Greg's girlfriend was this tiny blond chick that was an aspiring ballerina at the art school. She was interesting in the way I'd come to find out only New Yorkers could be interesting. We'd gone down to the little coffee house to meet her, and when she walked in the door, she looked like a porcelain doll spinning in a music box or something, toe shoes hanging around her neck, black beret on her head, tiny pink circles on her cheeks from the cold. I figured she'd have a voice like little tinkling bells - it would have been perfect. Fitting.
     So I was pretty surprised (and intrigued) when she said "Hay goiys!" in this thick New York accent, and noticed that she was chewing hard on a huge piece of gum. Welcome to New York, I thought. She gave Greg a big hug and kiss, sat down, and ordered a double-decaf-mocha-latte.
     Now, let me stop here to explain that I never was one of those coffee-shop types. In fact, before I came to New York I don't recall having ever been inside one. Coffee shops, to me, were very nerve-wracking places, where everybody was so hip without even trying or noticing it, but I most definitely wasn't.
     And this time wasn't any different, really. It didn't matter what Greg or his girlfriend looked like - they were hip. He was a struggling actor and she was an aspiring ballerina. Those were the kind of people who hung out in coffee shops, not people who hopped a bus to the city to write a book about a band that made it big. Coffee shop people were the kind of people that people like me wrote about. So the fact that Greg's girlfriend knew what a double-decaf-mocha-latte was, much less knew enough to know that she preferred it to other things, was pretty intimidating.
     Now, even more interesting than Greg's girlfriend's voice was her name. Maybelline VanDeesen. Seriously. I wanted to ask her if her mother was a make-up artist or maybe just a dope fiend, but I couldn't muster up enough courage to crack a joke in a coffee-house. You probably have to have a license for that kinda stuff. I'm always worried about making some kind of social faux pas, so usually I just keep quiet at first.
     So Maybelline got to talking, and she really was an engaging person, once you got over the startling difference between her face and her voice, the uncanny way it seemed like someone else was talking through her. I'd asked her how she and Greg met, and she launched into a story about it that, in my mind, featured the characters from Fame, starring newcomers Greg Jernigan and Maybelline VanDeesen.
     "...and I was runnin' everywhere lookin' for my clothes, because the girls had gone and hidden them somewhere, because they were mad over what had happened in the lunchroom, right? So here I am running around in toe shoes and my leotard and shit, right? It was um-ba-lievable. I mean it was like 40 degrees in there and I didn't even have a jacket.
     "...and so like Gregory was prancin' down the hall, right, and-"
     Greg cut in. "Prancing? I was prancing?"
     "You was prancin'!"
     "I don't prance," Greg concluded, crossing his arms. Maybelline looked over at me, chomping her gum, and put her hand on my arm, like in a movie when the waitress at a diner puts her hand on your arm and calls you 'hun', and asks if you want more coffee. It was a bonding-type thing that I thought only happened in the cinematic world. Greg and Maybelline were like that.
     "...he was prancin'," she continued, " and so when he sees me comin' down the hall, he starts singing all loud 'Oh Maybelline! Why won't ya be true!' and shit like that right?" She had a crazy good voice too - all deep and soul and shit. Everything in New York is so full of surprises.
     "...and so when he starts singin', the whole damn school starts lookin' out into the hall, and I'm standin' there like some kind-of-a freak, right? I was so um-ba-lievably mad and I didn't talk to him for-like-eva either."
     "But my good looks and charm eventually won her over," said Greg.
     "Actually it was because after that day when them girls didn't give me my clothes back, I didn't have no coat, right? So I latched on to the warmest thing. Gregory is like a furnace, with his big self, right?"
     "Right," I agreed, laughing. Maybelline had a way of talking that would put you at ease immediately. I always thought it was something only Southerners possessed, that way of staying right there on your level with you, even if they were the president of the damn United States. But she had it, that way of relaxing a person - this was a very good thing, because, hell, it was New York! I sure as hell wasn't relaxed before she walked in.
     So Maybelline and Greg began debating over whether or not he needed to give up smoking, as Maybelline thought it was bad for his heart, and after a few minutes, I tuned out, thinking.
     So this was my first day in New York. Crazy how closely it had followed the dream. I already had two friends, I guess, if I was to count Maybelline, and I didn't figure she'd mind that too much. It already felt like some different, other world or something, and everything before I'd gotten on that Greyhound seemed sepia-toned and aging. Well, Chris McLendon was still up there in the front in vibrant Technicolor, but there wasn't much a girl could do about that, now was there?
     And even that was ok, because unrequited love tragedies made you at least a little bit hip, right? If only I wrote poetry about stuff like that. Dark poetry full of images. I composed a little poem in my head, worthy of any coffee shop drone.

Love has flown away
Like a pigeon on a So-ho windowsill
Tears fall slowly
Smudging black-lined eyes
Down, down, down
Mixing into a double-decaf-mocha-latte...

     I smiled to myself at that one. Chris would have laughed. I wondered vaguely what he was doing at that moment and decided I really didn't want to know. Besides, I thought, it couldn't be nearly as cool as this. Just wait till the book comes out. The StopCocks by Paula Anderson. National Bestseller. Oprah would talk about it and have me on as a guest. And I'd talk about being all hip and forlorn like I was. See, once you publish a book, then you can hang out all hip in coffee shops and order weird sounding drinks. You could just walk in and ask for "the usual."
     I thought about everything I'd done since leaving college. I decided I had no regrets, as doing anything different could have resulted in me never ending up in New York at all. And that really, all my scars were a good thing - I was headed towards hip. Maybe.
     And what did Greg know about The StopCocks being bullshit, anyway? Really, I was putting myself into it - the singer's name was Paula, and she was a lot like me. And I am a really good singer, if I hadn't mentioned that yet. Sorta good anyway. And I knew a lot about music and bands, so it wasn't like I was writing a book about elephant poachers or someshit, right? I also, at that moment, decided that I was going to learn to say 'right' just like Maybelline, who had actually just at that moment said it again.
     "No, not right," countered Greg. "Paula, man, tell her." I, of course, hadn't the slightest idea what they were talking about.
     "She's right, Greg," I said, and mirrored her Mother-knows-best look at him. It all filled me with glee. I grinned like a fool. We were just so cool sitting there. As J.T. LeRoy might say, we were cool as cucumbers in a married woman's fridge. Even if I was only cool by association. But then again, so is Conan O'Brien.
     That got me thinking about being famous again. Because this book would make me that way. There would be a film version of course, and I would direct it. With David Fincher. And I'd become this young Hollywood up-and-comer, and do all the talk shows. Me and Conan would talk about hair, and how we two had the coolest coifs of any celebrities - he'd say that, and it wouldn't phase me at all to be included among celebrities. The second guest would be Carrot Top and he'd insist he was the runner up, and then tell me to 'dial down the center.'
     The Red Hot Chili Peppers would mention me in a song, and people would make fanpages about me on the internet, with bulletin boards filled with the latest gossip. Did you guys hear about Paula and Vince Vaughn? I heard she's preggers!!! LOL!! LMAO!!! Chris would go to my fanpages, read all the gossip, and kick himself for missing out on his chance.
     Well, so Maybelline suggested we go on down to this movie theater where they showed the Rocky Horror Picture Show every Friday at midnight. I was all for that, since it was just so very. Greg rolled his eyes, but allowed himself to be dragged along by Maybelline. The two of them were always so funny-looking together. She was just this tiny slip of a girl, and he was this big hulking giant. They looked like a comic strip. But then I suppose we all did, anyway.
     When we got to the theater, it was almost midnight, and there was a line outside of all these crazy cats dressed in drag, or dressed in various zombie-like attire. There was even one really Adonis-like muscular guy wearing nothing but a gold Speedo and gold boots. I thought about that guy standing in line for a movie in Jacksonville, and wondered how many seconds it would be until a group of young Marines beat the crap out of him with his own ankle boots.
     After the show was over, we walked Maybelline to the subway station, so she could head back to Queens, where she lived with a roommate named Jackie who was a stripper and came home at 4 a.m. every morning and slept all day. Maybelline said she had to split because she had rehearsal at 8 the next morning.
     While Greg and her were saying goodbye, I stood there just taking in the city at night. I wondered if any of the cabs were filming Taxicab Confessions. I wondered how many people were being mugged right now. I wondered what the celebrities were doing tonight.
     After Maybelline left, Greg said we should go and get something to eat, as he wasn't tired at all, and he didn't have any food (or a refrigerator) in his apartment anyway. So we walked into a little junky diner by the subway station and sat down at the booth in the window.
     "So did you like Maybelline?" Greg asked, around a mouthful of meatball sandwich. I'd been watching the late-nighters walk by the window, admiring their exaggerated hand-gestures and confidence parading the New York streets.
      "What?"
     "Maybelline," he repeated.
     "Oh," I said. "She's awesome as hell. I like her."
     "Yeah," he said, and smiled. "She thinks she's my mother, though."
     "That's a good thing," I said, grinning. "You need one."
     "Eh, you're probably right." We watched a wino walk slowly by the window, bottle in hand. He glanced in the window of the diner sadly.
     "Maybe we should give him some food," I suggested.
     "There's a soup kitchen next door. I'm sure he'd rather have a bottle of whiskey."
     "Well maybe we should buy him some of that, then," I said. Greg shrugged, as if to say "why not", threw down some money on the table, and we walked outside.



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