Catherynne Valente

But Dess wasn’t shining. He was just a dumb tart in someone else’s frock staring down failure like you could ever make failure blink. Failure was here before you and she’ll be here after you and she won’t even notice you go

Only the uncool have the requisite alone time to advance their species.

Like everything else, it was a gift. From him to her. The world flows in that direction. Him to her. A river of forever.

Sophia doesn’t ask for praise or credit. Is he the life of the party? Or is she? Such questions! The party is alive, that’s what matters. And whichever way one slices such a rich cake, her company is much in demand. Her social calendar overflows like a cup of wine. Everyone in Arcadia Gardens clamors to have her round. The honor of her presence at their home. The pleasure of her business at their establishment. The profound distress the absence of her witness would cause at this or that small ceremony of life.

Sophia strives to make certain they never have cause to regret her.

Surprises did that to you. Nasty things. Lying in wait. A surprise, even a little one, means a change in the world, and Sophia likes her world as it is. She likes it so much.

He is tall, taller than her husband even, but so skinny, a riot of golden hair tangling up from his skull like a crown of buttercups. His eyes burn into her, staring, staring, looking for something he cannot find in the very cellar of her being. Oh, she hates them! She hates his eyes instantly and forever. They are blue and green and brown all at once, fringed with long lashes, so bright Sophia looks away. An ungovernable shyness cripples her. She does not want to look at the stranger. His gaze peels her open like an unripe green almond. He should not look at her like that.

Sophia feels tears needling the backs of her eyes. Tears, not at his twisting neck, but at the utterly usual movements of this strange man with his strange name. Tears, because the act of sitting on the sofa, when performed by Mr. Semengelof, is more beautiful than roses. Her husband does not move like that. He thuds when he walks. He thuds when he sits. He thuds when he eats and when he drinks and even when he sleeps. Sophia likes his thudding, she always has. When he thuds, the world listens and gets out of his way. That is her whole understanding of men.

Sophia does not think Mr. Semengelof even knows how to thud. He almost seems as though he could fly.

Without looking round, he says, with a gentleness like a feather falling:

“Are you happy, Sophia?”

She blinks. She forgets instantly the scream shoving at her bones.

Is she happy?

She doesn’t understand. She has never considered it. It is possible to be so entirely happy you never ask the question. She is a full glass submerged in water. Neither nor both full and empty. The inquiry, though kind, has no meaning for her.

He begins to play, and for a moment Sophia fully and truly thinks she will die. The sound of it is a knife, if a knife could kiss, and the kiss could turn the color of morning. There is no sense to the song. It crashes and whispers and cajoles and weeps and admonishes and commands all at once, without progression from one feeling to the next. Yet it contains a perfection that is twin to pain.

Sophia does not die. The kiss and the knife and the color
go on and on. The man does not play music. The man is music.

She should have answered politely, she knows better, and she curses her own manners. She will go back tomorrow and apologize. After all, she is happy. What is so hard about
saying so, and to those who have never done her any harm? What if this makes them surly toward her husband when he comes to buy his coffee and his bacon? She could not bear that.

She is happy. Sophia is happy. Why could she not tell them?