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CAL
McMonster: Still alive?
oBITCHuary: Just barely.
McMonster: Reassuring.
oBITCHuary: You sound disappointed. How is my beloved NYC?
McMonster: Same way you left it. That bad?
oBITCHuary: Worse, actually.
McMonster: What happened to take you back there anyway?
oBITCHuary: My father passed away.
oBITCHuary: Sorry I didn’t say anything. It just seemed…well, honestly, I’m really raw right now. Just typing it out and facing this as my new reality is difficult. But it wasn’t a surprise. He’d been sick for a while.
McMonster is typing…
McMonster is deleting…
McMonster is typing…
McMonster is deleting…
McMonster: Sorry for your loss.
This was a very weird response from McMonster, who was usually so attuned to my feelings I sometimes suspected I was being catfished by a female therapist. I’d been speaking to him almost every day since I’d signed up to the androphobia forum some years ago. My actual therapist had thought it was a good idea for me to talk to people who shared my experience and dread of men, but as it turned out, it was just this specific person I clicked with.
My fears felt intimate, too private to share with strangers. But the thing about McMonster?
He didn’t feel like a stranger at all.
CAL
“Torn”—Natalie Imbruglia
“You should do something with yourself.” Mom pressed her frozen foot across my cheek on my sixth day in Staindrop, making me yelp in protest.
We were both strewn over the couch in the living room, eating ice cream and watching a reality TV show about lavish L.A. realtors who dressed like Barbies. I slapped her foot away, screeching, “I’m trying, Mamushka. Running a true crime podcast is a career, okay?”
So far, I’d been dragging my feet about getting a real job after graduation because the idea of doing my own podcast with the occasional guest appealed to me more than becoming an intern in some marketing agency that refused to pay me enough to subsidize my weekly subway pass. I’d even gone as far as writing a few episodes on my laptop but always ended up canning them for being too long, too graphic, too informative, too quirky, and just…too me.
I was currently in the research phase of the operation. Which in practice meant I was occasionally googling how to start a true crime podcast. Now all I needed was written episodes, a studio, a producer, a marketing manager, and motivation.
Clearly, I was this close to making it happen.
“I’m not talking about your work in New York.” Mom shook her head, sticking her spoon in a mountain of pistachio ice cream to flick a lock of hair off my face lovingly. “I’m talking about this place. This town. If you’re going to stick around for a while, you need a job.”
“Oh. Sure. Right.” I stared at her skeptically. “And where am I going to get that?”
Staindrop wasn’t exactly the Big Apple of opportunities. It was more…the Small Raisin of unemployment. I knew she was right. I did need a job. I’d just figured that job was going to be selling my internal organs on the black market or being a phone sex operator for old married men.
“Let me tell you where you’re not going to get it—this couch.”
“I’ll get a job.” I waved her off airily, with confidence I definitely did not feel.
