Social Creature
Page 26
“I hate them,” Cordelia whispers. “I hate them all.”
“I know.”
“They’re all awful.”
“I know.”
“I hate her!”
“I know,” Louise whispers.
“I hate her so much!” she hiccups. “I hate her! I hate her! I hate her!”
“I know.”
“Rex should have let her jump.”
Louise’s breath catches in her throat.
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not? It’s true—isn’t it?”
“I don’t know.” Louise’s heart is beating so quickly. “No! Of course not!”
“What has she ever done but lie to anyone who’s ever loved her?”
Louise doesn’t have an answer for her.
They lie together, in Lavinia’s bed, and Cordelia sobs so brokenly, and she curls into herself and there is nothing for Louise to do but hold her so tightly, and so close, tight enough that she shakes when Cordelia shakes, and is racked with Cordelia’s sobs.
They lie there together until Cordelia falls asleep in Louise’s arms.
* * *
—
Louise goes into Cordelia’s room. She sits at the desk, in silence. She texts Rex—she’s texted him so many times tonight—telling him she can explain, begging him to let her explain, begging him to let her fix everything she’s fucked up, in the service of fixing things.
He’s Read every message. He hasn’t responded.
Please.
Louise is so clingy, now. She disgusts herself.
She plugs in her phone on Cordelia’s desk. She stares at the photographs, awhile, at Cordelia’s books: Julian of Norwich, Thomas Merton, Teilhard de Chardin, John Henry Newman, St. Augustine. She stares into the darkness, awhile more.
She goes to bed.
* * *
—
At one, her phone pings.
She can see Rex’s name, flashing on the nightstand.
I miss you.
Can we talk?
Thank God, Louise thinks. Thank God.
She can taste how relieved she is; she is so relieved, as she grabs the phone, that she starts to laugh out loud, and she starts typing yes, of course, you can call me right now, I don’t care what time it is, we can talk as long as you need even though her phone is right there, charging, on Cordelia’s desk.
I’m sorry, Rex tells Lavinia.
I hate that I still love you.
9
CORDELIA IS SNORING IN THE OTHER ROOM.
Louise can’t feel anything, anymore.
* * *
—
Lavinia Reads Rex’s text, so he will know she’s read it. She doesn’t answer.
Now he will know exactly how Louise feels.
It’s Christmas.
Louise goes for a walk. She smokes five or six cigarettes, even though she hasn’t smoked since taking up Lavinia’s workout regimen (the only good part of Lavinia’s being away, she thinks, is that her thighs don’t ache so much anymore).
Rex keeps texting Lavinia.
Please.
Just talk to me.
I’m sorry.
I’m the worst.
I know.
I know how selfish I am.
Lavinia posts a public Instagram picture of the Rocky Mountains, just to hurt him.
Can’t sleep, Lavinia says. The whole world is just too beautiful to stand.
Rex Eliot Likes it.
* * *
—
When it’s late enough Louise calls her parents in Devonshire to wish them a merry Christmas. It’s a very formal conversation. They ask how she’s doing and she tells them about The Fiddler’s Five Under Thirty, which is the closest thing you can get to a big break when you’ve only written personal essays on the Internet.
“Most people who get on it get agents soon after,” says Louise, like this is a thing that still matters. “One girl got a book deal for a memoir within a week.”
“Oh,” says Louise’s mother.
“But you’re not under thirty.”
“December counts,” says Louise, even though that isn’t true.
“Does it pay? If you win?”
“No,” says Louise. “It’s just prestige. And it’s not a prize—it’s a list.”
“Oh,” says Louise’s mother. “That’s a shame.”
“Yes,” says Louise. “It is.”
“You know,” says Louise’s mother. “You’ll never believe who I saw on the street, the other day.”
Louise already knows.
“He’s gotten very handsome—now that he’s cut his hair. He’s left the bookstore. He’s actually got a job managing the Devonshire Inn. Pretty good, huh?”
“Sure,” says Louise.
“Now I don’t presume to know what happened,” says Louise’s mother. “But he is a very nice boy. It’s not like there’s a line around the block for you.”
Louise opens her mouth to say something about how she has a boyfriend now, actually, and he’s very handsome and he goes to Columbia and he loves her, but then she closes it again.
“Anyway,” says Louise’s mother. “I know, I know you’ll be mad at me—but he asked for your number, and, well—I know what you always say, but it’s been so long since you mentioned anybody else, and he—he’s done so well for himself, lately, and he still always asks after you, and he cares about you so much…”
Louise hangs up the phone.
* * *
—
When Louise comes back to the apartment, Cordelia is already up. Her hair is pinned in a braid. She’s washed all the makeup off her face. She’s in pajamas.
She looks, Louise thinks, so young.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she says. “I wanted to give you your present!”
She hands a wrapped package to Louise.
“I bought it for Vinny,” she says. “But I think you’ll appreciate it more.”
It’s an antique miniature booklet of Tennyson’s “Ulysses.” The binding is split. It’s beautiful.
“Vinny told me about your adventure,” Cordelia says. “It sounded beautiful.”
“It was,” says Louise.
“Nobody does that at Exeter,” Cordelia says.
“I bet.”
“They only do things that look good on their college apps.”
Cordelia takes out her phone.
“Do you have plans?”
“No,” Louise says.
“Want to order Chinese?”
“Sure.”
“I booked my flight,” Cordelia says. “I’m heading to Paris New Year’s Eve. Mother’s very happy. I told her my friend in Aspen had a mental breakdown because she didn’t get in early to Brown. I’ll be out of your hair, soon enough. I’m sure you’ll be relieved.”
Louise doesn’t know why she isn’t.
“I bet she’s bathing naked in the Pacific right now,” Cordelia says.
“Probably.”
“Fuck her,” says Cordelia. “I’m getting fried rice.”
* * *
—
Louise pays for these, too. The order comes to $32.41. Louise even tips.
* * *
—
Rex finally texts Louise that evening, because Lavinia hasn’t texted him back.
I’m sorry, he says.
I needed some time.
Do you want to come over tonight?
* * *
—
They sit in silence on Rex’s bed, because his apartment is too small for a sofa.
She waits for him to break up with her. He doesn’t.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have left yo
u, last night.”
He has a split lip.
Then: “How long did you know?”
“Not long,” Louise says. “I only found out before she left.”
“She told you.”
“I saw her phone. I should have told you. I’m sorry. She made me promise not to.”
“No,” he says. “No—you shouldn’t have.” He swallows. “It’s—you’re in the middle.” He sighs. “I never should have come between you two,” he says.
“Don’t say that.”
“I put you in an impossible position—I’m sorry. I never should have.”
“Don’t say that.”
Like she’s begging him.
“It’s stupid,” says Rex. “I don’t even know why I was mad. It’s just—Hal being Hal. And her being—”
He can’t even say her name.
“Lavinia,” Louise says, so quietly. “Lavinia being Lavinia.”
“Right.”
He keeps checking his phone—right in front of her.
“Cordelia’s leaving,” Louise says. “She’s going to Paris. She’s realized that Lavinia’s not coming back, anytime soon.”
Rex exhales.
“Of course,” he says. “Good.”
He squeezes her hand.
“Then everything will go back to normal,” he says.
* * *
—
Gavin emails Louise that night to let her know she’s been selected as one of The Fiddler’s Five Under Thirty. They’ll be announcing it on New Year’s Day, he says. There will be a party. He wants her to read that piece she wrote about pretending to be a Devonshire Academy student. It was the third-most-read piece this year, he says.
Louise dyes her hair again. It leaves stains all over Lavinia’s bathtub.
* * *
—
Rex keeps texting Lavinia.
Please, he says. Just talk to me.
Lavinia doesn’t.
* * *
—
The day after Christmas, Hal texts Louise.
Let me buy you a drink, he says. Bemelmans? 8?
“I talked to Niall Montgomery about you,” says Hal. “He likes your work. I told him you’d been selected as one of the Five Under Thirty. He’s going to the launch party.”
His black eye makes him look more misshapen than ever.
“Really,” Hal says. “You should be buying me a drink.”
Louise can’t afford to do that, but she smiles anyway.
“Don’t worry.” Hal puts his card down. “Henry Upchurch always keeps his word. And you’re an Under Thirty. You actually matter, now.”
“I’m grateful,” says Louise. “Really.”
“Good. You should be.”
Then: “How’s Rex?”
“He’s fine.”
“He still mad at me?”
Louise shrugs. “I don’t know.”
“He didn’t say?”
“We’re trying not to talk about it.”
“Good girl,” he says. “Poor Louise.”
“Why?”
“Don’t forget—I’ve known Rex longer than anybody. Including her.” He toasts to her. “I’m his best friend. I know what he was like—about her.”
“So why did you do it?”
“She was hot and desperate and I wanted to fuck her. That’s all.”
“You know that’s not true,” says Louise.
He looks affronted, but Louise doesn’t even care anymore.
“You want to play the bad friend game?”
“No,” says Louise. “Not really.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Nothing.”
“Rex didn’t deserve her,” says Hal. “Is that what you want to hear?”
“Not really.”
“She didn’t deserve anything, either. She wasn’t anything special. She wasn’t even good in bed. But—she loved him. And he doesn’t deserve to be loved like that.” Hal drinks. “She wasn’t like you,” he says. “She never got the joke.”
Under the bar, Lavinia’s phone pings. Louise doesn’t even have to look at it.
“He shouldn’t complain,” says Hal. “He got years. He got love poems and love songs and long walks along the beach and classical music. What did I get? A couple of filthy weekends and some light kink.” He stretches out along the bar. “Anyway, she put a stop to it. She was terrified you’d find out.”
“I wouldn’t have cared,” Louise says.
She remembers the night that Lavinia stumbled home, with her dress inside out, and blood in her mouth.
“Oh, you would have. You’d never let yourself be bossed around by a girl who liked to get fucked in the ass.”
He wipes his face with a cocktail napkin.
“Fuck it,” he says. “I’m getting out of New York. I’m going to quit my job. I’m going to buy a vintage air-cooled Porsche and I’m going to drive it to Big Sur. Maybe I’ll see her there. Maybe I’ll see you.”
“Maybe,” says Louise.
“I’m going to become a writer, young Louise. Just like you. I’ve still got five years to make Five Under Thirty. And I do have, as it happens, the first fifty pages of the novel I’m going to write.”
“Good luck with that,” says Louise.
“Maybe I’ll send it to you. Maybe you’ll tell me if it’s good?”
She can’t tell if he means it.
“I’m sure it’s fine, Hal.”
“It’s a piece of shit,” says Hal. “I haven’t even written it. And I’m never going to quit my job.” He pays the bill.
“And that, young Louise.” He grins at her. “Is the joke.”
* * *
—
Please, Rex has texted Lavinia.
I understand if you need more time.
Just tell me if I should wait for you.
Lavinia texts him only one word: Don’t.
* * *
—
Rex is so good to Louise, that week. He gets her a Christmas present, a beautiful art nouveau brooch he found for her at an antique market on the Hudson and Louise tries not to think, as she admires it in the mirror, whether she was the one he bought it for.
Rex is so good at not letting Louise know. He takes her to Mud, to Veselka for pierogis just like he did the night he first kissed her; he takes her back to the secret bookstore to celebrate her making Five Under Thirty with Gavin and Matty Rosekranz, even though it hasn’t even been announced yet, not formally (“I can’t wait to see the look on Beowulf Marmont’s face,” says Matty, who doesn’t like him, either).
He goes down on her every single time they have sex.
Guilt’s such a useful mechanism, Louise thinks. It makes you a much better person than you otherwise would be.
* * *
—
Lavinia has made it all the way to California.
She posts Instagram photos all the way up Route 1.
She’s doing the last phase of her pilgrimage alone.
She posts a photo of her tattoo, against a blue body of water that might be the Pacific but also might be Photoshop.
MORE POETRY!!!
Always, Lavinia says.
Only: Rex has blocked her again.
* * *
—
On New Year’s Eve, Cordelia packs her suitcase.
“Big plans?” she asks.
Louise is going to the MacIntyre again. She’s meeting Rex there. Mimi is coming over to the house beforehand: officially, to get ready, but really because neither of them can stand to be alone.
Louise shrugs. “Just the same thing as last year,” she says.
“I suppose I’ll be midair when it happens,” says Cordelia. “I don’t kno
w which one counts—midnight in Paris or midnight in New York. I don’t suppose it matters.”
“No,” says Louise. “I don’t suppose it does.”
“I’m sorry to miss your reading,” Cordelia says.
“It’s fine,” Louise says. “There will be people there.”
“You know—it wasn’t such a bad Christmas,” Cordelia says. “I learned a lot. And a first kiss—that’s a milestone, isn’t it?”
“I mean—sure.”
“It’s better than Christmas in Paris, that’s for sure.” Cordelia lifts her chin. “You don’t have to worry. I won’t tell our parents Vinny’s been letting you live here. I didn’t tell about Mimi, either—and I didn’t even like her.”
“Thank you,” says Louise. “I think.”
“And you won’t tell Vinny—I mean, when she gets back. I was drunk, when I said those things.”
“I won’t tell,” says Louise. “I swear.”
* * *
—
The house feels so empty, once she’s gone.
* * *
—
Mimi comes over a couple of hours later. She’s wearing false lashes and a Louise Brooks wig.
“OhmyGod!” she exclaims. “Ihaventseenyouinforever!”
She’s brought a case of those little Sofia Coppola cans of champagne you’re supposed to drink through a straw.
They get dressed for the MacIntyre.
This year’s theme is Weimar Berlin. Louise wears a tuxedo jacket she’s borrowed from Rex and nothing else, because the idea of wearing Lavinia’s clothes one more time has made her nauseous.