Amanda Filipacchi - The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty

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.