Read Online The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty by Amanda Filipacchi - Free Book Online Page A

was deeper than the rest of you suspected, even deeper than my friendship with you, Barb. This person knew about my love for you, Barb, and kept my secret, and for that, I’m grateful. During times when I was depressed over my unrequited love, this human being was my only source of comfort and knew that sometimes I wanted to end my life and that one day I might.
    I will refer to this special friend as “KAY.” Eventually, I will tell you what this acronym stands for, but for now let me simply say that just because KAY is more popular as a girl’s name than a boy’s, do not assume KAY is female. Do not assume anything.
    My closer level of friendship with KAY started one day when we were alone and confided in each other more deeply than we had with the rest of the group. We began meeting one on one without telling the group. We confessed more about our lives, our feelings, our opinions, our dreams.
    We’d meet for walks. For coffees. It was strangely like having an affair, except that it was not sexual—just a very caring intimacy.
    One day, KAY did something very bad and told me about it two weeks later and made the decision to do something very bad again, but not immediately; instead, KAY would do it exactly two years from then—which is now just a couple of weeks away.
    You’ll have to prepare yourselves for the date (Friday, October 27), hopefully get through it, and then put it behind you, and try to forget.
    In all honesty, you will never be able to forget. But with a little luck and my postmortem guidance, your group might be able to return to some semblance of what it is today. I know it’s asking a lot, but I hope you will see your way to forgiving KAY her/his folly.
    Love,
    Gabriel
    I call Georgia.
    “Hello?” she answers, sounding loud and excited and out of breath.
    “I just got another letter from Gabriel.”
    “Oh yeah? It’s so nice of him to stay in touch, isn’t it?”
    I’m not in the mood. “Not funny.”
    “Sorry. What does he say?”
    I read her the letter.
    She greets it with stunned silence, which jibes with my mood much better.
    “How weird,” she finally says.
    “Are you KAY?” I ask.
    “Oh, I am more than okay.”
    “Not O-KAY. KAY!”
    “No.”
    “You’re not making much effort to deny it.”
    “If I don’t sound fully engaged, it’s because I was just about to call you with some news. I GOT MY LAPTOP BACK! Someone dropped it off at my building with a note that said, ‘Sorry for the delay. Been busy.’” She laughs.
    “I’m so happy for you. That makes up a little for Gabriel’s letter.”
    Her tone sobers up. “Oh, yeah. What a disturbing letter. He’s even weirder in death than in life.”
    I decide I want to read the letter to the others in person when I see them tomorrow, in case their expressions reveal which one of them is KAY.
    Peter Marrick
    Sunday, 15 October
    I had the intern return the laptop. That’s one thing off my plate.
    I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to think of ways to meet Barb and her friends, other than the obvious way. I haven’t been able to come up with any ideas due to my damned lack of imagination—ironic and rather tragic in view of how much I crave to be creative. Which is one of many reasons why I need to meet these people.
    I got a complaint at work that I look distracted.
    I can’t obsess about this anymore. I will meet them the obvious way.

Chapter Six
    O n Sunday, I invite my friends over and read Gabriel’s letter out loud to them. They act surprised in appropriate ways (except for Georgia, who’s heard it already), and I can’t decipher which of them might be KAY.
    While we work, Lily continues trying to beautify Jack through her piano playing, but without success. Upset and frustrated, she leaves abruptly.
    Georgia says she doesn’t like her novel anymore, that it’s not as great as she thought it was when she believed it was lost forever. She says the memory of it took on monumental proportions, and now the