Social Creature

by Tara Isabella Burton

  He puts his hand on her back.

  “Let’s get you a drink,” he says.

  * * *

  —

  “Let’s go,” says Lavinia, grabbing Louise’s hand. She doesn’t even look at Mimi.

  * * *

  —

  “What’s her deal?” Louise tries again, as they make their way up the stairs toward their box seats.

  Lavinia doesn’t answer. She leans against the statue at the top of the stairs and scans the crowd.

  “Who are you looking for?”

  “Nobody,” Lavinia says. “The only person in the world I care about seeing is you, and you’re right here.” She keeps her eye on the stairway.

  “Let’s take a selfie,” Lavinia says. They do.

  “God, I love opera,” Lavinia says, as they shrug off their furs and take their seats, as Lavinia scans the horizon, once again. “It’s so nice to close your eyes for three hours and really feel things.

  “And—look!”

  She has brought her flask, even though they are already so drunk.

  “Take. Drink.”

  She raises the flask to Louise’s lips and tilts it so Louise’s mouth overflows and she chokes a little.

  Lavinia laughs. “Don’t worry,” she says, so suddenly.

  “What?”

  “You’re nothing like Mimi.”

  Louise hates how happy this makes her.

  “You’re smart. And you’re strong. And you’re not fucking desperate. You’re like me. You get shit done.”

  She squeezes Louise’s hand.

  “I’m sorry I made you come tonight—I shouldn’t have—I know how tired you were.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Louise says.

  “But you’re glad you’re here, now, right?”

  “Yes,” Louise says.

  “You’re not mad at me?”

  “No.”

  “I’m so glad you moved in,” Lavinia says. “I hate being alone!” She takes another swig from the flask. “We’re going to be—you and me. Contra mundum!” She takes Louise’s hand. She raises it, so slowly, to her lips. She kisses her knuckles. She pulls Louise’s arm in. She kisses where it says MORE POETRY!!!

  “We’re going to have the most wonderful night,” she whispers, as the curtain parts.

  * * *

  —

  The music is baleful and wonderful and the sopranos are beautiful and Vittorio Grigolo is so handsome and so passionate and you really believe how much Romeo loves her. And Juliette sings ah, je veux vivre and the waltz is a trill and Louise’s heart is beating fast. She thinks yes, yes, I want to live, too and then she thinks maybe it is not so bad that she has spent two hundred dollars today (maybe three hundred if you count the champagne, the cab) and maybe sometimes you can be a little late with your work for GlaZam and sometimes (if you are with Lavinia at the opera) you don’t have to worry, so much, about the men who follow you home in Sunset Park, and maybe it isn’t so bad that she doesn’t have the key to Lavinia’s apartment; maybe it isn’t so bad that she doesn’t sleep sometimes because she is reading Lavinia’s novel over and over again; maybe it isn’t so bad that she has no space in the house for her clothes; none of it is so bad, when Lavinia is with her.

  Especially when Lavinia is holding her so close.

  Especially when they smell like whiskey, and champagne, and they’ve done a couple of lines in the bathroom, and Louise can smell Lavinia’s perfume which is like fig and pear and lavender and which smells so much nicer than her own.

  Especially when the music is swelling.

  Especially when Lavinia kisses her neck.

  * * *

  —

  Louise freezes.

  This is one of Lavinia’s affectations, she thinks—just like kissing her hand, or her knuckles, or her tattoo, like falling asleep on her shoulder, like curling up next to her in the same bed. Lavinia is exuberant and she shows love too boldly. Lavinia has never had sex with anyone but Rex (was it—any man; was that a hint?). This is just a thing Lavinia does to let you know you matter to her.

  Just kiss your neck. With tongue.

  Just bite, a little bit.

  Just put a hand on your knee.

  * * *

  —

  Louise looks over at her, but Lavinia is smiling like nothing is different, like nothing is wrong or weird or strange about it, like there’s definitely nothing, nothing gay about it, not Lavinia sliding her hand up Louise’s thigh, not her squeezing the skin between her fingertips, not her leaning in, again, and kissing the back of Louise’s ear.

  And Louise is so confused, because in all the times they’ve been together and looked at one another’s breasts and compared cup sizes or changed in the same room or peed in the same stall, has Lavinia ever stopped to stare at her (she has stopped to stare at Lavinia, but mostly to think she is so perfect-looking and she is so thin and Louise does not think there was anything sexual in that, exactly, but now she isn’t sure), but Lavinia is kissing her so delicately and so expertly—that’s the other thing; like she knows exactly what she’s doing.

  Here’s the thing: Louise doesn’t know if she wants to.

  She knew she wanted to the time she begged Virgil Bryce to take her virginity, because even though she was fat then and she was not pretty he was dating her all the same and that must mean he wanted her on some level. He had so often said he loved her despite all her unlovable qualities (silence, ugliness, anxiety, unceasing need) that made her unlovable. But even then, she thinks, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to fuck him, or just wanted him to want to fuck her.

  So then. So now.

  There isn’t, exactly, a single moment when Louise goes from is she…? to she is. Or it was always: she is. Lavinia’s hand on her knee. Lavinia’s hand up her thigh. Lavinia’s fingers moving her underwear. Lavinia’s fingers inside her.

  It feels good. That’s the other thing. There’s sexual orientation but there’s also biology and when somebody is lightly biting your neck and also fingering you under this rose-colored taffeta dress with so many petticoats (thank God, thank God, she wore this ridiculous thing with all the petticoats; was that why Lavinia asked her to wear this dress with all the petticoats?) that feels objectively good no matter who is doing it as long as they know what they’re doing, and also a little strange (and also cold?).

  And Louise thinks how can she want this?

  And Louise thinks I cannot say no.

  * * *

  —

  She’s just spent half of her rent money; she has a free apartment on East Seventy-eighth Street; Lavinia paid for the cab; Lavinia paid for the tickets; Lavinia paid for most of the champagne (so what? So what? Does it matter? It matters) and she wonders is that what Mimi didn’t do except she can’t imagine Mimi not letting Lavinia finger her (she can imagine Mimi begging Lavinia to finger her).

  But also, this means Lavinia thinks Louise is hot enough to fuck.

  But also of course we’re not fucking, not that Louise is sure what counts as fucking with girls. Maybe Lavinia is just drunk or maybe Lavinia has been in love with her the whole time (I love you; you’re beautiful; I need you—how many times has Lavinia said those things? Has Louise really been so stupid?). Louise can’t say no and this makes her angry but also, also, she doesn’t really want to.

  And the music, the music, the music. And the velvet. And the lights. And the champagne.

  Lavinia pulls back. Her eyes are shining.

  “I told you,” she whispers. “I told you—what an epic night.”

  And her fingers are still inside Louise and she’s kissing Louise right on the mouth and she’s using tongue which of all the unreal elements of what is happening to Louise right now is the one thing, the one thing, that makes Louise think oh God oh God and maybe this, this, is
what it feels like to be wanted, and maybe this is what it feels like to be loved.

  And Louise thinks: maybe it is not so important, to be able to say no.

  “I love you,” Lavinia keeps whispering, into her mouth. “I love you; I love you; I love you so fucking much.”

  Here’s the stupid thing: Louise believes it.

  * * *

  —

  For a whole minute (a whole aria; Mercutio thinks Queen Mab has been with everybody; maybe she has), Louise thinks that this is where it has all been leading (the night but also this whole year; this year but also her life); that every stupid thing she has ever been or said or done and every time she has ever fucked up has been in the service of being known, like this, and also loved.

  Until she sees Rex.

  * * *

  —

  He is in a box across the way.

  He is with Hal.

  He is watching them.

  * * *

  —

  Louise yanks herself away so quickly she almost falls over.

  “I have to pee.”

  She bolts.

  * * *

  —

  You can lose weight. You can dye your hair. You can learn to speak with a very charming mid-Atlantic accent. You can stay up until four in the morning, missing your own deadlines, just to read somebody’s novel and tell them how great it is.

  But nothing, nothing you do will ever be enough.

  Even if somebody loves you (or they think they do, or they say they do), it’ll just be because you remind them of someone else, or because you make them feel a little less bad about having lost somebody else, or because somebody else is watching, across the auditorium, in an opera box, and they just want to make them jealous, and you were just an accessory to this.

  I am almost thirty, Louise thinks, how did I not know this by now?

  * * *

  —

  She runs out onto the balcony. It’s so cold—she’s shivering, even though it’s April—but she’d rather be here, shivering, looking out over Lincoln Center and that moon-infused fountain and that empty, geometric square than be inside for another second anywhere, anywhere Lavinia’s perfume still hangs in the air.

  She can’t even get her cigarette to light.

  “Need some help?”

  She rounds on him.

  “Here,” Rex says. “Let me.”

  She still can’t talk.

  She gets her shit together long enough to offer him one, too.

  “I’d offer you a handkerchief,” he says. “But I think you stole mine last time.”

  “Oh,” she says. “Sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” he says. “You can keep it.”

  “Lavinia burned it.”

  She puffs on her cigarette. She doesn’t look at him.

  “Oh.” He puffs on his. “Really?”

  “Yep.”

  “Okay.” He exhales. “I probably deserve it,” he says.

  Then: “I’m sorry.”

  “Why? You didn’t do anything.”

  “I didn’t know. At the bookstore—when we met. I didn’t know the two of you were…”

  “We’re not.” Another, furious, puff. “She’s straight.”

  “Oh.” Again: “Really?”

  She shrugs.

  “We both are.” She doesn’t care, anymore. “But, you know. I hear men really like it when straight girls hook up.”

  “So I hear.” He swallows. “How have you been, Louise?”

  She is being so rude to him. He is being so kind to her. She can’t stop.

  “We’ve been having so much fun.” She flicks out some ash onto the railing. “All these parties—haven’t you seen the photos?”

  “Can’t miss them.”

  “Of course you can’t. That’s the idea.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I’m sorry.”

  Finally, finally, Louise breathes. “I’m sorry. I’m—I’m in a mood.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  She turns to him. “Why does she hate you so much?”

  He leans out on the railing. He sighs. “It’s not my place,” he says, at last. “Look—she deserves to be happy. God knows—I don’t want to fuck it up.”

  “Did you cheat on her or something?”

  “No—no!”

  “Hurt her?”

  “No—I mean—not like that.”

  “What, then?”

  “It’s not my story to tell.”

  “It’s hers, you mean?”

  “Isn’t it always?” He is smiling, just a little bit.

  “I won’t tell her you told me,” she says. “If that’s what you’re worried about. I don’t have to do everything she says.”

  “It’s stupid,” he says. “Even now. I feel responsible for her.”

  “Well, you’re not. She’s not your problem. She’s mine. And I want to know.”

  * * *

  —

  “Look,” he says, finally. “I loved her—I really did. For a long time. And I still care about her—a lot.” He sighs. “Look—she’s a lot.”

  Too much, Louise thinks.

  “When we were, you know—when we were growing up, it was just kind of, like, the two of us, you know? I mean, there was Hal, sometimes, but he was at school, and, I don’t know—we found each other. And when you’re with her—God! It’s like a drug—you know that.”

  “Yes,” Louise says. “I know.”

  “And you’re, I don’t know, breaking into places and you’re writing each other secret letters and—I mean—it’s the most wonderful thing in the world, but we were in college, and I wanted to do—you know, normal, college-kid things.”

  “Beer pong?”

  “I mean, sure.”

  “A frat!”

  “I mean, frats aren’t really a Yale thing, but…”

  “Football?”

  He lets himself laugh.

  “Yes. Exactly.”

  The wind has gotten chillier.

  “We shouldn’t have gone to the same school. I mean—I told her it was a bad idea—or, I don’t know, maybe she talked me into it, you know. And the first year, whatever, even the second, we did it her way. Then—look, it’s not a bad thing to want to grow up.”

  “Careful,” says Louise. “You might regret it.”

  “I waited until Christmas break. We talked about it. And she seemed, I mean—she took it well. She didn’t freak out or anything. She was calm. Then two days later she calls me at two in the morning and tells me she’s in Central Park, that she’s taken a bunch of pills and stolen a paddleboat and that she wants me to come find her.”

  “A boat? Really?”

  “I’m just reporting,” he says. “Look—maybe it sounds funny, now—but it wasn’t. I mean—she was off her face and she’d taken a fistful of her mother’s Xanax and a bottle of gin and she kept trying to tell me that I should do it, too.”

  “Did she mean it?”

  He hesitates.

  “Yes,” he says, finally. “She meant it. She told me that—that I’d promised to love her forever and she didn’t want to live in a world where people didn’t keep their promises and I shouldn’t want to, either. A world of—God, I don’t know.”

  “Football.”

  “Football,” he says, and they both smile because this is almost fair. “Anyway, that’s when she took medical leave. And—there she will remain. Until her parents stop paying tuition. Or, you know, she goes back. Her sabbatical. And, until then, I’ll just, you know, run into her everywhere I go.” He sighs. “It’s my own fault. I should have known she’d be here tonight. I wasn’t even going to come—but Hal insisted. Mustn’t waste Henry Upchurch’s season tickets.”

&nbs
p; “God forbid.”

  There is a busker by the Lincoln Center fountain. Louise knows him. He plays every night, after the opera, and every night he plays something from the opera that people will recognize; that’s how he gets his tips. He is practicing, now: ah, je veux vivre dans ce rêve.

  “You know what’s funny?” Rex says.

  “What?”

  “Sometimes I think she’s right.” He laughs. “Like—obviously, I don’t wish I’d done it or anything. I’m not crazy.”

  “Of course not.”

  “I like my life. Only—” He takes a deep breath. “What can I say? She made a pretty fucking compelling case.”

  “She’s a pretty fucking compelling person.”

  He laughs. “I mean—people should keep their promises. Probably. In a perfect world—we all would.”

  “It’s not a perfect world,” says Louise.

  “Hers is,” says Rex. “That’s the problem.”

  “It isn’t,” Louise says, so softly he doesn’t hear her. “Trust me.”

  Rex leans on the railing. “It’s nice to talk to someone who gets it. Maybe that’s selfish.”

  “You’re not selfish,” Louise says. Rex shrugs.

  “You should tell her.”

  “What?”

  “That I told you. I mean—I don’t want to be the cause of any secrets.” He sighs one last deep and expansive sigh. “I’ve done enough damage. I don’t want to ruin her for you too.”

  You don’t understand, Louise thinks, it’s too late, now.

  “Spoiler alert.” Hal is behind them. “They both die.”

  “Jesus—Hal!”

  “How long were you going to be out here? You missed the whole second half!”

  Rex doesn’t say anything.

  “Philistines. You ran out on me, young Louise. I never got to give you your book!”

  “I’m sorry,” says Louise. “We left in a rush.”

  “Women.” Hal rolls his eyes. “Educate yourself, sometime.”