Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here(47)

DAD’S BOOK PARTY IS TONIGHT. IF I HAD THE BALLS, I’D SHOW up with a polka-dot kerchief full of belongings on a stick and begin a scrappy new life on the mean streets of Manhattan, a runaway fugitive who doesn’t talk about her dark past. But I’m pretty sure being a dorky virgin would destroy my credibility.

Dad and Kira are waiting at Penn Station when I get off the train, having made it almost two hundred pages into The Corrections.

We all hug, and I snatch Matilda like an old witch dying to eat up pretty little babies. She has gotten bigger, much more of a heft in my arms, and she’s starting to look like more of a person than a baby—more like the pretty girl she’ll become. She smiles and grabs my thumb.

“Wow, you look so different!” says Kira, smiling widely. She looks perfect as usual, the kind of person who’s glowing with invisible makeup and secrets about staffers at the Paris Review. My dad looks basically the same, just a little older and a little happier, probably because he is.

“Let me take that.” He shoulders my backpack and grunts. “God, what do you have in here, bricks?”

“Your birthday present.”

His eyes light up. “Oh! Did you start reading it?”

I nod.

“What do you think?”

Truthfully, it kind of annoyed me, but I don’t want to let him down.

“It’s amazing!” I enthuse, swallowing my real opinion. He beams, a smile like a blinking neon That Is Correct! sign.



Dad and Kira’s place is the real estate version of a Wes Anderson movie. The Astonishing Bespoke Writerly Apartment. I throw my stuff down on the sofa, the poor-kid voice in my head immediately chastising me for making this really nice place filthy. They made up the couch for me.

There’s a huge framed vintage poster of Antonioni’s Blow-Up in the bedroom and a reclaimed-wood dining table. The apartment has high ceilings, expensive-looking light fixtures, eclectic art, and the unfamiliar house smell that I associate with rich people. Halfway through a glass of Diet Coke, I look down and notice I’m drinking out of a mason jar. Dawn and I don’t even put napkins on our laps when we eat takeout.

“Before the book party, we should probably talk,” says my dad, shooting a look at Kira, who nods.

“I’m gonna put her down,” Kira says, carrying the baby into the other room. Matilda waves goodbye at me, her fat little hand opening and closing like a fleshy starfish. I smile a little bit, unable to help it.

“She’s, like, the Tom Cruise of babies,” I say.

“I know.” He beams. I stop smiling.

“Did you eat?”

“Yeah,” I lie.

“So I wanted to talk to you about my book.”

“You don’t have t—”

“I just didn’t want you to go in without knowing a little bit about it.”

I shake my head. “Dad, I don’t need to know anything. I’m really happy for you.”

“Scarlett, I really think you should listen to me. I wrote it a long time ago, and things were very different, and I don’t want you to go into this without knowing some context.”

I understand why he’s worried—he wrote this a long time ago, when he was married to Dawn, and it’s probably at least a little semiautobiographical. But I get it. Fanfic Scarlett is at once me and not me, and Gideon is him but not him, and that’s hard for people to understand. I wish there was something I could say to make him feel better. The party is only a few hours from now, and he must be freaking out.

“It’s gonna be great,” I say. “And I do have some context, considering I was there.”

Kira glides back out from the bedroom, sliding a coaster under my mason jar. I stare at her helplessly.

“Will you tell him not to be such a worrywart?”

She glances at him and says nothing, which is a little strange.



The party is at a little indie bookstore near their apartment, bursting with people and exposed brick and staff recommend-ations of obscure poetry I’ve never heard of. Jazz plays quietly in the background, like something out of a Woody Allen movie, and by the time we get there, an absurdly long and twisty line has formed around the bookshelves for the free wine a cute twentysomething girl dumps unceremoniously into Solo cups.

The minute we walk in, people are hugging my dad and coming up and congratulating him, air-kissing Kira and crooning over Matilda’s pretty dress and matching bow. I am wearing the red dress I wore to the Halloween dance, and I’m getting looks that are very different from the looks Kira, Dad, and Matilda are getting. It is the difference between looking at an expensive and coveted objet d’art and looking at a slab of meat on a grill. I think I recognize some of these writers, like I’ve read or at least skimmed books they’ve written.

After I wander around the bookstore and flip through other new releases, sipping on my wine, I join the small group that has formed around Dad and Kira, where some balding guy is talking.

“. . . it’s almost like if you’re a straight white man, you’re not allowed to have an opinion anymore. When you think about it, we’re the most oppressed group in America.”

I make a face at Kira. She gives me the tiniest, imperceptible shake of her head: Not worth it.

I go back for a second glass of wine. Ahead of me on line, a guy with a flannel shirt solemnly tells another guy with a flannel shirt, “I’ve decided I’m going to try to take myself more seriously.”