The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty Read Online Free PDF Page B

Then you’ll have no choice but to make money, honey.”
    THE TENSION OF the last couple of hours has exhausted me. I decide to go straight home instead of buying some more materials for my masks, as I’d intended.
    By the time I arrive at my building, I have a blasting headache.
    The doorman opens the door, saying, “Here you go, cunt.”
    I cringe because I’m afraid he’ll be overheard by the other two doormen at the front desk. There are other staff members as well in this large lobby: porters, handymen, the super, one of the employees from the management office. What worries me is that he’ll get fired, end up homeless, kill himself, and it will be my fault because something about me—my kindness, my compassion, who knows—made him feel safe enough to drop his inhibitions and allow his mental problem to surface in my presence.
    “Having a bad day, huh, Adam?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Me too. Hope it gets better,” I say cheerfully, trying to make my tone raise his spirits. And I go up to my apartment.

Chapter Four
    T hat evening, Lily, Georgia, Jack, Penelope, and I go to a bar to blow off steam. We’re all upset. Lily’s shown us a postcard Strad sent her:
    Hey Lily, Sorry I can’t make it to your concert. Hope it goes/went well. Last month I read that great article in Time Out about your new music’s powers. Congratulations on your success! Strad
    When we meet up, Penelope gives me a gift to thank me for helping her deal with her parents at her store of ugly ceramic items. The gift is an ugly ceramic item: a hideous box with a beautiful metal clasp encrusted with a small green stone. But at least the gift is not broken.
    “Sorry I didn’t wrap it,” she says. “I made it. Except for the clasp. Someone in the metal department at school created it for me in exchange for two pots.”
    “Thank you!” I say, kissing her on the cheek. “I’m so touched. It’s wonderful. It has such character.”
    We all make a show of admiring the box, though secretly we’re just admiring the clasp.
    Penelope tells the others about the fight with her dad in her shop of broken pots and his threat to stop supporting her if she didn’t start contributing to her living in a way that wasn’t against the law. They’re astounded to hear about her selling technique.
    I’m sad for Penelope, after the fight with her father, and I’m sad for Georgia over her lost novel. Mostly, though, I’m angry on Lily’s behalf. So I scan the bar, as has become my habit, for a possible scapegoat, for a shallow man to represent all shallow men.
    At the same time, I’m also searching for an exception, for a man capable of falling in love with a woman for reasons other than her looks. That’s the only kind of man I could ever fall in love with.
    While my friends huddle on a banquette and order drinks and snacks, I spot a man reading a stack of handsome books at the bar. He’s a bohemian type. Chin-length hair.
    I approach him. The books are small, old editions with lovely bindings. The man himself is attractive, too—not that that matters. As I near, I glance at the spines of his volumes: Cinderella, The Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Rumpelstiltskin, Tom Thumb, The Princess in Disguise, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, and Snow White.
    Maybe this isn’t an occasion for my usual bar ritual. The presence of the books gives me hope that perhaps this guy isn’t as shallow as all the other strangers I’ve approached.
    I stand behind him and look over his shoulder. The page he’s looking at has a beautiful illustration of Sleeping Beauty, with a few lines of text.
    “This is the first time I’ve ever seen a man reading fairy tales in a bar,” I tell him.
    He looks me over and tersely replies, “I’m doing it for work.”
    “Now I’m dying to know: what kind of work?” I sit down on the barstool next to him.
    He closes his eyes wearily and says, “I’m a kindergarten teacher. I really have to focus right now.”
    He has to