Simon had turned out to be shallow, selfish, and ruthless in a bland, predictable, and petty sort of way, but it didn’t shock me—maybe because he was a man. I’m used to the way men, suitably draped with respectability, with money and status, are absolved and dressed with things that, if squinted at without your glasses, look like virtues: strength, confidence, and ambition. Melissa was more of an enigma, her sense of sneering superiority to all around her—including, I would say, Simon—less easy to explain and harder to swallow. A double standard, perhaps.
