Кэндес Бушнелл - Four Blondes

"Why?" I ask.

"Here's what I want you to do," he says. "Number one. Start putting on a happy face. Happy, happy, happy. Weren't you voted Most Popular in your high school class?”

"No.”

"But you were voted something," he says. "No," I say definitely. "I wasn't.”

"You showed me your yearbook, Cecelia. Years ago. I remember the evening. It was right after Tanner dumped you.”

"Tanner never dumped me. I dumped him. Remember? For my husband.”

"Rewrite history with other people, my dear. I was there. Now what was it?”

"Most Likely to Succeed," I whisper.

But there were only forty people in my high school class. And ten of them barely graduated.

"And you have," he says. "You can't use it.”

"You have to stop being so afraid of everything. Really. It's embarrassing.”

"I'm just so ... tired.”

"So go to bed. Number Two. We have to find you a charity. Something with children, I think; maybe encephalitic babies. And then maybe some lessons cooking or Italian, because everyone's going to be summering in Tuscany next year, and we should hook you up with some new spiritual trend thing ... like druids. Druids could be very, very big, and you look like someone who could worship trees and get away with it.”

D.W. holds up his martini glass. "To you, my dear. We're going to turn you into ... into America's very own Princess Di. What do you think?”

"I think/' I say, not even sarcastically, "Princess Di is dead.”

"That’s irrelevant," he says. "Her spirit lives on.”

“And so is Princess Ava. Dead.”

"So is Marilyn Monroe. And Frank Sinatra. Who cares? They're all dead. You've got to stop being so negative. Don't you wake up some mornings and think, 'By God, we did it.' We accomplished our goal. You're a princess. A real princess.”

"No," I say glumly. "I always knew it would happen.”

Along with a lot of other things, I suppose.

"You're never to say that. Ever again. To anyone," D.W. says. "Good God, Cecelia. That’s why you're so bad at this. You've got to stop telling the truth. When someone asks—and they are going to ask, you've managed to avoid doing interviews so far, but you're going to have to start very soon—you're to say that you had no idea who he was when you just happened to sell him that painting in a gallery—”

“But I did sell him that painting in a gallery.”

"That’s not die point. Destiny only works in Arab countries. In America, destiny makes you sound ... calculating. Which," he says, finishing his martini, "we know you are. But nobody else has to know that. Now about those S. sisters ...”

"No," I say. "They freak me out.”

"Why? They're young, beautiful, rich, and married. Everyone wants to be their friend.”

I glare at him. I want to put my head in my hands, but I'm too tired. I can't explain anything. What it was like sitting there in that big empty room—it had two Regency couches and a coffee table and a fireplace with a marble mantel—with that S. sister. The one who was married off at eighteen. "Cecelia," she had said. "Have you had a lot of lovers? You look like someone who has.”

"What's a lot?" I said cautiously. I didn't understand. What did she want from me? I hadn't gone to private school in Europe.

"I'm one of those women who must be in love to have sex. If I'm in love with a man, I can have an orgasm from him touching my toe.”

I didn't know what to say.

A baby started crying from somewhere in that vast, cavernous Tribeca loft she shared with her husband, an aspiring American politician, and four in help.

"I'm going to let him cry," she said, not ashamed. I got out of there as fast as I could. "I have childbearing hips. What can I do?" she asked and I felt soiled.

She'd told me a dirty little secret I didn't want to hear.

The waitress comes over with two plates. She puts one of them down in front of me. On it is chicken with green beans and mashed potatoes.

"You need to eat," D.W. says.

I pick up one of the green beans with my fingers.

I put it into my mouth. Chew. I manage to swallow it.

I immediately feel full.

"The chicken," D.W. says, "is delicious.”

It has some kind of brownish glaze on it. If s shiny. If s a dead piece of meat.

I cut into it. It's a little pink inside. Like a pink little baby.

"Oh GOD," I say. I put down my utensils, pick up my napkin, and throw up into it.

LA LA LA LA LA LA Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better.

Not.

I'm getting worse and worse. And who can blame me? Everyone.

Everyone blames me.

I can't handle fame. I'm really, really bad at it.

My husband knows this. Isn't that one of the reasons he married me in the first place? I don't care about fame. Or money. I don't want to be famous. I only want to be with him.

He is everything to me. And I am nothing. Without him.

"Leave my wife alone!" Hubert had shouted at the photographers during our honeymoon in Paris and Rome and then on a remote island off Tunisia. "Quit fez ma femme. Quittez ma femme, " he had said over and over, with his arm wrapped around me protectively as I bowed my head and we walked quickly from the hotel to the car, from the car to the museum, from the museum to the boutique, until it became a sort of joke mantra. I'd be in the tub, under heaps of bubbles, and Hubert would come in, and I'd say, "Quittez ma femme, " and we'd both crack up. We haven't cracked up in a long time now.

I think it was the food in Tunisia that first put me off my feed. You had to eat unidentifiable stews God only knows what was in them—yak?—with soggy pieces of bread, and I couldn't do it. Not in front of Hubert. I suddenly felt like he was watching me. And secretly criticizing me. Wondering if maybe he shouldn't have married me after all.

Okay. So I'll starve.

Nobody likes me. Do you think I don't know that? Do you think I don't sit for hours and hours, partly because they're feeding me all these pills all the time (they say they're going to kick in any day now, and then I won't be depressed anymore, but I doubt it), agonizing over every slight, knowing there are people out there laughing behind my back, saying, "Why doesn't she get a clue ... what a tragedy ... what a bummer for him having married her it sure didn't turn out the way he expected I bet and I bet he's miserable," when I'm the one who's miserable, but you can't tell people that, can you?

Especially if you're a woman. Because marriage is supposed to make you happy, not make you feel like a rat trapped in a very glamorous cage with twenty thousand dollar silk draperies.

And this is the best there is. It doesn't get any better than this, does it?

Because this is it. The crown. The dream. The brass ring. No more worries. Not a care in the world. Your mother will never starve in her old age. Your sister will have her new car. Your children will go to private school, have nannies, and all the toys they want, including a pony. Honor will be restored to your family name. Your mother will be proud of you. Your father, wherever he is, the bastard, will realize he made a terrible mistake.

And you will have: 1) A castle. 2) Houses around the world. 3) A chauffeur. 4) Lots of clothes with matching shoes and handbags. 5) Jewelry. 6) A horse. 7) A saddle(s) from Hermds. And 8) No friends. Now here's what really pisses me off: Everybody thinks they could live my life so much better than me. They think, if they had my life, they'd be so happy to be me that they'd do everything perfectly. But they just don't get it. They don't have a clue.

They couldn't get this life unless they had my personality and looked the way I do. If you changed one thing, the destiny part wouldn't work at all.