Exciting Times(31)

Looking at her, I could see she’d suit Julian. They both kept tempo to hard shoes on marble floors, Sunday phone calls and midnight emails. They could save time if one read the Economist and the other the FT and they then pooled facts. I was sure if I put all this on a spreadsheet, Julian would ask Edith out. I pictured them together, then realised I was only doing so because I couldn’t form a clear image of her and me. My hand could pass as Edith’s much more easily than as Julian’s in the dark – but there were only so many thoughts you could productively entertain.

The film ended and Edith said she’d have to go soon. ‘We should do this again some time,’ she said.

‘It might be harder when Julian’s back.’

‘He’s not a mingler?’

I said he was about as close to being Catherine the Great of Russia. This joke was a lot like one of Julian’s and wasn’t much like mine. I wondered if I’d stolen his phraseology because it had worked on me.

Before Edith left, I showed her my wardrobe. She pulled out a camel coat and said she loved Ted Baker because it looked more expensive than it was. I had moved on so far from the version of myself who’d found the price alarming that I was only embarrassed on their behalf.

‘By the way, Ava,’ she said, ‘are you a socialist?’

No one had asked me that before. At college people had assumed I was since all my friends were, and no one at work thought an adult could be. ‘Yes,’ I said. Edith said she saw the merits of it but also liked having nice things.

The next day I messaged saying: you could argue marxism means thinking everyone should have nice things, including us. Edith replied that I surely couldn’t think it justified having a Rolex in the here and now, not when people were starving. I said: you’re right. I wanted to add that Julian’s watch was a cheap one he’d got in Shanghai, but reflected that Edith did not know him and had made no apparent horological assumptions.

Later that night, she messaged again, complaining about still being in the office. I sent her the PDF of Why Marx Was Right with the subject heading ‘warning: marxist polemic’. She replied: are you hitting on me? because i feel like this won’t be safe for work.

The lights were off. My hands were silhouettes in front of the screen.

*

Ever since his departure two months ago, I’d been keeping tabs on Julian online. His social-media presence was more of an absence: no status updates, Facebook profilers changed so infrequently that within four scrolls he was getting sprayed with champagne after finals. He had an Instagram where he’d posted eight pictures ever. Since leaving for London, he’d taken to opening all my stories. I doubted he knew that it told you when someone did that.

Edith’s name was always near the top of my story viewers. In vain I consulted articles and subreddits to see whether this meant she stalked me, I stalked her, or both. I already knew I checked her account a lot, but I wanted to know if the algorithm knew. More importantly, I wondered if I was high on Edith’s list. If her coming high on mine did mean I was the stalker, then at least I would only come high on hers if she was stalking me, too – and if her being high on mine made her the stalker, then yes, my being high on hers would out me as one, but she stalked me back and couldn’t judge.

I compared them. They were neither similar enough to be twins nor different enough to be foils. Still I kept one tab open on Edith, another on Julian, and went back and forth.





24

May

In early May, Edith took me to Times Square Mall. It was big and clean, with marble floors. The Lane Crawford department store took up the atrium, then Gucci and Chanel (‘tourist-bait,’ Edith said), then Loewe and Max Mara (‘Thinking man’s tourist-bait’), then labels for people who thought they had money but didn’t – your Coaches, your Michael Kors. ‘Imagine wearing Michael Kors on purpose,’ Edith said. I told her that was a bad thing to say. ‘It is true, though,’ she said.

Whenever I wore something Julian had bought me, I felt Edith could tell what it cost and did not think it was worth the money.

We went to Zara. I asked why Zara was acceptable when Michael Kors was not, and Edith said it was because Zara knew who they were. She added that she was well aware on another level that this was all consumerist garbage, but Mrs Zhang’s influence was hard to shake off. ‘You’re right,’ I said, ‘it is consumerist garbage.’ She smiled. I was glad she seemed to find my sullenness endearing, but suspected she only did because it did not much affect her. I pictured us as cartoon characters, me trying to headbutt her, stuck in the same spot with my forehead ramming into her serenely outheld palm.

At the racks she chose things for us to try on. I was too embarrassed to check if we were the same size, but Edith asked mine and said we were. She said it would save time if we shared a changing-room stall. I turned away and then Edith did the same, like it wouldn’t otherwise have occurred to her. Through the mirror I saw her black lace bra. Her deodorant smelled like soap. ‘I like your freckles,’ she said, still with her back to me. She could have been admitting she’d glanced over her shoulder or could simply have been commenting on the parts of me she’d already seen, and I felt it wouldn’t have killed her to be clearer about that.

‘I like your dress,’ I said. ‘Mine is ugly.’ Edith said no, it was just different. It was the first time we’d disagreed on clothes. ‘The neckline brings out your collarbones,’ she said. I told her she had nice collarbones, too, that wasn’t it interesting we pluralised collarbones when it was really all one bone, and also that the dress was still ugly. ‘Let me try it on if you don’t want it,’ she said. I took it off. This time I stayed facing her.