Page 1 of Story of My Life
1
VASE WINE AND AN ASS-KICKING
HAZEL
The harried trio of business-suited,triple-espressoed women at the window were enthusiastically plotting the demise of someone named Bernard in audits. Or maybe they were just going to report him to HR. It was hard to hear over the usual coffee shop din.
The two men on my right with matching wedding bands were having a passionate argument about closet space. In the rest of the world, most divorces centered around issues like money, children, and monogamy. In Manhattan, I was willing to bet money that closet space made the top five.
The barista looked like if she got any more bored as she took and filled orders, she’d lapse into a coma.
Coma?I wrote on the notebook page. Would a heroine waking up from a coma make a good meet-cute? I frowned and drummed my pen on the table. Not a long coma obviously. There’d be things like leg hair and dandruff and heinous bad breath to contend with.
Dammit. I covered my mouth with my hand and tried to subtly sniff out whether I’d remembered to brush my teeth that morning. I hadn’t. I also hadn’t shaved my legs…or showered…or combed my hair…or remembered to buy new deodorant to apply.
Old Hazel had only wandered out of the apartment looking—and smelling—like this on deadlines. Current Hazel scurried around the shadows of the real world like an anti-hygiene mouse pretty much twenty-four seven.
“Ugh. Why is this so hard?” I muttered.
The couple with the closet issue shot me side-eye.
“Ha. That’s what she said?” I offered.
The side-eyes turned into expressive raised eyebrows and an unspoken agreement to vacate the table next to the batty lady immediately.
“It’s okay. I’m an author. I’m supposed to talk to myself in public,” I explained hastily as they gathered their coffees and made their way to the door, ducking out into the sweltering August humidity.
I groaned and clapped my hands to my cheeks, squishing them together to make a fish face. The gentleman in the Lenny Kravitz tank top who looked like he was running his own Genius Bar glanced up over his Ben Franklin glasses.
I released my face and offered what I hoped was a human smile. He went back to his two cell phones and iPad while I wiped my palms on my shorts. My skin was that gross, impossible combination of greasy and flaky at the same time. When was the last time I’d completed my full skin-care routine instead of just dunking my head under the faucet? Hell, when was the last time I’d completed anything?
Well, I’d absolutely murdered the pad thai takeout last night. That counted, right?
I scanned the café for some hint of the inspiration or motivation that had once made me a productive adult. But it was nowhere to be found. On a sigh, I scribbled outcomaas well asenemies-to-enemiesandcanoes.That last one hadbeen overheard from a spry retired Irish couple that looked as if they’d just walked out of an REI store. They’d ordered matchas and gluten-free scones before marching out in their coordinating hiking boots.
The clock on the wall deemed it quitting time. I’d been here for three hours with nothing to show for it but an empty iced coffee with my name on it. I was eighty percent sure it had been my subconscious that made the barista sound like she had yelled, “Iced vanilla latte for Hasbeen.”
On the kind of groan that past-their-prime people make when getting out of chairs at home, I stood up. I’d been festering in my apartment for too long if I couldn’t remember the difference between “privacy of one’s own home” and “in the presence of others” noises. I gathered my authory accessories—notebook, pen, laptop, and phone—and headed out into the heat.
I felt my hair double in size before I reached the end of the block and was reaching up to smash it back down when I was shoulder-checked by a five-foot-six, bespoke Ralph Lauren–wearing guy shouting a series of escalating threats into his phone.
Zoey would have labeled him a finance bro and tossed some insult at him. She was also the woman who was definitely going to murder me when she found out I still had nothing. No chapters, no outline, no ideas. I was living in some kind of horribleGroundhog Dayscenario where every day was the same as before. Unlike Bill Murray, I’d yet to find a purpose.
I made it back to my apartment, but my neighbor whose name I didn’t know must not have heard my plea to hold the elevator over the yapping of her two Yorkies. I managed to plod my way up the four flights to my apartment and let myself in.
The state of my home reflected the state of my head. More specifically, it was a disastrous jumble of trash. The once“charming” and “pristine” Upper East Side two-bedroom looked like a swamp person had just hosted the ribbon cutting for a garbage dump flea market.
“It’s official. I’m one of those people who loses their mind and starts hoarding soy sauce packets and junk mail,” I said to nobody.
Mail and paperwork were stacked in haphazard piles on every visible flat surface. Books spilled off the heavy walnut shelves and onto the floor in disorganized mounds. The microscopic kitchen was barely recognizable under about eight layers of dirty dishes and old take-out containers. The walls with the busy wallpaper I’d once found so charming held nothing but framed accolades and memories of old lives long gone.
I perked up temporarily. “Maybe the heroine’s a hoarder? Ugh. No. Not sexy and not even hygienic.”
Old Hazel never would have let it get this bad. There were a lot of things the old me would have done differently. But she was dead and buried. RIP, me.
I headed into the bedroom to change out of my “leaving home” gym shorts and into my “how many holes in the crotch is too many” shorts. It was time to get back to work…or at least spend another chunk of time berating myself for becoming the saddest rom-com novelist in the world.
I groanedat the knock at my door. “What part ofcontactless deliverydon’t you get?” I muttered as I pried my butt off the couch. The toe of my slipper caught on the coffee table leg, sending a waterfall of unopened mail to the floor.
