Everything Must Go

by Jenny Fran Davis

  We made a bit more small talk, me feeling like a toad the entire time, and then the line began to move rather quickly. I showed the attendant the confirmation that had been sent in the mail and was swept inside the cool, expansive lobby. Inside the lobby, parents were ushered to the right and students to the left, where we were fed into what turned out to be the famous cavernous auditorium with a brightly lit stage and stressed-out people rushing around setting up podiums and handling clipboards. We took our seats and waited to be told what to do. It was air-conditioned in the room, a nice relief, but my perspiration dried and left me cold. One of the stressed-out men explained the order of events: the opening video made by the First Lady of the United States; the message from the president of the awards; the actual awarding of medals; the keynote speaker’s address; the closing video and remarks; and the final bow.

  I sat next to two girls from New Orleans, each in a dress with a wide skirt and a gaping back that dipped to the little crevice just before their derrières. I felt horribly frumpy in my light wool dress.

  “Ask her what she won for,” the blond one said to me, talking about the brunette one.

  “Oh. What did you win for?” I asked the brunette.

  She gave a deep-throated laugh. “It was a sculpture.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “Ask her what it was a sculpture of.”

  “What was it—”

  “A vagina.” She was proud of it, and spat the words at me like a challenge.

  “Whose?” the blonde prompted eagerly.

  “Mine.”

  I offered a feeble laugh, even though I didn’t find it that funny. She was fake, this girl, trying to be edgy and racy when really she just wanted my approval—or not my approval, probably, but somebody’s.

  “I like your dress,” the blond girl said to me, trying again.

  Shell speak! I just mumbled, “Thanks.”

  I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I used to be so friendly.

  I was glad when the two Louisiana girls gave up on me and rushed off together into the holding room, once we were released, which is the private upstairs portion of Carnegie Hall, before the ceremony began. It’s structured like a museum, with pictures on the wall and little placards explaining the event they depict, in two ornate rooms into which all the awardees spilled.

  In the holding rooms, everyone immediately either clustered into a friend group or slunk to the walls, awkward and alone. I didn’t have any friends, so I made myself comfortable on the floor. The cliques had been established effortlessly. Vampire-suit-wearing artists; the quiet, nerdy novelists; the shiny girls, probably sketchers or sculptors; the ironic-glasses-wearing hipsters, maybe photographers or lithographers; gawky young boys in too-big suits and draping ties, definitely computer animators.

  One thing that Quare didn’t have were the little flutes of sparkling cider that were floating around. They were twinkly and bubbly, and people took them with two fingers and drank with their pinkies up.

  And then I saw them: the coolest group, floating together as though their shoes rested on a cloud rather than the red-and-gold carpet, each more perfect than the next. Just three shiny girls and one towheaded guy, sipping sparkling cider and laughing as though they were royalty. I saw them only from behind: the girls’ defined calf muscles, the guy’s casual suit. They occupied their own corner of the holding room, and the rest of us kept a good ten-foot radius, allowing them to soak up each other’s excellence.

  “That’s them,” someone said breathlessly beside me.

  I looked over to find a girl a good four inches shorter than I, in a bowler hat and a shift dress. Her mouth opened slightly as she stared at the group.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “The portfolio gold-medal winners,” the girl said. “I’ve been watching them since freshman year. They’re the best writers and artists in the country.”

  I remembered this portfolio prize vaguely from a pamphlet I’d received: they had won the biggest, most impressive awards, for a whole portfolio of work rather than a single one, giving them the chance to meet in a small group with Lena Dunham and the First Lady.

  “What?”

  The girl nodded seriously. “It’s the highest honor. And they’ve known each other since seventh grade, since they were brought together as winners when the first awards ceremonies opened up to them. They go to Miami every year for YoungArts, do the same writing and art camps during the summer, and in a week or two they’ll come here again for Scholastic.”

  “You know them by name?”

  “Lauren, Matilda, Thomas, and Bex,” she listed without hesitation. She gestured to each one as she said the name too, her nail-bitten finger hovering in the air for a second as she pointed to each in awe.

  I took a good look at the sparkly people. They were outfitted in glitter, but refined glitter, no hem too short and no bulges at the hips or stomach. The girls’ legs, all lean and propped up in modest heels, shone, and their hair fell in sleek layers around their soft faces, illuminated by the gentle lighting. Stiletto heels were jammed onto their feet in a way that could only be miserable, but the girls stood easily, perfectly balanced as they joked and imitated and carried on—the lone boy was less remarkable, but there was something endearing about him still, something childish, and they took turns reveling in his fleeting attention. Their eyes shone with the knowledge that they were on top of the world, the group that ruled this scene of young writers and artists. I searched in myself for jealousy but found only a weird brand of pity. To have meant to lose; to be special meant to be constantly on the verge of being unremarkable.

  My philosophical musings were cut short by an astounding realization. I had been staring at them for so long that I was shocked not to have seen it before. Wait! It was Becca Conch-Gould! Not Bex, this creature with chiseled legs and blue eyes surrounded by lashes coated in mascara, but Becca, the quiet, fringy thing from first semester—the one who wore dingy feather earrings, sucked up to the teachers, and confronted me in my cabin after I’d gotten the part in Dean’s play. I was sure of it.

  She had changed enormously in the five months since I’d last seen her, but Becca still had that jittery look about her, those cricket eyes that hummed and thrummed with anxiety. Now those eyes were beautifully made-up, yet immutably freaky. But now she was pure sex appeal, shimmying up to Thomas and sipping Perrier. I was close enough to them now—I had shuffled forward, I realized, dangerously close to the outside of the ten-foot radius they demanded—to hear their conversation, about that time a young Philip Roth look-alike had asked for Lauren’s number at a hotel in the Bahamas over spring break, and what was the hilarious literary reference that she had spouted back at him … ?

  I made my approach, figuring I had nothing more to lose.

  “Um, Becca?” I asked tentatively, painfully aware of my unkempt hair and greasy face.

  Becca broke her gaze with Matilda and slowly, glacially, turned to glance at me, at which point her eyes flicked away again. But then she stopped. Turned again, just as slowly. She looked me up and down, her eyes slow with confusion. For what felt like five minutes, the entire clique—and then the entire room, practically, as though it took its cue from these four—was silent as Becca stared at me, taking in my dusty pink Jackie Kennedy dress and beaten shoes and glossless face. It was obvious that she knew who I was—we’d seen each other only five months ago—but this new shiny Becca clearly loved the drama of the slow reveal.

  “Flora,” she said slowly. “Oh my fucking God, I thought I would never see you again! This is Flora,” she said, turning to her friends. “She’s basically the reason I left Quare—you know, the hippie school upstate that was my inspiration for my novel—after my first semester. When I was cut from Guild, I realized that I could never compete with people like that.” She flung her head back and laughed uproariously. “True artists!”

  I was too shocked to say anything, partially because the last time I had seen her, Becca was wear
ing knit leggings, no makeup, and earrings she described as “funky,” and partially because she considered me—me—to be a true artist. When had that been true? When Dean had cast me, when she had crowned me apprentice? That seemed so quaint now, so humble, in the dinky old Woolman Theater as opposed to Carnegie Hall. A world away. Somewhere that was out there, and out there was not in here, with shiny Becca and Lauren and Matilda and Thomas and even the whispery social climber who was panting quietly beside me, clearly beside herself to be in the presence of loyalty.

  Becca kept talking. “God, I can’t believe you stuck it out at Quare for the whole year,” she said. “I mean, you’re made for the place, because you’re so quirky and artsy and all, but I can’t imagine staying there for both years—after one semester I was ready to get out. I’m naturally competitive, I guess, and I could sense that the school was going to stomp all over me. But has the class gotten really close? Are things superincestuous? Oh my God, what happened to Agnes? I had the hugest crush on him.”

  I said, “A little bit incestuous, yeah.”

  “I was sort of lucky, because after Quare I ended up at Chapin, and it’s all girls, but of course there are boys from Collegiate, which is sort of a fun challenge … but I’m talking too much, aren’t I? What did you win for? I never asked you.”

  “A play.”

  “Of course. I should have known. You’ll be master player next year, won’t you? Well, that’s great. I won for my novel, which of course isn’t as impressive as a play. A play is a performance, and a novel is … a rumination, I guess. A play is brilliant. You’ve got to accomplish everything with, like, dialogue and actions, none of your own self-obsessed narration.”

  I watched her lips move, prattling on and on as her friends laughed politely and sipped cider. And suddenly there it was, naked as the toes poking out of Becca’s high-heeled shoes: me.

  Rather, my old self. And not only my old self, but India and Cora and the rest of my friends. It was just a glimmer—surely we were never so hollow or even so shiny—but it was there nonetheless, in the shape of Becca’s hand around her cider flute and the way Lauren’s quad muscles stuck out slightly from underneath the hem of her blue dress. Bex, for all her pretentiousness and annoyingness, had found her place.

  My place.

  “You should come to our after-party,” Bex said. “My parents are staying at a hotel, and they don’t mind how many friends stay over. I’ve got people coming from Bowen and Fairfax and Chapin, but also, like, Westwood and Collegiate and Parker for some variety. We moved out of Greenwich Village over the summer—my parents thought it had lost its character. Now we’re on Eightieth and Park, and the apartment is literally a dorm room, but I’m going to push all the furniture to the sides of the living room so there’s enough space to dance. There’s going to be wine and cheese—oh wait, Matilda, did you get your new fake yet?”

  Even in that cramped, dark holding room, the city felt huge. There was room here, streets that careened over hills and buildings that stretched up into the sky, competing with the clouds. And there were people here, people like Bex and the social climber in the bowler hat and the girl in the shiny gold gaping-back dress and the pantsuit mother. Even I felt hollow here, like there was nothing left in me.

  There were a few people I wanted who weren’t gouged out inside but heavy, anchored. And a little bit mangled, sure, but at least rooted.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “but I have to go.”

  Bex just stared. “Right now?”

  “Yes.”

  “But, Flora, you’ll miss the ceremony! Lena Dunham is coming! You won’t get your medal!”

  I gave one last smile, turned on my worn heel, made my way through the crowd of young innovators, down the grand staircase, past the anxious, clipboard-wielding man (he dogged me for a bit, imploring me to stay), past the throngs of parents waiting eagerly in the lobby. I pushed open the heavy door and walked into the sunlight.

  I sucked in air, fresh air, and looked at delis and shops and bakeries. The sun slumped lazily in the sky. It was a nice time in the late afternoon, when the sun wasn’t quite as hot as before. It was still warm, but I now felt comfortable. When I was outside, I didn’t notice so much that I smelled.

  Horses waited in a line by the entrance to the park on Fifty-ninth Street and Fifth Avenue, all muzzled up and hooked to carriages. Tourists swarmed them, touching their faces, feeding them apples and carrots as the horses swished their tails and stomped their heavy feet. There were people everywhere, mostly with cameras. I wanted to sing, because I didn’t have a camera, and I had never had a camera. I kept walking, past the fancy hotels and mobs of people. On my way to the Columbus Circle subway stop, I paused for a minute in the spot where Elijah had photographed me for the first time. The air felt thick and warm, and kids shouted and shrieked in the background, clambering on all the rocks at the entrance to the park.

  I looked down at my body. My dress! I’d been wearing the same exact dress, albeit with its matching apricot coat. Today I laughed and threw my hands in the air.

  “Move,” someone grunted behind me, pushing me slightly.

  I scampered down the subway steps and pressed my back against the wall as I waited for the 1 train. A man with a homemade drum set around his waist played wildly, trying to make eye contact with me, not threateningly, just with a huge grin. I fished a dollar bill out of my wallet and handed it to him as I got on the train.

  “Beautiful, beautiful,” he said, and I didn’t know if he was talking about me or my dollar.

  The crowd heading downtown on Friday afternoons is generally young, and today was no exception: people in gauzy dresses and jean jackets, cell phones flashing at their waists. The train thundered to a stop at Fourteenth Street, and I pushed my way out, checking my watch. I had about ten minutes, but I didn’t want to show up empty-handed. As soon as I got to ground level, I sprinted south, dodging throngs of NYU students to make it to the first little grocery I saw. I quickly selected a bouquet of multicolored tulips and paid the shrunken woman at the register before dashing out. By the time I could see the Washington Square Arch, it was 5:33, and I realized then that I had no idea where, exactly, in the park the ceremony was being held. I came to an ungraceful stop, my heart pounding and my dress sticking to my sweaty back.

  I fished my cell phone out of my purse and called Lael, willing her to pick up. Of course she didn’t: the ceremony had already begun. I forced myself to take a deep breath and slow my mind. They had to be here somewhere, right? The park wasn’t that big. I began around the outside edge, scouring every small group—the wedding, Mum had told me on the phone, would be limited to very close family and friends, meaning a group of about thirty people—for a judge (Mum decided that having a rabbi wasn’t important to her, and Nell, an atheist, felt uncomfortable with religion being part of their union) and multicolored sand.

  Sand! I froze. I hadn’t brought sand. Instead I’d shown up late, with a bouquet of flowers—the wrong thing, the wrong time, the wrong family. Dumb, dumb, dumb. I considered tossing the flowers into a gutter but resisted the urge. Instead I sat on a bench and began to cry slow, pitiful, snaking tears. I’d wanted to surprise Mum, to show her that I still cared about her and wanted her to be happy, but now the entire thing felt useless: I’d missed the ceremony, and now I was missing the party, too. When a young couple passing by eyed me, concerned, I slipped on my sunglasses again and crossed my legs daintily. Elijah had shot me here, too: it seemed he’d shot me everywhere in the whole city. What had I been wearing? It didn’t matter, it only mattered that he had seen me and positioned me until I looked just right. Just fucking right.

  I didn’t even like him, now that I thought about it. Sure, if he were standing in front of me, I’d feel the familiar clenching in my stomach and the tremor in my hands, but my body was practically conditioned to do that. He’d been there, shiny and new when my family was crumbling, and he’d offered the perfect escape from my old life: do something wi
ld; get someone to love you. It was stupid, all of it. I was stupid. The tears came faster.

  And now that I’d been recognized officially, invited to Carnegie Hall and paraded around as one of the best artists in the country, that felt hollow too, another form of Elijah appreciation. They didn’t know me. Nobody did.

  I don’t know how long I sat there, weeping tears of rage and self-pity and disgust, before I felt a cold hand on my shoulder. I screamed and threw my elbow up, like we’d learned in self-defense classes at Bowen. I didn’t make contact, but I leapt to my feet and scrambled to get my purse, not even looking at my attacker.

  “Flora!”

  I stopped what I was doing. It was Lael, in a light blue sundress. Her hair was loose and curly around her shoulders. I gasped and rushed into her arms. They felt warm and fleshy. I buried my head in her shoulder and breathed in her familiar scent.

  I was still sobbing when we started to hug, but by the time I released her from my grip, we were both laughing.

  “Wait,” she said, holding my shoulder with one hand and ripping my sunglasses off my face with the other, “have you been CRYING?”

  I nodded. “I couldn’t find you,” I said lamely.

  She shook her head. “We were just over there.” She gestured toward the center of the park. “But the ceremony’s over. It’s past six.”

  “So everyone’s gone?”

  Lael laughed. “Oh no, of course not. Mum just sent me to pick up compostable paper plates, because the ones Nell’s mom brought are plastic.”

  “Let’s go.” I grabbed her hand and we threaded our way to the park’s exit.

  “You’re here so early,” Lael said. “What happened?”

  I told her the whole story as we walked to the closest D’Agostino. I yammered on about all the things I’d discovered as Lael selected and paid for the plates, and I was still talking as we reached the park again. The sun was lower, just slightly, but heat still rose off the streets, and my arms felt toasty. Lael, who’d been nodding and asking questions the whole time, stopped suddenly in front of a grassy expanse. I stopped talking and looked. There was the picnic, maybe twenty yards away: Mum, in a long red dress and her hair piled on top of her head, laying out food, guests smoothing blankets; Nell on her back in the grass, smiling at the sun, her white shorts-and-top combination directly touching the grass. At first I didn’t see Victor, but then I spotted him crouched underneath the big plastic table, tiny arms wrapped around his legs.