Tara Isabella Burton - Social Creature

THE FIRST PARTY LAVINIA TAKES LOUISE TO, she makes Louise wear one of her dresses.

I found it on the street, Lavinia says. Its from the twenties.

Maybe it is.

Someone just left it there. Can you believe it?

Louise cant.

They probably just thought it was trash. She puckers her lips. She puts on lipstick. And that is the problem with people. Nobody understands what things mean.

Lavinia fiddles with Louises collar. Lavinia ties the sash around Louises waist.

Anyway, the second I saw itChrist! I wanted tooh, I just wanted to genuflect, you know? Kiss the grounddo Catholics kiss the ground, or is that just sailors? Anyway, I wanted to put my mouth right there on the sidewalk on somebodys chewed gum and say, like, thank you, God, for making the world make sense today.

Lavinia puts powder on Louises cheeks. Lavinia adds rouge. Lavinia keeps talking.

Likeits all so fucking perfect, right? Likesomebodys grandmother or whoever, dies in some random brownstone in the East Village nobodys even visited in twenty years and they dump all her shit out into the street and then at sunsethere I am walking across East Ninth Street and I find it. This old woman and I who have never met have these two beautiful, poetic, nights ninety years apart, wearing the exact same dressoh, Louise, cant you just smell it?

Lavinia shoves the lace in Louises face.

You could fall in love, says Lavinia, wearing a dress like that.

Louise inhales.

So you know what I did?

Lavinia gives Louise a beauty mark with her eyebrow pencil.

I stripped down to my underwearno, thats a lie; I took my bra off, too. I took off everything and I put on the dress and I left my other one in the street and I walked all night, wearing it, all the way back to the Upper East Side.

Lavinia does Louises buttons.

Now Lavinia is laughing. Stick with me long enough, she says, and I promisethings will just happen to you. Like they happen to me.

Lavinia does Louises hair. At first she tries to do it, like shes done her own: savagely and exuberantly tendriled. But Louises hair is too flat, and too straight, and so instead Lavinia braids it into a tight, neat bun.

Lavinia puts her hands on Louises cheeks. She kisses her on the forehead. She roars.

God, says Lavinia. You look so beautiful. I cant stand it. I want to kill you. Lets take a picture.

She takes out her phone. She makes it a mirror.

Lets stand against the peacock feathers, Lavinia says. Louise does.

Pose.

Louise doesnt know how.

Oh, please. Lavinia waves the phone. Everybody knows how to pose. Just, you know: Arch your back a little. Tilt your head. Pretend youre a silent-film star. There. Thereno, no, chin down. There.

Lavinia moves Louises chin. She takes their photo.

The last ones good, Lavinia says. We look good. Im posting it. She turns the phone to Louise. Which filter do you like?

Louise doesnt recognize herself.

Her hair is sleek. Her lips are dark. Her cheekbones are high. Shes wearing a flapper dress and she has cats eyes and fake lashes and she looks like shes not even from this century. She looks like shes not even real.

Lets go with Mayfair. It makes your cheekbones look shiny. Christlook at you! Look. At. You. Youre beautiful.

Lavinia has captioned the photo: alike in indignity .

Louise thinks this is very witty.

Louise thinks: I am not myself.

Thank God, Louise thinks. Thank God.

They cab it to Chelsea. Lavinia pays.

Its New Years Eve. Louise has known Lavinia for ten days. They have been the best ten days of her life.

Days dont go like this for Louise.

Louises days go like this:

She wakes up. She wishes she hasnt.

Chances are: Louise hasnt slept much. She works as a barista at this coffee shop that turns into a wine bar at night, and also writes for this e-commerce site called GlaZam that sells knockoff handbags, and is also an SAT tutor. She sets an alarm for at least three hours before she has to be anywhere, because she lives deep in Sunset Park, a twenty-minute walk from the R, in the same illegal and roach-infested sublet shes been in for almost eight years, and half the time the train breaks down. When they call her, once every couple of months, Louises parents invariably ask her why shes so stubborn about moving back to New Hampshire, say, where that nice Virgil Bryce is a manager at the local bookstore now, and he wont stop asking for her new number. Louise invariably hangs up.

She weighs herself. Louise weighs one hundred fourteen and a half pounds on a period day. She puts on her makeup very carefully. She draws on her brows. She checks her roots. She checks her bank balance (sixty-four dollars, thirty-three cents). She covers up the flaws in her skin.

She looks in the mirror.

Today, she saysout loud (a therapist she had once told her that its always better to say these things out loud)is the first day of the rest of your life.

She makes herself smile. Her therapist told her to do that, too.

Louise walks the twenty minutes to the subway. She ignores the catcaller who asks her, every morning, how her pussy smells, even though hes probably the only person in the world she interacts with regularly. She spends the ride into Manhattan staring at her reflection in the darkened subway windows. Back when Louise was sure she was going to be a go-down-in-history Great Writer she used to take a notebook and use the commute to write stories, but now she is too tired and also she probably will never be a writer; so she reads trashy Misandry! articles on her phone and sometimes watches people (Louise enjoys watching people; she finds it calming; when you spend a lot of time focusing on the things wrong with other people you worry less about everything wrong with you).