The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty (7 page)

These creative evenings of ours started four years ago when Georgia and I decided to throw a party as a way of meeting each other’s friends. Lily and Gabriel were among the friends I brought. Penelope and Jack were among the friends she brought. Georgia had met them a couple of years earlier when she interviewed them for a magazine article she was writing about Penelope’s kidnapping and her deliverance from the coffin by Jack, who was the cop who had rescued her.

The party Georgia and I threw was successful. People stayed late. But the six of us stayed the latest. We were engrossed in conversation. We talked about our lives and ambitions. We confided in each other. Most of us were in the creative fields and we lamented the loneliness of the artist’s life. Georgia said she found the isolation so unbearable that she often went to coffee shops to write. She liked the noise and bustle. It helped her concentrate. But she said it had gotten more difficult each year as she’d grown to dislike the feeling of anyone looking at her screen or reading over her shoulder. As she was telling us this, she suddenly had an idea: she suggested we try getting together to work on our separate arts in one another’s company.

It probably wouldn’t have worked for most people. For some reason, though, for us it did. Everyone being industrious was inspiring. We felt like family—which for some of us was very appealing, our real families leaving much to be desired. Georgia’s embarrassment over the name made the rest of us even more eager to embrace it facetiously. Over time, of course, it stuck.

Our Nights of Creation take place once or twice a week in my large living/dining room. Lily plays and perfects her compositions at a piano she keeps at my apartment for this purpose. A few feet away, at one end of my dining table, Penelope makes hideous little ceramic sculptures. At the other end of that same table, I design and construct my masks and costumes. Sitting between us, at the long side of the table, Georgia types her novel on her laptop (or at least she did, before she lost it). Gabriel would cook up delectable creations in my kitchen and bring them quietly to each of us while we toiled.

Jack doesn’t do anything creative. If he’s not lounging on the couch, reading psychology magazines, he’s lifting weights, enjoying himself watching us work. Some of the injuries he sustained while freeing Penelope from the coffin were permanent and serious enough to prevent him from ever returning to the police force. Even though he’s an invalid, he’s more athletic and stronger than any of us. He walks with a limp and can’t run, but there are plenty of things he can still do that we can’t, such as walk on his hands and do back handsprings (as long as he lands on his good leg). Financially, he’s okay, thanks to a huge anonymous gift of money he received after the rescue—perhaps from Penelope’s father, no one knows. He makes extra with a part-time job at a senior center, which leaves him with plenty of free time—much of which he spends with us.

Even though it was wonderful working to the scent of Gabriel’s culinary inventions and our evenings have never been the same since he died, we still enjoy working in one another’s company. We cherish that sense of camaraderie and companionship. Everyone’s art mixes with and affects everyone else’s.

Tonight, as usual, Lily, Georgia, Penelope, Jack, and I busy ourselves with various activities. I’m working on a pair of fantasy pants for a play. Georgia is mourning the loss of her novel by slowly flipping through the pages of her last novel. Penelope, hammer in hand, is finding new and delicate ways to break pots and balance their pieces back on one another in a deceptive appearance of wholeness. Jack is browsing through psychology magazines. And Lily is throbbing away at the piano, but today, instead of looking at her hands or at nothing in particular, her gaze is fixed on Jack, which I find peculiar. Jack notices it and starts making faces at her in an attempt to snap her out of her hypnotized stare.

“Don’t mind me. It’s my new project,” Lily tells him, interrupting neither her playing nor her gazing.

“Does your new project involve me, somehow?”

“Yeah, I’m just practicing on you. I’m trying to beautify you.”

He blinks quickly as he processes this information. “You don’t find me good-looking enough?”

“Of course I do. I’m just trying to make you even better-looking. So get back to your reading and let me work.”

Lily continues her playing and staring.

After another half hour, Jack says, “It’s starting to hurt.”

Lily stops playing. “You’re kidding!”

“No.”

“What hurts?”

“My ego.”

“Oh.” She instantly resumes playing.

He adds, “To watch you trying to beautify me while wearing that frustrated expression makes me feel self-conscious and unattractive.”

I KNOW I’M
acting like a mother hen, but I call Lily before going to bed to make sure she’s okay. I keep thinking of Gabriel.

“How are you holding up?” I ask.

After a pause, she says, “Okay.”

Her tone is odd. I don’t buy her reply. “How are you doing?” I ask, more slowly. “Really.”

She’s silent, and then says, “Oh, I’m sure it’s nothing. It’s just . . .”

“What?”

“My hands . . . They’ve been strange today.”

“Strange? How?”

“You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

“That’s okay.” I add, “No, I won’t.”

“Okay . . . After I saw you in the park this afternoon, I came home and I started playing the piano. As you know, I was really depressed. Well, I gave in to that feeling, I sank into it. And something scary happened.”

“What?”

“My hands started changing,” she says.

“They did?”

“Yes. They became gray and shiny. And they felt different. Sort of empty. Or hollow.”

Now I’m the one who’s silent. I finally say, “Gray and shiny?”

“Yeah . . . Kind of like silver.”

“Are you exaggerating?”

“Do I ever exaggerate?”

I think about it. “No.”

“I’m actually understating it,” she says. “Because then my hands became worse. They got shinier, until they were very reflective, like mirrors.” She is silent, as though waiting for me to react. But I don’t know what to say, so finally she asks, “You do believe me?”

“Yes,” I say, not technically lying. Sure, I believe that her hands were reflective—reflective of her mental state, a mental state which concerns me greatly. “And do you have any idea what triggered this?” I ask.

“I think my mood.”

“What was your mood, exactly?”

“I told you. Extremely sad.”

“Do you know what the reflectiveness was?”

“It felt like death. As though it was trying to take hold of me. And the worst part was, I was tempted to let it, because it was a welcome relief. But then I resisted it and it went away.”

THAT MAKES ME
think of Gabriel, of course. I’m still thinking about him the next day when I check the mail and, to my surprise, I have another letter from him:

Dear Barb, Georgia, Lily, Penelope, and Jack,

One of you, in addition to Barb, was my very close friend. Our friendship was deeper than the rest of you suspected, even deeper than my friendship with you, Barb. This person knew about my love for you, Barb, and kept my secret, and for that, I’m grateful. During times when I was depressed over my unrequited love, this human being was my only source of comfort and knew that sometimes I wanted to end my life and that one day I might.

I will refer to this special friend as “KAY.” Eventually, I will tell you what this acronym stands for, but for now let me simply say that just because KAY is more popular as a girl’s name than a boy’s, do not assume KAY is female. Do not assume anything.

My closer level of friendship with KAY started one day when we were alone and confided in each other more deeply than we had with the rest of the group. We began meeting one on one without telling the group. We confessed more about our lives, our feelings, our opinions, our dreams.

We’d meet for walks. For coffees. It was strangely like having an affair, except that it was not sexual—just a very caring intimacy.

One day, KAY did something very bad and told me about it two weeks later and made the decision to do something very bad again, but not immediately; instead, KAY would do it exactly two years from then—which is now just a couple of weeks away.

You’ll have to prepare yourselves for the date (Friday, October 27), hopefully get through it, and then put it behind you, and try to forget.

In all honesty, you will never be able to forget. But with a little luck and my postmortem guidance, your group might be able to return to some semblance of what it is today. I know it’s asking a lot, but I hope you will see your way to forgiving KAY her/his folly.

Love,

Gabriel

I call Georgia.

“Hello?” she answers, sounding loud and excited and out of breath.

“I just got another letter from Gabriel.”

“Oh yeah? It’s so nice of him to stay in touch, isn’t it?”

I’m not in the mood. “Not funny.”

“Sorry. What does he say?”

I read her the letter.

She greets it with stunned silence, which jibes with my mood much better.

“How weird,” she finally says.

“Are you KAY?” I ask.

“Oh, I am more than okay.”

“Not O-KAY. KAY!”

“No.”

“You’re not making much effort to deny it.”

“If I don’t sound fully engaged, it’s because I was just about to call you with some news. I GOT MY LAPTOP BACK! Someone dropped it off at my building with a note that said, ‘Sorry for the delay. Been busy.’” She laughs.

“I’m so happy for you. That makes up a little for Gabriel’s letter.”

Her tone sobers up. “Oh, yeah. What a disturbing letter. He’s even weirder in death than in life.”

I decide I want to read the letter to the others in person when I see them tomorrow, in case their expressions reveal which one of them is KAY.

Peter Marrick

Sunday, 15 October

I had the intern return the laptop. That’s one thing off my plate.

I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to think of ways to meet Barb and her friends, other than the obvious way. I haven’t been able to come up with any ideas due to my damned lack of imagination—ironic and rather tragic in view of how much I crave to be creative. Which is one of many reasons why I need to meet these people.

I got a complaint at work that I look distracted.

I can’t obsess about this anymore. I will meet them the obvious way.

Chapter Six

O
n Sunday, I invite my friends over and read Gabriel’s letter out loud to them. They act surprised in appropriate ways (except for Georgia, who’s heard it already), and I can’t decipher which of them might be KAY.

While we work, Lily continues trying to beautify Jack through her piano playing, but without success. Upset and frustrated, she leaves abruptly.

Georgia says she doesn’t like her novel anymore, that it’s not as great as she thought it was when she believed it was lost forever. She says the memory of it took on monumental proportions, and now the reality of it is just a bit of a letdown. She attributes this to absence making the heart grow fonder, and it makes her sick.

Penelope says Georgia is probably simply suffering from some sort of post-traumatic reverse syndrome of taking something for granted as soon as she gets it back.

And I remind Georgia that she’s always told me this was her best novel yet, so it probably is.

LILY DOES NOT
call that night even though I asked her to when she stormed out of my apartment earlier. I’m concerned about her. I know she’s upset that she hasn’t been able to beautify Jack through her music. I restrain myself from calling her, not wanting to be overly protective.

What dramatically increases my concern is that, at two o’clock in the afternoon the next day, movers show up at my apartment to take away Lily’s piano. They tell me those are her instructions. They show me a form she filled out requesting its removal. While they carry out the upright piano, I’m anxiously trying to reach Lily by phone. She’s not picking up. I curse myself for not calling her last night.

As I run out of my building to look for Lily, I pass Adam the doorman who says to me, “One day you’ll find yourself, and wish you hadn’t.”

I’m a bit unsettled by that comment as I jog the few blocks to Lily’s apartment, trying to refrain from holding my bouncing fake fat.

I ring Lily’s downstairs buzzer. There’s no answer. A tenant on his way out lets me in. I knock on Lily’s apartment door. No answer. I can’t stop my worry from mounting, though I know it may be irrational. I call Jack, Georgia, and Penelope. Within minutes, they have joined me. Jack gets the super to open her door. Lily’s not in her apartment.

We go to my place. We keep calling her.

At five p.m. we’re sitting on my couch, trying to reassure ourselves that she’s okay, but not doing a very good job of it. I mention to my friends that three days ago she seemed delusional, claiming her hands had turned to mirrors and that it felt like death was trying to take hold of her, but that she fought it and it went away.

“Yeah, she told me that too. Not reassuring.” Georgia pauses and takes a deep breath before adding, “But let’s be optimistic. I’m sure she is fine, and will be fine, and in fact will probably make all her dreams come true. I’ve noticed that in life there are three ingredients that, when present simultaneously, create a potent combination: talent, love, and lack of beauty. One’s love for someone, unrequited due to one’s insufficient beauty, can motivate one to do great things to win that love, if one has the talent. Just look at what Lily’s achieved so far. And I bet it’s not stopping.”

Twenty minutes later, the doorman buzzes me. We brighten, gripped by hope.

But when I answer my doorman intercom, I hear Adam’s voice say softly in my ear, “Hi, piece of shit. There are some deliverymen here for you.”

My heart sinks. I was so hoping for Lily.

“What do they want?” I ask him.

“To deliver something, moron.”

“Deliver what?”

“I’ve only got one nerve left, and you’re getting on it.”