Rachel Glaser - Paulina & Fran

Eventually, Paulina rose from the chair, stormed into the room Sadie used as her closet, and ransacked the shoe rack for the red leather boots.

In a daze, Paulina marched downtown. Naïve bitch, Paulina thought, and pictured Fran laughing in Norway. Fran dancing at the Color Club. Too easily, she imagined Fran naked. Gather your thoughts, bitch, Paulina thought. I love myself I love myself I love myself, Paulina chanted to herself. Do the breath thing, get your breath straight. She tried to remember what it was that she usually summoned to keep her from crying, but instead pictured the Holocaust — the thing she pictured to stop laughing during a lecture. She made a sound between laughing and crying. Two flat-chested girls turned to stare.

She was surprised to find she knew his schedule and in what classroom he was watching mediocre films. She burst in the door and they all looked up, squinting like shrews at the light. He was slumped in the back row. Paulina marveled at the weird creatures who had chosen film/animation/video as their major. Beastly looking people she recognized from freshman year hadn’t transferred as she’d assumed; they’d actually been holed up here, tinkering with buttons.

Paulina saw that none of them knew how to use makeup, that the boys were clinging to their eccentricities, that the girls were clutching their insecurities dear. They wore big T-shirts and had stringy hair. Two of them wore chain wallets. There were a few girls and guys who had good posture and clever eyes, but they stood out like swords in a room of noodles. Someone in the front row reached out to touch Paulina’s dress and she swatted the creature’s hand. The girl whimpered and sat back in her seat. “Brains!” Paulina managed, and an unremarkable middle-aged man looked amusedly to Julian.

With big steps he walked around his sleepy, unwashed classmates and met Paulina in the hall.

“Fuck me,” she said, “in a video-editing room, my place, your place.” She swayed aggressively.

He recognized the embroidered silk undershirt she wore over a faded sundress. Her lips were scrunched tightly together. Her body seemed braced to engulf him. “No,” he said. Her heart beat violently in her chest. She waited for him to say more, but he held himself still. He could hear the audio from his classmate’s film.

The dread was lodged in her throat. The oil turned to smoke. “Take your life,” she said shaking, “and have it far away from me.” Straightening to a height he’d never seen, she stomped her boots down the hall, each step making a terrible crack.

At Sadie’s party, the kitchen floor was covered with mud from everyone’s shoes. The wallpaper and curtains clashed in discord. Paulina was in a circle of acquaintances. “I can’t get excited about small dogs,” she said to the group. She’d changed into one of her more preposterous costumes — her Guatemalan war dress, Sadie called it. Bright knit fabric frayed over her cleavage where she’d cut the dress with scissors. Her hairdo relied on all her hair clips to create a “velvet rope” effect — again, Sadie’s words.

After leaving Julian, Paulina had picked up a random boy outside the Film Building who wore his T-shirt tucked in his jeans. The boy had a number of nervous tics, and looked like he animated dragons all day. During the short walk to his place, he’d talked good-naturedly about his classes as if he were giving a school tour. When they were finally in his small bedroom, he gave Paulina an impish, Fran-like shrug. She pushed him onto his made bed. He seemed grateful for her direction. It felt to Paulina that she was giving the boy’s narrow bed something it had always wanted but never thought it would have. For a few minutes it made Paulina feel better — the boy acted like he had undergone a religious conversion — but soon Paulina’s good feeling crashed and she felt quite doomed again.

Fran arrived at Sadie’s party dressed for spring, and skipped over to Paulina, who evaded her hug and pushed her into the wall. “You bore me,” Paulina said, and the crowd around them backed up.

“Paulina,” Fran said blushing, but Paulina turned swiftly on her heels, and as if attached to her with string, the group followed her into the dancing room. Even from the next room, Fran could hear her theatrics.

“The stars in our sky are far, far inferior to the stars of our ancestors,” Paulina said and laughed. Every time Fran looked over, Paulina glared back. Fran drank beers and the beers made her tilt.

Marvin wandered through the door. Fran walked shakily over to him, believing he was the Savior. When she reached him, she realized he was just an undiscovered model with a creative mind. Still, his smile unwound the knots in her.

“This party sucks,” Fran said. “Everyone is just making up theories.”

“I’m no fan of theories,” said Marvin. He looked with deep interest at the mud pattern on the linoleum. Sadie burst by, stupidly drunk, covered in jewelry. “He said he loves me!” she cried, carrying a splayed-open laptop into the next room. Fran’s glassy eyes were fixed on the wall. But she dropped Julian so casually! She spent so much time complaining about him. She hadn’t seemed at all attached.

“You okay?” Marvin asked.

“This party just sucks,” Fran said, avoiding his gaze, “but I have to stay,” she said. “I have to talk to someone,” she said, “about something sort of stupid,” she said. She wanted to latch on to him. He looked at her blankly.

Paulina sat like a princess on the ottoman. Apollo walked by and Eileen ran after him, holding a bag of cocaine. Fran felt disoriented. Girls from her studio eyed her with curiosity. Fran had no idea if her hair looked good. She touched it and couldn’t tell. She searched for a reflective surface.

One night in Norway, after Paulina had styled Fran’s hair, they had shown each other their breasts and complimented them. Fran had felt they had always known each other and always would. Now Fran walked up to Paulina and everyone cleared away except Allison, who sat unmoving. In the kitchen, girls took pictures of Marvin. “That’s no way to treat beauty,” Paulina said and Fran silently agreed.

“I know you hate me right now,” Fran said.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” said Paulina, playing with a bracelet on her wrist that made a sound like rain.

“I didn’t think you liked him anymore, but I should have asked.”

“Who?” There was a pause in which neither moved. Paulina fixed her eyes on her bracelet, shoplifted from Nordstrom. Of course she liked him. She loved him, loved both of them, but this thought snapped back into the dark unknowing place of her. Bits of conversation made her turn to the other room where Eileen was humping the floor “breakdancing.” Someone was saying, “It’s that gluey stuff you spread onto the solder and the metal so they bond.” A girl said, “I found a cockroach in their toilet and saved it with a piece of toilet paper.” “I was an absolute animal in LA!” Apollo yelled and beat his fist in the air.

Paulina turned back to Fran. “I don’t like him. He’s boring. His life is useless. His apartment sucks,” Paulina said, looking at her fingernails. Fran rolled her eyes. “I mean he’s nice. I think he’s nice. Do you think he’s nice?” Paulina asked Allison, who was slowly packing weed into a bowl. Each time she said nice, it sounded like a boring, stupid thing to be. Allison smirked.

Sadie plopped down next to Paulina. “The best night of my life!” Sadie said, and threw her head on Paulina’s lap. Paulina mindlessly stroked Sadie’s long black hair.

“He loves me, Fran!” Sadie said happily.

“I’m really sorry,” Fran said, her eyes filling with tears.