How Everything in This World Works
by Claire W. Zhang
I’m a dealer now. From $10 disposable e-cigs to $12,000 Hermès handbags, I deal everything. I’m technically a broker-dealer – a piece of information I obtained from a kind economist on Quora – because I sometimes require a deposit for bigger transactions, but it’s not like anyone’s from Wall Street here so no one cares. I still call myself a dealer, though. It sounds cool, like a drug dealer – dangerous. Although the only “drugs” I’ve dealt so far are 20 tabs of acid (pink dancing bear) and three and a half total ounces of weed (ice cream cake, indica). This is a growing business. I don’t have that many customers.
Okay. I have one customer. Sometimes two, when my one customer has a boyfriend. She’s twenty-five, short and moon-faced. She’s rich. Not private jet rich, but still rich. She lives in an apartment that costs five times my rent but doesn’t own a place in New York yet. She has properties under her name in Malaysia and Italy, but she never stays at those places. She’s an entrepreneur, she says. She wants to buy her own place with the money she makes, not handouts from her parents. How much do you make every year, if you don’t mind me asking? I asked her one time. She paused and then quickly said a number so honest that I almost thought I missed one or two zeros because she didn’t even lower her voice. She said yes, what I make now is not even a tenth of my wardrobe, but dad said if you don’t know how to spend money, you don’t know how to make it.
I met her at a warehouse rave in Brooklyn. She was all alone in a silk indigo tuxedo jumpsuit standing next to the open bar. I couldn’t decide which one made the other look funnier: her gold-embroidered, gemstone-inlaid clutch or the intoxicated underaged boy in a tie-dye hoodie throwing up next to her feet. I looked around, no one else seemed to have noticed her. She looked helpless and out of place. I felt like I had to do something.
“Do you need help?” I asked her.
“Oh! Well…Can you tell me where I am?” She looked sober but somehow, still delirious.
“You’re in Flatbush…No, not bushes! Ditmas and East 23rd, to be exact. Who brought you here?” I had to yell back. The music was loud. She also seemed to think she was in a forest or something. This was also when I caught her very slight accent, possibly Chinese?
“My subordinate told me about this very cool party! I lost her in the crowd and then I lost my phone. Would you please help me get a cab?” I looked at her smooth, round face and felt lost about the word “subordinate.” She couldn’t have been more than twenty-three. Was it some kind of slang I missed out on? But her outfit did convince me in that if a twenty-three-year-old young woman would have a “subordinate,” she would be wearing something like that. I pulled out my phone, “I can call you an Uber, if you don’t mind a stranger like me knowing your home address. You can pay me in cash.” She nodded hard and shook her head, “No, not at all. You’re so cool. I like how you dress. Can I add you on Instagram later?”
/
She gave me a one-hundred-dollar bill that night. Somehow, I did not question the authenticity of the bill at the time and was glad it turned out to be real. I looked up her address later. It was a brand-new luxury building in mid-town. I immediately felt like a pervert but told myself that I’m a woman, she’s a woman, I’m not gay, so it’s ok. I did not think of her again besides occasionally seeing her posing in front of some fancy high tea until she DM’ed me a few months after we met.
“This is such a dope picture of you smoking.” She replied to one of my Instagram stories in which I was inhaling from an e-cigarette.
“Thanks.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“Do you think you can get me some of that?” She sent a smiley face.
“You can get it anywhere – I mean, people sell these everywhere.” I was again, lost, an emotion I would later feel over and over again for almost all of our exchanges. Did she take me for an online bodega?
“Yeah, I’ve seen people using these things, but in my position, it’s hard to ask where they get them. Also, yours just seems cooler than others. I’ll pay you well!”
Now, in retrospect, it would be hard to imagine her going online and googling “e-cigarette where to buy,” or walking into a smoke shop without it being clear that she was a first-time buyer, an embarrassment she wouldn’t have endured. But then, I just saw it as an opportunity to make some money, because I was broke. One disposable e-cigarette, if bought in bulk, was eight bucks. “Is ten dollars ok?” I carefully typed these words, nervously waiting for her to reply. I was so afraid that she would spot my lie about the price and question, “Why are my friends buying them for only $8?” I feared this was something she might say and nervously tried to come up with an excuse. Though she beat me to it, all chirpy, “Awesome!! LOVE you. Can you get me ten of those? I might buy from you again.” Then a heart emoji.
We agreed to meet in the lobby of her apartment. She showed up in purple silk pajamas and handed me another one-hundred-dollar bill folded into a boat. “Look what I did.” She smiled innocently and asked if I wanted to come and hang upstairs. “We could play pool.”
Later transactions were a lot more guilt-free. The only thing was that she seemed to truly believe I was a dealer of some sort, so I started learning the terminologies, like “plugs” and “narcs” and would throw in these words casually, but consciously, in our conversations. I also delved deep into online discussions on surrogate shopping and luxury brands. I closely studied my weed dealers’ menu. In case she should ask, I’d know whether “Gelato” was indica or sativa, and be ready to explain the difference between “indica” and “sativa” which she actually did ask one time. She thought I was “so resourceful.” Sold-out Supreme denim jackets? Got ’em. Weed? A-OK. Hermès Lindy 30 handbags? Pay me upfront, and your wish is my command. But really, I simply bought these already overpriced goods from other dealers and resold them to her at a 10% mark-up with no shame. She also started paying me delivery fees after her twink boyfriend insisted on sitting on the floor, having decided that neither my couch nor chairs were viable options for his precious ass, the one time they swung by to pick up the pre-rolled joints. (He was cheeky enough to lecture her in the hallway, “You should talk to her. Move her out of here. It’s dangerous. Isn’t she your friend or I’m mistaken?” – Don’t they know that in this city, doors, and walls in old buildings are made of cardboard?)
Am I doing this for money? Mostly, but I like that she is the only person who genuinely thinks I have all this “access.” It feels great. Whether I will have more customers in the future is not really my concern. As long as I have one customer, that fact alone makes me a dealer. Being a dealer is cool. It means you know the right people – ones that take you places. And as for the gang fights and suitcases of cash – I’ll leave it to my customers’ imagination. Mostly hers. As long as I’m important in one person’s eyes then, I’ll say, I’m important indeed. It’s pretty much how everything in this world works.
/
She IM’ed me at around 9, again replying to one of my Instagram stories. “You’re hanging at Korean town? Still there?”
“Yep. Can’t make a delivery tho. Ain’t got the dough for the load.” I felt like a lousy white rapper who gets all his rhymes from Urban Dictionary.
“Doesn’t matter. What are you wearing?” she quickly replied.
What does she mean what I’m wearing? The last time I received such a message, I blocked the dude’s ass.
“wym?”
“What?”
“Why do you want to know what I’m wearing?” She could’ve googled “wym” on her phone, honestly.
“I mean do you want to come to my party? It’s getting a bit dull here. Will you come and I’ll pay for your drinks? There’s a dress code, though. You’d be fine as long as you’re not wearing sneakers, nonetheless.”
I looked down on my animal print skirt and leather boots.
“Dis cool?” I sent her a selfie.
“200 W 39th. It’s on the 30th floor. I’ll let the waiting staff know. You’ll be fine.”
Know what? That a certain young woman with lime green hair shall be allowed inside as a one-time exception?
I arrived at the address, suspicious. Free booze all night is great, but I don’t want to be stuck with boring rich people for hours. Free booze all night does still sound great, though. Besides, she’ll be there. I went ahead and pulled the rose copper door with all my strength. It was so heavy. A concierge, dressed like a Christmas nutcracker, helped me from the other side.
“How can I help you, miss?” He sounded aloof but polite. I suspected it was because of my “Death to the Patriarchy” T-shirt. I could care less what it means. I just don’t like my dad very much.
“I, uh, I’m going to my friend’s party on the 30th floor.”
His attitude changed, or I imagined it did. He didn’t look or sound any different, strictly speaking, but he warmed up in a subtle way.
“You must be Miss Sassy. Miss Zhou has noted your coming. Please follow me.” He walked a few steps ahead of me and led me into a purple-velvet-finished elevator. I was mortified that I didn’t even notice that he pressed the elevator button to the rooftop for me. Miss Sassy? Who the fuck is Miss Sassy?! Okay, my Instagram handle is “sassybeingnasty,” but did she seriously think my real name was “Sassy” or that it was ok to call me by my internet name? And to tell the concierge to address me by that name? But I know her name! Though now I was not sure if it was her real name. It did sound like her real name. She even told me about how her name fit in both Chinese and English. I was just a little hurt now that I realized she’d never called me by my name. She couldn’t be bothered by my name. I don’t think I’d be calling her Anya again if pseudonyms were what we use now. I’d call her Miss Pussy.
The elevator door opened. Another Christmas nutcracker welcomed me in. “This way.” Before I was led to an alcove, among the lavish decorations I caught glimpse of a gigantic jar of jellybeans. So out of place, like anyone here would eat them. Overdressed men and women were sipping their drinks at tiny round tables, elegantly. I bet no one would order a vodka cran at the bar.
“Here she comes!” I heard a voice I knew as I stepped into the alcove, crisp, mellifluous, and above all, dignified. I couldn’t locate the source of the voice, because so many eyes were locked on me. They were all in dress shirts and evening dresses. For a moment I couldn’t see their faces, but pairs of eyes with neckties and ruby earrings. The hair on my naked legs felt palpable all of a sudden like it had just gotten its own thoughts.
There. There she was, at the end of the table wearing a golden satin slip dress like some Greek goddess. Even her moon face didn’t look as round as I remembered.
“Hi everyone, this is Sassy.” She introduced me with that name to a roomful of formal-dressed people without looking at me once. No one seemed to be bothered that it couldn’t have been the name of someone in their right mind. Just like that, they accepted my existence as rightfully associated with the name “Sassy.” I sighed and sat in the chair Nutcracker #2 had just pulled out for me. Even with the dim candlelight, I could tell that these people couldn’t have been over thirty years old.
“Like I told you guys, Sassy is so cool. She’s an artist and always wears the most avant-garde outfits.” She described me like I was the Andy Warhol at a wild animal rescue fundraiser – a totally irrelevant figure, but everyone wanted to hear from me instead of the poor zoologists. She was terribly wrong, though. I didn’t know where she got the idea that I was an artist. I was just another art school dropout who once majored in industrial design. Had I graduated and been lucky enough, I might just be artisting your toothpaste tube.
The guy sitting next to me took an interest in me immediately. “How did you two meet each other?”
“Well, at a rave in Flatbush. She lost her phone and I helped her.”
He turned to Miss Zhou (her official name, apparently), “I’ve always wanted to go to one of those! Manhattan clubs suck. Chicks all look the same.”
I found myself spontaneously chiming in. “If you have a thing for gals who haven’t showered for days and have piercings in, let’s say, places that may or may not turn you on, then sure.”
He laughed. “Oh, Howard, this one’s funny!” He patted the back of the guy next to him who was wearing a bowtie and had been silently keeping tabs on our conversation since I sat down. Yes, funny, but not as funny as your friend’s bowtie.
“How did you guys meet then?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s the same with everyone here – we are all entrepreneurs and potential business partners, one way or another. Some of our parents know each other. We meet to talk about non-business stuff, so we can do business stuff together.”
I finally confirmed my role at this table: I was recruited to be the party motivator, paid with free alcohol. My ex’s nephew had one at his Bar Mitzvah. The guy showcased his skateboarding skills and performed a rap. The only thing he didn’t do was skateboarding through a burning hoop, although it was requested. Do I have to jump through a hoop with a ball balanced on my nose? I didn’t know, but the taste of Grey Goose Vodka with a splash of lemon juice, garnished with two freshly picked elderflowers made me feel capable of delivering some excellent performances. Alcohol could bring out the optimism I didn’t always have. Though between five fancy drinks and people’s ardent requests for more anecdotes of what-they-call-aspiring-artists-who-live-a-controversial-lifestyle-and-what-I-call-privileged-pricks-whose-parents-have-too-much-money, I was running low on sobreity and material. I could sense that I was losing the crowd; they were turning their heads away and started talking about their summer house in the Hamptons or Cape Cod. Some started talking in a different language.
I looked at her at the other end of the table, she smiled at me and mouthed, “Do you want to go?”
I mouthed yes.
“I’ll walk you out, however, do you want to see the city from the balcony before you go?” She grabbed her cashmere scarf and a little something from her purse. I mistook it for cash but quickly realized it was one of those same e-cigarettes she bought from me.
“You still haven’t finished those?” I asked her as we walked through a glass door in the back of the alcove opening to the outdoor space.
“No, not yet.” It was surprisingly not that chilly for a late September night. Made me wonder if she only wore the scarf to complete the look. She seemed uncomfortable with it.
“Did you have fun?” she asked, again in that dignified voice, making sure I knew she was asking purely out of social courtesy, but part of me also thought she might have been saying it like that just to stay on the safe side, the side I wasn’t on.
“I sometimes envy you for the freedom you have.” She spoke again before I replied to her earlier question.
“Well, what is it that you can’t do?”
“Gosh, I don’t exactly know. I guess that’s the annoying part. I am just expected to always do the right thing by my family. I look at my peers and think, ‘Observe, do exactly what they do, do it slightly better.’ I pat myself on the back and tell myself ‘Hey, I’m an heiress. Not everyone can have what I have.’ But then I still wonder who I would be, had I not been provided with all these resources?” She exhaled some smoke through her mouth. She once asked me how to exhale through her nostrils. “I heard that’s what the French do.” Seemed she hadn’t yet mastered the trick.
“I might understand a thing or two of what you said, if I had the kind of money your family has.” I chose to play dumb, otherwise I thought I might get really angry. If I were to become angry, I would be angry at myself, though. I would be angry that I chose a major with no money prospects and even if I studied something “useful” like computer science or engineering, I still wouldn’t be half as rich as her. So maybe I should be angry at my dad. But I was already always angry at him. I was not angry, though. The last thing I wanted her to think was I was angry at her.
She looked at me in a disheartened way and said, “I’m probably still too young to consider this, but I’m the only child of my family.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I couldn’t decide whether being an only child was a good thing or a bad thing in this context. On one hand, she looked at me with such sad eyes, but on the other hand, wouldn’t it mean that one day she would get all her family’s money? I nodded as if I’d acknowledged what she meant, but I had a feeling I was missing something very important.
She suddenly leaned forward and kissed me on my cheek.
I was confused but quickly saw the truth. I still didn’t quite understand it, but I saw it. It had been staring at me just as I’d been staring at it. All this time. Kiss back? For some reason I couldn’t do that. Phrases like “girl crush,” “lesbian signaling” and “queerbaiting” ran through my head as I froze. Was I guilty of these things? I thought I knew what they meant but I realized I didn’t, and that real life was ten times harder than phrases. I stared at her lips, desperately feeling every second passing by with every muscle. In a weird flash of panic to prove myself, I almost proposed. I ended up doing nothing. I stood there like a pawn.
“I see.” She pulled away before I could reach her. Her voice became stone cold. There was a new look I’d never seen on her face. I thought it was arrogance but did I know for sure? I never knew anything for sure. She said, “I’ve just kissed you goodbye. You can leave as you want.”
All my blood rushed back to my limbs from my burning face. I was pulled back to the reality where she hired me and paid me. I was her subordinate.
I followed her back inside. She pulled out her chair and sat down, showing no intention to walk me out as she had promised. I saw Nutcracker #2. He was ready to show me the elevator.
“Hey, is this the new vape you’ve been telling me about? So you just inhale?” I heard someone exclaim behind me.
“Do you want to try? Sassy always helps me get those. Sassy, do you mind me giving your phone number to Miss Bennett here?” I turned around and saw the smile I once was familiar with returned to her round face, one that reminded me of a speaking sunflower on a children’s TV show.
“Sure. I take cash and Venmo.”
I followed nutcracker #2 to the elevator, fifty dollars richer. Downstairs, I saw nutcracker #1 again. “Did you have fun, Miss?” He asked.
“I guess so. You?”
Without waiting for his answer, I pushed the rose copper door wide open and marched out to the road. I still didn’t know any of their real names. Oh, except Howard. Bowtie Howard. I brushed the thought of him off. I’m a dealer. I deal things, and anything beyond that would be mere frivolity. It’s pretty much how everything in this world works.
Claire W. Zhang was born on the border between China and North Korea. A short story writer now based on Long Island, NY, she has contributed to the Pinch, Hobart, Third Coast, Another Chicago Magazine, Maudlin House, and elsewhere. She edits fiction at The Baltimore Review.