Happiness and Love

Years after fleeing New York—and the hollow, self-obsessed orbit of its downtown art scene—a world of predatory curators, egotistical artists, and parasitic hangers-on, our narrator finds herself back in the city she once abandoned. With no intention of reconnecting, she’s aimlessly wandering the Lower East Side, preoccupied with the recent death of her former best friend, Rebecca. But then she bumps into Eugene—one half of the infamous artist-curator couple at the center of her old circle—and against her better judgment, she agrees to attend a dinner party that very night.

Held just hours after Rebecca’s funeral, the dinner is anything but a tribute. Instead, it’s a celebration of a newly famous actress whose delayed arrival leaves the guests languishing for hours over natural wine and strained small talk. 

When the guest of honor finally arrives, her presence catalyzes a slow unraveling, pushing the night toward its inevitable, disastrous end. In the fallout, the empty glitter of the evening gives way to something far darker—a revelation not just of the hosts’ spiritual bankruptcy, but of the narrator’s own deep familiarity with the very emptiness she’s spent the evening condemning.