The Rules of Attraction

  “What’s that like?” Mrs. Jared asks, still calm. Reverse psychology not working.

  “I got a joke,” Richard says, still rubbing his foot against me, puffing on the cigarette. “You all wanna hear it?”

  “No,” my mother and Mrs. Jared say at the same time.

  “Paul wants to,” he says. “See, Julio Iglesias and Diana Ross meet at this party and they go back to Julio’s place and they fuck—”

  “I do not want to hear this,” Mrs. Jared says, waving a passing waiter away after pointing at her empty glass.

  “Neither do I,” my mother speaks again.

  “Anyway, they fuck,” Richard continues, “and afterwards, Diana Ross, who’s come about fifty times and wants more of Julio’s dick, says—”

  “I don’t want to hear this either,” my mother repeats.

  “She says,” Richard goes on, getting louder, “‘Julio you gotta fuck my pussy again, I loved it so much’ and Julio says ‘Okay baby, but I need to sleep for a leetle beet—’”

  “What has happened to you?” Mrs. Jared asks.

  “‘But, you must keep one hand on my cock and the other on my balls’ Julio says, ‘and then after thirty minutes we fuck again, okay?’” Richard is getting animated and I’m just dying, tearing at the napkin.

  “Oh my God,” my mother says, disgusted.

  “And Diana says,” and now Richard does a really bad Diana Ross impersonation, “‘Why do I have to keep one hand on your cock and another on your balls, Julio?’”

  “What has happened to you?” Mrs. Jared asks, interrupting again.

  Richard’s getting pissed off that she’s interrupting and his voice gets louder and I just slump down deeper into the chair, let go of the napkin and light a cigarette. Why not.

  “And Julio says, ‘You wanna know why you have to keep one hand on my cock and one hand on my balls?’” He says this with a fierce leer on his face.

  “What has happened to you?” Mrs. Jared is shaking her head and I feel sorry for her, sitting in this dining room, being abused by her son, dressed in that ugly outfit she probably got at Loehmann’s.

  Richard gets even angrier that she’s interrupting his joke and I know what’s coming and I don’t even care who Sean is fucking tonight, at this moment. I just want the punchline to be over with, and Richard, the asshole, delivers it loud, staring at his mother: “‘Because the last time I fucked a nigger she stole my wallet.’” And then he sits back, drained, but satisfied. The table becomes hushed. I look around the room and smile and nod at one of the old ladies at the table across from ours. She nods approvingly and smiles back.

  “What has happened to you?” Mrs. Jared asks for the fourth time.

  “What do you mean, what has happened to me? What do you think?” Richard asks, followed by a gruff snort of contempt.

  “I can see what that school has done to you,” she says.

  Great, I’m thinking. It’s taken her three years to find this out? Actually Richard was always a rude jerk. I don’t understand what the big surprise is now. I look down at my lap as the foot disappears. I finish my drink and suck on an ice cube, leaving the cigarette burning, unsmoked in the ashtray.

  “That’s really too bad, huh?” Richard sneers.

  “Obviously I can see we should never have sent you there,” Mrs. Jared says, and as much of an asshole as Richard’s being, she’s still a bitch.

  “Obviously,” Richard says, mimicking her.

  “Do you want to leave the table?” she asks him.

  “Why?” Richard asks, his voice rising, getting more defensive.

  “Will you please leave the table,” she says.

  “No,” Richard says, getting hysterical. “I will not leave the table.”

  “I am asking you to leave the table now,” Mrs. Jared says, her voice getting quieter but more intense.

  My mother watches this exchange in silent horror.

  “No no no,” Richard says, shaking his head. “I will not leave the table.”

  “Leave the table.” Mrs. Jared is turning crimson with fury.

  “Fuck you!” Richard screams.

  The pianist stops playing and whatever quiet din of conversation there was in the dining room is killed. Richard pauses, then takes a last drag from his Marlboro, finishes his Kir, and gets up, bows and walks slowly out of the dining room, one of his feet shoeless. The maitre d’ and the head waiter rush over to our table and ask if anything is wrong; if perhaps we want the check.

  “Everything is fine now,” Mrs. Jared says and actually musters a faint smile. “I’m really terribly sorry.”

  “Are you sure?” The maitre d’ looks me over suspiciously as if I were Richard’s twin.

  “Positive,” Mrs. Jared says. “My son is not feeling well. He has a lot of pressures … you know, with … with mid-terms coming up.”

  Mid-terms at Sarah Lawrence? I look over at my mother, who’s staring off into space.

  The waiter and the maitre d’ look at each other for a moment as if they’re not quite sure how to proceed, and when they look back at Mrs. Jared she says, “I would like another vodka Collins. Eve, would you like anything?”

  “Yes,” my mother says, stunned, shaking her head slowly, still horrified by Richard’s exit. I wonder if I’ll sleep with him tonight. “I mean … no,” she says. “Well … yes.” My mother is still confused and looks at me—for what? Help?

  “Get her another one.” I shrug.

  The maitre d’ nods and walks away, conferring with the waiter. The pianist resumes playing, slowly, unsure. Some of the people who were staring finally look away. I notice when I look down at my lap that I have almost succeeded in ripping my napkin in two.

  After a while my mother says, “I think I want the next car to be blue. A dark blue.”

  No one says anything until the drinks arrive.

  “What do you think, Paul?” she asks.

  I close my eyes and say, “Blue.”

  SEAN Lauren Hynde was standing with friends on the stairs. She was holding a cup of grain alcohol punch that was being served from a trashcan by this fat girl who was almost naked. Lauren was wearing a toga also (probably because I had mentioned it this afternoon) and it was cut low and her shoulders were brown and smooth and I got a rush, it knocked me out, from seeing that much skin. Suddenly, I wondered if she was a dyke. Standing there with Tony, watching her, her back, her legs, her face, hair, she was talking to some girls—ugly, undistinguished compared to her. Tony kept talking to me about his new sculpture and had no idea I was staring at this girl. He was only wearing underwear and had a mattress strapped to his back. I kept looking up at her and she knew it—she wouldn’t look back, even though I was standing at the bottom of the staircase, directly below her. Centerfolds from porno magazines were glued to the walls everywhere and there was a movie being projected on the ceiling in the living room above the dance floor, but the girls in it were fat and too pale and it wasn’t sexy or anything.

  We ended up meeting in the bathroom. Getch was there leaning against the sink, on Ecstasy, and I think she was on it too, and Getch introduced us but we said we already knew each other, but only “sort of” she added. I got her some more punch even though I hated leaving her in the bathroom alone with Getch (but maybe Getch was gay, I was thinking) and I came back and Getch was gone and she was looking at herself in the mirror and I looked too, until she turned around and smiled at me. We talked and I told her I liked her paintings I saw in Gallery 1 last term (I was guessing) and she said “That’s nice,” (even though I really hadn’t seen the paintings, but what the hell—I wanted to get laid) and then we went to the living room and she wanted to dance, but I couldn’t dance very well, so I watched her dance to some song called “Love of the Common People” but then I got nervous that some jerk would start to dance with her if I didn’t step in, so when “Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy Division came on, I moved in. But it wasn’t the Joy Division version, it was someone else and it was p
opped-up and ruined, but I danced to it anyway since we were flirting like mad and she was so insanely beautiful that I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t fucked her before. I was getting too excited to stay at the party, and couldn’t think of a way to slip out. But with perfect timing some dramafag started to go crazy and did this wild solo dance in his underwear when “Dancing with Myself” came on, dominating the entire dance floor. I watched Lauren watch him—she was clapping and drunk and sweating and I gave her a cigarette when Tim and Tony told me they pissed in a Heineken bottle and wanted to give it to Deidre to drink since she was so drunk. I gave them the brush-off after they waved the bottle in front of my face. I couldn’t tell if Lauren had heard them since she was still watching the scrawny little geek jump all over the room, lip-synching—the whole party on the sides screaming and clapping and dancing, someone even threw him a banana and that was when I grabbed her arm and ran, heading out the door, onto the cool dark lawn, leaving the party behind.

  EVE Mimi had two more vodka Collins and when the three of us left the dining room and were taking the elevator upstairs, she fell against the elevator attendant and almost passed out. I walked her back to the room where she took a Valium and went to sleep. Paul went into the other room. I sat on the bed watching Eve sleep for quite some time before I decided to tell him. I went into his room. He had undressed already and was in bed, reading. Richard wasn’t there. The television was on. He looked up when I opened the door. Was he angry? Had he not wanted to come to Boston? Had he not wanted to come and see me? I felt very old at that moment and sorry for myself. What I had to tell him couldn’t be said in a hotel room and finally I spoke, “Why don’t you get dressed?”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “I thought maybe we’d go downstairs for a drink,” I suggested, casually.

  “What for?” he asked.

  “I want to talk to you about something,” I told him.

  He looked panicked and asked, “Why not here?”

  “Let’s go downstairs,” I told him and went to get my purse.

  He put on a pair of jeans and a gray sweater and a ripped black tweed coat that I didn’t recognize, that I had not bought for him. He met me in the hall.

  We went downstairs to the bar and the host came up to us and looked Paul over. “Yes, there are two of us,” I said.

  “I’m afraid there’s a dress code,” the host smiled.

  “Yes? …” I waited.

  “This young man is not following it,” the host said, still smiling.

  “Where does it say there’s a dress code?” I asked.

  The host glared, still smiling and then walked over to a white board and pointed to the bright blue lettering, first to, “No Jeans,” and then, “Tie Must Be Worn.” I was getting a headache and I felt very tired.

  “Forget it, Mom,” Paul said. “We’ll go somewhere else.”

  I said, “We are guests in this hotel.”

  “Yes, I realize that,” the host explained, officiously I thought. “But this applies to everyone.”

  I opened my purse.

  “Would you like me to make reservations for later?” the host asked.

  “My son is dressed fine,” I said, handing the host a twenty dollar bill. “Just sit us in the back,” I said wearily.

  The host took the bill quickly and said, “Yes, there might be a table over in the corner, in the dark.”

  “In the corner, in the dark,” I said.

  He sat us down at a terribly small, dimly lit table in back, away from the large crowded bar, but I was too tired to complain and simply ordered two champagne Kirs. Paul tried to light a cigarette inconspicuously and all at once he looked so handsome sitting there, the light playing off his features, his hair blond and thick and combed back, his face lean, the nose regal and thin, that I wanted to hug him, make contact of some kind, but “Darling, I wish you wouldn’t smoke” was all I could say.

  “Mother, I’m sorry,” he said. “But I need a cigarette. Badly.”

  I let it pass and the waiter brought the Kirs. I focused all my attention on the way the waiter quickly, nimbly opened each small bottle of Taittinger and poured them into the tall thin glasses. And how very beautiful it looked when the champagne slowly dissolved the reddish purple cassis on the bottom of each glass. Paul crossed his legs and tried to look at me once the waiter left.

  “You know, your father and I first came here seventeen years ago for our fifth anniversary. It was in December and it was snowing and we would order these,” I told him quietly, holding the glass up, tasting it.

  He sipped his drink and seemed to relax.

  I couldn’t say anything for a long time. I finished what was in the glass and poured the rest of the champagne from the small green Taittinger bottle into it. I drank more, then asked about Richard.

  “I wonder what happened to Richard tonight,” I said, straining for conversation.

  “Mid-terms,” Paul said derisively, and then, “I don’t know.”

  “Any ideas?” I asked.

  “Walking?” he sighed. “I don’t know.”

  “His mother says he has a new girlfriend,” I mentioned.

  Paul got very hostile very suddenly and rolled his eyes up. “Mom, Richard’s bi.”

  “Bi what?” I asked.

  “Bi,” he said, lifting his hands as if to describe this condition. “You know. Bi.”

  “Bilingual?” I asked, confused. I was tired and needed sleep.

  “Bisexual,” he said and stared at his glass.

  “Oh,” I said.

  I liked my son very much. We were in a bar together and he was being polite and I wanted to hold his hand, but I breathed in and exhaled. It was too dark where we sat. I touched my hair and then looked at Paul. And for a very brief moment there it seemed as if I never had known this child. He sat there, his face placid, expressionless. My son—a cipher. How did it end up this way, I wondered.

  “Your father and I are getting a divorce,” I said.

  “Why?” Paul asked, after a while.

  “Because…” I stalled. Then said, “We don’t love each other anymore.”

  Paul did not say anything.

  “Your father and I have been living apart since you left for school,” I told him.

  “Where does he live now?” he asked.

  “In the city.”

  “Oh,” Paul said.

  “Are you upset?” I asked. I thought I was going to cry but it passed.

  Paul took another sip and uncrossed his legs. “Upset?” he asked. “No. I knew it was going to happen sooner or later.” He smiled as if he remembered something private and humorous and it made me sad, and all I could say was, “We’re signing the papers next Wednesday afternoon.” And then I wondered why I told him this, why I gave him this detail, this piece of information. I wondered where Paul was going to be next Wednesday afternoon. With that friend, Michael, at lunch? And I wanted badly to know what he did at school—if he was popular, if he went to parties, who he slept with even. I wondered if he was still seeing that girl from Cairo, was it? Or Connecticut? He had mentioned something about her at the beginning of the year. I was sorry I brought him to Boston for the weekend and made him sit through that dinner. And I could have told him this in the hotel room. Being in the bar did not matter.

  “What do you think?” I asked my son.

  “Does it matter?” he said.

  “No,” I said. “Not really.”

  “Is this what you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “Yes.” I finished the champagne. There was nothing left to do.

  “Is there anything else?” he asked.

  “Anything else?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “I suppose not.”

  “Okay.” He put the cigarette out and did not light another one.

  STUART I don’t know what gets into me but I go to The Dressed To Get Screwed party in only my underwear, thinking my body looks okay, thinking I want to get Pa
ul Denton’s attention. So I do some coke with Jenkins and get completely fucked-up drinking that sickly sweet, sticky alcohol punch and when Billy Idol comes on I just go crazy and do this great number. The whole party loves it and they’re all in a circle and I’m in the middle twirling and gyrating and jumping around, hoping he was watching me. I looked for him afterwards, turned on, dizzy and a little sick from dancing so hard, drunk, stoned, Dance majors coming on to me, and feeling pretty good. But, of course, I couldn’t find him. He wasn’t anywhere. He probably thought it was too uncool to come to these things anyway. But who doesn’t go to The Dressed To Get Screwed party, besides that weird Classics group (and they’re probably roaming the countryside sacrificing farmers and performing pagan rituals)? I ended up going home alone. Not really, I fooled around with Dennis a little while, but I fell asleep like I usually do on Friday nights: unscrewed.

  It’s party time and she is ready. The party is swirling and miraculous-seeming and she has dressed so carefully that she tries to avoid the living room and dance floor because if she gets messed up she thinks she will never see you, or you will never see her. This is why she is very careful as she roams the party looking for you. She enters the living room of this house, this tomb of destruction, songs she loves being danced out by sweat-drenched captives of the room’s embrace. She is shocked not happy to see how many have decided to come wrapped in white sheets. Should she have? It is so very dark that she can only make out the paleness of unclothed bodies, a camera, a video crew in one corner capturing this night’s images, other images, less graphic, flickering above them on the upperwalls, below the ceiling, a skinny boybody dancing enthusiastically in a circle made of those same sweat-drenched captives, near-naked people seem everywhere but it is not, strangely enough, or maybe it is strangely enough, erotic, and she walks by them, through the living tomb and into an area where pink beverage is being scooped from a cylindrical gray bin by a girl so fleshy that it makes her titter and she still doesn’t see you. She searches hallways and bathrooms, finds couples fucking under the October moon on the lawn, upstair bathrooms, upstair bedrooms, roams the hallway, even the kitchen for god’s sake, but she does not see you until she is back under the killing blue lights of the living room now illuminated. As fate has it you are dancing, swaying, with a beautiful girl she does recognize, but she does not think that you like her, but the music is too loud to feel anything really except—that you will give yourself to her. She stands next to a black box bigger than herself where music pours from, holding a pink drink and she loves the way your head is thrown back, moving, trying to keep the beat (you are not a good dancer) and the song ends, a new one overlaps it and it makes no sense at all. She follows you out of the room, you look back at the girl and decide to take her arm and the blue light makes your white sheets glow beneath the jacket you are taking off and she follows you to the light at the door and says … “Hello” … and never has a second hurt and ruptured, blistered so harshly because the music’s too loud and you can’t hear, don’t even notice, and you take her hand instead and you are both leaving. You smiled, she thinks, at her. But by then she was hiding in the corner of the room, standing on the rolled-up carpet, the room a black-blue mass moving to the songs, her love still silent and undeclared and it was time to make a decision. What can she do? Can she go to you and tell you things without you thinking of her as a crazy love maniac? No. Maybe it’s not even that, but it is over. And she will not be with you. It’s simple. But your smile actually echoes still, and it is too late. She stands in the corner, waiting, listening to the music, music that tells her nothing, doesn’t even offer a clue as to what to do, just playing loudly, the same, excruciating, dumb beat that traps her, doesn’t move her, and on the way out of this place, alone, she bumps into someone who has shaved their head and he sticks his tongue out at her, wagging it, yelling orgyinboothorgyin-booth but she doesn’t listen, her face, still hot but numb with rejection, down, staring at the floor—its over. It is time. Baldboy laughs at her. She walks away, by End of the World, looks down at the lights of the town. There won’t be any more notes. It’s last call.