Maggie has finally arrived home from a whole leg of festivals where her directorial debut received standing ovations. She’s satisfied with herself, but completely spent. She doesn’t believe in flying private because it is bad for the environment. She does not solve the implicit equation in her brain, the one that also determines that private jets are abhorrently noveau riche. She’s right, but she won’t even let herself think it.
That is why she stayed in Brooklyn. That is why Anna Delvey could play rich, because she knew it wasn’t about the money. Plus, if it is true that her sofa is worth a million dollars, it was not when it was bought – in 1678; the family emblem faded in the upholstery. Her mother never let them sit on it when they were kids so as not to damage the antique. That always seemed to counter the very definition of what a sofa supposedly was. Was her mother too platonic, or was she too utilitarian?
Maggie makes her own martini and finally reclines on her couch. She does not know whether it is worth a million dollars. Like fine gentry, she does not care what things cost. That’s where her brother got seduced by the Hollywood discourse – money, the Los Angeles Iceberg Theory. It was anything but subtle. Again she ponders whether her brother’s juvenile ways are really her fault. Had she been too domineering a sister? Was that why he dated them so young? To exert the influence he never could, in the family circle? But they really let him do anything. She put up with a lot – maybe it was her fault after all. She considers both the question and the olive impaled by the toothpick, which she absent-mindedly agitates. The olive has absconded her field of vision.
She cannot simply ignore it, though she does briefly entertain the possibility. But Maggie will not let this fugitive olive be found rotten and pruned months from now. She will not give it the satisfaction. Plus, what if the dog ate it? Can dogs even eat olives?
She checks beneath a loose floorboard. It was already loose when they moved in, and they found that quaint and charming. How pretentious, she let herself think, but now she felt some silly attachment to that floorboard.
Perhaps the olive had vamoosed into yet another dimension – the guest washing room. She never came here – the day she felt like a guest in her own house would be the day she would move. But now the olive is an intruder and she must defend her castle, just as her ancestors before her.
Her admirable observational skills soon led her to the half-open basket of toilet paper under the sink. How distasteful. There are also balls of yarn in the box, so that the cat may go through his with some semblance of restraint. And for decoration, Ms. Skuratovski had said. No one likes to look at toilet paper. Especially this toilet paper, which was pitch black. Ms. Skuratovski said she hadn’t noticed when she bought it, but Maggie suspected she was trying to initiate a new Hollywood trend in her house. So they had dispatched the rolls to the guest washroom – a week before the pandemic officially began.
They are stuck with that tacky toilet paper, and it is stuck with the olive – which Maggie finally spots, in the bottom of the basket – which in turn is covered in some sort of textile, much less delicate than the yarn.
This had once been a laundry basket – Maggie believes in recycling. Is this some remnant of that former life? A forgotten relic? Maggie excavates – an archeologist of domestic life – and realizes the piece is a red scarf.
She panics. People have been questioning her about a red scarf for years and years. She always said she had nothing to do with whatever tabloid inspiration they were trying to get. Her PR always told her to exclude herself from the gossipy narrative. Because of whatever that scarf controversy was about – it’s best that she knows absolutely nothing for deniability reasons – she and her close relations have not purchased or worn a red scarf in a decade. Even scarfs are an area of contention – Vera says to choose pashminas, and never in that ominous color.
Should she call Vera? Tell her she found a dead body? A murder weapon? Something icky between the index and the thumb – she’s been pressing the runaway olive like a stress ball. Flush the olive, one problem at a time.
But, unlike the olive, for which she takes full responsibility, this isn’t even her fault. It’s cold in here, why? Saving in heat for the environment, right. Vera’s phone rings and rings. She’s probably handling one of his crises – he should really pay her more, if he’s the one who uses her the most. She created a whole Instagram account for her cat just so he could manifest her enthusiastic support for her brother’s projects. How is that better than a Russian bot?
Maggie needs to tell the girl in question that her missing scarf has been found. She’s done nothing wrong, it’s not like she intentionally stole it. Yes, that is her decision.
Yes, that’s it.
She isn’t moving. She’s still sitting on the crochet toilet seat cover. She let the thought be thought:
What if she writes a song about it, though?
Unlike her brother, she doesn’t want songs and books written about her. She wants to write the books. Or screenplays, whatever. Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing – that is the saying, isn’t it? She is of the former group, but the industry – the very concepts of celebrity and stardom – is centered around the latter. This is why no one gets Death of the Author anymore. How can you separate a character from an actor if the actor is playing himself?
Then again, so is she. The scarf girl, not Maggie. Maggie is only playing herself in the existential sense, which is a feature of life. She never plays herself playing another character, while the girl dives into that specifically. She’s not the only guilty party. It’s never about the song as much as what the song is about.
If you can unlock the hidden meaning, you feel a little closer to your idol. You take outside references and interpret the song in context. The problem with that ‘distant reading’, of course, is that it’s the only way some people know how to read anything.
Maggie wonders whether she’s not becoming one of those people. Her daughter listens to the girl’s music (not the uncle album), and she has started enjoying it after having heard it four-hundred-and-eighty-six times last year (source is Spotify Wrapped). Everything she has learned about this person she has learned against her will. And yet now she cannot help but enjoy her music. Is that because the songwriting stands for itself, or because she understands the context (perhaps even better than most)?
Maggie bites her lips, tilts her head – she has arrived at the real decision. She walks back to the hall, gulps the last of her martini, and puts on her N-95 mask. No one recognizes her in it, thank god.
She walks until she finds a homeless man – and this is New York, so it takes her two minutes, tops. He thanks her for her generosity. She walks back home, happy the scarf is finally just a goddamn scarf, doing its job of keeping a person warm. How anonymous, how utilitarian.
At night she dreams that the homeless man was a plant who had been waiting ten whole years for her to get rid of the incriminating scarf, and that now everybody knows she gave away stolen property. A song is written about her. It’s called Lost & Found and it’s a scathing condemnation of women who protect men over other women.
LOST & FOUND
I used to think that you were nothing like him
You were the humble one, the much older twin
He picked a poisoned apple off his eye he poisoned all by himself
and you said, go ahead, saying goodbye’s easy
Sometimes I still think of your daughter
Bet she’s never been lost with a mother like you
Made a point out of drinking tap water
Pretending you’re not part of the Chosen Few
Don’t blame you for pretending, it’s your profession
I won’t pretend to have really known you at all
But you’ve had something that’s mine for eleven falls now
You’d rather give him protection than give me a call
‘Cause I was so close to getting it back
Right under your nose, my twenties’ soundtrack
Your house, a lost and found right off-the-rack
I guess now is as good a time as any to ask…
Did you think that I was too country for the classical style?
Did you know it was doomed when he missed his cue to smile?
Did you worry about me walking down the palace aisle?
And if so, why didn’t you tell me before I was already in the burning pile?
And you’re a good sister, wish I had a sister like you
To excuse my actions and shrug as long as it isn’t in the news
But I am always in the news…
And I didn’t have a sister in you…
But you still got a sister in me
If you want to.
In the morning, Maggie’s relieved to find the homeless man enveloped in the scarf, clueless and anonymous.
Beatriz Seelaender is a Brazilian writer from São Paulo. She is the author of “The Austenites” (Hidden River, 2024) and “All According to Norm” (Black Spring Press”). She has written about Taylor Swift before, in “Speak Now (As Then): Taylor Swift and the Philological Impulse”, available on Talk Vomit litmag.