Pretty Things. Виржини Депант

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СКАЧАТЬ all of them. To collect women, it’s the only thing that gets them off.”

      “You thought he was so smooth two weeks ago.”

      “I remember. But I must have some molecule, it’s ridiculous, some thing that turns people into total losers. You take the coolest guy in the entire city, seductive, funny, open-minded, you leave him with me for one night and the next day he’s dead weight. It’s inevitable.”

      By now, he knows her little mean-girl schemes. Whether she sleeps with him or not, a man is still her worst enemy. The first time she lands a guy, she’s as nice as a babysitter, all smiles between two blow jobs. Until the day she disappears. She pulls that move almost every time, to make them realize how attached they are. When she comes back, it turns serious, and the guys pay. Until the day it’s no longer enough for Claudine: the gifts, the attention, the acts of love. Then, the final phase, she declares that not only is she seeing someone else, but she fucking loves it. Feigning sincere distress, she lets slip, “If you knew how hard he makes me come.”

      Nicolas takes a drag of the joint, coughs a little, remarks, “I’m glad we don’t sleep together.”

      Claudine grabs the remote and looks for a channel with music videos.

      “That would never happen, I’m not your type.”

      His type? He made a point of not fucking girls who think they’re beautiful. Just to piss them off, those girls who think they have the irresistible gift of seduction. He figured out long ago that he’s hot, that people really like him, without actually understanding why. He likes nothing more than getting a skank all heated up, until he can feel her really burning. Then not touching her. On the other hand, he has a weakness for homely physiques, the injustice of it gets to him, he really enjoys taking care of them, unearthing the good in them. At the very least he can be sure he’s not the umpteenth guy to make them meow with his pelvic thrusts.

      Claudine turns toward her sister, hands her the spliff.

      “You still don’t smoke?”

      Pauline briefly signals no, her twin looks at the clock, adds, “It’s almost time . . .”

      Her sister doesn’t even bother to respond. She continues reading, Nicolas turns his head toward her. It’s still difficult for him to admit that this boring nerd, hair as lackluster as her skin, dressed in a sack, her gaze black when she wants something, really looks like Claudine.

      Who says, “You okay, sis, not freaking out too much?”

      “What the fuck do you care?”

      “Wow, you’re a real barrel of laughs.”

      “We can’t all be a joke like you, Claudine.”

      Solid mastery of contempt. Nicolas stifles a snicker, elbows Claudine, convinced it’ll make her laugh too, since she’s normally so easygoing. But Claudine doesn’t take the opportunity to laugh it off lightly. She usually makes fun of everything, or at least puts up a front, but she takes it badly this time, not even trying to hide it.

      She swallows painfully, squints, spits out, “I guess we can’t all be human either.”

      Her sister rolls her eyes, smirks slightly, snaps, “With how deranged you are, it’s hard to feel any sympathy.”

      A few tears run down Claudine’s cheeks, she doesn’t even wipe them away, as if she doesn’t feel them. Nicolas racks his brain, how to intervene tactfully and stop things from escalating. At a loss, he turns to Pauline, hoping she’ll stop her bullshit. Pauline gets the hint, shrugs her shoulders. “She always was a crybaby.”

      Neither spoke another word to each other after that. Nicolas flips through the channels, pretending to be absorbed by a wildlife documentary. When it’s time to go, Pauline gets up, stands in the entryway, waits for Nicolas. He looks her up and down, not wanting to believe it.

      “You’re planning to go out like that?”

      “Yes. I do it every day.”

      “You have to put on your sister’s clothes!”

      “Don’t count on it, asshole, I don’t dress like a slut.”

      “No one’s going to believe she’d go onstage like that!”

      Nicolas, who saw Claudine often, had never seen her without makeup. Even when they slept in the same place, she made sure to get up first and get ready in the bathroom. Not to mention her obsession with clothes and the time she spent putting together the right outfits . . .

      “Believe it or not, you can actually go onstage without dressing like a groupie.”

      “Have you heard of a little something called a happy medium?”

      “That’s for cowards.”

      He turns toward Claudine, counting on her support. She shrugs her shoulders in a sign of helplessness.

      “Don’t push it, there’s no way. You shouldn’t worry about it, there won’t be anyone who knows me anyway, it’ll be like I had a sudden grunge crisis. Could happen to anyone.”

      With a forced smile, without a shred of enjoyment. She accompanied them to the door, Nicolas lingered on the landing, still hoping for a word of goodbye that would ease the tension. Claudine barely looks at him, murmurs, “Don’t worry, everything will be fine.”

      Monotone voice, closes the door, without the slightest sign of complicity.

      Following Pauline down the stairs, he starts to detest her so badly he feels solidarity with those people who corner girls and force them to shit their little panties before using those same panties to suffocate them.

      Rue Poulet smells like a butcher shop, whole creatures hanging from hooks. Women talking in front of packed displays of vegetables. On car hoods women sell underwear to other women, gesticulating, bursting into laugher, or throwing tantrums. A giant man lifts up a thong to get a better look, black lace stretched in the sun. Sidewalks strewn with crushed paper cups from KFC, food wrappers, green takeout boxes. Farther on, a guy sells pills in little plastic baggies.

      It’s not easy to get by with so many people on the sidewalk.

      Accompanied by Nicolas, who’s pouting because she didn’t want to change, Pauline heads toward the metro. He shakes his head, pointing toward the taxi stand on the opposite sidewalk.

      “I can’t take the metro, I’m claustrophobic. We’ll take a cab, it’s not far.”

      She rolls her eyes, follows him without saying a word. His stupid struggle, the metro stresses him out. I don’t give a crap about your whiny bullshit.

      Her disdain evident since her arrival, her every look has been critical, condescending. She knows everything and judges instantly. How he would’ve liked plenty of disgusting things to happen to her, to break her in two and make her understand that everyone is doing what they can and that she isn’t any better than anyone else. It’s all relative. It’s easy being perfect when you live under a rock.

      He stares hard at her profile; they both have the same features. It only adds to his dislike. As if she’d stolen something from Claudine, СКАЧАТЬ