Ottessa Moshfegh - Eileen

I bought a ticket to Send Me No Flowers and padded down the black and red diamond carpet leading to a studded leather door. An acned teenage boy guided me inside the theater with a small flashlight. The movie had already started. In the warmth and darkness and aroma of cigarettes and burnt butter, and despite Doris Day’s squawking, I could barely keep my eyes open. And when I could, what I saw bored me to tears. I vaguely remember the film. I slept through most of it, but it had something to do with a housewife whose husband becomes consumed by hypochondria, or perhaps just a paralyzing general fear of death. Doris was already an old lady at that point — a paper doll now frayed and haggard, hairdo like an infant’s, a wardrobe fit for a maid. Rock Hudson couldn’t have cared less for her charm. As it turned out, even Doris Day could barely get a man to love her.

Once the credits were rolling, I shuffled out of the theater amongst the crowd of X-villers, young and old, each of them wrapped in brightly colored wool coats and hats and mufflers. The cold evening air refreshed me. I didn’t want to go home. Across the street, Christmas lights in the window of the donut shop caught my eye. I went in and bought a Boston cream, ate it in one gulp, as I was wont to do, and walked out immediately remorseful. I didn’t want to be like the woman behind the counter — greasy and fat, body like a sack of apples. In a storefront window of a boutique next door I saw my reflection clear as day. I looked ridiculous in my huge gray coat, alone and stunned in the headlights of a passing car like a dumb and frightened deer. I tried to fix my hair, which had gotten messed up while I’d slept. I looked up. The awning over the door spelled the name of the boutique in canned girlish cursive: Darla’s. My eyes rolled as I went inside.

“Yoo-hoo,” said a voice when the bell over the door chimed. The shopgirl came out from the back room. “I’m closing soon but take your time and look around. Anything you need, just holler.”

My death mask didn’t seem to perturb her at all. It always peeved me when my flatness was met with good cheer, good manners. Didn’t she know I was a monster, a creep, a crone? How dare she mock me with courtesy when I deserved to be greeted with disgust and dismay? My manly boots tracked dirty snow across the carpeted floor as I circled the racks and fingered the wool and silk crepe dresses. It was preposterous to think I could wear such fine garments, let alone afford them. I remember all the bright colors and bold prints, satin and wool, everything cute and tailored, big bows and pleats and all that nonsense. I was greedy, of course, turning over each tag, tallying everything I coveted but despised. It wasn’t fair. Others could wear nice things, so why not me? If I did, certainly people would pay me the attention I deserved. Randy even. Fashion’s for the fools, I know now, but I’ve learned that it’s good to be foolish from time to time. It keeps your spirit young. I suspected as much back then, I suppose, since despite my contempt — or maybe because of it — I asked to try on the party dress in the window.

It was a gold shift dress with a high neck and lines of alternating gold and silver baubles patterned from the neck to the bust. It reminded me of photographs I’d seen of African village women with necks painfully extended by stacks of gold rings. The shopgirl looked at me wide-eyed when I pointed to it, then smiled and hopped to the window. It took her several minutes to unzip the garment, then scoot the mannequin to the side to tip it over so that the dress could be taken off. I casually sauntered to the back wall to have a look at the hosiery. Keeping one eye on the girl wrestling with the mannequin, I slipped four packages of navy blue hose into my purse with ease. I looked in the mirror on the glass jewelry display case, which was locked from the other side, removed my gloves and rubbed the chocolate off the corners of my mouth. I wiped my hands on a scarf hanging decoratively from a bamboo staff. The shopgirl carried the dress to the fitting room as though it were a sleeping child, arms extended, careful not to rustle the baubles. I followed her, folding my purse inside my parka as I took it off. I didn’t care if the shopgirl judged my pathetic outfit. She herself wore a demure but ridiculous circle skirt which, I recall, had pom-poms on it, maybe an embroidered kitten. “I’ll be out front if you need anything,” she said and shut the door.

I took off my sweater, blouse and brassiere and took an earnest look at my bust, assessing the heft and shape of my little breasts. I shook my shoulders vigorously at the mirror, just to horrify myself. When I menstruated, my breasts were sore to the touch and heavy, like lead, like rocks. I pinched and poked them with my fingers. I took off my pants, but didn’t look at myself below the waist. My feet were fine, my ankles, my calves. That was all passable. But there was something so foreboding and gross about the hips, the buttocks, the thighs. And there was always a sense that those parts would suck me into another world if I studied them too closely. I simply couldn’t navigate that territory. And at the time, I didn’t believe my body was really mine to navigate. I figured that was what men were for.

The dress was heavy, like the hide of a strange animal. It was too big on top, buckling awkwardly between my arms and breasts, the baubles crashing against each other like a tribal instrument as I zipped up the back. And the whole thing was too long. In the mirror I looked tiny, frumpy, my hairy calves poking out at the bottom like the hind legs of a farm animal. The dress clearly did not fit me, and yet I wanted it. Of course I did. The tag said it cost more than I made in two weeks working at the prison. I thought to rip the tag off, as though that would make the dress free. I considered pulling one of the metallic baubles loose and slipping it in my purse along with the panty hose. But instead I used the sharp point of my car key to poke a hole in the inside lining around the hem and tore it a little. I pulled on my old clothes, which felt all the more old and stank of my sweat, the shirt under my sweater cold and wet in the armpits. I walked out back through the store.

“How’d you do?” I remember the shopgirl asked, as though I may have done well or poorly. Why was my performance always called into question? Of course the dress looked awful on me. The shopgirl must have predicted that. But why was it I who had failed, and not the dress? “How did the dress do?” is what she should have asked instead.

“Not my style,” I said to her and walked out quickly, fat purse under my arm, wincing in the sudden cold but smiling in triumph. When I stole things I felt I was invincible, as though I had punished the world and rewarded myself, setting things right for once — justice served.

I drove around for a while that evening, passed by Randy’s place again, clucked my tongue at the disappointing dark of his windows. Then I headed up 1-H to a lookout over the ocean where young lovers went to park. I pulled on my newfound knit hat as I drove. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. One needed a car to go there and neck, so there was no risk of running into Randy on his motorcycle with some girl, I supposed. Still, as I rolled up the steep, snow-filled drive, I tried to see through the fogged-up backseat window of every car to make sure he wasn’t in any of them. I’d been up there many times before, just snooping. That night I parked and stared out at the black night over the ocean. I rolled up the windows for a few minutes and enjoyed myself, thinking of Randy. At my age, I’d still never been on a proper date. Later, once I’d left X-ville and had some romantic experiences behind me, I’d sit in parked cars with men—“the view is beautiful from up here,” they liked to say — and I’d know the sweet thrill of opening my eyes in a moment of ecstasy to see the moon blazing and the stars like Christmas lights strung across the sky as if just for my own delight. I’d know, too, the delicious shame of being caught by highway patrol in a breathless moment of passion and love, dear God. But that night I just sat with myself and looked up and wondered where my life would lead if I chose not to drive off the cliff in front of me. Inevitably it led back down to Randy’s place — still dark, maddening — and home again. Did I cry and pout with self-pity? I didn’t. I was used to my loneliness by then. One day I’d run off, I knew. Until then, I would pine.