Being back in New York is bringing back memories. Mainly, of how cool I used to be.
Maybe not that cool. But fun! Yes, I was fun. I used to get dressed up in crazy outfits. I used to hang out at The Beatrice Inn until the same wee hours that I now wake up for the Equinox MetCon3 class. I used to be the muse to socialite Latin musicians and run around pantless on Mulberry street, asking random men to jump-start my car.
Yeah, you heard me right. Now sit back and enjoy.
It was 2008 and I was in the senior year of my dubious college career, which basically involved interning at StyleCaster and spending every other night at The Beatrice, ogling Kirsten Dunst and the Olsens as they diminished in size and ascended in coolness. On one balmy late summer night I met a smoking hot Enrique Iglesias lookalike. You know those men who just exude warmth and non-pretentious charm and are capable of seducing anyone, from the 6-month-old in the supermarket checkout isle to your grandmother? This was Enrique. We chatted for a bit and he invited us to an afterparty taking place in one of those Tribeca lofts that costs more than I realistically project making in my lifetime, where I saw New York’s crème de la crop do things that would have expedited them directly to Page Six. We kissed and he put me in a cab, promising to call the next day.
A quick Google background check during the cab ride home confirmed what I had suspected all along – this guy was legit. The lead singer of a cult New York band back in the early 2000’s, he was now transitioning to a solo career and was already receiving an excellent industry response. He was also constantly surrounded by very beautiful models and socialites, the kind of people who’s mere existence gives me inadequacy anxiety. So what exactly did he see in little ol’ nobody me?!
To my surprise, he called the next day and asked me to dinner. Two days later, over beet salad at Peasant, I fell in love. It turned out that Enrique was both beauty and brains: he came from a good family, had gone to an Ivy League, loved Russian literature and was well-versed in politics and current events. To my surprised, he seemed a bit sad and caught up in his past, repeatedly reminiscing his glory band days and bringing up his long-term ex, who had dumped him for reasons unknown. To sum it up, his life was a beautiful mess and he may have done a few extra bathroom trips that evening to compensate. After dinner, we headed to Boom Boom Room, where Enrique paused to chat with every socialite in the room, introducing me to them as his future girlfriend. A warm and cuddly feeling spread throughout my body as I envisioned myself healing his emotional wounds, nursing him to health (or at least out of his next bender), and helping him get his career back on track, the Russian June Carter to his Latin Johnny Cash.
The only problem was, Enrique didn’t call his new girlfriend-slash-guardian-angel the next day, or the day after, or the day after that. In fact, I waited by my Blackberry for days, my dreams dissipating, until I finally realized that mi amore Enrique had been full of sh*t. A couple of weeks later, he reemerged for a booty call. Eager for another chance to impress him, I met up with him at The Beatrice, commencing the second, more casual stage of our relationship, in which he used me for personal entertainment and I tried to get him to fall in love with me by playing the “cool girl” and disappearing into the night.
One evening, Enrique texted to invite me to some fashion party. I got excited and headed to the city to meet him, looking like Mary Kate Olsen (or, to borrow from Trainwreck, looking like Mary Kate Olsen ate Mary Kate Olsen) in a black American Apparel cotton mini skirt, an enormous green plaid button-down and Balenciaga-ish platform booties that could have doubled as stilts.
#inspiration
I drove. I also drank whiskey, cause I’m smart like that. Three hours later, it was clear that there was no way I would be driving back home, and so I agreed to finally check out Enrique’s Chinatown “loft”, an artistic pigsty where he resided with a promoter roommate. He lead me to his room, cleared off the mess on his bed, did a line of blow, picked up his guitar and started singing. The music was beautiful, and I was temporarily overwhelmed by emotion – that is, until I realized that he was playing me a song that he had written for his ex-girlfriend. Oh, and that he was also weeping; big, alligator tears splattering all over his guitar.
What would a normal person do? Leave, I think. No, not me. I slept with him instead.
Yup, after months of not as much as going near his apartment, I slept with him on the very night that he played me a ballad designated for his ex and cried me a drug-fueled river. I don’t want to talk about the sex, because a – I’m still trying to be employable and b – it might make you cry.
In the morning, I couldn’t find my American Apparel skirt anywhere. Had we buried it somewhere in the heat of passion? Had the roommate used it as a dishrag? (Nah, they didn’t do dishes..) 30 minutes into the search, I realized I was running late for my internship and had no choice but to put on my opaque tights and oversize button down and leave the house, looking like baby prostitute Mary Kate Olsen ate baby prostitute Mary Kate Olsen.
My car, parked across the street by Enrique at 4am, had a ticket on the windshield. He had also left the lights on, which meant that the battery was dead and I had to walk around Mulberry street, sans pants, asking random groups of construction workers to jump-start my car. Which they did. God bless New York.
Oh yeah, I went to my internship like that. Nobody even asked.
