“Let’s go,” Bentley’s saying to me. “Get up.”
“Maybe you should just leave without me,” I tell him. “It’s too late to eat.”
“I have a remarkable metabolism,” Bobby says. “It’ll be okay.”
“Chloe,” I say. “Do you want to have a drink with me?”
“Victor,” Bobby says, hurt.
Chloe gauges Bobby’s reaction. “Listen, I have to unpack. I’m jet-lagged,” Chloe says. “We have a press conference tomorrow morning. I have a photo shoot with Gilles Bensimon at twelve, so … not tonight, sorry.”
“Let’s cancel,” I tell Bobby.
“That’s impossible,” Bobby says crisply. “I’m starving.”
“Victor, it’s really okay,” Chloe says. “I have to go anyway. I’m totally jet-lagged. I came straight here from the airport.”
“Can I see you tomorrow?” I ask.
A pause. For some reason she glances over at Bobby. “Sure,” Chloe says. “Call me.”
“Okay.” I glance nervously at Bobby. “I will.”
Chloe reaches over and wipes a smudge of lipstick off my cheek. She kisses me, she disappears.
The three of us look on as the party swallows her up.
“Come on, Victor,” Bobby says.
“No,” I say, not getting up from the bench.
“Ooh, he’s being a little skittish,” Bentley says.
Bobby tugs “playfully” at my sleeve.
“Come on. It’s time to revel.”
I slowly raise myself but it’s really Bobby lifting up my entire weight with just one arm, pulling me off the bench. It’s slippery walking down the staircase because the record store is encased in ice, and gold confetti streams down over us hideously, flies swarming everywhere.
16
Outside the Virgin megastore a limousine is waiting, an immense carnival surrounds us, bouncers fend off people way too hopeful of getting in. Tormented, I throw up twice beside the limo while Bobby lights a cigar.
“Time to depart, Victor,” Bentley says grimly. “Get your ass up.”
“And do what?” I croak. “Stick it in your face?”
“Promises, promises,” Bentley sighs, mock-wearily. “Just get the fuck up. That’s a boy.”
“You’re just making noise,” I say, standing up.
On the sidewalk Bertrand stares at me and I’m staring back hatefully and then I break away from Bentley and Bobby and rush toward him, my fist raised high above my head, but Bobby ends up holding me back. Bertrand just smiles smugly, within inches of my reach. Slouching away, Bertrand curses in French, something I can’t understand.
15
In the limousine moving back to the house I’m sitting between Bentley and Bobby.
“Chloe Byrnes,” Bobby’s saying. “How … intriguing.”
My head is resting on my knees and I’m swallowing back dry heaves, breathing deeply.
“I like Chloe Byrnes,” Bobby says. “She’s not afraid to embrace her sensuality,” he murmurs. “Amazing body.” Pause. “Quite … distracting.” He laughs darkly.
“If you ever touch her, Bobby, I swear to god I will fucking kill you, I swear to god,” I say, enunciating each word.
“Ooh, how confrontational,” Bentley giggles.
“Shut up, you faggot,” I mutter.
“That’s the pot calling the kettle black,” Bentley says. “Or so I hear.” Bobby starts giggling too. “Boys, boys.”
“Did you hear me, Bobby?” I ask.
Bobby keeps giggling and then, in a very tight voice, squeezing my thigh, says, “You have neither the clout nor the experience to make a threat like that, Victor.”
14
In my bedroom at the house in the 8th or the 16th, sleeplessness is interrupted by the occasional unbearable dream—chased by raptors down hotel corridors, the word “beyond” appearing repeatedly, something wet keeps flying across the upper corner of the frame, making slapping noises, I’m always brushing my hair, trying to find the most accurate way possible to create a part, and I’m canceling dream appointments, keeping things loose, tumbling down steep flights of stairs that are too narrow to navigate and I’m always over water and everyone I run across has a face resembling mine. Waking up, I realize: you’re just someone waiting casually in the dark for a rustling outside your door and there’s a shadow in the hall.
I open the door. The director from the French film crew is waiting. He seems nervous. He’s holding a videotape, expectantly. He’s wearing an expensive parka.
Without being invited in, he slips past me, closes the door. Then he locks it.
“What do you want?” I ask, moving back to the bed.
“I know we haven’t talked much during the shoot, Victor,” he starts apologetically, without the accent I expected.
“I have nothing to say to you,” I mutter.
“And I understand,” he says. “In fact I think I understand why even more now.”
“That’s okay because I don’t care, I have my own problems,” I say, and then, yawning, “What time is it?”
“It’s light out,” he offers.
I reach over to the nightstand and swallow two Xanax. I tip a bottle of Evian to my mouth. I stare at the director hatefully.
“What’s that?” I ask, motioning to the tape in his hand. “Dailies?”
“Not exactly,” he says.
I realize something. “Does Bobby know you’re here?”
He looks away apprehensively.
“I think you should leave,” I’m saying. “If Bobby doesn’t know you’re here I think you should leave.”
“Victor,” the director says. “I’ve debated showing you this.” He pauses briefly. He decides something and shuffles toward a large-screen TV that’s ensconced in a white-oak armoire across from the bed I’m shivering in. “But in light of what’s about to happen, I think it’s probably imperative that you view this.”
“Hey, hey, wait,” I’m saying. “No, please, don’t—”
“I really think you should see this, Victor.”
“Why?” I’m pleading, afraid. “Why?”
“This isn’t for you,” he says. “This is for someone else’s benefit.”
He blows confetti off the tape before slipping it into the VCR below the TV. “We think that Bobby Hughes is getting out of hand.”
I’m wrapping myself in a comforter, freezing, steam pouring from my mouth because of how cold it is in the house.
“I think things need to be reduced for you,” the director says. “In order for you to … see things clearly.” He pauses, checks something on the VCR’s console. “Otherwise we’ll be shooting this all year.”
“I don’t think I have the energy to watch this.”
“It’s short,” the director says. “You still have some semblance of an attention span left. I checked.”
“But I might get confused,” I say, pleading. “I might get thrown off—”
“Thrown off what?” the director snaps. “You’re not even on anything to get thrown off of.”
He presses Play on the console. I motion for him to sit next to me on the bed because I’m getting so tense I need to hold his hand even though he’s wearing leather gloves, and he lets me.
Blackness on the screen blooms into random footage of Bobby.
Bobby on Boulevard du Montparnasse. Bobby sitting in La Coupole. Bobby heading down the Champs Élysées. Bobby taking notes while waiting for the Vivienne Westwood show to begin, sitting in a giant room in the basement of the Louvre. Bobby crossing Rue de Rivoli. Bobby crossing Quai des Celestins. He’s turning down Rue de l’Hôtel-de-Ville. He enters the métro station at Pont Marie. He’s on a train, grabbing an overhead handrail as the train slowly enters the Sully-Morland station. A shot of Bobby on an Air Inter flight from Paris to Marseilles, reading a copy of Le Figaro. Bobby’s picking up a rental car at the Provence airport.
“What are these? Highlights?” I’m asking, relaxing a little.
“Shh. Jus
t watch,” the director says.
“Bobby doesn’t know you’re showing me this,” I ask again. “Does he?”
Bobby gets off a plane that just landed at Le Bourget airport.
Bobby walks along the Place des Voyages and into a restaurant called Benoît.
Bobby in the tunnel on the Place de l’Alma, near its east end, crouching by the concrete divider that separates the eastbound and westbound lanes.
Suddenly a scene I don’t remember shooting. Café Flore. It’s only me in the shot and I’m tan, wearing white, my hair slicked back, and I’m looking for a waitress.
“This cappuccino sucks, dude,” I’m muttering. “Where’s the froth?” A boom mike is visible above my head.
A voice—Bobby’s—says, “We’re not here for the cappuccino, Victor.”
“Maybe you’re not, baby, but I want some froth.”
A shot of a line of schoolgirls singing as they walk along Rue Saint-Honoré.
Then static.
And then a close-up: airplane tickets to Tel Aviv. Bobby’s outside Dschungel, a club in Berlin, calling a girl a slut. A famous American football player is idling behind him.
Bobby in front of a Jewish synagogue in Istanbul. Bobby wearing a skullcap. Bobby praying in Hebrew. Bobby at the Saudi embassy in Bangkok.
Bobby drifting out of a bungalow in Tripoli, walking past a discarded radio antenna, an expensive Nikon camera swinging around his neck. A group of men follow him, wearing head scarves, holding Samsonite briefcases.
Someone singing a love song in Arabic plays over the sound track.
Bobby hops into a battered Mercedes 450SEL. A Toyota bus with bulletproof windows trails the Mercedes as it heads into a dark, vast desert.
The camera pans to a bulldozer scooping out a giant pit.
More static.
And then a black Citroën heads down Route Nationale through southern Normandy outside a farm village called Male.
The handheld camera shakes as it follows Bobby walking through what looks like a Ralph Lauren advertisement—an intensely green landscape, a gray overcast sky—and Bobby’s so well-groomed it’s astonishing; he’s wearing a black wool blazer, a black cashmere turtleneck, Gucci boots, his hair’s impeccable, he’s holding a large bottle of Evian water. He’s following a path.
Two golden retrievers bound into the frame, greeting Bobby as he nears what looks like a converted barn. He’s passing under a proscenium. He’s passing a catering truck. The barn is made of limestone and chicly shaped logs. As he approaches the front door Bobby turns his head toward the camera and grins, saying something the viewer can’t hear while pointing at an antique bird feeder that hangs next to the front door of the converted barn.
Bobby knocks on that door. He leans down to pet the dogs. The dogs are photogenic, relaxed. Suddenly both their heads snap up and, bounding out of frame, they immediately run to whoever’s behind the camera.
The door opens. A figure, mostly obscure in the shadowy doorway, shakes Bobby’s hand. The figure notices the camera, gestures toward it, annoyed. The figure motions Bobby inside.
And then F. Fred Palakon, his face clearly visible, looks outside before closing the door.
The director leans over, letting go of my hand, and rewinds the tape to the moment F. Fred Palakon’s face emerges from the shadows of the converted barn.
Once again F. Fred Palakon shakes Bobby’s hand.
Once again F. Fred Palakon gestures toward the camera.
The director presses Pause on the VCR’s console, freezing on Palakon’s face the instant Palakon notices the camera, and right now Palakon’s staring into the bedroom I’m occupying in the house in either the 8th or the 16th.
“I know this isn’t exactly reassuring,” the director says.
I’m cowering on the other side of the bed, delusional, backed up against the wall, floundering.
“Just consider what it means,” he says. “Reflect.”
I start crying. “I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, they’re gonna kill me—”
“Victor—”
“No, no, no,” I’m groaning, thrashing around on the bed.
“At any rate,” the director says, ejecting the tape from the VCR, “this is not a fantasy.”
I lie on the bed, finally motionless, my hands over my face.
“What is it, then?” I groan mindlessly. “Punishment?”
“No.” Before slipping out, the director says, “It’s an instruction.”
13
An hour later I’m vaguely aware of brushing my teeth in the shower. I barely dry myself off—the towel keeps dropping from my hands. I get dressed. Numb, giggling to myself in the darkness of my bedroom, I accidentally start forming a plan.
12
Walking slowly down the circular staircase into the living room, fear grafted onto my face, I can’t stop shaking. A cameraman is gloomily sipping a cup of watery coffee while leaning against the big Panaflex camera that takes up so much space in the foyer and the director’s sitting in the director’s chair, staring at a video console, preparing a scene I will not be appearing in. The crew mills around. Someone actually says to someone else, “It scarcely matters.” There’s a lot of shrugging and slinking off.
I’m promising myself that this will be the last time I see any of these people.
Bentley has spent all morning being prepped for a segment on MTV’s “House of Style—Dubai!” and right now he’s facing a mirror in the corner of the living room as a stylist blow-dries his hair and Bentley, shouting over the noise, explains to an interviewer, “It’s the classic bistro look in what’s basically a modern kitchen.” The interviewer wants to touch on eyeball fashion, what country has the sexiest soldiers, and then, “Ooh, can I have a pretzel?” I’m trying to block a tear with my finger. My heart feels sore, on the verge of bursting. I manage a wave, a small acknowledgment, to Bentley. The interviewer whispers something to Bentley while gawking at me and Bentley mutters “I already did” and they scream hysterically while giving each other high fives.
Jamie’s lying on a couch, a pink face mask over her eyes, recovering from the abortion she had yesterday afternoon, hungover from the Planet Hollywood opening she had to attend last night, and she’s talking sullenly into a cell phone. A book, an astrological forecast for Aquarians, lies on her chest and she looks like someone dropped her, picked her up, then laid her across the couch. She’s pressing a flower into her face, fingers stained from newspaper ink. She holds up a hand warily as I pass and mouths Shhh—it’s my manager and someone with a handheld camera crouches low, capturing Jamie’s blank face on super-8.
Bobby sits at the computer wearing Helmut Lang jeans and a Helmut Lang moleskin jacket, a rusted-green Comme des Garçons sweater underneath. On the computer screen are the words BRINK OF DESTRUCTION and automatically I’m thinking, Who’s Brink? and I’ve never heard of that band, and Bobby, in one of his “barely tolerant” moods, asks me, “Where are you going?”
“To see Chloe,” I say, stiffly walking past him to the kitchen. I force myself to peer into the refrigerator, struggling to be casual, a very hard moment. Outside, lightning flickers and then, on cue, thunder sounds.
Bobby’s considering what I just said.
“Are you trying to rescue her?” he muses. “Or are you trying to rescue yourself?” He pauses. “That’s not really a solution,” he says, and then, less sweetly, “Is it?”
“I’m just going to make sure everything’s okay with her.”
“I think that’s another movie,” Bobby says. “And I think you’re confused.”
“So you have a problem?” I ask, walking back into the living room.
“No,” he says. “I just don’t think that’s all you’re going to do.” He shrugs. “It’s just a … quandary.”
“Do I really need to make arrangements with you in order to visit my ex-girlfriend?” I ask. “It’s pretty fucking simple—”
“Hey, don’t talk that way to me.” He scowls. r />
“—to grasp, Bobby. I’m going to see Chloe. Bye-bye.”
Bobby’s expression subtly changes, becoming bored, almost trusting.
“Don’t act so wounded,” he finally says, flashing a warning look. “You’re not very good at it.”
It seems impossible that I will ever get out of this house. Under my breath I’m telling myself, It’s just another scene, it’s just another phase, like it’s a lyric from a song that means something.
“Do you think I’m lying?” I ask.
“No, no,” Bobby says. “I just think there’s a hole in your truth.”
“Well, what do you want to hear?” I ask, daring him. He ponders this, then simply turns back to the computer screen. “I think I’ve decided to listen to something else.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“You want it translated?” he mutters. “Sober up. Learn your ABCs.”
“I’m just trying to have a so-called normal conversation,” I say.
“I don’t think you’re being particularly successful,” he says.
“I’m not going to be put off by your negativity,” I’m saying, teeth clenched. “Later, dude.”
The director glances up at me and nods, once.
“Okay, we need some spontaneous sound bites,” the interviewer from “House of Style” says.
I’m walking by Bentley as he shows off a stack of 1960s movie magazines, a book of photographs featuring dismembered dolls, a new tattoo in the shape of a demon laced across his bicep.
“We’ll miss you,” Bentley says, batting his eyes at me.
Outside, it’s raining lightly. A bearded man worriedly walks a dog. A girl glides by holding a dozen sunflowers. I break down again, tears spilling out of my eyes. I hail a cab. Inside the cab, I’m trying not to shriek. A moment of doubt rises, but I blame it on the rain and then I tell the driver, “The American embassy.”
11
I’m sufficiently calm to minimize crying, to curb the hyperventilating. But I’m also on so much Xanax that the following is merely a dark blur and the only thing keeping this scene from being totally black is the mid-level panic that still beats through me, acting as a dull light.