“Does your sister look like you?” asked Troll Doll quickly.
Lucky shook her head.
“She’s seven years older.”
“Is she jealous of you?”
Lucky had never considered this.
“I don’t think she’s jealous of anyone.”
“Are you jealous of her?”
“That’s a weird question,” said Lucky. “Are you?”
“Oh god, you’re playing the game again,” said the leather-clad flatmate, rolling his eyes.
“You’re ruining it!” said Troll Doll.
Lucky cocked her head.
“It’s this thing she does,” he said, affecting a bored drawl. “Where she asks you a ton of personal questions really quickly in a row to see how many she can get to before you ask her one back.”
“How’d I do?” asked Lucky without much interest.
She poured out the remainder of the bag and began the satisfying process of cutting new lines.
“You remain a mystery,” declared Troll Doll.
“What’s the point of it?” Lucky asked, slicing away with the credit card. She could have been speaking about life in general but decided to clarify by adding, “The game?”
“To try to find out as much as you can about the other person without revealing anything about yourself,” said the flatmate.
“It’s easier with men,” Troll Doll said. “I can get to, like, thirty before they think to ask me a single thing.”
The doorbell rang and she bounced up to answer it. A cluster of friends, all dressed in revealing or vaguely kinky costumes, stood in the doorway.
“This is Flopsy and my cousins Cressida and Rupes,” declared Troll Doll, seemingly for Lucky’s benefit, though none of them acknowledged her.
Lucky looked around at the friends gathered and realized with a sinking feeling that she was ensconced in a gathering of the British upper class, a fact no actual member of this class would ever acknowledge. She remembered her mother explaining that truly posh people never talked about class, in the same way they never discussed the cost of private school, knowing members of the Royal family, or having inherited wealth. It was all just assumed. Their mother hated the rigid class system she had come from. Naturally, she was also staunchly antimonarchist. Growing up, they were not even allowed to play at being princesses. On Halloween, their mother went to the Goodwill down the block and cobbled together costumes of famous rebel leaders like Joan of Arc and Che Guevara. One year, she dressed the four of them as peasants from the 1917 Russian revolutions, outfitting them with historically accurate agricultural tools. When a neighbor’s kid attempted to make fun of them for being covered in dirt—their mother had rubbed their faces with soil from a houseplant for verisimilitude—Avery had threatened him with her scythe.
Lucky looked around for something else to drink.
“I’m Flopsy,” said one of the friends, sitting down on the sofa beside Lucky. She was wearing a white spandex minidress with a matching ivory feather boa draped around her neck. Her chestnut hair was very clean, straight, and shiny, like a horse’s.
“Lucky,” said Lucky.
“That’s a funny name,” said Flopsy.
Lucky gave her a sideways look.
“So how do you know…”
Lucky gestured toward their host, who was in the process of helping cousin Cressida apply nipple tape.
“From school,” she said with a flick of her mane. “I was the year above at Cheltenham. We’ve known each other forever.”
“So just a quickie drinky here and then we’ll head over, shall we?” said Troll Doll.
“I’m literally so excited,” squealed Cressida, whose breasts had just been secured in a shimmering backless halter dress.
“It is quite literally going to be the only party anyone talks about for the rest of the year,” proclaimed Flopsy.
“Like Sodom and Gomorrah,” said the flatmate. “But chic.”
“How do you know them?” asked Lucky.
The flatmate barked a high laugh.
“Sodom and Gomorrah aren’t people, darling.”
“I meant the girls throwing the party,” said Lucky.
She genuinely had been asking about the sisters, but she knew the flatmate would still think she was covering a mistake. He appeared to be the kind of person who delighted in highlighting other people’s weaknesses, mostly, Lucky presumed, to distract from his own. Besides, as a model, Lucky was used to people taking pleasure in proving she was an idiot. It was a kind of protection against inadequacy, she assumed; if she was pretty but dumb, they could still feel superior, even a little righteous, finding, in their own lack of marketable beauty, a confirmation of their higher intelligence. But if the two weren’t causal? If it was possible to be both professionally attractive and smart? Then their own average looks served no purpose other than to disappoint, with Lucky acting as the hapless reminder. She’d found, in general, it was easier to keep her mouth shut and let people think whatever comforting thoughts they wanted about her. People seemed to hate her less that way.
“From school,” said Troll Doll, as if this should already be obvious.
Strong vodka sodas were dispersed among the group, which Lucky downed gratefully. She had finished the glass of dry white wine she’d been handed upon arrival instantly and was relieved to have something stronger. The group set about ingesting the additional bags of coke and ketamine they had brought with impressive speed. Once everyone was on their way to being suitably severed from sobriety, Troll Doll clapped her hands authoritatively.
