Box Girl (35 page)

I go back to my magazine until I hear the word “heroin.” Deejay Girl says she's from Baltimore originally, “But I had to get out of there, because everyone around me started doing heroin.”

Jokester Concierge looks up from his computer and lets out a concerned-sounding,
“Dude.”
I don't think he runs in those circles.

“I've never used it,” she says. “I've just seen people massively messed up on it. And that's why I decided to leave.”

“Gnarly.”

At eleven o'clock, Jokester Concierge is relieved by the grumpy older one who has been working here as long as I have. The fun stops. Deejay Girl returns to her tables and to looking at her iPhone.

I have never seen the grumpy concierge smile or speak unless directly addressed by a guest. He always seems very put out when I ask him to validate my valet ticket at the end of the night. He wears frameless glasses and is, at the moment, involved in a Google search for Bose noise-canceling headphones.

I've Got the Over on Fifteen Minutes

It's a bit bizarre to think that strangers have watched me
sleep. Right now, a group of guys is placing bets on what time I will doze off. One of them points a Peroni at me.

“I've got the over on fifteen minutes,” he says. “If she falls asleep before then, you're buying the next round.”

Beer bottles clink. “Deal.”

Tired

The lighting in the box is dim tonight, which is always nice
(flattering for the thighs, good for sleeping). On the glass, the words,
THE RAINBOW PROJECT
are written in large, black-outlined letters, each one filled with a different color of the rainbow. There's a black-and-white barcode sketched after the letter T. Behind me, a rainbow is projected in a swirling pattern.

The dim, kaleidoscopic lighting is lulling me to sleep, like something in a child's nursery. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. Then black.

Almost black. A guy in a red long-sleeved University of Something T-shirt rolls a giant duffle bag up to the desk and starts barking at the concierge. Finally, he gets the answer that he's looking for and lugs his suitcase toward the elevator. A few minutes later, he's back, without the bag, sitting on a couch in the lobby. Straight in front of me. Just staring.

I really wish he wouldn't. Doesn't he know I'm trying to fall asleep?

Whitman

It's late now, a quarter to two. Guys begin to trip out of the
bar and toward the valet, with girls hanging on their arms in skirts so tight and short and heels so high, they don't walk so much as scoot. I eye one of the girls and think,
Her skirt is way too short. She looks like a whore
.

Do I contradict myself? Then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes
.

Am I allowed to quote Whitman while sitting half-naked in the lobby of a hotel? Am I?

[ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ]

I am profoundly grateful to Nicole Antonio, early box book
champion and editor extraordinaire. If I said thank you once a day forever it still might not be enough. You are scary smart, seriously. I would like to also thank everyone else at Counterpoint/Soft Skull who devoted their time and talents to making this book what it is today: Liz Parker, Julia Kent, Kelly Winton, Megan Fishmann. And also: Barrett Briske, copy-editing wizard.

Thank you to Sally Wofford-Girand at Union Literary, as well, for her warm welcome and speedy responses.

A sincere thanks to the faculty at the USC Master of Professional Writing program, and most especially Dinah Lenney, for her thoughtful readings and critique, and for wisely suggesting I chop this thing up, and make it a hybrid of sorts. Without that advice, I'm certain I'd still be slogging hopelessly through chapter two. A thanks is owed to Bernard Cooper, too, for forcing me to take myself, and this essay-turned-book, more seriously.

I'd like to thank the New York State Writers Institute at Skidmore, and Jim Miller in particular, for the early, hearty encouragement.

Of the non-professional variety: thanks to Melissa for reminding me to send my manuscript on Monday, to T.K. for the chair, and to C.K. for inspiring me daily.

Thank you to Peter, for giving me that course catalog for my birthday so many years ago, putting a sticky note on the page for nonfiction classes, and writing: “Pick two.” You make ordinary people do extraordinary things.

And finally, to my parents, and their parents, and the rest of my extended family: you are unintentionally some of the funniest people I know. And to my brother: you are intentionally one of the funniest people I know. Thank you all for boatloads of love and laughter.

[ ABOUT THE AUTHOR ]

Credit photo: © Ramzi Dreessen

Lilibet Snellings
was born in Georgia and raised in Connecticut. She earned her MFA from the University of Southern California and currently lives in Chicago. Her work has appeared in
The Huffington Post, Los Angeles
Magazine,
Anthem, Flaunt
, and
This Recording
, among other publications.