On our way to Anabel’s opening, I bumped into Edith on the corner of Spring and Mulberry. Upon seeing me, Edith exclaimed, “This is such a public corner! I bump into everyone here!” Edith is a good friend of mine from London. She divides her life between New York and Los Angeles, but she’s almost never around when you need her. She’s an actress who studied theatre, and when she was a child, she received many accolades. She’s been recovering from it ever since. Edith is Grenadian, but because she is light, her agent calls her look Mixed and Ambiguous. When she was young, they smoothed out her East London accent until it had no place of origin, sounding only vaguely British so that Americans could understand her. People find her charming. When she’s not booking jobs, she keeps herself visible because she has Notable Style. She’s always in fashion magazines. There’s a thing British girls who took theatre do that I find beguiling: in magazine-profile parlance, “She makes you feel like you’re the only person in the room.” When Edith needs to, she really turns it on. Her eyes suddenly take on a shine. She puts your hand in hers and focuses on you.
Edith settled into a stride between me and Gala. Walking south towards Tribeca, she said, “You know, Isa, I’ve begun to fear death again.” Gala rolled her eyes. She isn’t used to anyone’s theatrics except mine. Edith asked where we were going, and I told her Anabel’s show. “Oh, you know her? That’s so wonderful you’re getting to know people who make money from art. It took me years to figure out how to do that!” Edith is quite social. She likes to talk about people all the time. I asked her how she kept track of everyone she knows in all the cities she goes to. She replied, “Well, if everyone knows my name, I don’t need to remember anyone else’s. But of course I remember some, the important ones.”
When we arrived at the entrance to the gallery, Edith’s eyes darted around recognizing people. She was excited. “Who do you want to meet first? Writers masquerading as it-girls, or it-girls masquerading as artists?” As we lifted champagne flutes from a server’s tray, Edith began whispering in our ears: “That girl over there likes to convince people she’s unambitious, but she writes for New York magazine,” and, “There’s Aaron. His face has become far too familiar. He’s overexposed and has a penchant for asking for massages. You shouldn’t go out all the time, girls. You have to keep some mystery about you.” I recognized Aaron too. I asked Edith how old he was now. She started to count her fingers. “Hmm, he must be thirty-five, but in New York that really means twenty-five.” Gala stuffed an hors d’oeuvre into her mouth. “How old are we?” Edith said thoughtfully, “Twenty-one is a little too old for some things. Like past a certain age you can’t be an ingénue.” I could tell Gala thought Edith was fun. That’s why she started to tease her. “Then how old are you?” Edith was not shocked at being asked her age and replied unflinchingly, “I’m twenty-six but still Girlish. That’s the key in this world.”
Anabel’s show was titled After the Last Great Party. Her painting of me was the most recent addition, and a bit of a surprise. She had finished it in a session of sixteen straight hours. For the duration, I pretended it was like taking one of those overnight buses to New York back when I was a teenager. I never got up to stretch my legs for fear of being identified as far too young to travel alone. For the sitting, Anabel was strict and wouldn’t let my face stray from its natural position. My tailbone was sore, and my torso was twisted so far that it felt impossible to unravel my body in the days to follow. I don’t care what anyone says: being a muse is not for the weak.
Gala, Edith, and I stood in front of the portrait of Lilou. It was titled Professional Beauty Takes a Bath. It was truly a wonderful work. Lilou’s head rested on the rim of a bathtub with her eyes closed, as though she had finally found peace. Gala loudly proclaimed, “The closest Lilou will get to being baptized.” Lilou came up behind me and squeezed my waist. “Don’t you love when life makes it appropriate to say, ‘Speaking of whom’?” She kissed Edith and me on both cheeks and Gala on one, saying, “Haven’t you learned to make sure the person you’re making fun of isn’t within earshot? That’s an easy way to lose friends.” Lilou wore an off-white silk dress that made her look Grecian. Gala told me later she thought she looked like a too-tall banshee gliding around in a sheet. I thought she looked unusually effective. We were all standing around talking to each other when Lilou remarked to Edith that she could tell Gala and I were very Fresh. “People in New York like girls who are fresh, first because they are new, and second because they’re vulnerable. You know when you meet someone younger than you? They’re so doe-eyed and stupid, and you’re just itching to burst their bubble?” Edith agreed and then said, “It’s actually quite sick.” I said, “Do people think life begins the moment you step off whatever plane or train brought you here? Like nothing of consequence ever happened before that? That’s ridiculous.” I suppose that means in the scheme of things, Gala and I are six weeks old. How promising. Gala took me into her arms and put her head on my shoulder. “We’re the friendliest girls in New York.”
Just then, Alice Langley appeared across the room and spotted me. Her face immediately flushed, and she stormed over, wagging a finger in my face. By the time she reached me she was purple. “How dare you!” she said. I looked at Gala and laughed, in a taken aback kind of way. There’s an immediate shock that comes when you realize a Scene is about to be made and there’s nothing you can do to prevent it. Alice continued, “I know what you said to Tuzy.” I couldn’t place what she was talking about. “You’re going to have to clarify.” Edith and Lilou looked askance at Alice. Her voice started to rise. “You were at his house when I was calling that night.” I took a sip of my drink. That night felt like a million years ago, and it frankly seemed a little odd to be bringing it up weeks afterwards. Alice said I had told Tuzy the only reason she was calling was so that he could pay for her drinks. Gala said pfft and laughed. Shouldn’t Alice’s anger have subsided by now? Was it rolling around in her mind because she had nothing better to do? I told her it was a joke made in passing. She was calling non-stop, and “I wasn’t accusing you of anything, at least not seriously.” That didn’t satisfy her at all. She said, “You’re ruining your reputation more than you are mine.” Gala snorted at this and said, “What’s a reputation?” Alice said, “You’re right. You’re both nobodies!”
People have the funniest ideas. You can’t just enter a hierarchy; you have to demolish it. I said to Alice, “I don’t understand why you’re so mad. If anyone said that about me, I’d say, ‘You know what, that’s probably true.’” Gala found all of this hilarious because people are usually mad at her. The difference between me and Alice is that she doesn’t have to get people to take her out. She simply lives in a different economy than I.
Alice exemplifies the problem of taking yourself so seriously that you lose your sense of humour. I gave her the best advice probably anyone’s ever given her: “Why don’t you just laugh it off, have a giggle?” Unfortunately, that activated her anger even more. “You need to grow up and have some respect for yourself.” I hate lines like that. They’ve been abused so much they’ve lost their meaning. When you really think about it, they’re designed to cause the most hurt with the least effort. You Should Have Some Respect for Yourself.
I wonder what I’ve done in life to be subjected to Alice Langley (bankrolled by her mother) telling me to grow up. What hypocrisy. Getting angry doesn’t suit me, but if Alice was hell-bent on putting me in my place, I was going to return the favour. “Don’t you realize,” I began to circle in on her, “your entire personality is made up of other people’s suggestions. You’re probably only mad at me because someone said you should be. You have never had your own ideas!” I said my heart bled for her. “You’ll never know how to navigate the world, or yourself, because you’ve always been taken care of.” I told her the way she fed on affirmation was boring and said, “You’ll never get interesting that way. Don’t kid yourself.” If you can’t contribute something to the room, much less the world, why come in the first place? I walked away like nothing happened because to get the last word in any argument is wise.
My body heaved with residue from the exchange. I felt my blood still surging around, making my cheeks warm. The girls tried to recover the previous atmosphere with light conversation. I quietly sipped at my champagne, observing everyone. Sometimes after a fight all you want to do is disappear into the walls. Edith, with her British sensibility, thought it coarse for Alice to have made such a display and called it “distinctly unrefined.” Lilou said, “One nice thing I’ll say about her: at least she knows when to make an exit.” Gala said, “She’s lucky there were no bottled beers here.” I suppose Gala’s violent loyalty is a comfort at times. I told them I finally had an enemy, and Gala chastised me for being sensational. I said, “She has totally opposing ideals. Isn’t that what makes a villain?” Gala laughed and said, “Couldn’t you have picked someone a little less mild?” Edith watched me down another drink and said, “You’ve lost all the British class you accumulated in three years after being in America for a month. I absolutely love it.” The last thing I’ll say on the matter: I can’t imagine Alice existing alone in her home. She must dissolve when she’s not in public.
My portrait was towards the back of the gallery. Lilou and Edith were posing for photos somewhere while Gala and I tried to get a glimpse of the painting. Gala said, “You look a little wanton.” I probably should because Anabel had called the piece The Earnest Adventuress. The painting depicted me seated with the velvet dress loosely hanging off the chair as though I was in the final stages of undress. Gala contemplated the portrait with a certain gravitas. “If you asked me four years ago whether I’d be scared of getting on your bad side, I would’ve said of course not, but now I’m not so sure.”
I hadn’t had the chance to say hi to Anabel yet, but I overheard her explaining the work to an art critic. “Don’t you know, a woman’s first taste of power is through sex. That’s why people want to strip her from her own body. The possibilities are too frightening.” Anabel caught my eye and waved me over to her. She introduced Gala and me to the critic: “Isn’t it rare to find two people who like art without the intention of ever making it? I’m really wowed by people without artistic inclinations, aren’t you?” The critic peered over his glasses to take a good look at us. “How do you know they’re not just gathering material?”