When she got back to One Fifth, she found Philip in the kitchen, pouring himself a glass of wine. “Kitty,” he exclaimed. He put down the glass and immediately gave her a hug, then he tried to make out with her and put his hand on her breast. She stiffened and pulled away. “What’s wrong?” he said. “I tried to call you.”
“I was busy.”
“Really?” he asked, as if surprised that she might have something else to do. “Where were you?”
She shrugged. “With friends.” She took out a glass and poured herself some wine, taking the glass with her into the bedroom.
He waited a beat and then followed her. “Kitty?” he said, sitting next to her on the bed. “What are you doing?”
“Reading Star magazine.”
“You don’t have to be pissed off,” he said, trying to pull the magazine away.
“Stop it,” she said, swatting at his hand and pretending to concentrate on an ad for Halloween costumes. “I have to figure out what I should be for Halloween.” She paused. “I could be Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton, but then I don’t know what you would be. Or I could be a dominatrix. Then you could be a businessman, like that guy who lives in the penthouse. The one you hate.”
“Paul Rice?” Philip said. “A scumbag hedge-fund guy? Lola.” He stroked her leg. “I will do nearly anything for you. But I will not dress up for a child’s holiday.”
She sat up and glared at him. “It’s Halloween,” she said pointedly, as if the subject wasn’t open for discussion. “I want to go to parties. That’s what people do on Halloween. It’s the biggest holiday of the year.”
“Tell you what,” Philip said. “You can dress up however you want for me. We’ll stay home and have our own Halloween.”
“No,” Lola said. “What’s the point of dressing up if no one sees you?”
“I’ll see you,” Philip said. “Am I no one?”
Lola looked away. “I want to go out. There’s a Halloween party at the Bowery Hotel. This guy Thayer Core told me about it.”
“Who’s Thayer Core?”
“He’s this kid who works for Snarker.”
“What’s Snarker?” Philip asked.
Lola sighed dramatically and jumped off the bed, throwing down the magazine. She went into the bathroom. “How come we never do what I want to do? Why do we always have to go out with your friends?”
“My friends happen to be very interesting,” Philip said. “But it’s okay. If you want to go to this Halloween party, we’ll go.”
“Will you dress up?”
“No,” he said.
“Then I’ll go by myself.”
“Fine,” he said, and went out of the room. What was he doing, playing this game? He was too old for this, he decided. He picked up the phone and called the director of Bridesmaids Revisited, who happened to be home, and got into a discussion with him about the film.
A few minutes later, Lola came into his office and stood in front of him with her arms crossed. Philip looked at her, looked away, and went back to his conversation. Lola went into the living room, steaming. Trying to think of a way to push his buttons, she remembered the spread of him and Schiffer Diamond in Vogue magazine. Removing the magazine from the shelf, she banged it down noisily on the coffee table and opened it up.
Sure enough, Philip came in a few minutes later, looked at her, saw what she was reading, and stiffened. “What are you doing?” he demanded.
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Where did you get that?” he said, standing over her.
“It was on your bookshelf,” she said innocently.
“Put it back,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because I’d like you to,” he said.
“Who are you? My father?” she asked teasingly, pleased to have gotten such a big reaction out of him.
He grabbed the magazine out of her hands. “This is off-limits,” he said.
“Are you embarrassed about it?”
“No.”
“Oh, I get it,” Lola said, narrowing her eyes. “You’re still in love with her.” She jumped up and ran into the bedroom and started pounding on a pillow.
“Lola, stop,” Philip said.
“How can you be in love with me when you’re still in love with her?” Lola shrieked.
“It was a long time ago. And I never said I was in love with you, Lola,” he said firmly, then immediately realized his mistake.
“So you’re not in love with me?” she asked, her voice rising in outrage.
“I didn’t say I wasn’t in love with you. I’m saying we’ve only known each other for two months.”
“More than that. Ten weeks. At least.”
“Okay.” Philip sighed. “Ten weeks. What’s the difference?”
“Were you in love with her?” Lola said.
“Come on, Kitty,” Philip said. “You’re being silly.” He went up to her, but she tried—not very hard, Philip noted—to push him away. “Listen,” he said. “I’m very, very fond of you. But it’s too soon to say ‘I love you.’”
She crossed her arms. “I’m going to leave.”
“Lola,” he said. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to be in love with me. And I want to go to that Halloween party.”
He sighed. Relieved to be off the topic of his feelings for her, he said, “If you want to go to the party, we’ll go.”
This seemed to mollify her, and she put her hands in the waistband of his jeans. She unzipped his pants, and unable to object, he put his hands in her hair as she knelt in front of him. At one point, she pulled her mouth away from his penis and, looking up at him, said, “Will you dress up?”
“Huh?” he said.
“For Halloween?”
He closed his eyes. “Sure,” he said, thinking, If it means more blow jobs, why not?
In the week before Halloween, the city was hit by a cold snap. The temperature dropped to thirty degrees, causing people to remark that maybe global warming wasn’t such an issue. For Thayer Core, the weather simply put him in a bad mood. He didn’t own an overcoat, and the cold air reminded him that he was about to experience his third winter in New York, in which his lack of proper attire would make him hate the cold, hate the businessmen in their long cashmere coats and cashmere scarves and thick, leather-soled loafers. He hated everything about winter: the giant puddles of slush on the street corners and the disgusting puddles of dirty water in the subway and the puffy coat filled with acrylic batting that he was forced to wear when the temperature dropped below forty. His only protection against the icy weather was this silly ski jacket his mother had given him for his birthday the year he’d moved to New York. She’d been so excited about the gift, her flat brown eyes exuding a rarely seen sparkle of anticipation that had hurt him because his mother was pathetic, and irritated him because he was her son. Still, she loved him no matter what he did. She loved him although she had no idea who he was or what he really thought. Her assumption that he would love the gift of a ski coat for its practicality annoyed him and made him want to drink and drug away his infuriation, but when winter came to New York, he wore the coat. He had nothing else.
In the middle of the day in the middle of the week, when he imagined most people in America were wasting the company’s time at their dull and unrewarding office jobs, Thayer Core took the subway to Fifty-first Street and walked up Fifty-second to the Four Seasons, where he would eat caviar and drink champagne under the pretense of reporting on how the privileged filled up their many hours of free time.
It was his third attendance at such a lunch, which appeared to be a regular once-a-week event, the purpose of which was the promotion of a movie (independent, often worthy, and usually boring). The guests were supposed to discuss the movie, like one of those middle-aged-lady book clubs that his mother belonged to, but no one ever did. Instead, they cooed over each other about how fabulous they were, which was especially galling to Thayer, who saw them as ol
d and frightening and misguided. Nevertheless, he had managed to keep himself invited each week by not yet writing about the event in Snarker. He would have to soon. But in the meantime, he planned to enjoy his free lunch.
Thayer was always one of the first people to arrive, in order to do so anonymously. He took off his coat and was about to hand it to the coat-check man when he saw that Billy Litchfield had come up behind him. The sight of Billy filled Thayer with bile. Billy, Thayer had decided, was what could happen to a person who stayed too long in New York. What was his point? He appeared to do nothing but go to parties. He was a hanger-on to the rich and privileged. Didn’t he get bored? Thayer had been going to parties for only two years, and already he was bored out of his mind. If he wasn’t careful, time would pass, and he would end up like Billy Litchfield.
And now Billy had seen his coat.
“Hello, young man,” Billy said pleasantly.
“Hello,” Thayer muttered. No doubt Billy Litchfield couldn’t remember his name. He held out his hand aggressively, forcing Billy to take it. “I’m Thayer Core,” he said. “From Snarker?”
“I know exactly who you are,” Billy replied.
“Good,” Thayer said. Giving Billy a backward glance, he bounded up the steps ahead of him, if only to remind himself—and Billy—of his youth and energy. Then he took up his usual position at the bar, where he could observe and overhear and largely be ignored until lunch.
Billy handed his overcoat to the coat-check man, wishing he could have avoided shaking the hand of Thayer Core. Why was he here? Billy wondered. Thayer Core was a blogger on one of those vicious new websites that had popped up in the last few years, displaying a hatred and vitriol that was unprecedented in civilized New York. The things the bloggers wrote made no sense to him. The readers’ comments made no sense to him. None of it appeared to be written by humans, at least not humans as he knew them. This was the problem with the Internet: The more the world opened up, the more unpleasant people seemed to be.
It was one of the reasons he’d begun taking the pills. Good old-fashioned Prozac. “Been around for twenty-five years. Babies take it,” the shrink said. “You’ve got anhedonia. Lack of pleasure in anything.”
“It’s not a lack of pleasure,” Billy protested. “It’s more a horror of the world.”
The doctor’s office was located on Eleventh Street in a two-bedroom town house apartment. “We’ve met before,” the doctor said the first time Billy walked in.
“Have we?” Billy said. He was so hoping this wouldn’t be true, that he and his psychiatrist would have no acquaintances in common.
“You know my mother.”
“Do I?” Billy said, trying to put him off. But there was a degree of comfort in the information.
“Cee Cee Lightfoot,” the doctor said.
“Ah. Cee Cee,” Billy said. He knew Cee Cee well. The muse to a famous fashion designer who had died of AIDS back in the days when fashion designers had muses. How he missed those times, he thought. “What happened to your mother?” he asked.
“Oh, she’s still around,” the doctor said with a mixture of what sounded like despair and amusement. “She still has a one-bedroom apartment here. And a house in the Berkshires. She spends most of her time there.”
“What does she do?” Billy asked.
“She’s still very, very active. She’s involved with charity. She rescues horses.”
“How wonderful,” Billy said.
“How are you feeling?” the doctor asked.
“Not so good,” Billy said.
“You’ve come to the right place,” the doctor said. “We’ll have you feeling good in no time.”
And the pills—they actually worked! No, they didn’t solve your problems, didn’t make them go away. But one no longer cared quite so much.
Now Billy took a seat at the bar and ordered a glass of water. He stared at Thayer Core and briefly felt sorry for him. What a terrible way to earn a living. The young man must be filled with self-loathing. He was only a few feet away, but an enormous ocean of thirty years of knowledge separated them like two continents in which neither population understood the other’s customs and mores. Billy decided he didn’t care about that, either, and, glass of water in hand, went off to work the room.
Thirty minutes later, the luncheon was in full swing. “I love your TV show,” shrieked a woman dressed in a beaded suit to Schiffer Diamond, leaning across Billy to address her.
Schiffer looked at Billy and gave him a wink. “I thought no one was going to talk about the TV show. I was promised.”
Ever since Lady Superior had aired three weeks ago on Showtime, Schiffer had been invited everywhere and decided to enjoy herself in the little playground of New York society. Everyone wanted to fix her up. So far she’d dated a famous billionaire who’d been more intelligent and pleasant than she’d expected, but who, after a three-hour dinner, had said he didn’t believe they were suited to each other and should move on; and a famous movie director who was desperately looking for a third wife. Today she was seated next to Derek Brumminger, who was sixty-three years old and rugged and pockmarked (by both acne and life, Schiffer decided), who had been fired two years before from his position as CEO of a major media corporation and been given eighty million dollars in compensation. He had just returned from a yearlong worldwide journey on which he had tried to find himself and failed. “I realized I wasn’t ready to retire. I don’t want to get off the stage. And that’s why I came back,” he said. “What about you?”
“I’m not ready to get off the stage, either,” she said.
At the next table, Annalisa Rice was sitting next to Thayer Core. “That must be a very interesting job, blogging,” she said.
“Have you ever done it?” Thayer asked.
“I’ve sent e-mails,” she said.
“It’s the kind of thing anyone can do. And does,” Thayer replied with a mix of disdain and loathing.
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
“It is,” Thayer said. “It’s a bullshit way to make a living.”
“Being a lawyer might be worse,” she joked.
“It might be,” he agreed. “I thought I was going to be a novelist. What did you think you’d be?”
“I always wanted to be a lawyer. Once you’re a lawyer, you’re always a lawyer, I suppose. But today I went to see a piece of art—everyone was talking about it—and it turned out to be a pair of running shoes and a plastic dinosaur glued to a baby’s blanket. For half a million dollars.”
“Doesn’t that piss you off? It pisses me off. We live in a world full of douchebags.”
“I guess one person’s baby blanket is another person’s art,” Annalisa said, smiling at him.
“That’s not a very original thought,” he said, finishing off his third glass of champagne.
“Oh, I’m not trying to be original,” she said without malice. “This room is full of original people. I’m still trying to figure out New York.”
Thayer thought Annalisa was one of the most decent people he’d met at one of these things in a while. “If you were an emoticon, what would it be? A smiley face?” he asked.
Annalisa laughed. “I’d be perplexed. A K with a colon underneath.”
“Because of the baby’s blanket. For half a million dollars. You didn’t buy it, I hope.”
“No,” she said. “But my husband is building a giant aquarium in our apartment.”
“Where do you live?” Thayer asked casually.
“One Fifth,” she said.
Thayer put it together: Annalisa Rice was one half of the couple who’d bought Mrs. Houghton’s apartment. Her husband was Paul Rice, some scummy hedge-fund guy who was only thirty-two years old and already worth millions. The purchase had been noted in the real estate section of The New York Observer.
After the lunch, Thayer Core returned to his apartment. It was especially depressing, coming from the clean glamour of the Four Seasons. The windows were closed, and
steam hissed from the old radiator. His roommate, Josh, was asleep on the pile of clothing he called his bed, his mouth open, wheezing in the deadly dry air.
Who was Thayer kidding? Josh was a loser—he would never make it in this town. It was the assholes who cleaned up, like Paul Rice, sitting in his giant apartment on Fifth Avenue looking at fish, while his beautiful, gracious wife, who was clearly too good for him, was forced to spend her time looking at fraudulent art with that creep Billy Litchfield. In this state of moral indignation, Thayer went into his room and sat down in front of his computer, ready to write a blistering attack on the Rices and Billy Litchfield and the lunch at the Four Seasons. Usually, his ire carried him through five hundred words of nasty hyperbole, but all at once, his anger deserted him and was replaced by a rare circumspection. He remembered Annalisa’s face, smiling at him with what appeared to be delight in his charm, and completely innocent of his true intentions. Yes, he “hated” those people, but hadn’t he come to New York to be one of them?
He was the next F. Scott Fitzgerald, he reminded himself, and someday he would write the Great American Novel and they’d bow down before his genius. In the meantime, Annalisa Rice would be his Daisy Buchanan.
“Every now and then, one meets a creature of the female persuasion who is so natural, so lovely, it’s enough to make one consider not quitting this hellhole that is New York,” he wrote.
Two hours later, his blog entry appeared on Snarker, earning him twenty dollars. In the meantime, Mindy Gooch, sitting in her generic office in midtown Manhattan, was also working on her blog. “When my son was born,” she wrote, “I discovered I wasn’t Superwoman. Especially when it came to my emotions. Suddenly, I no longer possessed the emotional energy for everyone, including my husband. All my emotions went to my son. My emotions, I learned, were limited, not limitless. And my son used them up. There was nothing left for my husband. I knew I should have felt guilty. And I did feel guilty. But not for the right reasons. I felt guilty because I was perfectly happy.”