Psychic Junkie Read Free Page A

by falling ceiling, call my friend Gina, and get drunk.
    Gina and I met when she was nineteen and I was twenty-two and her father was dating a friend of mine. No stranger to dysfunctional relationships, she’d always maintained there were a few lines she wouldn’t cross, one being dating an actor. According to her theory, actors are essentially trained liars, and dating one is the same as having a dangerously high fever: You can’t think straight, no one makes sense, you start seeing things, you lose your appetite, and you think you might die. Tom, the sex fiend, drug addicted, Baywatch -babe-chasing cheat, also had the honor of being an actor—though my take on dating him had obviously been different. The way I saw it, Tom was employed as a waiter, not an actor, so clearly he wasn’t a good liar, or at least not a successful one. Besides, I myself am an actress, so wouldn’t I be prepared to handle a fellow thespian?
    The answer is no. I was not, and most likely never will be. In a city where there are egotistical issue-riddled actors and musicians everywhere you turn, and the egomaniacal issue-riddled people (producers, agents, directors, whatever) who made the aforementioned famous, odds are you won’t escape unscathed. However, even worse than that group is the one that resides many ranks below: the struggling souls who want to be famous actors and musicians, and so on. As far as issues and egos are concerned, this group is essentially the same as their successful counterparts, the way a shadow resembles a form…only they’re broke. Tom, bless his twisted evil little heart, was a member of the latter category.
    The key, Gina insisted, was to meet a “normal person,” that rare individual who’s not in the entertainment industry at all. This, alas, is a near impossibility, practically a pipe dream. But for a chosen few it happens. Gina herself, for instance, dated an accountant for one month, and yet told the story for years, as if she’d been fishing in a stream and found gold. “A tad on the boring side,” she’d say, though I got the distinct impression he was more than a tad boring, as on their dates she’d call me from restaurant bathrooms just to chat. “Still, they’re out there,” she’d remind me. “The normal people are out there!” “Really?” I liked to ask her incredulously. “And after a date do you remember anything, or has time gone missing? Tell me about their ship!”
    I knew calling her and admitting that Tom had indeed lived up to his trained-liar status would elicit a big fat “I told you so,” but I took the risk. That damn water stain above me still looked like an Oscar, but now it looked like a laughing Oscar, a mocking, spiteful, cruel Oscar. “Who do you think you are? You’ll never make it as an actress! Give up! Move back to Kansas!” Granted, I’ve never even been to Kansas, yet still the idea upset me. I reached for the phone.
    Calm, I thought as her answering machine beeped. Calm and rational.
    “It’s me. Just calling to say hi.” I paused and took a deep breath, and as I exhaled, anything that was once calm and rational escaped. “I must have been Jack the Ripper in a past life. That’s the only reason my love life would suck so bad! He was cheating on me with that slut hostess at his restaurant, that Baywatch chick! And he was a drug addict and a sex fiend! Pick up the phone! I’ve had a bad day! Pick up the phone! ”
    Gina finally answered and listened to my afternoon’s saga with the perfect amount of cursing and comforting. At the end I paused, trying to get my heart rate to settle into a safer zone, and Gina took advantage of the silence to announce she’d be over in ten with wine. I thought of calling her back to utter the words “piña colada,” but instead I simply stared at the door until she arrived.
    We sat on the bed with full glasses of merlot. Stains already covered the comforter; what did I care? In a studio apartment you have very