‘you seem like a heroin girl’

“Lemme guess …”
he said, squint­ing, star­ing into me as if try­ing to solve a puz­zle – or maybe more like a prob­lem. I knew this look. Men have been giv­ing me this look since be­fore I un­der­stood what it meant. 

I wait­ed to find out what he was guess­ing at, smiled po­lite­ly and took an­oth­er sip of the $500 red he’d just ordered.

“Hero­in. You seem like a hero­in girl. Am I right?”

Now he was an ex­pec­tant kinder­garten­er, ready for his gold star. 

“I’ve got some up­stairs in my safe. Shall we?”

Flat­ter­ing as it was to see my­self all ema­ci­at­ed and chic through his pierc­ing blues, I fig­ured I bet­ter not. Plus, I didn’t want to. Not with him. Still, I wasn’t sure how to cor­rect­ly an­swer. I won­dered if I was be­ing test­ed, if this was part of it. A haz­ing rit­u­al of sorts. A fun game my new boss played with all his new employees.

“I have to get home to my boyfriend,” I stut­tered, hop­ing the boyfriend bit didn’t put him off of keep­ing me on the payroll. 

Al­though, men like this nev­er care if you’re at­tached. It was my first day of work at the restau­rant where I’d been hired as a hostess. 

Right in the midst of my train­ing shift, the much old­er own­er came in and in­sist­ed I have din­ner with him, right then. You know, so I could get fa­mil­iar with the menu. He or­dered every­thing on it, as well the en­tire wine list while he told me all about himself.

The thought of do­ing hero­in with my boss on my first day of work while my boyfriend wait­ed for me at home, and my new cowork­ers side-eyed me was ridicu­lous, even for me. 

Most lines in my life were usu­al­ly made of co­caine, and some­times hero­in snuck in there. But this was a line I knew not to cross. Of course, the ten course meal prob­a­bly wasn’t the best idea ei­ther, but I got tricked into that one. I didn’t re­al­ize that was what was hap­pen­ing un­til it had al­ready happened.
 

The fol­low­ing af­ter­noon the fe­male man­ag­er phoned to tell me it wasn’t go­ing to work out. I tried to ask why, and she rushed off with­out giv­ing me a clear answer. 

But I knew. This al­ways hap­pens to me. I’m us­ing present tense now, be­cause it still hap­pens, fif­teen years lat­er at forty-two years old. 

I just want to work. Make mon­ey. Have au­ton­o­my. Get ahead. Take care of my­self. Sur­vive. Thrive. 

I don’t want to do hero­in, or have sex, or flirt shame­less­ly, or be cute, or let some­one pat my ass, or touch my low­er back, or sniff my neck. I just want to do my work and get paid. The end.

Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe it’s all my stu­pid smil­ing and be­ing po­lite that makes men get con­fused. They think I want this. I want to lose my in­come be­cause they can’t con­trol themselves. 

I must want to have to pick my­self up, dust my­self off and start again, and again, and yet again. Men do weird shit and I re­act by smil­ing, be­ing po­lite, mov­ing on. Maybe a new re­ac­tion is nec­es­sary to make a real change.

The oth­er day, I got out of a yoga class and checked my phone. I had a missed call, a text mes­sage, AND a dm from this very man: The restau­rant owner.
 

Over the years, we’d seen each oth­er around. We hung in the same cir­cles, had mu­tu­al friends, and I brushed off my bad work ex­pe­ri­ence. It’s not like it was my dream to be a host­ess at his restaurant. 

Any­way, he was right about me. I was kind of a hero­in girl. There’s some­thing about be­ing drug­gie and putting your­self in dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tions that makes you feel like you de­serve some fucked up shit. It’s un­avoid­able. You’re kind of ask­ing for it.

But then, a lit­tle lat­er, we’d run into each oth­er in the se­cret rooms, both of us in and out, some­times hang­ing on by a thread. 

I didn’t hold a grudge, you have to for­give some­one who’s try­ing to change. Ad­dicts are sick. And peo­ple do change, some­times, maybe. Then, I had an­oth­er strange en­counter with him years lat­er, just be­fore the pan­dem­ic, where I felt like he sort of tricked me once again, into hang­ing out with him when I re­al­ly didn’t want to.

And now, his out the blue text said: Please call me, – text doesn’t have tonality.

I can’t help that I’m a cu­ri­ous per­son. Ac­tu­al­ly, I thought, maybe this will be a good sto­ry to write.

So I called. He an­swered immediately.

“Hol­ly!”

“Oh boy,” I responded.

“I haven’t even said any­thing yet,” he laughed.

“You don’t need to. The vague and mys­te­ri­ous text was enough. What is this? What do you want?” I asked. 

I love how blunt I’ve be­come. My po­lite smiles are gone.

“Okay, I’ll be to­tal­ly trans­par­ent with you.”

I braced myself.

“I went through your In­sta­gram. And you just seem so … healthy. You’re do­ing so well. I’ve known you for a long time, and this wasn’t al­ways the case.”

I re­mained silent. Wait­ing. I had a strange and fleet­ing thought that he was go­ing to ask me to be his life coach, or something.

“I would love to in­vite you to din­ner,” he fi­nal­ly said.

“Like, a date?” I giggled.

“Yes.”

“No thanks.”

If he’d re­al­ly done his prop­er re­search when he was dig­ging on my In­sta­gram, he would have read my Sub­stack, and maybe then he’d un­der­stand how ridicu­lous his move was. 

It might have been ob­vi­ous to him that the last thing I need is an­oth­er bad date, or any date at all, what­so­ev­er. So, when he texted 30 min­utes lat­er to tell me he was dis­ap­point­ed, and maybe he could “steal” me away from the per­son I’m see­ing, (when I said I wasn’t avail­able, he de­cid­ed I must be in a new re­la­tion­ship and I let him be­lieve that.) 

I sent him a link to my Substack.

If you want to get to know me, be­come a paid sub­scriber. Cheap­er than din­ner, prob­a­bly just as en­ter­tain­ing, I re­spond­ed, think­ing of the job he cost me.

I’d rather spoil the shit out of you. he said.

And I would rather make my own mon­ey, spoil my­self and stay the fuck away from tox­ic, con­trol­ling men who don’t un­der­stand the word NO, but hey, we all have our wants, I thought, de­cid­ing I was fi­nal­ly done en­gag­ing with him.

Be­cause he hasn’t changed. But I have.

 

—hol­ly solem

Flom­mist Hol­ly Solem is a singer/songwriter, mod­el, ac­tress and writer known for her work on Amazon’s orig­i­nal se­ries Hand of God, as well as play­ing, tour­ing and writ­ing with nu­mer­ous bands and artists. Copy­right © 2024–25 Hol­ly Solem.

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