The Shimmering State
Page 10
The other sister tilts her head, locking Sophie’s face to memory, before dusting shimmering lilac onto her opposite cheek.
“Ugh, it’s going to be so good,” she says, already turning to pack up just as Auguste approaches.
“Auguste, you brilliant creature, thank you again!” says the taller sister.
Sophie already misses the colorful fabrics; she has never felt so beautiful, so ethereal yet strong, as she does in the sisters’ gaze. In their hands. Now with the fabric swatches removed and only her pale leotard underneath, the makeup on her face looks even more surreal.
One day soon she will wear the finished costume, fit perfectly to her body. Her body that will show through every movement, the clothing merely accentuating her form. For a moment it frightens her, to want something so badly. To have it so close she can feel it still on her skin.
Auguste and the sisters stand together going over their choices. “This makeup is too light, no?” Auguste says. “The audience will never see her.”
“It’s not just about the crowd,” says the taller sister. “It’s about the photos. It’s about marketing. It’s about the impact. A light touch is less stagey.”
“But it is, after all, a performance,” says Auguste.
“Yes—but there will be so many photos leading up to the show. Magazine spreads. I don’t know how else to put this, but—we’re involved. And you? It’s a dream. People will already know what her face looks like; they’ll have seen it everywhere. And people will remember her.”
“We have it, Auggie. Don’t worry!” assures the other sister. “Our vision is—Grecian nudity dusted with confection. You will see it and think it was all your idea. We promise.”
“I’ll send our notes later,” follows the other. “Full recap, with sketches for everything.”
“Do you hear this, Sophie?” calls Auguste. “Are you ready to be remembered?”
Meanwhile, Sophie leans toward the mirror, angling her face to admire the shimmering pigment in places not traditionally meant for color. The sisters continue describing to Auguste just what he wants to hear. That their production of the ballet that built ballet would make the audience catch their breath. It was not to be taken lightly, even if the dancers looked like they might just float away. No, their production would not be romantic. Rather it would make one reexamine the way they think about gender, possession, and love itself.
“I love that you say this,” says Auguste. “Because when I first decided on La Sylphide, I chose it because I wanted to reimagine femininity itself… comme une tragédie.”
* * *
At home, Sophie pours a glass of pét-nat and takes a sip while standing in the relief of her open fridge. Autumn heat waves have been one of the hardest things to adjust to in Los Angeles. The wineglass fogs and she presses its cool sweat against her cheek.
Sophie smooths the wrinkles in her dress and resists making it worse by sitting, though her legs still ache from rehearsal. The stiffness of the fabric makes her feel strong, armored even, like its vintage style might provide protection from today’s dating scene. The more precarious the setup, the more Sophie leans into a vintage look, as if to say, this world we live in, with its transactional dating customs, they are not mine. As if to say, tread lightly. Despite the dress’s structure, the flirty ruffles at each shoulder still make her feel feminine, each one just high enough for her to tilt her head behind, coyly.
This is how she imagines herself from the safety of home. In reality, Sophie knows she will press the ruffles down the moment she feels eyes on it. The moment she meets her date’s gaze. She will fail to commit to the illusion she had so firmly believed in—her poppy lips behind the upturned frill, Marilyn Monroe on the air vent. How ironic that as a professional performer she still lacks the very drama—or courage—to act exactly how she would like to be seen offstage.
As much as she hates first dates—the painful, probing conversation at the start, the obvious motives in showing up at all—she does appreciate the anticipation. This excuse to feel anxious, something she so often feels without reason. The desire to sedate that anxiousness with alcohol, and the triumph one feels if both sides then agree on a second, or a third drink.
Sophie thinks back to the other morning with Liv and the new guy she’s been dating, their tender awkwardness in that early stage. Liv seemed to revel in it, totally in control. Dating seems so easy for her, like a game she enjoys. Whereas Sophie so often feels trapped inside of herself, Liv articulates the things—and relationships—she wants then presents herself to get them. She makes it look simple, with an ease that makes Sophie desperately jealous of her friend, then ashamed.
Hadn’t Liv only recently broken up with the last guy? Jackson. He was also from New York, though one of those people who said he came from family in Rhode Island, as if everyone should know what, or who, that implied. Sophie never liked him. He and Liv were only together for six months, but practically lived together for all of them, until it turned out Jackson had been mostly waiting for the appropriate time to ask for a meeting with Liv’s father, his shitty screenplay finished and waiting. Liv was devastated, betrayed—but just like that, she had already found someone new. At least he doesn’t seem to care about that.
Sophie cannot stand the overly groomed men of Los Angeles, with their trainers, dietitians, life coaches, hairstylists—they had all their masculinity manicured out of them. Lucien seems different, clumsy in a way that makes Sophie’s chest ache. She feels guilty even acknowledging that, but it seems like a waste, him with Liv. Sophie imagines for a moment being the one to make him smile, the one he tucks under his arm as they walk. She imagines being shorter, like Liv, so that she fits perfectly. His sharp, green eyes looking at her. Sophie pours herself one more sip, or two, just for the taste, then realizes now she might be late.
Sophie was relieved when Keegan suggested a drink. He had texted two wineglass emojis that Sophie took to be decidedly more romantic than cheers-ing beers but slightly less suggestive than two martinis. So many of her recent dates have been sober—a hike in Solstice Canyon, a trip to LACMA, a picnic at Echo Park Lake. Sophie has so few daylight hours to herself when she is not rehearsing or training or working at Chateau Marmont; she would rather not waste them making small talk that ruins a hike she could easily enjoy alone.
She could like Keegan so far—his confidence, his brevity. Though it’s easy enough to project onto a text correspondence. She can’t believe Mick has a friend she hasn’t met yet; the fact of this makes her skeptical. But tonight, regardless of who shows up in person, regardless of what face would be put to Keegan’s text bubble, and what soul she would sense within moments of meeting him, regardless of all that—she is going to have that second drink and maybe a third.
The harder rehearsals at the company have become, and the more perfection they demand, the more Sophie feels a deflected destructiveness building up inside her. Some people live in restraint without the need to match it with equal and opposite force, but Sophie lives in extremes. Yesterday on Third Street she bought an entire cake from the bakery she passes every day. The woman behind the case, tattoos covering her taut arms, insisted on decorating the three-layer red velvet with a message, and Sophie finally went with Congratulations!
She ate forkfuls of frosting from the top down, sitting in the front seat of her car, then feverishly took a few more bites of deep burgundy cake before shutting the cardboard lid and throwing it into the backseat. It was probably still sitting in the dumpster behind her building. This is not the first time since then that she has considered checking.
Somehow drinking feels safer. Anything requiring company feels safer. At least having company protects her from the boundless appetite she might succumb to at home. Drinking with a date also brings potential for ending the night with a warm body next to hers; not onstage, where she has to be perfect, and not someone she pays to massage her just to feel the touch. Sophie wants to be ravaged, not lifted. Fondled, not spun. For
once, she wants to regret it in the morning, to roll into her pillow and exhale it all out in blissful shame.
She takes out her phone to call a Drivr so she can drink with abandon, but also in case she goes someplace else after. Then she runs back to the bathroom to add more eyeliner, crisping the whites of her eyes with a smoky pencil. Tonight she might as well play at being someone else.
* * *
The Drivr slows to a stop in front of the arched awning of the Dresden, its large white letters still suspended in a time before this neighborhood became all Blue Bottle Coffee and cactus stores. Though the entire curb is open, the car stops right beside a couple having a tense exchange. One of the young women covers her face, bare shoulders rising and falling.
We have arrived at your destination, the Dresden, the car speaker announces in automated self-satisfaction. The things this AI cannot understand—decency, for one—Sophie thinks as she steps out of the car, right in between the couple. The women freeze, newly united over this affront to their privacy, and Sophie feels compelled to shrug, nodding back toward the car, though it is already gone.
The Dresden was Keegan’s choice, and once inside she picks him out by the look of satisfaction on his face. He is already sitting at the bar, an empty stool beside him. She will not tell him, but lots of guys suggest this as a first date, whether for its place in film history glorifying a certain type of “Hollywood dream” in Swingers, or simply because one rarely runs into someone you know here. Maybe it just makes a good conversation starter.
The Dresden might have once been elegant, with its exposed stone walls and leather banquettes curving along the mirrored interior. Now its preserved charm, indie fame, and menu of shrimp cocktail and prime rib attract those who want to drink ten-dollar Manhattans, pretending they were born in the wrong decade, while simultaneously swiping on their smartphones. The fact that the Dresden was named after one of the most notoriously bombed—and once elaborately lovely—cities is not lost on Sophie, though she suspects it is on Keegan, who smiles at her from behind his unwashed, dirty-blond hair that falls to his chin.
As she approaches, a flash of recognition moves between them. Then Keegan reaches back, twirling his hair into a tiny bun, and Sophie notices several string bracelets tied around his wrist. His strong, tan forearm. He stretches out a hand to shake hers, not standing from his stool, and his smile is mischievous, immediately sexual. She blushes, and suddenly the stiff, frilly dress she chose feels costume-like. She slouches, hoping to overcome its effect with her own casual ease.
“So, Mick has told me a lot about you.”
“Is that right?” she says, pretending to look around. “I’m sorry—are you… Eric?”
Keegan looks at her for a moment, then breaks into a smile, rubs the cleft in his chin. Sophie feels proud, reminded that she is actually quite good at first dates. The ones that come after, not so much.
“Never trust Mick’s opinions,” she adds. “Unless of course they’re all good things.”
“I like this,” he says, flicking one of her shoulder ruffles with his finger. She cannot tell whether he is being genuine. “Very ladylike.”
Sophie catches the bartender’s eye and orders a martini, dirty. She’s wanted one ever since that Halloween party and has not been able to shake the craving. Plus it comes with a snack and she skipped dinner.
“Like, as many olives as you can fit,” she adds to the bartender.
“I like your style,” Keegan says.
He’s holding an IPA, which Sophie adds to the rapidly growing profile in her mind.
“So, what do you do?” she says. “Mick has told me virtually nothing.”
Keegan smirks, and she wonders briefly what that means.
“I’m a writer.”
He proclaims this a bit too proudly to be a real one, she thinks.
“What kind of stuff?”
“I write VR for a start-up in Pasadena.”
“What on earth does that mean?”
Keegan laughs, though she senses his annoyance. Joking about jobs is Sophie’s favorite first-date test; how someone reacts says a lot about how seriously they take themselves.
“I write story for VR. As in, virtual reality. You know what that is, right? Fastest-growing subset of entertainment? We’re putting movie theaters out of business, if you haven’t heard.”
“Whoa there,” Sophie says. “I actually like movie theaters. Anyway, of course I know what VR is, but what does that mean—you write code?”
“No, I write situations. Scenarios. Like, you score the winning goal in World Cup soccer, in a stadium of ten million fans. Or you’re skydiving from a peak on Mount Kilimanjaro, a bird flying alongside you through the clouds. Things most regular people won’t get to experience, except for maybe you.”
Sophie senses a hint of derision. Condescension. But after a few big sips of the cloudy martini, its glass too thick and olives rock-hard, she feels her perception loosening. And her filter.
“So, what exactly are you writing, then? Ideas? You write ideas down?”
“What exactly do you dance?”
Maybe she won’t have that second drink after all.
“All right, I guess Mick did tell you something about me.”
He ignores her, keeping the conversation on him.
“I write people’s fantasies,” he starts again, overly confident in how enticing this makes him sound. “I design and then execute the scenes everyone wants to experience but never will. I give them lust, drama, excitement, happiness.”
“I thought there was a drug for that now.”
At this he perks up, the mischief back in his smile.
“You into Mem?”
“Are you?”
Sophie doesn’t tell him how her brother has been in and out of rehabs, her parents’ home practically transformed into a halfway house back in Minneapolis—not Mem, that’s not gotten there yet, but just about everything else. She doesn’t tell him how any interest she might’ve had in experimenting with drugs vanished when she saw the pain his addiction caused her parents; gone forever, when she held the shell of her bright, athletic brother consumed by his dependency.
“Where do you think I get my ideas?” Keegan says with a wink that obscures whether or not he is serious. He speaks with such certainty that Sophie wonders if he’s ever lost anything, or cared about anyone enough to notice. “If you wanna slip tonight I’ve got a friend—”
“I’ve got enough ideas of my own, thanks.”
“Oh, do you?”
Sophie is not sure what to make of the undertone in his voice. Maybe she’s better off telling him now that there is zero chance she will be convinced to try a drug she spends multiple nights a week cleaning up after, while watching exceedingly talented people turn into passive sacks of jelly. Lest Keegan take her resistance as a challenge.
“So, tell me something I don’t know, then.” His voice resumes its light tone, and Sophie finds the hint of artifice intriguing, in the same way she used to watch American Psycho to fall asleep. “Who is Sophie Marden?” Now, that’s a line.
“Well, I dance,” Sophie says, finishing the last sip of her martini. Her jaw tightens from the brine. “But I guess you know that. We’re just finishing rehearsals on La Sylphide. I’m dancing the—”
“Classic,” he interrupts, looking past Sophie and clapping his hands.
A couple in their late seventies takes the stage, or the open space where a few dining tables have been cleared. Sophie remembers the other reason guys like to suggest this for first dates; everyone thinks it their original quirk to enjoy a kitschy jazz duo. If Elayne pulls out her flute, or Marty sings at falsetto, all the better. Keegan turns to her, suppressing a smug grin.
“Have you been here for Marty and Elayne?”
She nods. Holds up a finger to the bartender, then taps her empty glass. He smiles at her sympathetically.
“They’ve been doing this since 1982.”
“Is that so.”
Sophie takes out her phone, hoping for a missed call or text; maybe then she could excuse herself. The screen shines empty—the photo of her family dog, Basket, uninterrupted.
“Where do you live?” Sophie finally asks. After a few seconds of silence, she looks up to see Keegan also checking his phone. He glances at her. They both laugh. That’s something.
“Highland Park,” he says, putting his phone back in his pocket. “I work in Pasadena.”
She raises her eyebrows, nods. This, then, is how a date dies.
“Shit, I already said that didn’t I?”
Sophie shrugs. “What’s the name of your VR company?”
“Altruistic Media.”
She snorts, unable to control herself.
“What’s so funny?”
“I just—virtual reality never struck me as something altruistic. Getting us more addicted to these things. These increasingly expensive things.”
She waves her phone.
“Well, we started out doing therapies, mostly to build proof of concept. Touch aversion modules for children with autism, trauma therapy for burn victims.”
“Annnd now I feel bad.”
Keegan smiles, and there is that cleft again. She can almost feel his stubble in her fingertips, against her cheek, her neck, her chest.
“It’s okay, I’m used to the VR opposition. That will fade once people become less ignorant, you know?”
“Ignorant!”
“Well, you just said, you didn’t realize—”
“What happened to reading? Books? That’s how I learned to escape my situation, my body, my mind. My ignorance.”
“Sure, that’s a common concern. Reading. But look, that was already changing long before VR.”
“Don’t you worry about people who are tuning out the world? Everything looks better on these.” She nods to her phone, then takes a long sip of the fresh martini.