The Paradise Problem

by Christina Lauren

I haven’t been to a salon in months, haven’t shaved my legs in weeks, and haven’t carefully looked in a mirror in a few days, unless you count this morning’s passing glance in the toaster. (I do not recommend: Its curves turned my forehead into a sevenhead and stretched my day-old makeup halfway down my face.) Yet somehow, I’m supposed to convince a bunch of one percenters that I’m now one of them—have, in fact, been married to one of them for five years now?

“You’ve told me I’m supposed to be a married medical student on the way back from Cambodia. I’m wearing actual Chanel and two days ago had my labia waxed by a woman with hands bigger than yours. My fake husband just dropped a ring box onto the console between us and said, ‘There you go.’ And you want me to be serious?”

“Soon you’ll be old enough to say no to things you don’t want to do. Right now is the time in life that teaches you you’ll get through it even if you hate it.”