The Fall of Butterflies

by Andrea Portes

  It seems I am stuck here.

  It seems I am somewhat of a mascot for the night.

  Please, mouth, stay shut—do not say or do anything that will reveal me to be a commoner from the sticks. Just stay shut. Seriously.

  Button it.

  FORTY-ONE

  This dinner is kind of surreal. I think I need to talk about it. I mean, yes, it’s dinner, so who cares? But, also, it’s, like, a seven-course dinner and every course is tiny but delicious and set up like you are supposed to take a picture of it or something. Now, I’m not one of those people who takes pictures of my food and posts it everywhere, because, let’s just face it, that’s loserville. But, if I were one of those people, it would be photo session every round. Or course.

  Not that I know what any of this is. It seems there are a lot of things that come out of the sea. Also, goose liver. There is a lot of wine, too. And the wine keeps changing, so drink up.

  I’m not sure who is preparing the food—in my imagination there is a very testy French chef involved, but it seems like the guests are taking turns bringing it out from the kitchen.

  How normal of them. How down to earth!

  Democracy is alive and well on this private island!

  Right now, one of these guys, Basil or Cecil or Salad, is going on and on about adorable Cricket and her make-out antics.

  “So, there he is, standing in front of her, totally smitten, and Cricket has no idea who he is.” Basil is holding court.

  “That’s not true. He looked vaguely familiar.”

  “Yes, the ridiculous English rock star. He looked vaguely familiar. He had two eyes, one nose, and two ears.”

  Everyone laughs. The general idea here seems to be: Oh, you, crazy Cricket. What won’t you do?!

  “So, what did you do?” Tisley leans in, curious.

  “Well, I made out with him, of course.”

  Baha! Hearty guffaws all around. Lifted glasses. Clink, clink.

  “I mean, I kind of felt sorry for him.”

  More laughter.

  Tad chimes in. “I love it. Cricket’s reason for making out with someone: I felt sorry for him.”

  “Or he exists.”

  “And he’s in front of me.”

  Waves of laughter. I think those last two were Basil and Win. One of the guys. It’s clear that the guys are here to make the jokes. The guys make the jokes and the girls laugh. The girls coo and say clever things, yes. But the guys are the ones in charge of making everyone laugh, of outdoing each other. The guy with the most clever quips wins. It’s a different kind of guy contest than back in Iowa.

  Back in Iowa I think it had more to do with how big your tires were.

  Or your truck flaps.

  Suffice it to say, in Iowa, if you had a monster truck with eight-foot tires and truck flaps with naked ladies on them . . . you were the social equivalent of Tad.

  But here, on this private island that nobody knows about because it probably doesn’t exist, the wittiest man wins. And there are no trucks involved.

  Every once in a while, Milo looks over at me, checking in. It’s a sweet thing to do, considering this group has obviously known one another since they were in the womb.

  There’s no one here being necessarily overt or snooty or condescending. I think that initial farm-girl comment was the last of it. I get the feeling everyone here is a bit protective of Milo. He’s the kid brother to the group, after all.

  There’s a moment when I catch Kitty smiling at him, raising her eyebrows. I can tell, now, why Milo is so damn charming. He has Kitty as an older sister. She would never lead him astray. She’s probably been dressing him since he was two.

  And you can tell she adores him.

  It would be easy to hate these people. To think, Jesus Christ, what is wrong with you? Don’t you see the world is crumbling to pieces and all you can do is sit around and outjostle each other and sip wine and eat weird, unrecognizable food in the tiniest portions known to mankind?!

  But it’s impossible.

  Because they’re charming. They’re charismatic and kind of glowing and adoring—yes, even adoring to each other. It’s a strange sort of family. A family of blue bloods, probably all related if you go back far enough.

  Fun fact: Paige is an African-American Lit major.

  Yeah, bet you didn’t see that coming.

  She is also an expert in African dance. What is it with these people and African dance?

  Meanwhile, I can only assume Paige was named Paige because when she came out into this world she was the color of paper. PS: She is just as thin.

  And I am going to have to ask her to show me her hot African dance moves after dinner because I am a horrible person.

  Come on. You don’t get to be that lily white and be an African-American Lit major with a minor in African Dance if you don’t want someone, sometime, to call you on it. I can’t tell if this possible cultural appropriation is ludicrous, endearing, or absurd. I guess I will be able to tell by her dance moves.

  But we are not going to get to that quite yet. Oh, no.

  Because there is something else going on.

  We are adjourning from the dining room and leaving behind all the plates and glasses because presumably they will magically vanish into thin air when we exit the room.

  Remember how I told you about Milo and Remy and me and how we all did Ecstasy over at her place in Manhattan by the fire and how it was superfantastic except that the next day on the train we felt horrible and promised we would never do it again?

  Well, the good news is we are not doing Ecstasy.

  However, I feel I would not be being fully honest with you if I didn’t tell you that what everyone is doing is a form of Ecstasy, which is the superpure Ecstasy, which is called Molly.

  Sorry.

  I know.

  Don’t be mad at me.

  I honestly did put up somewhat of a fight.

  FORTY-TWO

  Okay, we need to talk about Milo. I do not think it’s an exaggeration to say that he is kind of slowly but surely killing me and killing my heart.

  He is not trying to.

  No, Milo does not seem like the kind of guy who would try to hurt anyone, ever, for any reason. In fact, before dinner I noticed he saw a spider in the entryway and he made everyone move out of the way so he could catch the spider, put a piece of paper under it and a shot glass above it, and deliver said spider kindly, gently, into the great outdoors. So, yeah, Milo is not a harm doer, spider killer, or feelings hurter.

  Nevertheless! Nevertheless, Milo is turning my head into jelly and goop because all I can do is think that I shouldn’t get a crush on him but I’m getting a crush on him but I shouldn’t get a crush on him but maybe he’s getting a crush on me but maybe he isn’t but maybe he is, otherwise, why would I even be here amid this menagerie of ridiculous names?

  By the way, I’m not even going to tell you about the last names. You know what they are, right? What they’ve got to be? I can only imagine it goes something like: DuPont, Peabody, Carnegie, Picklebottom, Tiffany. Lobstertails. I am not going to ask. Because you and I both know when they say them it’s going to be real hard to keep a straight face.

  There is a lot of talk about the next round in these here festivities. A lot of shuffling around, trying to attain the right lighting and music. I’d always heard that people who take drugs are unmotivated. Lazy. Layabouts. But if you take into consideration the time and effort Tad and Muffy and, yes, even Milo, are putting into curating and achieving their drug-related experiences, I believe you’d have to beg to differ.

  And while this is going on? I’m tiptoeing around, taking it all in.

  You know how, back in the day, if you went over to Saddam Hussein’s house he had gold chairs, gold faucets, gold toilets? And everything had that same tapestry fabric and then gold on the side of it? Like the wh
ole place was designed to scare you with money. Well, this place is the opposite of that.

  This is the kind of place where everything is just so. Small, delicate, intricate, never pointing at itself.

  That nautical ship. That mother-of-pearl snuffbox. That Wedgwood ashtray. That Willow Ware vase. That silver engraved pocket watch. That scrimshaw whale tooth. That ivory-handled envelope opener from Nepal.

  It’s a good thing the drug we are doing is not LSD. If the drug we are doing were LSD, then I’d really be getting lost in this exquisite exhibition of curiosities. As it is, the curiosities are appreciated but not a source of a trip-the-light-fantastic romp I go into in my imagination for the next twelve hours.

  And now Milo has come to fetch me.

  “Ready?”

  “I guess.” My frown disagrees.

  He takes my hand gently. “Hey. What is it?”

  “I just—um, why are we doing this?”

  He looks at me like, Doing what?

  I stare, pointedly, at the pills in his other hand.

  “Wait, really?” he asks.

  And I know I’m supposed to be enigmatic and inscrutable and mysterious and asking this question is none of those things. I know that. But there is that mouth problem I have.

  There it is. I feel my Willa brain revving up, readying all the words, all the thoughts I have to muster. And here it comes, attack of the big mouth—

  “I just . . . I feel like this place, and that food, and these things and that boat and all of it . . . It’s just so incredible, and nobody gets to see these things, or I never got to, not before this. And you—this is like your life, you know? And, I mean, isn’t it all amazing enough? Isn’t it all just the dream everyone has? And you are living it! And now I’m here living this little piece of it. So isn’t that enough? I mean. I’m asking. I’m just . . . asking.”

  He stares at me. Blinks once, twice.

  Oh God. My cheeks blaze hot and red. I have totally, completely blown it.

  “I’ll just go now,” I say, “before the tide turns. You think I can borrow a bathing suit?” I move for the hallway.

  “Willa, wait.” Milo squeezes my hand tighter and pulls me deeper into the house. We sit next to each other in the stairwell, on the dark, Persian runner–covered steps. The moonlight is filtering its first rays through the leaded windows in the front of the house.

  Milo takes a deep breath.

  “Listen. I don’t know what you see when you look at all of this. I guess I never thought about it. I didn’t mean to freak you out. I just . . . hoped you’d like it. But I grew up here, you know? Every summer, me and my mother and Kitty and my dad. We’d come here. And yeah, I guess I know it’s special. But it’s also just all I know. And the thing is, Willa, all of this”—he holds his arms out wide—“doesn’t make anything better. Or more okay. I mean, don’t be insulted. But believe me when I say none of this keeps out the horrible things. You know what I mean?”

  I open my mouth to argue, but close it again when I see the faraway look in Milo’s eyes.

  “My father was a good guy, you know? But he was working for some really bad guys. And when he found out how bad they were, how many people they’d stolen from, how many lives they’d ruined, it was like he couldn’t take it.”

  And now it feels like even the moon is listening.

  “I found him.”

  “What?”

  “I was the one who found my dad.”

  My heart feels like it’s squeezing in on itself. My stomach becomes a black hole. “Oh, Milo. That is so terrible.”

  “I know. I just thought you should know because . . . well, everybody knows. And since then it’s like I’ve kind of got this scarlet letter.”

  “No. Milo, no. Everybody thinks you’re sort of God’s gift to the world. Honestly! I mean, you should hear Remy talking about you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hm.”

  “Does that surprise you? I thought you guys were friends.”

  “Yeah, um . . . Remy can be hard to read sometimes.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  He kind of nods. There’s a smile here, but a sad little smile. Something pondering.

  “Look, I’m sorry to have brought it up. But I guess what I’m trying to say is, people think having all this is the key, right? To happiness? But there is no key. I think . . . maybe there’s just whatever gets handed to you. So if you want to know why”—he looks down at the fist holding the pills—“I don’t know. My feeling is, why not, you know? Why. The hell. Not?”

  And I am left wondering the exact same thing.

  Did you know when you do Molly you automatically fall in love with the person next to you? True story.

  Yes, I said I was never gonna do anything like that again but, right now, I’m just falling in love with Milo. Because he happens to be next to me. And I know it’s not real, I know it’s just the chemicals, but it seems like, right now, at this instant, Milo is in love with me, too. Like this thing is reciprocal. And I’m not crazy.

  “Do you know why I showed up that day?”

  “What day?”

  “That audition day?”

  We’re not exactly on the sofa, we’re more on the floor, leaning against the sofa and looking into each other’s eyes swimming all over the place.

  “No. Wait, yes! Because you love the theater.”

  “Wrongo.”

  He smiles. “Wrongo” is what I say. And now he says it. We’re speaking the same language! We’re making up a new language—that’s how in love we are!

  “Okay, why?”

  “Because Remy said she’d met the coolest girl from Iowa who she wished she could go out with, but she couldn’t ’cause she’s not a lesbo, so I had to so she could live vicariously through me.”

  We look at each other, still smiling, eyes swimming.

  “Wait . . . okay, this is a dumb question, but . . . um, forget it. I don’t want to ruin the moment or whatever.” I can’t help myself.

  “What is it? You won’t. Seriously.”

  Milo looks at me, and I am about to jump into his eyes any second.

  “We’re not going out, are we? I mean, we’re just doing whatever this is. On a private island. Somewhere on the Eastern Seaboard.”

  Milo smiles. Across from us, in front of the fireplace, Paige, Igby, and Cricket are doing what could only be described as a kind of modern primitive dance. At this moment it seems that Paige is some sort of goddess figure who Igby and Cricket seem to be paying tribute to.

  “Why, does that offend you?” Milo says, teasing.

  “What? The goddess dance over there?”

  “No. The going out . . . with me . . . thing?”

  Honestly, I don’t know what to say to this. Part of me wants to say no and throw myself around him and tell him he’s the most superamazing being on the planet, but part of me wants to say nothing and cry and crawl into a hole because I have no self-esteem. Of course, the Molly is helping with that.

  Milo is waiting for an answer, but I’m too busy not knowing what to say.

  “To be honest with you, Willa, I don’t care what you say.”

  “Oh?”

  “Because I’m gonna make you my girlfriend, no matter what.”

  “Um.”

  “I don’t care if it takes a year and I have to jump through a zillion hoops and call the president. You are gonna be my girlfriend, Willa. You have no choice.”

  “Um.”

  And now his eyes light up, and it’s a spooky voice. “Surrender, Suuuureeendeeer, Willa . . .”

  He’s making Svengali hand gestures at me, trying to reel me into his magical whirling eyes.

  “Beeeeee miiiiiiiine . . .”

  “Okay can I ask you a question?”

  “Yeeeeeessss.”

  “Do you say that stuff to, like, all the girls?”

  “Yeeeeeessss. I have a harem baaaaack hooome in my ciiiiircussss tent.”
/>   Oh my God, I don’t know what to do with Milo. I want to attack him. I want to attack him with kisses.

  Even though, basically, I don’t even know how to kiss.

  Oh God, please don’t tell anybody I told you that.

  It’s so embarrassing. But, for realz, what am I even supposed to do here? I mean, if Milo tries to full-on make out with me, I’d bet I’d be, like, the worst kisser, like a dragon kisser, and then next thing you know he’d tell everybody and I’d be laughed off the island and they’d probably just force me to swim to the mainland. The mainland.

  I’m at a place where you say “the mainland.”

  “Willa?”

  “Milo?”

  “You don’t have to answer me. You don’t have to think. Or worry. Or do anything you don’t want to. You just have to be here now. With me.”

  And I’m looking up at Milo and in the background the weird dance is transforming and I’m thinking to myself, no one has ever said that to me. No one has ever let me off the hook.

  What if that was all it meant to be in love? That you just let the other person off the hook. That it’s okay and nothing has to be like it’s supposed to be, like everybody says it’s supposed to be? And everything can just be what it is. And that’s okay.

  “Milo?”

  “Yes?”

  “How many girlfriends have you had?”

  “One. In the future. Her name is Willa.”

  FORTY-THREE

  There’s something I have to tell you. Can you keep a secret? I kind of did something weird last week that nobody knows about but I kind of did it on a whim. A suggested whim. I don’t know. I think my body got taken over by demons or something and the next thing I know I was downloading forms and filling out paperwork and getting letters of recommendation and visiting Wharton House and checking in with Ms. Ingall and writing essays and all sorts of boring stuff that is really annoying and takes forever, but something just made me do it. Maybe it was a ghost. An academic ghost.

  Or maybe it was just Ms. Ingall.

  Maybe she spiked my tea.

  Don’t tell anyone, okay? Don’t tell Remy. Don’t tell Milo. Especially not my mother. Definitely not. Not anyone. Not even my dad. I don’t know why I have to keep it a secret, but I do. I guess I don’t want to be a laughingstock or something. When I fail. If I fail. Which . . . I probably will.