Pretty Is: A Novel

by Maggie Mitchell

  And so she does. I remember my earlier sense that maybe Lois was losing it, that I was going to have to be the sane one at this crazy party. My suspicions are well and truly confirmed.

  Lois

  With some difficulty, I persuade Carly—Chloe—to let me return alone to my motel and collect my things. She has conjured up absurd visions of Sean appearing magically in the middle of British Columbia with a small arsenal and a heart full of violence. I try to explain that Sean lacks the wherewithal (money, transportation, sheer energy) to carry out such a plan even if he wanted to, and why would he? I ignore the nagging voice at the back of my own mind that is no longer so sure. She insists on accompanying me until I tell her that I have some errands to run and business to take care of, the prospect of which visibly bores her.

  And I do, though not the kind I lead her to imagine.

  For one thing, I need to confront Chloe’s revelation that she witnessed my humiliation on the night I have tried very hard to forget, and I need to do it alone. Carly, the soundest sleeper on the planet; I never for a moment considered the possibility that she was awake. Odder still is that she didn’t say anything to me the next day—or even at the time; why wait? Was it discretion, or patience, or something darker? It seems out of character.

  Of course focusing on Carly’s unsuspected witnessing allows me to avoid facing the really disturbing thing, which is my own behavior, long ago, shocking and uncharacteristic in its own right. Driving toward town, I carefully unwrap this memory, loosen its bindings. Freed, it springs back to its original size and shape with remarkable ease.

  Yes. I went to him. This I have never told anyone, not even through the filter of fiction. This I have not even told myself.

  It was one night near the end, after a strange tense day. I brushed my dark hair to make it smooth and shiny. I unbuttoned the top two buttons of my long white nightgown, I steeled myself (for what I did not exactly know; I was not, for once, narrating my actions to myself), and I prowled downstairs to the leather couch on which he sprawled. A few splashes of moonlight provided just enough illumination for me to discern his outline, to tell that he was lying on his back, face tilted upward, head cradled in the crook of the arm flung over his head. Every few seconds the kitchen faucet dripped. His breathing was slow and regular. I stood by his side and watched him—my eyes, I imagine, boring into him. My breathing gradually fell into sync with his. I stood there with no plan, no intention, no trepidation, even. I knew somehow that he would wake up, I never doubted it, and at last he did. I say at last, but it was probably only a matter of two or three minutes; it seemed like a long time.

  And then his eyelids flew open—I felt this as much as I saw it—and his right arm shot out, groping beside him for his gun, until he saw that it was me and not some intruder and his hand grasped my wrist instead. Hard, heavy. And the air, too, was suddenly heavy, weighted with darkness and quiet. Lois? he rasped, in a voice not entirely his own.

  Giving in to the weight of his hand and some other impulse, unarticulated, I sank to my knees. I reached out my free hand slowly, practically in slow motion—I watched its ghostly form stretching away from me—until it reached his face. I touched with tentative fingertips a heavy eyebrow, a scratchy unshaven cheek. His face had always fascinated me—its hard, sharp lines, broken by occasional softness. But when my fingers grazed a lip, his other hand appeared suddenly and seized my wrist. Hard. He had both wrists now. Get out, he said, rising from the couch and thrusting me away, wrists aching. You’ve made a mistake. I don’t want you. Go! His voice was low, cold, a growl that wouldn’t carry more than a few feet. It was too heavy; it would sink to the ground, collapse through the floor the way it sank into my mind. Go. I don’t want you. I don’t know how many times he said those things.

  I rose to my feet, turned, and fled, wanting more than anything to undo myself, erase my presence. Shame is what I felt. It was like bleeding from every cell. Uncontained, vile, horrible. Corrupt, as he had said once. Now I thought I knew what he had meant.

  I threw myself in my bed, curled up with my shame, tried to smother it, bury it, snuff it out. It escaped in the form of hot, hot tears and flooded the world.

  I had only wanted to help. I had only wanted to keep him. I was only trying to hold at bay the horrors I sensed in the wings. Something had to be done, of that I was sure. I had made the purest offer I could conceive of: Here. Take me. Do with me what you will. Here’s my entire person, my skinny virginal body, my pointy little face, my sharp and darting mind, my fierce love. It’s what I have.

  I had guessed wrong, I had done the wrong thing, the wrongest thing. I want to die, I thought over and over, and I think I very nearly meant it.

  * * *

  Shame, I find, can survive long periods of dormancy. Given the proper stimulus, it reawakens as strong as ever. Mine suffuses me, hot and blinding, with a power that has only intensified with time. I have to pull off the road, rest my forehead on the steering wheel while my mind goes red. I relive again and again my unspeakable offering, his unbearable rejection. I feel again that I am rotten inside. Unwanted and unwantable.

  By the time I reach the motel I feel a little sick. Part hangover, I imagine, and part memory-sickness. I pack up my things and toss them in the car. Out of habit, I stop at my diner. I’m not ready to see Chloe again—I need to repair the damaged edges of myself, to refortify.

  And there is something else, too. Over coffee I text Sean: Where are you? I need to speak to you. It’s important.

  He writes back almost immediately: No talking just writing. Safer wouldn’t you say?

  The diner isn’t crowded; there’s just a low hum of chattering voices around the bar, more private and somehow more comfortable than silence. I recognize all the regulars now, and I am familiar and unremarkable to them, too. Is writing safer, really? I’m no longer so sure. But it’s easier, in a way; I have been dreading the sound of Sean’s voice, the weight of his unfathomable expectations.

  I text back: Maybe, maybe not. Anyway: I hear you’re in serious trouble. Tell me what’s happened. My knowledge of Sean’s disturbing recent behavior should kill any scrap of sympathy I might have had; I am shocked to realize that it seems to have had the opposite effect. I feel almost motherly; surely this is not a tone I’ve adopted with him before. But his crimes are mine too. I am responsible.

  What’s up with gary why did you stop writing?

  Gary has been confined to my notebook, safe from Sean. He’s done nothing at all since it occurred to me that he hadn’t gone too far to turn back, that he could release his captives and simply go home. Easier said than done; that’s not exactly how novels tend to work. So far, I have been unable to figure out how to save both Gary and the novel. Now I picture Sean impatiently awaiting Gary’s next move, reading untold layers of significance into each stage of his vengeful (and confused) pursuit of the actress and the professor.

  It’s too late, now, to berate him for breaking into my computer, reading my novel. It’s not what matters anymore.

  Gary has gone back home to chop wood, I text. He’s finished. It’s over. Is this true? It feels true, suddenly.

  Why????? Its not over what a cop out.

  It was all a mistake.

  But i have proof …

  Proof of what? Fiction isn’t proof. I’m not finishing the book. It was a mistake. I sit up straight, take a look around, gulp my coffee before hitting SEND. I’m lying; no such thing has crossed my mind. But this, too, feels true. Do I mean it? When did I decide? Yes, I think I do. I’ve been chasing shadows. The book is a self-indulgent romp. It’s dangerous. It’s caused enough trouble. Contract be damned. I’ll write something else. SEND.

  Silence. I try again: So what has happened?

  Some stupid shit its nothing and none of your business.

  I think for a minute. I risk it: Gary let the women go, you know. He got rid of his knives. He’s not going through with any of it.

  Nice try. Youre the one wh
ose nuts professor. You can’t erase it, it still exists. You can’t just create gary then uncreate him.

  Sure I can. It’s all lies. Just like you always said. It’s true: I don’t want Gary to be real. I don’t want to go back inside his head. I’ve been there too long. It seems like a dream, the sequel, weirdly vivid but unreal. The kind of dream you try to banish when you wake up, though it resurfaces throughout the day, coloring everything.

  At the bar, a man laughs loudly. Sun glints off the cars in the parking lot.

  Do you need any help, Sean?

  You mean gary.

  This is my crime, the thing I must undo.

  No. I mean Sean, my student, a kid who’s in trouble. He may not be Zed’s son, but he must once have been a little boy, sweet and imaginative and needy. I try to imagine that.

  Spare me the teacher stuff. I know too much.

  I don’t text back for a while. I can’t think of what to say. I feel like Dr. Frankenstein when his monster runs off. Sean is a mystery, finally. And his fate, unlike Gary’s, isn’t mine to write. I can’t send him home and write The End.

  Before I can compose a reply, he texts again: Say hi to Chloe Savage for me:-/

  I drain the chilly dregs of my coffee and think. I think very hard, and I figure out nothing at all.

  Where are you? I text back on an impulse. But he doesn’t answer.

  Chloe

  Lois wants to be all incognito and just present herself as an old friend from my New York days. I flat-out refuse. “No fun in that,” I tell her. “No way. It’s Lucy Ledger time, my dear. You owe me one.” Why does she owe me one? I’m not sure, really, but it feels true, and she seems to buy it. Anyway, I like the idea of showing up unexpectedly with the writer, of all people; we’re due for a little drama around here. Also—less pleasantly, I know—I sort of like the idea of watching Lois squirm a little. She’ll be on the spot; people will ask her awkward questions about where she got the idea for the novel, what the kidnapper’s true motives are, what Mandy could possibly see in him. I’m pretty curious to hear what she’ll have to say.

  Conveniently enough, there’s a cast party this evening: a captive audience! We’re all here now; shooting begins tomorrow. Lois is less thrilled than I am about this staging opportunity. “You’re as nervous as a girl getting ready for the fucking prom,” I mock her as we’re getting ready. Lois looks completely stunning in a red silk cocktail dress—sleek, tiny, and elegant, like a very expensive cat. I feel vulgar and overblown beside her, all flesh and hair. I have to keep checking the mirror to remind myself that I am more than holding my own.

  “I never went to my prom,” Lois says. “I wouldn’t know. Did you go?”

  “I dropped out, remember? What’s your excuse?”

  “Boredom? Also, no one asked me,” Lois says very matter-of-factly, slipping her feet into shoes that give her an extra four inches.

  “Really?” I take a minute to try to imagine Lois’s high school life, adding to the mix the prep school stories my Arcata friend told me, a dash of my own tragic past in small-town Nebraska, and every teen movie I’ve ever seen. “They were probably scared to death of you,” I decide, and Lois laughs.

  “Wise of them,” she says without a trace of bitterness. Side by side, we check ourselves out in my full-length mirror.

  “No wonder he picked us,” Lois says, joking. But also not really joking. Then her voice turns serious. “What would he think if he could see us now? Can you imagine?”

  What else do I try to imagine, ever? “No, I can’t, and I don’t want to. That’s the twisted road to crazytown, my girl, and that ain’t where we’re going tonight. Come on. Let’s go conquer the fucking world. And get a drink, for God’s sake.” Because the truth is I’m not just thinking about Zed, I’m thinking about Daddy, too, and wishing he could see me. I could prove that I haven’t done so badly. Which might or might not be true.

  I drag Lois to the door, and we trip across the lawn. And she’s a huge hit, and everyone loves her. You’d think she’d been going to Hollywood parties all her life. She stands slightly apart with this little mysterious smile, and the world comes to her. It throws itself at her feet. Billy is totally smitten. The girls adore her and keep sweeping her away, interrogating her in corners, touching her hair, shining their pretty eyes into hers. I’m conflicted: I’m proud of her, like she’s my protégée or something, which of course she isn’t, though I am responsible for bringing her here; she’s mine. She’s mine, I want to tell them. But I also feel the old jealousy surfacing. I remember when Zed’s eyes would follow her, wondering what she thought, how she would react, what went on in her little head. Leaving me behind. “So enigmatic, our Lois,” he said to me once, and I swear to God I wanted to cut her throat. So I was the obvious one, was I? Fuck that, now and then.

  Endless champagne takes the edge off, reminds me that I am Lois too, that all admiration is shared: we’re in this together. And I wonder suddenly if her fucked-up proposition to Zed makes more sense if I think about it like that. Sure, it was her idea, her body: but maybe it was purely us she was offering up. Us, contained in her. Maybe it wasn’t about her. Maybe I should believe she only wanted to save us all, like she says. That makes a fucked-up kind of sense. I don’t want to believe it, but I kind of do, almost as if Lois has invaded my mind. She did the only thing she could think of. It was fucking brave. It didn’t work. But it wasn’t for her. It was for us. For us and for him.

  There’s only one really awkward moment all night: Lois and I, after being separated for a while, find ourselves face-to-face. I think I see a touch of weariness in her eyes, maybe even a hint of panic, and I admit I am glad. I always like it when Lois’s feelings are forced to the surface—or I always did, anyway. I have no patience with this enigmatic crap.

  Suddenly Fiona swoops down on us, dwarfing Lois and making even me feel a little smaller. After a couple of minutes of random chatter, she looks at us more intently, sweeping her gaze from me to Lois, Lois to me. “So,” she says, so abruptly it’s borderline rude, her crazy red hair lit up by the torches that surround the lawn. “How is it that you two know each other?”

  It’s a harmless enough question, I guess. But somehow nothing Fiona says ever manages to sound quite harmless. It sounds pointed, like a cheerful little arrow.

  Lois looks down at my feet, sips her wine; she’s passing this to me. We both understand Fiona’s words as an attack, though her motive is hazy. A calling-out of some kind.

  Lois is right: it’s my place to answer; I know Fiona better. “We don’t, really.” Lois’s glance darts back to my face. “I mean, just from the movie and all that.”

  “Our agents put us in touch,” Lois interjects, which isn’t exactly true but sounds true and is very vague in terms of details like time and place.

  “Really!” says Fiona, raising her majestic eyebrows. “Somehow I got the impression you two went way back. I don’t know what it is, exactly, that gave me that idea.” She studies us quite openly, as if she’s trying to figure it out. “You’re sure you’re not hiding something?” It’s a joke, of course. She means to unsettle us. But it’s creepy.

  I raise one shoulder, an exaggerated gesture of dismissal. “Who knows? Maybe we knew each other in another life.” I didn’t mean to say this, didn’t intend to sound flippant. Lois looks a little alarmed. Exit Chloe Savage! I raise my empty glass and wave it in the direction of the bar. “Time for another splash, I think! Anyone else?” I saunter off without really waiting for an answer; both of their glasses are pretty much half-full, though I’ve learned in the past week that Fiona is no lightweight in that respect. As I move away, I hear Fiona change the subject. “So my husband is absolutely fascinated by his character, this charming madman, this tragic kidnapper,” she begins. “And I was wondering how…”

  I move faster, block her out. I don’t even want to hear it. I feel a twinge of guilt, ever so slight, for ditching Lois. She can handle it, I tell myself, cruising barward. And
I’m sure she does.

  Lois

  I don’t even know I’m asleep until I hear a phone ring and realize that it has woken me up. The room is dark; it could be any time of night. I am nested in soft cushions on the floor, half-covered by a cashmere throw; I can hear Carly breathing on the sofa just feet away. It is her phone that’s ringing. “Carly,” I say. “Chloe?” She stirs. She drank quite a bit more than I did; she seems to be dragging herself up from some deep place. I reach for the phone, convey it into her groping hand, am relieved when she finally mutters, “Yeah? Do you realize what time it is?” (Which is sort of funny, because she can’t have any more of an idea than I do what time it is. I wonder if we fell asleep midsentence; I can’t remember a line between talk and sleep. I dreamed that our conversation continued.) “Billy! What the fuck? Slow down. Repeat yourself.” She listens for a minute, then swings her feet to the ground with surprising alertness. “I’ll be there. Wait … fuck, no, never mind. We’re there. Two minutes. Tops.”

  She jumps to her feet, slides her shoes on in the dark. “The girls are missing,” she says, and it takes a minute for me to understand what she means. (We are the girls; we are both missing and not missing, depending on how you look at it.) “The actresses,” she says impatiently. “Natasha and Justine. They’ve disappeared. They aren’t in their room. Someone went to check on them and found them gone. They’re forming a search party. That was Billy Pearson on the phone—he was just coming in from the pub, and one of the mothers told him. Get up. Don’t change, just put on shoes. Grab us a couple of bottles of water; I think I might still be drunk. Let’s go.” Practically passed out no more than a minute ago, suddenly Chloe is alarmingly functional.

  “To join the search party?” I say stupidly. I look down at myself. We fell asleep in our party clothes. I can feel makeup crusted on my eyes.

  “There’s no time to change,” she says urgently. “Just put on shoes you can walk in. Did you fucking hear what I said? The girls are missing. What the fuck does that mean?” she says, but to herself, like this is some kind of riddle she has to solve.