon in Where The Red Fern Grows, unwilling to unfist the crumpled, sweaty ones. He squatted for a while behind the bar, popped up with a few dollars – not enough – delved into the jar again.  I kept looking over at the girl who’d started all of this with her twenty dollar bill, smiling awkwardly with an unspoken mix of can you believe this guy? and didn’t you have anything smaller, this is ridiculous! and I, too, would just really like a drink, right now.

She looked familiar, cat-eye sunglasses and red lipstick not entirely within the lines, lipstick that I was sure my mouth mimicked, having hastily applied it on a subway platform using my phone camera as a mirror.  She looked familiar, but only in that Brooklyn-y way, the way where you might have seen her at one brunch of a thousand brunches, or simply seen one girl of those thousand girls who, when viewed from a short distance, could effortlessly stand in for each other, slipping easily in and out of each other’s apartments, or lives.  I looked again, a bit more quizzical this time, a do I know you? sort of look.

The bartender straightened from his crouch, finally having harvested a thick kelpy tangle of bills that looked too substantial to only amount to sixteen dollars.

“Thanks,” she said.  “Thank you, really.” The voice sounded familiar.  I turned away and ordered, virtuously clutching a five dollar bill, when it hit me: I’d been standing next to Lena Dunham.

I took a sip of my drink, bourbon and Country Time lemonade and mint, probably smearing my red lipstick around my face even more. I was such a loser, I thought. I’m wearing pants that I think might accidentally be harem pants. I thought, Maybe I should’ve said something.  What?  I like your sunglasses?  How does one reconcile the polarizing auteur with this girl, a girl with inexpertly applied lipstick who just wanted a fucking drink and only had a twenty, probably recently egested from a bodega ATM?  I looked around, but she was gone. Was it even her?  I ran a finger under my bottom lip. Maybe. Or maybe it was just one of those girls.

M: What are you watching?

D: Species.

M: You know what always bothered me about that movie?

D: What?

M: They made the alien too hot. Natasha Henstridge? If aliens are smart enough to invade Earth, they should know you need an alien that’s attractive enough to get dudes to inseminate her gross alien egg nest, but not so hot she wouldn’t escape notice.

D: O…kay.

M: Like, me. I would make a good alien.  If I had to, I could probably get dudes to secretly fertilize a gross egg sac.  But nobody would consider it out of the ordinary.

Question: How do you train a dead freshly euthanized rat?

Question: How do you train a dead freshly euthanized rat?

My work cafeteria seems to have a bit of confusion on what constitutes “All American Barbecue.”

My work cafeteria seems to have a bit of confusion on what constitutes “All American Barbecue.”

When you’re trying to figure out the proportions for your My Lady Dedlocktail for book club and you turn away to fetch another lemon quarter then turn back only to find there is a GIANT WEIRD GOLDEN CRICKETY BUG-THING suddenly swimming in the glass, and the personality shard that picks up dead stag beetles from gas station parking lots and puts them in a frame wants to fish it out and Google it but the rest of your brain is just going “aaaaah where did it come from what what what what” and you end up doing a sort of skincrawling Xander-Snoopy-dance around the kitchen, dumping the whole thing down the drain with lots of hot water, and switching to bourbon, because, REALLY?

Poor Dignam!  You were wrong about the sodium ):

Poor Dignam!  You were wrong about the sodium ):

Neon tip manicure with biometric fingerprint scanner.

Neon tip manicure with biometric fingerprint scanner.

That is not the kind of harvest you are thinking of, Quaker Oats.

That is not the kind of harvest you are thinking of, Quaker Oats.

When the shitty bioinformatics program you’ve been wrestling with and your fiancé have the same name.

When the shitty bioinformatics program you’ve been wrestling with and your fiancé have the same name.

Arc II: Chapter I

Morning light gleams from a gold-edged china mug, the beige dregs of coffee halfmooning in the bottom.  Creighton Crossley’s craning her neck, trying to catch the eye of the waiter currently cooing over a matron with a Pomaranian coif.  It’s ten AM and she’s been up since the ungodly hour of eight.  She needs more caffeine, but the delicate tinkle of fork on bone china chimes her to attention.  Mrs. Richard Haverley has finished her breakfast of three strawberries and one claw of a croissant.

    “We haven’t heard from Henry in over a week,” she repeats, a faint lilac shadow under mild blue eyes the only sign that she’s been distressed.  “He’s normally such a darling about calling on Sundays.”  WIth some effort, Creighton summons her manners and manages not to upend the tiny cup over her mouth.

    “He’s a college sophomore.” She attempts gentleness.  “That’s not so unusual.  Have you noticed anything odd about his behavior that would lead you to call, well, me in particular?”  Mrs. Haverley is twisting the napkin in her lap.

    “Now that you mention it, he has been acting a bit out of sorts.  Henry, well, Henry…” 

    “You mean Hecato, master of the night?” Mr. Haverley grunts up from his Blackberry.  Creighton chokes on her asparagus omelet. 

    “Hecate?” she clarifies, trying to take a throat-clearing sip from her empty cup.

    “No, Hecat-o,” Mr. Haverley confirms.  “Who’s Hecate?”

    “The Greek goddess of necromancy” Creighton explains glumly. She’s had rather enough of people naming themselves after goddesses, lately. 

    “Shhhh,” Mrs. Haverley exhorts anxiously.  “Don’t speak so loudly of such things. We’re the Yale Club, dear.”

    “Figures he’d name himself after a lady,” Mr. Haverley mutters, turning back to his phone.  “Buy him a Chris-Craft and he still prefers his eyeliner.”  Creighton thinks longingly of the bar downstairs, but wrests her attention back to the couple. 

    “May I assume that Hec— Henry has been dabbling in, er, alternative cultures?” Creighton makes another desperate stab at diplomacy.

    “Oh, he’s just confused,” Mrs. Haverly confides, folding her napkin into what Creighton can only describe as a linen homage to Richard Serra.  “He’s a good boy, really.”

    “Thinks he’s a vampire,” Mr. Haverley interjects.  “Why I’m paying good money so he can sleep through his classes…”
   
    “It’s not his fault!”  Mrs. Haverley leans toward Creighton conspiratorially.  “He’s made friends with some dreadful boy named Prong, can you even imagine what his parents were thinking?”  Creighton stills.

    “Are you sure it’s Prong?” Her voice has gone flat. 

    “Why, quite sure.  We don’t get a lot of Prongs in Connecticut,” Mrs. Haverley says indignantly.  “Percivals, occasionally, and even a Pradeep due to those foreign…”

    “I have to go to the loo.” Creighton’s snatching up her bag.  “Please excuse me.”

    “Of course, dear.  They’re just along the hall to the-“

    “I know.”  Creighton smiles treacly, flicking her olive-green lacquered nails in the right direction.  “Ph.D.  Cell Biology.  2008.  Boola boola.”  Mrs. Haverley’s smile falters and flickers back.

    “Graduate school.  How nice.” 


    “Mimosa, please,” Creighton says to the barman, already prodding at her phone.  “Actually, make it a scotch. Double, no ice.”  He looks vaguely disapproving but complies.  “Macky, it’s Creighton.  We have a problem.”

    “Who’d you kill this time?”  Macky’s voice echoes tinny. 

    “An undead problem, rather than a dead one” Creighton snips back, “and I don’t suppose you’d like to discuss the ontological ramifications of that distinction.”

    “Not at this time,” Macky replies, voice heavy with sarcasm and lack of sleep.  “Or, really, ever. Early for you, princess.” 

    “Parent-teacher meeting,” Creighton drawls. “We’ve a Columbia student in imminent danger.”

    “And I’ve three bodies in the projects,” Macky mimics.  “You gotta call your other friend.”

    “We’re friends?” Creighton silks. 

    “Loueeeee.  Butt off cooooeurs.” Macky snickers and hangs up.  Creighton tilts back the glass to finish the scotch, looking at her phone dubiously, and slouches back upstairs to rejoin the Haverleys.