Page 13 of The Unraveling

“Martini?” asks Arabella.

I really shouldn’t. What I should do is go home and make things better with Jordan. What I should do is get some sleep and wake up tomorrow clearheaded to make some decisions about my future. What I should do is stop smoking and drinking and eating fried fish drenched in malt vinegar, and start reaching out about auditions.

“Sure,” I say anyway, as usual lately, completely ignoring my internal compass. “I like the music.”

“Manu Chao,” she says, swinging her hips. She’s kind of amazing. She has tight curves and moves her body with the sex appeal of an erotic dancer, but I’ve seen her in class and I know she also has perfect ballerina form. It might seem like a given, but not every ballet dancer can go out to a club and dance and still look hot.

Arabella certainly can.

“Twist or dirty?” she asks.

“Dirty,” I say.

“Good girl,” she says with a wink, but then she frowns when she sees my expression.

“Sorry to hear about you and your man. But don’t all men just seem to either cause heartache or headaches?” She stirs my martini in a mixing glass with a long, twirly spoon.

“I guess so,” I say. “Actually, no. I don’t think they all seem like that.”

“Well, those are the ones I like, I guess,” she laughs.

She finishes making the martini and hands it to me, and I say, “Thanks. Cheers.”

Then she gestures back to the living room. “These are the girls, by the way. Anastasia”—she leans in to me—“and you must pronounce it that way, Anna-stah-jia.”

“It is correct pronunciation,” Anastasia says, her Russian accent strong. She is leaning with her elbows on her knees, with legs spread wide as she leans over the coffee table. It’s only then that I register that they’re using playing cards to cut lines of coke.

“That’s Cynthia; she’s American like you.”

“I am from Colombia!” she insists.

“Originally maybe, but you’re American, darling. You grew up in Texas.”

Cynthia laughs. “Fuck you.”

“And that’s Nadia and Nina,” she says last, pointing to two gorgeous blondes, and I realize then that they are identical twins. In the ballet world the girls so often look similar that it’s easy to overlook actual relatives. Jordan once admitted, with shame, that he couldn’t tell which one I was when he saw me dancing one time.

“Would you like some?” asks one of the blondes with a delicate English accent, gesturing at the drugs.

“Oh, no, I’m fine,” I say, starting to make an excuse before remembering I don’t need one.

“So,” says Arabella, leading me to a vintage chaise in the corner. “Come sit with me.”

Before she can talk to me, she is drawn in by another yelling match with Cynthia, and I see now that it’s all in good fun. Yelling is just their shared love language. I wonder if they’re together.

Behind the chaise is a long narrow table of pillar candles, all melted to different levels, dripping onto a silk scarf that’s been thrown over the wood surface. On the wall is an old French Lolita movie poster that says, Comment a-t-on osé faire un film de Lolita? Which, I think, means How dare we make a film out of Lolita?

I look around some more. I can see the kitchen from here. Copper pots and pans, a vase of fresh black dahlias, a French market bag spilling heads of garlic and shallots and onions out onto the wooden counter. I wonder if she cooks, or if it’s simply a perfectly curated show.

I want to see her bedroom. I bet it’s a gorgeous mess.

This whole apartment is like being in an Anthropologie campaign that got taken over by Alessandro Michele.

“Hello? Jocelyn?” Arabella snaps her fingers to get my attention. She pronounces my name Jozzleen.

“Oh, sorry. I was just looking around your flat. I love it.”

“My god, wait!” She sloshes her martini and doesn’t even care that it gets on the tiger skin rug beneath our feet. “You need a place to live? This breakup with your Jordan, did it leave you without a place to live?”

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