Social Creature

by Tara Isabella Burton

  “But—that’s not it. I mean—that’s not the reason she threw me out. God—she’d have done it indefinitely, I think. As long as I gave her what she wanted. I shouldn’t be telling you this, Lulu; I’m such a bad friend.” She says it like she relishes it.

  “No, you’re not,” Louise says.

  Louise pours Mimi more wine.

  “I was working at this bar in Alphabet City. And I had the same shifts, all the time. And Lavinia—she knew them. And one night, I drank too much with this bachelor party that came in and made me do shots, and I started feeling really sick to my stomach and so the bartender sent me home early. You promise you won’t tell her I told you?”

  “Cross my heart.”

  “I walked in on her,” says Mimi. “On—both of them.”

  “Who?”

  “It’s really gross.”

  “Tell me who, Mimi.”

  “Hal Upchurch.”

  Louise spits out her drink.

  * * *

  —

  Louise tries to imagine him—his sweat and the snot dripping down his nose and the gaps in his teeth and the smile so much wider than his face—on top of Lavinia, and can’t.

  “But that’s not it,” says Mimi. “I mean—that wasn’t the worst part.” She buries her face in her hands. “Jesus—I’m the worst friend in the world.”

  “Believe me,” says Louise. “You’re not.”

  Mimi takes a deep breath.

  “He was…” She bursts into hysterical, tearful giggles. “He was…” She swallows a glass of red wine in one gulp.

  “He was fucking her in the ass.”

  She devolves into a series of helpless giggles, which somewhere along the line turn into sobs.

  Louise was not expecting that.

  “Wow,” says Louise, because really there is nothing else to say.

  “I know…” Mimi can barely breathe she’s cry-laughing so hard. “I know.” She swallows her phlegm. “So I guess, like, technically, she’s only had vaginal sex with one man!”

  Louise can’t help it.

  She starts laughing, too.

  * * *

  —

  “I didn’t even care,” Mimi hiccups, when at last they can breathe again. “I mean—I was jealous, of course I was jealous, but I knew she was straight, deep down. I knew—I’m not dumb. And he was single and she was single and, I mean—what does it matter? I didn’t care how he fucked her. I just loved her.”

  And Mimi starts to cry again, and laugh some more, and also hiccup, and tell the whole horrible story about opening the door and walking in and then pretending she hadn’t, slamming the door and running to her room and turning up her headphones as high as they would go, and never mentioning it again. Never asking why even though of course she had so many questions: like really and do you love him and is this to piss off Rex and this is probably to piss off Rex, isn’t it. Mimi was so good, so good, for a whole week after even though Lavinia shouted at her so much more than normal, and made her go to so many more parties than normal, and got angry at Mimi for having gained five pounds and not being able to fit into that taffeta-princess dress Louise wore at Roméo et Juliette one time. This gets Mimi to thinking about Beowulf Marmont again and this, too, makes her cry, and anyway, anyway, Mimi got a little drunk one night and felt a little too free, and a little too safe, and a little too loved, and she asked Lavinia, point blank, what the hell was up with Hal Upchurch, anyway. Lavinia didn’t even look up—she didn’t even look at me—but everything warm and fecund and flickering inside her crumpled into ash and she told Mimi to get her things and get out and never come back.

  * * *

  —

  The pianist passes around the tip jar and Louise puts a twenty in, just another one of Lavinia’s twenties she’s supposed to be saving for when she finally runs.

  Then the pianist tells everybody it’s open mic night and asks for volunteers.

  “You know,” Mimi murmurs. “I came to New York to go onto Broadway. Isn’t that so funny?”

  The world is so full of so many desperate, unhappy, guilty people. All Louise wants is for one person to have something good happen to them tonight and so she says Mimi you should volunteer and Mimi laughs and sighs and blushes and says no I can’t I lost my voice years ago. Louise grabs her hand and holds it up and waves and cries out over here over here, and even though Mimi’s blushing and cringing she is so delighted. The crowd collectively drags Mimi up onto the little platform that constitutes a stage.

  They play “New York, New York.” (They always play “New York, New York,” Lavinia used to say, but Lavinia loved the song so much and the city so much that she never got sick of it, not even once.) Nothing in this city changes, and every party is the same, and every bar is the same and every Friday night is just like the Friday night that came before it, and the same photographers take the same pictures of the same people at the opera and the same passwords open the same speakeasies like skeleton keys and every single fucking piano bar in the whole fucking city plays “New York, New York” at the end of the night.

  Mimi sings it, anyway.

  * * *

  —

  Here’s the thing you never knew about Mimi:

  She’s good.

  * * *

  —

  Mimi’s not good-for-an-amateur, or good-for-New-Hampshire, or even good-enough-to-make-the-chorus-maybe. Mimi is the kind of good that makes every single person who is laughing and drinking and taking photos stop and put down their phones and stare.

  If I can make it there, she sings, and when she sings it’s raw and when she sings her mascara runs with her sweat and for the first time Louise realizes that Mimi is beautiful.

  When she sings I’ll make it anywhere it’s like she’s tearing her throat apart, and everybody is clapping their hands and screaming her name because that is how good she is.

  * * *

  —

  When she finishes, she gets a standing ovation. Even the waiters whoop her.

  She looks over at Louise, across the bar, her eyes shining with tears, and even though nobody is done cheering her on Mimi tears across the bar and throws her arms around Louise and says, over and over, thank you, thank you and then I’m sorry, I sniffled on your shirt and Louise keeps saying you’re okay, you’re okay, I got you.

  “This is the best night of my life!” Mimi breathes, and she is so happy and right now all Louise wants is to say come home with me; all Louise wants is to make Mimi cardamom-cranberry-cinnamon-elderflower tea and sit with her on the divan and play classical music so loud Mrs. Winters knocks on the door to complain, or fall asleep with her in Lavinia’s oversized bed, under that enormous, fur-lined jacquard bedspread, or just talk, in that endless up-all-night nobody-will-judge-you way. But of course Louise can’t, because Lavinia is at home (she has checked in on Facebook at this goddess consciousness group in the East Village but it is past midnight and she is probably home by now) and also because Louise can never be truly honest with anybody ever again.

  “You’re so nice,” Mimi says. “You’re so nice, Lulu. Why weren’t we friends?” She grins. “We should hang out sometime.”

  “That’d be nice.”

  Mimi stumbles onto Second Avenue.

  “I love you, Lulu.”

  Louise hails her a cab.

  She gives her sixty dollars in cash for the fare, because Mimi lives all the way out in Flatbush, because Mimi never has any money.

  “I can’t—”

  Louise closes the car door before Mimi can give it back.

  * * *

  —

  The cab rolls on toward Flatbush.

  Louise can’t do this anymore.

  Anything would be better than faking pictures on Lavinia’s phone or Googling motivational quotes just vaguely literary
enough for Lavinia to use; anything would be better than sending cryptic, cheery texts to Beowulf Marmont and Gavin Mullaney and chipper, studious emails to Cordelia and Lavinia’s parents and hiding from Mrs. Winters and humoring Hal Upchurch and sending Venmo payments to Athena and trying not to make Rex remember her and panicking every time the newspapers report somebody found a body in the East River and pretending to Mimi’s face that Lavinia is still alive.

  Louise calls Rex, even though it’s after midnight, even though he’s probably asleep, even though she’s not one of those clingy girlfriends who calls her boyfriend after midnight. She lets the phone ring through.

  * * *

  —

  “I need you,” she says. “I need to talk to you—please!”

  “Are you okay?” (She wonders if he is hesitating.)

  “I need you,” she says again. “Come over.”

  “But—”

  “She’s not there.”

  And Rex says, “Of course; of course; don’t worry; I’ll be there.”

  She wants him so badly with her. She wants him in her. She wants him to hold her and stop her shaking and listen to her sobs and her sins, and understand all that she has done and left undone, and maybe then somebody will know her and love her at the same time.

  * * *

  —

  Louise fumbles with her keys in the lobby. She doesn’t even remember to look out for Mrs. Winters on the stairs.

  The stairs have never seemed so tall before.

  * * *

  —

  She clomps up the stairs—she makes so much noise (let that old bitch open her door, she thinks; just let them come).

  * * *

  —

  The light is already on.

  The door is already open.

  Lavinia is sitting on the divan.

  * * *

  —

  Her hair is long and savage. Her feet are tucked under her thighs. She is wearing her dressing gown.

  Louise drops her keys in the doorway.

  Of course, she thinks, through the wine, through the adrenaline, through all her sleepless nights, nobody ever really dies.

  Lavinia turns toward her slowly.

  They have the same cheekbones. They have the same brilliant blue eyes.

  * * *

  —

  “I’ve come to see my sister,” Cordelia says.

  8

  LOUISE PICKS UP HER KEYS. She walks inside. She sits down next to Cordelia on the divan.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. Her voice is not her own. “Lavinia isn’t here.”

  “Where is she?” Cordelia lifts her chin.

  “She went away,” Louise says. “With some friends.”

  “Away where?”

  “She didn’t give me details. Like—a road trip.” She thinks so quickly. “A kind of, like, meditation thing. They were going to drive out west.”

  “When did she leave?”

  Louise tries to remember the last thing Lavinia posted on Instagram.

  “Just today,” she says.

  “What friends?”

  “Nerissa. Jade—Jade Wasserman. Holly Hornbach.” They all have Facebook accounts, too.

  “Did you meet them?”

  “When?”

  “Before she left?”

  Cordelia doesn’t move.

  “A couple of times. Why?”

  “Has she been taking her meds?”

  “What?”

  “Her meds—has she been taking them?”

  “How should I know?”

  “I went into the bathroom cabinet,” says Cordelia. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude—coming in like this. But you see—she hasn’t been taking my calls.”

  “You know Lavinia,” Louise says, so lightly. “She can be—”

  “Of course I know Lavinia.” Cordelia is very calm. “She’s my sister.”

  * * *

  —

  Cordelia gets up. She goes to the liquor cabinet.

  Louise is so numb.

  “You’ve gone through a lot of booze,” Cordelia says. She turns around. “I thought Vinny wasn’t drinking.”

  “Oh—she’s not. That’s all me.” That part, at least, is true.

  “You shouldn’t drink around her,” says Cordelia. “Not if she’s trying to quit.”

  “I mean that was from before.”

  “Why did she quit drinking?”

  “She—” Louise decides this is not the best time to bring up the fact that she’s fucking Rex. “I think she wanted to make, you know, a clean break. With her past.”

  “The bottle in the medicine cabinet’s still full,” she says. “I thought you should know. The prescription’s old. She hasn’t been taking them. You didn’t notice?”

  “She seems fine. She’s doing a lot of yoga.”

  “With Nerissa? And Holly? And Jade?”

  “Yes.”

  Cordelia looks up.

  “Don’t lie to me,” Cordelia says.

  Louise can’t move.

  “You think I can’t tell when you’re lying to me?”

  They even have the same glare.

  “I was there—remember? The first time this happened.”

  “The—what?”

  “Thanksgiving. 2012. She was—you know—fine, then, too. Told everyone she was absolutely at peace with what had happened. She got into astrology—spells, Wicca, tarot cards, that was the big thing. Said the cards had predicted Rex would leave her but that one day when they’d done all the growing up they were going to do they’d get back together. She used to insist on telling my fortune, too. She got into painting. She’d post all sorts of her art online—tell me she was fine, back at school, excited to start dating again—she even told me there was someone she thought she might like to date, some TA of hers.” Cordelia lifts her chin. “Then she swallowed a bunch of pills over Christmas and tried to kill herself in a boat. So if you’re protecting her,” Cordelia says. “You’re doing a very stupid thing.”

  “Do your parents know you’re here?”

  “I’m supposed to be on a flight from Boston to Paris, tomorrow for Christmas. Mother’s very excited to have at least one of us back.” Cordelia’s mouth twists into a smile. “Instead I got on a bus from South Station and came here. A homeless man showed me his Johnson outside Port Authority. It was disgusting.” She shrugs. “Vinny needs me.”

  “You need to call your parents,” says Louise.

  “It wouldn’t be fair to them. They’ve already got one fuckup. That’s bad luck. But two looks like carelessness.” She kicks off her shoes. “When’s Vinny getting back?”

  “I don’t know,” says Louise. “She didn’t say.”

  “Then I’ll wait here until she does.”

  “You really need to call your parents.”

  “Why?”

  Louise gets up, goes to the phone.

  “I told them I was invited to Aspen last-minute with some friends from Exeter. They’ll like that. You won’t tell them I’m here, will you?” She smiles again. “And I won’t tell them you’re here.” She cocks her head. “And what happened to Granny’s steamer trunk?”

  “Lavinia took it to use for some photo shoot she was doing.”

  “Did she?” Cordelia looks up.

  She swings her legs around. She stands.

  “You’re sure you don’t know when she’ll be back!”

  “I told you—she didn’t say. She just said she was going on a road trip—that’s all!”

  “And you let her go!”

  Louise doesn’t understand.

  “Christ—how stupid are you?” Cordelia spins around so quickly the bottles on the sideboard rattle where her dressing gown has whipped them. “Do
n’t you get it? She can’t be left alone.”

  Louise doesn’t say anything.

  Cordelia draws in breath so sharply.

  “I’m sorry,” Cordelia says. “I’m sorry—that wasn’t fair of me.” She sits down on the divan again. She folds her hands in her lap. “She’s not your problem,” she says. “She’s mine. But if she’s drinking—I mean, if she’s lying—I want you to tell me.”

  “I understand,” says Louise.

  “Is she drinking?”

  “No,” Louise says. “Not that I’ve seen.”

  Cordelia exhales. She closes her eyes.

  “Good,” she says.

  Then: “But she could be?”

  “All she ever tells me,” Louise says. “Is that she wants to stop that kind of life. That she wants to be different.”

  “But you don’t know these new friends?”

  “Only in passing.”

  Cordelia nods.

  “You know,” Louise says, “how Lavinia is—when she’s found new people.”

  Cordelia has softened, just a little bit. “She collects people. Like stray cats.” She laughs. “She used to say I was the only one who ever stuck with her.”

  She goes to the kitchenette. She starts making tea.

  “Do you want some?”

  “No, thank you,” says Louise.

  She is so tired, all of a sudden.

  “You should have water,” Cordelia says.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’ve been drinking. You should have some water.”

  Louise sighs.

  “Look,” she says. “Lavinia’s all right, okay? She’s doing well. I know—I’ve seen her. She’s happy. She’s—getting over her issues. So—you don’t have to stay. She’ll—she’ll be gone a couple weeks, anyway; there’d be no point.”

  “But I’m here.”

  “Look, I can rent a car tomorrow. What time’s your flight? I can drive you to Logan.”