“Looking like some deformed schmuck and suicidal’s better?” I tell her. “Christ, Alison, get your fucking priorities straightened out.”
“My priorities straightened out?” she asks, stunned, letting go of my hand and placing her own to her chest. “My priorities straightened out?” She laughs like a teenager.
“Don’t you understand?” I get up from the bed, lighting a cigarette, pacing. “Shit.”
“Victor, tell me what you’re so worried about.”
“You really want to know?”
“Not really but yes.” She walks over to the armoire and pulls out a coconut, which I totally take in stride.
“My fucking DJ’s disappeared. That’s what.” I inhale so hard on the Marlboro I have to put it out. “No one knows where the hell my DJ is.”
“Mica’s gone?” Alison asks. “Are you sure she’s not in rehab?”
“I’m not sure of anything,” I mutter.
“That’s for sure, baby,” she says faux-soothingly, falling onto the bed, looking for something, then her voice changes and she yells, “And you lie! Why didn’t you tell me you were in South Beach last weekend?”
“I wasn’t in South Beach last weekend, and I wasn’t at the fucking Calvin Klein show either.” Finally the time has come: “Alison, we’ve got to talk about something—”
“Don’t say it.” She drops the coconut into her lap and holds up both hands, then notices the joint on her nightstand and grabs it. “I know, I know,” she intones dramatically. “There is a compromising photo of you with a girl”—she bats her eyes cartoonishly—“supposedly moi, yada yada yada, that’s going to fuck up your relationship with that dunce you date, but it will also”—and now, mock-sadly, lighting the joint—“fuck up the relationship with the dunce I date too. So”—she claps her hands—“rumor is it’s running in either the Post, the Trib or the News tomorrow. I’m working on it. I have people all over it. This is my A-number-one priority. So don’t worry”—she inhales, exhales—“that beautiful excuse for a head of yours about it.” She spots what she was looking for, lost in the comforter, and grabs it: a screwdriver.
“Why, Alison? Why did you have to attack me at a movie premiere?” I wail.
“It takes two, you naughty boy.”
“Not when you’ve knocked me unconscious and are sitting on my face.”
“If I was sitting on your face no one will ever know it was you.” She shrugs, gets up, grabs the coconut. “And then we’ll all be saved—la la la la.”
“That’s not when the picture was taken, baby.” I follow her into the bathroom, where she punches four holes in the coconut with the screwdriver and then leans over the Vivienne Tam-designed sink and pours the milk from the shell over her head.
“I know, I agree.” She tosses the husk into a wastebasket and massages the milk into her scalp. “Damien finds out and you’ll be working in a White Castle.”
“And you’ll be paying for your own abortions, so spare me.” I raise my arms helplessly. “Why do I always have to remind you that we shouldn’t be seeing each other? If this photo gets printed it’ll be time for us to wake up.”
“If this picture gets printed we’ll just say it was a weak moment.” She whips her head back and wraps her hair in a towel. “Doesn’t that sound good?”
“Jesus, baby, you’ve got people out there watching your apartment.”
“I know.” She beams into the mirror. “Isn’t it cute?”
“Why do I always need to remind you that I’m basically still with, y’know, Chloe and you’re still with Damien?”
She turns away from the mirror and leans against the sink. “If you dump me, baby, you’ll be in a lot more trouble.” She heads toward the closet.
“Why is that?” I ask, following her. “What do you mean, Alison?”
“Oh, let’s just say rumor has it that you’re looking at a new space.” She pauses, holds up a pair of shoes. “And we both know that if Damien knew that you were even contemplating your own pathetic club-slash-eatery while you’re currently being paid to run Damien’s own pathetic club-slash-eatery, therefore insulting Damien’s warped sense of loyalty, the term ‘you’re fucked’ comes vaguely to mind.” She drops the shoes, leaves the closet.
“I’m not,” I insist, following her. “I swear I’m not. Oh my god, who told you that?”
“Are you denying it?”
“N-no. I mean, I am denying it. I mean …” I stand there.
“Oh never mind.” Alison drops the robe and puts on some panties. “Three o’clock tomorrow?”
“I’m swamped tomorrow, baby, so spare me,” I stammer. “Now, who told you I’m looking at a new space?”
“Okay—three o’clock on Monday.”
“Why three o’clock? Why Monday?”
“Damien’s having his unit cleaned.” She tosses on a blouse.
“His unit?”
“His”—she whispers—“extensions.”
“Damien has—extensions?” I ask. “He’s the grossest guy, baby. He is so evil.”
She strides over to the armoire, sifts through a giant box of earrings. “Oh baby, I saw Tina Brown at 44 today at lunch and she’s coming tomorrow sans Harry and so is Nick Scotti, who—I know, I know—is a has-been but just looks great.”
I move slowly back toward the frost-covered window, peer past the venetian blinds at the Jeep on Park.
“I talked to Winona too. She is coming. Wait.” Alison pushes two earrings into one ear, three into another, and is now pulling them out. “Is Johnny coming?”
“What?” I murmur. “Who?”
“Johnny Depp,” she shouts, throwing a shoe at me.
“I guess,” I say vaguely. “Yeah.”
“Goody,” I hear her say. “Rumor has it that Davey’s very friendly with heroin—ooh, don’t let Chloe get too close to Davey—and I also hear that Winona might go back to Johnny if Kate Moss disappears into thin air or a smallish tornado hurls her back to Auschwitz, which we’re all hoping for.” She notices the half-smoked cigarette floating in the Snapple bottle, then turns around, holding the bottle out to me accusingly, mentioning something about how Mrs. Chow loves kiwi-flavored Snapple. I’m slouching in a giant Vivienne Tam armchair.
“God, Victor,” Alison says, hushed. “In this light”—she stops, genuinely moved—“you look gorgeous.”
Gaining the strength to squint at her, I say, finally, “The better you look, the more you see.”
30
Back at my place downtown getting dressed to meet Chloe at Bowery Bar by 10 I’m moving around my apartment cell phone in hand on hold to my agent at CAA. I’m lighting citrus-scented votive candles to help mellow the room out, ease the tension, plus it’s so freezing in my apartment it’s like an igloo. Black turtleneck, white jeans, Matsuda jacket, slippers, simple and cool. Music playing is low-volume Weezer. TV’s on—no sound—with highlights from the shows today at Bryant Park, Chloe everywhere. Finally a click, a sigh, muffled voices in the background, Bill sighing again.
“Bill? Hello?” I’m saying. “Bill? What are you doing? Getting fawned over on Melrose? Sitting there with a headset on, looking like you belong in an air traffic controllers’ room at LAX?”
“Do I need to remind you that I am more powerful than you?” Bill asks tiredly. “Do I need to remind you that a headset is mandatory?”
“You’re my broker of opportunity, baby.”
“Hopefully I will benefit from you.”
“So baby, what’s going on with Flatliners II? The script is like almost brill. What’s the story?”
“The story?” Bill asks quietly. “The story is: I was at a screening this morning and the product had some exceptional qualities. It was accessible, well-structured and not particularly sad, but it proved strangely unsatisfying. It might have something to do with the fact that the product would have been better acted by hand puppets.”
“What movie was this?”
“It doesn’t have a title yet,” Bill murmur
s. “It’s kind of like Caligula meets The Breakfast Club.”
“I think I’ve seen this movie. Twice, in fact. Now listen, Bill—”
“I spent a good deal of lunch at Barney Greengrass today staring at the Hollywood Hills, listening to someone trying to sell me a pitch about a giant pasta maker that goes on some kind of sick rampage.”
I turn the TV off, search the apartment for my watch. “And … your thoughts?”
“‘How near death am I?’” Bill pauses. “I don’t think I should be thinking things like that at twenty-eight. I don’t think I should be thinking things like that at Barney Greengrass.”
“Well, Bill, you are twenty-eight.”
“Touching a seltzer bottle that sat in a champagne bucket brought me back to what passes for reality, and drinking half an egg cream solidified that process. The pitcher finally tried to make jokes and I tried to laugh.” A pause. “Having dinner at the Viper Room started to seem vaguely plausible, like, i.e., not a bad evening.”
I open the glass-door refrigerator, grab a blood orange and roll my eyes, muttering “Spare me” to myself while peeling it.
“At that lunch,” Bill continues, “someone from a rival agency came up behind me and superglued a large starfish to the back of my head for reasons I’m still not sure of.” Pause. “Two junior agents are, at this moment, trying to remove it.”
“Whoa, baby,” I cough. “You’re making too much noise right now.”
“As we speak I am also having my photo taken for Buzz magazine by Fahoorzi Zaheedi .…” Pause, not to me: “That’s not how you pronounce it? Do you think just because it’s your name that you know?”
“Billy? Bill—hey, what is this?” I’m asking. “Buzz, man? That’s a magazine for flies, baby. Come on, Bill, what’s going on with Flatliners II? I read the script and though I found structural problems and made some notes I still think it’s brill and you know and I know that I’m perfect for the part of Ohman.” I pop another slice of blood orange into my mouth and, while chewing, tell Bill, “And I think Alicia Silverstone would be perfect for the part of Julia Roberts’ troubled sister, Froufrou.”
“I had a date with Alicia Silverstone last night,” Bill says vacantly. “Tomorrow, Drew Barrymore.” Pause. “She’s between marriages.”
“What did you and Alicia do?”
“We sat around and watched The Lion King on video while eating a cantaloupe I found in my backyard, which is not a bad evening, depending on how you define ‘bad evening.’ I made her watch me smoke a cigar and she gave me dieting tips, such as ‘Eschew hors d’oeuvres.’” Pause. “I plan to do the same exact thing with Kurt Cobain’s widow next week.”
“That’s really, uh, y’know, cutting edge, Bill.”
“Right now while Buzz is taking my photograph I’m prepping the big new politically correct horror movie. We’ve just been discussing how many rapes should be in it. My partners say two. I say half a dozen.” Pause. “We also need to glamorize the heroine’s disability more.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“She doesn’t have a head.”
“Cool, cool, that’s cool.”
“Add to this the fact that my dog just killed himself. He drank a bucket of paint.”
“Hey, Bill, Flatliners II or not? Just tell me. Flatliners II or no Flatliners II. Huh, Bill?”
“Do you know what happens to a dog when he drinks a bucket of paint?” Bill asks, sounding vague.
“Is Shumacher involved or not? Is Kiefer on board?”
“My dog was a sex maniac and very, very depressed. His name was Max the Jew and he was very, very depressed.”
“Well, I guess that’s why, y’know, he drank the paint, right?”
“Could be. It could also be the fact that ABC canceled ‘My So-Called Life.’” He pauses. “It’s all sort of up in the air.”
“Have you ever heard the phrase ‘earn your ten percent’?” I’m asking, washing my hands. “Have you seen your mother, baby, standing in the shadows?”
“The center cannot hold, my friend,” Bill drones on.
“Hey Bill—what if there’s no center? Huh?” I ask, thoroughly pissed off.
“I’ll pursue that.” Pause. “But right now I am quietly seething that Firhoozi thinks the starfish is hip, so I must go. We will speak as soon as it’s feasibly possible.”
“Bill, I’ve gotta run too, but listen, can we talk tomorrow?” I flip frantically through my daybook. “Um, like at either three-twenty-five or, um, like … four or four-fifteen … or, maybe even at, oh shit, six-ten?”
“Between lunch and midnight I’m collecting art with the cast of ‘Friends.’”
“That’s pretty ultra-arrogant, Bill.”
“Dagby, I must go. Firhoozi wants a profile shot sans starfish.”
“Hey Bill, wait a minute. I just want to know if you’re pushing me for Flatliners II. And my name’s not Dagby.”
“If you are not Dagby, then who is this?” he asks vacantly. “Who am I now speaking with if not Dagby?”
“It’s me. Victor Ward. I’m opening like the biggest club in New York tomorrow night.”
Pause, then, “No …”
“I modeled for Paul Smith. I did a Calvin Klein ad.”
Pause, then, “No …” I can hear him slouching, repositioning himself.
“I’m the guy who everyone thought David Geffen was dating but wasn’t.”
“That’s really not enough.”
“I date Chloe Byrnes,” I’m shouting. “Chloe Byrnes, like, the supermodel?”
“I’ve heard of her but not you, Dagby.”
“Jesus, Bill, I’m on the cover of YouthQuake magazine this month. Your Halcion dosage needs trimming, bud.”
“I’m not even thinking about you at this exact moment.”
“Hey,” I shout. “To save my life I dumped ICM for you guys.”
“Listen, Dagby, or whoever this is, I can’t really hear you since I’m on Mulholland now and I’m under a … big long tunnel.” Pause. “Can’t you hear the static?”
“But I just called you, Bill, at your office. You told me Firhoozi Zahidi was shooting you in your office. Let me talk to Firhoozi.”
A long pause, then disdainfully Bill says, “You think you’re so clever.”
29
It’s so diabolically crowded outside Bowery Bar that I have to climb over a stalled limo parked crookedly at the curb to even start pushing through the crowd while paparazzi who couldn’t get in try desperately to snap my photo, calling out my name as I follow Liam Neeson, Carol Alt and Spike Lee up to Chad and Anton, who help pull us inside, where the opening riffs of Matthew Sweet’s “Sick of Myself” start booming. The bar is mobbed, white boys with dreadlocks, black girls wearing Nirvana T-shirts, grungy homeboys, gym queens with buzz cuts, mohair, neon, Janice Dickerson, bodyguards and their models from the shows today looking hot but exhausted, fleece and neoprene and pigtails and silicone and Brent Fraser as well as Brendan Fraser and pom-poms and chenille sleeves and falconer gloves and everyone’s smoochy. I wave over at Pell and Vivien, who are drinking Cosmopolitans with Marcus—who’s wearing an English barrister’s wig—and this really cool lesbian, Egg, who’s wearing an Imperial margarine crown, and she’s sitting next to two people dressed like two of the Banana Splits, which two I couldn’t possibly tell. It’s a kitsch-is-cool kind of night and there are tons of chic admirers.
While scanning the dining room for Chloe (which I realize a little too slowly is totally useless since she’s always in one of the three big A booths), I notice Richard Johnson from “Page Six” next to me, also scanning the room, along with Mick and Anne Jones, and I sidle up to him and offer a high five.
“Hey Dick,” I shout over the din. “I need to ask you about something, por favor.”
“Sure, Victor,” Richard says. “But I’m looking for Jenny Shimuzu and Scott Bakula.”
“Hey, Jenny lives in my building and she’s supercool and very fond of Häagen-
Dazs frozen yogurt bars, preferably piña colada, not to mention a good friend. But hey, man, have you heard about a photograph that’s gonna run in like the News tomorrow?”
“A photograph?” he asks. “A photograph?”
“B-b-baby,” I stammer. “That sounds kind of sinister when you ask it twice. But it’s, um, do you know Alison Poole?”
“Sure, she’s Damien Nutchs Ross’s squeeze,” he says, spotting someone, giving thumbs-up, thumbs-down, then thumbs-up again. “How are things with the club? Everything nice and tidy for tomorrow night?”
“Cool, cool, cool. But it’s like an, um, embarrassing photo like maybe of me?”
Richard has turned his attention to a journalist standing by us who’s interviewing a very good-looking busboy.
“Victor, this is Byron from Time magazine.” Richard motions with a hand.
“Love your work, man. Peace,” I tell Byron. “Richard, about—”
“Byron’s doing an article on very good-looking busboys for Time,” Richard says dispassionately.
“Well, finally,” I tell Byron. “Wait, Richard—”
“If it’s an odious photograph the Post won’t run an odious photograph, blah blah blah,” Richard says, moving away.
“Hey, who said anything about odious?” I shout. “I said embarrassing.”
Candy Bushnell suddenly pushes through the crowd screaming “Richard,” and then when she sees me her voice goes up eighty octaves and she screams “Pony!” and places an enormous kiss on my face while slipping me a half and Richard finds Jenny Shimuzu but not Scott Bakula and Chloe is surrounded by Roy Liebenthal, Eric Goode, Quentin Tarantino, Kato Kaelin and Baxter Priestly, who is sitting way too close to her in the giant aquamarine booth and I have to put a stop to this or else deal with an unbelievably painful headache. Waving over at John Cusack, who’s sharing calamari with Julien Temple, I move through the crowd toward the booth where Chloe, pretending to be engaged, is nervously smoking a Marlboro Light.
Chloe was born in 1970, a Pisces and a CAA client. Full lips, bone-thin, big breasts (implants), long muscular legs, high cheekbones, large blue eyes, flawless skin, straight nose, waistline of twenty-three inches, a smile that never becomes a smirk, a cellular-phone bill that runs $1,200 a month, hates herself but probably shouldn’t. She was discovered dancing on the beach in Miami and has been half-naked in an Aerosmith video, in Playboy and twice on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimwear issue as well as on the cover of four hundred magazines. A calendar she shot in St. Bart’s has sold two million copies. A book called The Real Me, ghostwritten with Bill Zehme, was on the New York Times best-seller list for something like twelve weeks. She is always on the phone listening to managers renegotiating deals and has an agent who takes fifteen percent, three publicists (though PMK basically handles everything), two lawyers, numerous business managers. Right now Chloe’s on the verge of signing a multimillion-dollar contract with Lancôme, but a great many others are also in pursuit, especially after the “rumors” of a “slight” drug problem were quickly “brushed aside”: Banana Republic (no), Benetton (no), Chanel (yes), Gap (maybe), Christian Dior (hmm), French Connection (a joke), Guess? (nope), Ralph Lauren (problematic), Pepe Jeans (are we kidding?), Calvin Klein (done that), Pepsi (sinister but a possibility), et cetera. Chocolates, the only food Chloe even remotely likes, are severely rationed. No rice, potatoes, oils or bread. Only steamed vegetables, certain fruits, plain fish, boiled chicken. We haven’t had dinner together in a long time because last week she had wardrobe fittings for the fifteen shows she’s doing this week, which means each designer had about one hundred twenty outfits for her to try on, and besides the two shows tomorrow she has to shoot part of a Japanese TV commercial and meet with a video director to go over storyboards that Chloe doesn’t understand anyway. Asking price for ten days of work: $1.7 million. A contract somewhere stipulates this.