Mary Gaitskill - Veronica

The first New Year’s Eve after Duncan’s death, she was alone. When the next New Year’s Eve came, I decided I would take her to a party. I examined every invitation I got, looking for a Veronica-safe zone. There were two that I set aside: One was a party on the Upper West Side; hosted by a magazine editor named Joan, it was in honor of a New York filmmaker who’d directed a movie called Show Tunes . Joan was an anomaly in the fashion world. I remembered her, fat, smart, and keen-eyed, peering over tiny square glasses placed on the end of her discerning nose as she scanned a martini menu. I imagined her and Veronica drinking martinis together.

The other possibility was something called the Motorcycle Party, at which, said the hostess, guys would jump over naked girls on their hogs. I knew one of the naked girls; she looked perfect in photographs, but in person she had drunken, filmy eyes and grainy skin and a hard little drum of a belly with a button like a curled toe. I’d told her about Veronica once and she’d said, “It’s so great of you to stand by her. It’s great and it’s brave.”

It was not brave of me to go to the movies with her. But it was brave of me to invite her out that night. I’m embarrassed to say it. But it’s true. I was afraid to go out with her for New Year’s. I had to be brave to do it.

My cab arrived outside Veronica’s apartment at 9:00 p.m. She fluttered and waddled down the walk in a chiffon gown and a black leather jacket. Her head was square and determined above her waddling softness. Her smile gathered power with each step. “I’m so glad we’re doing this,” she said. “Otherwise, I’d have put on my leather chaps and walked the streets.” I thought, I’m doing something good — a thought that was round with wonder and shy conceit.

The party was in a spacious apartment alive with ease and goodwill. People smiled at us, tilting their heads as if they were looking deeply, then deepening their smiles as if to show they were delighted by what they saw. The guests were old, young, and middle-aged people wearing good-quality clothes without fussiness or too much care. There were children, too, and they ran around holding spangled streamers high above them. Someone played show tunes on a piano, loosely, his big bald head erect and radiant.

“My God,” said Veronica. “I don’t deserve this party.”

“Oh stop.” But I wasn’t sure I deserved it, either. I didn’t see any other models. I didn’t see anyone I knew. I looked for Joan and found her in a large room, sitting before a fire burning in an enormous hearth. She radiated warmth, and I wanted Veronica to feel it. But when they were introduced, Veronica seemed to shrink into something small and hard. Joan responded by withholding her warmth. Her fat body became imposing as a fortress and she peered out of it with hard, watchful eyes.

“How long have you known Alison?” she asked.

“Years. We worked together.”

“You’re a stylist?” she asked doubtfully.

“A proofreader,” I said. “From where I temped once.”

“I see.”

The dull conversation went on, becoming subtly hostile without anything hostile being said. Joan’s soft cheeks gradually hardened and I began to hear Veronica’s voice the way she must’ve heard it: stilted, shrill, willed into garish rococo shapes. We were joined by a friend of Joan’s, a busy-eyed little man who said he was a literary agent. In the middle of answering a question from Joan, I heard him ask Veronica what she did.

“I write. I paint. I’ve done some acting.”

Her voice was so unctuous that for a second I thought she was affecting it to mock him. Then I saw her false, pleading smile.

There was a pause. His eyes filled with scorn and the pleasure of feeling it. He raised his chin. “Really,” he said. “How interesting .”

I ran for the hors d’oeuvres table. I thought, If she wants to act weird, it’s not my problem. I won’t baby-sit somebody sixteen years older. But when I looked again, she was standing alone, the same terrible smile fixed on her face.

“Oh, I’m fine, hon,” she said. “Somebody just came up to me and said, ‘Who invited you here?’ ”

“They might’ve really wanted to know,” I said hopefully. “Sometimes people ask you that as a way of placing you.”

Her smile became more terrible. I could smell her sweating.

A man approached. “Excuse me,” he said. “I’m about to leave and I just wanted to tell you that it’s been a delight to be in the same room with you. You are just so pretty.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Just so pretty,” he repeated. He turned to leave, and in passing, he put his hand on Veronica’s shoulder. “And you ain’t bad yourself.”

“Thanks for the bone,” she said.

His retreating head flinched.

“Let’s get a drink,” I gasped.

After that, Veronica was more relaxed. Biting someone had probably taken a lot of tension out of her jaws. Now I had it and could calm it only by drinking. I wandered in and out of bland conversations and my heart beat, Where am I? We sang “Auld Lang Syne.” We yelled “Happy New Year.” When I turned to Veronica, she kissed me, and for an instant I knew where I was.

We left the party in a cheerful mood. A cab even stopped when we hailed it. But as soon as we were inside it, I did not want to be with Veronica anymore. I wanted to be at the Motorcycle Party, wandering through the crowded rooms by myself, watching strange haughty faces reveal themselves. I didn’t want to hear Veronica say weird things to people. I didn’t want to worry about her happiness. I didn’t want to be judged because I was with this strange, badly dressed, badly made-up woman. She was talking and talking about how a little girl at the party looked exactly like her niece. Light rose and fell on her face, harsh, then soft. She will soon be very sick, I thought. And she isn’t going to have much pleasure in the meantime. The cab stopped at a traffic light made brilliant and fiery in the cold. Clumped people with gentle, expressive faces leaned against the wind. Frail special dresses stuck out from under the women’s lumpen daily coats.

“Veronica,” I said, “I hope you don’t mind, but I think I’d like to go to this other party by myself. I hope you don’t feel insulted. I just feel like being by myself.”

I dropped her off at her apartment. She kissed me and said, “Happy New Year.” I remember it as though I’d shoved her from the car.

It wasn’t always like that. One night, we went out to dance. She had said, “Just once I’d like to go to one of those chic places to dance. Just once.” So I found one that had only just stopped being chic and we went. She wore a red jacket that had been fashionable five years earlier, a lacquered hide with gold buckles, shoulder pads, and trick pockets. She wore it defiantly. She wore it as if to say yes, it was ugly, yes, it was tasteless, but right now only the forceful character of tastelessness and ugliness could help her shake her booty one last time. She danced the same driven way she moved in aerobics class — leaping and kicking with manic propriety. As if to show a disbelieving someone, once and for all, what she could really do. But with each repetitive movement, she seemed to wind more deeply into a place where she didn’t have to show anybody anything, a place where there was no propriety. I looked up; on crude stages, fat men in wigs haughtily, expertly danced. Hot colored lights crashed down around them in waves. Sirens went off and clown horns honked as they danced in the face of death and in the face of life. The music blared gigantically, as if it were propelling a baby into the outrageous world and bellowing with shock at what it saw. The queens danced and Veronica danced, and their dancing said, World, kiss my fat middle-aged butt.