You Deserve a Drink: Boozy Misadventures and Tales of Debauchery (2 page)

1½ oz Calvados or other apple brandy

1½ oz vodka

2 oz fresh apple cider

½ oz ginger liqueur

Put everything in a shaker of ice and go to town. Strain into a martini glass. Garnish with a slice of apple, or if you want to be really bad, dip the rim in that delicious caramel dip they stock in the produce department.

I
need everyone to sit down right now, because what I am about to say might shock you to the core. Although I am one of the most elegant, refined women you will ever have the pleasure of meeting, truth be told, I have had some pretty ridiculous hangovers in my day. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve had a hangover, I would’ve already paid a group of top scientists to find a cure.

The worst hangover I’ve ever experienced came the morning after my first night living in New York City. The year was 2005. By some grace of God, I had actually graduated from college, and rather than use my diploma for rolling papers (which I’d threatened to do on many occasions), I was going to use that theater degree for good. I was going to be a serious actress.

I won’t lie to you. I was nervous. But to have a career in acting, it would have to be either L.A. or NYC. Moving to L.A. would’ve been easier for me because I had the built-in safety net of my dad and stepmom living there. In L.A., the crime was lower and the
tits
temps were higher. But if I was going to be the next Meryl Streep, I needed to toughen up. I needed to dig deep and experience
struggle
. The most I struggled in college was when the Papa John’s delivery guy would forget the garlic sauce.

Yes, this girl right here was going to be serious. Mind you, this is my official graduation photo. Everyone else looks poised and ready to take on adulthood. (I, on the other hand, had slept thirty minutes and had cran-grape and vodka in my purse.)

I got off my flight from North Carolina, full of hope and a twelve-dollar bag of Chex Mix.
*
I was ready to take the city by storm, and also mace anyone who came near me. This was 2005, people. Sure, it wasn’t 1980s “let’s all pretend there isn’t a corpse in our subway car” Brooklyn, but it also wasn’t the Brooklyn that shows like
Girls
have depicted. Nowadays if you live in Brooklyn,
your biggest danger is a rent hike when a specialty pickle shop opens next door.

I came prepared to take down anyone who walked too close behind me. I didn’t care if you were benignly looking at my purse because you noticed the tag read
CUCCI
instead of
GUCCI
; I’d already have one hand on my mace, the other hand on my scarf to choke you out if I needed to. And I wasn’t just prepared for an attack on the streets. I was always conjuring up new scenarios to protect myself in my apartment too. Every night before tucking myself into sleepy time, I would make a game plan in case someone broke in. Bubble Wrap right inside the door will sound like gunshots when they step on it! My landlord probably wouldn’t be stoked if I spread tar all over my stairs, but maybe I could get away with wads of gum. I was apparently banking on these intruders being the “Wet Bandits” from
Home Alone
.

Luckily, I didn’t have to face the Big Bad Apple by myself. I was moving into an apartment with my friend Kat, whom I had been a camp counselor with a year before. I knew from our summer together that if Kat was one thing, it was fun! No chance of a boring roommate there. But to be honest, I was a little anxious about the whole living-with-each-other scenario. Being roommates with someone in a new city is a lot different from being pals in the carefree world of swimming and s’mores. We had hung out on days off, getting ridiculously drunk together and acting like fools, but this was the
real
world. Was Kat going to stop being polite and start getting real?

Truth be told, the only time we’d ever gotten together during the off-season, she ended up wrecking my car. But she paid for it without question! And, sure, there was talk that she didn’t actually leave camp of her own accord but was fired for bringing weed on a campout. But I had no confirmation if that rumor was true-mor, and surely someone wouldn’t be
that
stupid! So I suppressed my nerves and told myself that my new roommate situation was going to be ideal.

I got off the subway at Prospect Avenue in Brooklyn, fully expecting the streets to be covered in chalk outlines and to see rats building nests out of used syringes. Turns out, my street looked like an establishing shot from
The Cosby Show
. The streets had rows and rows of brownstones with big stoops and flower boxes under windows. The only chalk on the sidewalks was for hopscotch. And if there were rats, they were probably the cute puppet ones from
The Muppet Show
. I loosened my grip on my mace as Kat ran up to me, waving.

“Welcome to New York!” she said, wrapping me in a big hug and helping me with my duffel bag. Kat was classically beautiful. She had jet-black hair and fair skin, very 1940s glamour. She was twenty-seven to my twenty-two
and
she wore a leather jacket, so I inevitably felt like a fetus with eyeliner in comparison.

“Kat! Thank God! I was so worried, but this neighborhood is straight out of a magazine! I can’t wait to see our place.”

She breathed in sharply. “So, there’s been a
little
change of plans.”

Oh Jesus
, I thought to myself.
We’re going to be homeless. I am going to have to sell my body on the streets, and I’m so out of shape right now that to make any money I’ll have to do a BOGO deal. Or maybe a punch card system . . .

“They have to fix a couple more things in our place, so it won’t be ready for a few days.”

A few days?! I didn’t have any money for a hotel. Kat found a place that was eight hundred dollars each a month, and after the security deposit and insane broker fee, I was moving to New York with three hundred bucks to my name. I imagined myself staying in a shelter, finally breaking out all the knowledge I had held on to from the film
Curly Sue
. Before I could ask Kat how smooth her sleight of hand was, she eased my worries.

“I already told my friend Maegan that you were coming. I’ve been staying with her the past month. It’s right up this block.” I followed Kat, a little nervous about invading a complete stranger’s place.

“Relax, we’ve been best friends since we were five. She’s totally
cool with you crashing in the living room with me,” Kat said, trying to reassure me.
Sure
, I thought to myself.
Having someone you’ve known since kindergarten stay with you is one thing, but some rando with her cherry-print duffel bag and three-days-without-a-shower greasy head is another.

“Honey, we’re home!” Kat called as we walked up the stairs. Maegan appeared at the front door wearing a 1982 Van Halen Hide Your Sheep Tour T-shirt and cutoff jean shorts, and she had on the exact knee-high gladiator sandals that I had been coveting all summer but had worried would make my calves look like a tray of yeast rolls at Golden Corral. She had wild, curly red hair that stuck out everywhere, kind of like Dana at the end of
Ghostbusters
, when you can’t tell if she’s about to fuck Bill Murray or wear him as a skin suit. Simply put, Maegan’s look was on point.

“It’s so nice to meet you! Welcome!” she said as she ushered us into her apartment. It was decked out in the raddest vintage shit I’d ever seen. There was a light-up sign that read
DISCO
hanging above her bed, and the headboard was made out of a refurbished dashboard, complete with an 8-track player. Maegan grabbed me a Corona while Kat was fixing herself a tequila and orange juice.

“Starting early on the tequila, I see,” Maegan called to Kat in the kitchen, then turned to me. “I have that shirt!”

I looked down at my 1983 Kenny Rogers Jovan Musk Tour tee. While I was in shock from the coincidence, she kept going like she had just pointed out a mass-produced tunic we’d both gotten from Target.

“Are you coming to the show with us?” she asked.

“What show?”

“I wanted it to be a surprise!” Kat said, pouring more tequila into her cup. The tequila looked like one of those optical illusion faucet fountains you buy from SkyMall that never stop pouring. “We’re seeing the Pixies at Coney Island tonight!”

“Seriously?!” I jumped up, spilling a little Corona on Maegan’s pristine midcentury modern couch.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” I apologized. Great. First ten minutes at this girl’s place and I was already wrecking the joint.

She walked over and wiped it with her hand. “Don’t worry about it. Kat spilled an entire bowl of beans and rice on it two nights ago.”

Look at me
, I thought.
One hour in New York and I’ve already got these hip-ass adult friends and am going to a show?
Granted, the only song I could name of the Pixies was the one that went, “Uh-huh . . . I got a broken face,” but I knew it was going to be fun. I also knew they had an album called
Surfer Rosa,
because I pointed out the cassette tape in a boy’s car in high school once and he said, “You like the Pixies?” and I was all like, “Yeah, I love them” (totally lying), and he was all like, “What’s your favorite album?” and I was all like, “I think I just started my period. Please take me home.”
*

The rest of the afternoon was spent drinking Coronas on the stoop with Maegan and her boyfriend, Doug. Maegan had already been living in New York for a year and was armed with loads of advice. I was relieved. I was worried that everyone was going to be too cool for school, but she was so nice. I could already see us becoming good friends.

A few hours later, the four of us crammed into a beat-up gypsy cab and rode down to Coney. I had never used a car service before and felt so fancy! Sure, the guy had twelve tiny pine tree air fresheners hanging from his rearview, and I was sitting on someone’s leftover pizza crust, but it wasn’t a boring old yellow taxi. After twenty minutes in the car, we were dropped off in front of a Nathan’s hot dogs. Stepping out of that old Crown Victoria, I (naturally) immediately stepped in dog shit, but I felt like ScarJo being dropped off at the Oscars.

We got to the venue just as the sun was setting. With the pink sky, ocean, and old amusement park rides behind the stage, I
couldn’t believe I was finally here. It was the perfect backdrop to start this new chapter of my life. I felt like this moment called for a cheers.

“I’m gonna go grab a drink—you want anything?” I asked Kat as she puffed on a one hitter painted to look like a cigarette.

“Beers are going to be, like, twenty bucks. I came prepared.” She reached into her huge purse and pulled out, no lie, an entire carton of orange juice. “It’s half OJ, half tequila.” How she got that past security, I have no idea. Her bag was like Mary Poppins’s for hot messes. Mary Pill Poppins.
*

I started to tell her that I’m just one of those people who can’t drink tequila, but I stopped myself. I had three hundred dollars to my name and no job. If someone was offering me a way to get drunk, I needed to take it.

I took a big gulp from the carton, already planning a lie about having diabetes if a security guard approached us. I had no problem breaking out the fake seizure from my high school production of
Steel Magnolias
. It always worked when I wanted to get a free glass of juice at brunch. Once the OJ-tequila combo hit my lips, I realized Kat was terrible at ratios.

“Jesus, I know he got away with murdering his wife and all, but what’s your problem with OJ?” I asked.

Before Kat could
judge
laugh at my hilarious joke, the music started and the massive crowd went nuts. Well, as nuts as you can for a group of thirty-five-year-olds about to listen to alternative noise rock.

For the next two hours, I helped Kat finish that carton. The sun set and we lost track of Maegan and her boyfriend, but Kat didn’t seem to be worried. The Pixies played songs about everything from Salvador Dalí to scuba diving. I mouthed along to the lyrics I didn’t know, Oprah-style. Seriously, if you never noticed this while Oprah
was still on the air, do yourself a favor and find some old episodes. Lady Winfrey never knew the damn words to any of her guests’ songs. And I’m not just talking about when a new artist would come on who Oprah had to pretend to give a shit about. I’m talking when she would introduce Tina Turner singing “Proud Mary.” Tina would be tearing it up to this classic tune, and then when the camera panned to O, she would be mouthing, “Loud Harry keeps on yearning . . . and we’re bowling, bowling!” Oprah had her favorite things, and, well, that was my favorite thing of Oprah’s.