Fearing, I wait.

I was laying on a blue patio chair in my nightgown. I wasn’t wearing any underwear. If you could see me from the street, you might have spotted a beaver or the letter L, taking into consideration all the extra leg I have. It was the afternoon, but the sun wasn’t what it used to be. I waited—book in hand. Muffy scratched on my bedroom door. She could be seen through the glass. I let her out, acknowledging this could be the last day. Mainly for her, but I guess for me too.

In between each song, I could hear the pond’s water falling. On the page, it sounds contrived, in reality it was peaceful, calming, more of what I needed. I became less concerned with I Like by Amanda Michalopoulou, even though it’s the best contemporary literature I have picked up in years. It was sad watching Muffy. I wondered if she was lonely, whether she thought her life had been good. Sure, there are plenty of people who will roll their eyes and say it’s just a dog. But I am talking about more than that. This is an issue about life; how every living thing is dying. Did she think Tigg was coming back? She had her face down on the stone, while keeping her eyes up. I had been doing my best to avoid the large lump her back leg had become. The doctors said it was incurable. Promised she wasn’t in pain, but then again had anyone asked her? At the clinic was there a dog translator on hand? I wondered whether she knew her time was soon.

This moment reminded me of a day last week. I was passing through revolving doors at Hearst for the sixth time this year. Nowadays I came as myself. Before, it was more of an event. My nails would be painted and I’d be wearing something new. But the artificialness never got me any closer. Some interviewers didn’t like my new perspective, which is to say how I costumed Chelsea Leigh Trescott. I could read their thoughts on their eyes. We all can be seen through. After a few months working at one Film Company, I got invited into the Human Resource office. Guilt immediately turned my body numb and my interior narrator went dead. Inside I heard static. Had I been stealing money? Claiming I worked more hours than I had? Should I not have charged that cab fare? Oh, I thought all sorts of things, but none carried any weight of truth. “Men are walking into walls.” Or that was the effect the Publicity department was excusing me of, but then again I think 90% of their salary comes from talking shit. I quit two days later. It wasn’t always this extreme though. Some interviewers called me interesting, which seemed like everything but resulted in nothing, too.

I waited on the second floor and tried to appear busy or absorbed. Is there a difference? I looked over my resume, then the questionnaire, tried to memorize my intention and then thought I was over-thinking it and began reading James Joyce’s “Dirty Letters” to Nora. “The last drop of seed has hardly been squirted up your cunt before it is over and my true love for you, the love of my verses, the love of my eyes for your strange luring eyes, comes blowing over my soul like a wind of spices.” Like anyone with half an ounce of sense of humor, I began laughing my ass off—to myself, no doubt—when I looked up and saw her, or who I assumed to be her, coming towards me. I stuffed the papers into my bag, as if I had—again—been guilty of some scandal.

She walked ahead, leading me to a meeting area, where I assume people ate lunch. But no one was eating. It was only us. This was the first time I hadn’t been invited up to the magazine’s floor. I thought this was smart, maybe pretentious. But Vogue had been worse. Much worse. And granted, some companies wanted to keep their distance, perpetuate the mystery, maintain their reputation. This was all fine and dandy. I wasn’t calling the shots, yet. She kept me around, talking for awhile. Definitely the best interviewer I have ever sat across from. Each statement became a question referring back to me. And for the first time, I didn’t feel like I had to fake an answer. However, I was noticing a trend. Interviewers were impressed I was applying for my MFA, but their reaction all ended with the same query. "Are you sure this is the department you are interested in and not editorial?" I wish I had a convincing four-worded answer. I thought the position was fitting and surprisingly better than I imagined. I wanted her to want me. But it would be January before I knew. We stood, shook hands again and she asked me about living in the East Village. I told her it was full of temptation and immediately, figured this wasn’t the right response. Is there a correct answer? I mentioned my twin sister before I took the escalator down. I have no idea why I imagined she would care. But I suppose she liked me, because she wrote me the next day, wanting to know more.

I jumped in a cab—trying not to acknowledge this would be a $30 trip for the second time in two days and more than likely was going to result in nothing. But I had to meet him in an hour and I didn’t want to waste my adrenaline in transit on a subway for 45 minutes. I called my mom to tell her the good news.

“Are you okay?” I took the phone from my ear and checked the time. “Or are you just sleeping? Sorry I just wanted to tell you how it went.”

“Yeah, everything is fine. Can we talk later? It’s just been an exhausting day.”

“Of course, of course. But everything really is okay right?”

“No, Chelsea.”

“What?”

“He died.”

“Who, What!”

“I had to put Tigg down today.”

“But.”

“He just, Chelsea I’m sorry, he just didn’t want to hang on anymore.”

I had no emotion. I felt worse for her than I did for myself or Tigg. She sounded so exhausted, which innately made me assume she was depressed. It was an analysis that my dad had instilled in me, "If you sleep during the day, then you're depressed." It is was simple, concise, true? It's all relative. But as a result, I don't sleep and it makes me uncomfortable when I see a friend or family member "napping" when the sun is still out. However, that's a whole separate story. The cab driver asked me which way I wanted to go. I have no idea. I don’t drive here. Do whatever you’d like.

And then I began crying, everything falling out from my inside and hung up, crying. I cried because I hadn’t said goodbye over Thanksgiving. Cried because when I left for the airport, I closed the garage door and only looked at Tigg waiting there. I hadn’t gone back inside. All I said was I would see him in a few days. I thought I could say goodbye to him then. In a matter of moments, I had made a mess of myself. I took the elevator up, walked into my sister’s room, only to hear, “I already knew.”

I had ten minutes until I had to begin walking to meet him. I wanted to see him. I didn’t know him, but I felt he knew me better than anyone in the city. I opened a bottle of wine. A good bottle. But it tasted carbonated. And I almost threw up.

“Do you have any pot left?”

“No. Why? You don’t want to be stoned when you see him.”

“I know, I don’t. But I just need something to motivate me.”

I left with nothing but music. The city provided the cold air. This turned out to be more than enough. When I walked in I thought I was early, but then I saw him in the back, again waiting for me. I felt like an asshole, but not for long. His reaction told me he thought I seemed unnatural. We all can be seen through. I stood outside, watching his hand shake, as he smoked the cigarette he had rolled. He was…no he is…the most striking man I have ever seen in New York City. This would usually make me a bit unlike myself, but with him, it was only the opposite. The first thing I said was my dog died. I told him why I felt it was more than that.

“He’s a Viscela. You know those silver dogs that pose for portraits? Yeah, well that but red and a bit smaller. He was a human being. No exaggeration. And over Thanksgiving the only thing he would do was stare into the pool. The doctors had to give him a B-12 shot, so he could have energy when the whole family came into town.”

I showed him a picture on my phone.

“It’s just strange thinking about it, and maybe better that I never had, but maybe you can learn a lot from animals. Maybe they can teach you what it’s like to go.”

I felt vulnerable saying this—to anyone, but especially to this inconceivable man I barely knew.

“You can. Trust me. They can teach you a lot.”

I believed him because I felt he was the type that had thought about it.

I watched Muffy while I lounged on the patio, achieving little sun. She had been following me everywhere. Was she trying to receive the attention I never gave her? I already have begun to miss her. She reminded me of Tigg—myself personified—and the love she has lost or rather, the love that has ended. And then, she reminded me of my Grandmother. Less than an hour before, I had been told the doctors had discovered cancer on her breast. Tomorrow she was going back to see if it had spread elsewhere. Her first husband died that way. She was only in her twenties when it happened. My father begged me during Thanksgiving to get the spot on my chest checked out. His brother pointed at it with his stitched hand. He had just had cancer removed. I was always telling everyone that it was just a nervous habit—something small that turned into something larger because I had been picking at it for the last two years. But then again, I am the type of person who avoids all confrontation because I fear the possibility that truth can devastate reality.

You can be anywhere and be thinking of some place else.