Synthetic Jealousy

The Audience Favorite (Prix du Public) for our SLIP // GLISSER edition.

We were sitting in a pizza parlor in Midtown and Amos was talking about Imogen again, about a new photo she’d posted and how she looked “like pure perfection.” He said this with his boyish grin, and I rolled my eyes, to express my exasperation at us once again coming back to this topic. Back to her.

He probably assumed I was tired of the same old rigmarole: one young friend (Amos, 22) pining hopelessly after another (Imogen, 25). The truth was simpler than that: I was in no mood to be confronted with yet another reminder that — yes, I get it — Imogen is perfect. Meanwhile, there I sat, all 32 years of me, with grease from my second slice of pepperoni running down my chin.

Amos often said he loved me; that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I knew he didn’t love me the way he loved Imogen. Her, he loved for her beauty and her class and, frankly, her unattainability. The flashy diamond on her ring finger said what she did not dare pronounce out loud: someone wants to love me forever, and he paid this much to show it. Me, on the other hand, Amos loved as a friend, a mentor and a mother figure. I leaned into this role because it was the only one he offered.

But of course I wanted more.

I wanted more since the day he moved in to the apartment next to mine, three years ago. He was carrying boxes up the stairs and I stood by on the landing to let him pass. When we locked eyes, the grin he gave me made me blush. I still blush sometimes, to this day.

Amos and I got to know each other in snippets at first, then by way of longer conversations, until eventually we became friend friends, and I invited him to my 32^nd birthday party. That’s where he met Imogen, and when everything started to unravel.

I know, in retrospect, that it wasn’t Imogen’s fault that he found her impossibly beautiful and intelligent and fun: she is all of these things. Not her fault, either, that she was struck by Amos’ good looks and charm: they are undeniable.

But what followed after? Well, that’s another matter.

Luckily, back in the pizza parlor, Amos didn’t push the subject. Instead, he looked around the room, hunting for something else to talk about. His glance lingered on the waitress behind the counter before he turned to me with a quiet guffaw. “Did you see that woman’s lips?”

I peered in the waitress’ direction. Indeed. But what he saw as an opportunity to regain peaceful ground, I saw as an opportunity for redemption.

“Ah, yes,” I shook my head, turning back to my pizza. “It’s a shame.”

“How does one even look like that?”

“That’s what happens when you start dabbling in plastic surgery.” I am ten years older than he, so I can say such things with the assurance of someone who is wiser and more experienced.

“But surely she must look in the mirror and not like what she sees?”

“I think once you start, you can’t stop.” I spoke matter-of-factly, to show that I did not judge the woman, maybe just pitied her a little. How big of me. “It’s a progressive distortion that you’re not aware of until it’s too late.”

Amos grimaced. Then he asked, “Do you have many friends who do that?” I paused.

Hesitated.

My brain was trying to tug me back towards the side of good reason, charity, kind-heartedness.

My good side lost the battle.

“My friends don’t really do that,” I began. “The only friend I know who dabbles in it is —” I wondered if really I was about to do what I feared I was about to do, “ — Imogen.”

“Imogen?” Amos stared at me, mouth open. “She does that?”

I pursed my lips, instantly filled with regret. She would never have done the same in my place.

“I shouldn’t have said that.” I felt awful. “But yes,” I continued. I was barreling down the road to infamy. “She did her lips.” I got quieter. “And the boobs.”

Amos looked shocked.

“She told us about the lips,” I shrugged, trying to soften my betrayal by downplaying it. “Apparently her aunt is a dermatologist and does it for free. And it’s not permanent: it goes away after a while.”

Amos seemed slightly relieved. We are always desperate for explanations, however weak they may be.

I decided to continue with my good charity, and explained that Imogen had done the boob job when she was in college, and that she’d ultimately regretted it. That they’d failed to inform her, before the procedure, that she might not be able to breastfeed her future kids. That she was ultimately the victim of a fucked-up beauty industry.

Amos nodded as I spoke, my words slowly restoring his image of Imogen to its original glory. I tried to recuperate even more good karma by omitting the fact that I’d learned she got her lips re-filled every few months. I also left out that, in learning this, I had decided she was officially one of the more superficial people I knew, and that — worst of all — she seemed to have no awareness of it.

For the rest of lunch, Amos hardly spoke. His silence was my punishment for having been so cruel, so petty. I felt even more imperfect, even uglier, than I usually do when comparing myself to Imogen.

And yet the devil on my shoulder was rubbing its hands together, hoping that, in light of this new information, Amos might suddenly discover in me a “natural” and thereby superior beauty. Perhaps his silence was the realization dawning on him that my lips might be thin, but at least they weren’t filled with plastic. And my boobs might be small — one might even venture to use the word non-existent — but at least I’d be able to breastfeed children.

He gave no indication of coming to these conclusions.

Still wallowing in shame, and desperate for a palliative, I reminded myself of the unraveling: how Imogen knew full well the extent of my feelings for Amos, and still wound up kissing him that drunken night last spring. I’d stood there, on the edge of the dance floor, my heart dropping to my feet as I watched her wrap her arms around his tall frame and kiss him, right in front of me. Later, in the bathroom, she’d even laughed about it, without shame or apology, completely ignoring the existence of both my very obvious crush and her very serious boyfriend.

She didn’t know everything, of course. She didn’t know that I’d sobbed all the way home, more convinced than ever that I would never be loved the way Imogen was. She didn’t know that, in the weeks that followed, I felt humiliated for having even dared to hope that a boy like Amos might find me more beautiful than a girl like Imogen.

But still, could Imogen really be the angel Amos proclaimed her to be? I decided not, and though it was but a small comfort, it was better than nothing.

Once we finished our pizzas, he and I split the bill and walked to the subway. The rain had stopped but the streets were still slick, and when he touched the small of my back to guide me away from a puddle, the feel of his fingers on my skin made me giddy, and I was filled with a renewed sense of hope.

As we rattled downtown on the 4, he took his baseball cap off and asked me if his hair was messed up. I responded that it just needed to be mussed, to which he bent his head forward so that I might do it. With my hands running through his hair, in public like that, I felt more certain than ever that he was deciding I was the kind of girl he actually needed: an all-natural, non judgmental, hair-musser.

And when we said goodbye on the landing between our two doors, he looked deep into my eyes as he said, “See you around, Sally,” and I was almost certain he was trying to tell me he loved me the good way.

Later, lying on the couch, I pulled out my phone and googled, “do big boobs make girls look fat.” I looked up celebrities who’d been distorted by too much plastic surgery. I went to their Instagram pages and scrolled through the comments section, searching for messages saying the women looked better before they got all that work done. I was disappointed when I didn’t find as many as I’d hoped.

Then I opened a page in incognito mode and typed, “botox near me.”

¹

1. The Cat and the Devil by James Joyce, illustrated by Blachon, 1957