Synecdoche, Magdalena

September 12, 2011

“Lily,” Charlotte yelled as she crossed the room towards me, trying to be heard over the awful Ibiza house music the DJ was spinning. This was music for people who only heard what you were saying a full minute after you said it. Repetition helped.

I gave her something that hopefully passed as a smile as I walked my fingers through the forest of wine on the table. Chardonnay, cabernet, nay, nay, hay is for horses – where was the Chateau Neuf de Pape? As Charlotte approached, I looked over her shoulder. There was the wine I was looking for, being poured into a planter. $50 a bottle, but this girl was posing like an Italian statue, pouring the wine on a tree like the fucking Trevi Fountain in Rome. Not that I’d been to Rome, but I’d seen La Dolce Vita.

“You going to share that?” she asked after she arrived at my side, watching me pick up an opened bottle of pinot noir as a consolation prize. I cradled it in my arms like a baby. I shrugged.

“Maybe. But let’s go outside. It’s soupy in here.” I felt like I could chew on this air, this thick hum of music meant for people who can only hear echoes.

She followed me out through the French doors, out to the pool where there was one topless girl in the water and three fully dressed men at least twice her age staring at her from the deck. “Come on,” one of them said. “Show us your trick.” She smiled and plugged her nose and then dove under, her legs popping out of the water a moment later at an angle, like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The ladies were giving us the full tour of Rome this evening. As we passed the group, one of the men called out to me.

“Baby girl, you grown,” he said. “I remember you when you were this big.” He held his hand up, indicating the height of a 12-year-old. He had me confused with some brat who grew up going to these parties. I’d corrected him three or four times before, now I didn’t bother. I just waved at him.

“Over here,” I said, leading her to a pair of chaise lounges in front of the guest house. I stumbled in the dark and fell on my chair but tried to play it off like I was collapsing into the cushions.

“You sure you need that wine?” Charlotte asked.

“Yeah. I’m sure.” She paused, probably wondering whether to bring it up. They all thought I was so fragile.

“Still nothing?”

“Nope.”

“And this is what you do for a distraction?

“A watched phone never vibrates. Ancient wisdom.” I pulled the cork out of the bottle with my teeth and spat it into the grass. Then I drank straight from it, hitting my teeth on the green glass before holding it out to Charlotte. She shook her head no and I put my baby back in the crook of my arm.

“Maybe next time you shouldn’t rush into things so fast. You always hear what you want to –”

“I’m not looking for advice right now. I’m doing fine.” I could feel the skepticism rolling off of her in waves, like cartoon stink lines. “I am.”

“Uh-huh. A note on your character,” she said. “Not completely believable.” She stood. “I have to pee. Stay right there.”

***

Maybe I didn’t need that wine. I woke up late in the morning on the grass next to the pool, the bottle on its side next to me, Charlotte nowhere in sight. The door to the guest house stood open and I stumbled toward it, trying to figure out whether I was still drunk. Inside, a couple of people were passed out on the bed, one of them a girl who had on my shoes. I popped them off of her feet, which were dangling off the edge of the bed and went to the closet. No time for a shower.

I’d been staying in Tony’s guest house for a week, since I’d gotten back from Miami. I hadn’t made any money there either, even though my agency promised I would. Models chased the markets, going from fashion weeks to catalogue seasons, following the money. It was catalogue season in Miami. Five grand a day if you booked a job. But I hadn’t booked anything in months.

Which was why I was staying here, where I didn’t have to pay rent. It was a testament to how much people like collecting things that were pleasing to the eye, how much they would overlook while distracted by your face, your legs, dewy, still ripe skin. The genetic accident I’d been involved in, a fateful alignment of waist-to-hip ratios and facial symmetry, had awarded me a settlement of social currency. Though my account would hit zero when I reached my expiration date, which was sometime around the time that I stopped getting carded. There was no danger of that yet, so I had these guest houses above Mullholland at my disposal, someone’s “extra” Mercedes to drive to castings, next week a seat on a private jet to Mykonos, if I wanted it.

I slipped the shoes I’d taken off the girl’s feet onto my own, like a grave robber, I thought before immediately regretting it. I hoped she was just lying there, very still, sleeping off whatever she’d done last night. And I was late for a casting for a job I probably wouldn’t book.

(new project in the pipeline. shhh.)

11:42pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZhtJby9TSgTW

(Notes: 44)

Filed under: fiction