How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti Read Free Book Online Page A

create a warm home for me there. I wanted to touch every part of it, to understand how it worked. I began to learn what turned it on and the things that turned it off.

• chapter 3 •
    SHEILA WANTS TO QUIT
    Later that same week, after buying the tape recorder, Margaux and Sheila sit in the front window of a neighborhood diner. They order a breakfast to share and two coffees. The midday sunlight filters onto Margaux’s peroxide hair. They both wear dirty sneakers. They both wear dirty underwear.
    SHEILA
    Do you mind if I record?
    Sheila pulls out her tape recorder, puts it on the table, and turns it on.
    MARGAUX
    What?
    SHEILA
    I need some help with the play , and I thought that maybe by talking it over with you—­I thought maybe you could help me figure out why it isn’t working. Then I can listen to what we say, and think it over at home, and figure out where I’m going wrong.
    Margaux shakes her head.
    MARGAUX
    First, I ­haven’t read your play. Secondly, I don’t have any answers.
    SHEILA
    It’s okay that you ­haven’t read the play. I think the problem is with what happens, so I’ll just tell you the plot.
    MARGAUX
    Why are you looking to me for answers? I don’t know anything you don’t know!
    SHEILA
    I’m not looking to you for answers! Why would you say that? I was just hoping that if I—
    MARGAUX
    Don’t you know that what I fear most is my words floating separate from my body? You there with that tape recorder is the scariest thing!
    SHEILA
    But the answer might be in something I say! Besides, who’s going to hear it?
    MARGAUX
    I don’t know! I don’t know where things end up! Then what­ever I happen to say, someone will believe I really said it and meant it? No. No. You there with that tape recorder just looks like my own death.
    Sheila sighs deeply and looks out the window. Margaux looks out the window, too. They do not talk for several minutes. Sheila brushes some sand from the tabletop onto the floor.
    As Margaux and I sat there, I tried to be compassionate. I thought about how difficult it is to live in this world without any clothes on. I know it’s the gods who determine who among us is fated to go through life with her clothes off. When the gods gather around a baby in its cradle and dole out their gifts and curses, this is one aspect of things they consider.
    Most people live their entire lives with their clothes on, and even if they wanted to, ­couldn’t take them off. Then there are those who cannot put them on. They are the ones who live their lives not just as people but as examples of people. They are destined to expose every part of themselves, so the rest of us can know what it means to be a human.
    Most people lead their private lives. They have been given a natural modesty that feels to them like morality, but it’s not—­it’s luck. They shake their heads at the people with their clothes off rather than learning about human life from their example, but they are wrong to act so superior. Some of us have to be naked, so the rest can be exempted by fate.
    MARGAUX
    ( sighs ) All right. You know I have more respect for your art than I do for my own fears.
    SHEILA
    Thank you! Thank you!
    MARGAUX
    Just promise you won’t betray me.
    SHEILA
    ( reassuringly ) I don’t even know what that means.
    Sheila beckons to the waitress, who comes over.
    Can we also get some jam?
    The waitress nods and leaves.
    Is it too much that I asked for jam and water?
    MARGAUX
    ( suspiciously ) No.
    Sheila clears her throat.
    SHEILA
    Okay. So what happens in the play is this: There are these two families, the Oddis and the Sings. And they each have a twelve-­year-­old kid. The Oddis have a twelve-­year-­old girl named Jenny, and the Sings have a twelve-­year-­old boy named Daniel. So both families are vacationing in Paris, and in the first scene of the play, the two families meet at a