Social Creature

by Tara Isabella Burton

  She paints her face white. She draws kohl over her eyes.

  Mimi is flipping through Lavinia’s pictures on her phone.

  “I’m so jealous,” she murmurs. “I wish I could drive.” She looks up. “Maybe I’ll give up drinking, too,” she says.

  “You—I mean—that might not be such a bad idea.”

  “I’d get so skinny, that way. God, did you see the picture she posted of her abs?”

  Louise was so proud of that one.

  “I saw.”

  Mimi applies glitter to her cheeks.

  “Starting January First,” she says. “New Year’s Resolution. Don’t let me drink. Wait—” She swallows. “I forgot. Five Under Thirty. Okay, January Second, don’t let me drink. Promise?”

  “I trust you,” says Louise. “If you say you won’t drink, then you won’t.”

  * * *

  —

  Louise puts on Lavinia’s lipstick.

  She considers herself in the mirror.

  She wipes it off.

  She doesn’t even want to taste it.

  They cab it to the MacIntyre. Louise pays. January First, she thinks, I will reach out to Flora and to Miles. I’ll find more clients. I’ll get a job. I’ll go on SeekingArrangement and find a rich boyfriend, just like Athena Maidenhead—she can’t let herself think about Athena Maidenhead, right now. She can’t afford it, but there’s a blizzard on, outside.

  It’s so cold, in the line, and even though it’s freezing half the people there are dressed in club dresses and stilettos or jeans, and not in costume, and Louise doesn’t know if that was true last year, or whether it’s just that the parties aren’t as good as they used to be.

  The bouncer’s rude and everybody’s so busy taking photos that they shove Louise clear into the wall, and this one girl steps on Mimi’s toe.

  At ten-thirty they let them in.

  This is what Louise sees:

  Red velvet, electric lights, plastic bags, a taxidermied deer, torn upholstery, a spread of tarot cards, speaker cables, a woman in a backless sequined dress singing Peggy Lee’s “Is That All There Is?,” drunk bros in baseball caps, chandeliers, watered-down champagne.

  This is all Louise sees:

  Nothing she hasn’t seen before.

  * * *

  —

  Louise drinks.

  She drinks just like Lavinia used to, getting a whole bottle all at once and pouring it down her throat, and Mimi thinks this is so hilarious that she takes different pictures, all from different angles.

  “It’s just like Weimar Berlin,” Mimi chirps. “It really is.”

  She starts dancing on the tables.

  Louise starts doing shots.

  Just one more, she thinks. Just one more.

  Then you’ll start to have fun.

  * * *

  —

  Mimi is kissing strangers.

  Mimi is taking photos (she’s in one of the asylum bathtubs, pretending to be a suicide; she’s straddling the taxidermied deer; she’s wrapped around Louise’s neck like a mink; she’s Liza Minnelli with her legs backward on a chair).

  Mimi is having the best night of her life.

  You’d know if you checked her Facebook.

  * * *

  —

  Louise sees Rex across the ballroom.

  He’s wearing black tie. That’s the closest thing he’s made to an effort.

  He smiles when she goes to him.

  “Look.” She tries so hard. “We match!”

  He holds her hand. He kisses it. He looks out into the crowd, like Lavinia might be there.

  * * *

  —

  The lights flash. The music is so loud. Louise can’t hear a single word Mimi says.

  Father Romylos is there and Gavin Mullaney is there and reminding her tomorrow is your big day, isn’t it?; aren’t you so fucking excited you actually leveled up in this life? and so is Athena Maidenhead, in the dress Louise has bought her, on the arm of Mike from the opera; Rose the photographer from Last Night at the Met is there, and so is the girl who was on Survivor, so is Laurie the erotic illustrator who drew Lavinia’s tarot cards, and so is the Egyptologist Lavinia knows who got kicked off the faculty at Yale for leaving his wife for a student.

  Mimi takes a picture of Louise and Rex, holding hands, and they look so goddamn happy in that one.

  * * *

  —

  The lights are so bright. Neon blinds them. Smoke gets in Louise’s eyes and makes her sneeze. Some drunk girl spills a rum and Coke all over Louise’s nice borrowed jacket and even her collarbones get sticky.

  Somebody who isn’t Peggy Lee keeps singing Peggy Lee.

  “Wasn’t she here last year?”

  Mimi shrugs. “Of course not!”

  She is singing it on a loop, and maybe Louise was just that drunk last year or maybe she’s just that drunk this year but in any case it turns out the woman isn’t even singing, just lip-synching to the actual Peggy Lee, and she’s doing it over and over again.

  If that’s all there is, my friends (turns out, it’s blasted from every single boom box in the place). Then let’s keep dancing.

  “It’s even better than last year!” Mimi grins.

  She grabs Louise’s hand. She makes her dance, and Mimi pulls in Rex to dance with them, too, because Mimi is so extravagant with her love that it has never occurred to her to want to win more than she wants to love somebody.

  * * *

  —

  Louise has to pee.

  Rex and Mimi and Gavin and Athena and Father Romylos and Laurie and Rose and the Egyptologist and the girl who was on Survivor all promise to wait for her by the downstairs bar, the one that looks like an art deco podium.

  When Louise comes out, everybody’s gone.

  It’s eleven-forty-five.

  * * *

  —

  “Tick tock!”

  Hal is marching toward her.

  He’s dressed like a Nazi. Nobody will look at him.

  “Get it?” he says, when he sees her. “Because of the theme.”

  “I got it.”

  “You know, it’s actually real Hugo Boss.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “I mean, it’s not like I’m wearing a mustache or anything.”

  “Small mercies,” says Louise.

  Hal’s black eye is almost gone. Now he just looks like he hasn’t slept in a couple of days.

  “Do you know what I gave Henry for Christmas?”

  “I don’t really care,” says Louise.

  “A copy of ‘The Social and Political Doctrine of Fascism.’ One for my mother, too. Plus an Hermès scarf, obviously. I’m not a monster.”

  “Are you done?”

  “We all are. The world’s ending. The revolution is imminent.”

  “Why are you even here, Hal?”

  Hal shrugs. “All my friends are here.”

  He leans against the wall of the corridor.

  “Come on, Lulu,” he says. “Just be a fucking person, okay?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Dance with me!”

  * * *

  —

  The bass is turned up so high the walls shake.

  * * *

  —

  “I should go find Rex.”

  “Don’t.”

  “It’s almost midnight.”

  He grabs her by the waist.

  “Hal, don’t!”

  “It’s almost midnight. I’ll come with you!”

  “Hal,” Louise says, because the last thing in the world she needs right now is for Rex to have another reason to hate her. “Don’t.”

  “Please!” he says.

  The
light strobes and that’s the first time Louise really sees him.

  He’s been crying.

  “Please don’t go,” he says.

  “I have to.”

  “I want to talk to Rex!”

  “You can talk to Rex tomorrow.”

  “I want to talk to Rex now!”

  “Well, you can’t.”

  “Tell him—” Something strangles in his throat. It’s like a cat, dying.

  It’s five minutes to midnight.

  Louise doesn’t let him finish.

  * * *

  —

  Louise stumbles in the crowd. She sees doubles, everywhere.

  She sees Athena swaying with Mike (or maybe it is a stranger) and there is Beowulf Marmont, or someone who looks just like him, swaying with a girl who is definitely not his fragile-eyed girlfriend, and she sees Gavin Mullaney with his second-favorite girlfriend and she sees Mimi, Mimi dancing alone, Mimi moon-bathed in some spotlight, Mimi dancing for the first time like she’s not desperate for somebody to come dance with her, and this huge deco clock in the shape of the numbers 2-0-1-6 has descended like a chandelier from the ceiling and it’s thumping with the bass so Louise can’t even tell what part’s music and what part’s the march of time.

  It’s one minute to midnight.

  All Louise wants to do is sleep.

  But that’s not the world Louise lives in, now.

  * * *

  —

  At a minute to midnight Louise sees Rex.

  He’s standing all alone, at the bar, with a martini in his hand.

  Louise runs to him.

  He looks so happy to see her.

  They’re counting down, everybody’s counting down from sixty, and slurring the numbers wrong, and Louise is so lonely and Rex looks so happy to see her, even though she knows, she knows, that there is no way he can be, that he can’t possibly be, not if Lavinia is somewhere in the world just beyond his field of vision, but remember Louise is drunk, and Rex is drunk, and both of them have had their hearts broken beyond repair this week, and more than anything in the world Louise just wants to be a person who is held in someone’s arms.

  Rex takes her in his.

  He falls to his knees.

  He kisses her stomach, like she’s pregnant, or like she’s a god.

  His eyes are so full of tears.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. He keeps kissing her, like he knows she knows. He kisses her hands. He kisses the insides of her wrists. He kisses her palms. “I’m so sorry, I’m sorry; I’ve been so stupid; I’m so stupid.”

  She’s crying, too. She shakes her head.

  Ten—nine—eight

  She kisses and kisses him with a hungry mouth.

  Seven—six—five

  His tears are tributaries into hers.

  “I miss you,” Rex says; “I need you—I need you,” and Louise is standing on a precipice, and the world is vanishing and spinning and flickering all around her and Louise is falling, Louise is falling, and there is nobody else in the world who can catch her.

  Four—three—two

  “I love you,” Rex says.

  Maybe he does.

  * * *

  —

  They cab it back to Lavinia’s place. They kiss all the way uptown. Rex says I love you on every block; Rex puts his hand up Louise’s shirt and feels her breasts like the cabbie isn’t even listening to every sound they make; it’s snowing so hard Louise can’t even see the black of the sky; it’s snowing so hard the cab radio keeps repeating haven’t seen snow this bad in sixty years so maybe Hal is right, maybe the world really is ending, but right now it doesn’t matter because they are so lonely but they have each other, both of them, because Lavinia is never coming back and this is the next best thing.

  * * *

  —

  Her makeup smears his face. Their jackets crumple on the floor. Their clothes tear when they take them off.

  I love you; I love you; I love you.

  The door opens.

  * * *

  —

  Cordelia just stands there.

  She lets her suitcase drop in the doorway.

  They’re scrambling so fast—they’re rushing—to cover their nakedness, their shame; Rex grabs a couch cushion and Louise grabs Lavinia’s dressing gown and they’re stammering out excuses and they’re saying this isn’t what it looks like even though it so manifestly is.

  “It’s—snowing, you know.” Cordelia’s voice is so calm. “There’s a blizzard. Haven’t you heard? All flights are grounded.”

  She walks into the living room. She goes to the kitchen. She puts the kettle on. Rex is so hasty, zipping up his trousers.

  “I’m sorry,” Cordelia says. She doesn’t look at them. “I’ve intruded.”

  Cordelia picks up the teapot.

  She throws it at Louise’s face.

  “Damn you!”

  It shatters just behind Louise’s head.

  “Goddamn you.”

  It cuts Louise, a little, grazing her. She doesn’t even feel it.

  “Wait!” Rex is trying, so manfully, to put his shirt on. “I know this looks bad.”

  “You sniveling little coward!”

  “She knows, okay? She knows!” Rex is out of breath. “She’s fine with it—she’s known the whole time—I swear!”

  Cordelia is so pale.

  “Don’t you fucking presume to know my sister. She is not fine!”

  “She told me! I swear to God—I swear to God—she called me up! She gave me her blessing! Both of us.”

  Cordelia laughs in his face.

  “She didn’t!”

  “She did—Christ, Louise, tell her!”

  Cordelia looks straight at her.

  Her eyes are so clear, and so blue.

  She looks at Louise, standing in the space where the steamer trunk once was.

  “You want me to believe Vinny knows?”

  Louise hesitates just a second. “She knows.”

  Cordelia exhales. Just once. “No,” she says. “She doesn’t.”

  “She knows.”

  Cordelia looks so slowly, from the door to the space in the floor, from the space in the floor to Louise.

  “Then where is she?”

  “I told you. She’s in California.”

  “No she’s not. Where is she?”

  “You know as much as I do.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I swear,” Rex says, again, but Cordelia isn’t even looking at him.

  “Let’s call her, shall we?” Cordelia begins, and Louise says no, so quickly, and that’s when Cordelia starts to scream.

  “Where is she?”

  “I don’t—”

  Cordelia slaps her clear across the face.

  “I said—where the fuck is she?”

  “Cordelia!” Rex tries, but she’s grabbing at Louise, she’s pulling at Louise’s hair; she’s trying to claw out her eyes.

  “I know you know where she is!”

  She is so small, and Rex is so much larger than she is, and still it takes all his strength for him to pull Cordelia off her.

  The two of them crash to the floor.

  Louise is bleeding.

  Cordelia gets up, staggering. She’s out of breath. She’s bleeding, too.

  “You’re a fool,” she says, to Rex. “God—what a fool you are.”

  She doesn’t take her eyes off Louise.

  “God—you idiot!”

  Rex is helping Louise to her feet. He’s scrambling for their coats.

  “We should go,” he says.

  Cordelia is panting. Her gaze is so, so blue.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” Rex says, like that’s even what matters, n
ow.

  “Just get out,” Cordelia says.

  * * *

  —

  “We’ll fix it.” That’s all Rex can repeat, all the way down to the lobby, all the way in the cab. “Look—she’s upset. She’s just upset.”

  Louise is shaking.

  “You can stay at my place tonight,” he says, because now, now he can save her, now this is a thing for him to do. “In the morning we’ll go back, we’ll explain. We can explain!”

  It’s stopped snowing. The world is frozen and stark and dead. Even the trees look like bones.

  “We’re not bad people!” Rex says.

  Louise can’t stop laughing.

  * * *

  —

  Then she is so hot.

  She is so achingly, boilingly, paralyzingly hot that she thinks she’s going to die.

  “Stop,” she tells the driver.

  “Louise, what are you—”

  “Take us to Coney Island,” she says.

  “Louise, it’s two o’clock in the…”

  “I said.” Louise has never been more sure of anything in her life. “Take us to Coney fucking Island.”

  The driver does.

  Louise pays with the last of her hundred-dollar bills.

  * * *

  —

  They sit in silence.

  “Lou—” Rex tries—just once—but Louise kisses him, so hungrily, and does not let him speak.

  * * *

  —

  When they arrive it is so cold, and so dark, and so empty.

  Louise opens the car door. She bolts toward the water. She lets her purse fall on the sand.

  Rex trails after her.

  “Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?”

  Louise is just so fucking hot.

  She walks so much faster, on her way to the water. She runs.

  The water is so cold. She washes her face with it. She washes her face and her neck and her hands and she is still so fucking hot she thinks she will burn up completely.