Bad Behavior by Mary Gaitskill
Author:Mary Gaitskill
Language: eng
Format: azw3, pdf
Tags: Erotic, Women, Short Stories, Contemporary, Fiction
ISBN: 9781439148877
Publisher: Simon Schuster
Published: 1988-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
That night she went to a group show at a small gallery in Soho that included work by her friend Sandra. As usual, she was one of the few non-artists there. Sandra, nervous and carefully chic in a bright blue pillbox hat and a long black velvet skirt, introduced her as âmy friend Stephanie, who writes for The Village Voice.â This impressed people, even when Stephanie said, âI just wrote one thing for the Voice and that was a year and a half ago.â
âYes, but you look like a writer for The Village Voice,â said a painter.
âThat sounds like an insult to me.â
âItâs not an insult, but itâs not a compliment either.â He barked out a laugh.
Stephanie attached herself to another conversation about the embarrassing failure of an art gallery that she had never heard of, which, after a rapid shift of participants, became a discussion about somebodyâs review in the Times versus somebodyâs review in the Voice. Sandra rapidly crossed and recrossed the floor, darting in and out of conversations with apparent pleasure and animation. âNobodyâs here,â she hissed finally, near the hors dâoeuvres, even though there were dozens of people present.
Stephanie wandered from conversation to conversation, having an almost panicky feeling that although there were nice, interesting people in the room, the situation, for all its seeming friendliness and ease, precluded her from connecting with the nice and interesting aspects of them. She tried to figure out why this was and could not, beyond the sense that the conversations around her were opening and closing according to the subtle but definite rules that no one had told her about. Then she saw Dara, Sandraâs other non-artist friend, standing regally alone. Dara was trying to become a fashion designer, and she looked unusually beautiful that night in a strapless satin dress that was dramatically faded in the middle where someone had probably spilled something on it a long time ago. Stephanie had always admired Dara, even though she was not friendly and had once been very rude to Stephanie on the phone. But Dara seemed pleased to see her and hung on to her presence throughout a shockingly dull conversation that stumbled awkwardly through Sandraâs work, Sandraâs husbandâs work, a writer Stephanie liked and a movie. Still, Stephanie resolutely held on to her idea of Dara as an interesting person. She said, âYou seem like someone who is at home in the world.â
A startled look flared in Daraâs eyes; she glanced at Stephanie with disappointment. âNothing could be further from the truth,â she said shortly. âI doubt you know anyone less at home than me.â
They stood silently, Stephanieâs silence a disheartened one. She had thought she was making a penetrating remark that would impress Dara with her perceptiveness; instead she had revealed herself to be a person living in a dreamworld. This was always happening.
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