The New Yorker:

“I hadn’t yet recognized my destiny in her. I figured that my destiny would dazzle me when I saw it.”

By Ottessa Moshfegh 

I had to start smoking because the detective smoked. So that summer I paced around my empty bungalow in a wool coat and smoked and practiced my facial expressions in the bathroom mirror, imagining the slush of snow under my boots, the wet, cold smell of Tarrytown. It was an odd thing to look out at the plumeria and bougainvillea and hummingbirds and lemon trees and imagine snow and gore. It didn’t even occur to me to go on dates. I was very focussed. The movie was called “Terror in Tarrytown.”

One night, I went to a party in Beverly Hills at the home of one of the producers of “Moving Onward.” The shoot had wrapped only three months prior, but I barely resembled my character from “Moving Onward” anymore. I’d put on twelve pounds eating steak and doughnuts, and my face was screwed up and tight from chain-smoking Chesterfields and trying to talk at a faster clip. I was feeling a bit antisocial, and I was underdressed. The director of “Moving Onward” wore a white suit and had a girl who looked about thirteen on his arm. I remember thinking, Don’t work with him again, and then being instantly nervous that I wouldn’t be good enough to work with anyone else. I lit a cigarette and smoked behind a hedge of pachysandra.

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