Mary Gaitskill - Veronica

I turn off the main street and enter a residential zone. Wel^S tended houses sit in neat yards with trees. Yellow-and-white recy- J cling buckets stand brightly curbside. Juice and jam jars for the kids, wine and fancy water botdes for the adults. My friend Joannii lives here. She and her husband, Drew, share a house with four guys in their twenties. Joanne was a teenager in San Francisco at the same time I was, but I only met her when I moved to Marin thirteen years ago. We met in a support group I used to go to for people with hepatitis C. She and Drew have hepatitis and AIDS. Its shitty, but the drugs are a lot better now and the virus is weaker.

In Paris, things happened fast. Two weeks after my first job, I met the head of Celeste. His name was Alain Black; he was a South African with a French mother. He was the man I had glimpsed on my first day there. He was lean and pale, nearly hairless. His eyes had thick, heavy lids. They were green, gold, and hazel, so mixed that they gave an impression of something bright swarm-jng through his irises. Mostly, the swarming was just emotions and thoughts happening quickly. But there was also something else, moving too fast for you to see what it was. He asked if I had a boyfriend yet. When I said, Rene, he laughed and said, Oh, Rene! Then he said I needed a haircut. Galled a hairdresser, told him what to do, and sent me to the salon in a taxi. The salon was full of wrinkled women staring fixedly at models in magazines. When I walked in, they frowned and glared. But the girl at the desk smiled and led me through rows of gleaming dryers, each with a woman under it, dreaming angrily in the heat. The hairdresser didnt even need to talk to me. He talked to someone else while I stared at myself in the mirror. When it was done, I made the taxi take me back to the agency. It was closed, but the doorman with mad eyes knew to let me in. He knew where I was going and he knew who else would be there. Alain looked up and smiled. Do you like it? I asked. He stood and said of course he liked itj it had been his idea. Then he jumped on me.

I say jumped because he was quick, but he wasnt rough. He was strong and excessive, like certain sweet tastes like grocery pie. But he was also precise. It was so good that when it was over, I felt torn open. Being torn open felt like love to me; I thought it must have felt the same to him. I knew he had a girlfriend and that he lived with her. But I was still shocked when he kissed me and sent me home. At home, I wrapped myself in a blanket and looked out the window at the darkening mass of slanted roofs. Rene came by. I wouldnt see him. Darkness gradually filled the room. The phone rang; it was my motherher tiny voice curled up in a tiny wire surrounded by darkness. I talked to her through clenched teeth. I told her she was a housewife who didnt understand anything about the real world. She told me I didnt know what I was talking about, but I could hear she was hurt. After I hung up, I could feel it, too. Her hurt was soft and dark and it had arms to hold me as if I were an infant. I sank into her soft dark arms, into a story of a wicked little girl who stepped on a loaf and fell into a world of demons and deformed creatures. She is covered with snakes and slime and surrounded by the hate of every creature trapped with her. She is starving, but she cant eat the bread still stuck to her feet. She is so hungry, she feels hoUj|l like shes been feeding on herself. In the world above, her mother cries for her. Her tears splash scalding hot on her daughter5! face. Even though they are tears cried for love, they do not bring healing; they burn and make the pain worse. My mothers tears scalded me and I hated her for it.

My roommate came home and turned on the light, and bang!there was no mother and no demons. She clacked* across the floor in her high heels, chatting and wiping her lipstick off. It was 4:00 in the morning, but when she saw how unhappy I was, she took out her tarot cards and told my fortune until it came out the way I wanted it. (Luxury. A feast. A kind, loyal woman. Transformation. Home of the true heart.) The sun rose; the enamel rooftops turned hot violet. I had just lain down on the couch to sleep when Alain called and told me I was going to be moving into an apartment on rue du Temple. The rent would be taken care of. Everything would be taken care of.

We met for champagne and omelettes in a sunny bistro with bright-colored cars honking outside. He talked about the Rolling Stones and his six-year-old daughter, after whom he had named the agency Celeste. He asked if I wanted children. I said, No. He grabbed my nose between two knuckles and squeezed it. The omelettes came heaped on white plates with blanched asparagus. He hadnt kissed me yet. He spread his slim legs and tucked a cloth napkin into his shirt with an air of appetite. I wanted badly to touch him. Inside its daintiness, the asparagus was acrid and deep. He said, The first thing we need to do is get you a Swiss bank account. All the smart girls have one. First, you dont have to pay taxes that way. Then they

invest it for you. Your money will double, triple. You should see! I loved him and he obviously loved me. Love like in the James Bond movies, where the beautiful sexy girl loves James but tries to kill him anyway. We would love each other for a while and then part. Years later, I would ride down the street in a fancy car. I d see Alain and hed see me. Id smile on my way past. Sexy spy music rubbed my ear like a tongue; it rubbed my crotch, too. We finished quickly and went to my new apartment.

My new apartment had high ceilings and polished wooden floors. I entered it like Freddie leaping naked into turds. There was a sunken marble tub and a chandelier and a glass case of obscene figurines. There was a black velvet couch with a carved ivory back. I sat on it, smiling and trembling Spy music blared. He knelt and took my hips in both hands. Brightness poured through his eyes in hot little pieces. I followed with my own eyes, thinking if I could stop one little piece and see what it was, I would find a whole world. But he never let one stop. He just showed glimpses. He knew that I saw thisnot with my mind, but with my senses. I couldnt answer him because I was not his equal. But I could see it and he appreciated that. For just a moment, I saw something in his eye stop. It was like a window opening into space. It was dark and cold. Burning meteors fell in a bright, endless shower. He said, Are you big shit? Or just cute litde shit? His voice was wondering and tender. The window closed. Big or little?

When we got to know each other better, we played like dogs, rolling and growling, pretending to bite. Wed make faces and chase each other around naked. If somebody knocked over a lamp or a pricey vase, it was okay. Hed caper and sing dirty French songs. I taught him The worms go in, the worms go out, the worms play pinochle on your snout. He liked that a lot. He sang it, panted it while we were doing the elephant

fuckhim holding my legs up from behind and me walking on my hands.

But when that was over, hed be on the phpne, pacing around naked, talking business and licking coke off his fingers Someone would call and offer me a job and Alain would say, No, not available. I would say, I am too available! He would say, Shut up and wait! Theyd call back and offer twice as much money. Hed be happy and then hed start calling around to check and see what people were saying about him. If anyone had said anything bad, hed call around again and start plotting to get them back. Blood will pour from his anus! hed say. Id sit curled up in my white silk robe with the black dragons on it, smoking.

In the office, we had to pretend we werent lovers. That was okay. I was a secret agent. I was an a-s-s-h-o-l-e. I saw his girlfriend with him at nightclubs, because we all went out togetherI sat at their table with many other girls. She was stunning in magazines, but in person I thought she looked old. She had a long nose and a long tooth, and when she crossed her legs, her foot stuck out at a funny angle. But she was clever, I could see. She might have known about me. Shed run her eye over the table of girls and sometimes it would linger on me. Shed lean into him, sardonic and whispering. Hed laugh and look away, his eyes always moving and glittering.