Free Veronica by Mary Gaitskill Page B

time. Her generation distrusted the sentimental thrill of putting beauty next to shit. They didn’t want to be split down the center—they figured they’d see what was there sooner or later anyway. They understood the appeal—of course they understood it! They’d made Camille. But you were supposed to know that was a movie.
    My parents went with me to the agency in Manhattan. They were not going to put me on a plane to a foreign country just because I’d won some contest. They were going to ask questions and get the truth. They put on their good clothes and the three of us took Amtrak into the city to a building of gold and glass. In the elevator, we stared silently at the numbers above the automatic door as they lighted up and dimmed in a quick sideways motion. For the first time in years, I could feel my parents subtly unite.
    The agency person was a woman with a pulled-back, noisy face. Her suit looked like an artistic vase she’d been placed in up to her neck. When she smiled at me, it was like a buzzer going off. I could tell right away that my parents didn’t know what to do.
    “Can you assure me that our daughter will be taken care of?” asked my mother.
    “Absolutely!” said Mrs. Agency. She spoke of roommates, vigilant concierges who monitored the doors, benevolent chaperones, former models themselves.
    “Aren’t there a lot of homosexuals in the fashion industry?” asked my father.
    Mrs. Agency emitted a joyless laugh. “Yes, there are. That’s another reason your daughter will be as safe as a kitten.” My father frowned. I felt forces vying in the room. He sighed and sat back. “I just wish you didn’t have to interrupt your school,” he said. And then I was on another plane, humping through a gray tunnel of bumps. I stared into the sky and remembered Daphne at the airport, closing her face to me. She hugged me, but there was no feeling in it, and when she pulled away, I saw her closed face. Sara didn’t hug me, but when she turned to walk away, she looked back at me, the sparkle of love in her eye like a kiss. Droning, we rose above the clouds and into the brilliant blue.
    When the plane landed, it was morning. Invisible speakers filled the airport with huge voices I couldn’t understand. I walked with a great mass of people through a cloud of voices, aiming for the baggage claim. I was distracted by a man in a suit coming toward me with a bouquet of roses and a white bag that looked like a miniature pillowcase half-full of sugar. His body was slim and his head was big. Deep furrows in his lower face pulled his small lips into a fleshy beak. His lips made me think of a spider drinking blood with pure blank bliss. Suddenly, he saw me. He stopped, and his beak burst into a beautiful broad smile that transformed him from a spider into a gende-man. “I am Rene,” he said. “You are for Celeste Agency, no?” Yes, I was. He took one of my bags and handed me his roses. He took my other bag, put it on the floor, and kissed my hand. In a flash, I understood: Seeing me had made him a gendeman and he loved me for it. I liked him, too. “It is Andrea, yes?” “No,” I said. “Alison.”
    His car was sleek and white and had doors that opened
    upward, like wings on a flying horse. We got inside it. He opened the bag (which was silk) and scooped the cocaine out of it with his car key. He placed the key under one winged nostril and briskly inhaled. I thought of the time my father was insulted by a car salesman who said, “All you want is something to get around in!” For a week after, my father walked around saying, “What do you do with it, you son of a bitch? Screw with it?” We passed the key back and forth for some moments. Finally, he licked it and put it in the ignition. He said, “Alison, you are a beautiful girl. And now you are in a country that understands beauty. Enjoy it.” He started the car. The drug hit my heart. Its hard pounding spread through my body in long dark ripples and