The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty (5 page)

Lily met Strad—a name he’d given himself in honor of his favorite violin-maker, Stradivarius—three years ago at the musical instruments store where they both worked when she was in her second year of graduate studies at the Manhattan School of Music. She developed a crush immediately. Strad Ellison did not reciprocate her interest—was perhaps not even aware of it. He had a very active dating life. He said he had high standards and that he was very idealistic and romantic and was looking for a great love. The reality is that Strad is a superficial guy, only interested in dating beautiful women.

And yet Lily had not aimed too high. Strad was not “out of her league,” as the expression goes—certainly not mentally, and not even physically, that much. He wasn’t particularly good-looking, but in Lily’s eyes he had enormous charm. I met him a few times at the store where they worked and noticed he did manage to be dashing, occasionally, but never for more than five minutes at a time.

One day, Lily invited Strad to watch a studio recital in which she was going to play two of her compositions on the piano. She was hoping to impress him.

But when they went for coffee after the recital, he merely told her politely she’d been good. On the other hand, he raved about Derek Pearce, one of the other composers who’d performed. He particularly praised one of Derek’s pieces, saying, “That’s the kind of music that is more than just beautiful. It beautifies the world around it. You want it never to end.”

Lily said, “At home I have recordings of some of his other compositions, in case you want to come over and hear them.”

“Why not?” Strad said, and they left the coffee shop and went to her apartment.

Strad lay on her floor. It was better for his back than sitting on the couch, he said. She put on a recording of Derek’s music.

“Why don’t you turn out the lights and light some candles? I love listening to music in the dark,” he said.

Understandably, Lily was hopeful.

Strad asked if he could smoke. Even though Lily hates smoke, she said okay and gave him a plate as an ashtray.

She lay next to him, resting on her elbow, and feasted her eyes on his profile which was glowing dimly in the candlelight.

The lines of his face mesmerized her. They had character, were so lived in. His features were weathered yet humorous, connected by tremendous laugh lines, and encircled by silly curly hair. He had an ugly kind of beauty or beautiful kind of ugliness which was why, in her secret heart, she hoped that her own ugliness could appeal to him the same way his appealed to her. Unfortunately, his particular brand of ugliness appealed to a lot of women, she noticed.

His physical appearance was not what she had first fallen in love with. She’d first fallen in love with everything else about him. His considerate nature. His love of his dog. His way of laughing at things she said when she had no idea why.

That night, as Strad was lying on the floor of her apartment, listening to Derek’s music, he began commenting, “He’s good. Not as good as he was tonight—he’s gotten better. Music like his, music that has the power to make things around it beautiful—that’s great music. Music that improves people’s perception of reality. That’s music’s highest power, most noble ability. Making the world more appealing.”

Strad took a drag on his cigarette and after blowing the smoke toward the ceiling he said something that changed Lily’s life. He said, “I would fall in love with—and marry—any woman who could create music like that. If Derek was a chick, I’d ask her out.” He flicked his ashes onto the plate.

And then he talked of all the various women he had recently dated, was presently dating, and was thinking of dating.

Lily made a decision right then in the dark: to attempt the impossible. She knew she couldn’t win Strad with her looks. Her strength lay in her talent. She would win him through her music. She would impress him so deeply that he would have no choice but to fall in love with her. She would try to create music that beautified the world.

Lily quit her job the next day, wanting to set to work immediately on her project. But beautifying the world with her music was not an easy task. It took her eight months of the most intense dedication. It required an extraordinary amount of perseverance.

After many failed attempts, she decided that perhaps she was aiming too high. So she tried beautifying merely her neighborhood instead of the world.

But she still couldn’t manage it.

She scaled down, focusing on her street.

But still, she didn’t pull it off.

So she went to the supermarket and picked out a single item at random: a banana. She brought it home, put it on her piano, and stared at it for a while, rotating it, trying to see the unique beauty in the banana. She then imagined having a craving for it. And slowly, slowly, a melody came to her.

She was excited. She found other objects in her apartment, spread them out on her piano, and studied them while trying to compose flattering pieces for them.

She called us, told us she’d succeeded and wanted to test her music on us. We gathered at my apartment.

“The piece of music I’m going to test is the one I composed for junk mail,” she told us. “But before I begin, I want to make sure you all dislike junk mail.”

We confirmed we not only disliked it, but hated it.

She went to my week-old pile of mail near the front door, pulled out all the junk mail, and plopped it on the ottoman cube in front of us.

“You haven’t changed your minds yet, right? You still hate junk mail?”

“Right!” we all exclaimed.

“As I play the piece, pay close attention to your feelings and let me know if you detect any change in your perception of the junk mail. Let me know if you start finding it more beautiful and desirable.”

She sat at the piano and played her junk mail melody while we gazed at the pile of junk mail.

When Lily was done playing her piece, Penelope said, “I’m sorry, Lily, but this was not a valid test.”

“Why not?” Lily asked, rising from her piano bench.

“Did you take a look at this junk mail before you set it down? It’s not normal junk mail!” Penelope said, kneeling at the foot of the ottoman cube and looking through the envelopes and leaflets. “In fact, technically, I don’t think this is junk mail at all. I mean, look at it; it must have cost a fortune to print. The quality, the colors, the sheen, are all exceptional.”

“She’s right,” Jack said, pulling the ottoman cube closer to him. “And not just the colors, but the words. There’s humor!”

“And there’s irony, too,” I said, skimming some of the text. “And depth. And double meanings.”

“And cliff-hangers!” Georgia exclaimed, dropping to her knees next to Penelope and zeroing in on a leaflet of junk mail. “It’s actually gripping! Listen to the suspense in this line: ‘Who dry cleans better than us?’ They don’t answer the question! They just leave it hanging like that, torturing us. It’s a great hook and extremely thought-provoking.”

Lily just watched us.

Since the music had ceased a minute ago, its effect was now wearing off. Our interest in the junk mail was starting to fade, but not before we reiterated that this had not been a good test because the pile of junk mail was better than average.

Lily sat at her piano and played the same piece over again, which caused us to fight over who would get to keep the junk mail, even though it was mine. We ended up Xeroxing it on the machine in my living room closet, so that everyone could get a copy, and I kept the originals. When I mentioned that I might bind mine, not only did they not think it weird, they decided they might bind theirs as well. That is, until Lily stopped playing, and the pile gradually appeared for what it was: junk.

This was five months ago. Things progressed quickly after that. Lily’s career took off and she now gets highly paid by stores like Barnes & Noble, Tiffany, Bloomingdale’s, Crate & Barrel, and others, to compose music that will beautify their merchandise. Her music is played while customers shop, and soon these customers get an urge to buy more books, more toothpaste, more jewelry, or more of whatever Lily was assigned to enhance musically. Recently Barnes & Noble told her, off the record, that its sales had almost doubled since it started playing her book music.

The critics have been impressive in their ability to look past her music’s commercial use (one pundit even called it “crass usage”), appreciating its genius. The reviews have been glowing.

Lily wanted Strad to find out about her achievement on his own, without her having to brag about it. Considering how many articles have been written on her in the last few months, it was a reasonable hope. She assumed he would contact her as soon as he heard she had accomplished what he said should be the ultimate goal of music: to beautify the world.

And yet she heard nothing from him.

“He probably doesn’t read, the idiot,” Georgia said.

“I don’t know about that,” Lily replied. “As I’ve already told you, when I gave him one of your novels, he not only read it and loved it, he immediately bought your other four books and read and loved those too. It’s funny you’re so down on him. He’s a huge fan of yours. He said one of his greatest joys in life would be to meet you.”

“Well, then, it will be one of my greatest joys never to meet him,” she said simply, and smiled.

Eventually, Lily sent Strad an invitation to last night’s concert, thinking that if he didn’t know about her success yet, he would now. The beautiful printed invite included a bio, which described the particular musical powers she’d recently developed. (The invitation also reassured any nervous guests that none of her “influential” music would be played that evening, and it wasn’t.)

During our dinner after the concert, Lily told us, “I’m worried I didn’t exactly achieve what Strad was talking about. He spoke of music that beautifies the world, not music that beautifies consumer products.”

“Consumer products are part of the world,” was Georgia’s response.

Lily shook her head. “Strad probably doesn’t see it that way. He’s an idealist.”

“You’ve achieved so much more than what he was talking about. You’ve achieved actual magic.”

“Magic is not necessarily more important than poetry. I think he was talking about poetry.”

Penelope finally stepped in with, “Lily, you’ve achieved something extraordinary, that’s never been done before. If Strad hasn’t contacted you, it’s because he doesn’t know about it yet, not because he’s not impressed. He probably didn’t bother reading your bio in the invite, nor did he see any of the articles about your music.”

We all hoped Penelope was right and we were disappointed today when the arrival of this postcard proved her wrong. Lily’s not getting what she wants out of her inspired musical accomplishments, not a speck of the affection she craves. In his message, Strad doesn’t suggest they see each other. There is no: “Stop by the store and say hi one of these days. I’ll give you a good price on a flute.
”

“Are you all right, Barb?” Jack asks me.

I’m suddenly aware of the grim expression on my face. “He’s not worthy of you,” I tell Lily. “Do you think you can forget about him now?”

“No,” she replies. “Actually, I’m going to call him tomorrow and suggest we have coffee.”

Soft sounds of concern and disapproval escape us.

She explains, “If I’ve failed to create the kind of music he was talking about—and I guess I have, judging from his postcard—I want to know how I can do better.”

Doing better is not the issue. Looking better is. That’s what she doesn’t understand. At least that’s my bleak take. I would love to be wrong.

As we’re chatting, we’re oblivious to the waitress who is refilling Penelope’s water glass. Before the water reaches the top, the glass falls apart and the water spills all over the table.

“Oh! Shit! I’m sorry!” Penelope exclaims, as the water slides onto her lap.

“What on earth?” the waitress says, staring at the broken pieces of glass.

“The glass was broken and I reassembled it, stupidly. I’m sorry,” Penelope says, mopping up the water with her napkin.

“You reassembled it? Why?”

“To see if it could look intact.”

“It’s very dangerous,” the waitress says.

“I know. I’m so sorry, I forgot about it, I didn’t intend to leave it that way.”

We call it a night.

I walk home. Adam the doorman greets me with: “I hope your evening was as dreadful as you are.”

“Not quite.”

“Wait a minute,” he says, closing his eyes and pressing his thumb and forefinger against his forehead. “I’m trying to imagine you with a personality.” Opening his eyes and shaking his head slowly in bewilderment, he says, “No luck. If I throw a stick, will you go away?”

I say goodnight and oblige.

Upstairs, I receive a call from my mom saying that she researched support groups for fat people and found Overeaters Anonymous, Food Addicts Anonymous, and Eating Disorders Anonymous.

“The problem is,” I tell her, “I don’t overeat, I’m not addicted to food, and I don’t have an eating disorder of any kind.”

“Listen, I’m not an idiot. I can see there’s a slight discrepancy. But I couldn’t find a group called Fat People’s Support Group, otherwise I’d say go to that. You’ve got to make do with what’s out there, sweetie.”