Here's all I know and all I remember that might be of interest to you:
     I woke up in a panic. It was a dark room, but it felt like it had been dark for a long time. I didn't know where I was, for how long I had been sleeping, or whether I actually had been sleeping. On second thought, I knew I had been sleeping. If I hadn't been sleeping, I wouldn't have had those bizarre, fleeting dreams that come with sleeping in an unfamiliar bed.
     Wherever I was that I woke up, it was hot, and I was extremely hung over. It felt like a very small person was trapped inside my head, trying to kick his way out. Hangovers require coolness, a low temperature to soothe your mind and make you close your eyes. Hangovers go away with sleep, which comes more easily if you're not stuffed inside a tightly-tucked bed that feels like an envelope and you can't kick off the covers.
     I stumbled to the floor, torso first, as my legs were still trapped beneath the unforgiving sheets. There was something on my face. I couldn't open my eyes all the way. I put my hands to my lids and felt my eyelashes stuck together with sleep and crusted makeup. My contact lenses beneath them felt like rubber.
     I walked to the bathroom, fumbled for a mysteriously-placed light switch and tried to wash my eyes open. A glob of toothpaste lingered in the sink. I suddenly remembered a drunken attempt to brush my teeth the night before and a gnawing feeling of guilt at using somebody else's toothbrush without asking, which resulted in a subsequent toothbrush dream. The bathroom was strange, dark, and offered no hint of what time of day it was. Three in the morning or the afternoon, for all I knew. A draft blew in from the window near the ceiling but the floor was heated.
     Where was I?
     Leaving the bathroom, I pulled open the drapes. Drab morning light spilled into the room, dashing the spooky timeless feel. Outside, slushy snow spilled off a lower-floor balcony. Somebody in a parking lot was shoveling. High rises towered all around.
     Oh yes. Now I could put together some of the pieces.
     The night before was Friday night, making it Saturday morning. A good start.
     Friday night after work I attended a cocktail party at an art gallery with some people from the office. It was my boss's idea, to "get out and circulate and look intellectual or something. Connect, network, mingle. You know." I hated my boss, but I had a feeling that I was two personal calls away from being fired, so I thought I'd go along with it.
     The party was stupid. I didn't get the art, all the men looked fey and snobbish and the women were shrill and annoying. I sipped overpriced white wine from a clear plastic cup and wondered how much time I had to put in. My teeth hurt from the cold wine. Discomfort reigned as I scanned the room, hoping for a distraction.
     Then I spotted Louise. Louise from college! My old pal Louise.
     That's a lie. She wasn't exactly my pal. We were acquaintances from school. Friends of friends. The kind who would air kiss drunkenly at a bar and then probably gossip about each other behind each other's backs. She was fun and smart, but a little cold, snobbish. All right angles, lots of black clothes and a fake tan. She had an off-putting way of making everything in her life seem effortless. I never saw her at the library, at the gym, with her hair in her face or even saying "Um." The kind of person who prefaced a lot of sentences with, "I'm sorry, but…" and "No offense, but…" We got along okay. That's all. But still. Louise would save me from this hell.
     "You've got to save me from this hell," I said, running up to her.
     "Doesn't this suck?" she agreed in her chirpy voice.
     "What are you doing here?"
     Louise shrugged as her eyes scanned the room. "I had nothing better to do."
     "Please," I wheezed, trying to sound as desperate as possible. "Let's go. My boss is a moron. This party is full of jerks. The art stinks. I don't want to be here. Will you be my excuse?"
     "Buy me a drink, first." Ever the bargainer. She had more money than God and she was asking me to buy her a drink. It's always the rich people who are the cheapest.
     "Wine?"
     "Scotch and soda."
     "But that's twelve bucks!"
     "Too bad," she said, smiling maliciously. "I met a cute guy and I'm talking to him. If you want to leave I have to get something out of it."
     "He's probably gay."
     "Drink first. Then we can go."
     I heaved a sigh, but at least I had an escape plan.
     I ran up to my boss, who was feebly making jokes while my co-workers Faye, Aaron and Michelle tried smiling in vain. They too felt their jobs were at stake and were there for the same reason as I.
     "Don," I began in what I hoped was a charming manner. "You're not going to believe this, but I just ran into an old friend from college who I haven't seen in, like, forever." I hated talking this way but I know that he responded to girlish insipidness. "Anyway, I'm so sorry to run off, but do you mind if I go talk to her? We have so much catching up to do."
     "Sure, sure," said Don, who seemed inebriated already as his nose pulsed red. "Have a fucking gay old time." Don swore extraneously as a way to try to make himself seem hipper to his young employees, a tactic as transparent as it was fruitless. He poked me in the ribs. "You girls gonna tear it up tonight?"
     "You know it," I said, gritting my teeth. Fuck you, mouthed Faye, Aaron and Michelle. They were miserable and angry that I begged off so easily. If they had been able to get out of this, they would have. I was just lucky.
     I fetched Louise her alcohol and ran over to her. She waved enthusiastically. The guy she was talking to wore a greased pompadour, four earrings, a patch of chin whiskers and a black suit with a wide open-collared baby blue shirt paired with a matching pocket handkerchief. A chain loop dangled from his pocket.
     I handed Louise her drink and she turned her back on the hipster without a word. He seemed rather magnanimous about it and walked away.
     "What do you want to do?"
     "I'm absolutely starving."
     "Yeah, those hors d'oeuvres were really ridiculous."
     Louise sniffed. "I don't believe in eating things on tiny plates."
     "Okay. Let's go eat something on big plates."
     "Nice," she commented. I couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not.
     Louise and I finished our drinks and walked down the street to Allesandro's Ristorante. When you spend time with wealthy people, their "it's only money" attitude can be infectious. So, with the feeling that it was completely natural and deserved, we ordered appetizers, main courses, side dishes, desserts, fruits, cheeses, coffees. We drank bottles of wine which fueled our gluttonous rage as we caught up with each other. Well, mostly Louise fed me tidbits of gossip and her extremely adventurous sex life while I ooh'd and aah'd enviously. I wasn't sure if she was telling the truth or not about all these tales, but I could believe it. She was beautiful, and had a slutty air of entitlement about her.
     Customers glanced at us as we squealed and giggled while dishes were fetched to and removed from our table. The owner repeatedly tottered up to our table to grasp our hands and tell us what beautiful girls we were while we batted our eyes at him and asked for more wine.
     "Bring us more booze, old man," Louise purred in her perfect Italian while he blinked back tears of joy in his rheumy eyes.
     When it was all over I made a big production of flourishing my credit card. I flourished it so emphatically that I knocked over the bread basket.
     "My treat, my treat," I insisted, proudly defiant of the $250 check. Money didn't scare me. I was with Louise. I would show her that I could afford this check. I couldn't, of course.
     Louise thumped a bony elbow on the table and pointed a talon at me. "Fine. But I'm buying drinks after this."
     "Oh, I can't drink any more."
     "Don't be stupid."
     There was a hole in my memory at this point. Somehow we got to a bar. I don't recall how or which one, but I have a feeling that it wasn't the type I normally frequent, one of those dark Rush Street joints full of modern music and creeping men.
     At the bar Louise and I snagged the last two seats and reigned for several hours, unnecessarily calling over the Playboy-esque waitresses to prevent them from flirting with attractive customers, loudly decrying female patrons' clothing options, inventing assumed identities and coyly bumming cigarettes off every man in the bar.
     I felt closer to Louise. She wasn't so bad. She was fun.
     "Why didn't we hang out more in college?" I hollered over the music, ready for bonding.
     She shrugged and screamed at the bartender for another drink. Embarrassed, I wished I hadn't spoken, and glanced over my shoulder at nothing in particular, pretending that it was just idle conversation.
     Around our fourth or tenth beer it began to snow.
     "It's snowing!" I cried, punching Louise in the arm.
     She rolled her eyes and went back to flirting with a boy with a futuristic haircut whose girlfriend was in the bathroom.
     I don't remember what I did, meanwhile. I might have been showing somebody the different tricks I could perform with a Zippo lighter. My hands smelled of kerosene that morning. But I didn't own a Zippo lighter.
     Eventually we saw that the snow was falling in piles, sticking to the street even as the weekend traffic drove over it. Snowing so hard you could hear it fall. We agreed it was time to leave. Louise and I got our coats (mine wool, hers fur-trimmed). I remember somebody pulling on my arm, begging me not to leave. Maybe somebody asking me to give them their Zippo back. Or asking for Louise's phone number.
     We slipped and slid the three blocks back to Louise's Lake Shore Drive apartment. The snow stuck to us, head to toe and we screamed with laughter as if we had never seen the precipitation before. Giddy like we didn't have a care in the world. Friends 4-Ever, as they say.
     "Oh, I'm going to get killed taking a cab back to my place," I said, all hilarity.
     "You're sleeping over." She said. "You are, and that's that."
     How could I argue?
     So I was at Louise's, that Saturday. Another piece of the puzzle solved.
     Noisily saying hello to her doorman, we rode the elevator to the fourth floor and tumbled into her apartment, leaving puddles everywhere.
     "Wear these," she commanded, tossing me some pajamas. I believe I put my clothes in the dryer.
     Which explained why I wasn't wearing my clothes and whose I was wearing the next morning. Brand-new flannel. My hangnails kept catching on them.
     We ate some cookies. We locked her cat, Tofu, in the closet because she was pitifully mewling at a volume almost unbelievable for such a small creature. Tofu was a horrible, withered-up, dandruffy prune of a cat, no teeth, no hair, all stench. We drank some water. Louise pointed me to one of the thousands of rooms in her apartment and I fell asleep. It was difficult, because the ceiling was spinning. I tried putting one foot on the floor to stabilize, but I couldn't reach; the bed was too high.
     So that explained where I was. What time was it? After searching for my watch, I saw that it was about eight a.m. Unthinkable. This was the drunk's false dawn. But I was afraid that if I lay down again, I would start feeling nauseous.
     For as young as she is, Louise has an insane amount of money. I was never clear on why, but she's fabulously wealthy. Exquisitely so. She's just the type of sloppy, careless rich person that makes money seem like a toy that everybody has. The room I was staying in certainly seemed not to have any real use. Nobody lived with her. I supposed she had guests. But how many guestrooms does one girl need? Certainly not three or four.
     I examined the room, still confused from my dreams, head throbbing and eyes thick from the alcohol.
     This room, though, was nicer than any hotel room in which I had ever been in my life. Cornflower blue painted walls absorbed the light the way thick carpet absorbs footfalls. Red-brown flagstone floors were covered with gorgeous Oriental rugs. A thick cherry wood bed frame rose high as if it were housing the bed of a princess. Tiny ladylike fireplace. Gigantic maple curio chest gave everything inside it the aura of preciousness. A sun-seat for picturesque reading, of course. Beautiful, without a hint of personality. A tinge of anger rose in me. How dare she have this gorgeous room. How dare she have this gorgeous room and not use it. Who the hell did she think she was?
     It wasn't fair. I killed myself at a job I hated with a boss I loathed to scrape together enough money to live in a one-bedroom apartment of my own that I took great pains never to refer to as 'home,' because I would never want to concede that that hovel which I happened to occupy was my home.
     I checked myself. Just because I didn't have a lot of money or a nice place meant that I had to blame Louise for doing so.
     However, by then, I loathed the room as much as I wanted to be a part of it. So pretty and yet so pretentious. So welcoming and yet somehow so worsening my hangover.
     I had to get out of there.
     If I knew Louise, she certainly wasn't awake yet. Part of being glamorous and rich and negligent involves sleeping until ridiculously late hours. I padded around the apartment.
     More of the same. Classic beauty and the most modern amenities. It was dotted with curios such as crystal candleholders, a big screen TV, marble countertops, hidden refrigerators (yes, more than one), velvet brocade drapes and a touch-of-a-button rollback awning over a sundeck. My desire for the apartment, the life and my revulsion for it clenched my stomach, made my buttocks tingle the way they always do when I'm anxious and envious. I ran quickly to the bathroom and voided some of the Penne alla Vodka from Allesandro's.
     I truly didn't know how Louise lived here. Adults could save up their entire lives and not be able to afford an apartment like this. She never mentioned rich relatives, or a windfall investment, or anything of the type. Whenever I asked her about the apartment she just said she "fell upon it," as if somebody had left it on the sidewalk, and moved on to another part of the conversation. Again, that rich thoughtlessness. I couldn't lie if I said I wasn't jealous of her now, or even back in college. With money and looks you don't have to try hard at anything except maintaining your money and looks.
     It was time to leave the apartment. I couldn't fall back asleep in the Pretty Drunken Nightmare Chamber and if I spent more time examining Louise's apartment, I would be afraid that I would begin stealing things. It was time to go back to my apartment, my non-home, my crap life.
     I gathered my clothing, twisting my face up at the smells of the night before that emanated from them. I tapped on Louise's bedroom door and opened it.
     Her bedroom, of course, made the rest of the apartment look like a hole. She decorated it as if she had returned from a safari. Canopied bed. Chocolate leather settee. Knotted Afghan carpet. I didn't even want to look any more.
     "Louise," I whispered.
     She rolled over violently, looked at the clock and rolled back to look me in the eye.
     "It's early," she said in a tone reminiscent of my mother's.
     "Yeah, I know. I'm going to get going. I just wanted to say thanks for letting me stay here."
     "Why the fuck did you wake me up?"
     "Just to say goodbye."
     Louise sighed loudly. She had sore nerves running through her body and if you touched them you would hear the worst of it, unrepentantly.
     "Fine, bye. Let Tofu out before you go."
     "I, uh, made the bed, so you don't have to worry about that."
     "Great," she muttered sarcastically from beneath her duvet.
     She could undo a fun night with a nasty word or two. But I shook my head and retreated back through the apartment. I opened the door to the closet and Tofu ran through my legs, meowing even louder than before. I felt slightly vindicated.
     I trod down the moss-colored-carpeted spiral staircase down to the marble lobby.
     "Where do I get a cab?" I asked the doorman. He smiled and told me that he could hail one for me. When I followed him outside in the dripping slush, he admonished me: "You wait inside while I do this!" I was almost embarrassed.
     The ride back west was grey and uneventful and I felt carsick. The further away I rode from Louise's the further away the fun, the glamour, the assumed importance of the night before felt. Back to reality. Shit.
     So I returned back to my stuffy apartment to live out the rest of my weekend. Saturday I nursed my hangover watching TV and Sunday I had brunch with my friend Paula and went to the gym.
     A week later Louise called me and told me that she was taking a vacation to St. Bart's. It took all my strength not to retort with "Of course you are. Life's so stressful for you." But I didn't. And it was a good thing, because she asked me to apartment sit for her while she was gone. Apparently, the neighbor who she usually asked to help was out of town. She said she was going for at least a few weeks and needed me to turn the lights on and off and feed Tofu in her absence. It wasn't exactly convenient, but I can't say the prospect of staying there didn't appeal to me. And, after all, Louise was so generous to let me stay overnight, I thought I'd return the favor.
     When I arrived at her apartment her doorman was pleasant but a bit surprised. He didn't remember Louise going on vacation.
     "I bet she goes on trips a lot," I said.
     "Yes, she does," he agreed uncertainly.
     "Well, maybe you just didn't know about this one. Do you remember me from when I stayed over here last week?"
     He did and we chatted a bit about the snowstorm. His name is Trevor and he was very pleasant to me and let me in the apartment
     It's been a while now since Louise has called last, but the last I heard, she said that she was having a great time and would be staying for a little bit longer. I don't mind too much: I brought some of my stuff over and I've made myself comfortable. The doormen are all okay with me staying here and don't mind saying so. I think they appreciate that I'm very thoughtful and respectful of the place, and one of them confided in me that I'm much more considerate than Louise. When Trevor came up to deliver some flowers the other day he even noticed that I've been keeping the place clean and did a little redecorating. He said he liked it a lot. I quit my job, so I've had a lot of time to spend in the apartment and notice what needs improvement.
     It's too bad about Tofu, but she was on her last legs anyway. They're keeping her at the vet for me until Louise gets back. They have some way of preserving her, I guess.
     Some boys have called, so apparently Louise was telling the truth about her sex life. One of them came by to pick up a suit he had left there. His name was Alex, we got to talking, and he took me out for drinks. We're going to a restaurant opening this weekend.
     Anyway, like I said, that's all I know for now, and all I remember, I'm sorry to say. I haven't heard much from Louise, so it's hard to keep in touch with her. But what can you do? Not leaving word with anybody was just typical, careless Louise.



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