Every single story in How To Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer is unique and moving and wonderful. I have chosen ‘When She is Old and I am Famous’ mainly because it is also very funny. With just the right note of derision, Orringer captures the rivalry between two teenaged cousins as the protagonist Mira is forced to spend her summer in Florence with her cousin Aida, a fashion model.
“Aida. That is her terrible name. Ai-ee-duh: two cries of pain and one of stupidity.”
As Mira navigates her insecurities, wrestling with her envy and resentment of her cousin, she glimpses truths about Aida’s life and learns to understand her.
First published in The Paris Review 149, Winter 1998, and available to subscribers to read online here; Collected in How To Breathe Underwater, Penguin Books, 2003
A Personal Anthology 