The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty

Chapter Seventeen

To my relief, Peter does show up at the party the following day. A couple of pretty young interns from the Paris Review lose no time gushing over him, trying to chat him up. Smiling, he nods at them without interest.

After a few minutes I ask him if I can talk to him in private. I lead him to the bathroom, the only private place.

I mutter, “I was wondering if you might reconsider your decision not to be friends with me.”

“No.” He rests his hand against the towel rod behind me. “It’s too hard. I want more from you,” he says.

I look away. I want more, too, of course, but it’s impossible.

He leaves the bathroom. I compose myself and exit a minute later. The party is lively, though not yet at its peak. Many more people are still expected.

Neither Peter nor I are in the mood to mingle, so we go to my bedroom-office where Penelope, Jack, and Georgia are gathered. They don’t seem to be in much of a mood to socialize either.

Georgia is sitting on the couch, looking bored and grumpy, her cheek in her hand. Her mien clashes with her festive, bright red lipstick that she only wears on rare and important occasions. Clearly, she expected to have a better time this evening, which is often the case with her and parties.

Earlier, we told her how much we loved her novel. Our praise made her happy for about an hour, and then the effect faded.

The only one of us not here in my bedroom-office is Lily, who’s playing the piano in the living room, which may be another reason we’re here instead of there. Her grief is audible in her music. You’d think we were at a funeral. The guests don’t seem to mind or even notice, but we who are her closest friends can’t help being affected by it.

Georgia’s cell phone rings. As usual, she answers it on speaker, so we can all hear.

A man’s voice says, “Hey, Georgia, is the party still going?”

“Er… yeah,” she says, like it’s a dumb question.

“Great! Is there an alternate entrance into your building?”

“Er… no,” she says, like it’s a weird question. “The entrance is on Fifteenth Street between Union Square East and Irving Place.”

“They’re not letting me in.”

“Who isn’t?”

“The cops.”

“Cops?”

“Er… yeah,” he says, like it’s a dumb question.

“Why?”

“Er… because of what’s going on in your lobby, maybe?”

“What’s going on?”

“You don’t know? One of your doormen is going postal. He has a gun.”

We all look at one another, eyes wide.

“The doorman made everyone vacate the lobby, except for the other doormen and staff. So that’s why I’m asking if there’s like… maybe a service entrance in the back or something?”

“Are you crazy? Why would you want to enter a building containing a doorman with a gun?”

With icy indignation, he says, “Because you know very well that I have dreamed of meeting your agent Melodie Jackman for years, if not decades. I’ve just finished writing my third unpublished novel, and I might be able to pitch it better in person. All I care about is making it past the doorman and to the party.”

“Listen to what you’re saying,” Georgia barks.

“It’s easy for you to get on your high horse. You’ve got it made. This is my chance. I’m not going to let some psycho doorman get in my way.”

“My agent isn’t coming. She never goes to author parties.”

“Ah damn,” the guy says and hangs up.

I grab the remote. “I bet it’s Adam. Let me put on the doorman channel.”

In my building, there’s a live security video that is viewable twenty-four hours a day on channel seventy-seven of all residents’ TV sets so we can see who enters the building, who leaves, who’s at the front desk, etc.

My friends and I stare in horror as the black-and-white image of the lobby appears on my TV screen. At this very moment, the doorman has lined up the other doormen and staff members against the wall. They’re standing side by side, facing him. His back is to the camera. He paces in front of his colleagues, holding a young woman in a choke hold and alternately pointing his gun at his colleagues and at her head. Judging from his body language, he seems to be ranting about something.

Just then, he turns his head enough for me to recognize him. “Shit, it is Adam,” I say.

“How did you know it would be him?” Jack asks.

“Because he’s crazy. He insults me all the time.”

My friends look at me.

Jack says, “He really insults you? Or are you just being hypersensitive?”

“Why would you ask a question like that, Jack?” Georgia says. “You know very well Barb is hypo-sensitive when it comes to herself. I’m sure he really insults her.”

“What does he say?” Jack asks me.

“You name it, he’s said it,” I reply.

“Hardcore insults?” Penelope asks.

“Sometimes.”

“Like what?” Jack asks.

I shrug. “Things like ‘Marinade of shit and piss’ and ‘Cocksucking bitch.’”

My friends look shocked. I remain silent, realizing how weird this sounds.

Georgia says, “It’s really crazy that you never reported him to the super or anyone.”

“Why do you assume I never reported him?” I ask, annoyed.

“Because he wouldn’t be in the lobby pointing a gun at people if you had.”

“I felt sorry for him. He assured me he insulted only me, no one else.”

Georgia frowns. “Oh, that must have been so reassuring.”

“I thought he was unwell, troubled — not dangerous,” I plead. “I was afraid he might get fired if I said anything.”

“Oh, yes, and that would have been so bad,” Georgia says, merciless.

“Thanks for making me feel better,” I murmur.

“Well you certainly do feel better than they do,” she snaps, pointing to the lined-up hostages and arm-choked woman on the screen.

Hardly able to contain my panic, I get up, wiping my moist palms on my pants. “I can’t stand to watch this.” I begin walking out of the room, feeling horribly guilty for not tattle-taling on the doorman.

“Barb,” Peter says, close behind me, softly.

The sound of his voice is comforting. I turn to him.

“Can we talk in private again?” he asks.

“Again?” Georgia says. “Oh, come on, we’ve got a crisis on our hands.”

“We have to warn the guests not to leave the apartment,” Jack says.

“Peter, you’re the anchor. Can you anchor this?” Georgia asks.

“Wait,” Jack says, “let me first see if I can get any information from my buddies at the precinct.”

After his brief call, he tells Peter what he learned and gives him the go-ahead to inform the guests.

The guests are chatting. Clearly, they haven’t yet heard about the lobby situation.

Peter addresses the assembly: “Good evening.”

He gets most people’s attention.

In his TV anchor voice — authoritative, concerned but calm — he says: “I’m sorry to interrupt this party to bring you some breaking news from elsewhere in the building. Reliable sources have indicated that there is a lone gunman on the loose in the lobby and that a siege situation is ongoing. He’s a doorman, and has locked the exit doors and shut down the elevators. Law enforcement officers have surrounded the building. We have been told by authorities that no one should attempt to leave the premises until we receive the all-clear. They assure us there is no need to panic. There are no reports of any injuries. We will keep you abreast of any further developments as they unfold.”

A few guests nod their heads politely, and then most of them return to their quiet conversations and aggressive networking. Only a couple of them take out their phones to make calls.

“Wow, you really kept them calm,” Georgia remarks.

We retreat to my bedroom-office.

A guest follows us in and asks Georgia, “Do you think that if the crisis gets resolved soon, more guests will be allowed to come up?”

Georgia’s face hardens. “Who are you waiting for?”

“You told me your editor, Jen Bloominosky, would be here and that I could show her my manuscript.”

“Look here,” Georgia says, walking to the TV screen on which the scene downstairs is the same as before. She points to it and says, “Hmm… here’s a space behind the doorman who’s holding his gun against that woman’s head. I don’t see why the police might not allow a few guests, one at a time, to slink along the wall opposite where the doorman has lined up the other doormen to kill them one by one. I mean, technically there’s plenty of room behind him. So I think a few new guests might still show. While you wait, go back to your networking and have a good time.”

“Like they did on the Titanic as it was sinking?”

“Uh… right, except we’re not sinking. Notwithstanding that analogy, I’m sure your novel’s terrific.”

Instead of following Georgia’s advice to go into the other room, he sits on the couch and watches the lobby scene on the TV.

He is not aware that Jen Bloominosky actually is at the party already. He probably didn’t see her because she’s always hidden by several people trying to talk to her. Georgia is clearly in no mood to set him straight, which I find amusing yet cruel.

Not all of Georgia’s guests are shameless networking self-promoters, but a depressingly large number of them are. Jen Bloominosky is one of the few who are good, kind souls. She is beloved by everyone. And unlike many of the other guests at this party, she doesn’t strike me as superficial, but rather as quite genuine — in fact, unnervingly so. Earlier, she came up to me and raved about my living room decor and “breathtaking costumes on the animals.” As I was thanking her, I noticed her looking at my face carefully, which caused me to ask, “What?” thinking perhaps I had some dip smeared across my cheek.

She said, “For some reason you don’t want people to think you’re very pretty, do you?”

Flustered, I tried to respond naturally. “It’s very nice of you to say that. You look great too.”

“Your hairdo,” she said. “Not many women in their twenties would willingly sport short gray frizzy hair.”

“I know,” I said, smiling. “I like it.” I tugged on one of my gray curls fondly.

“You don’t fool me. Do you fool a lot of people?”

Rattled, I blinked. I didn’t know what to say. Jen Bloominosky is not only an editor but a respected author — clearly an alarmingly observant one. I hoped she wasn’t going to scrutinize me more closely and notice how my hands were a bit slender compared to the rest of my arms. I hid my hands behind my back. I closed my mouth, in case she realized that my ugly teeth were fake. I shrunk my head further down into my turtleneck so she wouldn’t spot my thin neck.

Making sure to keep my teeth covered by my lips, I replied, “Thank you for the compliments. I really like your shirt. Where did you get it?”

She laughed and said she was going to get a refill (three people swarmed her on her way there).

That was earlier in the evening.

Now my friends and I switch my TV set from the doorman channel to regular channels where there is breaking news coverage of the event. Live aerial footage of the building, surrounding crowds, and police cars are brought to us by helicopters we can see and hear outside my windows. We switch back to the closed-circuit surveillance channel.

Peter again tells me he’d like to talk in private. He whisks me into the same bathroom as before and locks the door.

“Barb, doesn’t this put everything in perspective?” he says to me earnestly. “Doesn’t the issue of beauty seem trivial when you compare it to what’s happening in the lobby? I mean, physical appearance is not a life-and-death problem, right? Can’t we get past it?”

The situation with the doorman does make me more vulnerable than ever to Peter. At this moment, there is nothing I’d like more than to sink into his arms and be comforted and loved.

But instead, I say, “If life doesn’t feel worth living, that’s a sort of death, right? No one has ever genuinely loved Lily romantically. And do you think she seems happy? Some days, like today, she seems so sad I’m afraid she’ll kill herself. Yesterday she and Strad broke up because he couldn’t love her the way he did when she was beautiful. So when you ask me if the situation in the lobby puts things in perspective, my answer is things were already in perspective. Take a good look at Lily as she sits at her piano and tell me if beauty isn’t an issue of life and death.”

“Okay, now, let me give you my perspective of what’s going on. Hearing about this psycho doorman insulting you every day terrifies me and makes me realize even more than before how much you mean to me. My feelings for you are not about your looks. You’re the one hung up on your looks.”

“Only because everyone else is.”

He nods. “Barb, life is short. Disasters can happen. It’s true that you could still meet someone who would fall in love with you before finding out about your beauty. But what if he turns out to be an insufferable ass?”

I realize Peter has a point. I’ve thought of that possibility myself. But giving in would be against all my principles. If only that didn’t matter. There’s nothing I would love more than to give in to him right now.

“Would that be better?” he asks.

“No,” I say.

“So let me ask you one more time,” he says. “Can we have more?”

“I wish we could, but I can’t. I’m blocked.”

He nods, looking resigned. I doubt he understood that my last comment was a cry for help. But I say nothing more because I can’t imagine how anyone could help me.

I leave the bathroom. He stays in there a while longer.

I go to my office, wishing there were some solution, some way out of this cage of principles I’ve built for myself.

I see that Mike, the guy who was desperate to meet Jen Bloominosky, has now met Jen Bloominosky. He has trapped her in a corner of my office and is slowly pulling his big manuscript out of his bag while she is nodding to him kindly.

My friends are glued to the doorman channel. They tell me that nothing has changed, no one in the lobby’s been hurt yet. I’m relieved, but I still don’t have the stomach to watch the channel with them, so I look down at the floor.

Georgia comes over to me. “You don’t look well. Are you okay?” she asks.

I don’t feel like telling her that the horror going on in the lobby is not the only reason I’m not feeling well. So I say, “Yeah, I’m fine.”

She strokes my arm. “I’m sorry I made you feel bad before about not reporting the doorman to the super. It’s not your fault this siege is happening. Are things okay with Peter?”

Just as I’m trying to formulate an answer, Molly, Georgia’s freelance publicist, bursts into the room, hollering at us, “I’ve got Page Six on the phone! Barb, they want to know if you’re involved in any movies right now.”

“Uh…” I stammer, off guard.

“Molly, will you be sane?” Georgia says.

Molly covers the mouthpiece with her finger and whispers to Georgia, “You be sane. Three of my authors, including you, are trapped at this party. And yes, I know that your new novel is great, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need publicity. You are only an author. Your profession will probably be extinct within your lifetime. So stop bustin’ my chops. I’m just doing my job, which I do as superbly as you do yours. You should congratulate me on having had the presence of mind to pitch the doorman drama to Page Six while it’s still hot. What’s more, they’re eating it up, which hasn’t been the case in a long time.”

Georgia grimaces.

Molly goes on: “So when they ask me if our hostess, Barb Colby, who’s a member of the Knights of Creation — and remember, I came up with that name for you guys—”

“Yes, I could kill you for that, by the way,” Georgia says.

Before Molly has a chance to finish talking, Peter bursts in and rushes up to me. He grabs my wig from my head and flings it aside.

Georgia takes a step back, in shock. Jack, Penelope, Molly, Jen Bloominosky, and the guy with the manuscript no longer in his bag, are all staring at Peter and me in amazement.

Before I can react, Peter rips open my extra-large man’s shirt. The buttons fly off. He yanks apart my fake-fat jacket underneath. The snap fasteners pop like machine-gun fire. My long blond hair is swarming around my shoulders.

This passionate act of Peter’s takes me by surprise. And so does my response to it. I am overcome by a strange sense of relief. My principles — instead of bucking at his disobedience — are paralyzed in the face of such irreverence. I can’t muster the will nor the desire to fight him. I remain completely passive.

Jack knocks Peter away from me violently enough that he almost falls. “What the hell are you doing?” he roars at Peter.

Peter hisses an urgent whisper to Jack: “He’s here! The doorman! In the living room, looking for her. He wants to kill her. The only way to hide her is to change her into what she really is, which is what she never is. If you stop me she’ll die!”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. We were watching Adam on the video just a minute ago. I look at the screen. The lobby is now empty. And that’s when I remember there’s a slight tape delay on the doorman channel.

As for how the doorman ended up inside my apartment, that’s harder to fathom. Probably a guest let him in, hoping he was some literary agent or editor.

Georgia scream-whispers at Jack, “Help him, Jack!” And she dives into my closet and grabs some items, crying desperately, “Conceal by revealing!”

My friends are upon me now, like a pack of wolves tearing at me, destroying my painstakingly artificial self — all in an effort to save my real one.

Jack strips me of my fake-fat jacket. Penelope seizes my glasses and chucks them in a corner. Peter unbuttons my pants and begins wrenching them down, both pairs at once — not the most effective method.

Behind me, Jack hooks his arms under my armpits to hold me up while Peter, changing tactics, peels off my huge jeans and then my gel pants. Penelope hides them in two filing cabinets along with my shirt and fat jacket.

I’m in my panties now and Georgia loses no time threading my legs through a black miniskirt — the one I always wear under my disguise when I go to bars for my ritual. She slips my feet into high-heeled pumps I’ve worn only once, on Halloween.

Georgia sticks her fingers in my mouth, and says, “Spit them out!” She extricates my ugly fake teeth and slams them in my desk drawer.

At Jack, she barks, “Help me with her eyes!”

Jack holds my left eye open while Georgia plucks out my brown contact and flicks it over her shoulder. They do the same with my other eye.

Georgia then grabs my face and rubs her lips against mine, spreading her lipstick onto me and wiping off what smeared around my mouth.

I’m now in my white undershirt, which can pass as a sexy top, so my friends leave it alone.

They are done with me.

Teetering in my pumps, I feel like a decorticated fruit, ready for consumption.

Peter is gazing at me, looking mesmerized, lost in some incapacitating fog of useless admiration. Georgia’s publicist, her editor, and the guy with the manuscript no longer in his bag still have not moved, transfixed.

The door flies open. The doorman looms at the threshold, staring at all of us. “What a bunch of assholes in there!” he says, pointing to the living room. “I mean, is my gun invisible? They are so blasé. Don’t they care about life?”

“Not as much as they care about their careers,” Georgia says.

He sneers. “Why does it not surprise me that these are Barb’s friends? See, that’s why I’m here — to kill the Queen of Jade, presiding over her jaded subjects. Where is she?”

He stays in the doorway keeping an eye on the guests in the living room.

“They’re not her friends. They’re mine,” Georgia says. “They’re not even my friends. They’re my enemies.”

“Why would you have them over if they’re your enemies?”

“Grim fascination. Unwholesome addiction.”

He scoffs. “Typical.”

“With the present state of the book publishing world, you can’t blame them for being desperate.”

“Where’s Barb? I was told she’s in here.”

He studies us, and his gaze stops on me. “You. Come here.”

I don’t move.

“You!” he yells, pointing his gun at me and waving me over with his free hand. “Come! Here!”

I am terrified. I walk toward Adam.

There’s a slight smile on his face as he ogles me. “Wow. You’re spectacular. I would have remembered a knockout like you coming into the building.”

I stare back at him, as expressionless as I can manage. My heart is racing.

“That would be naughty, if you snuck past me.” He smiles broadly and winks. “Should I spank you?”

I wouldn’t want him to recognize my voice, so I say nothing.

“Are you always this stupid or are you just having a blonde moment?” he asks. Then, slowly and loudly, he says, “Do you speak English?”

I shake my head.

“Dumb bimbo,” he mutters, looks at the living room, and then at us. “Okay, people, where’s Barb?”

No one says anything.

Sticking to his post in the doorway, he scans the room for places where I could be hiding.

“You,” he says to me, “open the closet. I’m sure Barb is hiding in there.”

I do nothing, at the risk of annoying him — which is still better than infuriating him by revealing I lied about not understanding English.

He repeats his order in mime.

Obeying, I walk to the closet and open it. The inside is visible from where he stands. Thank God my friends didn’t throw my fake fat in there.

“Push the clothes out of the way,” he says, miming again.

I do as he says. He can see there is no one hiding in the closet.

Then he says to everyone, “I’m going to ask you guys one more time, and if I get no answer I’ll shoot one of you randomly. Where is Barb?”

“She went to get some apples,” Peter says. Not bad for someone with no imagination.

“I don’t like liars,” the doorman tells him. “I didn’t see her leave the building. And though I did miss this spectacular bimbo when she entered the building, I would never miss Barb. I don’t miss her when she comes, I don’t miss her when she goes, I won’t miss her when I’ll shoot her, and I won’t miss her when she’s dead.”

“She’s getting the apples from a neighbor in the building,” Peter says.

“What neighbor?”

“She just said a neighbor upstairs.”

The doorman flashes another look at the living room. “Come here,” he says to Peter.

Peter approaches him.

The doorman tells him, “I only wanted to kill one person: Barb. But if you are lying to me I will kill you, too. Come closer.”

Peter obeys.

The doorman presses the barrel of his gun against Peter’s heart. “I’m giving you one last chance to tell me the truth. Where is Barb?”

A second passes, and Peter says, “I have told you the truth.”

The doorman looks at the rest of us. We nod, except for me, careful not to contradict the impression he has of me as a foreign bimbo.

“Fine, I’ll wait for her, then. Hands up, everyone. I want you all in the living room. No touching of cell phones.”

We raise our hands and file past him into the living room. The guests are chatting quietly among themselves. They watch us as we join them.

The doorman addresses the whole crowd: “I want everyone’s hands up, even the jaded people’s.”

Everyone’s hands go up. At least somewhat up. Some hands don’t go up past waist level. A few people are finishing their conversations. I happen to hear the tail end of an exchange between two men standing close to me.

“His last novel sold very well. I’ll send you his manuscript.”

“No need. I only acquire literary fiction now.”

“Ah. Well, I’ve got some literary authors, too. Here’s my card. Could we have lunch some time?”

The doorman stares incredulously at the few people who are still talking. “I have a gun, folks!” he wails. “Are you blind?”

Finally, everyone falls silent with hands at least up to chest level.

While the doorman waits for me to return from getting the imaginary apples, he cuts himself a piece of goat cheese. “Mmm,” he says.

To my astonishment, Penelope takes a few steps toward him and says gently, “Excuse me.”

“What?” he growls.

“Why do you want to kill Barb?”

“Ah,” he says, sounding pleasantly surprised as he puts down the cheese knife. “Thanks for caring. Come a little closer.”

Penelope takes another step toward the doorman. They’re no more than two feet apart.

Looking deep into Penelope’s eyes, he says, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear him clearly: “Barb is a cold inhuman bitch, the most arrogant person I’ve ever met. The most convinced of her own superiority.”

“What makes you think that?”

“You’d never understand,” he says, losing interest and turning back to the cheese.

“Yes I would!”

He chuckles, seeming surprised and even charmed by her earnestness. “I insult her all the time. And she never gets offended. It’s rude and offensive.”

“Sounds like you get easily offended.”

He shakes his head. “Not especially. She’s just odious. She gets the medal for being least annoyable. And her medal is in this gun. And I can’t wait to give it to her.”

“But why do you insult her?”

The doorman sits on one of my counter stools. He looks tired. “Because she wasn’t offended by my subtle signs of disrespect.”

“Why did you give her signs of disrespect?”

“Because she wasn’t bothered when I was in a bad mood or slightly rude.”

“Wow. So it began small and really escalated.”

“Exactly,” he says, nodding. “Her ego was incapable of getting miffed by me because she considers people like me so unimportant. That’s why I pushed it. She infuriated me.”

Penelope is nodding.

Encouraged, he goes on: “Thinking about it makes me very angry. That’s why I’m here. To put an end to her. For me, it’s a win-win situation. If she’s miffed before dying, I’ll finally have gotten what I want. If she’s still not miffed, that will prove that she’s a psychopath and that I shouldn’t have taken her behavior personally, which will make me feel better about the whole thing. I’ll kill her either way, of course, but right before doing it, I will hold the barrel of my gun against her forehead and I will ask her one simple question: ‘Does this bum you out?’”

Penelope says, “I understand. You want to feel that you exist, that you matter, like we all do, but—”

“Exactly! I always have the courtesy of being offended when people are not nice to me. I mean, look at me now!” he roars, standing up.

Penelope nods. “Of course. But there’s something you should know. The reason Barb wasn’t miffed is not because she has a huge ego, but rather, no ego. It’s not you she considered unimportant but herself.”

“Oh, spare me the bullshit!”

“It’s true. You were right, you shouldn’t have taken it personally, not because she’s a psychopath, but because she was traumatized by a terrible event two and a half years ago that left her numb.”

The doorman looks like he’s about to explode with sarcastic comments, so without a pause, Penelope quickly explains. “Her best friend killed himself out of love for her, and since then she’s obliterated herself. Her main concern is to avoid hurting anyone ever again, even indirectly, even accidentally, which is why when you mistreated her, she was concerned about you, not about herself. Didn’t she express concern for you, for your well-being?”

“Yeah, it was so condescending.”

“She never complained to the management about you, did she?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, she didn’t, otherwise you’d be fired and you know it. Most people would have reported you. And do you know why she didn’t?”

“Because she knew I’d retaliate. That’s obvious.”

Penelope shakes her head. “No. It’s because she didn’t want you to lose your job. Understand that I’m not objecting to your desire to kill, per se. What troubles me is that your murderous impulse is based on a misinterpretation of everything she’s done. The person you’re hunting down doesn’t exist. She’s an illusion, your delusion. You took the few pieces of her that were visible to you and you put them together into this little grotesque being that you assume is Barb. But I’ve now handed you the missing pieces, so you can rebuild her into what she really is: a person who has been altered by grief. If you knew the real Barb, you would love her and want to protect her, not kill her.”

To my surprise, he looks momentarily moved. But, recovering quickly, he says, “Clever twist, and a very poetic story you’ve made up, but I know you’re lying because you’d be stupid not to, and you don’t look stupid.”

“I couldn’t have made that up to save my life. I’m not very creative. I just like to fix things. Like your misconception of Barb.”

“It doesn’t matter. I have my heart set on killing her, and plus I think you’re lying.”

“No, she’s telling the truth,” Georgia jumps in. “Ever since her best friend killed himself out of love for her, Barb has developed a shell. She’s still very caring about the welfare of others, such as yourself or her friends, but not her own. She no longer cares what people think of her. In fact, she now prefers being disliked to being loved too much. This can come off as cold indifference. And someone could, as you have, misinterpret her as being a hard bitch.”

I know Georgia means what she says because she’s actually said this to me before.

“I don’t care what lies you all make up. I’m not going to change my mind,” the doorman says.

My stress level is skyrocketing. By now, lots of cell phones are ringing, and so is my landline. No one is allowed to answer their phones, so the room is filled with clashing ring tones accompanied by a gentle tinkling sound as Lily starts unobtrusively playing the piano.

“What’s taking her so long?” The doorman turns to Peter. “And why is she getting apples in the first place?”

“They go well with cheese,” Peter says.

The doorman cuts himself another piece of goat cheese and says to Lily, “That’s very pretty, what you’re playing.”

“It’s called ‘Need,’” Lily answers.

“Of all the times I’ve seen you come in and out of the building, I never imagined you played the piano, and so well,” he says.

Penelope continues trying to reason with him. “We think we know people. We think that what we see is all there is. We rarely ask ourselves what goes on behind the curtain. We jump to conclusions. And we take everything very personally.”

The doorman suddenly cocks his ear, as though he hears a faint sound. “Do you hear that?” he asks Penelope. “That’s the sound of no one caring. You’re making me cringe now. If you keep this up, my finger might cringe on the trigger. And, plus, I just realized I have a real problem.”

“What problem?” Penelope asks, as Lily keeps playing.

“Well, I know I’m going to prison, I knew that from the start, so that’s not the problem. The problem is I forgot to arrange things for when I get out of prison. I mean, in case I ever get out, which of course will depend on whether or not I’ll be able to kill Barb.”

“What did you forget to arrange?”

“Mainly, I’m out of office supplies, and I forgot to buy more.” He now looks very distressed. “I wish I’d made sure my desk was always well-stocked, so then if I did go to prison, at least I’d have everything I needed when I got out. And knowing that would make being in prison so much more bearable.”

My bafflement at what he’s saying is short-lived because I quickly realize he’s being influenced by Lily’s music. She must be using that new musical skill she developed recently: the ability to beautify — and create a desire for — things even when they’re not there. Clearly, in this case, she chose office supplies.

“Staples is open till ten,” Penelope says to him.

“You’re kidding!” He looks at his watch. “I’ll go to prison even if I don’t kill Barb, and I’d love to kill her, but she’s taking so long, and I can’t face going to prison without a well-stocked desk; that’s my priority. Maybe I could get to Staples without getting arrested until after I’ve bought my stuff.”

“You are so wise,” one of the guests says. “You should go to Staples right away, before it closes. And if you don’t mind, I’ll go with you because I’m out of pencils and getting low on thumbtacks.”

“You’re as bad as I am!” the doorman tells him, while other guests are now also clamoring to go to Staples. “Okay, I’ll let you all come with me, but you have to walk in front of me so I can see you.”

And the guests in my apartment miraculously depart. Lily has outdone herself. My urge to follow them to replenish my stock of printing paper almost equals my relief that they’re gone. I can tell that my friends are struggling with similar issues as well.

Jen Bloominosky, Georgia’s editor, is one of the last to leave. Before exiting, she turns around and says to me, pointing to my body, “I didn’t dream the extent of it. But I was onto you, give me credit.”

I can’t help smiling.

She says, “I wish I could stay and chat about it, but unfortunately I’m in desperate need of file folders.”

When all the guests are gone, Jack locks the front door and phones the police downstairs. He alerts them that the doorman and guests are on their way down and headed to Staples, possessed by an irresistible need to buy office supplies.

We melt all over Lily, congratulating her, thanking her, and then we do the same with Peter, thanking him for saving my life. If he hadn’t come to the party, I’d probably be dead. I express my gratitude to Penelope and Georgia as well, for their efforts. And of course my friends do some fussing about me — being the one who almost got killed.

We’re all in high spirits except for Lily, who seems sadder than ever.

Some of us use the bathrooms, others pour ourselves drinks. When it’s my turn to emerge from the bathroom, I’m surprised to see Georgia coming back into my apartment from the outside hall.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“I was just throwing out some trash,” she replies. She pats Lily’s arm with concern and says to her, “God, you look even less well than Barb did. You can relax now. The nightmare is over.”

“Yours is. Mine never will be.” Lily goes back to the piano and resumes her sorrowful playing.

I suddenly feel the need to put my disguise back on. “Excuse me for a minute,” I mutter, and head toward my bedroom-office to find it.

“Don’t bother,” Georgia says. “It’s shredded.”

I freeze. “What?”

“I sliced it up into a million pieces and threw it down the garbage chute just now.” She finally looks at me.

I’m speechless. I feel a rapid headache coming on.

She says, “You don’t need it.”

All my friends are looking at me now.

“I can make myself another one,” I blurt.

“And undo tonight’s silver lining?” she says. “That would be a shame. And pointless. My publicist saw you being stripped. Now that she knows what you really look like, you can be sure the whole world knows. The era of the disguise is over. It’s no use wearing it anymore. It would just look affected.”

“Plus,” Penelope says to me, “it’s not your beauty that’s dangerous, it’s your personality. We found that out tonight.”

I say to Georgia, “If we ask your publicist nicely not to tell anyone, I’m sure she won’t.”

Peter is wisely choosing to stay out of the conversation.

I look at Lily, who hasn’t yet said anything on the topic. Her feelings on this issue are those I care most about.

Sensing this, she stops playing. “You know my opinion,” she says. “I’m glad Georgia threw out your disguise. I think you should enjoy your beauty. You don’t seem to realize how lucky you are. And sometimes I find that inconsiderate. To see you not appreciating something that could have made my life so happy is almost offensive to me.”

Even though I realize this might be a selfless attempt to help me overcome my need to hide my appearance, her words come as a shock, which must be visible on my face because she quickly adds, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. You’ve been great. I’m just so depressed about Strad.”

“You’ll get over him,” Georgia says.

“I know. What I’ll never get over is the world. The importance of the casing.” Lily resumes playing her sad but beautiful piece.

“Don’t you want to sit with us on the couch?” I ask her.

“No, I just want to play a bit longer,” she says.

I have a profile view of her sitting at the piano, and from where I’m standing it looks as though she’s wearing gloves. Having never seen her, or anyone, play the piano with gloves on, I approach her to take a closer look.

I stop in my tracks when I realize she’s not wearing gloves. Her hands are like nothing I’ve ever seen, though exactly as she has described them to me. They’re as reflective as mirrors.

Filled with horror, I watch the transformation creep up her forearms. I remember full well that she thought this change meant death, and I also remember her telling me she was tempted to give in to it.

“Lily!” I bark.

She doesn’t even flinch, as though she hasn’t heard me. She continues playing, her expression glazed.

The reflectiveness is spreading over her chest. Her clothing fades away as her skin turns to mirror.

I shake her, but it makes no difference. The metamorphosis descends toward her legs and simultaneously rises up her neck.

I take both her arms and pull them away from the piano keys. She doesn’t resist. Nearly her entire body is a reflective surface now, and the effect is crawling up her face like beauty once did. She looks at me and murmurs, “I’m sorry.” The transfiguration creeps up to her eyes, making her look as though she’s sinking in mirror, drowning in what’s around her. I see myself in her. But because she’s three-dimensional, I’m grotesquely deformed, like in curved mirrors at amusement parks.

“Lily! Lily!” I yell. I grab her by the shoulders and shake her again, then tap her cheeks. Her gaze, though fixed on mine, is vacant. “Lily, stop that. Come out of it. Fight it, don’t let go.” And suddenly there’s a little crack that appears on Lily’s chest, at the level of her heart. And the crack expands like a cobweb.

“What’s happening?” I scream, turning to the others. They are gathered around me, looking at Lily’s chest.

“Lily, don’t,” I say, putting my palm over her heart, hoping to stop the web of cracks from growing. But the fissures continue to radiate in an ever-widening circle. It’s only a few more seconds before they reach her arms, her thighs, and then crawl up her neck.

I yell to her that she can stop it. I beg her not to let this happen.

The cracks cover her face.

“It’s not too late,” I tell her, more softly. “There’s so much to live for. Everyone loves you.”

It’s not working.

“I order you to stop.”

It does not stop. The cracks continue spreading, dividing each fragment of her into smaller fragments. Her entire being is now cracked in a million places.

I close my eyes. “I can’t live if you die.”

I sob, my eyes clenched shut. When I open them again, a fragment of her broken reflective surface comes loose and falls at my feet. And then another piece becomes detached and falls. And then a tiny piece of her arm. The holes left behind are dark and empty.

I won’t let her come apart. These broken pieces must be held together because they are all there is left of her now. I loop my arms around her. I lift her off the bench to a standing position, and I plaster my body against hers to prevent pieces from falling. I ignore the pain as her sharp fragments cut into my flesh. It doesn’t matter. She must be held together. I move my arms against her back to make sure I’m holding onto as much of her broken self as possible. In the process I get more cuts. If I’d still been wearing my disguise, I would have been protected by the padding.

Our friends haven’t yet noticed my injuries because my back is to them, and they’ve barely had a chance to process what’s happening.

“Lily, I will help you,” I tell her. “We’ll all help you. We’ll do a better job, this time. Give us another chance. Don’t let yourself come apart like this. Fight it! You can still fight it.”

To my horror, my friends start pulling me off her. “No!” I scream, resisting them, but I’m weak because I’ve already lost a lot of blood.

When they see the front of me drenched in blood and with numerous shards of mirrored glass planted in me, they gasp and I hear Peter yell, “Call 911!”

Penelope is standing near us, crying, her hand over her mouth. She’s dialing 911 on her cell phone.

I feel faint. My legs give way under me. Jack and Peter gently lay me down on the floor, still restraining me, for I haven’t stopped struggling to get back to Lily. They position me away from her. “Let me go!” I turn my head in every direction, looking for her, but I can’t see her.

“It’s too late,” Georgia says, sweeping the hair out of my face, trying to calm me. “It’s over.”

No. I yank my arm away from them and lift myself up on one elbow, but I get dizzy. Just before losing consciousness, I see, a few feet away, what is left of Lily: a pile of tiny, sparkling pieces.

Chapter Eighteen

When I regain consciousness at the hospital a few hours later — at around six o’clock in the morning — the first two things I’m aware of are a red tube going into my arm and the pain of my wounds. A moment later, far greater pain invades me as the memory of Lily’s death comes rushing back.

My failure to keep her together replays in my mind in horrific detail.

I gaze at my arms lying over the covers. Both wrists are bandaged, as well as my left upper arm, and I can see many Band-Aids on the rest of my skin.

I hardly care when the doctor tells me I was lucky the paramedics reached me quickly and began fluid resuscitation as soon as I was in the ambulance. I’m told that if they hadn’t, I might not be alive because I’d gone into hemorrhagic shock due to the massive loss of blood. My blood pressure was dangerously low and my heart rate insanely high.

I hardly care when the doctor tells me I arrived at the hospital with over a hundred shards of mirrored glass lodged in me. And I hardly care when he tells me it took him and his team three hours to remove all the pieces.

But suddenly, I have a question I care deeply about: “Where are the pieces?” I ask, getting agitated.

“It’s important that you stay relaxed,” he tells me. “You’re in the last hour of a four-hour blood transfusion. You suffered a class III hemorrhage and lost 40 percent of your blood, most of it lost through four deep incisions — one on your neck and three on your wrists and arm.”

“You’re not answering my question. Where are the hundred pieces you removed from my body?”

“Don’t worry. We saved them all, per your friends’ instructions. We’ve already given them to Peter Marrick. It must have been a valuable sculpture, eh?”

I sigh with relief, though I have no idea what he’s talking about regarding a sculpture.

He comes closer and says, “You were very lucky. You have eighty-five stitches on your body, but you didn’t get a single cut on your face.” He puts his fingers under my chin and raises my face toward his. “Your face is flawless. It would have been a shame to get it scarred.”

I pull away, put off by his bedside manner.

Quickly, he adds, “That’s not to say your body is any less perfect. But scars on the body don’t matter. They’re cool, like tattoos. I’m just saying it’s a miracle your face came out unscathed.”

There’s nothing miraculous about it. I don’t have cuts on my face because I wasn’t saying goodbye, I was trying to save her. If I’d been saying goodbye to Lily before she died, I would have pressed my cheek against hers, I would have rested my mouth and chin on her shoulder, I would have buried my face in her neck. Instead, I was trying to see how best to hold her, trying to look where best to apply pressure to keep her together. If getting my face disfigured could have saved her, I would not have hesitated.

Tears start running down my cheeks. The doctor wipes one away and says soberly, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause offense.”

I burst out laughing and instantly resume crying. A sense of loneliness invades me.

He keeps trying to fix what he thinks made me cry. “Don’t worry, you’ll hardly have any scars on your body. Most of the cuts were superficial and didn’t require stitches.” Finally, he wisely decides to change the topic. “Are there any family members you’d like us to contact?”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. I don’t want my mom’s dream vacation in Australia to be ruined by news of my condition. She’d be so distraught, she’d either cut her trip short or at the very least she wouldn’t be able to enjoy the rest of it, and I can’t bear either option.

“But… are any of my friends here?” I ask.

To my relief they are. The doctor lets them in. Georgia rushes to me, looking extremely anxious. Jack and Peter follow. They all look traumatized. Peter holds my hand.

As for Penelope, she’s not here. When the doctor leaves and my friends and I are alone, they tell me Penelope is home, trying to piece Lily back together, like she would one of her ugly broken pots. They say she stopped by the hospital earlier and got all the remaining pieces from Peter.

Georgia adds, in an urgent, secretive tone, “Everyone was asking how you got a hundred shards of mirror stuck in you. I had to make up a story. We said you had a large mirror sculpture that you accidentally knocked over and fell on top of as it shattered.”

I nod, filled with gloom as I’m visualizing what really happened. After a moment, I ask, “What happened to Lily? What was that?”

Georgia looks at Jack and Peter. Then she replies, “Death by sorrow, we assume. I think the sad music she played each time she felt depressed created a vicious circle she couldn’t get out of. Her mood made the music sadder, which in turn made her mood sadder. It’s as if her mood and her music became entwined in a dance of despair, reinforcing each other, creating a downward spiral that pulled Lily under.”

My throat is clenched so tight I can hardly breathe.

Peter is at my other side. He’s caressing my cheek, smiling at me lovingly, wanting me to turn away from Georgia.

The doctors were hoping to let me go home later, but it turns out not to be possible because the transfusion doesn’t agree with me. I develop a fever, which I’m told is a febrile non-hemolytic transfusion reaction. They say it’s common and won’t cause any lasting problems.

The fever goes away by the end of the day, and I’m allowed to leave at four the following afternoon.

PETER, GEORGIA, AND Jack are here to escort me out. We move down the hospital corridor like a funeral procession, our heads bowed, thinking of Lily.

Our plan is to go directly to Penelope’s apartment because I want to see Lily’s remains.

Before we’ve even left my hospital floor, I’m being stared at by doctors, nurses, and visitors. They stare at me as we wait for the elevator, then in the elevator, then in the lobby. Not being disguised is even worse than I remembered. And they don’t just stare. Some of them whisper to each other while staring. I can’t wait to get out of here.

Georgia decides we should sit in the coffee shop in the lobby for tea and a snack, which annoys me because she knows I want to see Lily’s pieces right away, and I’m the one who’s injured. But Jack’s on her side and Peter’s neutral, so we go in and get a table.

I refuse all food and drink. While my friends are getting their snacks at the self-service counter, people keep staring at me. It’s excruciating. I’m getting agitated, and the stress is causing me to feel my cuts more acutely, as though these strangers’ eyes are cutting into me. I won’t be able to take this on a daily basis, especially now that Lily is dead from all this crap.

My friends return to the table, unwrapping their snacks and stirring their teas.

“I won’t be able to live like this,” I state flatly. “I’ll have to put my disguise back on. Or attack people looking my way.”

“Don’t worry, today it’s not normal staring,” Georgia says. “I’m really sorry, but my stupid publicist secretly used her phone to film you while we were stripping you at the party. You’re on most newspapers’ front pages today. They’ve published some photos of you wearing your hideous getup next to some photos of you in all your natural splendor. They seem fascinated by the contrast, and they used headlines like ‘Strip or Die’ and ‘Stripping For Your Life’ and ‘Psycho Doorman Blinded By Beauty.’ You’re being referred to as ‘The Woman Who Was Stripped of Her Ugliness to Save Her Life.’ The video of your stripping has been online since yesterday morning. They keep showing it on TV, too.”

After several seconds of shocked silence, I say, “That sucks. Why didn’t you tell me right away?”

“We were afraid you wouldn’t leave your hospital room if you knew.”

“So you figured you’d prolong my suffering by making me sit here to be gawked at by everyone? Did you want to torture me?’

“No, we wanted to prepare you. The paparazzi are outside, waiting for you to come out. They’re being kept out by security. We couldn’t let you walk out without warning you, right?”

“Right,” I mutter.

“Don’t worry,” Georgia says, “the crazy staring will pass. Until then, it’ll be rough because people are going berserk over this story. They find your story inspiring, for some reason. There’s even imitation going on. I heard on the news that earlier today there was a fashion show in which male models pounced on female models on the runway and stripped them of their dowdy, unflattering clothes, to reveal their chic couture outfits underneath.”

“It’s true,” Peter says. “And a wedding took place today in which the bride walked down the aisle wearing a big ugly sack or tent and a bunch of her friends stripped her, uncovering her beautiful wedding gown.”

Jack says, “A buddy of mine was at a strip club last night and said some of the strippers were doing it, too, taking off big hideous outfits to reveal their sexy little selves underneath.”

“You see what I mean?” Georgia says to me. “But mostly the media wants to know why such a beauty as yourself would hide her looks for years. That’s what they want to ask you.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say.

“That’s fine. You can leave it up to the men.”

“What men?”

“The men you did your ritual on, at bars. They’re coming out of the woodwork, offering their theories, their gibberish, not always flattering to you, by the way — obviously, because their pride was wounded. They describe how you misrepresented yourself. One guy said it’s as bad as dishonesty the other way around, like when he meets women online who pretend they’re better-looking than they are by showing him photos of themselves younger, thinner, or photos of other women.”

Clearly, I can never put my disguise back on. Too many people would know it’s just a disguise. And it would excite them. And their excitement would make my life more miserable than simply enduring my appearance.

“Do we want to get out of this hospital the straightforward way or do we want to sneak out?” Georgia asks.

“Sneak out, obviously,” I say.

“I think it would be a mistake.”

“Why?”

“If you’re elusive they’ll never leave you alone. If you’re accessible they’ll get bored faster.”

“Okay, the straightforward way, then,” I say.

I’m holding on to Peter’s arm as we exit the hospital through the main entrance. Georgia wasn’t kidding. There are TV news crews and a throng of photographers shoving one another, shouting things at me, like—

“Barb, show us your cuts! Your stitches!”

“Do you hate men, Barb?”

“Why didn’t you go into modeling or acting? You could have made a fortune!”

“Barb, you’re gorgeous!”

“Smile, Barb! Show us your teeth!”

“Got anything to say to TMZ?”

I fight my urge to turn away or run. It’s challenging, because I feel as though I’m in a pool of sharks. And yet that’s exactly what one’s supposed to do in a pool of sharks: move calmly, don’t panic, don’t go berserk trying to escape.

Despite my efforts to remain accessible per Georgia’s advice — at least visually if not verbally — their excitement is growing. They seem energized by my lack of resistance.

Trying to control the edge of hysteria in my voice, I say in Georgia’s ear, “They’re not getting bored like you said.”

A paparazzo shouts, “She spoke! What did she say? Barb, say that again, we didn’t hear you!”

Georgia’s face reaches up to my ear and replies: “Yes, they are. This is them, bored. If you had fled, you would have seen true madness.”

Peter’s driver is double parked, waiting for us. As we’re about to get in the car, several of the paparazzi behind me shout, “Over your shoulder, Barb!” I look behind me to see what they’re talking about. They just wanted to get another shot.

We’re followed by a few news vehicles.

When we arrive at Penelope’s building, we hurry inside.

In her apartment, we stand around Lily’s feet, which Penelope has succeeded in putting back together. On the coffee table is a portion of her face, which Penelope has also put back together like a separate piece of a puzzle. It’s heart-wrenching. Every part of Lily has retained its horrible mirror-like reflectiveness. Next to the excerpt of her face is her reassembled hand, and part of her other one. Penelope says the extremities are the easiest, whereas the larger, less detailed planes such as the thighs and back will be more difficult — like sections of clear blue skies, or virgin snow, in puzzles.

I give Penelope a hug and a kiss of gratitude for her touching but pointless efforts to put Lily back together.

After our visit, Peter takes me to my apartment. He helps me get into bed. He lies next to me, dressed. I cry and he caresses my face. It all seems so inevitable. Lily, dead of sadness, me, here, loved for a worthless reason by an otherwise wonderful man. It’s all so predetermined and inescapable.

AT NINE THE next morning, the ringing of my cell phone wakes me. I don’t usually sleep this late, but my injuries have exhausted me and I took some painkillers in the middle of the night.

I answer my phone. It’s my mom, calling from Australia, sounding excited.

The first thing out of her mouth is: “That video is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen! I was at a bar a few hours ago and saw you on the TV getting stripped! I’ve been partying ever since, waiting until it was late enough to call you. I want to thank your crazy doorman. I’m sorry you got injured by all those pieces of glass, but sweetie, it was worth it!”

“I needed a four-hour transfusion. If I’d been wearing my disguise, I would have been protected from those shards and I wouldn’t have lost 40 percent of my blood.”

“Oh, honey, I’m sorry. But I still think it was worth it.”

Hurt, I say, “If it hadn’t been for my disguise and the chance it gave me to hide by taking it off, I probably would be dead, shot by the doorman.”

“If it hadn’t been for your disguise, perhaps he wouldn’t have wanted to shoot you in the first place.”

“You don’t understand my doorman. He wanted to kill me because of my personality, not because of how I looked. I was too calm for his taste. He hated me for never getting offended by his insults. He found it belittling. His desire to kill me had nothing to do with my appearance.”

“So you think.”

I huff. “I’ll have some scars on my body,” I say, thinking at least she’ll care about that, since it has to do with beauty.

“Who cares! Bodily scars are nothing compared to how hideous you looked. I hope you’re never going to put back on that disgusting fat. I have my beautiful daughter back!” she screams.

Not wanting her vacation shortened on my account, I talk her out of jumping on the next plane to care for me. I tell her my friends have been helping me plenty.

AND THEY HAVE been, especially Peter, who is devoted to me. During the next few days, he stays with me, nurses me. He leaves me only to go to the station to anchor the news and comes right back to take care of me. He is endlessly attentive and affectionate. I tell all my clients that I need extra time to complete the various projects I’m working on. Everyone is, of course, very accommodating.

I can tell by the way Peter looks at me that he’s affected by my real appearance. I’ve noticed this every day since he ripped off my disguise. Yet, he makes no pass at me, which is just as well because if he did, I know I would rebuff him. Despite my attraction to him, I would reject him because I refuse to let beauty win. Especially now that Lily has been destroyed by it.

When I go out, people’s stares get on my nerves.

I screen my calls. I ignore the many messages I get every day from journalists asking me to grant them interviews and to explain why for years I squashed my beauty under a load of hideousness and why I did my bar ritual.

Why should I grant interviews? Only to become even more recognized, even more stared at? I wouldn’t have minded explaining myself, or expressing my harsh opinion of beauty, but the cost is too great.

Plus, Georgia does something much more powerful to further my cause against beauty worship. She turns Lily into a legend. She doesn’t mean to. She means only to honor Lily’s memory by writing an in-depth article for the New York Times about her life.

Surprisingly, at the bottom of the article, in a separate section entitled “What Happened to Lily?” Georgia doesn’t shy away from describing Lily’s end — the true version. Given its supernatural nature, everyone takes this finale to be an imaginative and metaphorical account of Lily’s breakdown and alarming disappearance. They believe Lily got depressed and “fell to pieces” after her breakup with Strad. They believe the split “shattered” her and that then she decided to vanish, leave town. For a while or maybe forever.

Correcting this misconception would be unwise of us, we feel, particularly as her parents have already recruited the police’s help in trying to locate her, and any insistence on our parts that Lily broke to pieces literally, not metaphorically, will only make us seem like lunatics, deserving of being more thoroughly investigated in connection with her disappearance — an investigation we would not welcome for fear it might uncover the fact that there does happen to be, coincidentally, a killer among us.

But that’s not the only reason we don’t want people to know Lily is in real pieces. We’re afraid Penelope will go insane if those pieces are taken from her. She’s already demented, spending her entire days trying to put Lily back together.

Georgia knows her article is powerful, but she didn’t expect fashion magazine editors to be so stunned by Lily’s tragic story as to discuss it among themselves and decide to turn Lily’s ugliness into the new beauty.

These editors are smart, realistic women and men. They know that radically redefining modern beauty is not going to happen overnight.

But they’re wrong.

It does.

Virtually.

Here’s what happens. First, Georgia’s article stirs up a vigorous debate in the media about beauty. Two days after her article appears, Ellen DeGeneres announces she is going to devote a show to the topic of the unfortunate importance of physical beauty in our world. She invites the editors-in-chief of the top four monthly fashion magazines, as well as the head of Women’s Wear Daily. She wants them to defend themselves on her show after they’ve read the Times article — not an easy task, she predicts.

Far from defending themselves, the magazine editors agree with Ellen. This makes for a surprising show. One of them, the editor-in-chief of Elle magazine, confesses she’s been made sick by Georgia’s article. She says she wishes she could do something about it.

The show ends with a plea from Ellen for Lily to come back, wherever she is. Everyone is distraught over her disappearance.

The next day, Women’s Wear Daily introduces the new ideal face: Lily’s face. They cover the story incessantly, with front-page updates and news about models who are being discovered all over the world and signed before they even create a portfolio.

The monthly beauty magazines redo their cover shots and cover stories; they whip up new feature articles based on the new beauty; and they quickly reshoot, in studio, either twelve, twenty-four or — in Elle’s case — forty-eight pages, out of sixty fashion pages, for their next issues, using models who are ugly in ways that resemble Lily as much as possible.

It’s a holistic, industry-wide embrace, a coordinated effort. Even nightly newscasters offer regular updates, particularly Peter Marrick.

We’re sad that Lily is not alive to enjoy her new beauty.

Several top fashion designers in London, Paris, New York, and Tokyo announce that they, too, are supporting this new beauty ideal and replacing all the models in their upcoming runway shows.

Not everyone’s reasons for joining the trend are noble. A few are mercenary.

Three high-ranking plastic surgeons report that there’s been a dramatic decrease in business. They say women are having second thoughts about getting rid of flaws that are now highly prized. When the three surgeons are asked if they are disappointed in this turn in fashion, two of them — possibly insincerely — say no. The third one, however, says yes he is disappointed but expects that women will start booking appointments to get flaws (now considered “improvements”) incorporated into their faces and bodies. He adds, “As long as women are dissatisfied with how they look, I’m satisfied. I don’t care what form their dissatisfaction takes, provided it requires me to fix it.”

This comment fans the flames, causing more articles to come out condemning the fact that the basic underpinning of the fashion, beauty, and cosmetics industries is women’s dissatisfaction with themselves. I think that people getting this glimpse into the dark side of beauty has enabled them to see pulchritude for what it is: something as disgusting as it sounds — putrefaction; rot; another one of life’s necessary lunacies.

Of course, not everyone hears about the new beauty, especially people who don’t keep up with fashion. That’s why I still get catcalls and come-ons from non-metrosexual men who are behind the times. I’m allergic to them, but I have to be patient, take it one day at a time.

No longer ladylike or meticulously groomed, Penelope lives in sweat clothes and her hair is disheveled. She used to be the only one among us to wear makeup on a regular basis, and even though I think she’s much more attractive without it, we all know its absence is a bad sign about her mental state.

She’s been rebuilding Lily for weeks with little progress, yet she’s showing no signs of letting up. Quite the opposite. Her focus is sharpening and her determination is acquiring a certain savagery.

Not once since Lily broke has Penelope met us anywhere other than at her apartment, and her reluctance to let us visit increases each week. And she’s cranky, which I know is understandable given that as soon as she makes any progress, Lily falls apart again.

In her desperate desire to bring Lily back to life, Penelope at first tries to rebuild her in the exact position she died in — standing up — but she quickly realizes it’s impossible. So she tries rebuilding her friend lying down. Penelope believes that horizontally the task will no longer be impossible — merely horrendously difficult.

Even though Penelope does start making some progress, Lily still keeps collapsing. But Penelope continues working on Lily with as much passion and single-mindedness as Lily did when working on her musical pieces. Day after day, with infinite delicacy, Penelope balances Lily’s pieces on top of one another. No matter how careful she is, however, there always comes a time when she is not careful enough, when her hand shakes a little too much, when the mere fact of being human makes it impossible for her to place every single fragment with the exact degree of gentleness necessary at the precise angle required. She’s killing herself trying to attain perfection in all her gestures.

And we don’t stop her.

We don’t have the energy.

Lily’s death has left us weak and despondent.

Plus, we know it would be useless to try to stop her. Penelope would continue. And the truth is, we want her to continue because even though our minds know that her enterprise is hopeless, our hearts can’t stop hoping — stupidly and relentlessly.

Jack is the last one to see Penelope.

That was three days ago. He said she looked bad — haggard and pale — and that she’d lost weight. In the middle of her living room floor was Lily, close to being fully recomposed. But the same problem kept happening. Each time she was almost back together, she’d crumble.

Jack was upset to discover that there was no food in Penelope’s fridge or cabinets. He bought her groceries and made her promise to eat.

His account was so disturbing that each of us made concerted efforts to see her after that. But we failed; she was no longer receiving visitors, saying she needed to work on Lily without distractions.

Thankfully, we don’t have to endure the situation much longer. Everything changes dramatically one evening when Jack’s phone rings while we’re gathered at my place, brooding over Lily’s recomposition and Penelope’s decomposition.

Peter is not with us. As my cuts have been fading, so has his presence from my life. I still see him once or twice a week, but I sense his visits will grow farther apart. He’s been withdrawing because he feels that nothing has changed between us, that I’m still blocked, that we have no future beyond a friendship. And I can’t say I disagree. Lily’s ugliness as a new beauty trend has in no way touched the core of the beauty worship problem. Just because beauty’s been redefined doesn’t mean it has lost its importance. And I’m resigned to being stuck for as long as beauty rules — which I expect to be forever.

This night, Jack almost doesn’t pick up his ringing phone. At the last minute he checks the caller ID. “It’s Penelope,” he says, and eagerly answers it.

He listens for a few seconds and then snaps the phone shut.

“What did she say?” Georgia asks.

“It was her number, but it wasn’t Penelope,” he answers, in shock. “It was Lily. She said ‘Help us.’ And then the line went dead.”

We rush to the elevator, out the building, hop in a cab, and reach Penelope’s apartment in under ten minutes.

It takes us another ten minutes to persuade the doorman and the super to open Penelope’s door with the spare key they have.

We find Penelope and Lily unconscious on the living room floor. We call 911, and while we wait for the ambulance to arrive, we’re able to find a pulse on each of our friends. We can’t believe Lily is alive again, and not only alive but not reflective.

The superintendent, who is hovering over us, seems perplexed as to why Penelope’s unconscious state terrifies us while Lily’s delights us.

The ambulance squad arrives within minutes and Lily regains consciousness on the way to the hospital but Penelope doesn’t. The doctors say she’s dehydrated and malnourished. Her vital signs are weak.

Much of the ecstasy we feel over Lily’s resurrection is dampened by our worry for Penelope.

NOW THAT WE’VE got Lily back and that Penelope possibly sacrificed her life to reassemble her, I want to place Lily on a shelf with a big sign that reads: “Fragile. If you break her you will pay.”

When word gets out that Lily is back and alive, journalists start calling her incessantly, asking for interviews. She doesn’t give a single one, being in no mood to talk about herself when the friend who brought her back to life is in the hospital in a coma.

In an effort to distract her from her crushing feelings of guilt, we show Lily how much the world of fashion has changed during the past few weeks. We want her to see that, at least for now, she’s beautiful in this world. But Lily doesn’t care. She doesn’t care about the many fashion magazines that use models who resemble her. She doesn’t care that on the streets, many women who, until last month, would have been considered unattractive are now carrying themselves with more confidence and self-appreciation. She doesn’t care that her physical appearance is now desired.

And not only does she not care, she doesn’t believe it. She doesn’t feel beautiful. How can she, after years of being ignored, dismissed, avoided, insulted — insulted like she was by that man at the bar who ended up murdered. The damage to her self-esteem was far too great for her to feel beautiful now. As though all it would take would be for the whole world to find her beautiful.

Lily is swamped by adoring fans and by men who want to date her. But she’s not interested in men who see the beauty in her ugliness only now that everyone else does.

She is contacted by old schoolmates and acquaintances who never showed much interest in her before. Those are the worst. Extricating herself from having to meet up, catch up, or hook up is so awkward that she changes her phone number and becomes a recluse within a week of coming back to life. This, of course, only increases her mystique and feeds the frenzy.

She also hires a bodyguard (at our insistence), after Jack points out that she might be a tempting target for kidnappers, now that Georgia’s article has revealed the extent of Lily’s powers and her ability to beautify — and create a desire for — not only objects but people, and not only a desire for those objects and people who are present, but also for those who are not.

It doesn’t take long for her fans, acquaintances, and old schoolmates to start approaching me and Georgia and Jack to try to get to Lily. We tell them she doesn’t want to talk to anybody. There is one old schoolmate who is not only persistent but evasive — a particularly annoying combination. He says his name is Derek Pearce. He has contacted all three of us multiple times but won’t tell us why he wants to reach Lily beyond saying it’s important.

We give Lily everyone’s messages. She’s not in the mood to call back anyone, including Derek Pearce.

Lily’s only regular daily outing is to visit the hospital where Penelope is languishing on life support, and play for her on her portable synthesizer. She composes music that she hopes will awaken Penelope from her coma. In vain. She keeps lamenting that her skills are nowhere near capable of achieving such a feat. She can tell she’s not even close.

ONE RAINY AFTERNOON, after eleven days in the hospital, Penelope comes out of her coma. According to Lily, it has nothing to do with her music because nothing she composed had that kind of power.

Penelope simply awakes on her own — as comatose patients sometimes do. We are euphoric and relieved.

Physically, she looks okay except for several purple patches on her arms, legs, and torso where the doctors have been injecting her twice a day with a blood thinner.

She’s released from the hospital the next day with instructions to get physical therapy three to five days a week until her strength returns.

MY MOM CALLS and says, “You haven’t put your fat suit back on, have you?”

“Not yet,” I reply, to torture her.

“Seriously, Barb, please don’t wear your disguise to protect yourself from ending up like me. I know you think your father loved me for my beauty and had affairs when it faded. But it wasn’t as simple as that. I mean, yes he did become increasingly attracted to younger, more beautiful women as I aged, but that wasn’t our only problem. We also grew apart, we had different interests. In a lot of ways we simply weren’t compatible. I like not having to cater to a man anymore. And who knows, I may still meet another special man someday, but in the meantime I’m content, and often even happy — definitely happier than I was with your father at the end. I like my solitary life. I’m having a good time traveling. I have good friends. Don’t deny yourself happiness while you’re young. Ending up like me is not the worst thing that could happen to you.”

AFTER BEING TAKEN care of by her mother for two days, Penelope is able to walk a little. Lily picks her up and brings her to my apartment so we can celebrate her recovery and — most importantly — thank her again for her phenomenal feat of bringing Lily back to life.

When Penelope walks through my door, I’m taken aback by how weak and sickly she still looks. We are the opposite. We’re exuberant, bouncing off the walls. We settle her on the couch, prop her up with pillows and blankets, and call her our hero, our miracle worker.

We shower her with attention, hugs, and gifts. Georgia models a long purple angora scarf she bought for her.

Our only sorrow is that Peter isn’t here to share our happiness.

In an effort to amuse us, Jack goes to the bookcase to demonstrate how attractive the bookends he just bought for Penelope will look with books between them. “Oh, God,” he says, laughing at something he sees tucked at the back of a high shelf. He grabs the object and faces us. He’s holding the ugly ceramic box Penelope gave me months ago to thank me for having lunch with her parents.

Jack says, “Isn’t it amazing that the person who made this sorry-looking box is the same genius who put Lily’s million pieces back together?”

My friends laugh — even Penelope, who seems to be enjoying the teasing.

“It is astounding,” Georgia says, reaching for the box.

Jack hands it to her.

Studying the box, opening and closing it, Georgia says, “Wow, Penelope, you’ve come a long way, baby. Though the metal clasp is nice. Have you thought of going into metalsmithing?”

Penelope chuckles. “I’ve told you before, the clasp is the one thing I can’t take credit for. I’m not the type to take credit for other people’s work. The clasp was made by a very talented girl who I always buy my clasps from.” The effort to speak seems to tire Penelope quickly.

Then, in all innocence, Georgia makes a comment without realizing its implication until the words are out of her mouth and can never be taken back: “It’s unusual, the design of this clasp. I like how it’s encrusted with a stone, kind of like the clasp on that mirror-knife…” She puts down the box.

As though wishing she could distract us and herself from what she just said, Georgia turns to the window and asks, “Is it supposed to rain today?”

But it’s too late. Lily picks up the box and looks at the clasp. Her gaze meets Penelope’s. She puts down the box, not saying anything, but she seems deeply affected.

I’m staring at Penelope. Could it be? Could it be that Penelope is the killer among us?

Jack rolls his magazine into a tight tube. He uses it to turn the box around as he would use a stick to inspect a vile carcass. Once the clasp is facing him and he’s had a good look at it, he rests his elbows on his knees and buries his face in his hands without glancing at Penelope.

“Yes, I’m the one who wanted to kill Strad,” Penelope says, blushing fiercely. “I’m the one who made the preparations, who sent the gifts with the hidden blades. I had those gifts custom-made by the same woman at school who makes the clasps for my boxes. It didn’t occur to me you’d recognize the clasp. I’m the one who arranged the phone calls to lure Strad away from the dinner. I did do all that. But when it came down to actually killing him, I couldn’t go through with it.”

Georgia immediately voices what I’m thinking but am too stunned to articulate: “You couldn’t go through with it?” she exclaims. “We made it impossible for anyone to kill Strad that evening. Don’t make it sound like you had any choice in the matter. You did kill the guy from the bar, after all. You were able to go through with that, when no one was stopping you.”

“No,” Penelope says, shaking her head, “I’m not the one who killed the man from the bar, even though I told Gabriel I was. What happened was, I saw in the paper that the guy had been murdered. I have to admit it made me happy. It seemed as though justice had swooped down and for once done something right in the world, performed this beautiful act, discreetly. My only quibble was: the wrong man had been murdered. If only it could have been Strad. The article made me realize I could kill him myself.”

“You’re crazy,” Jack says.

“Ever since I was kept in that coffin for three days, I’ve had a lust for vengeance. I never talked about it and never acted on it, but I can’t stand seeing bad guys get away with stuff, especially if a friend of mine is being hurt.”

“You’re psychologically broken, like one of your pots,” Jack says. “You try to make yourself appear whole and sane, but you’re not.”

Penelope goes on. “I knew that killing Strad would probably ruin my life, probably get me arrested, possibly even killed. But I felt I had nothing to lose, that I was a total failure, lacking any talent, so why not sacrifice myself by doing something noble and selfless? My own life was worthless — I’d be putting it to good use. I felt that if Strad were dead, Lily’s life would be saved, or at least her happiness would be saved, which, in my opinion, amounts to almost the same thing.”

“You’re a lunatic,” Jack says.

Teeth clenched, Georgia says, “Shut up, Jack. We know. Let her finish.”

Penelope continues: “I wasn’t very comfortable with the idea of killing someone, even though I was determined to try. I had an easier time accepting the idea if I put time parameters on it and pushed it far into the future, so I could get used to it. I decided that if Lily was still miserable over Strad in two years, I would attempt to kill him between the hours of eight p.m. and midnight, on one particular day, and I picked the day randomly, October 27th, which was a little over two years away.”

Lily says, “If it’s really true that you didn’t kill that guy from the bar, why would you tell Gabriel that you did?”

“I’m getting to that,” Penelope says, gathering her thoughts and her strength before continuing. “Gabriel kept talking of killing himself. I desperately wanted to tell you guys of his frame of mind so that you could help me help him, but he’d made me promise not to tell. I did all I could to be comforting, caring, everything one’s supposed to be. It made no difference. So finally, one day, out of frustration, I decided to reveal to him my plan to kill Strad. I hoped it would freak him out and make him want to stay alive to stop me. He didn’t believe me at all, of course, which was something I’d expected, so I showed him the article about the first man’s murder and claimed I was the one who’d killed him and that now I was going to do the same thing to Strad. That cinched it. He believed me then. But it wasn’t enough to make him want to live.”

We ask her a few more questions, but finally take pity on her. She looks exhausted. I fetch her a glass of water.

She says, “Barb, there’s something you need to know. Gabriel saw a psychiatrist who told him he was clinically depressed and that all signs pointed to the likelihood that it was biological, not due to external circumstances such as his unrequited love for you. But Gabriel refused to take antidepressants. He thought it was just his love for you that was ruining his life. The shrink told him that was very unlikely, that even if you had loved him back he probably would still have been depressed and would simply have assumed the reason for his depression was some other frustration in his life. I believe the shrink. I’m convinced Gabriel had a mood disorder and couldn’t have been happy for any length of time unless treated.”

I feel my throat clenching with emotion.

Georgia comes over and squeezes my shoulder affectionately. “See, you shouldn’t have thought his suicide was your fault,” she says.

Lily and Jack chime in, expressing their support of this view.

I nod, blinking back tears.

A FEW DAYS later, Lily calls and asks if she can stop by because she wants to give me something.

When she arrives, she hands me a CD and says, “I hesitated for a long time… but finally I made this music for you. It’ll work only for you. It’s not something that most people should have. But in your case, maybe it’ll help.”

“What is it?” I ask.

“You seem unable to tolerate the blindness which we — as human beings — all have.” She pauses. “This music will enable you to know people’s true feelings. It’ll allow you to see into their hearts. Use it sparingly. Use it on Peter. Next time you’re alone with him, play this piece. Then you’ll know how he truly feels about you. And you’ll know what path to take.”

TWO DAYS LATER, Peter and I are in my living room, sitting on my couch, chatting. I cherish his dwindling visits.

The time has come. I get up and go to my stereo.

My heart pounding, I open the unlabeled CD case Lily gave me. I put the disk in the player. I stare at the Play button, my finger hovering over it. I wonder what the music will sound like, and what it’ll reveal.

And that’s when something incredible happens: I realize I already know — not what it will sound like, but what it will reveal. For the first time, something in me unblocks and I feel it, I know it — his love for me and the nature of it. And I realize I’ve known it all along, on some deep level, but just hadn’t known how to recognize it. It took being on the verge of discovering the truth to perceive it was already in me.

“What are you doing?” Peter inquires.

I turn toward him.

“Are you going to play a CD?” he asks.

“I don’t think so.”

I go back to the couch and sit next to him, close. He’s following my every move and puts down his glass. I lean toward him and we kiss for the first time. He seems hardly to believe it. He responds passionately.

I give myself to him, abandoning all reservations, all doubts. Perhaps tomorrow, I will have doubts again. But not now. If tomorrow I doubt, I can press Play.

BUT THE NEXT day, I don’t press Play. And the day after that, I don’t press Play.

ON THE FOURTH day, I get a visitor. It’s Derek Pearce, Lily’s old, persistent schoolmate. He’s here because when he phoned me yesterday asking me yet again for her number, and I asked him yet again why he needed to reach her, he said, “Please don’t ask me to tell you.”

I replied, “Then please don’t ask me for her phone number.”

As I was about to hang up, he said, “Wait. Okay, I’ll tell you. But I can’t just blurt it out over the phone; it’s too awkward. Could I meet you to make my case in person? Five minutes is all I need. I’d be so grateful.”

I caved in.

When he arrives, I realize right away that I’ve seen him before. Two things make him memorable. He’s strikingly handsome. And he played in the same recital as Lily a couple of years ago and was in fact the performer whose music Strad had admired so much, describing it as “music that beautifies the world”—those fateful words that led Lily to her path of unimaginable musical powers.

When Derek tells me that his very important reason for wanting to see Lily is “I like her very much,” I’m annoyed to no end that this ridiculously good-looking guy, who I’m sure didn’t give her the time of day back in school, is now seeking her out.

Feeling protective of her, I’m getting ready to dismiss him.

“The fact is,” he adds, “I would like to ask her to have dinner with me, to see if we might hit it off.”

“Why now? Why didn’t you ask her to dinner when you were in school?”

“Because I was in a serious relationship then. It only just ended recently.”

“How convenient. If you date her now, you’ll have all the perks of her fame, which I’m sure will be very useful to you.”

He looks aghast. “The timing is a coincidence. If I’d been single back in school, I would have asked her to dinner then. Even though I hardly knew her, I found her extremely appealing. I feel like an idiot explaining myself to you.” He huffs and looks down at the floor. “I always had it in the back of my mind that if I was ever single again, she was the one person I would want to get to know better.”

I’ve been far too disenchanted too many times to believe a word he’s saying. So I reply, “I’m sorry. We’re not allowed to give her number to anyone, including old friends. Strict instructions. No exceptions.”

After a moment of stunned silence, he nods sadly and takes out a piece of paper on which he scribbles his name and phone number. He puts it on my ottoman cube and says, “Please give her this and tell her I’d be very happy to hear from her if she wants to call me.”

“I sure will!” I snap. “But don’t hold your breath. I’ve already given her your number all those other times you’ve given it to me, and she’s not calling anyone.”

“Okay, I understand.” He thanks me for the meeting and heads for the door.

As he’s about to leave, I say, “Wait.”

He turns around.

I go to my stereo and press Play — not so much to test Derek as to witness his worthlessness. I need to be thorough for Lily’s sake and for my own peace of mind.

As soon as the music starts, I blink, taken aback. Like a strong gust of wind from a suddenly opened door, the truth hurls itself at me. I see such honesty and power in his soul, such genuine love for Lily in his heart, I can hardly believe it. His feelings for her are not only real, they are old, just as he claimed. They are not yet very deep, because he hardly knows her, but they are pure.

“That’s a beautiful piece,” he says. “I’ve never heard it before, though it’s obviously by Lily. Her music is unmistakable. I could listen to it all the time.”

I nod, too moved to speak. Finally, I manage to say, “Her number. Are you ready?”

He flips open his notebook, surprised, and I give him Lily’s number.

“Thank you so much,” he says. “I really appreciate it.”

I nod.

He heads back to the door.

Suddenly, I know what will happen. His beauty will blind Lily, just as it blinded me when he first arrived a few minutes ago. She’ll see nothing else about him — not his decency, not his gentleness, not his goodness. She’ll assume his interest in her can only be corrupt. And she’ll dismiss him without giving him a chance.

“Wait,” I say again, softly.

He turns and looks at me.

“When you call her, don’t tell her who you are. Just say I gave you her number.”

He doesn’t respond.

I go to the far end of my living room. “Let me also give you this.” I unhook from the wall my most darkly beautiful, mysterious mask.

I bring it to him. “Wear it when you’re with her. At least the first few times.”

He takes the mask and looks at it, perplexed. “Why don’t you want her to see me?”

I smile. “On the contrary. I do.”

THE END