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DREW
This guy.
Fuck this guy.
With his Tom Ford suits and his Cartier necklace and his Prada shoes. His goddamn Rolex. Flawless, fresh, young skin, and his Hollywood perfect hair.
And fuck the women, too—dangling from his arm like gaudy accessories night after night—skin varying in shades from diamond to topaz to onyx. They all have one thing in common, the women. They’re anorexically thin and collagened to perfection. They smell of Dior, top-shelf liquor, and money. Always, always money.
The man is Olivier Arnaud, better known to me and my co-workers as 1204. Descended from Marie-Antoinette or some shit, his family works in imports. They supply delicacies from companies they own back in France to the finest dining establishments in all the major US cities where caviar and champagne are on menus at prices labeled “market value.”
That’s what his family does. As far as I can tell, Olivier The Heir does nothing. Nothing but party, fuck gorgeous women, and spend his family’s money on the latest couture.
Have I always hated The Heir with every molecule that defines my existence? No. He used to be just another rich dude who lives in the building. But one night—Thanksgiving night—he caught me checking out his luscious dessert—a model named Carina Polaski, and he fucking smirked at me. Gave me a wink like eat your heart out, Doorman, and it was that night that I decided he was the biggest asshole in the building.
Since then, he’s only gotten worse.
Tonight, for example, it’s well past three in the morning, and while he’s wearing a bespoke overcoat I can only assume is made from cashmere, his shirt is open to the waist, that platinum Cartier necklace gleaming against an almost pre-pubescently smooth, pale chest. His dark, curly hair is mussed like fingers have been running through it, and there’s a smear of lipstick on his white collar that matches the shade on the mouth of the famous actress clinging to his right arm.
The woman on his left is a stranger to me, but she’s a knockout, too. Redhead. Glittering blue eyes. Runway model, I’m guessing because she’s a few inches taller than The Heir in her Louboutins, and she’s built like a clothes hanger.
The Heir whips his tousled hair out of his eyes and throws a drunken leer my way. “Hope you have something warm waiting for you after your shift, Jack. It’s cold out there.”
My name isn’t Jack. He knows that. I wear a name tag. I don’t know if Jack is some sort of insult in his world, or whether it’s like “bro” or “fam” in mine. All I do know is it makes me grit my teeth while I force on the expected polite smile before I rise from my post to press the up button on the elevator.
I ignore his jab. His taunts have gotten more personal, whether he realizes it or not, and due to other circumstances in my life, I’m hanging on to my temper by a thread.
The Heir had two packages delivered today, which I retrieve. When I hold the boxes out for him to take, he gives them a frown. “If you wouldn’t mind bringing those up in an hour or so… I’ve got my hands full at the moment.”
The actress giggles, wobbling on her heels before sliding one perfectly manicured hand into Olivier’s open shirt to stroke his pec.
Money really can buy everything.
“Of course.” I take his deliveries to my desk as I return to my seat.
“An hour, Jack,” he calls out again. “I won’t forget.”
The fuck he won’t. He’ll get his little rocks off and pass out cold. The women will stumble out sometime after I’ve left in the morning, and we’ll go through this whole song and dance tomorrow.
The elevator arrives, they disappear in a grotesque menage, and I shove his packages to the side before clicking open my phone and glaring down at the screen. I’m rereading Atomic Habits, since obviously its lessons didn’t take the first time, as evidenced by the fact that I’m still here, working the night shift as a doorman on the Upper East Side of Manhattan instead of posing for a fashion spread in GQ.
Some people might argue it’s just as difficult to get hired as a doorman in a building like The Eastmoor as it is to have a successful modeling career, but the truth is—it’s all luck. Apparently, I used all mine landing this job.
My roommate Christian is a doorman in a building a block up—his dad is best friends with the owner of several apartment buildings on this side of the park, including this one. Chris put in a good word for me four years ago, and here I am. I was told I had the right look for the building—as long as I keep my tattoos covered.
Funny enough, I get told that a lot, except there’s usually a “but” behind it. Lately, the biggest “but” is “We’re looking for someone younger.”
I turned thirty yesterday. My girlfriend threw me a surprise party when all I’d wanted to do was get drunk and sleep until it was over.
I woke up this evening before work and noticed a line between my eyebrows that didn’t go away when I stopped frowning at my reflection in the mirror. Upon closer inspection, I saw some around my mouth, too. The only thing worse—the thing that would have tipped me completely over the edge—would have been a gray hair. But there aren’t any. I looked. On my head as well as in my pubes. So far, I’m clean.
Jericho, my girlfriend, helped me run the gray hair inspection with a lot of rolling eyes and exhausted sighs. But when she wanted something in return for her services, I shook her off. “Can’t you tell I’m not in the mood?”
“You’re never in the mood, Drew.”
Clinical depression, I’d reminded her. “Look it up.”
