Glamorama

20

Lunch was mercifully short and now it's only 1:10 and I tell the driver to drop me off at Broadway and Fourth so I can stop by Tower Records before band practice to pick up some badly needed new CDs, and inside, the pop group Sheep—the new alternative rock band, whose single "Diet Coke at the Gap" is the buzz clip on MTV this month—is milling around the front of the store blinking into various video cameras as Michael Levine—the Annie Leibovitz of alternative rock—snaps pictures and "Aeon Flux" is on all the monitors and I scan the magazine rack for the new issue of YouthQuake to see if there are any letters about the article on me. In my basket: Trey Lewd, Rancid, Cece Pensiton, Yo La Tengo, Alex Chilton, Machines of Loving Grace, Jellyfish , the 6th's, Teenage Fanclub. I've also snuck my modeling portfolio in and I spot this cute Oriental girl wearing white jeans with a silver chain-link belt, a V-neck jersey tunic and flat black sandals looking at the back of an ELO CD and I "accidentally" drop the portfolio, bathing suit shots scattering around her feet. I pause before I bend down to pick them up, pretending to be mortified, hoping that she'll check it out, but she just gives me a why-bother? look and walks away and then this cute-as-a-button little gay guy starts helping me. "It's okay, it's okay," I keep saying, pulling a thong shot out of his hand, and then I see the hottest-looking girl in Tower Records.

She's standing by a listening station, headphones on, pressing buttons, swaying, wearing a pair of tight melon-colored Capri pants that meld into small black boots and an opened violet-beige Todd Oldham overcoat, and as I move closer I can see she's holding Blur, Suede, Oasis, Sleeper CDs. I'm right behind her as she pulls the headphones off.

"That's the coolest record," I say, pointing at the Oasis CD. "Tracks three, four, five and ten are all excellent."

She turns around, startled, sees my face, and what can only be described as a strange expression—one-third worried, one-third smiling, maybe one-third something else—creases her features and then she asks, "Do you know me?" but it's in this teasing way that I'm accustomed to and so I'm able to answer confidently, "Yeah—L.A. or Miami, right?"

"No," she says, her eyes hardening.

"Did you"—I have a small flash—"go to Camden?"

"You're getting less cold," she says simply.

"Wait—are you a model?"

"No," she sighs. "I'm not."

"But Camden is near the target?" I ask hopefully.

"Yes, it is." She sighs again.

"Yeah, yeah, foliage is definitely coming my way."

"That's good." She crosses her arms.

"So you did go to Camden?" I ask and then, to make sure, "The one in New Hampshire?"

"Is there another one?" she says impatiently.

"Hey baby, whoa."

"Well," she says, tapping the Oasis CD, "thanks for the record review, Victor."

"Oh man, you know me?"

She slings a red suede zip-top circular purse over her shoulder and lowers Matsuda sunglasses—blue eyes—and pouts, "Victor Johnson? I mean, that's if you are Victor Johnson."

"Well, yeah," I admit sheepishly. "Actually it's Victor Ward now but, um, it's still the same me."

"Oh, that's just great," she says. "So you got married? Who's the lucky guy?"

"The little pinhead over there with the strawberry strudel on his head." I point to the gay guy who I'm just noticing has kept one of the bathing suit shots. He smiles, then scampers away. "He's, uh, shy."

Finally I realize that I actually know this girl. "Oh man, I'm so bad with names," I apologize. "I'm sorry."

"Go ahead," she says, holding something in, "be a big boy—take a guess."

"Okay, I'm gonna have a psychic moment." I bring my hands to my temples and close my eyes. "Karen . . . Nancy . . . Jojo . . . You have a brother named Joe? . . . I'm seeing a lot of, er, Js. . . . I'm seeing, I'm seeing a . . . a . . . a kitten . . . a kitten named Cootie?" I open my eyes.

"It's Lauren." She looks at me dully.

"Lauren, ri-i-ight."

"Yeah," she says in a hard way. "Lauren Hynde? Remember now?"

I pause, freaked. "Gosh. Lauren Hynde. Whoa . . ."

"Do you know who I am now?" she asks.

"Oh baby, I'm really . . ." Stumped, I admit, "You know, they say Klonopin causes short-term memory loss, so—"

"Why don't we start with this: I'm Chloe's friend."

"Yeah, yeah," I say, trying to get comfortable. "We were just talking about you."

"Mmm." She starts moving down an aisle, running her hand along the rim of the CD racks, moving away from me.

I follow. "Yeah, it was a totally nice, um, chat, y'know?"

"What about?"

"Just, y'know, positive things."

She keeps walking and I hang back, taking my sunglasses off to check the body beneath the open coat: thin with full breasts, long and shapely legs, short blond hair, everything else–eyes, teeth, lips, whatever–equally nice. I catch up, keep moving with her, casually swinging the basket of CDs at my side.

"So you remember me from Camden?" I ask.

"Oh yeah," she says half-scornfully. "I remember you."

"Well, did you act this way at college or am I acting different?"

She stops moving and turns to face me. "You really don't remember who I am, do you, Victor?"

"Yes I do. You're Lauren Hynde." I pause. "But y'know, I was away a lot and Klonopin causes long-term memory loss."

"I thought it caused short-term memory loss."

"See—I already can't remember."

"Oh god, forget it."

She's about to turn away when I ask, "Am I the same?"

She looks me over carefully. "Pretty much, I guess." She focuses on my head, scanning my face. "Well, I don't think you had those sideburns."

An opening that I leap into. "Learn to love the sideburns, baby. They're your best friends. Pet the sideburns." I lean in, offer my profile, purring.

She just looks at me like I've lost it.

"What? What is it?" I ask. "Pet the sideburns, baby."

"Pet the sideburns?"

"People worship the sideburns, baby."

"You know people who worship hair?" she asks, semi-appalled. "You know people who want to look twenty forever?"

I wave a fly away. I move into another mode.

"So what's going oft, Lauren Hynde? God you look great. What's the story? Where've you been?" Maybe I ask this with the wrong tone, because she segues into the inevitable.

"I ran into Chloe at Patricia Field's last week," she says.

"Patricia Field's apartment?" I ask, impressed.

"No," she says, looking at me strangely. "Her store, dummy."

"Oh. That's cool."

A long pause, during which various girls pass by. A couple of them say hi to me but I casually ignore them. Lauren eyes them skeptically, troubled, which is a good sign.

"Um, I'm unsure of what we were talking about—"

My beeper goes off. I check the number: Alison.

"Who's that?" Lauren asks.

"Oh, y'know, probably just another call about unionizing male models." I shrug, then add, after a pause, "I'm a model."

"Unionizing male models?" She starts walking away again, which only makes me want to follow her more.

"You say that like it's a joke."

"I think you need committed people to form a union, Victor."

"Hey, no dark sarcasm in the classroom."

"This is ridiculous," she says. "I've gotta go."

"Why?"

"I'm having lunch with someone." Her hand is actually trembling as she runs it through her hair.

"Who?" I ask.

"Why?" she asks back.

"A guy?"

"Victor."

"Aw, come on."

"Baxter Priestly, actually, if you must know."

"Oh great," I groan. "Who is this little shit? I mean, spare me, baby."

"Victor, Chloe and I are friends. I assume you know this," she says, staring straight at me. "At least you're supposed to know this."

"Why am I supposed to know this?" I smile.

"Because she's your girlfriend?" she asks, her mouth hanging open.

"That's an excuse?"

"No, Victor. A reason. You're making it an excuse."

"You're losing me, baby. This is getting kinda trippy."

"Well, steady yourself."

"Hey, what about a cappuccino?"

"Don't you know who your girlfriend's acquaintances are? Don't you talk to her?" Lauren is losing it. "What's with you—oh god, why am I asking? I know, I know. I've gotta go."

"Wait, wait—I want to get these." I gesture toward the basket of CDs I'm holding. "Come with me and I'll walk you out. I've got band practice but I can squeeze in a latte."

She hesitates, then moves with me toward the registers. Once there, my AmEx card doesn't go through. I moan "Spare me" but Lauren actually smiles—a smile that causes a major déjà vu—and puts it on her card when she pays for her CDs and she doesn't even say anything about paying her back.

It's so cold in Tower that everything—the air, the sounds revolving around us, the racks of CDs—feels white, snowed in. People pass by, moving on to the next register, and the high-set fluorescent lighting that renders everyone flat and pale and washed out doesn't affect Lauren's skin, which looks like ivory that's tan, and her presence—just the mere gesture of her signing the receipt—touches me in a way I can't shrug off, and the music rising above us—"Wonderwall"—makes me feel doped and far away from my life. Lust is something I really haven't come across in a long time and I follow it now in Tower Records and it's getting hard to shake off the thought that Lauren Hynde is part of my future. Outside, I put my hand on the small of her back, guiding her through the sidewalk crowd to the curb on Broadway. She turns around and looks at me for a long time and I let her.

"Victor," she starts, responding to my vibe. "Look—I just want to make something clear. I'm seeing someone."

"Who?"

"That doesn't matter," she says. "I'm involved."

"Well, why don't you tell me who it is?" I ask. "And if it's that twerp Baxter Priestly I'll actually give you a thousand bucks."

"I don't think you have a thousand bucks."

"I have a big change bowl at home."

"It was"—she stops, stuck—"interesting to see you."

"Come on, let's go get a café au lait at Dean & Deluca. Sounds hip, huh?"

"What about the band?" she asks.

"Those losers can wait."

"I can't."

She starts to move away. I reach out, touch her arm gently. "Wait—are you going to the Todd Oldham show? It's at six. I'm in it."

"Oh god, come off it, Victor." She keeps walking.

I dart in and out of people's way to keep up with her.

"What? What is it?" I'm asking.

"I'm not really part of that scene."

"What scene, baby?"

"The one where all anyone is interested in is who's fucking who, who has the biggest dick, the biggest tits, who's more famous than whoever."

Confused, I keep following. "And you're, um, not like into this?" I ask, watching her wave down a taxi. "You've got like a problem?"

"I've gotta go, Victor."

"Hey, can I get your phone number?"

Before she slams the door, without turning toward me, I hear Lauren say, "Chloe has it."

19

Chloe and I went to L.A. last September for reasons we never really figured out, though in retrospect I think it had something to do with trying to save our relationship and Chloe was supposed to be a presenter at the MTV Awards, which I remember nothing of except Oscar talk, Frida Kahlo talk, Mr. Jenkins talk, how big is Dweezil Zappa's dick talk, Sharon Stone wearing pajamas, Edgar Bronfman, Jr., coming on to Chloe, only two green Jujyfruits in the box I held while spacing out during the ceremony, and it was all really just Cindy Cindy Cindy and in every photo printed of me—in W, in US, in Rolling Stone—I am holding the same half-empty bottle of Evian.

We stayed at the Chateau Marmont in a giant suite with a balcony twice its size overlooking West L.A. When Chloe didn’t want to talk she’d rush to the bathroom, turn on the hair dryer full blast and point it toward my calm, bewildered face. Her nickname for me during those weeks out there was "my little zombie." I tried out for and didn't get the part of a drug addict's friend in a medical-drama pilot that ultimately was never produced but it didn't really matter since I was so out of it I even had to reread things Paula Abdul said in interviews. Chloe was always "dying of thirst," there were always tickets for some lame-o screening, our conversations were always garbled, the streets were always—inexplicably—covered with confetti, we were always at barbecues at Herb Ritts', which were always attended by either Madonna or Josh Brolin or Amy Locane or Veronica Webb or Stephen Dorff or Ed Limato or Richard Gere or Lela Rochon or Ace of Base, where turkey-burgers were always served, which we always washed down with pink-grapefruit iced tea, and bonfires were always lit throughout the city along with the giant cones of klieg lights announcing premieres.

When we went to an AIDS fund-raiser thrown by Lily Tartikoff at Barneys, cameras flashed and Chloe's dry hand clutched my limp hand and she squeezed it only once—a warning—when a reporter from E! television asked me what I was doing there and I said, "I needed an excuse to wear my new Versace tuxedo." I could barely make it up the series of steep staircases to the top floor but once I was there Christian Slater gave me a high five and we hung out with Dennis Leary, Helen Hunt, Billy Zane, Joely Fisher, Claudia Schiffer, Matthew Fox. Someone pointed someone else out to me and whispered "The piercing didn't take" before melting back into the crowd. People talked about cutting off their hair and burning their fingernails.

Most people were mellow and healthy, tan and buff and drifting around. Others were so hysterical—sometimes covered with lumps and bruises—that I couldn't understand what they were saying to me, so I tried to stay close to Chloe to totally make sure she didn't fall back into any destructive habits and she wore Capri pants and Kamali makeup, canceled aromatherapy appointments that I was unaware she had made, her diet dominated by grape- and lemongrass- and root-beer-flavored granitas. Chloe didn't return phone calls from Evan Dando, Robert Towne, Don Simpson, Victor Drai, Frank Mancuso, Jr., Shane Black. She was bawling constantly and bought a print by Frank Gehry for something like thirty grand and an Ed Ruscha fog painting for considerably more. Chloe bought Lucien Gau shogun table lamps and a lot of iron baskets and had it all shipped back to Manhattan. Rejecting people was the hot pastime. We had a lot of sex. Everyone talked about the year 2018. One day we pretended to be ghosts.

Dani Jansen wanted to take us to mysterious places and I was asked by four separate people what my favorite land animal was and since I didn't know what these were I couldn't even fake an answer. Hanging out with two of the Beastie Boys at a house in Silver Lake, we met a lot of crew-cut blondes and Tamra Davis and Greg Kinnear and David Fincher and Perry Farrell. "Yum-ice" was a constant refrain while we drank lukewarm Bacardi-and-Cokes and bitched about taxes. In the backyard a pool that had been drained was filled with rubble and the chaise longues had empty syringes scattered all over them. The only question I asked during dinner was "Why don't you just grow your own?" From where I stood I watched someone take ten minutes to cut a slice of cheese. There was a topiary in the shape of Elton John in the backyard, next to the rubble-strewn pool. We were eating Vicodin and listening to Nico-era Velvet Underground tapes.

"The petty ugliness of our problems seems so ridiculous in the face of all this natural beauty," I said.

"Baby, that's an Elton John topiary behind you," Chloe said.

Back at the Chateau, CDs were scattered all over the suite and empty Federal Express packages littered the floor. The word "miscellany" seemed to sum up everything we felt about each other or so Chloe said. We had fights at Chaya Brasserie, three in the Beverly Center, one later in Le Colonial at a dinner for Nick Cage, another at House of Blues. We kept telling each other it didn't matter, that we didn't care, fuck it, which was actually pretty easy to do. During one of our fights Chloe called me a "peon" who had about as much ambition as a "parking lot attendant." She wasn't right, she wasn't wrong. If we were stuck in the suite at the Chateau after a fight there was really no place left to go, either the kitchen or the balcony, where two parrots, named Blinky and Scrubby the Gibbering Idiot, hung out. She lay in bed in her underwear, light from the TV flooding the darkened suite, the Cocteau Twins droning from the stereo, and during these lulls I would wander out by the pool and chew gum and drink Fruitopia while reading an old issue of Film Threat or the book Final Exit, rereading a chapter titled "Self-Deliverance via the Plastic Bag." We were in a nonzone.

Ten or eleven producers were found dead in various Bel Air mansions . I autographed the back of a Jones matchbook in my "nearly indecipherable scrawl" for some young thing. I mused about publishing my journal entries in Details. There was a sale at Maxfields but we had no patience. We ate tamales in empty skyscrapers and ordered bizarre handrolls in sushi bars done up in industrial-chic decor, in restaurants with names like Muse, Fusion, Buffalo Club, with people like Jack Nicholson, Ann Magnuson, Los Lobos, Sean MacPherson, a . fourteen-year-old male model named Dragonfly who Jimmy Rip really dug. We spent too much time at the Four Seasons bar and not enough at the beach. A friend of Chloe's gave birth to a dead baby. I left ICM. People told us that they either were vampires or knew someone who was a vampire. Drinks with Depeche Mode. So many people we vaguely knew died or disappeared the weeks we were there—car accidents , AIDS, murders, overdoses, run over by a truck, fell into vats of acid or maybe were pushed—that the amount for funeral wreaths on Chloe's Visa was almost five thousand dollars. I looked really great.

18

At Conrad's loft on Bond Street it's 1:30 which is really the only time to practice since everyone else in the building is at work or at Time Café acting like an idiot without trying over lunch, and from where I slouch in the doorway leading into the loft I can see all the members of the Impersonators lying around in various positions, each next to his own amp: Aztec's wearing a Hang-10 T-shirt, scratching at a Kenny Scharf tattoo on his bicep, Fender in lap; Conrad, our lead singer, has a kind of damp appeal and dated Jenny McCarthy and has wilted hair the color of lemonade and dresses in rumpled linens; Fergy's wrapped in an elongated cardigan and playing with a Magic 8 Ball, sunglasses lowered; and Fitzgerald was in a gothic rock band, OD'd, was resuscitated, OD'd again, was resuscitated again, campaigned mindlessly for Clinton, modeled for Versace, dated Jennifer Capriati, and he's wearing pajamas and sleeping in a giant hot-pink-and-yucca-striped beanbag chair. And they're all existing in this freezing, screwy-looking loft where DAT tapes and CDs are scattered everywhere, MTV's on, Presidents of the United States merging into a Mentos commercial merging into an ad for the new Jackie Chan movie, empty Zen Palate take-out boxes are strewn all over the place, white roses dying in an empty Stoli bottle, a giant sad rag-doll photo by Mike Kelly dominates one wall, the collected works of Philip K. Dick fill an entire row in the room's only bookcase, Lava lamps, cans of Play-Doh.

I take a deep breath, enter the room casually, brush some confetti off my jacket.

Except Fitz, they all look up, and Aztec immediately starts strumming something from Tommy on his Fender.

"He seems to be completely unreceptive," Aztec sings-talks. "The tests I gave him show no sense at all."

"His eyes react to light—the dials detect it," Conrad chimes in. "He hears but cannot answer to your call."

"Shut up," I yawn, grabbing an ice beer out of the fridge.

"His eyes can see, his ears can hear, his lips speak," Aztec continues.

"All the time the needles flick and rock," Conrad admits.

"No machine can give the kind of stimulation," Fergy points out, "needed to remove his inner block."

"What is happening in his head?" the three of them sing out.

"Ooh I wish I knew," Fitzgerald calls from the beanbag chair for one lucid moment. "I wish I kneeeeew." He immediately rolls over into a fetal position.

"You're late," Conrad snaps.

"I'm late? It takes you guys an hour just to tune up," I yawn, flopping onto a pile of Indian pillows. "I'm not late," I yawn again, sipping the ice beer, notice them all glaring at me. "What? I had to cancel a hair appointment at Oribe to make it here." I toss a copy of Spin that's lying next to an antique hookah pipe at Fitz, who doesn't even flinch when it hits him.

"'Magic Touch,'" Aztec shouts out.

I answer without trying. "Plimsouls, Everywhere at Once, 3:19, Geffen."

"'Walking Down Madison,'" he tosses out.

"Kirsty MacColl, Electric Landlady, 6:34, Virgin."

"'Real World.'"

"Jesus Jones, Liquidizer, 3:03, SBK."

"'Jazz Police.'"

"Leonard Cohen, I’m Your Man, 3:51, CBS."

"'You Get What You Deserve.'"

"Big Star, Radio City, 3:05, Stax." I yawn. "Oh, this is too easy."

"'Ode to Boy.'"

"Yaz, You and Me Both, 3:35, Sire."

"'Top of the Pops.'" Aztec's losing interest.

"The Smithereens, Blow Up, 4:32, Capitol."

"If only you gave the band that much attention, Victor," Conrad says in Conrad's hey-I'm-hostile-here mode.

"Who came in here last week with a list of songs we should cover?" I retort.

"I'm not gonna sing an acid-house version of `We Built This City,' Victor," Conrad fumes.

"You're throwing money out the window, dude." I shrug.

"Covers are nowhere, Victor," Fergy pipes in. "There's no money in covers.

"That's what Chloe always tells me," I say. "And if I don't believe her, how am I gonna believe you?"

"What's the point, Victor?" someone sighs.

"You, babe"—I'm pointing at Aztec—"have the ability to take a song that people have heard a million times and play it in a way that no one has ever heard it played before."

"And you're too fucking lazy to write your own material," Conrad says, pointing back, full of indie-rock venom.

"I personally think a cocktail-mix version of `Shiny Happy People' is hopping—"

"REM is classic rock, Victor," Conrad says patiently. "We do not do classic-rock covers."

"Oh god, I want to kill myself," Fergy moans.

"Hey—but the good news, everyone, is that Courtney Love's over thirty," I say happily.

"Okay. I feel better."

"What kind of royalties is Courtney getting from Nirvana sales?" Aztec asks Fergy.

"Was there a prenup?" Fergy wonders.

Shrugs all around.

"So," Fergy concludes, "since Kurt's demise maybe nothing."

"Hey, come on—Kurt Cobain didn't die," I say. "His music lives on in all of us."

"We really need to focus on new material, guys," Conrad says.

"Well, can we at least write one song without a shitty reggae beat that starts off with the line `I was a trippin in da crack house late last night'?" I ask. "Or `Dere's a rat in da kitchen—what I gonna do?'"

Aztec pops open a Zima and restrums his Fender contemplatively.

"When's the last time you guys made a demo?" I ask, noticing Chloe on the cover of the new Manhattan File next to the latest Wired and the copy of YouthQuake with me on the front, totally defaced with purple ink.

"Last week, Victor," I hear Conrad say through gritted teeth.

"That's a million years ago," I murmur, flipping around for the article about her. It's all blah blah blah—the last year of doing runway shows, the Lancôme contract, her diet, movie roles, denying the rumors about heroin addiction, Chloe talking about wanting to have kids ("A big playpen, the whole thing," she's quoted), a photo of us at the VH 1 Fashion and Music Awards, with me staring vacantly into the camera, a photo of Chloe at the Doppelganger party celebrating the Fifty Most Fabulous People in the World, Baxter Priestly trailing behind her—and I'm trying to remember what my relationship with Lauren Hynde was like back at Camden or if there even was one, as if, right now, in the loft on Bond Street, it matters.

"Victor," Conrad's saying, hands on hips, "a lot of bands are in the music biz for the totally wrong reasons: to make money, to get laid—"

"Whoa, wait a minute, Conrad." I hold my hands out, sitting up. "These are the wrong reasons? Really? Let me just get this straight."

"All you do here, Victor, is drink beer and reread magazines that you or your girlfriend happen to be in this month," Conrad says, looming over me.

"And you’re all so lost in the past, man", I say wearily. "Captain Beefheart records? Yoghurt? What the fuck is like going in here, huh?" I exclaim. "And Jesus, Aztec–cut your toenails! Where are your fucking morals? What do you even do besides going to fucking poetry reading at Fez? Why don’t you go to a fucking gym or something?"

"I get enough exercise," Aztec says dubiously.

"Rolling a joint isn't exercise, guy," I say. "And shave off that goddamn facial hair. You look like a fucking billy goat."

"I think it's time you calm down, Victor," Aztec says, "and take your place with the glitterati."

"I'm just offering you an escape from that whole stale hippie vibe."

Fergy looks over at me and shivers vaguely.

"You're jeopardizing our friendship, dude," I say, though it emerges from my mouth without a lot of concern.

"You're never here long enough, Victor, to jeopardize anything!" Conrad shouts.

"Oh spare me," I mutter, getting up to leave.

"Just go, Victor," Conrad sighs. "No one wants you here. Go open your big tacky club."

I grab my portfolio and bag of CDs and head toward the door.

"You all feel this way?" I'm asking, standing over Fitz, who wipes his nose on the ice-hockey jersey he's using as a pillow, eyes closed, sleeping serenely, dreaming about cartons of methadone. "I bet Fitz wants me to stay. Don't you, Fitz?" I ask, leaning down, trying to shake him awake. "Hey Fitz, wake up."

"Don't even try, Victor," Fergy yawns.

"What's wrong with the Synthman?" I ask. "Besides spending his teen years in Goa."

"He went on a Jägermeister binge last night," Conrad sighs. "He's on ibogaine now."

"And so?" I ask, still prodding Fitz.

"And for breakfast Ecstasy cut with too much heroin."

"Too much?"

"Too much heroin."

"Instead of like . . ."

"The right amount of heroin, Victor."

"Christ," I mutter.

"Oh boy, Victor." Conrad smirks. "Farm living's the life for you."

"I'd rather be a farmer than hang out with people who drink their own blood, you fucking hippie vampires."

"Fitz is also suffering from binocular dysphoria and carpal tunnel syndrome."

"Shine on, you crazy diamond." I rummage in my coat pocket and start handing out free drink tickets. "Well, I guess I'm here to tell you I'm quitting the band and these are only good between 11:46 and 12:01 tonight."

"So that's it?" Conrad asks. "You're just quitting?"

"I give you my blessing to continue," I say, placing two free-drink tickets on Fitz's leg.

"Like you even care, Victor," Conrad says.

"I think this is good news, Conrad," Fergy says, shaking the Magic 8 Ball. "I think, Far out. In fact Magic 8 Ball says `Far Out' too." He holds the ball up for us to see.

"It's just this whole indie-rock scene equals yuck," I say. "Y'know what I'm saying?"

Conrad just stares at Fitz.

"Conrad, hey, maybe we should go bungee jumping with Duane and Kitty this weekend," Aztec says. "How about it, Conrad? Conrad?" Pause. "Conrad?"

Conrad continues to stare at Fitz, and as I'm leaving he says, "Has anybody realized that our drummer is the most lucid person in this band?"

17

Walking up Lafayette unable to shake off the feeling of being followed and stopping on the corner of East Fourth I catch my reflection superimposed in the glass covering of an Armani Exchange ad and it's merging with the sepia-toned photo of a male model until both of us are melded together and it's hard to turn away but except for the sound of my beeper going off the city suddenly goes quiet, the dry air crackling not with static but with something else, something less. Cabs lumber by silently, someone dressed exactly like me crosses the street, three beautiful girls pass by, each maybe sixteen and eyeing me, trailed by a thug with a camcorder, the muted, dissonant strains of Moby float from the open doors of the Crunch gym across the street where on the building above it a giant billboard advertises in huge black block letters the word TEMPURA. But someone's calling "Cut!" and the noise from the construction site of the new Gap behind me and the beeper going off—for some freaky reason it's the number of Indochine—moves me toward a phone booth where before dialing I imagine a naked Lauren Hynde striding toward me in a suite at the Delano with a deeper sense of purpose than I can muster. Alison picks up.

"I need to make a reservation," I say, trying to disguise my voice.

"I've got something I want to tell you," she says.

"What?" I gulp. "Y-you used to be a man?"

Alison knocks the phone on a hard surface. "Oh sorry, that's my call-waiting. I've gotta go."

"That didn't sound like, uh, call-waiting, baby."

"It's a new kind of call-waiting. It simulates the sound of someone who's dating a useless asshole angrily knocking their phone against a wall."

"Essential, baby, you're essential."

"I want you here at Indochine within two minutes."

"I'm inundated, baby, totally inundated."

"What is this? Big-word day?" she snaps. "Just get that ass over here."

"That ass has got to . . . see someone."

"Jesus, Victor, the pregnant pause combined with `someone' can only mean one person: that idiot you date."

"Baby, I'll see you tonight," I fake-purr.

"Listen, I have Chloe's number right in front of me, baby, and—"

"She's not at home, Medusa."

"You're right. She's at Spy Bar shooting a Japanese TV commercial and—"

"Damnit, Alison, you—"

"—I'm in a mood to screw things up. I need to be distracted from that mood, Victor," Alison warns. "I need to be distracted from screwing things up."

"You're so phony, baby, it stings," I sigh. "Ouch," I add. "That was for, um, emphasis."

"Oh Chloe, I'm so sorry. He came on to me. He was un animale. He told me he doesn't even wuv you."

"What's your sick little point, baby?"

"I just don't want to share you anymore, Victor," Alison says, sighing as if she could care less. "I'm pretty sure I came to that conclusion at the Alfaro show."

"You're not sharing me," I say, which is useless.

"You sleep with her, Victor."

"Baby, if I didn't some HIV positive scumbag would and then—"

"Oh god!"

"—we'd all be in a whole helluva lotta trouble."

"End it!" Alison wails. "Just end it!"

"And you're gonna dump Damien?"

"Damien Nutchs Ross and I are—"

"Baby, don't use the full monicker. It's a bummer."

"Victor, I keep explaining something to you and you act like you haven't heard me."

"What?" I ask, gulping again. "You u-used to be a man?"

"Without me, and by extension without Damien, you would have no club. Now, how many times do we need to go over this?" Pause, exhale. "Nor would you have a chance to open that other club you're planning to—"

"Whoa!"

"—open behind all our backs."

We're both silent. I can envision a slow, triumphant smile pulling Alison's lips upward.

"I don't know why you think these things, Alison."

"Shut up. I will only continue this conversation at Indochine." A pause that I let happen. Because of it, Alison calls out, "Ted—could you ring up Spy Bar for me?" She clicks off, daring me.

Past the limousine parked out front next to a giant pile of black and white confetti and up the stairs into Indochine, where Ted the maitre d' is being interviewed by "Meet the Press" wearing a giant top hat, and I ask him, "What's the story?" Never breaking eye contact with the camera crew, I follow his finger as it points to a booth in the rear of the empty, freezing restaurant, noise from the latest PJ Harvey CD in the dank background. Alison spots me, stubs out a joint and gets up from a table where she's on her Nokia 232 cell phone to Nan Kempner and eating cake with Peter Gabriel, David LaChapelle, Janeane Garofalo and David Koresh, all of them discussing lacrosse and the new monkey virus, a copy of this month's Mademoiselle next to each plate.

Alison pulls me into the back of the restaurant, pushes me into the men's room and slams the door.

"Let's make this quick," she growls.

"As if there's any other way with you," I sigh, spitting out a piece of bubble gum.

She lunges at me, clamping her mouth onto mine. In a matter of seconds she pulls back and frantically tears open a zebra-print waistcoat.

"You were so cold to me earlier," she pants. "As much as I hate to admit it, I got wet."

"I haven't seen you all day, baby." I'm pulling her tits out of a beige push-up bra.

"At the Alfaro show, baby." She pulls an electro-cut miniskirt with charred seams up over tan thighs, pushing down a white pair of panties.

"Baby, how many times do we need to go through this?" I'm unbuttoning my jeans. "I wasn't at the Alfaro show."

"Oh my god, you're such an absolute dick," she groans. "You spoke to me at the Alfaro show, baby." She glares cross-eyed while thrusting her tongue in and out of my mouth. "Barely, but you spoke."

I'm at her neck and in mid-lick I straighten up, my pants falling to the floor, and just stare into her sex-crazed face. "You're smoking wa-a-a-ay too much weed, baby."

"Victor . . ." She's delirious, my hand in her crotch, two now three fingers inside her, lolling her head back, licking her own lips, grinding down on my hand, her pussy tightening around my fingers. "I'm just about through with this—"

"With what?"

"Just come here." She grabs my dick, squeezes it hard and pulls it condomless toward her, rubbing its head along the lips of her pussy. "Feel this? Is this real?"

"Against my better instincts, yes," I say, slamming into her, just how Alison likes it. "But baby, I sense someone is causing major mischief."

"Baby, just fuck me harder," she groans. "And lift up your shirt. Let's see that bod work."

Afterwards, walking slowly back through the deserted restaurant, I grab a half-drunk Greyhound off a table and swish some around in my mouth before, spitting it back into the highball glass. While I'm wiping my lips with the sleeve of my jacket, Alison turns to me, sated, and admits, "I've been followed all day."

I stop moving. "What?"

"Just so you know, I've been followed all day." She lights a cigarette while moving past me, drifting by busboys setting up tables for tonight.

"Alison—are you telling me that those goons are outside right now?" I slam my hand against a table. "Oww—oh shit, Alison."

She turns around. "I lost those goons in a Starbucks an hour ago."

She exhales, offers me the Marlboro. "If you can believe anyone's stupid enough to lose someone in a Starbucks."

"Starbucks can get pretty crowded, baby," I say, taking the cigarette from her, dazed yet relieved.

"I'm not worried about them," she says lightly.

"I think the fact that you can only have sex in the bathroom at Indo- chine should like give you major pause, baby."

"I wanted to celebrate the fact that our worries about a certain photograph are over."

"I talked to Buddy," I say. "I know."

"What horrible string did you pull?" she asks admiringly. "Confirm Chloe's nasty ex-habit?"

"You don't want to know."

She considers this. "You're right," she sighs. "I don't."

"Did you make Damien buy that new 600SEL?"

"Actually he leased it," Alison mutters. "Asshole."

"Damien's not an asshole."

"I wasn't referring to him, but yes he is."

"Hey, tell me what you know about Baxter Priestly."

"Someone with amazing cheekbones." She shrugs. "In the band Hey That's My Shoe. He's a model-slash-actor. Unlike you, who's a model-slash-loser."

"Isn't he like a fag or something?"

"I think Baxter has a major crush on Chloe Byrnes," she says, eyes flickering gleefully over my face for a reaction, then, after thinking about something, she shrugs. "She could do worse."

"Oh boy, Alison."

She’s laughing, relaxed. "Victor—just keep an eye out."

"What are you saying?" I ask, stretching.

"What is it you always say?" she asks. "The better you look, the more you see. Is that it?"

"Are you saying that Baxter Priestly and Chloe are—what, Alison?" I ask, arms still spread out. "Humping?!?"

"Why are you even worried?" She hands me back the cigarette. "What do you see in that poor little girl besides a staggering intellect?"

"What about Lauren Hynde?" I ask casually.

Alison stiffens up noticeably, plucks the cigarette from my lips, finishes it, starts moving toward the front of the restaurant.

"Barely anything. Two Atom Egoyan movies, two Hal Hartley movies, the latest Todd Haynes. Oh, and a small part in the new Woody Allen. That's about it. Why?"

"Whoa," I say, impressed.

"She's so out of your league, Victor, it's not even funny." Alison takes her coat and purse from a stool at the bar.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means I don't think you have to worry about being taken seriously by her," Alison says. "You're not gonna be."

"I'm just having a fly time, bay-bee." I shrug.

"She apparently had that whole hair-pulling madness disease. It disappeared entirely under Prozac therapy. Or so they say."

"So you're basically saying we're caught in a trap and we can't back out? Is that it?" I'm asking.

"Well, you're going to have to take the back way out." She kisses me on the nose.

"There is no back way out, Alison."

"Then just give me five." She yawns, buttoning up.

"Where are you going?" I ask sheepishly. "I suppose a ride is out of the question considering the circumstances, huh?"

"I have an extremely vital hair appointment at Stephen Knoll," Alison says, squeezing my cheek. "Kiss-kiss, bye-bye."

"See you tonight," I say, waving wanly.

"Big time," she mutters, walking down the stairs, outside, away from me.

16

Umberto guards the door at Spy Bar on Greene Street waving flies away with a hand holding a walkie-talkie and wishes me luck tonight and lets me in and I head up the stairs smelling my fingers then duck into the men's room where I wash my hands and stare at myself in the mirror above the sink before I remember time is fleeting, madness takes its toll and all that and in the main room the director, assistant director, lighting cameraman, gaffer, chief electrician, two more assistants, Scott Benoit, Jason Vorhee’s sister, Bruce Hulce, Gerlinda Kostiff, scenic ops and a Steadicam operator stand around a very large white egg, mute, video cameras circling, filming a video of the making of the commercial, photographers taking pictures of the video team.

Chloe sits away from them at a large booth in the back of the room. A group of makeup artists holding gels and brushes surround her and she's wearing rhinestone-studded hot pants, a minidress with a flippy skirt and she looks unnaturally happy in this twilight zone but after catching my gaze she just shrugs helplessly. Someone named, I think, Dario, who used to date Nicole Miller, wearing sunglasses and a Brooks Brothers coconut hat with a madras band and a telescope crown and sandals, is lying on a tatami mat nearby, with a Mighty Morphin Power Rangers tattoo on his bicep. I use the phone at the bar to check my messages: Balthazar Getty, a check for my tai chi instructor bounced, Elaine Irwin, a publicist from my gym, Val Kilmer, Reese Witherspoon. Someone hands me a café au lait and I hang out with this model named Andre and share a too tightly rolled joint by a long buffet table covered with really trendy sushi and Kenny Scharf- designed ice buckets and Andre's life is basically made up of lots of water, grilled fish and all the sports he can do and he has a look that's young, grungy, somewhat destitute but in a hip way. "I just want people to smile a little more," Andre's saying. "And I'm also concerned with the planet's ecological problem."

"That's so cool," I say, gazing at thin sheets of light-blue ice that cover an entire wall, lie in patches on the bar and on the mirrors behind the bar. Someone walks by in a parka.

"And I'd like to open a restaurant in the shape of a giant scarab."

We both stand there staring at the egg and then I slowly walk away, explaining, "My café au lait's a little too foamy, guy."

The makeup team has finished and they leave Chloe alone and I move over to where she's staring at us in a giant portable mirror that sits in the middle of the table, magazines scattered everywhere around her, some with Chloe's face on the cover.

"What's with the glasses?" she asks.

"Reef says it's fashionable to look like an intellectual this season." It's so cold our breath frosts, comes out in puffs.

"If someone asked you to eat your own weight in Silly Putty, would you do that too?" she asks quietly.

"I'm a-buggin', I'm a-jumpin', baby."

"Victor, I'm so glad you know what's important and what's not."

"Thanks, babe." I lean in to kiss her neck but she flinches and whispers something about disturbing powder, so I end up placing my lips on top of her scalp.

"What am I smelling?" I ask.

"I've been using vodka to lighten my hair," she says sadly. "Bongo got a whiff at the Donna Karan show and started muttering the Serenity Prayer."

"Don't sweat it, baby. Remember that all you have to do is say cheese about two hundred times a day. That's it!"

"Being photographed six hours straight is sheer torture."

"Who's the dude in the corner, baby?" I gesture toward the guy on the tatami mat.

"That's La Tosh. We go way back. I've known him for weeks. We met over a spring roll at Kin Khao."

"Très jolie." I shrug.

"Supposedly he's one of Rome's best-connected psychos," she sighs. "Do you have any cigarettes?"

"Hey, what happened to the nicotine patch you were gonna wear today?" I ask, concerned.

"It was making me all wobbly on the runway." She takes my hand and looks up into my face. "I missed you today. Whenever I'm really tired I miss you."

I lean in, hug her a little, whisper into her ear. "Hey—who's my favorite little supermodel?"

"Take those glasses off," she says sourly. "You look like somebody who's trying too hard. You look like Dean Cain."

"So what's the story?" I remove the frames, slip them back into their case.

"Alison Poole has called about ten times today," Chloe says, looking around the table for cigarettes. "I haven't called her back. Do you have any idea what she wants?"

"No, baby. Why?"

"Well, didn't you see her at the Alfaro show?"

"Baby, I wasn't at the Alfaro show." I pull a small piece of confetti from her hair.

"Shalom said she saw you there."

"Shalom needs new contacts, then, baby."

"So why are you visiting me?" she asks. "Are you sure you don't have a cigarette?"

I check all my pockets. "I don't think so, baby." I find a pack of Mentos, offer her one. "Um, I just wanted to stop in, say hello, the usual. I've gotta be back at the club, meet this DJ we desperately need for the party tonight and then I'll see you at Todd's show."

"I've got to be out of here in forty minutes if I'm going to make it for hair." She takes a sip from a Fruitopia bottle.

"God, it's freezing in here," I say, shivering.

"This week has been hell, Victor," Chloe says blankly. "Maybe the most hellish week of my life."

"I'm here for you, baby."

"I know I should be comforted by that," she says. "But thank you anyway."

"I've just been so swamped today, baby, it's totally scary," I say. "I've just been so totally swamped."

"We really need to treat ourselves to a vacation," Chloe says.

"So what's the story, baby?" I try again. "What's this thing about?" I ask, gesturing toward the crew, the egg, the guy on the tatami mat.

"I'm not sure, but Scott is supposed to be some kind of phantom- android obsessed with curry—the spice—and we have a fight about whatever people who look like us have fights about and I throw a cube, some kind of—oh, I don't know—a cube at him and then, according to the script, he 'flees.'"

"Yeah, that's right," I say. "I remember the script."

"And then the bad phantom-android—"

"Baby," I interrupt gently. "The synopsis can wait."

"We're waiting," Chloe says. "Scott forgot his dialogue."

"Baby, I read the shooting script," I say. "He only has one line. Singular."

The seventeen-year-old director moves over to the booth holding a walkie-talkie and he's wearing DKNY silver jeans and sunglasses and it's all kind of a glam combo. "Chloe, we've decided to shoot the first shot last."

"Taylor, I'm desperately needed somewhere in less than an hour," Chloe pleads. "It's a matter of life or death. Taylor, this is Victor."

"Hey," Taylor says. "We met at Pravda last week."

"I wasn't at Pravda last week but oh what the hell, forget it—how's it going?"

"The extras are cool kids but we want to portray a lifestyle that people can relate to," Taylor explains. I'm nodding deeply. "My vision is to create the opposite of whatever smuggling Pervitin back from Prague in a rented Toyota means." An interruption, static from the walkie-talkie, garbled screams from across the room. "That's just Lars, the runner." Taylor winks.

"Taylor—" Chloe starts.

"Baby, you will be whisked out of this room in less than thirty, I promise." Taylor moves back to the group surrounding the egg.

"God, my nerves are fraught," she says.

"What does that mean?"

"It means it has taken a week to shoot this and we're three weeks behind schedule."

Pause. "No, what does `fraught' mean?"

"It means I'm tense. It means I'm very tense."

Finally: "Baby, we gotta talk about something."

"Victor, I've told you that if you need any money—"

"No, no." Pause. "Well, actually that too, but . . ."

"What?" She looks up at me, waiting. "What is it, Victor?"

"Baby, it's just that I'm getting really, um, I'm getting really nervous opening up magazines and reading about who your ideal man is."

"Why is that, Victor?" She turns back to the mirror.

"Well, I guess the main reason is that"—I glance over at La Tosh and lower my voice—"it's like the total opposite of me?"

"Oh, so what?" She shrugs. "I said I liked blonds."

"But baby, I'm really a brunette."

"Victor, you read this in a magazine, for god's sake."

"Jesus, and all this shit about having kids." I'm moving around now. "Spare me, baby. What's the story? What's the megillah?"

"You'll forgive me, Victor, if I have no idea what `megillah' means."

"Baby, I'm your best friend, so why don't—"

"A mirror's your best friend, Victor."

"Baby, it's just that . . ." I trail off hopelessly. "I . . . care about us and . . ."

"Victor, what's wrong? What is it? Why are you doing this now?"

I recover slightly. "Nothing, nothing. It's nothing." I'm shaking my head, clearing it.

"I've been holding an ice cube all day," Chloe says.

"Your fingers are turning blue and you've been rolling around with Scott Benoit all day. Is that what you're saying?"

Music from a boom box, something British, Radiohead maybe, a ballad, lush and sad, plays over the scene.

"Victor, all I want to do, in the following order, is Todd's show, your opening and then collapse into bed, and I don't even wanna do two of those."

"Who's Baxter Priestly?" I blurt out.

"He's a friend, Victor. A friend. My friend," she says. "You should get to know some of them."

I'm about to take her hand but think better of it. "I ran into one today. Lauren Hynde." I wait for a reaction but there isn't one. "Yeah, I saw her before band practice when I was buying CDs at Tower Records. She seemed like really hostile."

"Buying CDs at Tower? Band practice? These are the essentials? You were swamped? What else did you do today? Visit a petting zoo? Take glass-blowing lessons?"

"Hey baby, chill out. I met a friend of yours. That should soothe you—"

"I'm dating an imbecile and I should be soothed by this?"

A long pause, then, "Baby, I'm not an imbecile. You're very cool."

She turns away from the mirror. "Victor, you don't know how many times in a day I come within inches of slapping you. You just don't know."

"Whoa, baby. I don't think I want to. Makes me nervous." I smile, shivering.

The runner comes by the booth. "Chloe, your limo's here and Taylor needs you in about five minutes."

Chloe just nods. When it becomes clear that I've got nothing else to say she fills the silence by murmuring, "I just want to finish this thing," and since I don't know what thing she's really talking about I start to babble. "Baby, why are you even doing this? I thought it was strictly features for Chloe Byrnes. You turned down that MTV thing."

"You didn't want me to do that MTV thing, Victor."

"Yeah, but only when I found out what your per diem was."

"No. You said no when you found out that you didn't have one."

"Might as well face it," I say. "You're addicted to love."

"Chloe," Taylor calls from the egg. "We're ready. And please hurry. Mr. Benoit might forget his line again."

"I'll see you later, Victor." She slides out of the booth.

"Okay," I say simply. "Bye, baby."

"Oh Victor, before I forget."

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for the flowers."

She kisses me lightly, moves on.

"Yeah. Sure. Forget about it."

15

4:00. From my third-floor vantage the club hasn't been this bustling since its inception and tables are being set by handpicked busboys who just skateboarded in, waiters brandishing glasses and tablecloths and candles also set chairs around the tables and the carpets are being vacuumed by guys with shag haircuts and a couple of waitresses who arrived early are being photographed by shadowy clumps of people while dancers rehearse amid technicians and security teams and guest-list people and three gorgeous coat-check girls chew gum and flaunt their midriffs and pierced belly buttons and bars are being stocked and giant flower displays are in the process of being strategically lit and Matthew Sweet's "We're the Same" is blaring and the metal detectors sit in place at the entrance waiting to be entered and I'm taking it all in blankly, considering fleetingly what it all means and also that being semi-famous is in itself difficult but since it's so cold in the club it's hard to stay still so I rush up two flights to the offices more relieved than I should be that everything's finally falling into place.

"Where was Beau? I called him four times today," I ask JD the second I enter.

"Acting class, then an audition for the new big vampire movie," JD says.

"What's it called?" I throw a clump of invites on my desk. "Fagula?"

"Now he's interviewing DJs in the VIP room in case we don't get DJ X tonight," JD says, a fey warning.

"You know, JD, that outfit would look really good on a girl."

"Here, Victor," JD says, grimly handing me a fax.

I KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING is scrawled on the fax addressed to me that JD basically stuffs into my hands, looking vaguely panicked.

"What is this?" I ask, staring at the words.

"Seven of them have arrived since you left for lunch."

"Seven of them?" I ask. "What the fuck does it mean?"

"I think they're coming from the Paramount Hotel," JD says, finding another one. "Someone has made sure that the logo was erased on top of the fax sheets but Beau and I caught half the number on the second one and it matched."

"The Paramount?" I ask. "What does this mean?"

"Victor, I don't want to know what it means," JD says, shivering. "Just make the bad man go away."

"Jesus, it could apply to anything," I mutter. "So ultimately it's like meaningless." I crumple it up. "Would you please eat this? Chew carefully."

"Victor, you need to make an appearance in front of the DJs upstairs," JD says carefully.

"Do you think I'm actually being stalked?" I ask. "Wait—how cool."

"And the Details reporter is hanging out with the DJs and—"

I start to move out of the office, JD trailing behind.

"—here are more late RSVPs." JD hands me another fax as we head toward the VIP room.

"Dan Cortese?" I'm asking. "A brave man. He bungee jumps, he sky surfs, he's a Burger King spokesperson, but he needs a nose job and I want Dan Cortese unplugged."

"Richard Gere is coming, Victor," JD says, keeping up. "And Ethan Hawke, Bill Gates, Tupac Shakur, Billy Idol's brother Dilly, Ben Stiller and Martin Davis are also coming."

"Martin Davis?" I groan. "Jesus, let's just invite George the Pee Drinker and his good friend Woody the Dancing Amputee."

"So is Will Smith, Kevin Smith and, um, Sir Mix-a-Lot," JD says, ignoring me.

"Just apprise me of the crouton situation." I stop in front of the velvet curtains leading into the VIP room.

"The croutons are in excellent shape and we're all incredibly relieved," JD says, bowing.

"Don't mock me, JD," I warn. "I will not be mocked."

"Now wait—before you go in," JD says. "It's pretty much a catastrophe, so just, y'know, give your usual winning spiel and get the fuck out of there. They just want to know that you, er, exist." JD thinks about it. "On second thought—" He's about to hold me back.

"You've got to be sensitive to their needs, JD," I tell him. "They're not just DJs. They're music designers."

"Before you go in, Jackie Christie and Kris Spirit are also available."

"Lesbian DJs, man? I don't know. Is it happening? Is it cool?" I slap on a pair of wraparound green-tinted sunglasses before I slip into the VIP room, where a mix of seven guys and girls hang out in two booths, Beau sitting on a chair in front of them with a clipboard. The loony Details girl reporter, hovering dangerously nearby, waves and JD says "Hey, Beau" in a very professional way and then glumly introduces me. "Hey everybody—here's Victor Ward."

"My nom de guerre in clubland," I faux-gush.

"Victor," Beau says, standing. "This is Dollfish, Boomerang, Joopy, CC Fenton, Na Na and, um"—he checks his clipboard—"Senator Claiborne Pell."

"So-o-o," I ask, pointing at the guy with blond dreadlocks. "What do you play?"

"I play Ninjaman but also a lot of Chic and Thompson Twins, and man, this is all kind of borderline bogus."

"Beau, take note of that," I instruct. "How about you?" I ask, pointing at a girl wearing a harlequin outfit and dozens of love beads.

"Anita Sarko taught me everything I know and I also lived with Jonathan Peters," she says.

"You're warming this place up, bay-bee," I say.

"Victor," JD says, pointing at another DJ, hanging back in the dark. "This is Funkmeister Flex."

"Hey Funky." I lower my sunglasses for a wink. "Okay, guys, you got three turntables, a tape deck, a DAT player, two CD players and a reel- to-reel for delay effects to spin your respective magic. How does that sound?"

Muffled cool noises, mindless looks, more cigarettes lit.

"While you're spinning," I continue, pacing, "I want you all to sulk. I don't want to see anyone enjoying themselves. Got it?" I pause to light a cigarette. "There is techno, there is house, there is hard house, there's Belgian house, there's gabba house." I pause again, unsure of where I'm going with this, then decide to segue into "I don't want to be sweating in an actual warehouse. I want that sweating-in-a-warehouse feeling in a three-million-dollar nightclub with two VIP rooms and four full bars."

"It should be very chill," JD adds. "And don't forget ambient dub—we should have that too."

"I want instantaneous buzz," I say, pacing. "It's not a lot to ask. I just want you to make these people dance." I pause before adding, "And abortion-clinic violence does not interest me."

"Um . . ." Dollfish tentatively raises a hand.

"Dollfish," I say. "Please speak."

"Um, Victor, it's already four-fifteen," Dollfish says.

"Your point, sistah?" I ask.

"What time do you need one of us?" she asks.

"Beau—please take care of these questions," I say, bowing, before sweeping out of the room.

JD follows me as I head back up toward Damien's office.

"Really nice, Victor," JD says. "You inspired people, as usual."

"That's my job," I say. "Where's Damien?"

"Damien has instructed me not to have anyone interrupt him right now," JD says.

"I have got to complain to him about inviting Martin Davis," I say, heading back up the stairs. "Things are getting horrific."

"That's not a good idea, Victor." JD runs ahead of me. "He was very insistent that there be no interruptions."

"Turn the beat around, JD."

"Um . . . why?"

"Because I love to hear percussion."

"Don't do this now, Victor," JD pleads. "Damien wants to be left alone."

"But that's the way, uh-huh uh-huh, I like it, uh-huh uh-huh."

"Okay, okay," JD pants. "Just get that fabulous ass over to Fashion Café, nab DJ X and do not sing `Muskrat Love."'

"`Muskrat Suzy, Muskrat Sa-a-am . . . '"

"Victor, I'll do whatever you want."

"London, Paris, New York, Munich, everybody talk about-pop music." I tweak his nose and march toward Damien's chamber.

"Please, Victor, let's go the other way," JD says. "The better way."

"But that's the way, uh-huh uh-huh, I like it."

"He doesn't want to be bothered, Victor."

"Hey, I don't either, so get away from me, you little mo."

"Victor, he told me to hold all calls and—"

"Hey—" I stop, turning toward him, pulling my arm out of his grasp. "I'm Victor Ward and I'm opening this club and I am sure that I am—what's the word? oh yeah—exempt from Mr. Ross's rules."

"Victor—"

I don't even knock, just stride in and begin bitching.

"Damien, I know you didn't want to be bothered but have you checked the guest list for this thing? We have people like Martin Davis supposedly stopping in and I just think that we have to be careful about who the paparazzi are going to see and who they're not. . . ."

Damien's standing by the windows of his office, a large expanse of glass that overlooks Union Square Park, and he's wearing a polka-dot shirt and Havana-style jacket and he's pressed up against a girl wearing an Azzedine Alaïa wrap coat and a pair of Manolo Blahnik high heels, all covered in pink and turquoise, who immediately disengages from him and flops onto a green hop sofa.

Lauren Hynde has changed since I saw her outside Tower Records earlier this afternoon.

"And, um, I, um. . ." I trail off, then recover and say, "Damien—I love that moneyed beachcomber look on you, baby."

Damien looks down at himself, then back at me, smiles tightly as if nothing's really wrong, and in the overall context of things maybe it isn't, then he says, "Hey, I like that unconstructed boxy look you got going."

Stunned, I look down at my hip-hugger pants, the tight satin shirt, the long leather coat, forcing myself not to glance over at the green hop sofa and the girl lounging on it. A long, chilly silence none of us are able to fill floats around, acts cool, lives.

JD suddenly sticks his head in, the Details girl looking over his shoulder, both of them still stuck in the doorway, as if there's a dangerous invisible line existing that they are not allowed to cross.

"Damien, I'm sorry about the interruption," he says.

"It's cool, JD," Damien says, moving over to the door and closing it in their faces.

Damien moves past me and I'm concentrating on staring out the window at people in the park, squinting to make some of them come into focus, but they're too far off and anyway Damien enters my view, dominating it, and picks up a cigar on his desk and a book of matches from the Delano. The new issue of Vanity Fair sits by an Hermès lamp, along with various glossy Japanese magazines, CDs, a PowerBook, a bottle of Dom Pérignon 1983 in an ice bucket, two half-empty flutes, a dozen roses, which Lauren will not carry out of this room.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Damien snaps. I flinch. "Why in the fuck is Geena Davis on the cover of goddamn Vanity Fair? Does she have a movie out? No. Is she doing anything new? No. Jesus Christ, the world's falling apart and no one cares. How do these things happen?"

Not looking over at Lauren Hynde, I just shrug amiably. "Oh, you know how it happens: a shoe ad here, a VJ spot there, a bit part in 'Baywatch,' a bad indie film, then boom: Val Kilmer."

"Maybe she has cancer." Lauren shrugs. "Maybe she went on a big shopping expedition."

"Do you guys know each other?" Damien asks. "Lauren Hynde, Victor Ward."

"Hey, Lauren." I manage a ghastly little wave, which turns into a peace sign, then back into a ghastly little wave.

"Hi." She tries to smile without looking at me, concentrating on her fingernails.

"You two know each other?" Damien asks again, pressing.

"Oh yeah, sure," I say. "You're friends with Chloe."

"Yes," she says. "And you're . . ."

"I'm her . . . yeah, well . . ."

"You two knew each other at college, right?" Damien asks, still staring at us.

"But we haven't seen each other since then," Lauren says, and I'm wondering if Damien catches the harshness of her tone, which gratifies me.

"So this is like a little reunion?" Damien jokes. "Right?"

"Sort of," I say blankly.

Damien has now decided just to continue staring at me.

"Well, Damien, um, you know. . ." I stop, start again. "The DJ situation is—"

"I called Junior Vasquez today," Damien says, lighting the cigar. "But he has another party tonight."

"Another party?" I gasp. "Oh man, that is so low."

Lauren rolls her eyes, continues studying her nails.

Damien breaks the silence by asking, "Don't you have a meeting soon?"

"Right, right, I gotta get outta here," I say, moving back toward the door.

"Yeah, and I have a how-to-relax-in-cyberspace seminar in ten minutes ," Damien says. "Ricki Lake told me about it."

JD buzzes on the intercom. "Sorry, Damien—Alison on line three."

"In a minute, JD," Damien says.

"It's hard to tell her that," JD says before getting cut off.

"Victor," Damien says. "You wanna walk Lauren out?"

Lauren gives Damien an almost imperceptible glare and gets up too quickly from the sofa. In front of me she kisses Damien lightly on the lips and he touches the side of her face, each of them silently acknowledging the other, and I can't look away until Damien glances over at me.

I can't say anything until we're outside the club. I picked up my Vespa from the coat-check room and am now wheeling it across Union Square, Lauren listlessly moving next to me, the sound of the vacuums inside the club fading behind us. Klieg lights are being rolled across patches of lawn and a film crew is shooting something and extras seem to be wandering aimlessly all around the park. Guillaume Griffin and Jean Paul Gaultier and Patrick Robinson stroll past us. Hordes of Japanese schoolchildren Rollerblade toward the new Gap on Park Avenue and beautiful girls drift by wearing suede hats and ribbed cardigans and Irish jockey caps and there's confetti strewn all over the benches and I'm still looking down as my feet move slowly along the concrete, walking across large patches of ice so thick that the wheels on the Vespa can't even crack them and the bike still smells of the patchouli oil I rubbed into it last week, an impulsive move that seemed hip at the moment. I keep my eyes on the guys who pass Lauren by and a couple even seem to recognize her and squirrels skate over the patches of ice in the dim light and it's almost dark out but not yet.

"What's the story?" I finally ask.

"Where are you going?" Lauren hugs her wrap coat tighter around herself.

"Todd Oldham show," I sigh. "I'm in it."

"Modeling," she says. "A man's job."

"It's not as easy as it may look."

"Yeah, modeling's tough, Victor," she says. "The only thing you need to be is on time. Hard work."

"It is," I whine.

"It's a job where you need to know how to wear clothes?" she's asking. "It's a job where you need to know how to—now let me get this straight—walk?"

"Hey, all I did was learn how to make the most of my looks."

"What about your mind?"

"Right," I snicker. "Like in this world"—I'm gesturing—"my mind matters more than my abs. Oh boy, raise your hand if you believe that." Pause. "And I don't remember you majoring in Brain Surgery at Camden."

"You don't even remember me at Camden," she says. "I'd be surprised if you even remember what happened Monday."

Stuck, trying to catch her eyes, I say, "I modeled . . . and had a . . . sandwich." I sigh.

Silently we keep moving through the park.

"He looks like a goddamn schmuck," I finally mutter. "He gets his shorts tailored. Jesus, baby." I keep wheeling the Vespa along.

"Chloe deserves better than you, Victor," she says.

"What does that mean?"

"When's the last time it was just you and her?" she asks.

"Oh man—"

"No, seriously, Victor," she says. "Just you and her for a day without any of this bullshit around you?"

"We went to the MTV Movie Awards," I sigh. "Together."

"Oh god," she moans. "Why?"

"Hey, it's the twentysomething Oscars."

"Exactly."

A giant billboard of Chloe that went up last week above the Toys 'Я' Us on Park suddenly comes into sharp focus through the dead trees, her eyes glaring down at us, and Lauren sees it too and then I'm looking back at the building the club is in and the windows appear blackened in the cold light of late afternoon.

"I hate this angle," I mutter, pulling us out of the shot and steering Lauren across Park so we have some privacy on a street behind the Zeckendorf Towers. She lights a cigarette. I light one too.

"He was probably watching us," I say.

"So act natural," she says. "You don't know me anyway."

"I want to know you," I tell her. "Can we see each other tomorrow?"

"Aren't you going to be too busy basking in the glow of your success?"

"Yeah, but I want to share it with you," I say. "Lunch?"

"I can't," she says, taking another drag. "I have a luncheon at Chanel."

"What do you want, Lauren?" I'm asking. "Some yuppie guy to take you out to Le Cirque every night?"

"What's better?" she asks back. "Unable to pay your rent and depressed and trembling in the local Kentucky Fried Chicken?"

"Oh please. That's the only alternative?"

"You'd marry him if you could, Victor."

"Damien's totally not my type, baby."

"That's probably not true," she says softly.

"You want him to give you—what? Things? You want to discover the true meaning of suburban life? You think that goombah's even in the Social Register?"

"Damien is in the Social Register."

"Well, yeah, right, sure."

"There was a time, Victor, when I wanted you," she says, taking a drag on the cigarette. "There was actually a moment, Victor, when all I ever wanted was you." Pause. "I find it hard to believe myself, but well, there it is."

"Baby, you're cool," I say very softly. "Please—you're very cool."

"Oh stop it, Victor," she says. "You're so full of shit."

"What? You're still not into me?"

"I need a commitment, Victor," she says. "You're the last person on earth I'd ever ask for one from."

"Like you're gonna get it from Damien Nutchs Ross? Spare me, baby. Just spare me."

She finishes the cigarette and starts to move slowly up Park.

"How long have you been doing it with Alison Poole?"

"Hey, watch it." Almost instinctively I look for Duke or Digby, but they're not around. "Why do you think that shit's true?"

"Is it true?"

"If it is: how do you know?"

"Oh god, Victor, who doesn't?"

"What does that mean?"

"The only two books she owns are the Bible and The Andy Warhol Diaries, and the Bible was a gift," Lauren mutters. "Queen of the fucking pig people."

"I guess I'm not following."

"That doesn't sound like you, Victor." She smiles at me and then says, "It's nice to have someone responsible around—"

"You mean loaded. You mean rich. You mean moola."

"Maybe."

"What? You don't like me because maybe I'm hustling a little? You don't like me because I'm like affected by the recession?"

"Victor," she says, "if only you cared this much when you first met me."

I lean in, kiss her on the mouth hard, and I'm surprised that she lets me and after I pull away she presses her face up into mine, wanting the kiss to continue, her hand clutching mine, her fingers grasping my fingers. Finally I break it off and mumble that I've got to get uptown and in a very casual, hip way, without even really trying, I hop on the Vespa, kick it into gear and speed up Park without looking back, though if I had been I would've seen Lauren yawning while she waved for a cab.

14

A black Jeep, its top up, its windows tinted, wheels in behind me on 23rd Street and as I zoom through the Park Avenue tunnel whoever's driving flips on his brights and closes in, the Jeep's fender grazing the back of the Vespa's wheel guard.

I swerve onto the dividing line, oncoming traffic racing toward me while I bypass the row of cabs on my side, heading toward the wraparound at Grand Central. I accelerate up the ramp, zoom around the curve, swerving to miss a limo idling in front of the Grand Hyatt, and then I'm back on Park without any hassles until I hit 48th Street, where I look over my shoulder and spot the Jeep a block behind me.

The instant the light on 47th turns green the Jeep bounds out of its lane and charges forward.

When my light turns I race up to 51st, where the oncoming traffic forces me to wait to turn left.

I look over my shoulder down Park but I can't see the Jeep anywhere.

When I turn back around, it's idling next to me.

I shout out and immediately slam into an oncoming cab moving slowly down Park, almost falling off the bike, and noise is a blur, all I can really hear is my own panting, and when I lift the bike up I veer onto 51st ahead of the Jeep.

Fifty-first is backed up with major gridlock and I maneuver the Vespa onto the sidewalk but the Jeep doesn't care and careens right behind me, halfway on the street, its two right wheels riding the curb, and I'm yelling at people to get out of the way, the bike's wheels kicking up bursts of the confetti that litters the sidewalk in layers, businessmen lashing out at me with briefcases, cabdrivers shouting obscenities, blaring their horns at me, a domino effect.

The next light, at Fifth, is yellow. I rev up the Vespa and fly off the curb just as the traffic barreling down the avenue is about to slam into me, the sky dark and rolling behind it, the black Jeep stuck on the far side of the light.

Fashion Café is one block away and at Rockefeller and 51st I hop off the bike and run with it behind the mostly useless vinyl ropes that stand outside the doors keeping away no one because there's no one to keep away.

I'm gasping at Byana, the doorman this afternoon, to let me in.

"Did you see that?" I'm shouting. "Those assholes tried to kill me."

"What else is new?" Byana shrugs. "So now you know."

"Listen, I'm just gonna wheel this in." I motion toward the bike. "Just let me leave it right inside here for ten minutes."

"Victor," Byana says, "what about that interview you promised me with Brian McNally?"

"Just give me ten minutes, Byana," I pant, wheeling the bike inside.

The black Jeep idles at the corner and I duck down to peer through the glass doors of Fashion Cafe, watching as it slowly makes the turn and disappears.

Jasmine, the hostess, sighs when she sees me move through the giant lens that doubles as a hallway and enter the main room of the restaurant.

"Jasmine," I say, holding my hands up. "Just ten, baby."

"Oh Victor, come on," Jasmine says, standing behind the hostess podium, cell phone in hand.

"I'm just gonna leave the bike there." I point back at the Vespa leaning against a wall near coat check.

'We're empty," she relents. "Go on in."

The whole place is totally deserted. Someone hollowly whistles "The Sunny Side of the Street" behind me and when I turn around nobody's there and I realize it could be the last notes of the new Pearl Jam song over the sound system but as I'm waiting for a new song to start it becomes apparent that it sounded too clear, the whistling was too human and I shrug it off and move deeper inside Fashion Café, past someone vacuuming confetti off the floor and a couple of bartenders changing shifts and a waitress adding up tips at the Mademoiselle booth.

The only person at any of the tables is a youngish guy with a Caesar hair cut looking like a thirtyish Ben Arnold, wearing sunglasses and what looks like a black three-button Agnès B. suit, sitting in the Vogue booth behind the fake Arc de Triomphe that hogs the middle of the main dining room. DJ X is looking a little too sharp this afternoon, though pretty sleek nonetheless.

He looks up questioningly, lowering the sunglasses, and then I take a semi-arrogant turn around the room before moving over to the booth.

He takes the sunglasses off and says, "Hello." He offers his hand.

"Hey, where's the baggy pants?" I sigh, slipping into the booth, lightly slapping the hand around. "Where's the oversized zigzag-print T-shirt? Where's the new issue of Urb? Where's that groovy mop of bleached chopped hair?"

"I'm sorry." He cocks his head. "I'm sorry, but what?"

"So here I am," I say, spreading my arms wide. "I exist. So will you do it or not?"

"Do . . . what?" He puts down a purple menu in the shape of a Hasselblad camera.

"One of the DJs we interviewed today actually wanted to play 'Do the Bartman,"' I moan. "He said it was 'unavoidable.' He said it was his 'signature' song. Can you believe how fucked up the world is at this moment?"

The guy slowly reaches into his jacket and pulls out a card and hands it to me. I look at it, vaguely catch a name, F. Fred Palakon, and below that a phone number.

"Okay, baby," I say, breathing in. "Top fee for a DJ on a Thursday night in Manhattan is five hundred but since we're in a bind and according to all my gay friends you're the hippest thing since Astrolube and we need you badly we'll up it to five-forty."

"Thank you, Mr. Johnson—excuse me, Mr. Ward—but I'm not a DJ."

"I know, I know. I meant music designer."

"No, I'm afraid I'm not that either, Mr. Ward."

"Well, uh, like who are you then and why am I sitting across from you in a booth in Fashion Café?"

"I've been trying to get ahold of you for weeks," he says.

"You've been trying to get ahold of me?" I ask. "You've been trying to get ahold of me? My answering machine's not really happening this week, I guess." I pause. "Do you have any pot?"

Palakon scans the room, then looks slowly back at me. "No. I do not."

"So what's the story, morning glory?" I'm staring at the remake of La Femme Nikita on one of the video monitors hanging near the Arc de Triomphe. "You know, Palakon, you really got that whole very well dressed educated rich junkie thing going on, man. If you don't have it"—I shrug helplessly—"well, my man, you might as well be sucking up a soft-serve cone in an Idaho Dairy Queen in between painting barn silos, huh?"

Palakon just stares across the table at me. I offer him a cinnamon toothpick.

"Did you attend Camden College in New Hampshire during the years 82 to, ah, 1988?" Palakon asks gently.

Staring back at him, I blankly answer, "I took half a year off." Pause. "Actually four of them."

"Was the first one in the fall of 1985?" Palakon asks.

"Could've been." I shrug.

"Did you know a Jamie Fields while attending Camden College?"

I sigh, slap my hands on the table. "Listen, unless you have a photo—no dice, my man."

"Yes, Mr. Ward," Palakon says, reaching for a folder sitting next to him. "I happen to have photos."

Palakon offers me the folder. I don't take it. He coughs politely and sets it on the table in front of me. I open the folder.

The first set of shots are of a girl who looks like a cross between Patricia Hartman and Leilani Bishop and she's walking down a runway, the letters DKNY vaguely legible in the background, photos of her with Naomi Campbell, one with Niki Taylor, another of her drinking martinis with Liz Tilberis, various shots of her lounging on a couch in what looks like a studio at Industria, two of her walking a small dog in the West Village and one, which looks as if it was taken with a telephoto lens, of her moving along the commons at Camden, heading toward the rim of that lawn before it drops offinto the valley below, nicknamed End of the World by students suffering from vertigo.

The second set of shots abruptly place her in front of the Burlington Arcade in London, on Greek Street in Soho, in front of the American Airlines terminal at Heathrow. The third set I come across is a pictorial. I'm in with her and Michael Bergin and Markus Schenkenberg, where we're modeling '60's-inspired swimwear. I'm about to jump into a pool wearing white trousers and a Nautica tank top and she's looking at me darkly in the background; the three of us are fooling around with hula hoops; another has us dancing on a patio; in one I'm on a raft in the pool, spitting out an arc of water while she bends down at water's edge motioning for me to come closer. Since I do not remember this shoot at all, I start to close the folder, unable to look at any more photos. My first reaction is: that's not me.

"Does this help your memory?" Palakon asks.

"Whoa, pre-tattoo," I sigh, noticing my bicep curled around Michael's neck before I close the folder. "Jesus, that must've been the year everyone wore Levi's with ripped knees."

"It, um, may have been," Palakon says, sounding confused.

"Is this the girl who signed me up for Feminists for Animal Rights?" I ask. "FAR?"

"Um . . . um . . ." Palakon flips through his file. "She was a"—he squints at a sheet of paper—"a pot activist. Does that help?"

"Not enough, baby." I open the folder again. "Is this the girl I met at Spiros Niarchos's fortieth-birthday party?"

"No."

"How do you know?"

"We—I—know that you did not meet Jamie Fields at Spiros Niarchos's fortieth-birthday party." Palakon closes his eyes, squeezing the bridge of his nose. "Please, Mr. Ward."

I just stare at him. I decide to try another tactic. I lean in to Palakon, which causes him to lean toward me hopefully.

"I want techno techno techno," I stress, suddenly noticing a half-eaten Oriental chicken salad on a plate with Anna Wintour's face on it at the end of the table.

"I . . . didn't order that," Palakon says, startled, and then, looking at the plate, asks, "Who is that?"

"That's Anna Wintour."

"No." He cranes his neck. "It isn't."

I push some of the rice noodles and a tiny slice of mandarin away, revealing the entire face, sans sunglasses.

"Oh. You're right."

"Really happening place," I yawn.

A waitress walks by. I whistle for her to stop.

"Hey baby, I'll have an ice beer."

She nods. I watch her move away, thinking two words: not bad.

"Don't you have a runway show at six?" Palakon asks.

"I'm a model. I'm a lush. But it's cool. I'm cool." I suddenly realize something. "Wait—is this like an intervention or something?" I ask. "Because I've laid off the blow for—jeez, it must be weeks now."

"Mr. Ward," Palakon starts, his patience snapping. "Supposedly you dated this girl."

"I dated Ashley Fields?" I ask.

"Her name is Jamie Fields and at one point somewhere in your past yes, you did."

"I'm not interested in any of this, man," I point out. "I thought you were a DJ, man."

"Jamie Fields disappeared three weeks ago from the set of an independently financed movie that was being shot in London. The last sightings of Jamie Fields were at the Armani store on Sloane Street and L'Odeon on Regent Street." Palakon sighs, flips through his file. "She has not been heard from since she left the set."

"Maybe she didn't like the script." I shrug. "Maybe she felt they didn't develop her character well enough. It happens, man."

"How"—Palakon looks down at his file, confused—"would you know?"

"Proceed, O Cool One," I say casually.

"There are certain individuals who would be pleased if she was found," Palakon says. "There are certain individuals who would like her brought back to America."

"Like her agent and stuff?"

Palakon, at the instant I say this, immediately relaxes, almost as if he suddenly realizes something, and it makes him smile widely for the first time since I sat down and he says, "Yes. Her agent. Yes."

"Cool."

"There have been unconfirmed sightings in Bristol, but that was ten days ago," Palakon says. "Basically we have not been able to locate her."

"Baby?" I lean in again.

"Er, yes?" He leans in too.

'"You're pitching a concept nobody gets," I say quietly.

"I see."

"So she's an MTA?"

"Excuse me?"

"Model-turned-actress?"

"I suppose so."

Models are sashaying endlessly down runways on the giant screen above the Arc de Triomphe, even Chloe a couple of times.

"Did you ever see me on the cover of YouthQuake magazine?" I ask suspiciously.

"Er . . . yes." Palakon has trouble admitting this, for some reason.

"Cool." I pause. "Can I borrow two hundred dollars from you?"

"No."

"Cool. That's cool."

"This is superfluous," he mutters. "Totally superfluous."

"What does that mean? That I'm a jerk? That I'm some kind of asshole? That I'm a bakehead?"

"No, Mr. Ward," Palakon sighs. "It doesn't mean any of those things."

"Listen—you've got the wrong guy," I say. "I'm outta here." I stand up. "Spare me."

Palakon looks up at me and with a dreamy gaze says, "We're offering you three hundred thousand dollars if you find her."

There's no hesitation. I sit back down.

"Plus all traveling expenses," he adds.

"Why . . . me, dude?" I'm asking.

"She was in love with you, Mr. Ward," Palakon says loudly, startling me. "At least according to her journal entries for the year 1986."

"How . . . did you get those?" I ask.

"Her parents showed them to us."

"Oh man," I groan. "Why don't they come to me, then? What are you— their flunky? That was last decade, man."

"Basically," he says, reddening, "I'm simply here, Mr. Ward, to make an offer. Three hundred thousand dollars to find Jamie Fields and bring her back to the States. That's it. You seem to have meant a lot to this girl, whether you remember her or not. We think you might be able to . . . sway her."

After a while I ask, "How did you find me?"

Without pausing, Palakon says, "Your brother told me where to find you."

"I don't have a brother, man."

"I know," Palakon says. "Just testing. I trust you already."

I'm studying Palakon's nails—pink and smooth and clean. A busboy rolls a barrel of avocados into the kitchen. Loops of the fall shows repeat themselves endlessly.

"Hey," I say. "I still need a DJ."

"I can arrange that."

"How?"

"Actually I already have." He pulls out a cell phone and hands it to me. I just stare at it. "Why don't you call your associates at the club?"

"Uh . . . why?"

"Just do it, Mr. Ward. Please," Palakon says. "You don't have much time."

I flip the cell phone open, punch in my number at the club. JD answers.

"It's . . . me," I say, scared for some reason.

"Victor," JD says breathlessly. "Where are you?"

"Fashion Café."

"Get out of there."

"Why?"

"We've got Junior Vasquez tonight," he squeals.

"How?" I'm staring right into Palakon's face. "How . . . did that happen?"

"Junior's manager called Damien and said Junior wants to do it. We're set."

I hang up the phone and place it slowly, deliberately, on the table. I study Palakon's face very carefully, thinking a lot of things through, and then I ask him, "Can you do anything about getting me into Flatliners II?"

"We can talk about that later, Mr. Johnson."

"Also any role where I could play a callow American Eurail traveler."

"Will you consider this proposal?" Palakon asks.

"You haven't sent me any faxes, have you?"

"What faxes?" he asks, placing the folder of photos in a thin black briefcase. "What did they say?"

"'I know who you are and I know what you're doing.'"

"I already know who you are, Mr. Johnson, and I already know what you're doing," he says, snapping the briefcase shut.

"Whoa—what are you?" I ask, vaguely impressed. "A fucking watchdog?"

"You might say so," he sighs.

"Listen." I check my watch. "We'll, um, talk later, I guess. That's just too much moola to ignore, baby."

"I was hoping that you could give me an answer now."

I stare at him, lost. "You want me to go to London and find some girl I don't even remember dating?"

"So you've understood me," Palakon says, visibly relieved. "For a moment there I was worried that nothing was registering."

Suddenly contemplative, I stare into Palakon's face. "You look like the kind of guy who eats his own scabs," I murmur. "Did you know that? That you look like that kind of guy?"

"I've been called many things, Mr. Ward, but a scab-eater has not been among them."

"Hell, there's a first time for everything, buddy," I sigh, pushing myself away from the table, standing up. Palakon keeps staring at me, which makes me nervous and all tingly, creeps me out in a way I've never been creeped out before.

"Hey, look—it's Ricki Lake hugging a street urchin." I point at a video monitor behind Palakon's head.

Palakon turns his head to look.

"Ha-ha—made you look." I start walking away.

Palakon stands up. "Mr. Ward—"

"Hey," I call from across the room. "I've got your card."

"Mr. Ward, I—"

"I'll talk to you later, man. Peace."

The restaurant is still totally deserted. I can't even see Byana or Jasmine or the waitress I ordered the ice beer from anywhere. When I reach my bike someone's stuck a giant fax on one of the handlebars: I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING AND I KNOW WHAT YOU SAID. I grab it and run back into the soft light of the main room to show Palakon, but that room, too, is empty.

13

The show's at Bryant Park even though it was supposed to be in an abandoned synagogue on Norfolk Street but Todd freaked when he heard it was haunted by the ghosts of two feuding rabbis and a giant floating knish and as I roll up to the back entrance—42nd Street jammed with TV vans and satellite dishes and limousines and black sedans—photographers have already lined up, calling out my name as I flash my pass at the security guards. Behind barricades groups of teenagers shout out for Madonna even though she's not expected to show because she's too busy facing down her latest stalker in court but Guy from Maverick Records promised to appear and Elsa Klensch and a CNN camera crew's interviewing FIT students about their favorite designers and just an hour ago the runway was shortened because of the supposed overflow of five hundred and there was a desperate need to add room for the three hundred standees. Video monitors have been set up outside for the overflow's overflow. The show cost $350,000 to put on so everyone needs to see it.

Backstage preshow is a blur of clothes racks and taped instruction sheets and Polaroids of outfits and tables of wigs along with a lot of fierce airkissing and hundreds of cigarettes being lit and naked girls running around and basically no one really paying attention. A huge poster overlooking the scene screams WORK IT in giant black letters, the sound track from Kids plays at an excruciating decibel level. Rumors abound that two models are missing, either running late from another show or being abused by their scummy new boyfriends in a limo stalled in traffic somewhere on Lexington but no one really knows.

"The buzzword today is tardy, no?" Paull, the director of the show, bitches direly at me. "I don't think so."

"As if," I Alicia-Silverstone-in-Clueless back at him.

"Okay—five minutes to first looks," calls out Kevin, the producer from Hastings, Minnesota.

Todd runs around frantically, managing to somehow calm shaking, frightened, wiped-out models with just a kiss. I'm kissing a heavily eye- shadowed Chloe, who is surrounded by clothes hanging from racks and looking exactly like someone should look who has been shooting a Japanese soda-pop commercial for most of the day, but I tell her she looks like a "total doll" and she does. She complains about blisters and the brown paper pedicure sandals on her feet while Kevyn Aucoin, wearing a clear plastic tool belt and an orange ruffled Gaultier body shirt, powders her cleavage and glosses her lips. Orlando Pita has done the girls' hair and we're all definitely opting for semi-understatement here and pearly cream pink eye shadow, upper lids done, lower rims just about. Someone rubs a fake tattoo of Snappy the Shark on my left pectoral while I smoke a cigarette then eat a couple of Twizzlers that I wash down with a Snapple an assistant hands me while someone inspects my belly button, vaguely impressed, and someone else cam- cords the event-another modern moment completed.

Modeling Todd's new '70s-influenced punk/New Wave/Asia-meets-East-Village line are Kate Moss paired with Marky Mark, David Boals with Bernadette Peters, Jason Priestley with Anjanette, Adam Clayton with Naomi Campbell, Kyle MacLachlan with Linda Evangelista, Christian Slater with Christy Turlington, a recently slimmed-down Simon Le Bon with Yasmin Le Bon, Kirsty Hume with Donovan Leitch, plus a mix of new models—Shalom Harlow (paired with Baxter fucking Priestly), Stella Tennant, Amber Valletta-and some older ones including Chloe, Kristen McMenamy, Beverly Peele, Patricia Hartman, Eva Herzigova, along with the prerequisite male models: Scott Benoit, Rick Dean, Craig Palmer, Markus Schenkenberg, Nikitas , Tyson. There will be one hundred eighty costume changes. My first walk: black swimsuit and black T-shirt. Second walk: bare-chested. Third walk: pair of slacks and a tank top. Fourth walk: bikini briefs and a tank top. But everyone will probably be gazing at Chloe, so in a way it's all kind of mooty. Todd recites his preshow instructions: "Big smiles and be proud of who you are."

On the first walk Chloe and I head toward a multitude of long zoom lenses that go nuts when we approach. Under the TV floodlights models glide by each other, each foot swinging effortlessly around the other. Chloe's hips are swaying, her ass is twisting, a perfect pirouette at the runway's end, our stares unflinching, full of just the right kind of attitude. In the audience I'm able to spot Anna Wintour, Carrie Donovan, Holly Brubach, Catherine Deneuve, Faye Dunaway, Barry Diller, David Geffen, Ian Schrager, Peter Gallagher, Wim Wenders, Andre Leon Talley, Brad Pitt, Polly Mellon, Kal Ruttenstein, Katia Sassoon, Carré Otis, RuPaul, Fran Lebowitz, Winona Ryder (who doesn't applaud as we walk by), René Russo, Sylvester Stallone, Patrick McCarthy, Sharon Stone, James Truman, Fern Mallis. Music selections include Sonic Youth, Cypress Hill, Go-Go's, Stone Temple Pilots, Swing Out Sister, Dionne Warwick, Psychic TV and Wu-Tang Clan. After the final walk with Chloe I back off slightly and Todd grabs her by the waist and they both bow and then she pulls away and applauds him and I have to resist the impulse to stand back next to her and then everyone jumps onto the runway and follows everyone else backstage to Will Regan's after-show party.

Backstage: "Entertainment Tonight," MTV News, AJ Hammer from VH1, "The McLaughlin Group," "Fashion File" and dozens of other TV crews push through the tents, which are so clogged no one can really move, overhead microphones towering over the crowd on long poles. It's freezing backstage even with all the lights from the video crews, and huge clouds of secondhand smoke are billowing over the crowd. A long table is covered with white roses and Skyy martinis and bottles of Moët and shrimp and cheese straws and hot dogs and bowls of jumbo strawberries. Old B-52 records blare, followed by Happy Mondays and then Pet Shop Boys, and Boris Beynet and Mickey Hardt are dancing. Hairstylists, makeup artists, mid-level transvestites, department store presidents, florists, buyers from London or Asia or Europe, are all running around, being chased by Susan Sarandon's kids. Spike Lee shows up along with Julian Schnabel, Yasmeen Ghauri Nadege, LL Cool J, Isabella Rossellini and Richard Tyler.

I'm trying to meet the vice president of casting and talent at Sony but too many retailers and armies of associates and various editors with what seems like hundreds of cameras and microphones hunched over them keep pushing through the tents, relegating me to the boyfriends-and-male-models-sitting-around-slack-jawed corner, some of them already lacing up their Rollerblades, but then I'm introduced to Blaine Trump's cook, Deke Haylon, by David Arquette and Billy Baldwin. A small enclave consisting of Michael Gross, Linda Wachner, Douglas Keeve, Oribe and Jeanne Beker is talking about wanting to go to the club's opening tonight but everyone's weighing the consequences of skipping the Vogue dinner. I bum a Marlboro from Drew Barrymore.

Then Jason Kanner and David, the owner of Boss Model, both tell me they had a wild time hanging with me at Pravda the other night and I just shrug "whatever" and struggle over to Chloe's makeup table, passing Damien, who has a cigar in one hand and Alison Poole in the other, her sunglasses still on, angling for photo ops. I open Chloe's bag while she's being interviewed by Mike Wallace and search her datebook for Lauren Hynde's address, which I find and then take $150 and when Tabitha Soren asks me what I think about the upcoming elections I just offer the peace sign and say "Every day my confusion grows" and head for Chloe, who looks really sweaty, holding a champagne flute to her forehead, and I kiss her on the cheek and tell her I'll swing by her place at eight. I head for the exit where all the bodyguards are hanging out and pass someone's bichon frise sluggishly lifting its head and even though there are hundreds of photo ops to take advantage of it's just too jammed to make any of them. Someone mentions that Mica might be at Canyon Ranch, Todd's engulfed by groovy wellwishers and my feelings are basically: see, people aren't so bad.

12

I pull up to Lauren's apartment at the Silk Building right above Tower Records where I saw her earlier this afternoon and as I roll the Vespa up to the lobby the teenage doorman with the cool shirt picks up a phone hesitantly, nodding as Russell Simmons walks past me and out onto Fourth Street.

"Hey." I wave. "Damien to see Lauren Hynde."

"Er . . . Damien who?"

"Damien . . . Hirst."

Pause. "Damien Hirst?"

"But actually it's just Damien." Pause. "Lauren knows me as just Damien."

The doorman stares at me blankly. "Damien," I say, urging him on a little. "Just . . . Damien."

The doorman buzzes Lauren's apartment. "Damien's here?" I reach out to feel the collar of his shirt, wondering where he got it. "What is this?" I'm asking. "Geek chic?"

He waves my hand away, taking a karate stance. A pause, during which I just stare at him.

"Okay," the doorman says, hanging up the phone. "She says the door's open. Go on up."

"Can I leave the moped here, man?"

"It might not be here when you get back."

I pause. "Whoa, dude." I wheel the bike into an elevator. "Hakuna matata."

I check my nails, thinking about the Details reporter, the crouton situation, a conversation I had on a chairlift in a ski resort somewhere that was so inane I can't even remember what was said. The elevator doors slide open and I lean the bike in the hallway just outside Lauren's apartment. Inside: all white, an Eames folding screen, an Eames surfboard table, the roses I saw in Damien's office lie on a giant Saarinen pedestal surrounded by six tulip chairs. MTV with the sound off on a giant screen in the living room: replays of today's shows, Chloe on a runway, Chandra North, other models, ABBA's "Knowing Me, Knowing You" coming from somewhere.

Lauren walks out of her bedroom wearing a long white robe, a towel wrapped around her hair, and when she looks up to see me standing in the middle of the room asking "What's the story, baby?" she lets out a little yelp and falls back a few steps but then composes herself and just glares, eyes frozen, arms crossed, mouth set hard—a woman's stance I'm familiar with.

"Aren't you going to bother to hide your annoyance?" I finally ask. "Aren't you gonna like offer me a Snapple?"

"What are you doing here?"

"Don't freak."

She moves over to a desk piled high with fashion magazines, flicks on a crystal chandelier, rummages through a Prada handbag and lights a Marlboro Medium. "You've got to get out of here."

"Hey, can't we just talk for a minute, baby?" "Victor, leave," she warns impatiently and then scrunches her face up. "Talk?"

"I'll vacate only after we chat."

She considers this and, grimacing, forces herself to ask quickly, "Okay—how was the Oldham show?"

"Very major," I say, slouching around the room. "Chatted with Elsa Klensch. The usual."

"How is Elsa?" she asks, still glaring.

"Elsa and I are both Capricorns so we get along very nicely," I say. "Is it cold in here or is it just me?"

"And otherwise?" she asks, waiting.

"It was, er, very, very—oh yeah—important"

"Important?" Lauren asks semi-dubiously.

"Clothes are important, baby."

"They eventually clean furniture, Victor."

"Hey," I exclaim. "Lighten up, baby."

"Victor, you've got to get out of here."

"What were you doing?" I ask, moving around the room, taking the whole apartment in. "Why weren't you at the show?"

"I had a photo shoot promoting a terrible movie I'm in with Ben Chaplin and Rufus Sewell," she hisses, barely able to contain herself. "Then I took a bubble bath and read an article on the impossibility of real emotion on the Upper East Side in New York magazine." She stubs out the cigarette. "This was a draining conversation, yet one I'm glad we had. The door's over there in case you've forgotten."

She walks past me, down a hallway covered with a Berber-style woven carpet and Moroccan embroidered pillows stacked against the walls and then I'm in her bedroom, where I flop on the bed, leaning back on my elbows, my feet barely touching the floor, watching as Lauren stalks into the bathroom and begins toweling her hair dry. Behind her a poster for some indie film starring Steve Buscemi hangs above the toilet. She's so annoyed—but maybe in a fake way—that I have to say, "Oh come off it, I'm not so bad. I bet you hang out with guys who say things like 'But what if I want a new Maserati' all the time. I bet your life is filled with that." I stop, then add, "Too."

She picks up a half-empty glass of champagne by the sink, downs it.

"Hey," I say, pointing at the framed poster. "You were in that movie?"

"Unfortunately," she mutters. "Notice where it's hanging?"

She closes her eyes, touches her forehead.

"You just finished a new movie?" I ask softly.

"Yes." Suddenly she searches through an array of Estée Lauder jars, Lancôme products, picks up a L'Occitane butter massage balm that Chloe also uses, reads the ingredients, puts it down, finally gives up and just looks at herself in the mirror.

"What's it about?" I ask as if it matters. "It's kind of like Footloose," she says, then pauses and delicately whispers, "But set on Mars." She waits for my reaction.

I just stare at her from the bed. A longish silence. "That's so cool, baby."

"I wept on the set every day."

"Did you just break up with someone?"

"You—are—a—dunce."

"I'm waiting to see if I'm getting a role in Flatliners II," I mention casually, stretching.

"So we're in the same boat?" she asks. "Is that it?"

"Alison Poole told me you were doing pretty well."

She swigs from a nearby bottle of Evian. "Let's just say it's been lucratively tedious."

"Baby, I'm sensing that you're a star."

"Have you seen any of my movies?"

Pause. "Alison Poole told me you were doing—"

"Don't mention that cunt's name in this apartment," she screams, throwing a brush at me.

"Hey baby," I say, ducking. "Come here, baby, chill out."

"What?" she asks, irritably. "Come where?"

"Come here," I murmur, staring straight at her. "Come here," I say, patting the comforter.

She just stares at me lying on the bed, my shirt pulled up a little, showing off my lower abs, my legs slightly spread. Sometime during all of this my jacket came off.

"Victor?"

"Yeah?" I whisper.

"What does Chloe mean to you?"

"Come here," I whisper.

"Just because you're a gorgeous guy doesn't give you any more rights than . . . ," she falters, picks up: ". . . anyone else."

"I know, baby. It's cool." I sit up, gazing at her, never breaking eye contact. She moves toward me.

"Come on," I say. "That's it."

"What do you want, Victor?"

"I want you to come over here."

"What are you?" she asks, suddenly pulling back. "One of the fringe benefits of being a pretty girl?"

"Hey, I'm a stud muffin." I shrug. "Take a bite."

A flicker of a smile that tells you she will probably do anything. It's time to relax and play it differently. I reach into my jeans, lifting up my shirt a little more so that she can see the rest of my stomach and spreading my legs even wider so she can spot the bulge in my jeans. I offer her a Mentos.

"You really look like you work out," I say. "How do you keep in such buff shape, doll?"

"Not eating helps," she mutters.

"So you're refusing the Mentos?"

She smiles, barely, and nods.

"Are you coming to the club tonight?" I ask.

"To the Copa? The Copacabana? The hottest spot north of Havana?" she asks, clapping her hands together, eyes wide with fake delight.

"Hey, don't be dissing me, sistah."

"Where's Chloe now, Victor?" she asks, moving closer.

"Who was your last significant other, baby?"

"An ex-rogue trader I met at a screenplay-writing seminar, then Gavin Rossdale," she says. "Oh, and Adam Sandler for three days."

"Oh shit." I smack my forehead. "Now I know who you are. Now I remember."

She smiles a little, warming up. "Who are you dating now, Victor?" She pauses. "Besides Alison Poole?"

"Hey, I thought that name wasn't allowed in this apartment." "Only someone who owns a voodoo doll of her with five hundred pins stuck in its head and an extra-large Snickers bar strapped to its ass can," she says. "Now, who are you dating, Victor? Just say it. Just let me hear you say a name."

"Four that wanna own me, two that wanna stone me, one that says she's a friend of mine."

She smiles now, standing over the bed.

"Can I ask you something?" I ask.

"Can you?"

"You won't freak out?"

"It depends."

"Okay. Just promise me you'll take this within a certain context."

"What?"

"It's just that . . ." I stop, breathe in, laugh a little.

"It's just what?"

Now, playing it very seriously, I say, "It's just that I really want to stick my tongue up your pussy right now." I'm squeezing my dick through my jeans, staring straight at her. "I promise I won't do anything else. I just have this urge to lick your pussy right now." I pause, shyly. "Can I?"

She breathes in but doesn't move away.

"Are you going to complain about my behavior?" I ask.

"No," she says.

"Come here," I say.

Her eyes move over my body.

"Come here," I say again.

She just stands there, deciding what to do, unmoving.

"Is there a ... dilemma?" I'm asking.

"Victor," she sighs. "I can't."

"Why?" I ask. "Come here."

"Because it's like you're back from . . . outer space or something," she says. "And I don't know you."

"You're a little hard to unwrap too, baby."

She lets her robe drop.

"I think we should maybe end the conversation here," I say.

She kneels over me, pushing me back down on the bed, straddling my waist. I work one finger into her pussy, finally just easing it in, then two fingers, and her own fingers are rubbing her clit and I sit up and start licking and sucking on her breasts. I take my fingers out of her pussy and put them in my mouth, telling her how much I want to eat her pussy, and then I easily flip her onto her back and spread her legs wide apart and push them back so her whole pussy is spread out, available, and I start fingerfucking her while licking and sucking on her clit. I stick another finger in my mouth and slip it in between her legs, lower, until it touches her asshole, pressing lightly against it. I'm rock hard and I've pulled my pants down to my knees, my ass sticking up in the air, stroking myself off, my tongue way up her cunt, but then she pulls me up to her breasts, urging me to suck her nipples, and still stroking my prick I immediately move up and we start eating each other's mouths, sucking hungrily, and she's gripping my cock and rubbing it against her lower lips and then my cock's sliding up into her without any effort and she starts humping hard on it and I start meeting her thrusts and she's coming and then the intercom buzzes and the doorman's voice announces, "Lauren—Damien Ross is on his way up," and we both freeze.

"Oh shit" She stumbles up and grabs her robe off the floor and then she's running down the hallway, calling out, "Get dressed— Damien's here."

"Oh shit, baby." Panicked, I sit up, misjudge my place on the bed and fall off. I immediately pull my pants up and tuck my boner, aching and still stiff and wet, back into my Calvins.

"He's early," she groans, racing back into the room. "Shit!"

"Early for what?" I ask.

When I turn around she's at the closet, tearing through dresses and stacks of sweaters until finally she finds a black ladies' hat—cool-looking, with a tiny red flower embroidered on its side—and she studies it for a nanosecond before shoving it at me. "Here."

"What?" I'm asking. "This is your idea of a disguise?"

"Tell him you came by to pick it up for Chloe," she says. "And wipe your face off."

"Lauren, baby," I say. "Chill out."

"You shouldn't have come over." She starts moving down the hallway. "I'm an idiot for not throwing you out."

"I thought we were having a pretty good time," I say, following her.

"Well, that's not what we should've been doing," she yells. "That's not what we should've been doing," she whispers.

"Hey, don't say that."

"Let's just find a place to stand and call it a weak moment," she says. "You shouldn't have come over."

"Baby, you've established that—I get it, okay?" I follow her into the living room and find a casual place to position myself.

"No, stand here," Lauren says, tying the sash on her robe.

"As if we're—oh god—talking."

"Okay, what do you want to talk about?" I ask, calming down. "How hard you make my dick?"

"Just give me that damn hat back."

"Chloe would more likely wear a rotting log around her neck."

"She dates you, so what do you know?"

Damien walks in, holds up the cigar in his hand and says, "Hey baby, don't worry, it's not lit." They don't bother to kiss and in a really serene way Damien nods at me, gives a cute little wave and says, "Hey Victor."

"Hey Damien." I give a cute little wave back.

"You're everywhere today, huh?"

"Everywhere at once—that's me."

"Victor," Lauren says. "Tell Chloe she can return this to me anytime , okay, Victor?" She hands me back the hat.

"Yeah, sure, Lauren. Um, thanks." I look at the hat, turning it around in my hands, inspecting it. "Nice ... hat."

"What's that?" Damien asks.

"A hat," Lauren says.

"For who?" he asks.

"Chloe," Lauren and I say at the same time.

"Victor came by to pick it up for her," she finishes.

"When's she gonna wear that?" Damien asks. "What's the urgency?"

"Tonight," I say. "She's going to wear it tonight."

The three of us look at each other and something weird, something a little too intimate, passes between us, so we all look back at the hat.

"I can't look at this hat anymore," Lauren says. "I have to take a shower."

"Baby, wait," Damien says. "I'm in a real rush. We have to talk about something."

"I thought we already discussed what you want to discuss," she says tightly.

"Victor," Damien says, ushering Lauren out of the room. "We'll be right back."

"No problemo, guys."

I check my messages: Gavin Palone, Emmanuelle Béart, someone from Brillstein-Grey, someone else who I've decided looks good with his new goatee. It's freezing in the apartment. Everything suddenly seems slightly exhausting, vaguely demanding: the lifting of a spoon, the draining of a champagne flute, the glance that means you should go, even pretending to sleep. There's a room somewhere and in that room all the tables are empty but all of them are reserved. I check the time. Next to my watch is a stray piece of confetti I'm too tired to brush off and I could really use some chips and salsa since I'm famished. I know who you are and I know what you said.

At the bar Damien pours himself a shot of Patrón tequila and stares forlornly at his cigar. "She won't let me smoke in here." He pauses. "Well, not cigars." I'm aware for the first time that Damien's actually sort of really good-looking and in this light I can't even tell he has extensions; his hair looks thick and black and strong, and I'm touching my jaw, limply, to see if it feels as hollowed out as Damien's looks.

"It's cool," I say.

"Victor, what are you doing here?"

I hold up the hat.

"Yeah?" he asks. "Really?"

"Hey, I heard about Junior Vasquez DJ'ing tonight," I say, elegantly changing the subject.

Damien sighs tiredly. "Great. Isn't it?"

"How did that happen?"

"On the record?"

I nod.

"Some special-events impresario called," Damien says. "And—voilà."

"Can I ask you a question?" I start, feeling daring.

"What is it?"

"Where did you guys meet? I mean, you and Lauren."

He downs the tequila, gently places the glass back on the bar and frowns.

"I met her while we were both having dinner with the world’s richest people."

"Who?"

"We’re not allowed to give out these names."

"Oh."

"But you’d know them", Damien says. "You wouldn’t be surprised."

"Cool."

"Hint: they just spent the weekend at Neverland Ranch."

"Would you like a Mentos?" I ask.

"I need a favor, Victor."

"I’d do anything for you, man."

"Please don’t grovel."

"Sorry."

"Will you take Lauren with you to the opening tonight?" Damien asks. "She won’t come otherwise. Or if she does she’s threatening to come with fucking Skeet Ulrich or Olivier Martinez or Mickey Hardt or Daniel Day-fucking-Lewis."

"That would be cool", I consider. "I mean if we could get Daniel Day-Lewis—"

"Hey", he snaps. "Watch it."

"Oh yeah. My apologies."

Damien still has traces of this morning's mud mask next to his right ear. I reach out and flick a speck gently away.

"What's that?" he asks, flinching.

"Mud?" I guess.

He sighs. "It's shit, Victor. It's all shit."

I pause. "You had . . . shit on your face?" I ask. "Whoa, dude. Don't go there."

"No. My life, Victor. My whole fucking life. It's all shit."

"Why, guy?" I ask. "When did this massive dumping occur?"

"I have a girlfriend, Victor," Damien says, staring straight at me.

"Yeah—" I stop, confused. "Alison?"

"No. Alison's my fiancée. Lauren's the girlfriend."

"You guys are engaged?" I gasp involuntarily and when I try to hide the gasp, I gasp again. "Oh, I knew that, dude. Um, I knew that."

Damien's face hardens. "How did you know that?" he asks. "Nobody knows that."

Pause, then semi-effortlessly, in a tight voice while holding my breath, out comes: "Man oh man this town, guy."

Damien seems too depressed to not accept this. A long pause.

"You mean," I start, "like getting-married engaged?"

"That's usually what it means."

"So I've heard," I murmur.

"When did you and Lauren get so close?" he asks suddenly.

"I really don't know her at all, Damien," I say, squeezing the hat. "She's a friend of Chloe's."

"She said she went to school with you," he mutters. "She said you were—and don't take this the wrong way—a total asshole."

"I won't take that the wrong way."

"I can see that your self-esteem is pretty high today, huh?"

"It's funny—I thought she went to school with you, man." I chuckle lamely to myself, bowing a little, eyes half-closed. "Didn't you guys go to school together, m-man?"

"Victor, I've got a fucking migraine. Just, y'know, don't." He closes his eyes, reaches for the Patrón, stops himself. "So—will you do it? Will you take her?"

"I'm . . . taking Chloe."

"Just take Lauren with you guys." His beeper goes off. He checks it. "Shit. It's Alison. I've gotta go. Tell Lauren goodbye. And I'll see you at the club."

"Tonight's the night," I say.

"I think it'll work," he says. "I think it won't be a disaster."

"We'll see, man." Damien reaches out his hand. Instinctively I shake it. Then he's gone.

I'm standing in the living room, taking a long time to notice Lauren leaning in the doorway.

"I heard everything," she murmurs.

"That's probably more than I heard," I murmur back.

"Did you know they were engaged?"

"No," I say. "I didn't."

"I guess I'm coming with you guys tonight."

"I want you to," I say.

"I know you do."

"Lauren—"

"I really wouldn't worry about it," she says, brushing past me. "Damien thinks you're a fag anyway."

"An . . . important fag or an unimportant fag?"

"I don't think Damien bothers to differentiate."

"If I was a fag I think I'd probably be an important one."

"If we continue this conversation I think I'd probably be entering the Land of the Nitwits."

She turns off the TV and holds her face in her hands, looking like she doesn't know what to do. I don't know what to do either, either, so I check my watch again.

"Do you know when the last time I saw you was, Victor?" she asks, her back to me.

"At . . . Tower Records?"

"No. Before that."

"Where?" I ask. "For god's sake, don't say the Calvin Klein show or in Miami."

"It was in `The Sexiest Men in the Galaxy' issue of some crappy magazine," she says. "You were lying on top of an American flag and didn't have a shirt on and basically looked like an idiot."

I move toward her.

"How about before that?" "

In 1985," she says. "Years ago."

"Jesus, baby."

"When you told me you'd come pick me up. At Camden."

"Pick you up from where?"

"My dorm," she says. "It was December and there was snow and you were supposed to drive me back to New York."

"What happened?" I ask. "Did I?"

A long pause, during which the phone rings. Fabien Baron leaves a message. The phone rings again. George Wayne from London. Lauren just stares at my face, totally lost. I think about saying something but then don't bother.

"You should go."

"I am."

"Where?"

"Pick up my tux."

"Be careful."

"It's okay," I say. "I'm a sample size."

11

The last time Chloe and I were in L.A.: a rehab stint in a famously undisclosed location that only me and one of Chloe's publicists knew about. The various strings had been pulled and Chloe bypassed waiting lists, landing in a fairly posh cell: she had her own deluxe adobe-inspired bungalow with a daiquiri-blue-colored sunken living room, a patio with faux-'70s lounge chairs, a giant marble bathtub decorated with pink eels and dozens of mini-Jacuzzi jets, and there was an indoor pool and a fully equipped gym and an arts-and-crafts center but there wasn't a television set so I had to tape "All My Children" on the VCR in the hotel I was staying at in a nearby desert town, which was really the least I could do. Chloe had her own horse, named Raisin.

At first, whenever I visited, Chloe said that it was "all useless." She bitched about the "too hypernutritious" food served on trays in the cafeteria (even though the chef was from a chic Seattle hotel) and she bitched about emptying her own ashtrays and there had been four suicide attempts that week and someone who was in for Valium dependency had climbed out a window and escaped for three days before anyone on staff noticed until a nurse read about it in the Star on Monday . Chloe bitched about the constant rambling and the shoving matches between patients-various self-destructive moguls, kids who copped to sniffing butane in group therapy sessions, heads of studios who had been smoking half an ounce of freebase daily, people who hadn't been in touch with the real world since 1987. Steven Tyler hit on her at a vending machine, Gary Oldman invited her out to Malibu, Kelsey Grammer rolled on top of her "accidentally" in a stretching class, a biofeedback technician commented favorably on her legs.

"But baby, you have full phone privileges," I told her. "Cheer up."

"Kurt Cobain stayed here, Victor," she whispered, dazed, bleached out.

And then, as it always does, time began to run out. The tabloids were casting a shadow, her publicist warned, and "Hard Copy" was getting closer and Chloe's private phone number was being changed daily and I had to remind Pat Kingsley that Chloe's monthly retainer at PMK was $5,000 and couldn't they do better?

And so Chloe finally surrendered. We were left with Chloe's counselor telling us from behind a black granite desk, "Hey, we try to do everything we can—but we're not always successful," and then I was guiding Chloe out to a waiting gold Lexus I had rented and she was carrying a gift bag filled with mugs, T-shirts, key rings, all stamped with the words "One Day at a Time," and someone sitting cross-legged on a lawn was strumming "I Can See Clearly Now" on his guitar while the palm trees swayed ominously above us and Mexican children danced in a semicircle next to a giant blue fountain. That month cost $50,000, not including my suite in the nearby desert town.

10

The movies being shot all over SoHo tonight are backing up traffic everywhere and it's damp and cold as I exit Lauren's place and wheel the Vespa down the sidewalk on Fourth Street to the intersection at Broadway and the red light waiting for me there.

I don't spot the black Jeep until the light turns green (nothing moves, horns blare), and I pretend not to notice as I merge into the traffic heading downtown. In the handlebar mirror I watch the Jeep finally turn slowly behind me, making a right off Fourth, and I casually begin moving across lanes to the far side of Broadway, wheeling past dozens of cars, their headlights momentarily blinding me as I them, my breath coming in short, jagged gasps, the Jeep trapped in traffic behind me.

Passing Third Street, I'm keeping my eyes on Bleecker, where I immediately jam a right, zooming around oncoming cars, "... bumping over the curb onto the sidewalk, almost hitting a group of kids hanging under the awning of the Bleecker Court apartments, and then I make a hard left onto Mercer and take it down to Houston, where I make a wide right, and just when I think I'm clear I almost collide with the black Jeep waiting at the corner. But it's not the same black Jeep, because this one idling at Wooster and Houston has a license plate that reads SI-CO₂ and the one still stuck on Broadway has a license plate that reads SI-CO₁.

As I pass this new Jeep, it pulls away from the curb and surges after me.

At West Broadway I swing a wide left but with construction everywhere and all the movies being shot the street is virtually impassable.

Inching toward Prince Street, I notice vacantly that the first Jeep has somehow gotten in front of me and is now waiting at the end of the block.

In the mirror I notice that the second Jeep is three cars back.

I wheel the bike between two limousines parked at the curb, Space Hog blaring out of one of the sunroofs, and I hop off, take the keys and begin walking very slowly down West Broadway.

On the sidewalk, lights from the stores lining the street throw shadows of someone following me. Stopping suddenly, I whirl around, but no one's there, just this sort of semi-electric feeling that I'm unable to focus in on, and now someone, an extra, really passes by and says something unintelligible.

Behind me someone gets out of the black Jeep.

I spot Skeet Ulrich hanging out in front of the new martini bar, Babyland, and Skeet's signing autographs and wearing suede Pumas and just taped the Conan O'Brien show and finished an on-line press conference and maybe or maybe not has the lead in the new Sam Raimi movie and we compare tattoos and Skeet tells me he has never been more hungover than when we got wasted together at the Wilhelmina party in Telluride and I'm kicking at the confetti that surrounds us on the sidewalk and waving a fly away with a Guatemalan crucifix Simon Rex gave me for my twenty-fifth birthday.

"Yeah," Skeet's saying, lighting a cigar. "We were hanging with the new Thai-boxing champ."

"I am so lost, man."

"Caucasian dreadlocks?" Skeet says. "He had an Ecstasy factory hidden in his basement?"

"Rings a bell, man, but man I'm so wiped out," I say, looking over my shoulder. "Hey, what were we—I mean, what were you doing in Telluride?"

Skeet mentions a movie he was in, while I offer him a Mentos.

"Who were you in that movie, man?"

"I played the 'witty' corpse."

"The one who lived in the crypt?"

"No. The one who fucked the coven of witches."

"And taught them slang in the cauldron? Whoa."

"I'm a strict professional."

Someone walks by and takes our photo, calls Skeet "Johnny Depp," and then Kate Spade says hi and I still have Lauren's folded-up hat hanging out of my pocket and I touch it to remind myself of something. When I casually glance over my shoulder, the guy who got out of the Jeep on West Broadway is standing three doors down, staring into the windows of a new tanning salon/piercing parlor, and I can't help giggling.

"Johnny Depp, man?" Skeet mutters. "That’s cold."

"You look so much like Johnny Depp it's eerie, man."

"I was relieved to hear that Johnny Depp has won a hard-earned reputation for monogamy."

"He's slightly more famous than you, man," I have to point out. "So you should probably watch what you say."

"Famous for what?" Skeet bristles. "Turning down commercial scripts?"

"Man, I'm so wiped out."

"Still modeling, bro?" Skeet asks glumly.

"Sometimes I wonder how I keep from going under." I'm staring past Skeet at a guy who gets out of the jeep on Prince and slowly, vaguely, starts walking my way.

"Hey man, you've got it made," Skeet says, relighting the cigar. "You've got it made. You’re a pretty good model."

"Yeah? How come, Skeet?"

"Because you’ve got that semi-long thick hair thing going and those full lips and like a great physique."

The guy keeps moving up the block. Behind me, the other guy is now two stores away.

"Hey, thanks, man," I say, looking both ways. "Far out".

"It's cool," Skeet says. "Hey man, stop breathing so hard."

I urge Skeet to move with me over to the window of the Rizzoli bookstore. "Let's pretend we're browsing."

I look over my shoulder.

"What, man?" Skeet asks, confused. "Browsing for . . . books?"

The guy walking up from Prince is moving toward me faster.

The other guy's maybe two yards away.

I keep my eyes glued to the window at Rizzoli and I can barely hear Skeet say, "Hey man—what’re you doing?" Pause. "Is that browsing?"

Suddenly, just as Skeet starts to pose another question, I bolt across West Broadway and in that instant both guys start after me and when I hit Broome another guy dressed in black runs up the street toward me.

I cut back across West Broadway, almost getting hit by a limo, to the other side of the street, all three guys behind me. A fourth suddenly lunges out of the new Harry Cipriani restaurant and I cross West Broadway again and run up the stairs into Portico, a furniture store.

The four guys—young and good-looking, all wearing black—converge below me on the stairs of Portico, discussing something while I'm hiding behind a white-stained concrete armoire. Someone asks if I work here and I wave her away, hissing. One of the guys on the stairs lifts a walkie-talkie out of his black leather jacket, revealing a gun strapped in a holster, and then mumbles something into the walkie-talkie. He listens, turns to the other three guys, says something that causes them to nod and then casually opens the door and strides into Portico.

I race through the store toward the back exit, which leads onto Wooster Street.

All I hear is someone shouting "Hey!"

I stumble out, grabbing the railing as I leap onto the sidewalk.

I duck in and out of the traffic moving down Wooster and then walk-run up to Comme des Garçons to pick up my tuxedo.

I slam the door behind me and rush downstairs, where Carter's waiting.

"What the fuck's going on?" I shout. "Jesus Christ!"

"Victor, the alterations are done," Carter says. "Calm down. The tux is fabulous. Chloe took care of the bill this—"

"No—some assholes just chased me down West Broadway," I pant.

He pauses. "Are you bragging or complaining?"

"Spare me," I shout.

"Well, you're here, so I'm just saying your ninja skills are reaching their peak, dear Donatello."

Still panting, I throw the tux on and have Carter call CLS for a BMW. JD pages me while Carter circles, mincing and wincing, making sure—along with Missy, the seamstress—that the fit is perfect, both of them grabbing me in totally inappropriate places, and when I call JD back on my cell phone Beau answers and asks why I'm not at my place for the MTV "House of Style" interview, which I've totally forgotten about. Supposedly people are outside my apartment "throwing fits," and the chills I get hearing that phrase relax me somewhat.

Wearing the tux, I stuff my other clothes into a Comme des Garçons bag, and as I'm heading out of the store, peering up Wooster, then down Wooster—totally serpenting to the BMW waiting at the curb—Carter calls out, "Wait—you forgot this!" and shoves the black hat with the red rose back into my sweaty hands.

9

At my place the Details reporter leans against a column just hanging out, eyeing my every move while sucking on a raspberry-flavored narcotic lollipop, and there's also a ton of assistants milling around, including this really muscular girl with a clip-on nose ring who places gels the colors of kiwi and lavender and pomegranate over lights, and the cameraman says "Hey Victor" in a Jamaican patois and he's wearing a detachable ponytail because he didn't have one earlier when I saw him on Bond Street this afternoon and he's part Chippewa and the director of the segment, Mutt, is conferring with a VJ from MTV News and Mutt just kind of smiles at me and rubs the scars on his bicep caused from bust-ups on his Harley when I say, "Sorry, I’m late—I got lost."

"In your own . . . neighborhood?" he asks.

"The neighborhood is going through what is known as gent-rah-fah-cay-shun, so it's getting, um, complicated."

Mutt just kind of smiles at me and it's freezing in the apartment and I'm slouching in a big pile of white satin pillows that the crew brought and some Japanese guy is filming the interview that MTV will be filming and another Japanese guy is taking photographs of the video crew and I start throwing out names of bands they should play over the segment when it airs: Supergrass, Menswear, Offspring, Phish, Liz Phair ("Supernova"), maybe Pearl Jam or Rage Against the Machine or even Imperial Teen. I'm so lost that I don't even notice Mutt standing over me until he snaps his fingers twice right under my nose and I purse my lips and wink at him and wonder how cool I look in other people's eyes.

"I'm going to smoke a big Cohiba during the interview," I tell Mutt.

"You're going to look like a big asshole during the interview."

"Hey, don't forget who you're talking to."

"MTV policy. No smoking. Advertisers don't like it."

"Yet you sell Trent Reznor's hate to millions of unsuspecting youth. Tch-tch-tch."

"I want to get out of here, so let's start this thing."

"I was chased through SoHo earlier tonight."

"You're not that popular, Victor."

I buzz JD on my cell phone. "JD—find out who just chased me through SoHo." I click off and since I’m in my element I’m all smiles so I call out to the really muscular girl with the clip-on nose ring, "Hey pussycat, you could hail a cab with that ass."

"My name's David," he says. "Not Pussycat."

"Whoa—you got that whole boy/girl thing going down," I say, shivering.

"Who is this clown?" David asks the room.

"The same old story," Mutt sighs. "Nobody, up-and-comer, star, has-been. Not necessarily in that order."

Hey, keep the vibe alive," I say halfheartedly to nobody and then the makeup girl brushes my sideburns teasingly and I snarl "Don't touch those" and then, in a more vacant mode, "Can somebody get me a Snapple?" It's at this precise moment I finally notice the thing that's totally lacking in my apartment: Cindy. "Wait, wait a minute—where's Cindy?"

"Cindy's not conducting the interview," Mutt says. "She's just introducing it, in her own faux-inimitable style."

"That sucks pretty majorly if you ask me," I say, stunned.

"Does it?"

"I wouldn't be sitting here now if I knew this earlier."

"I doubt that."

"Where the fuck is she?"

"In Beirut, at the opening of a new Planet Hollywood."

"This is seriously demeaning."

"Tough shit, you big baby."

"That—gosh, Mutt—that really shocks me," I say, tears welling up. "That really shocks me that you would talk that way to me."

"Uh-huh." Mutt closes his eyes, holds a viewfinder up to his ear. "Okay."

"Wait a minute, so wait. . . ." I look over at the VJ on his cell phone underneath a giant Nan Goldin that Chloe gave me for a Christmas present. "That pederast over there's going to do it?" I'm asking, appalled. "That fag pederast?"

"Hey, what's your life? A G-rated movie?"

"I don't want to be interviewed by someone who is known in this business as a big fag pederast."

"You ever sleep with a guy, Victor?"

Remembering MTV's new all-consuming the-entire-world-is-full-of-homos mentality, I smirk and semi-nod and choke out "Maybe" and then compose myself to add, "But now I am a strict heterosexual." Long pause. "Devout, in fact."

"I'll alert the media."

"You are the media, Mutt," I exclaim. "You and the fag pederast VJ are the media."

"Ever sleep with a fifteen-year-old?" Mutt asks tiredly.

"Girl?" Pause. "Maybe."

"So?"

Trying to decipher what Mutt's getting at, I pause, squinting, then yelp out, "What the fuck does that mean, bozo? Are you trying to make a point? Because it's like, um, eluding me."

The VJ comes over, all boyish smiles and Versace.

"He dates Chloe Byrnes," Mutt says. "That's all you really need to know."

"Super," the VJ says. "Can we work it in?"

"You will work it in," I answer for Mutt. "And no questions about my father."

"You're shooting from the hip," the VJ says. "And I like it."

"And I'm camera ready."

MTV: "So how does it feel to be the It Boy of the moment?"

ME: "Fame has a price tag but reality's still a friend of mine."

MTV: "How do you think other people perceive you?"

ME: "I'm a bad boy. I'm a legend. But in reality everything's a big world party and there are no VIP rooms."

MTV (pause, confusion): "But aren't there three VIP rooms at your new club?"

ME: "Um . . . cut. Cut. Cut."

Everyone huddles together and I explain the game plan—that I want to discuss my personal relationships with Robert Downey, Jr., Jennifer Aniston, Matt Dillon, Madonna, Latouse LaTrek and Dodi Fayed—and people finally nod, satisfied. Life moves on with a few soft-lob inquiries and a chance to be fashionably rude, which I grab.

MTV: "How was it guest-starring on 'Beverly Hills 90210'?"

ME: "A classic cliché. Luke Perry looks like a little Nosferatu and Jason Priestley is a caterpillar."

MTV: "Do you see yourself as a symbol of a new generation in America?"

ME: "Well, I represent a pretty big pie-wedge of the new generation. I'm maybe a symbol." Pause. "An icon? No." Longer pause. "Not yet." Long pause. "Have I mentioned that I'm a Capricorn? Oh yeah, and I'm also for regaining the incentive to get this generation more involved in environmental issues."

MTV: "That's so cool."

ME: "No, you're so cool, dude."

MTV. "But what do you picture when you envision your generation?"

ME: "At its worst? Two hundred dead-ass kids dressed like extras from The Crow dancing to C+C Music Factory."

MTV: "And what do you think about this?"

ME (genuinely moved to be asked): "It stresses me out."

MTV: "But aren't the 1980s over? Don't you think opening a club like this is a throwback to an era most people want to forget? Don't kids want less opulence?"

ME: "Hey, this is a personal vision, man." Pause. "No matter how commercial it, y'know, feels. And"—finally realizing something—"I just want to give something back to the community." Pause. "I do it for the people." Pause. "Man."

MTV: "What are your thoughts on fashion?"

ME: "Fashion may be about insecurity but fashion is a good way to relieve tension."

MTV (pause): "Really?"

ME: "I'm completely absorbed by fashion. I seek it. I crave it. Seven days a week, twenty-eight hours a day. Did I mention that I'm a Capricorn ? Oh, and yeah—being the best at only one thing is counterproductive."

MTV (long pause, mild confusion): "You and Chloe Byrnes have been together how long now?"

ME: "Time is meaningless when it comes down to Chloe. She defies time, man. I hope she has a long-term career as an actress-slash-model. She's gorgeous and, er, is my . . . best friend."

(Sounds of Details reporter laughing.)

MTV. "There have been rumors that—"

ME: "Hey, maintaining a relationship is one of the difficulties of my job, babe."

MTV: "Where did you meet?"

ME: "At a pre-Grammy dinner."

MTV. "What did you say when you met?"

ME: "I said `Hey pussycat' and then that I was—and still am—an aspiring male model of the year."

MTV (after longish pause): "I can tell that you were in a, um, reflective mood that evening."

ME: "Hey, success is loving yourself, and anyone who doesn't think so can fuck off."

MTV: "How old are you?"

ME: "Twentysomething."

MTV: "No, really. Exact."

ME: "Twen-ty-something."

MTV: "What really pisses Victor Ward off?"

ME: "The fact that David Byrne named his new album after a 'tea from Sri Lanka that's sold in Britain.' I swear to God I heard that somewhere and it drove me nuts."

MTV (after polite laughter): "No. What really makes you mad? What really gets you angry?"

ME (long pause, thinking): "Well, recently, missing DJs, badly behaved bartenders, certain gossipy male models, the media's treatment of celebs . . . um . . ."

MTV: "We were thinking more along the lines of the war in Bosnia or the AIDS epidemic or domestic terrorism. How about the current political situation?"

ME (long pause, tiny voice): "Sloppy Rollerbladers? . . . The words 'dot com'? . . ."

MTV (long pause): "Anything else?"

ME (realizing something, relieved): "A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido."

MTV (long pause): "Did you . . . understand the question?"

ME: "What do you mean by that?"

MTV: "Aren’t there things going on—"

ME (pissed): "Maybe you’ve misunderstood my answers."

MTV: "Okay, forget it, um—"

ME: "Just move to the next question."

MTV: "Oh, okay—"

ME: "Shoot."

MTV (really long pause, then): "Have you ever wished that you could disappear from all this?"

8

Having no idea where my keys are I rush up to Chloe's realizing we're running late (also thinking, That's cool) and Lauren Hynde opens the door and we stare at each other blankly until I say "You look . . . wonderful tonight" and she suddenly looks like she's shot through with something like pain or maybe something else like maybe something by Versace and she opens the door wider so I can enter Chloe's apartment where grunged-out Baxter Priestly's sitting on the island in the kitchen with a mullet haircut and Oakley eyewear and he's rolling a joint laced with Xanax and the Sci-Fi Channel is on in the background with the sound turned down and swanky dreampop coming from two ten-thousand-dollar speakers plays over it and Chloe's standing next to Baxter eating a peppermint patty in the Todd Oldham dress and listening to Baxter say things like "I saw a bum with really great abs today" and thirteen bottles of mineral water are in various stages of emptiness on a marble countertop next to faxes sent that say I KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING and the dozen French white tulips that I supposedly sent Chloe are in a giant crystal vase that someone named Susan Sontag gave her.

"You possess repartee in abundance, my friend," I mutter, slapping Baxter's shoulder, startling him out of his inanity, leaning in to kiss Chloe in the same movement, waiting for someone to comment on how chic I look. Behind me Lauren Hynde lingers by the door and Chloe says something like "The limo's waiting on the street" and I nod okay and move sullenly into our bedroom, making sure Chloe catches the scowl I hurl at Baxter while he continues deseeding.

In my closet: white jeans, leather belts, leather bomber jacket, black cowboy boots, a couple of black wool crepe suits, a dozen white shirts, a black turtleneck, crumpled silk pajamas, a high-class porno movie I've watched hundreds of times starring people who look just like us. I'm pretending to go through stuff until Chloe walks in seconds after I've crouched down inspecting a pair of sandals I bought in Barcelona at a Banana Republic.

"What's the story?" I finally ask. "Where's my three-snap blazer?"

"About what?" she asks back, tightly.

"Wasn't he a head in a Mr. Jenkins ad, baby?"

"I told you he was coming."

"What do you think that antifashion look costs?" I ask. "Two thousand bucks? Three thousand bucks?"

"Forget about it, Victor." She's searching for a pair of sunglasses to wear.

"Far out."

"Victor," she starts. "What are you looking for?"

"My hair gel." I walk away from the closet and brush by her into the bathroom where I start gelling my hair, slicking it back. My beeper goes off and I ignore it. When it goes off again I wash my hands and find out it's Alison and I'm wondering how everything got so fucked up, but checking out my profile calms me down and I take a few deep breaths, complete a couple of seconds of some deep-sea visualization and then: ready to go.

"The tux looks nice," Chloe says, standing in the bathroom door, watching me. "Who was that?" Pause. "On the beeper?"

"Someone at the club." I just stand there and then I look at my watch and then move back to the bed where I rummage through the Comme des Garçons bag so the clothes can go to Chloe's dry cleaners. Absently I find the hat Lauren gave me, all scrunched up.

"What's that?" I hear Chloe ask.

"Oops, wrong hat," I say, tossing it back in the bag, a Bullwinkle impression that used to make her laugh but now she doesn’t get and she's not really looking at the hat but thinking other thoughts.

"I really want things to work out," Chloe says hesitantly. "Between us," she clarifies.

"I'm mad about you." I shrug. "You're mad about me." I shrug again.

"Don't do this, Victor."

"Do what?"

"I'm happy for you, Victor," she says, strained, just standing there in front of me, exhausted. "I'm really happy for you about tonight."

"You look faux-orgasmic, baby, and nibbling on that giant mint doesn't really help matters much." I brush past her again.

"Is this about Baxter?" she asks.

"That twerp? Spare me. It's freezing in this apartment."

"Hey Victor, look at me."

I stop, sigh, turn around.

"I don't want to apologize about how good my boyfriend is at irritating people, okay?"

I'm just staring at nothing or what I imagine is nothing until I'm finally moved to say, "As a general rule you shouldn't expect too much from people, darling," and then I kiss her on the cheek.

"I just had my makeup done, so you can't make me cry."

7

We'll slide down the surface of things . . . Old U2 on the stereo and gridlock jams the streets two blocks from the club and I'm not really hearing the things that are being said in the back of the limousine, just words—technobeat, slamming, moonscape, Semtex, nirvana, photogenic—and names of people I know—Jade Jagger, Iman, Andy Garcia, Patsy Kensit, the Goo-Goo Dolls, Galliano—and fleeting pieces of subjects I'm usually interested in—Doc Martens, Chapel Hill, the Kids in the Hall, alien abduction, trampolines—because right now I'm fidgeting with an unlit joint, looking up through the limo's sunroof, spacing on the sweeping patterns spotlights are making on the black buildings above and around us. Baxter and Lauren are sitting across from Chloe and me and I'm undergoing a slow-motion hidden freak-out, focusing on our excruciating progress toward the club while Chloe keeps trying to touch my hand, which I let her do for seconds at a time before I pull away to light one of Baxter's cigarettes or to rewind the U2 tape or to simply touch my forehead, specifically not looking in the direction of Lauren Hynde or how her legs are slightly spread or the way she's staring sadly back at her own reflection in the tinted windows. "We all live in a yellow limousine," Baxter sing-laughs. "A yellow limousine," Chloe sings too, giggling nervously, looking over at me for approval. I give it by nodding at Baxter, who's nodding back, and I'm shuddering. We'll slide down the surface of things . . .

Finally we're at the curb in front of the club and the first thing I hear is someone yelling "Action!" and U2's "Even Better Than the Real Thing" starts playing somewhere out of the sky as the driver opens the door and Baxter's checking his hair in Chloe's compact and I toss him my cummerbund. "Just wrap this around your head and look dreamy," I mutter. "You'll be okay."

"Victor," Chloe starts.

A wave of cold wind sweeps over the crowd standing behind the barricades in front of the club and causes the confetti strewn over the plush purple-and-green carpet leading up to the entrance to dance and swirl around the legs of cops guarding the place and behind the velvet ropes stand three cool Irish guys Damien hired, each of them holding a walkie-talkie and a separate guest list, and on either side of the velvet ropes are huge gangs of photographers and then the head publicist—smiling warmly until she sees Chloe's dress—asks us to wait where we are because Alison, wearing the same Todd Oldham dress Chloe has on, and Damien in a Gucci tuxedo are making their entrance and posing for the paparazzi, but people in the crowd have already noticed Chloe and shout out her name in high, garbled voices. Damien appears unusually tense, his jaw clenching and unclenching itself, and Lauren suddenly grabs my hand and I'm also holding Chloe's and when I look over at Chloe I notice she's holding Baxter's.

Damien turns around when he hears people shouting out Chloe's name and he nods at me, then smiles sadly at Lauren, who just mutters something indifferent, and when he sees Chloe's dress he does a hideous double take and tries valiantly to smile back a humongous gag and then he hurriedly ushers Alison into the club even though she's in the middle of taking major advantage of the photo ops, obviously pissed at the interruption, and thankfully Chloe's already too blinded by the flashing cameras to have noticed Alison's dress and I'm making a significant mental note about what should happen once inside: dim all the lights, sweet darling, or the night will be over with.

The photographers start shouting out all our names as we move toward the stairs leading up into the club and we linger for the appropriate amount of time—our faces masks, Chloe smiling wanly, Baxter smiling sullenly, Lauren genuinely smiling for the first time tonight, me sufficiently dazed—and above the door in giant '70s lettering is a warning from MTV ("This Event Is Being Videotaped. By Entering You Consent to the Cablecast and Other Exhibition of Your Name, Voice and Likeness") and then we're inside moving through the metal detectors and Chloe whispers something into my ear that I can't hear. We'll slide down the surface of things . . .

And U2's "Even Better Than the Real Thing" bursts out as we enter the main room of the club and someone calls out "Action!" again and there are already hundreds of people here and immediately Chloe is pounced on by a new group of photographers and then the camera crews are pushing their way toward her and I let go of her hand, allowing myself to be repositioned by the crowd over to one of the bars, actively ignoring celebs and fans, Lauren following close behind, and I nab the bartender's attention and order a glass of Veuve Clicquot for Lauren and a Glenlivet for myself and we just stand there while I'm admiring Patrick Woodroffe's lighting design and how it plays off all the floor-to-ceiling black velvet and Lauren's thinking I-don't-even-know-what as she downs the champagne and motions for another one and glancing over at her I finally have to say "Baby . . ." and then I lean in and nuzzle her cheek with my lips so briefly it wouldn't register to anyone except someone standing right behind me and I breathe in and close my eyes and when I open them I look to her for a reaction.

She's gripping the champagne flute so tightly her knuckles are white and I'm afraid it will shatter and she's glaring past me at someone behind my back and when I turn around I almost drop my glass but with my other hand hold the bottom to keep it steady.

Alison finishes a Stoli martini and asks the bartender for another without looking at him, waiting for a kiss from me.

I grin boyishly while composing myself and kiss her lightly on the cheek but she's staring back at Lauren when I do this as if I were invisible, which tonight, for maybe the first time in my life, I sort of wish I was. Harry Connick, Jr., Bruce Hulce and Patrick Kelly jostle by. I look away, then down.

"So-o-o . . . another Stoli?" I ask Alison.

"I am now entering the stolar system," Alison says, staring at Lauren. Casually, to block her view, I lean into the bar.

"Welcome to the state of relaxation," I say "jovially." "Er, enjoy your, um, stay."

"You asshole," Alison mutters, rolling her eyes, then grabs the drink from the bartender and downs it in one gulp. Coughing lightly, she lifts my arm and uses my jacket sleeve to wipe her mouth.

"Um . . . baby?" I start uncertainly.

"Thank you, Victor," she says, too politely.

"Um . . . you're welcome."

A tap on the shoulder and I turn from Alison and lean in toward Lauren, who very sweetly asks, "What do you two see in that bitch?"

"Let's redirect our conversation elsewhere, 'kay?"

"Spare me, you loser," Lauren giggles.

Luckily Ione Skye and Adam Horowitz push through the crowd toward me—an opening I seize upon.

"Hey! What's new, pussycat?" I smile, arms outstretched.

"Meow," Ione purrs, offering her cheek.

"Excuse me while I kiss the Skye," I say, taking it.

"Yuck," I hear Alison mutter behind me.

Camera flashes explode from the middle of the room like short bursts from a damaged strobe light and Ione and Adam slip away into the churning crowd and I've lit a cigarette and am generally just fumbling around looking for an ashtray while Lauren and Alison stare at each other with mutual loathing. Damien spots me and extracts himself from Penelope Ann Miller and as he moves closer and sees who I'm standing between he stops, almost tripping over this really cool midget somebody brought. Shocked, I mouth Come here.

He glances at Lauren mournfully but keeps blinking because of all the cameras flashing and then he's pushed forward by the crowd and now he's shaking my hand too formally, careful not to touch either girl, neither one responding to his presence anyway. Behind him Chloe and Baxter are answering questions in front of camera crews and Christy Turlington, John Woo, Sara Gilbert and Charles Barkley slide by.

"We need to talk," Damien says, leaning in toward me. "It's crucial."

"I, um, don't think that's such a good idea right . . . now, um, dude," I say with careful, deliberate phrasing.

"For once you may have a point." He tries to smile through a scowl while nodding at Lauren and Alison.

"I think I'm going to take Lauren over to the 'Entertainment Tonight' camera crew, okay?" I say.

"I have got to talk to you now, Victor," Damien growls.

Suddenly he reaches through the crowd and grabs Baxter, yanking him away from Chloe and the MTV camera crew, and then whispers something in Baxter's ear and U2 turns into the Dream Warriors' "My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style." Lauren and Alison have both lit cigarettes and are blowing smoke directly into each other's faces. Baxter's nodding intently and lets Damien sandwich him at the bar—in a style I wish was slightly more subtle—between Alison and Lauren, filling the empty space where I used to stand.

"Who's this?" Alison asks Damien dully.

"This is Baxter Priestly, baby," Damien says. "He wants to say hi and, um, wish you well."

"Yeah, yeah, you look really familiar," Alison says, totally bored, waving down the bartender, mouthing Another.

"He's in the new Darren Star show," I say. "And he's in the band Hey That's My Shoe."

"Who are you in the Darren Star show?" Alison asks, perking up.

"He's the Wacky Guy," Lauren says, staring at the bartender.

"Right, he's the Wacky Guy," I tell Alison as Damien pulls me away and uses my body as a barrier to push through the crowd and up the first flight of stairs to the deserted second floor, where he guides me toward a railing overlooking the party. We immediately light cigarettes. On this floor twenty tables have been set up for the dinner and really handsome busboys are lighting candles. On all the TV monitors: fashionable static.

"What in the fuck?" Damien inhales deeply on the cigarette.

"They're just, um, lighting the candles for dinner," I say, gesturing innocently at the busboys.

Damien smacks me lightly on the side of the head.

"Why in the fuck is Chloe's dress exactly like Alison's?"

"Damien, I know they look alike but in actuality—"

He pushes me toward the railing and points down. "What are you telling me, Victor?"

"It's a—it's supposedly a, um, very popular dress this . . . y'know . . ." I trail off.

Damien waits, wide-eyed. "Yes?"

". . . season?" I squeak out.

Damien runs a hand over his face and stares over the railing to make sure Alison and Chloe haven't seen each other yet, but Alison's flirting with Baxter and Chloe's answering questions about how high the fabulous factor is tonight while a line of TV crews jostle for the perfect angle and Damien's muttering "Why isn't she wearing that hat you picked up?" and I'm making excuses ("Oribe said it was a no-no") and he keeps asking "Why isn't she wearing the goddamn hat you picked up?" and Lauren's talking to fucking Chris O'Donnell and Damien guzzles down a large glass of Scotch then sets it on the railing with a shaky hand and I'm kind of like infused with panic and so tired.

"Damien, let's just try to have a cool—"

"I don't think I care anymore about that," he says.

"About what? About having a cool time?" I'm asking. "Don't say that." And then after a long patch of silence: "I really don't know how to respond to that." And then after a longer patch of silence: "You look really great tonight."

"About her," he says. "About Alison. I don't think I care about that."

I'm staring out over the crowd, my eyes involuntarily refocusing on the expressions Lauren's making while Chris O'Donnell chats her up, swigging from a bottle of Grolsch, Lauren seductively playing with the damp label, models everywhere. "Why . . . did you ever?" I hear myself ask, thinking, At least the press will be good.

Damien turns to me and I look away but meet his gaze when he says, "Whose money do you think this all is?"

"Pardon?" I ask, leaning away, my neck and forehead soaked with sweat.

"Who do you think is bankrolling all of this?" he sighs.

A long pause. "Various . . . orthodontists . . . from, um, Brentwood?" I ask, squinting, wiping my forehead. "Um, you. Aren't you like responsible for all of, um, this?"

"It's hers," he shouts. "It's all Alison's."

"But . . ." I stop, swaying.

Damien waits, looking at me.

"But . . . I don't know how to respond to . . . that."

"Haven't you been paying attention?" he snaps.

We'll slide down the surface of things . . .

"They found Mica," Damien's saying.

"Who?" I ask numbly, staring off.

"The police, Victor," he says. "They found Mica."

"Well, it's a little too late," I'm saying, trying to recover. "Right? Do not pass Go? Do not collect two million bucks, right? Junior's doing a great job and personally I always felt Mica was sort of—"

"Victor, she's dead," Damien says tiredly. "She was found in a Dumpster in Hell's Kitchen. She was beaten with a hammer and . . . Jesus Christ"—he breathes in, waves down into the crowd at Elizabeth Berkley and Craig Bierko, then brings his hand to his mouth—"eviscerated."

I'm taking this in with a large amount of extreme calm. "She OD'd?"

"No," Damien says very carefully. "She was eviscerated, Victor."

"Oh my god," I gasp, holding my head, and then, "What does eviscerated mean?"

"It means she didn't die a peaceful death."

"Well, yeah, but how do we know that?"

"She was strangled with her own intestines."

"Right, right."

"I hope you realize this conversation is off the record."

Below us I'm just looking down at Debi Mazar and Sophie B. Hawkins, who's with Ethan Hawke and Matthew Barney. Below us a photographer spots me and Damien standing by the railing and snaps three, four, eight shots in rapid succession before I can straighten my tie.

"No one knows this yet," Damien sighs, lighting another cigarette. "Let's keep it this way. Let's just keep everyone smiling until tomorrow."

"Yeah man, cool," I say, nodding. "I think I'm capable."

"And please try to keep Alison and Lauren away from each other," he says, walking away. "Let's make a concerted effort to try and pull that off, okay?"

"I think I'm capable, dude."

We'll slide down the surface of things . . .

Someone calls up to me and I move away from the railing and head downstairs back into the party and then Carmen, this Brazilian heiress, grabs my arm. Chris O'Donnell has moved away from Lauren, who spots me from across the room and just stares, and Baxter's still desperately keeping Alison occupied, even though it looks like she's losing interest, because she's rolling her eyes and making yapping gestures with her hands.

"Victor! I just see the film Beauty and the Beast and I love it! I—love—it!" Carmen's shrieking, eyes wide, flailing her arms around.

"Baby, you're cool," I say worriedly. "But it would be somewhat profitable if you chilled out a bit."

Alison pats Baxter on the side of his face and starts to move away from the bar toward the center of the room, where the camera flashes are most intense, and Chloe, predictably, is now standing with Chris O'Donnell.

"But Victor, you hear me?" Carmen's blocking my way. "I love it. I adore both the Beauty and the Beast. I love it. 'Be My Guest'—Oh my god!"

"Baby, be my guest. You need a drink." Distressed, I snap at Beau while pointing at Carmen. "Beau—get this chick a Caipirinha."

I push Carmen out of the way but it's too late. Tarsem and Vivienne Westwood grabbing each of my arms, I can only watch helplessly as Alison glides gaily, drunkenly toward Chloe, who's being interviewed with Chris O'Donnell for MTV, her expression becoming more confused the nearer she gets. Once she's behind Chloe, Alison sees the dress, immediately grabs a lighter out of Sean Penn's hand and, horror-struck, waves the flame so she can see Chloe better. Bijoux from MTV isn't looking at Chloe now and has lowered her microphone, and Chloe turns around, sees Alison, smiles, and in the middle of a tiny wave notices Alison's dress, grimaces, squints desperately, tries to take a closer look—Chris O'Donnell is pretending not to notice, which makes things better—and Bijoux leans in to ask a question and Chloe, dazed, turns hesitantly back to the camera to try and answer it, succeeds with a shrug.

Lauren is standing next to me holding a giant glass filled with what I can only hope is not vodka and without saying a word clamps her free hand onto my ass. Alison starts heading toward us, purposefully grabbing a martini off a passing tray and getting about half of it in her mouth.

"How did you get off the Xanax?" I'm murmuring to somebody quasi-famous.

"You mean get the Xanax."

"Yeah, yeah, get the Xanax, cool."

"I was withdrawing from marijuana addiction and so I went to my mom's doctor and—hey Victor, you're not listening to me—"

"Hey, don't freak, you're cool."

Alison walks up to me, licks my cheek and, standing incredibly close, places her mouth on mine, desperately trying to push her tongue in, but my teeth are clenched and I'm nodding to the guy who's talking about Xanax and shrugging my shoulders, trying to casually carry on my part of the conversation, when Alison finally gives up, pulls back, leaving my mouth and chin slathered with a combo of saliva and vodka, smiles meanly and then stands next to me so that I'm flanked by her and Lauren. I'm watching Chloe, her interview over, squinting into the crowd trying to find me, Chris O'Donnell still nursing his Grolsch. I look away.

Alison leans in and touches my ass, which I tense uselessly, causing her hand to creep across until it touches the back of Lauren's hand and freezes.

I'm asking Juliette Lewis how her new dalmatian, Seymour, is doing and Juliette says "So-so" and moves on.

I can feel Alison trying to push Lauren's hand off but Lauren's hand has clutched the left cheek and will not let go and I look at her nervously, spilling my drink on the cuff of the Comme des Garçons tuxedo, but she's talking to someone from the Nation of Islam and Traci Lords, her jaw set tightly, smiling and nodding, though Traci Lords senses something's wrong and tells me I looked great slouching in the seat next to Dennis Rodman at the Donna Karan show and leaves it at that.

A curvy blonde staggers over with a girl in an African headdress and this Indian dude, and the curvy blonde kisses me on the mouth and stares dreamily into my face until I have to clear my throat and nod at her friends.

"This is Yanni," the curvy blonde says, gesturing at the girl. "And this is Mudpie."

"Hey Mudpie. Yanni?" I ask the black girl. "Really? What does Yanni mean?"

"It means 'vagina,'" Yanni says in a very high voice, bowing.

"Hey honey," I say to Alison, nudging her. "This is Mudpie and Yanni. Yanni means 'vagina.'"

"Great," Alison says, touching her hair, really drunk. "That's really, really great." She hooks her arm through mine and starts pulling me away from Lauren, and Lauren, seeing Chloe approaching, lets go of my ass and finishes whatever she's drinking and Alison's tugging me away and I try to keep my footing to talk to Chloe, who grabs my other arm.

"Victor, what's Alison doing?" Chloe calls out. "Why is she wearing that dress?"

"I'm going to find that out now—"

"Victor, why didn't you want me to wear this dress tonight?" Chloe's asking me. "Where are you going, goddamnit?"

"Honey, I'm checking for specks," I tell her, shrugging helplessly, Alison pulling my shoulder out of its socket. "I've seen none and am gratefully, er, relieved but there might be some upstairs—"

"Victor, wait—" Chloe says, holding on to my other arm.

" 'Allo, my leetle fashion plate." Andre Leon Talley and the massive-titted Glorinda greet Chloe with impossibly wettish airkisses, causing Chloe to let go of my arm, which causes me to collide with Alison, who, unfazed, just drags me up the stairs.

We'll slide down the surface of things . . .

Alison slams the bathroom door, locks it, then moves over to the toilet and lifts up her skirt, pulls her stockings down and falls onto the white porcelain seat, muttering to herself.

"Baby, this is not a good idea," I'm saying, pacing back and forth in front of her. "Baby, this is definitely not a good idea."

"Oh my god," she's moaning. "That tuna has been giving me total shark-eye all night. Did she actually come with you, Victor? How in the fuck did she weasel in here? Did you see the fucking look she gave me when I first made eye contact?" Alison wipes herself and, still sitting there, immediately begins to rummage through a Prada handbag. "That bitch actually told Chris O'Donnell that I run a quote-unquote highly profitable fat-substitute emporium."

"I think your meeting could definitely be construed as an uh-oh moment."

"And if you keep ignoring me you're gonna have a whole night chock-full of them." In the Prada handbag Alison finds two vials and stands up, her voice brimming with acid. "Oh, but I forgot, you don't want to see me anymore. You want to break up. You need your space. You, Victor, are a major loser." She tries to compose herself, fails. "I think I'm gonna be sick. I'm gonna be sick all over you. How could you do this to me? And of all nights!" She's hissing to herself, unscrewing the top of one vial, doing two, three, six huge bumps of coke, then suddenly she stops, inspects the vial, then says "Wrong vial" and unscrews the other one and does four bumps from that. "You're not going to get away with this. You're not. Oh my god." She grabs her head. "I think I have sickle-cell anemia." Then, snapping her head up, she shrieks, "And why in the hell is your girlfriend—sorry, ex-girlfriend—wearing the same fucking dress I am?"

"Why?" I shout out. "Does it bother you?"

"Let's just say—" Alison starts coughing, her face crumples up and between huge sobs she wails, "it was mildly horrifying?" She immediately recovers, slaps my face, grabs my shoulders and screams, "You're not getting away with this!"

"With what?" I shout, grabbing a vial away from her, scooping out two huge capfuls for myself. "What am I not getting away with?"

Alison grabs the vial away from me and says, "No, that's, er, something else." She hands me the other vial.

Already wired, I'm not capable of stopping myself from kissing her on the nose, an involuntary reaction to whatever I just snorted.

"Oh hot," she sneers miserably. "How hot."

Unable to move my mouth, I gurgle, "I'm speechless too."

"That little conversation we had, Victor, upset me very much," Alison groans, fixing her hair, wiping her nose with Kleenex. She looks at my innocent face in the mirror, while I stand behind her doing a few more hits. "Oh please, Victor, don't do this—do not do this."

"When?" I'm shouting out. "What in the hell—"

"About ninety minutes ago? Stop acting like such an idiot. I know you're a guy who's not exactly on the ball, but please—even this could not get past you."

I hand back the vial, wiping my nose, and then say very quietly, hoping to reassure her, "Baby, I don't know what you're talking about."

"That's the problem, Victor," she screams. "You never know."

"Baby, baby—"

"Shut up, shut up, shut up," she screams, whirling away from her reflection. "You stand in front of me just ninety minutes ago outside my apartment and tell me it's all over—that you're in love with Lauren Hynde? That you're dumping Chloe for her? Remember that, you humongous idiot?"

"Wait a minute," I say, holding up my hands, both of which she smacks at. "You're really coked up and you need a tranquilizer and you need to get your facts straight—"

"Are you saying this didn't happen, Victor?" she shouts, grabbing at me.

Holding her back, I look intently into her face and offer, "I'm not saying it didn't happen, Alison." I breathe in. "I'm just saying that I wasn't conscious when this occurred and I guess I'm saying that you weren't conscious either."

"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 Veder 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 loin'?"

"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.

On the napkin is one word in giant garish purple letters: CUNT. Alison glances up briefly. She pushes Lauren's hand away.

Next to me, Chloe's watching too and she lets out a little whimper. Damien lurches from the table.

Lauren's laughing gaily, walking away from Tim Hutton in mid-sentence. And then he notices the napkin on Alison's back.

Before Damien can get to Alison she's already reaching behind her neck and she feels the napkin and pulls it off and slowly brings it in front of her face and her eyes go wide and she lets out a giant mama of a scream.

She spots Lauren making her way out of the dining room and hurls a glass at her, which misses Lauren and explodes against the wall.

Alison leaps up from her chair and races toward Lauren but Lauren's out the door, heading up the stairs to the private VIP lounge that hasn't opened yet.

Damien gets to Alison and while he wrestles with her she starts sobbing hysterically and the napkin falls out of Alison's hand and somebody takes it for a souvenir and then I'm standing and about to run after Lauren when Chloe grabs my arm.

"Where are you going?" she asks.

"I'm going to try to, um, deal with this," I say, gesturing helplessly at the door Lauren just breezed through.

"Victor—"

"What, baby?"

"Victor—" she says again.

"Honey, I'll be back in twenty"—l check my wrist but there's no watch and then I look back at her—"in like ten minutes."

"Victor—"

"Honey, she needs some air—"

"In the VIP lounge?" Chloe asks. "In the VIP lounge, Victor? She needs some air in the VIP lounge?"

"I'll be right back."

"Victor—"

"What?" I say, loosening my arm from her grasp.

"Victor—"

"Honey, we're having a fly time," I say, pulling awav. "'Talk to Baxter. Spin some damage control. That's what I'm gonna do."

"I don't care," she says, letting go. "I don't care if you come back," Chloe says. "I don't care anymore," she says. "Do you understand?" Dazed, I can only nod my head and rush out of the room.

"Victor—"

We'll slide down the surface of things . . . .

I find Lauren in the private VIP room on the top floor where earlier lay I interviewed prospective DJs but now it's empty except for the bartender setting up behind a stainless-steel slab. Holly just points over a banquette, where Lauren's feet are sticking out from beneath a tablecloth, one high heel on, one high heel hanging off a totally delectable foot, and a just-opened bottle of Stoli Cristall is standing on the table and when a hand reaches up the bottle disappears, then reappears noticeably less full. The high heel falls off.

I wave my hand, dismissing Holly, and he shrugs and slouches out id I close the doors behind him as mellow music plays somewhere around us, maybe the Cranberries singing "Linger," and I'm passing the antique pool table in the center of the room, running my hands along the soft green felt, moving over to the booth where Lauren's splayed out. Except for candies and the very dim, very hip lighting and the chilly hues coming from the steel bar it's almost pitch black in the lounge, but then one of the spotlights outside on the street beams through the windows, scanning the room before disappearing again, only to beam back moments later, again bathing everything around us in a harsh, metallic glow.

"My psychiatrist wears a tiara," Lauren says from beneath the patterned tablecloth. "Her name is Dr. Egan and she wears a giant diamond tiara."

I'm silent for a minute before I can say, "That's . . . so depressing, baby."

Lauren struggles up out of the booth and, standing unsteadily, grabs he edge of the table for support, shakes her head to clear it and then lances slowly, gracelessly with herself across the raw concrete floor over to the pool table and I reach out and touch the strand of pearls I suddenly notice draped around her neck, trying to move with her.

"What are you doing, Victor?" she asks, dreamily. "Dancing? Is that dancing?"

"Squirming. It's called squirming, baby."

"Oh, don't squirm, lovebutton," she pouts.

"I think there's quite a bit to squirm about tonight," I say tiredly. "In fact, I think lovebutton's squirming is totally justified."

"Oh god, Victor," she groans, still swaying to the music. "You were such a cute, sweet, normal guy when I first met you." A long pause. "You were so sweet."

After a minute without moving, I clear my throat. "Um, baby, I don't think I was ever any of those things." A realization. "Except for, um, cute, of course."

She stops dancing, considers this, then admits, "That's probably the first honest thing you've probably ever said."

And then I ask, "Did you mean what you said down there?" Pause, darkness again. "I mean about us." Pause. "And all that," I add.

I hand her the bottle of vodka. She takes it, starts to drink, stops, puts it on the pool table. The rays from the spotlight cross her face, illuminating it for seconds, her eyes closed, tearing, her head slightly turned; a hand is brought up to her mouth, and it's curled.

"What?" I carefully move the icy bottle of vodka off the pool table so it won't leave a damp ring on the felt. "Is this all too bummerish?"

She nods slowly and then moves her face next to mine and the sounds of horns from limos in gridlock and the relentless roar of the massive crowd outside is carried up in waves to where we're stumbling around clutching each other and I'm muttering "Dump Damien, baby" into her ear as she pushes me away when she feels how hard I am.

"It's not that simple," she says, her back to me.

"Hey babe, I get it," I say casually. "Lust never sleeps, right?"

"No, Victor." She clears her throat, walks slowly around the pool table. I follow her. "It's not that. It's just not that simple."

"You have . . . star quality, baby," I'm saying, grasping, sending out a vibe.

She suddenly rushes up to me and holds on, shivering.

"Don't you think everything happens for a reason?" she's asking, breathing hard, moving against me. "Don't you think everything happens for a reason, Victor?" And then, "Victor, I'm so scared. I'm so scared for you."

"The time to hesitate is through," I whisper into her hair, pushing against her, easing her slowly against the pool table. "Okay, baby?" I'm whispering while kissing her mouth, my hands reaching down below her waist, and she's whispering back "Don't" and I'm reaching underneath her dress, unable to stop myself, not caring who sees us, who walks in through the door, immediately getting lost in the moment, my fingers grazing her panties, one finger slipping inside, touching first the hair there and then a crease and beyond that an entrance that I can actually feel dampen as my finger runs over it gently at first and then more insistently until another slips inside and Lauren's pressing herself against me, her mouth locked onto mine, but I push her back because I want to see the expression her face is making and now she's sitting on the pool table with both legs spread and raised up, her hands on the back of my neck grasping me closer, her mouth on my mouth again, making desperate noises that I'm making too but suddenly she pulls back, looking past me, and when I turn around, visible in the darkness of the VIP room is a silhouette of a man standing backlit against the windows that look over Union Square.