Happy Hour

by Marlowe Granados

“So what do you do?” People love to ask that question. They know there’s a right answer but fail to let you know what it is until it’s too late. I said, “There’s a poem that goes, ‘When I’m not painting, I’m writing, and when I’m not writing, I’m suffering,’ so I guess I’m suffering ’cause I don’t make a thing.”

And then she said, “Well that’s interesting. Lilou told me you were strictly a good-time girl.” I tried to seem unfazed. I will give Lilou a taste of my exclusive rage the next time I see her.

I was getting a little annoyed and told Anabel, “It’s funny how in a place where everything is an Experience, people see ...

“I disagree. People see much value in living. There are all kinds of people who profit off of other people’s stories. The trick is to make your own myth and sell it. What’s yours?”

I imagine people are always changing their opinions around Anabel. They must look to her whenever they state a claim, searching her face for signs of approval or rapport. She becomes their touchstone. I admired that because even when she is quiet, she is wielding. This quality, now that I had witnessed it, was one I knew I wanted to acquire. It made me feel she was important and that I wanted her to take notice of me. It got darker out, and she lit more candles. “You know what I think you could benefit from, Isa? I’ll tell you a secret. There’s a little chant I never go a day without saying to myself.” I asked her what kind of chant and she said, “Me first, me first, me first.”

“Who do you want to meet first? Writers masquerading as it-girls, or it-girls masquerading as artists?”

I realize now, the older you get, the harder it is to be impressed because people make you feel ashamed of ever being impressed by anything at all. I keep many glowing remarks to myself because of this.

“Take it from me, all men who ignore you are handsome. That’s what makes them good looking.”

He always had girlfriends—wealthy, long-term, live-in girlfriends. I knew exactly what he saw in them—steady meals and warm apartments. That was a survival tactic. It’s a familiar story. I try to avoid that type now. They always have Pasts, and those can never be reconciled.

I wasn’t interested in him because we were cut from the same cloth. There’s a line I once heard in a movie that works well here: “There’s a little bit of larceny in everyone.” But after those drinks, something about the situation became important. I had never met a man who understood things and was practical in the way I was. He could never judge me. He was eight years older and had worked his angle, from what I could tell, for years. There was something in his practised charm that comforted me. I had not yet been in the company of someone so used to being watched. When he came into a room, people eyed him. He carried the air of being on display. People looked at him, and in their minds they were already calculating what they could offer. Shelter! Food! Favours! Friendship! This kind of effect is rare for a man; men are used to watching. He said whenever he came home from work and emptied his trouser pockets, he would find receipts with names and phone numbers scrawled on the back.

After the bar, we all went to a house in Montmartre belonging to one of his friends. He gave me a glass of water with some ecstasy sprinkled in. For about ten minutes I felt jubilant, and then, all of a sudden, the joy went away, drying out like hot laundry in the sun. I felt a sense of clarity—but it was worse than that; it was the feeling of being intensely sober. Everyone’s faces were clearer than I had ever seen them. Their eyes were red, bloated, and puffy, framed by lines like deep ridges. I pitied them. I found them pathetic.

Some things are meant to be restored, not re-interpreted.

In this way the hotel was very New York. People are always nostalgic about the New York they’ve read about. They are always trying to recreate those feelings, that mystique. It always ends up cheap, garish, and the worst crime of all, inauthentic. How can anything be true if it’s all an impersonation?

Ally was nice to me, probably to the extent she could be nice to anyone who is twenty-one.

Beauty is a funny thing. It fools you into thinking you like someone when really all you want is to possess them. Ultimately, I guess that’s what desire is. Something I find so beautiful should be mine!

Noel had sent me a package for my birthday once. A manila envelope with a notebook, a pencil, a bar of absinthe chocolate, and a copy of Dangling Man. In the book’s dedication, he scratched out “To Anita” and replaced it with my name. He wrote a small note that smelled of vetiver (a scent most men who have felled me wear) and signed it “Forever yours.”

If he wanted to he would

Rich intellectuals are funny because they are accepting of dirt and nature. They leave their windows open without a screen and only have natural cleaning products. They filter their water using charcoal and leave their butter dish out. I don’t know how they get rid of any germs, but perhaps it is a marker of my upbringing that I think bleach is all-purpose.

Things didn’t turn out how either of us thought they would, but we have a beautiful child together, and that’s enough to celebrate from that union. A piece of advice: You’ll come across many people who will want to be with you. People’s imaginations aren’t entirely idle; they can slot you into their futures easily. You have qualities that people wouldn’t mind spending time with, at least for a while. You could be the perfect girl for Anybody. We are conditioned to be obsessed with people falling in love with us. Reaching that point is seen as a success. We’re always asking, ‘Why do they act this way?’ and then morphing, cooing, comforting. By the time you win them over, you don’t know how to really love them in return because we never ask ourselves enough about what we want. Don’t ever forget you have the ability to choose. Never wait to be chosen by someone who came ready to treat you right. I know it may not seem this way in art and literature, but we are not mere vessels for love and admiration. If I said yes to every proposition I was given just because I was flattered by it, well!” What she means is have an idea of what you want and never get talked out of it. I am slowly learning to never accept less than I deserve. Deciding how much I deserve is another matter. I wish someone would say to me, “I will never look up or down at you.”

The amount of effort that goes into appeasing that girl is absurd. I am never thanked; it’s just always expected.

How lucky I am to feel the blush of romance and be young enough to break away unscathed, untouched, and free to make the mistake over and over!

Skaters are funny. They’re lauded not only because they’re handsome or alluring but also because they’re athletes. People don’t realize that’s why, but it’s true. Athleticism is pure in how you can only be very good and very bad at sport. And if you’re good, you’re good. It’s not like art or beauty, where everything can be argued. You either land a little trick or you don’t. People really thirst for that kind of truth in their lives.

He said, “I kind of realized that anxiety is only the fear of the future. Once you accept that, things become a lot clearer.” I disagreed. “I don’t think that’s always true. For me, I get anxious about the past. The past weighs on the future. Not exactly that I’m scared of it, but I have to keep things together in the meantime. That can get tricky, you know?”

Is it wrong to think of pain as quantifiable? If it is not in quantities, how can we digest it? How does it move through our bodies without us knowing its size?

“Why are people always shouting at you?” I blew on my wounds. “Because they think they can.” If only I could remind the general public that just because I can take it does not mean it is right.

It is truly a gift that I can alter the disposition of an occasion entirely. I am small but my mood radiates. I can make a whole room unbearable.

“You know I have always worried about her! She has the exact personality to join a cult.” Gala was always waiting for someone else to give her direction. Her ability to live in the present was made possible by relying on other people’s ideas of what she could do. Her usual method of doing that was being in a relationship, but really, what is the difference between a cult and a boyfriend?

“Do you ever think I made a mistake?” Gala shrugged, patting her lips to spread the colour evenly. “No one knows what you felt. No one experienced the same thing. You did what you had to do.” She paused. “Give yourself a break. Let yourself be sad for a few days.

“You’re so dramatic. If you feel alone, it’s because you choose to feel that way. You’re always around people.”

“How can you really ever know someone? People change and are in a constant state of revealing themselves. To think you know everything about someone is to leave yourself vulnerable to surprise.”