The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty by Amanda Filipacchi Read Free Book Online Page A

us.
    She explains, “If I’ve failed to create the kind of music he was talking about—and I guess I have, judging from his postcard—I want to know how I can do better.”
    Doing better is not the issue. Looking better is. That’s what she doesn’t understand. At least that’s my bleak take. I would love to be wrong.
    As we’re chatting, we’re oblivious to the waitress who is refilling Penelope’s water glass. Before the water reaches the top, the glass falls apart and the water spills all over the table.
    “Oh! Shit! I’m sorry!” Penelope exclaims, as the water slides onto her lap.
    “What on earth?” the waitress says, staring at the broken pieces of glass.
    “The glass was broken and I reassembled it, stupidly. I’m sorry,” Penelope says, mopping up the water with her napkin.
    “You reassembled it? Why?”
    “To see if it could look intact.”
    “It’s very dangerous,” the waitress says.
    “I know. I’m so sorry, I forgot about it, I didn’t intend to leave it that way.”
    We call it a night.
    I walk home. Adam the doorman greets me with: “I hope your evening was as dreadful as you are.”
    “Not quite.”
    “Wait a minute,” he says, closing his eyes and pressing his thumb and forefinger against his forehead. “I’m trying to imagine you with a personality.” Opening his eyes and shaking his head slowly in bewilderment, he says, “No luck. If I throw a stick, will you go away?”
    I say goodnight and oblige.
    Upstairs, I receive a call from my mom saying that she researched support groups for fat people and found Overeaters Anonymous, Food Addicts Anonymous, and Eating Disorders Anonymous.
    “The problem is,” I tell her, “I don’t overeat, I’m not addicted to food, and I don’t have an eating disorder of any kind.”
    “Listen, I’m not an idiot. I can see there’s a slight discrepancy. But I couldn’t find a group called Fat People’s Support Group, otherwise I’d say go to that. You’ve got to make do with what’s out there, sweetie.”
    After we say good night and hang up, I brush my teeth, take off my fat, and carefully hang it up. I love the sensual protectiveness of my disguise. It’s like being a turtle or a snail: you can go out and wander around, yet still have the benefits of staying at home. No one bugs you.
    I haven’t had sex in two years. I haven’t even gone on a date since Gabriel died and I donned my padding. It’s not that I’m not open to it, as evidenced by my bar ritual. If some man were open-minded enough not to shut me out the second he sees me in my ugly disguise, I’d consider going out with him. But I haven’t found such a man. So I spend a lot of time with my friends, who happen to all be single at the moment as well.
    Peter Marrick
    Friday, 13 October
    Something has happened to me. I finally got around to looking in the laptop I found in the taxi three days ago, and I think my life may never again be the same. While searching inside the computer for its owner’s contact info, I stumbled upon a diary. I know I shouldn’t have looked, but I did. I only meant to glance at it quickly, to see what an average person concerns himself with. Turns out this journal was not written by an average person. It belongs to the novelist Georgia Latch. I haven’t read her books, but over the years I’ve thought I should. Their concepts intrigue me.
    Her friends, though, intrigue me even more. I found it painful to read her descriptions of these artistic people. It reminded me once again that I’m not living my life how I want.
    I must meet them. And there’s one I’m completely enthralled by: Barb. First of all, there’s the simple fact that I’ve never seen anyone as beautiful as her. In the laptop there are photos of how she really looks—incredible—and how she makes herself look each day—unrecognizable. The mere fact that she wears this disguise is just . . . so eccentric, in a good way. I read in Georgia Latch’s diary about