Mrs. March observed the women. Her attention was particularly drawn to one in her mid- to late twenties, easily making her the youngest guest at the party. Mrs. March took in her glossy golden mane, her wine-colored dress—stunning in its simplicity and exquisitely draped over her thin frame. Mrs. March shrank inside, feeling gauche and exposed; she looked like she was trying too hard, “mutton dressed as lamb” as her mother would say. And her hair, so limp and so plain she didn’t even know what color it was. She had been sweating and her curls were beginning to wilt, thin wet tendrils falling flat across her forehead.

The waiters, bearing trays of smoked salmon canapés and onion and brie tartlets, weaved among the guests, as the stereo played a dreamy piece sung by Anna Maria Alberghetti. Mrs. March fixed her gaze once more on the woman, who was conversing with a pair of awed men, and, seeing her casually tuck a loose strand of golden hair behind her ear, Mrs. March instinctively mirrored the gesture. Her fingers brushed against her burned earlobe, angering her raw, peeling skin. Wincing softly through clenched teeth, she approached the group furtively, as if she had committed a crime. “Everything all right over here?” she asked them, wringing her hands. They turned their heads to look at her. The woman was smoking a fancy cigarette, thin and long and ivory, like her neck. The bracelets on her bony wrist jangled when she brought the cigarette to her lips.

“Mrs. March, lovely to see you,” said one of the men, whom Mrs. March remembered dimly as George’s private banker. She couldn’t recall his name, but she did know that he and George occasionally played tennis together.

“I hope you’re having a good time,” Mrs. March said, more to the young woman.

“Good turnout,” said the private banker.

“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. March. “We have quite the crowd, I barely know anyone.” The young woman was looking elsewhere, tilting her head back as she smoked, as if drinking from a ridiculously long champagne flute.

“Well, I can start by introducing you to Tom here,” said the banker, “and to Ms. Gabriella Lynne, whom I’m sure you recognize from last month’s Artforum.”

Mrs. March beamed a touch too aggressively at the gazelle-like Ms. Lynne, who—exhaling a plume of smoke—said nothing.

“Ms. Lynne happens to be the most sought-after book jacket designer of the moment,” Tom piped up.

Gabriella shook her head, blowing out another wreath of smoke, her exhalation morphing into a quiet laugh. “I fear these two are impressed by just about anything,” she said to Mrs. March, at which Mrs. March giggled, happy to be included in this aside. “This is an absolutely wonderful party, by the way, thank you so much for inviting me,” Gabriella added in a listless monotone. Her accent, seductive and untraceable, had been acquired, Mrs. March would later learn, through an itinerant European childhood.

“Oh, of course, it’s my pleasure,” replied Mrs. March. “And any friend of George’s is a friend of mine. Have you designed any of his books?”

“Oh, I wish.” Gabriella twisted her cigarette into the remains of her caviar and crème fraîche blini, which a waiter promptly removed. Mrs. March couldn’t decide whether to feel offended at Gabriella’s behavior. The blini, unfinished, was destined for the trash anyway, but desecrating it in such a manner could be conceived as an insult to her hospitality. A sudden desire to cry invaded her, and the mere possibility of this terrified her.

“Actually, I had been asked to come up with the cover for his new novel,” Gabriella continued, “but sadly I had another commitment. Everything worked out, though—the designer they used instead chose that iconic painting. It’s just so perfect, and it suits the spirit of the novel more than anything I could have come up with.”

Mrs. March nodded blankly, wondering what Gabriella’s body looked like underneath her thin satin dress: what color her nipples were, whether she had any freckles or moles—perhaps one Gabriella considered unsightly but which all men agreed was impossibly sexy.

“I assume you read the book?” Gabriella asked, looking straight into her eyes and cocking her head to one side, her lips parted slightly in a show of playful curiosity.

“Oh, I, of course, I read all of George’s books,” Mrs. March said, her voice wavering. Before the conversation could veer into the dreaded direction of the book’s main character, another man—recently arrived, by the looks of it, as he was still wearing his coat, raindrops glistening on the shoulders—swooped in to greet Gabriella with a kiss on both cheeks. Mrs. March felt Gabriella’s attention yanked from her almost physically, wrenched from her body like a still-beating organ. She glanced down at the coffee table. In the ashtray lay three white cigarette butts stained with lipstick. Next to it sat Gabriella’s silver cigarette case, engraved with her initials. Pushed by an unfamiliar impulse, Mrs. March snatched the case and slipped it into her bra, where it lodged uncomfortably against her left breast.

She walked away unnoticed, slightly dizzy from the rush of her misdeed but making an effort to smile—partly to avoid suspicion, but mostly to mask her own guilt over what she had just done. Unfortunately, or perhaps thankfully, she was at that moment accosted by George’s agent.

“How are you, darling, the party is simply spectacular,” Zelda said, all in one breath, then inhaled sharply. A committed chain smoker, Zelda struggled to get out long phrases; her lungs seemed to collapse every time she tried. Her voice was growing huskier by the second, and Mrs. March imagined by the end of the night her statements might be reduced to mere whistles.

“Thank you, Zelda.” Her eyes fell on Zelda’s teeth, stained with russet lipstick and yellowed by decades of nicotine. “Do try the foie gras,” she added as a waiter approached bearing a log surrounded by caramelized onion and strawberry compote. “It’s from a little farm on the outskirts of Paris. My sister gave it to us. Her husband made it himself. On that very farm while on holiday.”

“How spectacularly rustic!” Zelda said, stretching out her arms and looking up at the ceiling dramatically.

“Isn’t that made by brutally force-feeding the goose?”

Mrs. March turned toward this new voice, which belonged to the long, emaciated figure of Edgar, George’s editor. His hands behind his back, his head bowed, he was always curved, like a question mark.

“Surely not!” protested Zelda, although her face expressed no such disbelief as she turned to Mrs. March, her body shaking with a laughter her lungs weren’t strong enough to produce.

“It’s a process called gavage,” Edgar said, in an irritating French overpronunciation, his little mouth filled with saliva, “which is the term for force-feeding the animal with a tube to the stomach.”

“Ooh!” Zelda said, pulling a face but still laughing, her painful titter now intermittently audible, like the whine of a dog.

“That’s why the liver has that distinctive flavor,” said Edgar.

As if on cue, the waiter reappeared with the foie gras, which was sweating viscous rivers of yellow grease.

Edgar pulled up his cuffs, took the small blunt knife next to the foie gras, cut himself a piece as the waiter held the trembling tray, and lathered a piece of toast. His eyes fixed intently on Mrs. March, a small smirk playing on his lips as he popped the toast into his mouth. She returned his gaze, fixating on his thick, clear-colored eyeglasses and thin, milky, wispy hair, like a baby’s. The color of his skin was a nauseating white tinged with pink—the pink of his knuckles, of his raised moles, of the spider veins streaking his nose.

The sound of a spoon clinking repeatedly against a glass interrupted her momentary odium, and she and Edgar both turned away from each other, toward the source of the noise. It was George, God bless him, standing awkwardly in front of the fireplace, thanking everybody for coming. Zelda had sidled up to him at some point, without Mrs. March and Edgar even realizing she had left.

“I want to thank everybody here,” George began, “because if you’re here, then it means you had something—big or small—to do with this book. Be it editing, promoting, dealing with my writerly whims these past few months, or simply inspiring this latest story.” His eyes fell on Mrs. March, whose buttocks immediately clenched.

Zelda interrupted to say something about how the industry’s winter fiction lists had looked especially crowded, and what a feat it was that George’s book had yet to meet its match.

“Well, the fans are loyal—” George said, looking down as he clutched the stem of his champagne glass.

“Nonsense, nonsense, don’t be modest,” interrupted Zelda again as she turned to the partygoers: “He’s being modest!” She laughed, and it wheezed out in a barely audible grate.

Mrs. March brought her fingers to her burned earlobe, stroking the crackling scab with her thumb. She was reminded, fleetingly, of a pork rind, and without realizing she was doing it, licked her thumb.

“The truth is,” Zelda continued, “this is a game-changing book, one that appeals not only to his fans, but to everyone, no, hold on”—she wagged a finger at George, who had begun to protest—“and, I’m compelled to say, is my favorite book of the past decade! And I hate to read!”

Raucous laughter erupted. Mrs. March eyed the slightly crooked vase on the mantelpiece behind Zelda, forgetting to join in.

“So without further ado, let’s raise a glass—to the charming, talented George! Edgar?”

Mrs. March’s gaze turned to Edgar as Zelda pulled him out of the crowd. He raised a hand in a modest gesture as the audience cheered, urging him to speak. “Well … you know what?” he said, adjusting his dotted silk scarf. “Let’s not toast to this book, because—let’s be honest—it doesn’t need it. Let’s toast instead to George’s next book, because that one is screwed.”

“Hear, hear!” As people searched for others to clink glasses together, some turned toward Mrs. March, whose face stretched into an exaggerated, almost maniacal smile, her eyes wide and gleaming—before she thrust her champagne glass toward her mouth and the now-warm, bubbly liquid burned its way down her throat.