“I think I’ll go and work on the script,” the Actor said. “Someone’s got to.” Masha watched him spring up, his movements sore and static, then felt the absence of his knee next to hers. He was angry at Dee, she thought. She remembered the little fishes her father had used to bait the sea bass of Long Island Sound, the way they used to thrash on the hook, unsuitable for anything but dying between the teeth of a more important animal.
They heard Karen stomp inelegantly up the steps. She did not say anything, but walked over to Vinod. She held a small receptacle in her hand brimming with a peach-colored substance. “You have to put this under your eyes,” she said. “We’ve all been having sleepless nights, but you, honey, need to show off those beautiful peepers.”
She popped open the container, scalloped a bit of cream with her forefinger, and began to paint the half-moons beneath Vinod’s eyes. He smiled until his dry lips split along the seams. “You don’t have to,” he said. “Whom do I have to impress? Other than you.”
The diners watched the ritual take place, only Senderovsky recognizing it as such, because she had done the same for him and for Vinod many times during the younger days of their friendship, applying creams and balms and so-called product, smoothing them out for the old age of which she had been so frightened, her mother’s only prescriptions for life: good looks, good homework, good college, good marriage, good sons, good death. As she worked on his eyes, they all noticed the care with which she labored, as if Vinod was a sacred object, a talisman, as if nothing mattered more than to send him into the world slightly less blemished. Ridiculous, Masha thought. She’s leading him on in the same way the Actor is leading me on.
“Well,” the Actor said, surveying the scene. “My job here is done. Good night.”
“Sleep well,” Ed said, victory in his voice. “Just knock on the door if you want to watch the Japanese reality show with us.” The “knock on the door” implied that he and Dee might be half naked at the least.
“Oh, I’ve been dying to see that show,” Karen said. “Vin, you want to come?”
Ed sighed.
7
Ed set up his laptop on the desk between the pineapple sculptures, and Dee （as well as Vinod and Karen, the interlopers） slumped down next to the edge of the bed, their drinks in hand, giddy at the prospect of low entertainment. “Okay,” Karen said. “I have to show this to someone, or else I’ll freaking die.”
“What is it?” Dee shouted. She wondered what it would be like to be Karen’s friend, this important woman who could so easily act like a child （and befriend an actual one）， the opposite of all the serious people she knew back in the city.
“But you have to, like, sign a mental NDA,” Karen said. She took out her phone. “Seriously, this stays between us.” Vinod made the gesture of zipping his lips. He was happy that she was happy. She used to start every night out by asking them, “Okay, what’s the gossip?” and he and Senderovsky would compete to make her laugh and gasp like two city-college Scheherazades.
“So,” Karen said, “I was playing with Nat in my bungalow, and I heard this scream. And. Okay. Just watch this.”
They leaned in as far as the virus allowed. At least three of them had seen the Actor naked in films, and one of them had seen the side profile of his penis before on the London stage. But here his nakedness was without positioning or affectation, his rage, his screaming （“Get it out!” “It’s like fucking fire in my eyes!”） were honest, he was his brutal naked self, and he had no control over his life or even what he could see out of his eyes wide shut. The drama of his real self exceeded that of his screen self; it was both sadder and funnier to watch. （Perhaps, thought Ed uncharitably, he was not such a great actor, after all.） But he’s beautiful, Dee thought. Oh my God, how beautiful, this man just two bungalows over. It was as if he had captured not just himself through his helpless yelping, but her as well, a pretty animal always managing to get lost amid an alien tundra. And every part of his body, including the hidden ones, was exposed as if just for her, beckoning with their imperfections. Yes, he shaved down his pubis like an idiot, but a matching trail of hair descended from the tailbone to the heavy moons of his testicles, and, short of having an assistant or a girlfriend take care of it, there was nothing he could do about it. But now she knew. And now she wanted to help him through the algorithm that had ensnared him. Or did she? Ed sat no more than two feet away from her, breathing dangerously, his face looking cross. It was so wonderful to have him by her side at dinner, to walk with him through virgin landscapes, to listen to someone half a lifetime older who had already given up on reproduction and entanglements and so much more. His lips would taste fine, like lamb and veal and gin and quartered lemons, like her own.