LITMIR.BIZ

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prodigies, Marge. Like you, Marge.”

      Marge smiled. “Yes, I remember when I first walked into your class on feminist rereadings of the Hegelian unhappy consciousness at Harvard. You looked so beautiful in that African robe. I was so impressed by you—we all were. When was that?”

      “Seventy-eight. Must have been. I was in my third year of grad school. And the Kappa Alpha Theta initiations—such fun!” Stephanie finished her posset.

      “Gabriella’s from a later world,” said Marge. “She’s from a later, more disenchanted world. She’s third wave.” She bent her fingers in quotes. “If that is a thing at all.”

      “Maybe she doesn’t wanna be part of any wave, Marge,” said Steph, expressively. “Have you ever considered that? Maybe she’s not into waves. Listen. Gabriella’s just doing what we did. She’s just using what she’s got. Her own experience.”

      “Bullshit.” Marge put her fork down. “She’s using her cunt.”

      The ballerina looked at Marge, who said: “Don’t worry, honey. It’s not a pejorative.” Marge went on: “Gabriella wants a new cunt. And new eyes—better to see out of. Better to see herself out of. She’s just like a . . . she’s a paradigm of selfish fucking neoliberal individualism, Stephanie.”

      “We all wanted to be individuals, Marge, remember? We all wanted to be ourselves. That’s why we got involved. We didn’t want to be what our mothers—”

      “Yes, but we sought solidarity!”

      “But Gabriella is a visual artist,” said Stephanie. “She’s not a sociologist like you—”

      “Do artists have the right to disavow their foremothers? To pretend that second wave feminism never happened? That they owe us nothing?”

      Stephanie sat back and laughed. “Oh, I get it. So you want her to defer to us. The great wall of us. You want her to pay homage to our grand narrative—”

      “Grand narrative?!” spat Marge. “You’re the one constructing the big, macho, monolithic grand narrative, lady. Going around on your book tour. With your fancy agent—”

      “Not all of us wanted to stay in the academy, Marge.”

      “I entered the academy because of you, Stephanie. I became an academic because you inspired me. You told me that that was my path.”

      “Well,” said Stephanie. “It’s not my path. The academy is not necessarily the best way to communicate—”

      “Communicate what exactly?!” Marge grabbed her glass of wine and chugged it. “That romantic love is structurally akin to the subliminal power dynamics of sadomasochistic relationships? That domination and submission inform the way we treat each other? Ha! Shulie Firestone, Jess Benjamin were talking about that thirty, forty years ago.” Marge closed her eyes and became still.

      “Mommy?” said the ballerina.

      Marge opened her eyes. “You’re a populist, Stephanie.”

      There was silence.

      “Bite me,” said Stephanie.

      An alarm started across the street.

      Stephanie grabbed her handbag.

      The alarm got louder until guests were covering their ears and lowering their heads as though intending to hide under the tables from the noise.

      William emerged from the toilets, his eyes googly like a cartoon. He demanded that I check what the fuck—and what the fuck was I doing here anyway loitering near people trying to eat.

      I went outside.

      The town house across the street was on fire. Its roof burned against the black night, smoking out the stars. Great gusts of red were rising, getting bigger and bigger. I saw arms reaching out of three top-floor windows. The paps had started taking pictures. There were sirens. Fire engines screeched around the corner of Frith Street and firemen leaped out and operated their neon machinery as the smoke curled higher still. Despite the fact that I knew he was nowhere near at all, I wanted to run into the building and save Vic’s life.

      William was telling the guests to leave their minks behind.

      Marge was gripping the hand of her child ballerina, who looked excited. Her eyes were gleaming in a satanic way. Stephanie had disappeared. Samuel, Jasper, and Freddie had disappeared. There was the sound of glass shattering; glass rained down, shattering more on the pavement. From a door on the right of the burning building, people were sprinting into the frozen air, holding hands and pushing each other out of the way. They were men, well-heeled and mostly middle-aged, some younger, mostly bankers and lawyers, slick, clean-shaven, too terrified to look guilty. There were women too, all young, pretty, or at least women who had cemented a mask that could pass for prettiness over their plain or aging faces. Women in short red skirts and patent-leather, thigh-high boots, women with topknots out of which sprouted synthetic hair, women who were accustomed to being tired. The men and their prostitutes shared neon blankets tossed over their shoulders by firemen.

      Soon the power of the hoses had beaten the fire into submission and the area was cordoned off. The guests filed back inside to pay their bills.

      The toad gentleman remained seated at table twenty-two while I matched guest to mink. There was a lot of shouting about lost items; William was called, but the fire seemed to have endowed him with an ancient kind of Zen and even his verbal abuse was tranquil.

      The toad gentleman caught my eye as I said thank you so much for coming, we do apologize for the disruption—a thousand times or more. He was holding up his iPad for me to see. I squinted at it. He beckoned me closer.

      On the screen, a mauve heart was efflorescing with digital emotion: it was spurting something. His tongue darted out again; it was the same color as the heart.

      “Your fucking friends have left without paying again,” said Madeline, bulldozing into reception. “It’s coming out of your paycheck.” She looked at the receipt. “£790.”

      I tried to call Freddie, but he didn’t answer.

      Reluctantly, I called Jasper.

      “Come and play,” he giggled. “We’re playing.”

      “Where?”

      “Upstairs. Up.”

      I went back through the restaurant toward the slanting stairs that spiraled up the interior of the building.

      The toad man shot out a toad hand as I passed. He held my wrist. He was wearing red-and-gold cuff links. “Please,” he said in a gentle voice.

      I stopped.

      His pond eyes looked up into mine.

      “The restaurant’s closed now, sir. If you wouldn’t—”

      “Sit with me for just one moment.”

      I did.

      We were alone, side-by-side, on the leather banquette. He plucked the single white orchid out of the vase on the table and gave it to me.

      “Thanks,” I said. “But that’s restaurant property. They get put in the fridge overnight. There are cameras everywhere.”

      His comb-over fell into his face. His scalp was slick. There were brown speckles on his forehead and veiny networks on his cheeks.

      “My wife died last year,” he said. “Breast cancer.”

      I frowned.

      “Yes, it was a terrible, irreplaceable loss. We’d been married for thirty years.” He looked down. “I’ve been waiting for a woman like you. I’ve been waiting to impart jouissance to a woman like you. Do you know what jouissance is?”

      I shook my head.

      “It is the extreme

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