His To Shatter (2 page)

“You snobby little bitch,” my Dad would
snarl, in between swallows of beer, “Do you honestly think that
you’re better than us? You were born in this shit town, you’ll end
up in some other shit town, with a shit job and a shit husband who
doesn’t treat you half as well as I do.”

My mother had been less colorful in her
language and more crushing in her delivery. “Just don’t set your
sights too high,” she had told me all my life, “There’s nothing
wrong with being average, you know. I just don’t want you to get
your hopes up. You read too many books, I think. Things always get
better for people in books. People always get better in books, but
that’s just not how life works, Madison.”

Chest heaving, I soared out of the River Park
and back along the early morning streets of New York. I wiped away
the angry tears that had begun to stream down my cheeks as I
thought of my parents.
They can’t hurt you now,
I told
myself for the umpteenth time.
They’ll sit in that little shit
house for the rest of their lives, but you don’t have to. Things
can get better. People can get better. You can be better,
too.

I turned onto Clinton Street and finally
slowed to a walk. My clothes were wet with perspiration, but I felt
better. I always felt relieved after a good run, especially when I
had seemingly insurmountable nerves to contend with. I’d been
preparing for my interview with Corelli for a solid month,
rehearsing every possible answer to every possible question they
might lob my way. I was as prepared as it was humanly possible to
be—or at least I would be once I got out of my sweats.

My apartment was at the top of three steep
flights of stairs. I all but sprinted to my front door, eager to
keep my momentum up. I pulled my keys out of my sports bra and
threw open the front door. The air hung heavy with the smell of
espresso—I had set some to brew before I set off on my run. My two
roommates and I went through more than a few cans of Cafe Bustelo
every week; our kitchen was littered with dozens of the
red-and-yellow containers. I smiled to myself as I grabbed a Dollar
Store mug from the cabinet. We were girls of simple means, at the
end of the day, but it didn’t bother me one bit. Having never had
“the finer things in life”, I never learned to value or expect
them. I would have no idea what to do with a designer purse, or an
expensive dress. The things I knew were books and art; fashion and
luxury could wait.

I made my way across the small, cluttered
living space toward the bathroom. Espresso mug in one hand, I
yanked at the bathroom door knob, only to find that it wouldn’t
budge. I jiggled the handle impatiently; even the smallest snag in
the course of this extremely important day was bound to set me off.
As I pulled at the door, I heard a rustling beyond the threshold,
and something that sounded very much like a sigh.

“Excuse me,” I whispered into the door, “I
need to get ready.” No one answered from the closed bathroom, but
by then I could discern pretty well what was going on. “Dara,” I
said, keeping my voice as level as I could, “I really need to get
in there. My interview is in a few hours.”

“Oh! Sorry, Madison,” my roommate Dara
answered. “I totally forgot that was today. It’s just...Um...I’m a
tiny bit busy in here...”

“I will look away as you and Mr. Whoever go
back to your room,” I said without emphasis. “Just hurry.
Please.”

The door cracked open and I obediently
snapped my eyes shut. I could hear two bodies moving out of the
bathroom—one petite and one bulky, as usual. I felt a tiny squeeze
on my arm and heard Dara’s voice next to my ear.

“Take a look at his ass before we close the
door!” she sighed, “I swear, that thing was carved out of
marble.”

“What’s his name?” I said, peeking out at my
roommate.

Dara’s perfectly manicured eyebrows knitted
in a moment of confusion. I gave her the once-over and saw without
surprise that she was naked. Dara spent a lot of her time around
the apartment naked, and was usually entertaining some “gentleman
caller” or other. “You know,” she said slowly, “I think it’s either
Ryan or Bryan. The club was really loud, so—”

“Well, go get ‘em, tiger,” I said hurriedly,
squeezing past her into the bathroom. Dara knew that I was
skeptical about her revolving door of a love life, but I did not
have time to initiate another lecture just then. Dara shrugged,
sending her long brown curls dancing across her shoulders, and made
tracks for her bedroom. I had to give the girl credit, she knew how
to get what she wanted—even if most of what she wanted was a parade
of well-hung one night stands.

I closed the bathroom door firmly behind me
and leaned back against it. It was getting harder and harder to
hold my tongue about Dara’s promiscuity. It wasn’t that I had
anything against sleeping around in the abstract, I just worried
that she wasn’t being as safe as she could be. Having multiple
partners was one thing, but having so many that you forgot their
first names was quite another. I had known Dara for five years by
then, since our very first day of undergrad. She’d arrived at our
small liberal arts school ready to tear the place up. We had been
assigned to the same triple room, and I could tell two things from
the moment we met: we’d be very good friends, and we’d disagree
about almost everything besides that fact.

Instead of slowing down as she got through
her rebellious stage, Dara had only gotten to be more of a party
animal as the years went on. When we made the move to the city,
she’d come along to “be part of the scene,” as she said. Mostly,
though, she’d done little but live off her parents’ money and fuck
on every surface of our apartment. I couldn’t say why I found her
privilege, and her willingness to indulge in it, so frustrating.
Probably, I was just jealous that while Dara skipped through
undergrad with no loans or effort, I’d had to work my ass off
winning scholarships that put me through school. My parents
certainly weren’t going to be any help on that front, after
all.

Resolved to shake off the negativity that was
descending upon me once again, I turned the shower on, as hot as I
could. I turned to look in the bathroom mirror as it slowly steamed
up. Off came my worn-out sweats, and my baby blue sports bra that
I’d had since freshman year. I appraised my body in the foggy
mirror. Stressing out over this interview had done wonders for my
fitness regimen, that much was for sure. I hadn’t looked so good in
years. I’d never been a nymphette stick figure in my life, not even
when I was a little girl. I was slim, sure, but never skinny. I
never gave the fact of it too much thought. My body had always been
healthy, and had always done the things I needed it to do. That was
quite enough for me.

I pulled my long ash blonde hair back away
from my face. It was longer than I usually kept it, for lack of
time to get a haircut. Still, it felt nice to run my fingers
through the length of it. I frowned at the slight dark circles
looming under my brown eyes. There was nothing to be done but
soldier on, though. I stepped into the hot spray of the shower and
lathered up. No sooner had I sunk into the delightful embrace of
the steaming water than a persistent knock began at the bathroom
door.

“I’m in the shower,” I called over the
stream. I had only been in there for a few minutes, no way was I
forking my spot over yet. But the knock went on, louder and quicker
this time. “I’ll be out in a few minutes!” I called again, and for
a moment the knocking ceased. Instead, the door flew open with a
gust of cool air.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” cried a voice from
beyond the shower curtain. “I overslept, and my audition’s in,
like, half an hour!”

I poked my head out into the bedroom,
wrangling the scowl off my face. Ashlee, my second roommate, was
rummaging around under the sink, hauling out hair devices and
cosmetics like they were her last defense against the apocalypse.
Ashlee had been the third roommate in our undergrad dorm room, and
had made the jump with Dara and I when we’d decided to take on the
city after graduation. She was an old school triple threat—an
actor, singer, and dancer. Ashlee had dominated our undergraduate
drama program and been accepted into NYU’s graduate acting program.
She booked work all around the city at a seemingly unrelenting
clip. I was thrilled that she was finding so much success in the
field she loved, and she deserved every single ounce of the
success. But her unpredictable schedule did, at times, lead to some
domestic snags. Like this moment, for example.

“Shit!” Ashlee said, digging through her
piles of beauty supplies, “Where the hell is my lipstick?”

“Um...” I said, pointing the five lipstick
containers currently lining the bathroom sink.”

“No,” she sighed, “My good lipstick.”

I shrugged and retreated behind the curtain.
I loved Ashlee dearly, and she was by far my most loyal and
constant friend. But if you’re trying to keep stress out of your
day in preparation for a big interview, talking with an actor is
not the best way to go. As I kneaded shampoo through my hair,
Ashlee peeked through the shower curtain, grinning sheepishly.

“Sorry Madison,” she said, “I forgot to wish
you good luck with your interview.”

I smiled back at her, all forgiven as ever,
“You too. With your audition, I mean. What’s it for?”

“Some web series,” she said, “I can hardly
keep them all straight.”

“Not the web series you were telling me about
yesterday,” I said, “The one with the creepy sexual deviant of a
director?”

“That’s the one!” Ashlee said.

“Why would you go to the audition knowing
that?” I asked.

Ashlee rolled her eyes playfully, tucking her
short platinum blonde hair behind her ear. “Maddie, if I ruled out
every audition that had a sketchy director attached to it, I’d
never work again. Nor would anyone, I might add. You learn how to
deal with it, you know? There are strategies.”

“Like what?” I asked, rinsing out my
hair.

“Like today, I’m going to bring Kyle to
pretend to be my boyfriend. That way no one will hit on me. Not
outright, anyway.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Kyle?” I asked,
“Do you really think Kyle could intimidate someone out of doing
anything?”

“He scared off that one guy who was giving
you trouble at the end of senior year,” Ashlee pointed out.

“That one guy was a twerpy little freshman
recovering from mono.”

“Fair point. Anywhere, he’ll be here
any—”

The front door buzzer grated through the air
of the apartment, and Ashlee ran to let Kyle in. I could hear him
bounding up the steps in his typical fashion. Kyle had lived on our
floor all through undergrad, and had become our official Guy
Friend. He was the one who hung around with us, listened to our
romantic dilemmas, and never once made a move. It was pretty much
common knowledge that he had been harboring a crush on me since
freshman year, and he would be the first to admit it. It was
something of a running joke in our little foursome.

I heard the front door swing open and Kyle’s
grumpy greeting. It was clearly too early in the morning to have
roused him.

“Hey Kyle!” I called from the bathroom. I
turned off the water and wrapped a towel around myself just as he
poked his head through the doorway. He wiggled his eyebrows
suggestively at my scantily clad body, and I tossed a loofa
playfully at his head. Kyle was a charming guy, when he wanted to
be. He’d arrived at undergrad as a total emo kid, all black
clothing and gloomy disposition. Over the years, he had definitely
grown up; now, he was that cool alternative guy at the party that
knew all the best bands before you did, where you could find the
best dark and stormy in Manhattan, all that stuff. He was not only
one of the best guy friends I had ever had in my life, he was one
of my best friends, period.

“Making your acting debut today, huh?” I
asked, brushing my hair out of my face. “Be sure to remember the
little people when you get your big break.”

“I’ll be sure to thank you in my Oscar
speech,” Kyle said, leaning against the door frame. “You ready for
the interview?”

“Ready and absolutely beside myself with
nerves,” I responded honestly. There was no hiding anything from
Kyle, anyway. After all these years, he could read me like a
book.”

“You’re gonna kill it,” he said. I smiled,
because I believed him—Kyle didn’t bullshit. “You wanna meet up for
a drink, afterwards?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said, “I’ll either need something
to celebrate with or something with which to drown my sorrows,
right?”

“Atta girl,” he said, “How about that place
on Eldridge? With all the taxidermy stuff?”

“Ugh,” I said, knowing he was just trying to
get under my skin, “How about somewhere without dead animals
hanging all over the walls?”

“Fine,” he grumbled, “Our usual spot,
then.”

“Our usual spot.”

A red-nailed hand closed down hard on Kyle’s
upper arm, and Ashlee appeared at his side, dolled-up and ready to
go. She was absolutely stunning in a way that was both unique and
conventional. I’d gotten very used to men staring at Ashlee when we
walked down the street together, and it never bothered me. As
liberal as I considered myself to be, sexual attention always kind
of threw me off. Perhaps I was just old fashioned, but could
anything good really have come from lust without a deeper
admiration, or even affection? My sexual history was scant, to say
the least. I’d slept with exactly one man—boy—in my entire life.
Ashlee seemed to go through one every six months, and Dara had a
new one every Saturday night, at least. I’d long since quit
apologizing for my lack of sexual experience. If we as modern women
were allowed to sleep with whoever we wanted whenever we wanted,
that still covered no one and never.