“Are you telling me we didn’t have this conversation?” she screams. “Are you telling me I hallucinated it?”
I stare at her. “Well, in a nutshell, yeah.”
Someone starts knocking on the bathroom door, which provokes Alison into some kind of massive freak-out. I grab her by the shoulders and turn her around to face me.
“Baby, I was doing my MTV ‘House of Style’ interview”—I check the watch I’m not wearing—“ninety minutes ago, so—”
“Victor, it was you!” she shouts, pushing me away from her. “You were standing there outside my place telling me that—”
“You’re wasted!” I cry out. “I’m leaving and yeah, baby—it is all over. I’m outta here and of this I’m certain!”
“If you think Damien’s ever going to let you open a fucking door let alone a club after he finds out you’re fucking his little girlfriend you’re more pitifully deluded than I ever thought possible.”
“That”—I stop, look back at her questioningly—“doesn’t really mean anything to me.”
I swing the door open, Alison standing motionless behind me. A whole group of people squeeze past me and though they probably despise Alison they decide to surround her and take notes while she sobs, her face a wreck.
“You are not a player,” is the last thing Alison ever screams at me.
I slam the door shut.
We’ll slide down the surface of things …
Lauren stands with Jason London and Elle Macpherson exchanging recipe tips for smart drinks even though someone shockingly famous’s penis exploded when his smart drink was mixed with “the wrong elements” and everyone goes “oooh” but Lauren’s not really listening because she’s watching Damien schmoozing a group that includes Demi Moore, Veronica Webb and Paulina Porizkova, and when Elle kisses me on the cheek and compliments my stubble Lauren abruptly looks away from Damien and just stares at me blankly—a replicant—and I wipe my nose and move toward her, suddenly in a very huggy mood.
“Have you heard?” she asks, lighting a cigarette.
“That I’m in dire need of a crisis-management team? Yes.”
“Giorgio Armani couldn’t make it because he’s in rehearsals for ‘Saturday Night Live,’ which he’s hosting.”
“Dig it,” I murmur.
“What did Alison want to show you?” she asks. “The third claw growing out of her ass?”
I grab a martini from a passing waiter. “No.”
“Oh damnit, Victor,” she groans. “Just live up to it.”
Chloe stands in the middle of the room chatting with Winona Ryder and Billy Norwich, and Baxter Priestly is perched nearby drinking a tiny white-wine spritzer and people squeezing past us block the view from where Chloe and Damien stand of my hand clutching Lauren’s while Lauren keeps staring at Damien, who’s touching the black fabric of Veronica Webb’s dress and saying things like “Love the dress but it’s a tad Dracula-y, baby,” and the girls laugh and Veronica grabs his hand playfully and Lauren’s hand squeezes mine tightly.
“I really wouldn’t call that flirting, baby,” I tell her. “Don’t get ruffled.”
Lauren’s nodding slowly as Damien, swigging a martini, shouts out, “Why don’t you titillate me literally, baby,” and the girls explode with laughter, fawning over him, and the entire room is humming around us and the lights of cameras are flashing behind every corner.
“I know you have a keen sense of the way people behave,” Lauren says. “It’s okay, Victor.” She tosses back what’s left of her jumbo-sized drink.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“About what?” she asks. “Your Bravery-in-the-Face-of-Doom nomination?”
“I’d be thrilled if you moved on to soda pop, baby.”
“Do you love Chloe?” she asks.
All I can say is, “You look very Uma-ish tonight.”
In the interim Damien moves over to us and Lauren lets my hand drop from hers and while I light a cigarette Alison spots Damien and excuses herself from Heather Locklear and Eddie Vedder and prowls over, hyperventilating, and hooks her arm through Damien’s before he can say anything to Lauren, refusing to look at me, and then she plays with his hair and in a panic Damien pushes her hand away and in the background the “cute” magician performs card tricks for James Iha, Teri Hatcher, Liv Tyler, Kelly Slater and someone dressed disconcertingly like Willie Wonka and I’m trying to be cool but my fists are totally clenched and the back of my neck and my forehead are soaked with sweat.
“Well,” Damien says hollowly. “Well, well … well.”
“Loved you in Bitch Troop, darling,” Alison gushes at Lauren.
“Oh shit,” Damien mutters under his breath.
“Nice dress,” Lauren says, staring at Alison.
“What?” Alison asks, shocked.
Lauren looks directly at Alison and, enunciating very clearly, nodding appreciatively, says, “I said nice dress.”
Damien holds Alison back as JD and Beau walk up to Damien and they’re with some white-blond surfer wearing nylon snowboarding pants and a faux-fur motorcycle jacket.
“Hey Alison, Lauren,” I say. “This is JD and Beau. They’re the stars of Bill and Ted’s Homosexual Adventure.”
“It’s, um, time for dinner,” JD says tentatively, trying not to notice Alison vibrating with rage, emitting low rumbling sounds. She finally looks over at Damien’s falsely placid face and sneers, dropping her cigarette into his glass. Damien makes a strangled noise, then averts his eyes from the martini.
“Um, great,” Damien says. “Dinnertime. Fantastic. Here, Beau.” Damien hands Beau his martini glass. While we all watch, Beau stares at it and then very carefully places the glass on a nearby table.
“Yeah, great,” I say, overly enthusiastic, unable to stop staring at the cigarette floating in the martini. “Hey, who’s this?” I ask, shaking the surfer’s limp hand.
“This is Plez,” someone says.
“Hey Plez,” Damien says, glancing quickly at Alison. “How ya doin’?”
“Plez is a snowboarder,” JD says.
“And he won the world half-pipe championship,” Beau adds.
“And he’s a messenger at UPS,” JD adds.
“Cha cha cha,” I say.
Conversation stops. No one moves. “Cha … cha … cha,” I say again.
“So-o-o, dude—what are you doing in Manhattan?” Damien asks Plez, glancing quickly at Lauren.
“He just returned from Spain, where he was shooting a video for Glam Hooker,” Beau says, patting Plez on the head.
Plez is shrugging amiably, eyes half-closed, reeking of marijuana, nodding out.
“How brill.” I’m nodding too.
“Total brill,” JD says.
“Not to mention fagulous,” Beau gushes.
“Totally brill and totally fagulous,” JD adds.
Chloe appears and her hand’s freezing as it clasps mine and looking at the floor I’m thinking my god someone will have to do a lot of vacuuming and Lauren offers Baxter a tight smile and the gravity of the situation starts to become apparent to most of us as Bridget Fonda and Gerlinda Kostiff pass by.
“Let’s, er, eat.” Damien claps his hands, knocking himself out of some kind of reverie, startling all of us out of our own respective silences. Alison looks so drunk and is staring at Lauren with so much hatred that the urge to sneak away is almost overwhelming.
“The way you said that was so, um … debonair,” I tell Damien.
“Well, I just think we should sit down before the nonessential personnel arrive at eleven,” he says, shoving Alison away from the rest of us, at the same time holding tightly on to one arm.
A cue for everyone to move up the stairs to the second floor for dinner.
“A sense of frenzy in the air?” JD whispers to me.
“There’s a mass branding at Club Lure in about two hours,” I hiss at him. “It’s Pork Night and your name’s on the list.”
“Oh Victor,?
?? JD says. “Be aware if you dare.”
We’ll slide down the surface of things …
How it got to be eleven so suddenly is confusing to us all, not that it really means anything, and conversation revolves around how Mark Vanderloo “accidentally” ate an onion-and-felt sandwich the other night while viewing the Rob Lowe sex tapes, which Mark found “disappointing;” the best clubs in New Zealand; the injuries someone sustained at a Metallica concert in Pismo Beach; how Hurley Thompson disappeared from a movie set in Phoenix (I have to bite my tongue); what sumo wrestlers actually do; a gruesome movie Jonathan just finished shooting, based on a starfish one of the producers found behind a fence in Nepal; a threesome someone fell into with Paul Schrader and Bruce Wagner; spinning lettuce; the proper pronunciation of “ooh la la.” At our table Lauren’s on one side of me, Chloe’s on the other along with Baxter Priestly, Johnathon Schaech, Carolyn Murphy, Brandon Lee, Chandra North, Shalom Harlow, John Leguizamo, Kirsty Hume, Mark Vanderloo, JFK Jr., Brad Pitt, Gwyneth Paltrow, Patsy Kensit, Noel Gallagher, Alicia Silverstone and someone who I’m fairly sure is Beck or looks like Beck and it seems like everyone’s wearing very expensive pantsuits. Earlier in the day I was upset that Chloe and I weren’t seated at Damien’s table (because there were things I had to say to David Geffen and an apology I had to make to Calvin) but right now, watching Alison slumped against Damien while trying to light a joint the size of a very long roll of film, everyone very buzzed, people knocking into each other as table-hopping on a very massive scale resumes while cappuccino’s served, everything sliding in and out of focus, it’s okay.
I’m trying to light a cigarette someone’s spilled San Pellegrino on and Lauren’s talking to a kneeling Woody Harrelson about hemp production and so I tap in to Chloe, interrupting what I’m sure is a stunning conversation with Baxter, and she turns reluctantly to me, finishing another Cosmopolitan, her face taut with misery, and then she simply asks, “What is it?”
“Um, baby, what’s the story with Damien and Lauren?” I inquire gingerly.
“I am so bored with you, Victor, that I don’t even know how to answer that,” she says. “What are you talking about?”
“How long have you known about Damien and your so-called best friend Lauren?” I ask again, lowering my voice, glancing over at Lauren and Woody.
“Why is my so-called boyfriend asking someone he actually thinks supposedly cares?” she sighs, looking away.
“Honey,” I whisper patiently, “they’re having an affair.”
“Who told you this?” she asks, recoiling. “Where did you read this? Oh god, I’m so tired.”
“What are you so tired of?” I ask patiently.
She looks down glassy-eyed at the scoops of sorbet melting into a puddle on her plate.
“You’re a big help,” I sigh.
“Why do you even care? What do you want me to say? You wanna fuck her? You wanna fuck him? You—”
“Shhh. Hey baby, why would you think that?”
“You’re whining, Victor.” She waves a hand in front of my face tiredly, dismissing me.
“Alison and Damien are engaged—did you know that?” I ask.
“I’m not interested in the lives of other people, Victor,” Chloe says. “Not now. Not tonight. Not when we’re in serious trouble.”
“I think you definitely need a toke off that major joint Alison’s smoking.”
“Why?” She snaps out of something. “Why, Victor? Why do you think I need to do drugs?”
“Because I have a feeling we’re on the verge of having that conversation again about how lost and fat you were at fourteen.”
“Why did you ask me last night not to wear this dress?” she asks, suddenly alert, arms crossed.
Pause. “Because … you’d resemble … Pocahontas, but really, baby, you look smashing and—” I’m just glancing around, smiling gently over at Beck, fidgeting with a Marlboro, searching for Chap Stick, smiling gently over at Beck again.
“No, no, no.” She’s shaking her head. “Because you don’t care about things like that. You don’t care about things that don’t have anything to do with you.”
“You have something to do with me.”
“Only in an increasingly superficial way,” she says. “Only because we’re in this movie together.”
“You think you know everything, Chloe.”
“I know a fuck of a lot more than you do, Victor,” she says. “Everyone knows a fuck of a lot more than you do and it’s not cute.”
“So you don’t have any lip balm?” I ask carefully, glancing around to see if anyone heard her.
Silence, then, “How did you know Alison was going to wear that dress?” she suddenly asks. “I’ve been thinking about that all night. How did you know Alison was going to be wearing the same dress? And you did know, didn’t you?”
“Baby,” I say, semi-exasperated. “The way you look at things is so hard—”
“No, no, Victor,” she says, sitting up. “It’s very simple. It’s actually very, very simple.”
“Baby, you’re very, very cool.”
“I am so tired of looking at that empty expanse that’s supposed to be your face—”
“Alfonse.” I raise my hand at a passing busboy, making a pouring motion. “Mineral water for the table. Con gas?”
“And why does Damien keep asking me why I’m not wearing a hat?” she asks. “Is everyone demented or something?”
Chloe zones out on her reflection in a mirror situated across the room while Brad Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow celebrate her choice of fingernail polish and gradually we drift away from one another and those who aren’t doing drugs light up cigars so I grab one too and somewhere above us, gazing down, the ghosts of River Phoenix and Kurt Cobain and my mother are totally, utterly bored.
“Is Lauren dating Baxter?” I ask innocently, giving Chloe one last try for an answer, and I’m leaning in, nodding goodbye to Brad and Gwyneth.
“‘Is Lauren dating Baxter?’” she mimics. “I need another Cosmopolitan and then I’m getting the hell out of here.” She turns her attention to Baxter, completely ignoring me, and I’m totally startled so I do a few cool moves with the cigar and turn to Lauren, who seems to be paying attention to my plight.
“She looks displeased,” Lauren says, glancing over at Chloe.
“My fault.” I shrug. “Forget about it.”
“Everyone here is just … so … dead.”
“Alicia Silverstone doesn’t look so dead. Noel Gallagher doesn’t look so dead. JFK Jr. doesn’t look so dead—”
“JFK Jr. never showed up, Victor.”
“Would you like some more dessert?”
“I suppose it’s all relative,” she sighs, then starts drawing on a large cocktail napkin with purple Hard Candy nail polish.
“Are you dating Baxter Priestly?” I finally ask.
She looks up from the napkin briefly, smiles a private smile, continues drawing with the nail polish. “Rumor has it that you are,” she murmurs.
“Rumor has it that Naomi Campbell’s shortlisted for the Nobel Prize but really, what are the odds?” I ask, annoyed.
Lauren’s looking at Alison, considering her, while Alison pitches forward in her chair, drunkenly grabbing onto Calvin Klein for support, everyone knocking back shots of Patrón tequila, a small gold bottle sitting half-empty in the middle of Damien’s plate.
“She’s like a tarantula,” Lauren whispers.
Alfonse starts pouring San Pellegrino into extra glasses scattered around our table. “Could you please bring her another Diet Dr Pepper?” I ask him, pointing at Lauren.
“Why?” Lauren asks, overhearing me.
“Because everything needs to be redefined right now,” I say. “Because things need to be redefined for me. People need to sober up, that’s why, and—”
Something crawls up my neck and I whirl around to slap it away but it’s just one of Robert Isabell’s floral arrangements going limp. Lauren looks at me like
I’m insane and I pretend to study the point where Mark Vanderloo’s eyebrows don’t meet. Someone says “Pass the chips,” someone else says “Those aren’t chips.” I finally turn back to Lauren, who’s still writing on the cocktail napkin, concentrating, her eyes slits. I notice the letters W, Q, J, maybe an R. We’ll slide down the surface of things. Damien slowly disengages himself from his table and starts moving toward me, cigar in hand.
“Lauren—” I start.
“You’re high,” she says somewhat menacingly.
“I was high. I’m not high anymore. I am no longer high.” I pause. “You said that somewhat menacingly.”
I pause, testing the situation. “But do you have any coke?” and then, “Are you, like, carrying?”
She shakes her head then reaches down into my lap and still smiling sweetly squeezes my balls then picks up the napkin, kisses me on the cheek, whispers “I’m still in love with you” and glides away, floating past Damien, who tries to reach out for her but she’s gliding away, floating past him, the expression on her face saying don’t touch.
Damien just stands there, mutters something, closes and opens his eyes, then takes Lauren’s seat next to mine as Lauren walks over to Timothy Hutton and gently turns to him in an exceedingly intimate way, and Damien’s puffing on his cigar, staring at the two of them, and I’m waving smoke away, slouching in my seat, my cigar unlit.
Damien’s saying things like “Have you ever felt like crawling under a table and living there for a week?”
“I’ve spent most of this night gasping,” I’m conceding. “And I’m exhausted.”
“I think this place is actually great,” Damien says, gesturing at the room. “I just wish it wasn’t such an awful night.”
My eyes are still watering from the squeeze Lauren gave me but through the tears I notice she’s not terribly far from the seat Damien vacated next to Alison’s, and my heart speeds up, something tightens in my stomach, my armpits start tingling and Lauren’s swaying her hips exaggeratedly and Alison’s totally wired, sucking on a joint, greedily chatting away with Ian Schrager and Kelly Klein, then Damien looks away from me and watches too as Lauren says something that causes Tim Hutton to raise his eyebrows and cough while Uma’s talking to David Geffen. Her eyes gleaming, Lauren brings the cocktail napkin to her lips, kissing it, wetting it, and I’m holding my breath watching everything and Alison whispers something to Kelly Klein and Lauren leans away from Tim and with the hand holding the cocktail napkin pats Alison on the back and the napkin sticks and Damien makes a strangled noise.