(by Frances Stroh)
London, 1995
My friends and I walked up the King’s Road in the light September rain, headed for the 606 Club. We’d been drinking martinis at my new flat as a housewarming, the gin still dry on my tongue. I savored the rain pelting us, pelting the pavement.
“It’s down this way,” I said, turning onto Lots Road. Smoke-stained brick warehouses ran all the way down to the Thames. A crowd had gathered in front of an unmarked building. Supper club jazz floated up the stairs from the basement. We got in line.
“I never knew about this place,” said Hari. Charismatic, with movie-star looks, Hari was studying acting in London for a couple of years. We’d been friends back in San Francisco.
“It’s a hidden gem,” said my new friend Nino, paying for the tickets. He wore slicked back hair and a boxy suit from the forties. “Members only.” We’d met at Camden Market, where Nino sold me a vintage dining table and chairs for my flat.
Camilla, Hari’s tipsy red-haired girlfriend, slid her arm through his and smiled. “It’s lovely,” she said.
I’d been out every night for a solid month since arriving in August, raging on adrenaline ever since I’d been awarded a Fulbright for a year of study in London to complete my Master of Fine Arts. With the ascension of the Young British Artists—stars like Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin—London was the epicenter of the art world. Some days I had Imposter Syndrome, unable to believe my good fortune. Then I reminded myself I was here to begin my life anew, put the past behind, and launch my career as an international artist. This was where I would make my name. Who knew? I might never return to the States.
Inside the smoke haze of the 606 Club, we were given a table near the stage. The keyboardist jammed while the female vocalist sang with a voice rather like Billie Holiday’s. The guitarist hummed the chords as he played. Nino ordered a round of drinks.
“Watch the guitarist closely,” he said seductively into my ear. “It’s like he’s making love to those strings, right?”
Nino and I only talked about sex. We’d been to swing dance clubs and martini bars all over London, but we were just friends. After a series of failed relationships in the States with men who’d been remarkably like my father—addicted, adoring, creative, yet essentially self-absorbed—I’d promised myself to stay single and focused on work for a year. Relationships only diffused my focus; months would pass, my attention fixed on the inevitable ebb and flow of closeness, my ideas rattling around in my head rather than taking con crete shape, my creativity sapped. I was twenty-eight, and it all seemed such a chaotic time, those years I’d spent in San Francisco dating and having relationships, fitting in exhibitions here and there while trying to figure out how to make a living and still be an artist. Now, in London, looking ahead into the glaring light of my bright future, I was finally on the right path, and I wasn’t going to let anything get in my way.
Hari and Camilla sipped their drinks. They’d met in acting school. Back at my flat on Wandsworth Bridge Road, we’d sat in my conservatory, with the rain hitting the glass roof, pouring one drink after another. In the States I could hardly drink without feeling ill, but here it seemed I could drink as much as I wanted. It felt as if I’d somehow outrun myself.
Hari smiled over at me and tipped his drink back. I felt lucky to have such a good friend in London. We shared an extended network of friends back in San Francisco, the closest thing to family some of us had ever known. Everywhere I’d ever lived, my friends had been my surrogate family, but nowhere more than in San Francisco. Our crowd threw Mexican “family dinners” every Sunday night, with platters of catfish and black beans and tortillas—a tradition that Hari and I had decided to continue with our London friends.
“Tomorrow,” said Hari, “we’re going to get you a bike.”
A bike would help; I didn’t own a car. Only I was nervous about navigating London’s fitful traffic, riding on the opposite side of the road. “I won’t have to wear one of those masks for the fumes, will I?”
Camilla laughed. “With that amazing hair?” she said. “A crime!”
In celebration of my new expatriate identity, I’d cut off my long, blond hair in favor of a layered sixties bob. Together with the thick black eyeliner, fake lashes, and the high, lace-up boots I’d adopted, the effect was a throwback to Andy Warhol’s silver foil-lined Factory. Astride my new Raleigh three-speed, I’d be a cross between Edie Sedgwick and some rave-babe bike messenger.