Juliette, My Darling

By Lillian Beatrice Dunn

“Keep the ice machine shut, Juliette!” 

I heard the heavy silver door slam shut with a hollow, passive-aggressive bwap and flinched but didn’t turn around. I pulled a new drink ticket. Combined muddled mint, lemon juice, honey syrup, and two shots of gin, shaking the ingredients together, marrying them until the metal shaker grew condensation and burned the tips of my fingers. Straining the concoction into a purple-tinted Nick and Nora glass, I spilled some of the sticky liquid down my wrist, down my arm to my elbow. 

“Juliette!” 

“Heard!” I snapped back across the bar before topping the drink with a perky mint sprig. I slid it toward the customer, looking at her for the first time. A masculine woman in a white tank top with patchwork tattoo sleeves, hair cut short-short in a wavy brunette shag. She handed me a twenty and a five as I wiped my arm clean with a sanitizer rag. 

“Keep the change, angel.” 

I forced a quick smile with teeth, dear and stuffed the tip into my bra. The woman winked and turned away, quickly becoming engulfed by the welcoming, undulating crowd. I huffed a sigh before snatching the next two tickets off of the printer. 

Lipstick Lou’s sat on a bustling corner off Hammon and McLamb, and yet it remained the slowest bar on the block, more than likely due to the crowd it attracted: mostly older gays, drag queens, groups of goths, you get the picture. It had been nearly four months since I got a job as a bartender from Lou’s granddaughter, Maya. 

Lou had died just two years prior. Maya told me when I got the job, and I said, oh, I’m sorry to have missed her, to which she nodded solemnly and agreed, yes, it was very sad, she was such an inspiration. Maya really must have taken pity on me because I was horrifically underqualified to begin with and sorely below par even after two weeks of intensive behind-the-bar training. I needed the money, though. Seven months post undergraduate degree in poetry, the bills weren’t paying themselves. 

“You’re practically begging to be poor,” my mother would accuse me as I sent my work to magazines people outside of the local art community would never see.

“I’d rather be starving and making art than stuck here with you,” I’d told her the last night I saw her before moving to Los Angeles on a whim just six months earlier. I left with only one duffel bag, stuffed with anything I could carry — clothes, books, sentimental art and photographs, my clunky old laptop — to move in with my girlfriend Phoebe. We’d been together for five years, through college and after; I’d moved out to LA for her; we’d talked about marriage, for Christ’s sake. Seemingly out of the blue, she broke up with me and moved out. It was ugly and cruel and devastating. 

“It’s neither of our faults,” she said. “Things just aren’t working,” she said. 

The breakup dragged on conversation after painstaking conversation while I begged her to tell me what I’d done wrong, but no answer came. I’d barely been able to eat in the days following, the skin around my collarbones tightening as I could hardly stomach a slice of unbuttered sourdough in the mornings. I felt like I’d been rubbed raw. My eyes were dry and ached from lack of sleep. TV was pointless, and I hated the music I was supposed to like. Phoebe took three days to move out, which meant three nights sleeping in our bed while her belongings slowly disappeared, and our walls slowly became blank. 

In my state of grief, I’d gotten a little sloppy at Lou’s. Just that night, I’d dropped an ice scoop, shattered a half-full bottle of SKYY, and knocked a glass of Pinot Grigio over toward a gay couple, staining one of their crisp, white button-downs. 

“Juliette, my darling!” I heard a familiarly raspy voice call in a sing-songy drawl.
I scanned the sea of bodies, skin flashing pink, purple, blue, red, with the lighting, before spotting Celeste, tall and lanky, in a tan peacoat with matted faux fur around the collar and cuffs, her platinum blonde hair spilling down her back. Her eyes were smothered in pink sparkles, her lips a shade of deep purple-red. The peacoat was half-covering a slinky black slip dress she often wore in between performances at the Lusty Pearl, her boots skin-tight and thigh-high. Celeste was a burlesque dancer next door and my only remaining roommate. She treated life like a performance. 

Leaning over the bar, setting her forearms on the perpetually sticky countertop dotted with shiny rings from long-discarded drinks, she wiggled her manicured fingers at me.  

“You got a gig tonight?” she yelled over the bass-heavy music, a fading southern accent tinting her voice. She leaned into it when she spoke to customers at the Lusty Pearl — southern belles get fatter tips, Jules. 

I sometimes found myself at open mic events after a shift, but I hadn’t had the will since my breakup. I had no work to present these days. I shook my head. I could feel my supervisor Helene watching me, her eyes burning holes in the back of my head, but I continued to pull tickets and pretend as though she wasn’t there.

“I don’t have anything new; I’ll be home when I’m off!”

“How’re you holding up, muffin?” She tilted her head and jutted her glossy bottom lip out, pouting. 

Even though she was shouting, no one was listening. There was something about the deafening cacophony of Lou’s that created a sort of intimacy in speaking aloud between friends. There was so much jumbled noise that every pair could speak safely, cocooned in their own bubble of drunken secrets. 

I just shrugged. 

“I was gonna sit and chat, but it’s hella busy tonight. I barely have room to breathe! Do you need me to stop for anything on the way back to the apartment?”

I shook my head. “I’m fine, thanks, Cel.” 

She blew me a kiss as she departed. 

Helene sent me to visit Maya’s office at the end of my shift. I wiped down my workspace and tossed my dirty rag into a blue bin of previously discarded towels, a pit forming in my stomach. Heat spread across my ears and cheeks. Helene had it out for me — I knew it pissed her off that I’d been talking to Celeste over the bar. She’d come to despise Celeste’s frequent visits and snarky tone over the past few months, and the number of mistakes I’d made that day alone was more than enough justification for a write-up, or at least a warning. I’d been too sloppy — all over a girl who decided I wasn’t enough for her. 

It was as if the bar had grown three times its length as I made my way to Maya’s office. I felt like I’d been walking for miles when I finally pushed through the doors to the kitchen, the sickening fluorescence forcing me to quicken my pace. My palms were sweating as I crossed through the stockroom where we kept our personal effects, down one more dimly lit hallway to Maya’s door. She looked up when she saw me through the glass window and gestured for me to come inside. 

On her desk, covered in scattered, marked-up papers, stained, overflowing manilla envelopes, and three half-empty coffee cups with brown rings around the inside, there was a list, handwritten on a sheet of yellow legal paper. She placed it before me and waved a hand that implied sit down. Before me was a collection of everything I’d ever stolen from the bar since I’d started working there —  toilet paper, bread from the kitchen and oat milk, free drinks for Celeste and Phoebe, three sets of silverware, and so on. 

“Do you know what this is?” she asked, connecting her finger to the paper as though pointing would jog my memory faster. 

I nodded dumbly, shrugged, picked at my cuticles. 

“I knew you were stealing food, Juliette. I knew about the toilet paper and the bread and the drinks, but there’s only so much I can overlook. Ninety-five dollars were missing from the register last night. Tell me — why should I not assume this was also you?” 

“Are you firing me?” I asked. A wave of serenity washed over me suddenly as I realized she had already made up her mind. There was no use fighting. She’d never believe me if I said I hadn’t stolen it. 

“I just don’t see another choice, Juliette,” she sighed. Her hair was untamed and frizzy, her eyes bloodshot. “I’m losing money keeping you here.”

I stood abruptly, the chair skidding backward loudly across the floor, pushed by the backs of my knees. “Thanks. For the opportunity.” I spun on my heel stiffly, turning the knob to her office, shutting the door behind me without turning to face Maya again. 

Retracing my steps, everything seemed so much louder — the mechanical whirring of the air conditioning in the stock room, the clustered clatter leaking through the kitchen. I was alone as I put my arms through my thick black sweater and slung my purse on my shoulder. 

My mother’s face flashed across my mind, and I almost winced at the thought of what she might say. I hadn’t spoken to her in months, but I’d been thinking about her since my breakup. I’d left my family for Phoebe. I’d left everything I’d ever known. But the thought of going back felt suffocating. I dreaded the thought of my bedroom at home with old posters taped to the walls, the halls filled with picture frames of a smiling family I couldn’t say was mine, the dinner table where I was nearly always silent, the strict rigidity of the home my mother ran. I couldn’t face her. And if I did go home, she’d never allow me to live under her roof and continue writing. She’d make me get “a real job,” whatever the fuck that meant. 

I unclipped my hair from its updo and shook it out, combing my fingers through it with my eyes closed. I brushed past Helene without saying goodbye and made a beeline for the door, shoving my way through the hazy conglomerate of makeup and wigs and leather and boots. 

The door closed behind me with a soft thump, stifling the bumping music and lively conversation like a pillow tossed over a speaker. I faced the biting cold of the February midnight air, practically gasping. My lungs burned, and my breath appeared before me when I exhaled. I tried to mentally sever myself from the lingering savory smell of sweat and laughter as I ducked into my car and started home. Automatically, my Tidal CD began playing, and the beginning notes of “Sleep to Dream” seeped from the stereo and into my car. I slapped the eject button and snapped the white disk into the case. Fiona’s eyes stared back at me, wide and unwavering. 

My black 1995 Toyota Camry was one of the last shreds of home I clung to — more by necessity than nostalgia’s sake. But now, when I thought of my bank account — 13 dollars in my checking and nothing in my savings — I felt a lump form in my throat and a tug in my chest to call my mother. I acted without thinking, and she picked up on the third ring. 

“Juliette?”

“Hi, mom.” I hesitated over the word mom. When things were ugly after I first moved out, I’d taken to calling her Pam, adamant about detaching myself from her if she couldn’t find it within her to support me. We’d never officially reconciled things, both of us too stubborn to extend any attempt at an olive branch. The issue just sort of fizzled out. Which meant no fighting, and no talking either. I hadn’t seen her face since I’d left. 

“What is this about?” 

I hesitated and then chickened out. “Nothing.”

“Do not tell me you called me at 2:00 in the morning over some nothing, Juliette.” 

I’d completely forgotten about the time. “I— I’m so sorry. You’re right. I’m sorry. Goodnight.” I hung up before she could say anything else. 

I don’t remember the rest of the trip home except for the way the road stretched out in front of me, sprawling and taunting, the painted lines swallowed by the bottom of my windshield until I was suddenly in front of my apartment, turning off the engine.

“Well, I just got canned, so.” I slammed the door behind me and dropped my purse to the chair by the door and my keys into a glass bowl. 

Celeste’s eyes slowly panned away from the television screen toward me. She was slumped over on our pink velvet couch so completely that her chin was resting on her chest, her green glass beaker bong on the coffee table in front of her, a lighter, grinder, and rolling tray beside it. She was watching Sex and the City reruns.

“Join the party, dear,” she offered, lifting her hand toward her spread. 

“Can’t. I have to write.” I started off toward my room.

“Jules, come on, you have to write?” 

“Yes, Cel — I haven’t written anything decent in weeks.” I was trying not to get defensive, but something about her tone struck me as judgmental. 

“You just lost your job — don’t you think that’s a more pressing concern?”

“What are you saying?” 

She sat up, crossing her legs underneath her. “Nothing, it’s just — we have to focus on what pays. We can’t just survive off open mic nights.”

Before I could respond, I began to feel like I was choking. My face grew hot, and my body felt slack except for my chest, which was tight, and my hands, which were shaking. “My writing matters,” was all I could manage. 

“Of course it matters, Jules!” Celeste sat up. “But… what about me? What about how I feel? What about my day? How are we going to make rent this month, Jules? Next month? What’s the fucking plan because I — I am tired!” 

“I’m going to figure it out. I just need some time to—” 

“We don’t have the luxury of time, Jules, we can barely afford groceries.” She sounded exasperated. “You have been a mess, and I have been there for you, but I have been the one holding us together. Me! You have no agency in your life, and writing a poem about Phoebe is not going to fix that.” 

I spun around quickly and slammed the door to my room behind me.

“Baby, I’m sorry,” she called after me. “But you have to stop thinking about her.”  

I turned on the lamp beside my desk with two short clicks, allowing a soft yellow light to spill across the floor and walls, creating long shadows across my desk. Tears had begun to spill down my cheeks, but I wiped them away quickly, ashamed. I had recently been obsessing over the idea of writing a novel, but nothing was sticking, nothing felt right. I put on my purple-framed cat-eye glasses and sank onto my backless, green stool to type and retype, painstakingly revise and meticulously edit until the sun came up, and yet somehow, I was always left with nothing new to show for it. Maybe Celeste was right. Maybe my mother was. Maybe Phoebe. Nights like these were long and grueling; it seemed as though the light at the end of the tunnel would never come. 

“We’ve been together for so long, baby, I have no idea who I am apart from you,” Phoebe had told me. 

We’d just had sex for the last time, and not too long after, she began to speak in a way that felt foreign to me. Like she was reading from a script. I knew what was coming but couldn’t fathom how to stop it. A burning, foaming pit formed in my stomach. 

“How is that my fault?”

“It’s not your fault, it just is. I need to find out who I am. I need to know myself. Alone.” She was standing now, pacing, her tone sharp and exasperated. 

“I moved here for you.” 

“Yeah, and you have nothing to show for it, do you? Do you even know who you are? I love you so much, but this will be the best thing for both of us — you just can’t see it yet.”

“Is there someone else?” I asked, desperate to find someone to blame. 

Phoebe paused, stunned, and scoffed at me. Almost laughing, she tilted her head. “No.” 

The document before me was a jumble of scenes I couldn’t weave together. Fragments of life with no real characters, no real plotline. I thought briefly about deleting the whole thing and starting over. I spun around in my chair and stared at Phoebe’s blank side of the room, her nightstand cleaned out and hollow, her alarm clock gone from the place where it had once rested beside her bowl of various chapsticks and a picture frame. She’d returned her key neatly on her way out. I hadn’t moved it from the table. I don’t know why. Maybe it was because I thought — 

I stood abruptly, slamming my laptop shut, and left my room with my tail between my legs. I peeked around the corner. Celeste was watching me with her eyebrows raised. 

“Pack me a bowl?” I asked innocently. 

Celeste rolled her eyes and beckoned me over as she emptied the contents of her apple-shaped grinder onto the rolling tray. I flopped down on the couch beside her while she packed my bowl in the “special” way she insisted only she knew how. 

“I’m really sorry,” I said. “You’re right.” 

“I know I am,” she said without looking at me. “But I shouldn’t have said some of those things. You know I think you’re an amazing writer.”

“I’ll get a job.” 

“I know you will. You’re like a cockroach, dear. Here, come here.” 

She lit the flower for me while I took a long inhale, watching the water bubble while thick, white smoke built up in the tinted glass. I removed the bowl and took a deep breath into my lungs, holding it there for a moment before releasing it back into the room. The smoke spiraled out of my mouth in swirling earthy clouds, obscuring the television screen slightly as Carrie’s heels clicked down the bustling city streets. Celeste was smiling at me. 

“Again,” she hummed, holding out the bong for me, and I obliged once, twice, three more times before getting up to grab two Razz-Cranberry LaCroixs from the fridge. I cracked mine and took a careful sip. 

I lifted my hand to my face to push up my glasses through molasses, and the back of my neck tingled deliciously. My mind became clean and blank, my thoughts bouncing around like the DVD logo screensaver that appears when you’ve paused a movie for too long. 

“Alright, so where are we gonna find you a job next?” Celeste asked. “The Lusty Pearl?”

“Cel, no. Be serious.” 

“Oh, honey, we’d love to have you.” 

“Don’t insult me — you know I can’t dance for shit.” 

“So you must be worthless, then!”

I rolled my eyes. 

“How picky can we really afford to be, Jules?” 

“I was thinking something more like a receptionist gig. You know, less movement.”

“Perfect for your clumsy ass. Now we just have to work on your attitude.”  

Carrie Bradshaw’s raspy, smoker’s voice interrupted us as she monologued her newest column: “They say nothing lasts forever; dreams change, trends come and go, but friendships never go out of style.” 

“Girl, whatever,” Celeste giggled and then whisper-mouthed toward me. “How’d she know?”

We settled into the couch to pretend like we didn’t love to escape to the messy ridiculousness of Manhattan’s most posh friend group. After two or three episodes in moderate silence, a buzzing warmth and quiet intimacy passing between us, Celeste sat up slowly. Her eyes were red, and her cheeks were pink. She said she had to go to bed, but she loved me. 

“You’ll find something,” she assured me. “And write something too. Oh—” 

She reached into her purse beside the couch and handed me a makeup wipe. 

“You’re gonna want this.” 

“Goodnight,” I said, taking the wipe from her. 

As I wiped my face clean, something began to bloom in my chest until I was naked, my skin sticky and cool as the warm orange and purple lighting of our cozy apartment lulled me to sleep under a hand-knitted blanket, the room still hazy and warm.

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