Weeks after I got my undergraduate degree, I started dating Chris.
Chris was the lead guitarist for a legendary, albeit aging, rock star. He was handsome in a non-threatening way. I never had to knee his balls because I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to kiss or kill him. He didn’t confuse or frustrate me. We always understood when the other person had a lot of work and needed space.
A year after graduation, I found a job writing dialogue for a soap opera after months of freelancing. The money was solid, my bosses were far from the Hollywood asshole cliché, and I got my foot in the door. The years slipped away like sand in an hourglass, without my even noticing, and I got promoted from dialogue writer to scriptwriter.
Twenty-six was looking great.
A nice, stable boyfriend.
A good job.
And a horizon sparkling with opportunity.
So, when I got back home early one day from work to find Chris in bed with someone who definitely wasn’t me, I wasn’t majorly surprised. It just seemed like the universe had snapped its fingers together and remembered, “Eh, Nika Popov of New England couldn’t—and shouldn’t—have it all.”
I found Chris with the rock star. I guess it made sense. The rock star—let’s call him Johnny—had been married for a couple decades, and Chris had been his much younger guitarist, whom he’d hired for his world tour weeks after escaping a gay sex tape scandal that had threatened to tear his marriage apart.
The worst part was it was an intimate moment. Not a torrid, erotic romp, like affairs usually were. Chris was on top of Johnny, missionary style, holding the back of his thighs while drowning in his eyes. It looked intense and real, even a little beautiful, in a twisted, screwed-up way, which was why I spared all of us the dramatic face-off, slid out of the bedroom before they noticed me, grabbed my keys, and darted downstairs. I texted Chris from the stairway.Nika: When you’re done pleasuring your boss, could you please text me a good time to pick up my things? By the way, you’re in charge of dealing with the landlord if you want to break the lease. –N.I got into my car, which had gotten unbearably hot in the ten seconds I was away, baking under the unforgiving Los Angeles sun, and banged my head against the steering wheel, producing small, frustrated honks that rang through our sleepy Sherman Oak neighborhood.
What do I do now?
Surprisingly, I wasn’t hysterical. I was annoyed at the inconvenience, offended by the betrayal, with a dash of exasperated with myself for not figuring it out sooner. All the times Chris couldn’t talk while he was on tour. The times I’d heard Johnny in the background, popping bottles of wine in his hotel room, late at night.
I could call my parents, but they’d just throw the customary I told you so in my face. They always viewed Los Angeles as plastic, soulless, and thoroughly corrupt. Chris was just a byproduct of the stigma they were so fond of.
I could call Greta, but she was back home in Boston, trying on wedding gowns, getting ready for her looming nuptials to Nathan. I didn’t want to shit on her parade. That left me with Val. Sweet, reliable Val. I dialed my brother’s number before I had the chance to chicken out, putting him on speaker.
“Sis?” he answered after the first ring. “How are you?”
“Val,” I choked. “Chris cheated on me.”
The words tasted like ash. Uttering them made what had happened upstairs real, and suddenly I was not just angry. I was heartbroken, too.
“Jesus Christ, what a fucker.” Val sucked in a breath. He sounded like he was driving, probably back from work. Val was still single, living in the same small town we came from. He’d taken over Dad’s carpeting business and had done well for himself. “You caught him in the act?”
“Yeah,” I heaved, refraining from mentioning with whom. It seemed gossipy and distracting to the real issue here—Chris had cheated. Did it really matter with whom he’d cheated on me? The point was that he had. I let my tears fall, fat and hot and ngry. It was a cleansing kind of cry. A cry where you purge out all the negativity and frustrations. I wasn’t crazy in love with Chris, but I’d felt content with him. Obviously, that was enough. Not for him, though.
“I have nowhere to go. I mean, I could probably check into a Holiday Inn Express for a couple weeks, but…”
But I needed an apartment. Pronto.
It was summer, and L.A. was buzzing with tourists and out-of-towners paying thousands of bucks a week on Airbnb. It would take me weeks to find a place. I had friends, but they were all living with partners or roommates, and it seemed rude to crash on them like that. Plus, I just didn’t have time to start looking for an apartment. I had a bunch of deadlines to hit with the soap opera, The Fast and the Fabulous, not to mention I’d just bought an expensive car, booked a vacation to Cancun for Greta’s bachelorette party, and spent a considerable amount of money on crap I’d thought I could afford.