“They’ve invited everyone on their list. All their top models. Movie producers and directors. I heard even Leonardo DiCaprio,” Marlow had gushed into the phone.
She had just turned twenty-one, and her agency was throwing her a huge birthday bash in New York City. She had called me at work immediately when she got the news.
“Isn’t that like his thing? To date models?” I had asked earnestly.
She laughed. “I miss you, Isla.”
Her party was set for that Friday night. I was at work. I had secured a position as assistant to a gallery owner in downtown Minneapolis, which really meant a glorified internship, finding myself most days cleaning the office and stuffing envelopes.
It was late as I locked up the gallery. She pulled up in a gaudy silver Mercedes, honked, and rolled her window down. She wore a Bohemian circlet; a row of tiny, beaded white flowers danced across her forehead. Her hair was straightened, so long that it almost went to her waist.
“What—what are you doing here, Marlow?” I asked with more suspicion than surprise.
“Celebrating my birthday. Bought myself something.” She rubbed the steering wheel and grinned widely.
“You’re supposed to be in New York City! They probably spent a lot of money setting up that party, Marlow.”
“Do you really think I wanted to celebrate it that way?”
“Let me think . . . yes!” I looked around as if my response deserved a larger audience.
“Screw it. They’re doing it for them, not me.”
“Marlow . . .”
“Ugh.” She threw her head back. The circlet slipped down and then came back up again. “Get in.”
She tossed a black dress over the car console at me as I got in.
She insisted that I change into the dress she got for me. It would have looked better on her. She was all lines that visually pleased, and I was all ones that didn’t. But I was leaner then, by my standards, and she made me feel like I could own it.
That was the thing about Marlow. She could do that to you in a second, her focus so concise. Her path could only be in line to you, barreling hard and fast. There was no time to breathe or think when she wanted it. An unaffected watchfulness. She was unpolluted, unmanufactured with every sleight of hand.
She was beyond the realm of control.
I sat back that night, as if I were placed in an amusement park ride, putting my hands up and never opening my eyes.
At first, she drove to an obscenely expensive restaurant. She looked down at the embossed menu and back up at me and stood up. Not because she couldn’t afford it but because it was decidedly beneath her. We picked up pizzas instead, plus a case of expensive champagne, and camped in a penthouse suite downtown. I remember watching her devour each slice with such abandonment as the champagne fizzed in my mouth. I spit it out when we laughed so hard we doubled over with tears.
We washed our faces before we settled under the sprawling white comforter. I always thought she looked the most beautiful when she had nothing else on her face. The freckles scattered across her nose made her look untouched.
Her hand reached out to me under the covers and then traced the outline of my face.
“I love this face.”
“Why? Isn’t it your face everyone adores?”
“No.”
“Shut up, Marlow,” I said, then laughed.
She squeezed my shoulder. “Thank you. Thank you,” she whispered.
“For what?”
When I woke up, she had already left for the airport. The next time I saw her was on the cover of that summer’s Vogue issue. Back when I could look at her face with admiration rather than the noxious pain that would form behind my eyes.
When I could look at her without tightening my hands. When she hadn’t taken everything from me.
CHAPTER 36
ISLA
2010
“Can you please switch out number four with number three? I think the lighting is much better in that corner for it.”
I stood back and watched as the short guy with a long ponytail from the setup crew quickly switched the two paintings.
“Shit. That looks worse. Sorry. Can you please switch it back?”
I gritted and bared my teeth apologetically. He shrugged and obliged.
“Thank you . . . okay. I think that’s it. Yes, we’re done.”
It had been about a year since I had started as an assistant to the downtown gallery owner, and she finally entrusted me with curating a show. Not just any show, but a Saturday evening one featuring her newest client, an up-and-coming encaustic painter who experimented with mixed media. I actually loved her work, and making sure it presented well gave me both a thrill and nervousness that the job had yet to bring out in me.
I went into the bathroom and hung up the garment bag with the black dress Marlow had given me a few months back, when she ditched her agency birthday bash. I smoothed the front and leaned forward in the mirror to apply a dark coral lipstick.
