Steve Martin - Shopgirl

Lisa sits on the toilet as she shaves, one leg propped up on the bathroom cabinet. She can dip the razor in the toilet when she needs to wet it while she shapes and combs the furry patch to perfection. Lisa is determined to cull Ray Porter away from the Mirabelle mistake. All she has to know is where is he and what does he look like. She can easily glean this from the trusting Mirabelle, probably in one lunch, so she doesn’t worry too much or make plans to connive. After the final dip of the razor in the toilet and a gentle splash of water to the now perfectly shaped lawn, Lisa stands up, stark naked, and looks at herself in the bathroom mirror. She is an hourglass with all the sand at the top. She is white and pink, and her implants pull and stretch and whiten the skin around them so her breasts glow. Her nipples are the color of bubble gum, and the silicone makes them resilient enough to chew like bubble gum, and now, between her legs, is the nicest little piece o’ property west of Texas.

Mirabelle had told her parents that she was going to New York, so when she calls them and tells them she will be coming to Vermont instead, there is some explaining to do. But she bluffs her way through it, and since her parents never ask too many questions anyway, they are not aware that she can barely hold herself together.

On her arrival in Vermont, Mirabelle puts on an Academy Award face. She actually manages to appear cheery, though she occasionally retreats into her room to let the gloom from her losses with Ray Porter seep from her pores. She roams aimlessly through the house and sees on her father’s desk the business card she had given him, significantly moved from the bedroom. She wonders if he has made the call that she hoped he would make.

Twenty-eight hours into her awful weekend, the phone rings and she picks it up. It is Ray Porter, calling from New York. There are awkward “how are you’s,” then, as he approaches his reason for calling, Ray softens his voice, giving the impression that he is leaning into her. He intones his question so apologetically it nearly brings them both to tears:

“Why don’t you come to New York.”

Mirabelle wants to be there, in spite of her ache, and there is no hesitation in her yes, as much as she tries to imply it. She has shown him that she is hurt, and now it is over. She wants to be in New York City, and not in Vermont.

Mirabelle tells her mother that she is leaving today.

“What on earth for?”

“I’m meeting Ray.”

Mirabelle’s mom and dad know that she is seeing someone named Ray Porter, but they pretend their daughter’s relationship is somehow chaste. This of course requires incredible manipulations of reality and enormous blocks and blind spots. Mirabelle, to her mother and father, is simply not sleeping with anyone.

“Oh, that’ll be nice for you,” her mother says simply.

At this point, Mirabelle could have turned on her heels, and nothing more would have been said, ever. But 10,319 days have passed since her birth, and today for some reason, explicable only by the calculation of the stress of lying multiplied by twenty-eight years, Mirabelle adds one small truth:

“I’ll be staying with him if you need to reach me.”

Catherine continues scrubbing the same plate for the next few moments. “In a hotel?”

“Yes,” says Mirabelle, and then, just for good measure, “but don’t worry, Mom, I’m on the pill.”

“Well,” says Catherine. “Well,” she says again.

Catherine rubs the plate, then in a modulation of voice so loaded with meaning that only Meryl Streep could duplicate it more than once, adds one more “well.” With perfect theatrical timing, her dad walks through the kitchen door and she tells him the same thing all over again, just to feel the same rush of power one more time. But there is no clamor; instead, everyone sits on their churning feelings, and Dan quickly changes the subject, flips on the TV, and is then absorbed by it.

SHE CATCHES A PLANE THATday and meets Ray in New York at dusk. Mirabelle doesn’t have her Prada dress with her, but her quick instinct for clothes prevails and with an authoritative sweep through Emporio Armani assisted by a contrite Ray, who can’t wait to atone by pushing wads of money across the countertop, she ends up swathed in a shimmering Armani silver dress that equals the Prada, and that night they head off to a dinner for fifteen hundred.

After the event, where she looks statuesque and elegant, where a few photographers’ bulbs go off as they enter in spite of their noncelebrity status, where it is so challenging to Mirabelle to be sitting at a table for twelve among hundreds of tables, where she is so enthralled to be at this event that its dullness is not apparent to her, they end up at a small cocktail party for a dozen people at a smart Park Avenue apartment. The group gathers in a wood-paneled library where several Picassos look quizzically down on them. There are white-haired men older than Ray; there are sharp, young saber-toothed up-and-comers who have just cracked thirty. There are also tough businesswomen whose sexuality has somehow been packed away and left in a drawer somewhere and then, as an afterthought, stuck back on themselves and worn like a power tie.

They are a smart, agile-minded group, but they are not sure what to make of Mirabelle, who sits in the middle of them like a flower. She is the only one wearing anything lighter than dark blue. Unlike them, her white skin is a gift, rather than the result of being bleached under neon all day. Mirabelle speaks quietly and to individuals only. When someone finally asks her what she does, she says she is an artist. This leads to a discussion among the aficionados about current art prices that excludes Mirabelle from the rest of the conversation.

As the evening loosens, confounding the normal progress of a party, the conversations gel into one, and the topic, rather than jumping wildly from politics to schools for kids to the latest medical treatments, also gels into one. And the topic is lying. They all admit that without it, their daily work cannot be done. In fact, someone says, lying is so fundamental to his existence that it has ceased to be lying at all and has transmogrified into a variant of truth. However, several of them admit that they never lie, and everyone in the room knows it’s because they have become so rich that lying has become unnecessary and pointless. Their wealth insulates them even from lawsuits.

All points of view are duly expressed, with nothing new forthcoming, but with nods and asides and overlaps. This rapid exchange gives the appearance of an interesting conversation but one whose actual content is flat, dull, and drunken. That is, until Mirabelle speaks. Mirabelle, sober as an angel, fearlessly breaks into the chatter midstream:

“I think for a lie to be effective, it must have three essential qualities.”

The booming voices of the men fade and the trebles of the women trail off. Ray Porter quietly worries inside.

“And what are those?” says a voice.

“First, it must be partially true. Second, it must make the hearer feel sorry for you, and third, it must be embarrassing to tell,” says Mirabelle.

“Go on,” the room implies.

“It must be partially true to be believable. If you arouse sympathy you’re much more likely to get what you want, and if it’s embarrassing to tell, you’re less likely to be questioned.”

As an example, Mirabelle breaks down her lie to Mr. Agasa. She explains that the partially true part is that she did sometimes need to go to the doctor. She then made him feel sorry for her because she was in pain, then she embarrassed herself by having to explain it was a gynecological problem.