Social Creature

by Tara Isabella Burton

  “That’s very kind,” Cordelia says. “But I don’t want you to. I’m going to stay here.” She sits down. “I don’t want to go to Paris. After all,” she says, “this is my house.”

  * * *

  —

  That’s when the buzzer rings.

  That’s when Louise remembers.

  Cordelia goes to the intercom before Louise can think of a good lie.

  They watch Rex pacing on the video screen. He is out of breath, disheveled. His blazer is wrinkled, like he’s picked it off the floor.

  “Bloody hell,” says Cordelia.

  Then she starts to grin. “I knew it.”

  “What?”

  “I knew it!”

  She starts to laugh, and it sounds so much like Lavinia’s laugh that Louise starts to shiver, just a little. “Of course he’s come back—I always knew he would—of course he loved her. It was just—it was just—cowardice!” She spits the word.

  Louise doesn’t think she’s ever seen someone so happy. She doesn’t think even Lavinia could be this happy.

  “I can’t wait to see the look on his face—”

  “Wait!”

  It’s too late. Cordelia has already buzzed him in.

  “If I were a man.” Cordelia is pacing. “Gosh, if I were a man. I’d—I’d sock him in the jaw for what he did to her.”

  “It’s not like—”

  “He ruined her life! He’s a miserable, cowardly, sniveling blackguard!” She draws herself up to her full height.

  “Please,” she says. “Vinny’s honor is at stake.”

  She opens the door.

  * * *

  —

  Here’s what happens next:

  Rex sees Cordelia.

  Louise sees him start, because she sees him thinking the exact same thing she thought, seeing that long hair and those wild eyes and those dark, heart-shaped lips—and he goes so pale, for a second, the way people go pale in books when they have seen a ghost, and Louise hates that a person (not a ghost, not a femme fatale, just an ordinary twenty-three-year-old girl) can have that effect on somebody.

  Then he gets it.

  “Cordelia?”

  “You’re too late.”

  Cordelia is enjoying this so much.

  “What?”

  Louise catches his eye, behind Cordelia’s back, and she shoots him such a desperate, plaintive look, and mouths please, please.

  “Vinny. She’s gone. She’s run away. You can’t see her.”

  “I…what?”

  “She’s on a road trip. She’s gone out west. On an adventure.”

  “Okay…”

  “I’m so sorry,” Louise says, in such a burlesque of sincerity she thinks Cordelia must be able to see through it, “I know you’re here to see Lavinia. She’s out of town.”

  “You should be ashamed of yourself.” Cordelia crosses her arms. “Showing up here—after all this time.”

  Rex just blinks.

  “She’s moved on. She’s over you. She’d never stoop to lower herself to your kind again!”

  Rex looks over to Louise, who keeps just mouthing please, please.

  “I’m sorry.” He speaks very, very slowly. “You’re—you’re right, Cordelia.”

  “Vinny’s not interested in your bourgeois, boring, Biedermeier little life.” Cordelia spits it. “She’s doing far more interesting things, now. She’s on—she’s on Route Sixty-one, right now!”

  “Right.” Rex’s ears have turned red. He’s staring straight at Louise. “Right—I can go…”

  “Don’t you dare ever come back!”

  “You’re right,” says Rex. “I won’t.”

  He turns and leaves without even looking at Louise.

  * * *

  —

  When they at last see him storm out on the intercom screen, Cordelia bursts into laughter.

  “Did you see that?”

  “I saw it.”

  “The look on his face!”

  Cordelia locks the door. She rounds on Louise. She is radiant.

  “God—I can’t wait to tell Vinny!” She claps a hand over her mouth. “Promise—promise you’ll let me tell her, okay?”

  “I promise.”

  Louise’s head is spinning.

  “I knew it—I knew it! Nobody—nobody could ever forget Vinny!” Cordelia kicks up her feet where the steamer trunk used to be. “Nobody!” She lies down on the divan. “Ordinary people—you know! People like Rex. They can’t handle her.” She sits up on her heels again. “I know my sister’s a lot, sometimes. She’s silly and frivolous and vain and she thinks about herself too much. But she’s not selfish, not really.”

  “Oh?”

  “If Vinny was really selfish she’d make herself happy. And—Vinny’s never happy. Not really. She can’t be—not so long as the world is the way it is.” She hugs her knees to her chest. “It’s original sin, you know?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You’re like Vinny.” Cordelia smiles a little bit. “She hates when I say things like that to her. They give her the creeps, she says. But I think it’s the only way to explain everything. Everything’s our own fault—and also nothing is.” She sighs. “Of course he couldn’t be enough for her. And still—what if he had been?” She absentmindedly starts to braid her hair. “Anyway,” she says. “That’s why I’m Catholic. That—and Mother hates it.”

  * * *

  —

  Louise texts Rex while Cordelia is in the bathroom.

  I’m so so so so so sorry.

  I’ll explain tomorrow.

  She’ll come up with something tomorrow. Louise always comes up with something.

  Can I come over so we can talk about it?

  Rex Reads it.

  He doesn’t answer.

  * * *

  —

  It’s three o’clock in the morning before Cordelia at last yawns.

  “You’re right,” she says, so suddenly. “I’m sure I’m worrying for nothing. Vinny’s—fine, right?”

  “Of course she’s fine,” says Louise.

  “She’d tell us—if things were getting bad again.”

  “Of course she would.”

  “The last time…” Cordelia puts her chin on her knees. “I knew—before. She started getting manic. She’d do card readings for herself and stay up all night trying to work them out and call home from Yale predicting her own death.”

  “I promise you,” Louise says. “Lavinia’s getting better. She’s—” She tries so hard. “She’s even over the Rex thing.”

  “She’ll never get over the Rex thing. She’ll cling to that until the day she dies. Vinny wants to be the sort of person who only loves once.” She drinks the tea she has made. “Even if it makes her very unhappy.” She rises. “I should let you sleep. I suppose she’s not coming back tonight, so there’s no point worrying.”

  “Text her in the morning,” Louise says. “I’m sure she’ll be so sorry to miss you.”

  By then, Lavinia will have posted so many photos of her road trip. She will have posted so many, splendid photos. Louise will have worked out the whole itinerary. She’ll have Googled the relevant literary quotes.

  “Hey, Louise?”

  Cordelia stands in the doorway.

  “Yes?”

  “You’d tell me—if you were worried. Right?”

  She looks on Louise with such a pure and unblinking gaze. Like she trusts her.

  “Of course,” says Louise.

  * * *

  —

  “I suppose you’ve been sleeping in my room,” says Cordelia. “Would it be easier if I just slept in Vinny’s bed?”

  Louise has slept in Lavinia’s bed every night she has not slept with
Rex.

  “No—please,” says Louise. “Take your own room. I insist.”

  “But won’t you have to move all your stuff?”

  “You’re right,” says Louise. “It’s just—Lavinia left it a bit of a wreck.”

  Cordelia giggles.

  “She is a bit messy, isn’t she?”

  “Let me just clean it up a little for you,” Louise says.

  * * *

  —

  Louise goes into Lavinia’s room. She makes the bed. She takes everything incriminating—the fake ID, the cash, the jewelry Louise has been selling, bit by bit, Rex’s letters—and shoves it all into a messenger bag.

  Louise checks her phone. Rex still hasn’t texted her.

  She checks Lavinia’s phone.

  The missed calls from Mimi, from Cordelia.

  That photo she posted of the High Line, yesterday, has gotten twenty-six Likes.

  “All yours,” Louise says.

  * * *

  —

  Louise goes back into her old room, which is so much smaller than she remembered.

  * * *

  —

  Lavinia posts some photos from her road trip. A car (the license plates are not displayed). Some more Whitman. A sunset over a forest that could be anywhere (some Thoreau). A woman doing yoga from a distance who could be Holly, or Nerissa, or Jade (Louise finally decides that this is Nerissa and tags her accordingly). Lavinia posts a long and rambling meditation about sitting well in order and striking the sounding furrows and all the western stars until she dies, and maybe it is in keeping with who Lavinia is that she has posted that quote so many times before.

  Lavinia texts her sister.

  DARLING.

  Lulu told me you’re in town.

  I’m so sorry I wish I’d known but you see we’re having the most marvelous time out here and we want to see if we can make it all the way to California by hitchhiking (I have long relied on the kindness of strangers).

  GO TO PARIS and bring me back some Mariages Freres tea please.

  I like the Marco Polo best.

  Xxx

  Cordelia Reads it.

  She doesn’t respond, either.

  * * *

  —

  Rex finally texts Louise the next morning.

  Come over after class, he says; she does.

  She explains how Lavinia went off on this hitchhiking-Bob-Dylan-diamonds-and-rust road trip without telling her beforehand, and left her alone in the apartment that’s not even hers, and how Louise was so angry and so foolish—I don’t even know why I was upset—that she freaked out and called Rex and won’t he forgive her for that?

  “Girl stuff,” Louise says. “That’s all.”

  Also, Lavinia hasn’t told Cordelia about the two of them.

  Cordelia is so fragile, Louise says, and so ferociously protective of her sister. She has no idea why Lavinia hasn’t just told Cordelia the truth but she feels like it’s not her place to do it, because she doesn’t want to come between the two of them, either. The important thing is that they convince Cordelia to go see her parents in Paris because they can’t have a seventeen-year-old girl just wandering around the apartment pretending to be in Aspen because if Louise gets her upset she can just tell her parents that Louise is living there, which, of course, she’s not supposed to be doing.

  “So you see,” Louise says—so desperately.

  “That’s insane,” says Rex. He’s right.

  “It’s complicated.”

  “I don’t see why you don’t just move out,” he says, like there’s a person in this city who wouldn’t live with Goebbels if it meant free rent.

  “It’s complicated,” Louise says again.

  “Look,” he says. “I know—the two of you—have your shit. And I don’t want to know what it is. It’s between the two of you. But don’t make me part of this.”

  He says it like Lavinia isn’t dead because of him.

  “I just don’t want to cause any more drama,” says Louise.

  “Well, you’ve done a great fucking job of that!”

  Louise hates it when he raises his voice at her.

  She puts her hands on his shoulders. She kisses him.

  “It’s just for a little while,” she says. “Just—to keep the peace.”

  “So, what? I pretend I’m still in love with her to keep some kid happy?”

  “You don’t have to pretend anything,” she says. “We just lay low. Until we can convince her to go home. So I don’t have to live with somebody who hates me.”

  She waits for him to say stay with me. He doesn’t.

  “And what happens when Cordelia tells her I’ve been pining.” He doesn’t even say her name. Not even now. “Do I keep the peace then, too?”

  She tries so hard to come up with a way this can sound less bad than it is.

  “But you’re not.” Louise can’t stop herself. “Are you?”

  He rolls his eyes.

  “It’s always about her, isn’t it?” he says.

  He doesn’t say no, though.

  * * *

  —

  Lavinia roasts marshmallows over a campfire in Louisiana.

  Cordelia sits at the dining-room table making notes in the margins of the writings of Julian of Norwich.

  Louise pays Athena Maidenhead another two hundred dollars.

  * * *

  —

  They never discuss outright why Louise is doing it. It’s just that one day Athena sends her a text to say hey hunny do you have any leads I’m pretty broke right now haha and the guy who usually pays my rent turned out to be an asshole.

  Maybe you could ask Lavinia if she knows any way a girl could make like $500 fast?

  She’s always so generous. (Haha)

  * * *

  —

  Louise pays.

  Athena thanks her, and then mentions so casually she’d also like to buy a new dress.

  Turns out, she met a guy the night they all went to the opera. He asked her out during the intermission. She wants to dress real classy for him.

  Athena sends her the Net-a-Porter link and Louise buys this, too.

  * * *

  —

  Lavinia’s parents start to put pressure on her to come home for Christmas.

  We understand Cordelia has impulsively decided not to return home, they say. We can’t help but wonder if this is in part due to your example? Now that Cordelia is getting older we feel it’s more important than ever that you be a role model for her, and your current way of living is—your father and I agree—hardly an appropriate one for her to emulate.

  We feel it would be prudent for you to come home for the remainder of the holiday season. We can discuss your imminent return to Yale then.

  Lavinia writes a very earnest letter explaining that her novel is almost done, and that this road trip she’s doing—completely sober, she adds!—is of utmost import for her physical as well as emotional well-being.

  Be that as it may, Lavinia’s mother says, we cannot support you in this endeavor. We may not be able to alter your course of action at this stage, but we can, at least, play a role in setting an example for your sister.

  With that in mind: we’ll be cutting off your cards until you return. You have until December 19th to decide.

  If you would like to return to Paris we would more than happily purchase a one-way plane ticket for you.

  But your father and I are in agreement: we’re both unable to justify our bankrolling of your lifestyle choices any longer.

  Please contact us with your passport details and details of your proposed flight.

  I hope you realize that this is the kindest thing you could possibly do for your sister at this stage, Lavinia’s mother adds.

&nb
sp; Lavinia doesn’t answer them.

  * * *

  —

  Louise starts running out of money again.

  She’d planned to save every cent she took from Lavinia. But Louise hasn’t worked in so long, and the payments to Athena have started to add up, and also the times she takes Rex to dinner, because it makes her feel like she’s capable of giving him some kind of happiness, and also the times they go Dutch, because Louise never wants to admit she can’t afford the kinds of things Rex can afford, because Louise can never say no to him.

  * * *

  —

  Lavinia doesn’t take Cordelia’s calls.

  Sorry darling! she says. The signal’s terrible out here! Last night we went bathing naked underneath the stars and nearly froze to death and it was BEAUTIFUL.

  * * *

  —

  Every day, Louise thinks today.

  Today will be the day everything ends.

  She will run away; she will take Lavinia’s passport or the fake ID belonging to the redhead from Iowa called Elizabeth Glass; she will take whatever money she has left and she will walk out the door and she will vanish into the city, but then Gavin Mullaney tells her that he wants her to do another piece for The Fiddler in print, and gives her a heads-up that they’re considering naming her one of their Five Under Thirty of that year, if she can impress the rest of their editorial board with her upcoming piece. And then Rex texts her a picture of Central Park in the snow, even though they’ve been fighting so much, lately, and Louise thinks just one more day; that’s all I need; just one more day, but then another day comes and she needs that one, too.

  Truth is, Louise has nowhere else to go.

  * * *

  —

  The twentieth of December is Louise’s thirtieth birthday.

  Rex knows it’s her birthday, because he sees it on Facebook (she tells him she’s twenty-six).