Mary Gaitskill - Because They Wanted To - Stories

When the film was over and she returned to New York, she became yet more distant. Although Queen of Night was not due to be released for some months, Nicki was already “hot” in Hollywood. She had an agent, who fielded film offers and laid piles of scripts at her feet. She sarcastically denounced the snotty clique of New York-based actors who wouldn’t countenance talented newcomers, and then she went to their parties. She met a famous actor there—“A pig,” she said—who had come on to her rudely and arrogantly. It was at this point that Lesly was startled to realize that if this famous actor had fancied her, others would too, and that not all of them would be pigs. He hurled himself at the vast emptiness of his screenplay with unprecedented ferocity.

She was visibly pleased when he told her about it. “I’d love to see it when you’re done,” she said. “I’ll bet it’s really good.” But it wasn’t, and he shredded it on the tenth page. After a relaxing three-day drunk, he started another script. He didn’t like that one, either, but when he tore it up he didn’t go on another bender. With the novel sensation that he knew what he was doing, he started another draft. He wasn’t sure this one was good either, but it was fun, and he surprised himself by staying in to work on it during his nights off instead of conducting his usual drinking man’s tour of lower Manhattan.

Then Nicki did the Rude Thing. He had gotten tickets for them to see a dance company she loved. On the evening they were to go, a few hours before he was to pick her up, she canceled. “A friend,” she said, had phoned at the last minute; she was coming in from L. A. and Nicki had to have dinner with her. He didn’t understand until she stammeringly explained. “She isn’t just a friend. She’s my girlfriend. I got involved with her during the shoot—she’s a camerawoman—and I haven’t seen her for weeks.”

“You never said anything about her before,” he said stiffly.

“Well, yeah, I know. It was because—I know it’s silly—but I thought you might be jealous.”

He snorted violently. “No, not quite. It’s your business, and it’s not like you and I were ever really involved anyway. I just don’t like being stood up at the last minute. What am I supposed to do with your ticket?”

For several seconds after they said goodbye, he stood with the buzzing receiver in his hand, staring at the dresser that looked as if it had been made to hide dismembered bodies.

The following week they were in a bar, eating salty peanuts, drinking tequila, and being assaulted by heartlessly fashionable music. “I’m sorry you had to find out about Lana that way,” she said. “I hope you don’t hold it against her; it was my fault, really. But I’m glad I finally told you. I don’t know why I held back. I should’ve known you wouldn’t mind.”

Grimly, he drank. He tried to comfort himself with the thought that if she was a lesbian, it could hardly be his fault that she’d dumped him, but it didn’t work. Nicki began to describe Lana’s subtle and dashing personal style, her strength, her tenderness, her wit. Nicki really couldn’t be a lesbian, he thought. This was yet another irritating affectation, or else a symptom of her deep distrust of men, which he alone had overcome. Then Nicki started in on Lana’s sexual prowess.

“Oh, really,” he said.

“What?”

“I mean, I’m not one of those idiots who can’t picture what two women could do together. I know there’s a lot of things. I picture lots of slow, languorous. . . you know. But still, there’s a limit to what—I mean, to what any two people can do.”

“Well, we haven’t reached ours,” said Nicki. “We do everything. Even corny stuff, like she wears a suit and I wear a garter belt and stockings—”

“Excuse me,” he said. “I need to use the men’s room.”

He stalked to the John, taunted by visions of the formidable dyke fucking garter-belt-clad Nicki. He tried seeing it as beat-off material, but he was too irked.

When he got back to the table, her face recoiled slightly.

“Lesly, are you upset?”

Of course he wasn’t.

She began to talk about her anxiety about the reviews Queen would get. He could tell from the artificial quality of her voice that she knew something was wrong. He felt she was trying to charm him out of being upset with a display of modesty and vulnerability, and that made him even madder. He tried to tell himself he had no right to be mad, but it didn’t help. The professional jealousy he had staunchly suppressed in the name of friendship rose and joined forces with romantic jealousy. While his head nodded agreement and tilted at polite angles, Nicki’s conversation raced ahead, trailing a bright streamer of self-involvement. He remembered her on her knees in his bed, moaning into the sheets. He remembered another girl from the past whom he had broken up with, remembered specifically how, long after their affair had ended, he could make her blush merely by looking intensely into her eyes the way he had when he’d fucked her. If he looked at Nicki that way, he thought, she wouldn’t even notice. He looked at the tense, delicate face before him, fixating on one bright, jiggling earring; a black tunnel opened before him, spanning days, maybe weeks, a tunnel filled with shadowy forms of pain and deprivation.

“And so,” said Nicki, dramatically ending a story he’d heard before, “there’s nothing he won’t do to have me in the part. Plus he’d like to screw me, so I know he’s gonna be totally nice about the script. It’s pretty much up to me at this point.”

“That’s a little self-aggrandizing, wouldn’t you say?”

She tipped back her head to release a throatful of smoke and then coolly faced him. “Yeah,” she said. “It also happens to be true.” There was no false vulnerability in her voice.

“Does he know you’re a lesbian?”

“He probably thinks I am. A lot of people do.” She jerkily tapped cigarette ash into her empty glass and then looked directly at him. “That only makes men want you more, actually.”

“Nicki,” he said, “why didn’t you tell me you’re gay?”

She lowered her eyes and shrugged. “I don’t know. Because I’m not, totally. I do like men sometimes, and I hate the idea that I have to absolutely identify myself as one thing or another. It’s true I generally prefer women and that men are usually more casual for me.” She looked up quickly. “But I liked being with you a lot.” She turned her eyes down again. “It didn’t seem necessary to tell you. Until now.”

For the rest of the wretched evening, he wanted only to go home, to sit in bed and drink. But when he got home he found he was too agitated to do that. He paced the King Farouk Room, thinking of every affected, self-indulgent, obnoxious thing Nicki had ever said. He reflected how his foolish love had blinded him to her offensive personality. He thought of how true it was that the pushiest, most vulgar people always rose to the top. He imagined hitting her. He imagined mashing a grapefruit in her face.

His eyes fell on his screenplay. He threw it across the room. He stood staring after it for a long moment. Had there been a movie camera trained on his face, it would have recorded an expression of pernicious ingenuity dawning, then slowly spreading from feature to feature. He sat down before his computer and began to type. He typed until three in the morning.

He was awakened the following day by the clicking answering machine and then by Nicki’s voice leaving a long, scattershot message.

He got up, made coffee, and returned to his computer.

A few days later she called again, but he was screening his calls. As he listened to her voice, he gave the machine a loud, farting raspberry. As if she’d heard it, she stopped calling, although there were several hang-up calls during the following week. He wasn’t interested in talking to her. He had developed a much more satisfying relationship with the tiny Nicki cavorting across the pages of his new screenplay.