Hey girl,
Ever since I moved into your old apartment, I see you freaking everywhere, girl.
You first greeted me with your Bed Bath & Beyond coupon blazing like a welcome banner in my (our?) janky mailbox. No big. No one expects another human to stem the Niagara surge of those coupons to their door, past or present. BB&B knows who you are and where you live even if you’ve never stepped foot in their warehouse of oil-diffused fog example beds with their bait-and-switch mattresses ballooning high up off their frames. Somewhere an unborn fetus is receiving that coupon before its parents even know it exists, when it’s still just a twinkle in capitalism’s eye. It’s fine.
But then came a postcard – a literal postcard – from Max in Africa. “Kelsey – Hitting you up across the pond! Everything here is exactly what we said it would be. – Max P.S. Did you know giraffes have the thickest veins? Like ropes!”
First of all, sick! I never wanted to think about giraffe veins ever and now the image of thick, fleshy blood ropes is all I ever see. I see it behind my waking eyes. Not precisely your fault I suppose, but maybe choose your acquaintances more carefully in the future.
Speaking of, what’s the deal with Max? Like what does he mean to you? Brother? Friend? Salt-and-pepper boss with whom you’re having a pretty anti-feminist but sexually liberating affair? This postcard gives me nothing and it’s driving me nuts.
You’ve been patient with me, Kelsey, and I appreciate it. I’ll get to the main event here. I need you to deal with your freaking Birchbox. Change your address, cancel your subscription, move back in and take the guest bedroom – just do whatever it takes to make it so I no longer have to figure out what to do with this fragrant box of high-end sample products that I could never afford.
Picture this. I come home from my long day as a public librarian. Hair’s ratchet, eye bags are center stage thanks to my post-work layover at the ‘bux, the musty scent of Pike Place Roast is following me more closely than that creeper in You. I lumber up the industrially-carpeted stairs to see it. That floral trove, that single gem of civility gleaming up through the dreg-caked rough of my life. With your freaking name on it.
I started by circling your name. Next month, I wrote a little note to the mail delivered: “Wrong address.” Next month, a note to you, Kelsey: “Change your address.”
The months pass. The boxes come, and they’re taken away. Spring turns to summer, summer to fall. I’m still wearing spring’s colors, though, because all my librarian money goes to not getting evicted.
You didn’t listen, Kelsey, so I had to do it. You left me no choice.
Wine glass in hand, I pulled my busted Chromebook onto my lap and pulled up Facebook. Nothing beats Facebook for some good ol’ internet stalking.
At first sight, you seem not so different than me. Just your average Bake Off-watching, multiple mason jar-owning, keto-curious, Starbucks-stalking, (succulent) garden variety basic-adjacent white girl nightmare.
But it hurts, Kelsey, to see you standing so proudly before your new house with your key in hand, and your caption: “Movin’ on up!”
Yeah, the windows are drafty and the sink leaks. The maintenance guys would draw fair comparisons to the Walking Dead but only the most animated, brain-thirstiest ones. Elusive Darlene from the front office may or may not have entered the Witness Protection Program the day after I signed the lease, but what of it? I like everything about living here except you.
Just now, I walked into my (MY) bedroom and lay back on the bed to think theatrically about how much you’ve hurt me, Kelsey. The latest Birchbox is next to me, and for a moment I considered it, I really did. Just opening it, seeing all the small gifts you’ve arranged for the world to give you each month, those things that have been overshadowed by other bounties heaped upon you by this unjust world, then applying each and every one to my body with near-erotic relish.
But then I look up and see them – eight stars stuck to the ceiling and painted over in what is surely called Apartment Ceiling White. A Gemini, just like me.
Kelsey, I can’t stay mad at you. You ghost, my modern Rebecca of the stick-straight hair and the tacky-ass stars. I’ll continue to play your creepy Mrs. Danvers, haunting my own home, existing in what seems like a life but is truly just this middle-class limbo, waiting for you.
Stay golden,
Olivia
