I.

Madeline Anise was wearing her ponytail deliberately, allowing it to bounce against the back of her blouse. She liked stringy meats and clotted creams, this much she knew. She was uncertain if she liked beets, though she was confident that she liked carrots. As for the dinner party, they would have to make do. She couldn’t please everyone, she decided. Best to at least please herself. Madeline marked the shopping list as she saw fit.

The desk held the slightest scent of spilled sugar, Madeline thought. If it had been the fault of Madeline, Madeline was unaware. Despite her recklessness, she liked to think highly of herself. It was always best to think the most of one’s own, her mother had said. Madeline had stared up at her mother, imploring her for other aphorisms. Her mother disregarded her, closed her powder jar, and left the room.

It was the last time that Madeline had seen her mother, and could only remember her mother’s dressing gown, the robe’s silk rope that snaked down the length of her leg.

Madeline liked to imagine her mother exploring abandoned mansions or sticky, black lagoons. It was preposterous for Madeline to imagine that her mother had left her for something mundane, or tedious, or boring. Madeline’s mother could prioritize uncommon pleasures, or extraordinary exploits, but nothing unexceptional or commonplace.

Madeline saw her mother on a campground in a remote jungle, jotting notes on an amphibious humanoid. Or flying in unidentified aircraft, undetected by surveillance radar. The nanny that Madeline was given was completely unlike her mother. She could never approach her mother’s candor or courage. The nanny didn’t read Tarot, or Flaubert, or extravagant cartes du jour. Her coats were neither fur-trimmed nor semi-fitted, and instead hung loosely, liberally about her back.

The nanny was curiously unoriginal. An indefensible sin, Madeline’s mother had remarked.

“Do you know what you’d like Kenny to buy?” the nanny inquired, referring to the boy who sometimes ran errands for Madeline Anise.

“Kenny’s no use. He always brings back the wrong things. You know my list is meticulous.”

“You’ll have to buy them yourself,” the nanny exhaled, prematurely exasperated by what she thought would be an irritable, disagreeable Madeline. Although she sometimes felt affectionately towards the self-absorbed, self-important child, Madeline’s dinner party was an inconvenience, a disruption to the order of the apartment. It was a frivolous expenditure for an ill-considered idea.

“I’ll grab my pocketbook.”

Madeline, indignant, would decide to leave at once.

Snatching her purse, she marched to the foyer. It hadn’t occurred to her that she annoyed the nanny, as she assumed that she was universally well-liked. It hadn’t occurred to her that Kenny would want to see her, and had mistaken the items on her list purposefully, intending to disorient her, and have him return to the store. Madeline would join him, point to each product, clarify why she preferred one to another, unaware that she’d be tricked. She would attempt to sound informative, educating Kenny on the differences and similarities between duck pâtés, terrines and rillettes. Madeline was inattentive to boys but exceptionally interested in charcuterie. To Madeline, it was simple, patronizingly so.

Again, the nanny exhaled. Madeline would leave at once.

Once on the street, Madeline thought of the nanny, flustering about their seventh-story suite. The nanny was very much unlike her mother, who would have delighted in buying the groceries herself. Her mother treated each shopping trip as if it were an unmarked expedition, a bizarre sense of enterprise, unfit for the plain and unassuming plaza. Madeline didn’t know that her mother had been misperceived, and had dramatized the undertaking out of discontent.

Madeline’s mother would have known exactly what to provide the dinner party. No one would dare call her mother an empty-headed host.

Of course, Madeline’s mother would be unable to attend the evening meal. She’d make it if she could, Madeline thought. Perhaps she and the amphibious humanoid were sharing an unspeakable tension, and Madeline’s mother had to remain at camp. Madeline’s mother would know that she couldn’t bring her underwater paramour to the party, so she had decided to stay put. Madeline appreciated this possibility, deciding that her mother indisputably knew best.

The shopping center was a short walk from the apartment, made shorter by the absence of Kenny. It was summertime, and the heat from the pavement wafted upwards, mingling with the scent of gardenia, jasmine, and gasoline. Madeline thought to herself that she only loved the city in July, whenever it was gorged in lush green, or hydrangea. She thought that it seemed like a womb, feeding its voracious, handsy offspring. Or, was it an open wound, sultry yet simmering? The festering humidity, an over-spoken enemy, damp and dour.

The grocery offered a reprieve from the heat, whose oppressive force was not quite absolute or authoritative. Not within this air-conditioned domain, whose cooling system hummed like a maternal heartbeat, distant yet dependable and unquestionably pure.

Madeline turned her attention to the shopping carts, then the stand of discount coupons. She’d become aware of the urgency of the party, the impending dinner of the apartment.

“Could I borrow that?”

Turning to her side, Madeline confronted the elocutionist. A strange, young woman’s voice, behind her.

“Just the discounts. I heard there’s a sale on citruses. Ridiculous, really – with them being out of season.”

Madeline, who knew their exceptionally short growing season, was stupefied. Madeline, who was always quick on her feet.

“I didn’t mean to trouble you. It’s no big deal, really.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s my fault. Yes, here.”

Madeline’s reply was hurried, high-pitched, friendly, alarmed. The young woman was smiling, her slight frame amplified by the green of her collar. Madeline noticed the matching ribbons ringing the dark plaits of her braid, glossy and well-groomed. She was paler than Madeline, and smaller. There was something unusual about the way that her blue eyes peered from their sockets, as if she were not a girl but something eerie and extravagant.

“My name is Teresa Jules. Teresa Jacqueline Jules, but you can call me Tess. Or Jackie. Or Jules. Actually, you can call me whatever you’d like,” the young woman chattered, considering the possibilities of a new name, a potential moniker she’d not yet discovered.

If it were not the severity of her eyes, Madeline would assume that the young woman had crawled from a flower, dined on pollen, or photosynthesized. Madeline preferred the young girl’s staunch countenance to the whimsical, ethereal alternative. Madeline was known for her own intensity; a glib intensity, but an intensity nonetheless. Madeline’s mother had always told her to take up space. It was better to command the conversation than to find yourself lost in the prattle, said Madeline’s mother. The center was better than the circumference.

“I’m having a dinner party,” Madeline blurted, unsure what to say to impress this loquacious consort, this tiny intruder who wore the extremity of a saint.

“Dinner party? How delightful! We had dinner parties in New York, before father left. A fortune teller once told me that he was Sagittarius. It’s no wonder he took off. I’m Cancer, of course. Oh! Crabs for supper?” Madeline watched as the suggestion formed on the young girl’s face, her expression shifting as she went through recommendations, hors d'oeuvres. She had offered her zodiac as if it were an obvious conclusion, a self-evident truth.

Madeline was never open to suggestions, yet contemplated the proposition. Madeline, who always thought that she knew best, debated if crabs would be appropriate. They were an impractical plate for such a restricted space. The apartment provided little room for such an intricate ordeal. Plus, she’d have to buy utensils. It would almost feel like an act of violence: her partygoers cracking the cartilage of these crustaceans, feeding on the small, insubstantial slithers of meat.

Yet Madeline acknowledged the decadence of the decision, appreciating the hedonistic vision she’d conjured. Madeline’s mother would have thought crabs an unpleasant idea, an unnecessarily messy extravaganza. Madeline’s mother would prefer salmon, prosciutto, lamb. Something clean, or simple. But what if this new woman were to arrive? Sit above her snapped, mutilated shells as if she were the Jeanne d'Arc of the apartment, victorious and well-fed. Madeline decided the dinner party must have crab.

“I’m Madeline Anise. You can call me Madeline. I’m Taurus, though I have a Capricorn Moon. My mother is a Capricorn, too. I think crab’s an excellent idea. Would you like to attend?”

II.

Although the young woman had agreed to attend the dinner party, had even appeared eager and exuberant, Madeline was uncertain if she’d arrive. Madeline bustled about her bedroom, trying and retrying dresses. She had initially wanted to appear magisterial, perhaps with an imperial collar paired with a high, tight bun. Now she wanted to wear cashmere or chiffon, pashmina or silk.

She would still wear her hair up, allowing Teresa to see the long nape of her neck. Madeline was particularly proud of her jaw, which she hoped Teresa would admire, and remark upon. Madeline wanted desperately to impress Teresa, who she had immediately recognized as a kindred spirit, or twin flame. The nanny, who often ignored Madeline’s vanities, recommended lace.

“You know I hate lace,” Madeline rebutted, practicing a coquettish pout in the reflection of her mirror.

The nanny disregarded the spectacle, and continued. “It will add sophistication.” The nanny was always matter-of-fact.

“Be nice to me tonight. I’ve a friend coming, and I’ve never met her before.”

“How could she be your friend if you’ve never met her?”

Madeline anointed her wrists with rose-water as if she were in communion, delicately, languorously. She was too nervous to explain the intricacies of her infatuation, or fascination. For a moment, she was not an impatient, puckish young girl, but a grown woman alive with the solemnity of love. She had never felt taller than she felt now, or bigger. She could eat up the world.

What would they talk about? Would Teresa decide to stay the night, swaddled in gauze, asleep in Madeline’s bedsheets? Would she stay for breakfast, and have her poached egg just so? How would she prefer her orange juice? Milk?

Yet Teresa was not the first to arrive, but a hypnotist. He was a faraway friend of her mischievous mother, though he’d never met Madeline before. Then, an oracle reader.

Later, the girls’ club at her local high-school, gabby and gushing and garrulous. Madeline, who was all of these things, had wanted to separate herself from high-school society, yet preferred the girls’ club to more prestigious companies. She liked the smell of their perfumes, and their attentions, and the way that they pronounced each word quickly, deliberately, intentionally.

Teresa was the last to arrive.

She had worn a deep purple gown for the occasion, her arms elegantly extended from the intricate partitions of tulle. She looked like the Virgin Mary, robed in the color of royalty, or a tiny empress, ready for her reception. Her hair was piled high atop her head, yet with curls that hung about her chin, spiral ropes dangling from their dark tower. Madeline noticed the artificial blush against her cheek, offset by the cool, pale of her skin. A thin, silver chain was suspended from her throat, its crucifix idle against the curvature of her chest. She was a virgin-martyr, or a specter. A she-king among her provincial sphere, imposing and untouchable.

“I’m sorry James couldn’t make it tonight. I’d have brought him if I could.”

Madeline froze, caught off guard by the mention, her mouth stopped still in its salutation.

“James Fitzjames, a Navy Officer who disappeared in eighteen-forty-eight. It’s only a joke. I’d bring him, but he’s certainly dead by now,” Teresa explained, visibly nervous, attempting to establish equilibrium in the uneasy apartment, the place upon which she’d only just arrived.

Madeline regained herself, laughed, took note of the way Teresa touched her ear.

“Oh? Next time we’ll have a seance rather than a dinner party.”

“Less mess, I suppose? If we avoid ectoplasm.”

“That would spoil the fun. We absolutely must have ectoplasm.”

The girls spoke quickly, their speech clamoring towards one another, brisk and swift. It was as if they bounced against the other, touching and tripping until they dissolved and intermingled. For Madeline, each sound was legible, each syllable clear. Yet the room blurred and bent beneath her vision, melting and splitting then spilling over.

Madeline felt unnaturally intoxicated, as if she’d swallowed an unnamed liqueur, or an extraterrestrial tonic. Something amorous and unknowable and unlike anything she’d experienced before.

“The nice woman at the door, was that your mother?”

“Goodness, no. That’s the nanny. If you can call her that, of course. I’m seventeen, but she’s keeping her post until mother returns. She’ll be back soon. Though I’ll be off to college next September. She’s very busy, mother – but very important.”

“Of course she is. This is such a nice apartment that she must be. Mother still lives with me, but we do try to get along. Sometimes we don’t speak to one another for days at a time, though we still breakfast together.”

Teresa delivered her speech as if she were in a lecture hall, promptly, pointedly. Yet she was enthusiastic and energetic, nimbly bounding back and forth, her arms moving as rapidly as her eyes.

“We do it for the sake of the cats. They require consistency,” Teresa added, clutching Madeline’s arm as if aiding her explanation, intimate and unimpeachable.

Madeline wanted to grab her hand and count her fingers; any justification to touch the unpolluted stretch of her skin. Teresa would be an incorruptible body, devoid of decomposition, preserved by its unmistakable, inherent holiness. Madeline would visit her at the Santa Maria, leave strawberry cakes at her shrine.

Until then, she would devote herself endlessly, unutterably to Teresa.

The dinner party continued, yet Madeline was unable to concentrate on her acquaintances or her mother’s colleagues. Madeline spun around the room, smelling of hyacinth, a bundle of tender vitality. At times she felt like an uneaten fruit, ripe and slick with spittle, taped together by bow-string, unraveling.

Other times she felt something impenetrable, faraway and inflamed.

Teresa navigated the room effortlessly, her laughs unstinted and unflinching. She was iridescent, effulgent. She emitted her own light, gave life to the apartment. Despite their separation, Teresa would smile at Madeline, undoing their distance. Madeline watched as the hypnotist walked towards Teresa; while the girls’ club asked the way she soaped or shampooed.

Momentarily, Madeline thought of what her mother would think of Teresa. Madeline’s mother had discouraged infatuation or affection, deciding them impediments to a more accomplished, independent experience. To Madeline’s mother, attachment was a shortcoming, the thievery of time. Madeline’s mother didn’t hold space for sentiment.

Madeline’s mother was self-contained, feeding off of her own cold star. Yet Madeline’s mother had neglected the dinner party; only her hypnotist had arrived.

III.

After the party, Madeline had followed Teresa up to the mezzanine, watching as she brushed lightly against the pile, crushing it beneath her foot like creeping flox as she floated phantom-like up the steps. Her body had twisted with the spiral staircase and Madeline had felt as if she was suspended in a dream, a spider swinging by silk, the thin strand slicing black satin.

Madeline could faintly remember Teresa’s driver arriving at the party, requesting Teresa return home right away, the immediacy of the demand unnatural in the tepid atmosphere of the balustrade.

Teresa had kissed her before parting, her lips dampening Madeline’s own, like dew after a prolonged and implacable drought. It was brisk, but Madeline had felt the flush of her body, the reverberation of some rose-wet string striking against her chest, straining and splitting until it snapped.

Madeline had floated outside of herself, her feet lifting off from the grass and the top of her head touching the tip of the apple tree, tasting nectarine and neroli and Teresa’s soft, powdery mouth. She was still floating whenever the driver returned, unintelligible and hysteric, his speech slurred by the expulsion of his stomach.

To Madeline, he sounded underwater, far-removed as he expressed an indescribable horror, something affecting and grotesque. He had hit someone on his way out of the drive, rather suddenly, abruptly, and he believed it had been fatal.

Madeline had smiled as the apple tree floated further away and she could hear Teresa’s sing-song voice slipping through the strands of Spanish moss. This is where she and Teresa would live, she had thought, lulled to sleep by the cicada’s rhythmic ticks. They would twist until they were intertwined, their hair tousled and tied together.

The driver spoke on. It had been Madeline’s mother.