Glamorama

3

Chloe actually lets the doorman buzz me up after the director tells Ashton to give me the rundown so that I'm prepared for the following scene, which is basically that when Chloe skipped the shows she was supposed to do today it caused some kind of horrible ruckus and since "Hard Copy," "Inside Edition," "A Current Affair," "Entertainment Tonight" and "Nightline" have been calling all morning Chloe is heading to Canyon Ranch for two weeks with Baxter Priestly and in the elevator the director, getting fed up with me, hisses "Look anguished" and I try to but I'm just vaguely unhappy and when I glance uncertainly at the camera it rises up as the elevator doors open and follows me into the darkness of the hallway that leads to Chloe's loft.

Inside the apartment it's freezing, even with all the lights burning; the windows are covered with huge sheets of ice, and frost layers the kitchen cabinets and the giant glass coffee table, the floor slippery in places. The phone keeps ringing, competing with the TV in Chloe's bedroom, and as I walk in to turn it down a promo for this afternoon's "Patty Winters Show" appears, the host cradling a severely deformed four-year-old while Bette Midler sings "From a Distance" on the sound track, and then it's back to a soap opera, where a character says to another character, "That wasn't nice," and I move slowly over to the bathroom but Chloe isn't in there. The tub is full of suds and there are two empty containers of Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby ice cream sitting by the sink, next to the retainer Chloe uses to bleach her teeth, which sits beside a large hand mirror that with a twinge of panic I'm about to inspect, but then Chloe walks into the bedroom and I whirl around and the phone keeps ringing.

She's on a cellular, listening to someone, and looking remarkably composed, she glances over at me as she walks toward the bed, on top of which sits the set of Gucci luggage Tom Ford sent for her birthday, and she says something into the phone I can't hear, then clicks off, and I reconsider opening my arms and saying "Ta-da!" but instead ask "Who was that?" and then, when there isn't an answer, "That's not your phone."

"It's Baxter's," she says. "He gave it to me." Pause. "Since I can't answer my own.

"Baby," I start. "Are you okay?" I'm thinking about the hand mirror in the bathroom behind me, wondering if there was anything on it. "You're not back into . . ." I let my voice drift off.

It takes longer than I want for her to realize what I'm referring to and she says "No, Victor" but she flinches when she says this so I'm not too relieved.

The phone keeps ringing and Chloe keeps lifting sweaters out of her armoire and placing them in the suitcases oh the bed and she's moving slowly, deliberately, nodding to herself, every move seemingly mapped out, only slightly distracted by my presence, but then she sighs and stops moving. She looks over at where I'm shivering, slumped in a giant white chair. In a mirror across the room I can make out my reflection and my face isn't as bruised as I feared. Chloe's asking "Why?" and the phone keeps ringing, a reminder.

"Why . . . what?"

"Just why, Victor."

"Baby," I say, holding my hands up, about to offer an explanation. "You're a, um, great source of . . . inspiration to, um, me."

"I want some kind of answer from you," she says calmly. "Don't free-associate. Just tell me why."

I take this in. "I can dig that, baby."

"If there was just some speck of feeling in you, Victor," she sighs, padding over to the closet.

"Oh please, baby—"

"Why, Victor?" she asks again.

"Baby, I—"

"I'm not going to cry. I cried all night," she says. "I'm not going to cry while you're here so just be straight with me."

"Baby, I need . . . I need . . ." I sigh, then start again. "Baby, see, this thing—"

"You never really answer a question directly if you can help it, do you?"

"Um . . ." I look up at her, confused. "What was the question?"

She's carefully placing T-shirts and panties on one side of the largest suitcase. She wraps the cord of a hair dryer around its handle, then places it in a smaller bag. "It's taken me a long time to like myself, Victor," she says, gliding by me. "I'm not going to let you change that."

"But you don't like yourself," I mutter wearily, shaking my head. "Not really," and then, "Baby, please stop moving around."

Baxter's cell phone rings. She picks it up off the bed and listens to whoever's calling, studying me until she finally turns away and says, "Yeah, okay. . . . I'll be ready. . . . I just need to meet with someone. . . . Okay, thanks. . . . Hugh Grant and Elizabeth Hurley? ... Okay, great. . . . No, I'll be fine. . . . Yeah, he's here right now. . . . No, no, no—it's okay, don't. I'm fine, really. . . . I'll see you then."

She clicks off, moves directly into the bathroom and closes the door. The toilet flushes twice and then she walks back into the bedroom. I want to ask her who was on the phone so she'll have to say his name but I already know who it was and in the end I don't really want to hear her say his name.

"So can you tell me why, Victor?" she asks. "Why did all this happen?"

"Because, baby . . ." I swallow. "This is hard. . . . Come on, baby. . . . This is . . . all I know? . . . It's all . . . I am?" I say, hoping it's the right way of explaining.

"Everything you know is wrong," she says. "Everything you know is wrong."

"Oh man," I sigh.

"Just look at your life, Victor. You're going nowhere. You know girls named Vagina—"

"Hey, her name was Yanni, baby. It just means vagina."

"How many thousands of nightclub booths can you hang out in?" she's asking. "You just sit around Bowery Bar or Pravda or Indochine complaining about how much it sucks." She pauses, waiting. "And you do this four times a week?"

"I'm . . . pretty much exhausted, baby."

"No, you're sick," she says, staring deeply into the luggage, contemplating the arrangement of clothes, hands on hips. "You're soul sick, Victor."

"Baby, it's just"—I raise my head to look at her, confused—"some bad coke, but whatever." I sigh, giving up. "It's irrelevant."

"Everything is irrelevant with you."

"I'm . . . baffled. Why is everyone dissing me?"

"You spend your life trying to impress people you're impressed with, that's why."

"Why should I try to impress people who don't impress me, baby?"

"Because the people you want to impress aren't worth it?"

After taking this in, I clear my throat. "My . . . emotions at the moment are a little, um, mixed up," I whimper.

"You cater to people who don't really give a damn."

"Oh come on, baby," I exclaim. "They just pretend not to give a damn—"

She cuts me off with a look of total disbelief. "Do you actually listen to yourself?"

I shrug, miserably.

"I know it's difficult for you to adjust to reality, but isn't it time?" She zips one bag up, contemplates another.

"Baby, baby, this has been like the most difficult week, I think, of my life and"—I breathe in—"this has been so scary, so—"

"Oh, this tiny little world of yours," she says, waving me away.

"No, no, really, I'm sick of it, I'm sick of it all too, baby," I say, panting, sitting up in the giant white chair. "I'm sick of being friendly with like people who either hate me or or or are planning to kill me or—"

"Did you actually think you'd get away with this?" she asks, cutting me off.

I sigh, then pause for the appropriate amount of time before asking, "Why not?"

She stares at me, expressionless.

"People get away with more," I mutter.

"That's because everyone's smarter than you," she says. "That's because everything you know is wrong and everyone is smarter than you.

"Baby, that picture . . . I don't know what it was but that didn't happen, that never happened—"

"What never happened?" she asks, suddenly interested.

"What that photo showed," I say.

"You didn't have sex with or attempt to have sex with or kiss Lauren Hynde?" she asks. "Is that what you're saying?"

I consider this, reword what she asked me, then blurt out, "I'm saying that—"

She moves away from me. "Maybe you come to life when I'm not around—who knows?"

I'm gesturing with my hands, trying to make some kind of point, attempting to form even a sentence. "Didn't you like, um, didn't Von talk to Lauren? Didn't she explain?" I ask hopefully.

"No," she says. "I like Lauren. I just never want to see her again." Chloe checks her watch, mumbles an inaudible curse.

I lift myself up from the chair and move toward the bathroom where Chloe's placing jars filled with creams and oils and powders into another Gucci bag. I notice that the hand mirror I saw by the sink isn't there anymore. A razor blade and a small transparent straw sit by a bottle of perfume and I am not imagining this.

"What?" she asks suddenly, turning around. "Why are you still here?"

"Because . . ." I smile sadly. "You're . . . my ideal mate?"

"A mirror's your ideal mate."

"Maybe . . . " I start, haltingly. "Maybe if you didn't expect so much from me you might not be so ... disappointed," I finally admit, and then, watching her reflection in the mirror, "Don't cry."

"I'm not crying," she says, surprised. "I'm yawning."

And back down in the lobby, on my way outside, dazed, shuffling across the marble floor, I bump into Tristan, an ex-model who deals drugs, chatting with Ashton, and Tristan's magnetic in a gorgeous kind of way and though I'm totally absent right now I'm able to instinctively shake his hand, make the prerequisite small talk, avoid the obvious (Buddy Seagull's column, the stains on my shirt, the bruise above my eyebrow), trade compliments about our hair, recommend one or two cool foreign movies, a new band from Nevada ("a really happening state," Tristan assures me), and then we move on.

Outside, on the steps leading down to the sidewalk, I turn around, and through the lobby doors I see Tristan getting into the elevator and I want to ask him who he's going to see and then maybe buy a couple of grams but instead I start panicking because I make a connection and Tristan spots me staring at him and he gives a little wave just as the elevator doors close and a horrible vision breaks open in front of me of Chloe in an ambulance, another detox center in the desert somewhere, another series of failed suicide attempts followed up with a successful one and I cry out and try to run back into the lobby but crew members are struggling to hold me back and I'm crying out "No but why but why this wasn't in the script" until I collapse and a technician props me up on the steps where I'm still freaking out and shouting "But you don't understand you don't understand" and suddenly the director kneels beside me and gently tells the two crew members to let go, that it's okay, shhh.

I'm shaking so hard the director has to hold my face in his hands, steadying it, before he can talk to me.

Basically summing things up, he asks, "Do you really want to go back up there?"

I'm shaking so hard I can't answer him.

"Do you really want to go back up there?" he asks again. "Is this something your character would do?"

I'm inhaling and exhaling so hard I can't catch my breath and slowly people start moving away from me.

After what seems like hours I finally stand up when the urge to go back up to the apartment recedes (not all that unexpectedly, really) and over the sounds of construction and traffic I'm still hearing sleigh bells and someone from wardrobe is brushing off my jacket as I head down the steps leading to the sidewalk and the black sedan waiting for me at the curb which will take me back to my apartment where my viewpoint of this project will be, if not exactly clarified, then at least placed in some kind of perspective.

2

Outside my apartment building the Details reporter is playing hopscotch, wearing a citrus-colored catsuit, a white leather jacket, platform sneakers, braids held in place by plastic barrettes, and she's dialing a number on a cell phone, her fingernails half-covered with chipped brown polish. I trudge by her without saying a word, gingerly stepping over the remains of my crushed and mangled Vespa, which lies crumpled by the trash lining the curb, a cigarette dangling from my lips, my sunglasses on.

"Hey, we were supposed to meet this morning," she says, clicking off the cell phone.

I don't say anything, just busy myself looking for my keys.

"They canceled the piece on you anyway," she says.

"And you came to tell me in person?" I find the keys. "How intimidating."

"Don't you care?" she asks.

I sigh, take my sunglasses off. "What did you think of me?"

She cocks her head "meaningfully," studies the sidewalk, squinting, then looks back up at my face.

"I thought you were well-nigh inscrutable," she says, mimicking a British accent.

"Well, I thought you were a hodgepodge of banality," I say, mimicking a British accent too.

I open the door and step inside. She shrugs, skips away.

An eviction notice is pinned to my door and when I pull it off I glance over at the director and roll my eyes, groaning "Oh puhleeeze." The instant I walk into my apartment the phone starts ringing and I flop down on my beanbag chair, exhausted, and pick it up, yawning. "It's Victor—whass up?"

"This is Palakon calling," a voice says crisply.

"Palakon, I really can't talk now, so—"

"There's a manila envelope on your kitchen table," Palakon says, cutting me off. "Open it."

I stare into the kitchen from where I'm slouching and spot the envelope on the table.

"Okay," I say, "I'm opening the vanilla envelope, dude."

"No, Mr. Johnson," Palakon says, annoyed. "Please get up and go to the kitchen."

"Whoa," I say, impressed.

"I want you to take that envelope with you when you go to London to find Jamie Fields," Palakon says. "You have a reservation in a first-class cabin on the QE2. It leaves New York at four o'clock this afternoon. Your tickets are in that manila envelope on your kitchen table, along with—"

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," I say. "Hold on."

"Yes?" Palakon asks politely.

I pause for a long time, mulling things over before blurting out, "You could've at least put me on the fucking Concorde."

"You have a reservation in a first-class cabin on the QE2," Palakon says again, undeterred. "It leaves New York at four o'clock this afternoon. A car will be by to pick you up at one-thirty. Your tickets are in the manila envelope along with ten thousand dollars in cash for, er, expenses—"

"Need receipts?"

"That won't be necessary, Mr. Johnson."

"Cool."

"I will contact you on the ship. And don't forget to take the manila envelope with you. It's crucial."

"Why?" I ask.

"Because everything you need is in it."

"It's a nice manila envelope," I say finally.

"Thank you."

"How did you know I'd be able to go today, Palakon?"

"I read the News," he says. "I figured it out."

"Palakon—"

"Oh yes," Palakon says, befor hanging up. "Take the hat with you too."

I pause before asking, "What hat?"

"You know which one."

He hangs up.

1

"You have potential," Jamie said.

We were lounging in a Camden flashback in the commons, splitting a Molson, our sunglasses on, our eyes glazed over, a peeled orange sitting untouched between us on a table, and we'd already read our horoscopes and I was wearing a T-shirt that read IF YOU'RE NOT WASTED THE DAY is and waiting for my laundry to dry and she was alternating between playing with a pencil and smelling a Thai orchid a secret admirer had sent her and heavy-metal pop—Whitesnake or Glass Tiger—was playing from somewhere we couldn't figure out and it was driving us nuts and her dealer wasn't coming up until next Tuesday so we were fairly unresponsive toward certain events and in the sky things were getting dark.

We were lounging in the commons and we'd been talking about how shallow everyone was, ticking off the affairs we'd had with all these shallow people, and then Jamie saw someone she hated or she'd fucked (they usually existed in the same realm) and she leaned in and kissed me even before I could say "What's the story?" The guy, Mitchell, passed by. It wasn't enough that she and I had been screwing each other for the last two weeks or so; she needed people to know that we had.

"Man, did I get torqued last night," I yawned, stretching. "Totally excellent," she said.

"Get a haircut," I muttered to someone with a ponytail shuffling by, and Jamie eyed a maintenance worker trimming a rosebush and licked her lips naughtily.

She had long fingernails always painted with white polish and liked starting sentences with the words "Contrary to popular opinion . . ." She hated baseball caps on men but would wear one if she thought her hair looked bad or if she was too hungover to wash it. Her other pet peeves about men ranged along the predictable lines of: fake rap talk, urine or semen stains on jockey shorts (a type of underwear she abhorred), razor stubble, giving hickeys, carrying books around ("Camden isn't Yale for god's sake," she'd moan). Condoms didn't necessarily mean anything to her but she knew every guy on campus who had herpes (through some kind of deal with a lesbian nurse in Health Services who was in love with her), so it was all moot. Shakespeare "irritated" her.

I would tell her "I'm not looking for a serious relationship" and she would stare back at me like I was insane, as if I wasn't capable of one in the first place. I would tell her "Your roommate's really pretty," before moving on to long monologues about ex-girlfriends, every cheerleader I ever fucked, a cousin I fingerbanged at a party in Virginia Beach, or I'd brag about how much money my family had and I always inflated the amount because sometimes this was the only way to get her attention, even though she knew who my dad was, having seen him on CNN. She forgave me for a lot of flaws because I was "simply too goodlooking."

At first she was so inexpressive and indifferent that I wanted to know more about her. I envied that blankness—it was the opposite of helplessness or damage or craving or suffering or shame. But she was never really happy and already, in a matter of days, she had reached a stage in our relationship when she no longer really cared about me or any thoughts or ideas I might have had. I'd try and fuck her into some kind of conciousness, desperate to make her come, and I'd fuck her so hard that she'd be drenched with sweat and red-faced and yelling out, the two of us on the mattress on the floor next to piles of books she'd stolen from the library and a couple of porno magazines I bought that we both whacked off over and her accountant was always calling or her therapist was always calling or her cousin lost in Ibiza was always calling and we'd have sad conversations about how much she hated her mother and wished she was dead like my mother was but I listened "intently" and took it easy on Jamie since I knew her first boyfriend died in a car accident coming back from cheating on her at a ski lodge in Brattleboro. "But he was so weird I really don't even want to talk about it," she'd finally say after an hour, after seventy minutes, sometimes eighty.

A limousine rolled up next to one of the dorms and a group of freshmen were sunning themselves beneath a darkening sky on a mattress pulled out from Booth House, which bordered the commons. A keg was being tapped and people drifted toward it and the wind tossing leaves around the lawn made Jamie and me look at how leafless the trees were. MTV was on the large-screen television set that hung above the fireplace and a VJ introduced a video but the sound was off and then there was static and people were really just hanging out, waiting for lunch, for another class to begin. Someone sat down next to us and started taping our conversation and someone else was explaining to someone behind me how a camcorder worked. Jamie was gazing at the giant NO PHOTOGRAPHY poster pinned on an unnecessary column in the middle of the room and I had just noticed a naked mannequin lying on its side that someone had discarded on the stairs leading tip to the dining halls.

"Do you have any cash?" I asked her.

"Don't overdo it, baby," she warned, lowering her sunglasses, scanning the room.

I took my sunglasses off and checked my reflection in the lenses.

She snapped her fingers at me. "Hey, why don't you just start chewing with your mouth open. Why don't you just start licking your fingers after meals."

"I don't intend to take you anywhere nice," I told her.

"Nice butt," she murmured, ogling a Brazilian guy she hadn't fucked yet but would a week later as he passed by, bouncing a soccer ball on his knee as he crossed the length of the room while eating a bagel, his jeans perfectly ripped, wearing a tank top with a gym logo on it.

I agreed, teasingly.

"You fag," she yawned, taking the last swallow of Molson.

"He wears socks with sandals," I pointed out. "He still wears his high-school graduation ring."

"You, too, are in dire need of a maturity alert, my friend," she said.

"I don't wear Members Only jackets."

"Contrary to popular opinion this is not enough to not make you evil," she said.

"Evil?" I faux-gasped. "Black light posters are in. Bongos are in.

"Pervert," she said gleefully. "You have potential."

Sean Bateman, whom she had fucked, joined us, offered a distracted smile, nodding even though no one had said anything that required a nod. He wondered aloud if any of us had pot, mentioned something about Rupert getting arrested in Albany late last night or early this morning. Sean pulled a beer out of the 'acket he had just taken off and handed it to Jamie, who opened it with her teeth. I noticed how nice Bateman's forearms were and someone was sadly strumming Led Zeppelin—I think it was "Thank You"—on a guitar and any light that had been streaming through the window we were all sitting next to disappeared and Sean whispered in my ear, "All the boys think she's a spy. . . ."

I nodded and managed to smile.

Jamie was eyeing me carefully.

"What?" I asked, confused.

"You're easy to unfold," she said to me in front of Sean.

"What's the story, baby?" I was asking, worried, blank-faced.

"You have potential," Jamie said, grinning. "You definitely have potential."

0

The camera slowly pans around my apartment, Smashing Pumpkins' "Stumbleine" pours out over the sound track: a vintage industrial fan, an empty fish tank, dried flowers, a candelabra, a bicycle, a kitchen custom-made from several kinds of stone, a glass-door refrigerator, a food processor unwashed and stained with the grain and pulp from a health shake, a set of martini glasses. In the bathroom there's a poster of Diana Rigg in "The Avengers" and candles from Agnès b. and in the bedroom there's a down comforter lying on a futon that was handcarved in a Japanese forest and the original poster for La Dolce Vita that Chloe gave me for a birthday hangs over it and in the closet in that bedroom is a black Paul Smith suit, a black turtleneck, jeans and white shirts, vests, an open-weave pullover sweater, a pair of brightly colored Hush Puppies, black desert boots. On my desk: free drink tickets, a Cohiba cigar still in its container, a Clash CD—Sandinista!—unopened, a check to Save the Rainforest returned because of insufficient funds, last year's Social Register, a Baggie of psilocybin mushrooms, a half-empty Snapple, a roll of Mentos, an ad ripped from a magazine of Tyson promoting a new lip balm and the dragon tattoo etched on his bicep has a Chinese inscription on it that translated means "don't trust anyone" and an old fax machine and falling out of the fax machine at this moment is a slip of fax paper that I pick up and read.

On it:

nie Marais, Christopher Lambert, Tommy Lee, Lauren Hutton, Claire

Danes, Patty Hearst, Richard Grieco, Pino Luongo, Steffi Graf

Michael J. Fox, Billy Crudup, Marc Jacobs, Marc Audibet, the

Butthole Surfers, George Clinton, Henry Rollins, Nike, Kim Deal,

Beavis and Butt-head, Anita Hill, Jeff Koons, Nicole Kidman, Howard

Stem, Jim Shaw, Mark Romanek, Stussy, Whit Stillman, Isabella

Rossellini, Christian Francis Roth, Vanessa Williams, Larry Clark, Rob

Morrow, Robin Wright, Jennifer Connelly, RuPaul, Chelsea Clinton,

Penelope Spheeris, Glenn Close, Mandie Erickson, Mark Kostabi,

Rend Russo, Yasmen, Robert Rodriguez, Dr. Dre, Craig Kallman,

Rosie Perez, Campion Platt, lane Pratt, Natasha Richardson, Scott

Wolf, Yohji Yamamoto, L7, Donna Tartt, Spike Jonze, Sara Gilbert,

Sam Bayer, Margaret Cho, Steve Albini, Kevin Smith, Jim Rome, Rick

Rubin, Gary Panter, Mark Morris, Betsey Johnson, Angela Janklow,

Shannen Doherty, Molly Ringwald, 0. J. Simpson, Michael DeLuca,

Laura Dern, Rene Chun, the Brady Bunch, Toni Braxton,

Shabba Ranks, the Miller Sisters, Jim Carrey, Robin Givens, Bruno

Beuilacqua di Santangelo, Huckleberry Finn, Bill Murr

I'm about to reread it for a fourth time, wiping tears off my face, when I hear someone outside the front door and a key slipped into the lock, unlocking the door, and the door opens and someone playing the building's superintendent—"a young gorgeous guy"—peers in and spots me, wasted on the beanbag chair beneath a giant framed poster of the Replacements' Pleased to Meet Me LP, and the actor seems bewildered and finally he apologizes for missing his cue.

2

16

Everything surrounding the ship is gray or dark blue and nothing is particularly hip, and once or maybe lee a day this thin strip of white appears at the horizon line but it's so far in the distance you can't be sure whether it's land or more sky. It's impossible to believe that any kind of life sustains itself beneath this flat, slate-gray sky or in an oceaii so calm and vast, that anything breathing could exist in such Iiiiibo, and any movement that occurs below the surface is so faint it's like some kind of small accident, a tiny indifferent moment, a minor iiicident that shouldn't have happened, and in the sky there's never any trace of sun—the air seems vaguely transparent and disposable, with the texture of Kleenex—yet it's always bright in a dull way, the wind usually constant as we drift through it, weightless, and below us the trail the ship leaves behind is a Jacuzzi blue that fades within minutes into the same boring gray sheet that blankets everything else surrounding the ship. One day a normal-looking rainbow appears and you vaguely notice it, thinking about the enormous sums of money the Kiss reunion tour made over the summer, or maybe a whale swims along the starboard side, waving its fin, showing off. It's easy to feel safe, for people to look at you and think someone's going somewhere. Surrounded by so much boring space, five days is a long time to stay unimpressed.

15

I boarded the QE2 still wearing the Comme des Garçons tux and I was so stoned by the time the driver Palakon had sent dropped me off at the passenger terminal on West 50th Street that how I actually got on the ship is a blur of images so imprecise you couldn't really even classify them as a montage: red, white and blue balloons floating in midair, crowds of photographers that I assumed were paparazzi but weren't, a porter assuring me that my luggage—faded Gucci bags hurriedly and badly packed—would be in my cabin when ("and if," he added) I got there, a live band playing "The Lambeth Walk." In my haze I vaguely realized that "things" had already been taken care of, since I moved through the whole embarkation process—security, passport, receiving a QE2 VIP Gold Card—swiftly and with no hassles. But I was still so wasted that I barely made it up the gangway, and then only with the help of a couple of production assistants dressed as extras, one on either side of me, and a triple espresso from Starbucks, force-fed, as the band began playing a jaunty version of "Anything Goes."

In my cabin I opened a complimentary split of Perrier-Jouët and downed two crumbled Xanax with it and then slumped into an overstuffed armchair. My eyes were sore and glazed and only by squinting could I take in my surroundings: a telephone, a minifridge, an okay bed, an unopenable porthole blurred opaque by the salt air, baskets of fresh fruit and flowers that I glumly stared at. Impassively, I noticed a television and turned it on with a remote control it took me fifteen minutes to find, the prop sitting (inconspicuously, I thought) on top of the TV. I tried to focus and read a "Welcome Aboard" letter but started hyperventilating when I saw an invitation requesting my presence for cocktails with the ship's "cruise director." My maid, a cute little English thing, a tiny Courteney Cox maybe, introduced herself, and eyeing the bright new oversized orange felt Versace overcoat I'd unpacked and thrown across the bed, she smiled proudly and said, "I see you've already gotten acquainted with your life jacket," and I just mumbled whatever I was supposed to mumble at that point, which was, I think, "Just respect yourself, baby," then glared at her until she left and I relaxed back into my stupor.

As we started moving down the Hudson River I wrapped my head in a fluffy towel, started to sob inauthentically and then used one of the gift-box lotions I found when I hobbled into the bathroom to jerk off with but I was too wasted even to get half hard or to conjure up a fantasy about Lauren Hynde or Chloe Byrnes or, for that matter, Gwen Stefani. On the TV screen was a live feed of the horizon from the prow of the ship and now skyscrapers were passing by and then we were under the Verrazano Bridge and then the sky was darkening and another world was taking over as it always does in times like these and then I was dreaming of things that I couldn't really remember later: I was making various Bart Simpson noises, Heather Locklear was a stewardess, I kissed and made up with Chris O'Donnell, the sound track was remixed Toad the Wet Sprocket and the special effects were cool and the filmmakers had hired a topnotch editor so the sequence really zipped and then there was a final shot- the camera moving closer and closer into the black hat Lauren Hynde gave me until the image was distorted by the hat's tiny red rose.

14

The first couple days "at sea" I was in a stupor, still recovering. Was it Saturday? Was it Tuesday? Was I disappointed either way? I compensated by sleeping all the time until alarms blared late one morning and I woke up, panicking, the reality that the Details piece was never going to run hitting hard, and I vaguely remembered something about a lifeboat drill—a reminder I barely noticed had been slipped under my door the night before when I came back from a crummy dinner in the Queen's Grill. Exhausted, I found the life jacket locked in some kind of coffin in my bathroom, grabbed my sunglasses and ran-walked, hungover, along dozens of empty corridors and down two flights of stairs trying to follow the directions on a badly Xeroxed map until I found a deck filled with old people who were huddled in masses and staring rudely, annoyed by my tardiness as I muttered "Oh, give me a break" and muttered and muttered. "It's backwards, son," I was told by an officer, who struggled, fumbling, to untie the life jacket I had sloppily put on. While I stood there, the officer said, "Don't worry"—patting me on the shoulder as I flinched a dozen times—"you probably won't need it." I offered him a Mentos, told him he was a dead ringer for Kurt Loder, which he wasn't.

I wandered around on what was left of my Xanax and made an appointment for a massage that I actually kept. I did a little rehearsing, nailed a couple of scenes down, but they had already been shot, someone had already commented favorably on the dailies, so that whole enterprise could be construed as kind of a waste. The elderly and Japanese were everywhere, surrounded me at miserable dinners I ate alone in the Queen's Grill while staring at an issue of last month's Interview magazine because there were new photos by Jurgin Teller of Daniela Pestova contemplating a plate of spring rolls and a Corrine Day photo essay on martini glasses and the entire issue was filled with bruises and scars and underarm hair and beautiful, shiftless-looking guys lounging improbably in front of empty 7-Elevens at dusk somewhere in the "heartland" and all I could think about, holding back tears and wincing, was: that should have been me.

Jurassic Park was the only movie playing in the ship's Dolbyequipped auditorium so I ended up in the casino a lot, uselessly gambling away the money Palakon had left me, dropping a thousand dollars' worth of chips at the 21 table in what seemed like a matter of minutes. In the Queen's Lounge old couples sat on long couches everywhere, trying to complete massive jigsaw puzzles that they were getting absolutely nowhere with, and I was always getting lost and I couldn't find anything anywhere. I'd finally locate one of the ship's many bars and sit down, knock back a Mai Tai or four and smoke a pack of cigarettes until the strength to resume looking for my cabin wandered back to me. At one of these bars I was so bored I even flirted with a young German guy who in hushed tones kept inviting me to accompany him the next day to the gym—"da voorkoot stashoon"—and I politely declined by telling him that I had just recovered from a humongous heart attack. His response: "Ja?"

The next time I saw the German guy I was floating near the rim of the huge whirlpool bath in the spa and after that I sluggishly moved to the thalassotherapy pool and when I saw him saunter over, wearing a silver thong a little too confidently, I bolted toward a private inhalation booth, where I daydreamed about what I was going to do with the $300,000 F. Fred Palakon had offered me to find Jamie Fields. I came up with so many things that I almost passed out and had to be revived with a facial and an aromatherapy session administered by someone who looked like the Crypt-Keeper, as a Muzak version of "Hooked on a Feeling" was piped through the spa's sound system.

Occasionally the crew converged and the camera would follow me at a discreet distance, shots mainly of Victor on the upper-deck starboard railing, trying to light cigarettes, some rolled with marijuana, sunglasses on, wearing an oversized Armani leather jacket. I was told to look sad, as if I missed Lauren Hynde, as if I regretted my treatment of Chloe, as if my world were falling apart. I was encouraged to try and find Lauren in Miami, where she was staying with Damien, and I was given the name of a famous hotel, but I feigned seasickness and those scenes were scrapped since they really weren't in character anyway.

The Dave Matthews Band's "Crash into Me" played over the montage, not that the lyrics had anything to do with the images the song was played over but it was "haunting," it was "moody," it was "summing things up, it gave the footage an "emotional resonance" that I guess we were incapable of capturing ourselves. At first my feelings were basically so what? But then I suggested other music: "Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails, but I was told that the rights were sky-high and that the song was "too ominous" for this sequence; Nada Surf's "Popular" had "too many minor chords," it didn't fit the "mood of the piece," it was—again—"too ominous." When I told them I seriously did not think things could get any more fucking ominous than they already were, I was told, "Things get very much more ominous, Victor," and then I was.left alone.

"I'm . . . a party person," I muttered to no one.

Innumerable old people passed by, limped through miles of corridors, slowly lifted themselves up dozens of broad staircases, the lost wandered the decks pretending they weren't, the ship sailed on.

13

The second night of the voyage I had another boring dinner in the Queen's Grill. The sommelier I'd befriended by ordering a $200 bottle of semi-decent red wine asked if I wanted to join the Mashioki family at the captain's table instead of sitting alone and I told Bernard that I simply couldn't, hinting at an indiscretion I'd committed with the Mashiokis' eldest daughter, a fat, dour teenager who was always wandering near the ship's kennels wearing an UP WITH LIFE T-shirt, visiting her "cat." The sommelier nodded gravely, brought me another small tin of Beluga, recommended the foie gras, went back to the business of his life while I slipped into my noncommittal dining mode. Afterwards, I dropped another grand of Palakon's at the 21 table and found the cinematographer, Felix, at the Captain's Bar, hunched over a giant snifter of brandy and chain-smoking Gauloises. I sidled up next to him and we had the obligatory "ominous" conversation.

"What's the story?" I asked, after ordering a split of champagne, maybe my tenth on that particular evening. "You're the guy shooting this, right?"

"You could say that," Felix said in a thick, not-quite-traceable accent.

"I just did," I pointed out. "How's it going? I just want your professional opinion."

"It is going better than the last one I did," Felix muttered.

"Which one was that?"

"A picture called Shh! The Octopus." He paused. "It was the third part of a soon to be completed quartet funded by Ted Turner that began with Beware! The Octopus, which was followed by Watch Out! The Octopus. The fourth part is called, tentatively, Get the Hell Away from That Octopus." Felix sighed again, distracted, and stared into his snifter. "The third one had a good cast. A very bitter Kristin Scott Thomas, an equally bitter Alan Alda, and Al Sharpton had signed on to play Whitney Houston's extremely bitter father—the bitter harpoonist." Felix paused. "David Hasselhoff is the first victim of the octopus." Pause. "Isn't it ironic, huh?"

A long pause occurred while I tried to process this information. Confused, I broke it hesitantly. "So-o-o . . . the octopus's name was . . . Shh?"

Felix glared at me, then finally sighed, waved to the bartender for another, even though he hadn't finished the brandy sitting in front of him.

"How am I doing?" I asked expectantly.

"Oh, you'll do," he sighed and then paused before phrasing carefully: "You have a . . . kind of . . . nonspecific . . . fabulosity—oh my god . . ." He groaned as his head dropped onto the bar.

I was looking around, not paying attention to all the faux-angst emanating from the cinematographer. "This isn't exactly what you'd call Babesville, huh?"

"It's about time you gave up your foolish dreams, Victor," Felix said sternly, lifting his head. "Your world's a little limited."

"Why's that, bro?"

"Haven't you read the rest of the script?" he asked. "Don't you know what's going to happen to you?"

"Oh man, this movie's so over." A semi-restlessness was settling in and I wanted to take off. "I'm improvising, man. I'm just coasting, babe."

"Just be prepared," Felix said. "You need to be prepared." He gulped down the rest of his brandy and watched intently as the bartender set the new snifter in front of him. "You need to pay attention."

"This really isn't happening," I yawned. "I'm taking my champagne elsewhere."

"Victor," Felix said. "Things get mildly . . . er, hazardous."

"What are you saying, Felix?" I sighed, sliding off the barstool. "Just make sure I'm lit well and don't play any colossal tricks on me."

"I'm worried that the project is . . . ill-conceived," he said, swallowing. "The writers seem to be making it up as it goes along, which normally I'm used to. But here . . .”

"I'm taking my champagne elsewhere," I sighed, tossing him a $100 chip from the casino.

"I think things will be getting out of hand," he said faintly before I wandered away.

In bed I finally had the sense to just smoke a large joint while listening on my Walkman to a bootleg Nirvana tape that Jerry Harrington had loaned me, and the live feed of the ship heading straight into darkness on the TV was the only light in the cabin as a dead guy sang me to sleep, dreams intervening, peaking with a voice shouting out, then fading, hello? hello? hello?

12

Just another sunny day and semi-balmy but with a constant headwind and I'm at the pool deck holding a towel, wandering around, amiably spacey with rock-star stubble, wearing a tight Gap tank top, sunglasses lowered at the girl with the total Juliette-Binoche-if-Juliette-Binoche-were-blond-and-from-Darien-Connecticut look lying on a chaise longue in a row of twenty: tall, statuesque, killer abs, a little too muscular maybe but the hardness offset by large, soft-looking breasts straining against a white gauzy half-shirt, the prerequisite curvy legs outlined beneath leopard-print Capri pants. On the table next to her, copies of Vogue, Details, a W Chloe and I are in, Vanity Fair and Harper's Bazaar are kept from flying overboard by a small pitcher of iced tea placed on top of them and I'm instinctively moving into frame, hitting my mark. The girl suddenly rummages through an enormous Chanel tote bag-and then-a mascara wand falls from her hand which I gracefully stoop down to pick up-a rehearsed gesture I'm pretty good at.

"Thank you," she says demurely, a familiar voice. She retrieves a pack of Silk Cuts from the Chanel tote and with absolutely no difficulty lights one. A cue to motion toward the empty chaise next to her.

"Please, go ahead," she says a little too loudly because of the Walkman she's wearing. I notice the case of the new Tricky cassette sticking out of the Chanel tote and mentally brush up on the last Tricky CD, reviews of certain Tricky concerts I've read, any Tricky details from my own past I'm about to use on the girl with the total Juliette Binoche look.

Even though it's too cold to take off the tank top-and not like it's doing a good job of hiding anything- I slip out of it without removing my sunglasses, lay the towel down and ease myself on top of it, flexing my abs to get her attention. She's reading a book with the words MARTIN AMIS in giant black letters on the cover and I'm hoping she's not a member of Amnesty International. A waiter appears and I order a light beer and a large bottle of mineral water, which he brings quickly. I tip him, he's gone.

When the girl takes the Walkman off I remember a line, make a move.

"Hey, didn't we meet at that barbecue Kevyn Aucoin threw in New York?"

She takes off her sunglasses, stubs the cigarette in an ashtray, smiles without squinting and says, "I don't think so."

"Well, what's the story?" I ask. "How do I know you? You look disturbingly familiar." I lean on my side, staring admiringly. "Though it could be because you're the only person on this boat born the same decade I was."

But some element keeps distracting us. There is a couple—handsome and maybe in their mid-forties, dressed in fashionable beachwear that proves they're in pretty good shape—standing by the railing. The man camcords the woman clowning around in a semi-forced way against the backdrop of the ocean moving slowly behind them and occasionally they glance over at where I'm lounging, the woman with a harsh, almost severe expression that morphs instantly into a garish smile whenever she catches me looking at her. The man is basically a blank and I'm totally not interested.

"Are those your parents?" I ask, nodding toward the couple.

"No, my parents are in the States," the girl says, glancing over as the couple now shuffles out of her line of vision when they notice her paying attention. "Actually, though, I do know Kevyn Aucoin. I just haven't been invited to one of his soirees."

"They're quite fun as soirees go," I tell her, perking up. "The whole gang is usually there. Cindy, Linda, Kate, the Sandras—Bullock, Bernhard and Gallin. Oh, and I met Sheryl Crow there too."

"I take it you're also a bold-faced name, no?" she asks. "Just quasi-famous," I shrug.

The girl offers what doesn't seem like a fake smile.

"So maybe we've run into each other at various VIP fashion events?" I suggest. "Brushed by each other in the front room at Doppelganger's or Jet Lounge? Shared cocktails at a private screening where we weren't aware of each other's presence, hmm?" I'm arching my eyebrows faux-lasciviously but she's not amused.

"You're not a photographer, are you?" she asks suspiciously, her face tightening.

"Hey, no, baby, relax." I stall, then lift her iced tea and pick up W, flipping it open to the Star Spotting section, a photo of Chloe and me at a premiere at Radio City Music Hall. I hand it to the girl over the table. She glances at the page, then looks at me, then back at the photo.

"You're . . . Christian Slater?" she asks, confused.

"No, no, the one below that."

"Oh, I see."

I start feeling my face and then ask worriedly, "Is my head really that big?"

She focuses in on the right photo: Chloe in a practiced daze, me staring intently into the paparazzi's lens.

"Yes, that looks like you," she says. "And that's Chloe Byrnes, right?"

"I date her," I say, then, "I mean, I used to date her."

"Well, I dated Peter Morton," she says, handing back the magazine. "Peter Morton and I used to get photographed together too."

"So you're saying we're in the same boat?" I ask.

"Well, actually we are," she says, gesturing around, rolling her eyes and groaning inwardly at the line she has to deliver.

"Well, yeah, yes," I faux-chuckle. "That we, um, are."

"Marina," she says. "Marina Cannon."

"Hey, Victor Ward." I pause, letting the name resonate, then offer my hand and she takes it lightly. "And you're off to . . ." I leave an opening for the name of a place.

"Paris, she says. "Actually, Cherbourg and then Paris."

"Why Paris?" I ask. Then, quite suavely, "Though of course, why not?"

"Oh . . ." She pauses, looks at all that boring black water. "Let's just say certain individuals weren't sticking to the plan and leave it at that."

I immediately sense boyfriend troubles and pounce gingerly. "What's his name?" I ask softly.

"Gavin," she says, a bit perturbed but still smiling.

I make a face, mock-shiver. "Ooh, I don't trust anyone named Gavin." I make another face, grimacing, holding the expression until she notices, then ask casually, "Where's Gavin now?"

"Gavin plans to run with the bulls in Pamplona," she says dryly.

"He's a basketball player?" I ask, wilting. "I thought the Bulls were in Chicago."

She just stares at me, a flicker of panic creasing her features. Suddenly the gay German youth bounds down the stairs onto the pool deck, wearing a Garth Brooks tour T-shirt and giant black Nikes. He spots me and starts bounding over. I immediately feign sleep. Soon I feel a shadow cross my face and linger, followed by the sounds of footsteps bounding away. When I feel enough time has passed I open my eyes. Countless Japanese splash around in the pool. The noon whistle goes off. Elderly report: they're everywhere.

"Someone just . . . inspected you," Marina says.

"Just a fan. A hanger-on," I shrug. "It's tough but I'm used to it. So what do you do?"

"I model," she says simply. "Part time."

I sit up, swing my legs across the chaise, then realize the move is a little too urgent and reach for the light beer instead.

"But just a little bit," she adds, noticing. "Just here and there."

"Baby, that is so cool," I'm saying. "I knew you were a model. I knew you were recognizable."

"Well, I'm not Chloe Byrnes but I do okay."

"Yeah, Chloe . . . ," I say "wistfully."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Marina says and then-when I fail to say anything else-adds, "Anyway, I'm off to visit friends and do, oh, touristy things."

"Hey, roam if you want to. That's my motto, baby."

"So why are you sailing?" she asks. "Afraid to fly?" "I saw The Poseidon Adventure twenty times as a small, frightened child," I explain. "My favorite line in movies is 'My God—it's a giant wall of water, heading straight for us."'

A long pause on Marina's part that I'm responsible for, and then, "That's . . . your answer?"

"I'm going to London, babe," I say quickly. "I'm looking for a friend." I realize something, my eyes gliding over her body, and add, "But I'm in no hurry."

"So why do you have to find this friend?"

"Off the record? It's a long story."

"We're not going anywhere."

"Well, I was about to host this MTV show—”

"Oh really?" she asks, repositioning herself on the chaise. "About what?"

Without stalling: "Well, it was just going to be about me. My life, y'know, what I do during an average day."

"I . . . see," she says, somewhat contemplatively.

"And the whole modeling grind was getting me down and being quasi-famous was just getting too overwhelming so"—I breathe in for emphasis —"I decided to chuck it all and I thought, man, Europe's not that far away. But I didn't really want to participate in that whole Prague scene. I didn't want to sit in a moldy café with my PowerBook and deal with chicks from RISD. I just wanted to write some poetry and, y'know, make some videos . . . get away from that whole cyberspace scene. Just chill out . . . Get back to my roots. Gotta get back, back to my roots." I sip the light beer confidently. "Come back down to earth and get back to my roots."

"Your family's from Europe?" she asks.

"Er, well, I'm not sure, but I'm, I mean, I've heard I had a few roots there"—I pause—"Europe." I pause again. "Baby, I'm just really searching for some honesty."

She says nothing.

"Um, y'know, it's hard right now, it's so damn hard," I sigh. "I'm just beginning to adjust to not fending off autograph hunters and I'm not used to it yet. I need to detox from that whole celeb thing. But I'm just not used to it yet. Can't you tell how jittery I am? I think I just twitched." I pause, sip the light beer thoughtfully. "Do you know who I am now?" I open the W up again and show her the picture of Chloe and me at the premiere at Radio City, my thumb subtly blocking out Chloe's face.

"I'm not really sure I know who you are," she says. "But you look more familiar now."

"I was on the cover of YouthQuake magazine last month," I say. "Does that help?"

"So you're an actor too?" she asks.

"Yes. I know how to laugh, applaud, cry out in amazement, all on cue. Aren't you impressed?"

"I sense a supporting-actor Oscar in your future," she says, smiling.

"Thank you," I say, then faux-blanch. "Supporting?"

I notice the couple conferring with the director, who's looking schleppier by the minute, and then I notice Marina watching them too and the man turns his head away from us, freezing up when he notices us looking at him, and he nods at the director, who I don't think is noticing anything, and the three of them are huddled together as if forming a plan.

"So who is this person you're trying to find?" Marina asks.

"A girl I went to school with," I murmur.

"Where did you go to school?"

"Undergraduate? Camden College."

"And where did you get your master's?"

I pause. "Actually . . . I haven't gotten it yet."

"Well, she must be very important to you."

"Well, she's, um . . . yeah." I squint up into the sky, which looks weird, nonexistent. "I think it's like in her best interest if I, um, show up.

"Camden," Marina murmurs. "I think I know a couple of people who went to Camden." She concentrates for a moment. "Katrina Svenson?"

"Sure, yeah, right," I say, nodding. "Very good, um, Hacky Sack player."

"Paul Denton?"

"Oh yeah, Paulie, Paulie, Paulie."

"Sean Bateman?"

"Good buddy of mine."

"He's actually a fairly lousy individual."

"Baby, I am so glad you said that because, baby, I am so with you on that one."

I notice that the director has moved somewhere else and that the couple in fashionable beachwear has started heading toward our general vicinity. When I look over at Marina she's gathering up her magazines and Walkman and placing them in the Chanel tote, her skin flawless, the scent of flowers rising off her, playing let's-get-happy with my nostrils.

"Hey, what's the story?" I ask. "Where are you going?"

"I hate to dash off like this," she says apologetically, standing up. "But I'm feeling a little exposed." She grabs her towel.

"Um, well, how about—" I start.

"It was nice to meet you, Victor," she interrupts, concentrating on getting her things together. "I hope you have a pleasant voyage."

"Um, wait a minute," I say, standing up also. "What are you doing for dinner?"

"Call me. I'm in room 402. Deck 3." She starts walking away, offering a slight wave without turning around, and then she's gone.

I'm suddenly so cold I pull the Gap tank top back on and, leaving the towel on the chaise, decide to follow Marina, ask her to dinner again, reestablish our groovy rapport, inquire as to whether I freaked her out, if I wasn't behaving gentlemanly enough, if I came on too hard, if she knows Chloe maybe, which causes me to panic about my reputation, but the couple hurry over before I can rush away and they're older than they looked from far away and I busy myself with the towel and start folding it uselessly, my back to them, hoping they're not going to ask me to camcord a tiresome message for friends back home with the two of them framed against the dully sparkling miniwhitecaps stretching out to the horizon.

"Are you Victor Johnson?" the man behind me asks with an English accent. "Or is it Victor Ward?"

I drop the towel on the chaise and turn to face him, whipping off my sunglasses, smiling wide, and—tingling—admit, "Yeah."

"I don't think you'll remember us," the man starts, "but I'm Stephen Wallace and this is my wife, Lorrie." I take his hand and shake it and while I'm shaking Lorrie's hand Stephen says, "We're friends of your father's."

I let go of Lorrie's hand as the tingling immediately evaporates and then I place my sunglasses back on and pick up the towel. "Oh?

Really?" is all I say, breathing in.

"Yes, we knew your parents when they were living in Washington," Stephen says. "In Georgetown."

"Oh wow," I'm saying unenthuslastically. "Am I like on 'Totally Hidden Video' or something?"

The Wallaces laugh "good-naturedly" and I'm reminded of a nonexistent appointment I need to keep.

"The last time we saw you, you must have been . . ." Stephen stops, looks at Lorrie for help. "What? Nine? Ten?"

"Oh, it was earlier than that," the woman says, tilting her head, consulting the sky.

"What year did your father move back to Washington from New York?" Stephen asks.

"It was the year Mom died," I say, running my hand through my hair, eyeing the waiter removing Marina's half-empty pitcher of iced tea and my beer bottle—a prop I almost reach for just to have something to hold on to.

"Right, right," the man murmurs, shaking his head sorrowfully.

The woman offers a generous, sympathetic smile.

"Don't worry," I say. "I don't dwell on what happened, so it's okay."

"Was that after you were at . . . ?" Stephen stops again, stuck. "Where did you go to school?"

"You went to Camden, right?" the woman asks, guessing.

"Yeah, it was actually during Camden when it happened," I say. "But she'd been sick a long time." I stare at them hard, making them grasp that it really doesn't matter now. What does is: I've forgotten Marina's last name, what deck she's on, her room number.

"Well, the last time we saw you you were practically a baby," the man says, chuckling, shifting modes. "You wouldn't remember. It was at a fund-raiser at your parents' place in Georgetown."

I bring a hand to my forehead. "Dimly, yeah, dimly I remember."

"We just saw your father a month ago in Washington," Lorrie offers. "Far out," I'm saying.

"He was at a dinner in a new restaurant on Prospect Street with Sam Nunn, Glen Luchford, Jerome Bunnouvrier and Katharine Graham, as well as two of the forensic experts on the defense team of the O. J. Simpson trial."

"God," I groan. "I wish I'd been there. It sounds like a blast. I've gotta split."

"And how's your sister?" Lorrie asks.

"Oh, she's cool. She's in Washington too," I'm guessing. "But I've gotta split."

"And where are you off to?" Stephen asks.

"Right now? Back to my cabin," I say.

"No, I meant in Europe," he says.

Lorrie keeps smiling at me, staring warmly, sending definite horny vibes my way.

"Well, I think Paris," I say. "Actually Cherbourg, then, um, Paris."

The woman immediately glances over at her husband when I say this but ultimately it's awkwardly done and the director has to retake this simple reaction shot four more times before proceeding to the rest of the scene. "Action" is called again and in the background extras resume their positions: old people milling around, the Japanese splashing all over the pool.

"Really?" Stephen asks. "What takes you to Paris?"

"Um, I'm going to . . . photograph Jim Morrison's grave for . . . Us magazine and . . . that's, um, for one, yeah. . . ." Pausing for emphasis, I then add, "And I'm also going to visit the Eiffel Tower, which everyone I know says is a 'must-see,' so-o-o . . ." I pause again. "And the Gothic Eurobeat scene is really big just now, so I might check that out."

The Wallaces stare at me blankly. Finally Lorrie clears her throat. "Where are you staying in Paris?" she asks.

I remember hotels Chloe and I stayed at and, avoiding the obvious, choose "La Villa Hotel."

"Oh yes, on Rue Jacob, just off Boulevard Saint-Germain," Lorrie says.

"That's the one," I say, pointing cheerfully at her. "I've gotta split."

"And was that your traveling companion?" Stephen asks, gesturing at the empty chaise Marina was lounging on.

Unsure of how to answer, I ultimately go with, "Oh no, not really. I'm on my own."

"I thought perhaps you two were together," Stephen adds, smiling. "Well, who knows," I laugh, striking a pose, breaking it up by shifting my weight impatiently from one leg to the other and back again.

"She seems like a lovely girl," Lorrie says approvingly.

"She's a model," I point out, nodding.

"Of course," Stephen says. "And from what I hear so are you."

"And so I am," I say awkwardly. "I've gotta split."

"You know, Victor," Lorric begins, "this is terrible but we did see you about three months ago in London at the opening of the Hempel Hotel but you were besieged by so many people that it made contact, well, a little difficult," she says apologetically.

"Well, that's just great, Lorrie," I say. "But I wasn't in London three months ago."

The two of them glance at each other again and though personally I think the look they exchange is a little overdone, the director, surprisingly, does not and the scene continues uninterrupted.

"Are you sure?" Stephen asks. "We're fairly certain it was you."

"Nope, not me," I say. "But it happens all the time. Listen—"

"We read that interview with you in—oh, what's the name of that magazine?" Stephen looks to Lorrie again.

"YouthQuake?" Lorrie guesses.

"Yes, yes, YouthQuake," Stephen says. "You were on the cover."

"Yeah?" I ask, brightening a little. "What did you think of it?"

"Oh, it was excellent," Stephen says. "Excellent."

"Yes," Lorrie adds. "We thoroughly enjoyed it."

"Yeah, I thought it turned out pretty good too," I say. "Dad wasn't too happy about it, though."

"Oh, but you've got to be yourself," Stephen says. "I'm sure your father understands that."

"Not really."

"Victor," Lorrie says, "we would love it if you joined us for dinner tonight."

"Yes, I think your father would be furious if he knew we were sailing together and we didn't have dinner at least one night," Stephen says.

"Or anytime you're in London," Lorrie adds.

"Yeah, yeah," I say. "But I don't think I'm going to London. I think I'm going to Paris first. I mean, Cherbourg, then Paris."

When I say this, Lorrie glances at Stephen again as if I've just made some kind of observation that displeases her.

"I've gotta split," I say again.

"Please join us tonight, Victor," the man reiterates, as if this really wasn't an invitation but a kind of friendly demand.

"Listen, I don't mean to like seini-blow you guys off but I'm really really tired," I say. They seem so worried by this excuse that I have to add, "I'll try, I really will, but I've given up on socializing and I'm really quite out of it."

"Please," Stephen says. "We're in the Princess Grill and our reservation's at eight."

"We insist, Victor," Lorrie says. "You must join us."

"I feel wanted, guys," I'm saying, walking away hurriedly. "That's great. I'll try. Nice to meet you, cheerio and all that."

I slip away and race around trying to find Marina, concentrating on all the practical places she might be. Nixing the Computer Learning Center, I hit various art galleries, the library, the bookshop, the Royal Shopping Promenade, elevators, the labyrinth of corridors, even the children's playroom. With a map in hand, I find then scope out the gym on deck 7: lines for the Lifecycles, the rowing machines, the treadmills, the aerobic room, jammed with elderly Japanese flopping around to lousy British synth-pop, with a male instructor with hideous teeth who waves me over to join in and I neatly barf. Drowsy, I go back to my cabin and lie down, vacantly noticing new pages of the script, faxed from somewhere, lying on a pillow along with the ship's daily paper, immigration formalities, invitations to parties. During this the entire sky is a low white cloud and the ship sails beneath it indifferently.

11

F. Fred Palakon calls after I've finished the room service dinner I ordered and Schindler's List is playing on the small television set situated above the bed, a movie I had no interest in seeing when it came out but now, since Friday, have watched three times since it takes up an enormous amount of hours. My notes thus far? One, the Germans were not very cool; two, Ralph Fiennes is so fat; and three, I need more pot. The connection when Palakon calls seems unusually crisp and clear, as if he's calling from somewhere on the ship, but since no one else has called I can't be sure.

"Well, finally," I mutter.

"How have you been, Victor?" he asks. "I hope you're well taken care of."

"I just finished dining sumptuously in my cabin."

Pause. "What did you have?"

Pause. "An . . . acceptable turbot."

Pause. "It sounds . . . delicious," Palakon says uncertainly.

"Hey, Palakon—why am I not in a penthouse?" I'm asking, suddenly sitting up. "Why do I not have a butler? Where's my Jacuzzi, man?"

"Gentlemen do not talk about money," Palakon says. "Especially when they're not paying."

"Whoa," I say, and then, "Who's a gentleman?"

"I'm trying to imagine that you are, dear Victor."

"What are you, Palakon? You talk like some kind of pampered weenie."

"Is that a cheap attempt to play upon my emotions, Mr. Ward?"

"This traveling-by-sea business is bor-ing," I say. "There's no one famous or young on this damn boat. There are sixteen hundred people on this damn boat and they're all ancient. Everyone has Alzheimer's, everyone's blind, everyone's hobbling around on crutches."

"Surely you're exaggerating."

"I'm really really tired of old people, Palakon," I say. "I'm just so tired."

"I'll call Cunard and tell them to set up a piercing parlor, a tattoo emporium, a cyberspace roller rink," Palakon says wearily. "Something that has that kind of grungy honesty you young people respond to so well."

"I'll still be so tired, Palakon."

"Then get some sleep," Palakon says hollowly. "Isn't that what people do who are tired?"

"I'm tired of muttering'Where am I'whenever I find myself in the wrong corridor or some wrong deck that's like miles away from the deck I wanted to be on." I pause, then add, "Surrounded by old people!"

"I'm sure there is no shortage of you-are-here maps to help you out, Victor," he says, losing patience. "Ask one of the old people for directions."

"But the old people are blind!"

"Blind people often have an excellent sense of direction," Palakon practically shouts. "They'll tell you where you are."

"Yeah, but where am I, Palakon?"

"By my estimate somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean," Palakon sighs, giving up. "My god, must everything be explained to you?"

Mortified, I suddenly blurt out, "Yeah!"

"Mr. Ward, I'm just checking in," Palakon says, seemingly disinterested in my problems. "I'll call you once more before you arrive in Southampton."

"Hey, Palakon, about that," I start.

"Yes, Mr. Ward?"

"How about if I take a little side trip to France before going to London?" I ask.

A long pause before Palakon asks, "Why?"

"I met a girl," I say.

Another pause. "And so?"

"I-met-a-girl," I repeat.

"Yes, but I am not understanding you."

"Like, I'm gonna go with this girl to Paris, duh," I say loudly. "Why else do you think I'd be going there? To take part in a fromage-eating contest? Christ, Palakon, get your shit together."

"Victor," Palakon starts, "that's not a particularly good idea. Turning back—which is essentially what you'd be doing—is unthinkable at this point."

"Hello?" I say, sitting up. "Could you please repeat that? Hello?"

"Just go on about your business," Palakon sighs. "Just follow the script."

"Palakon, I want to go to Paris with this girl," I warn.

"That would be a grim alternative," Palakon warns back, gravely. "That would be self-destructive."

"But I think that's in my nature," I explain. "I think that's what my character's all about."

"Maybe this trip will change your character." "I'm not so sure."

"I'll call you before you reach Southampton, Victor."

"Palakon, wait—"

He clicks off.

10

Around 12 I dress casually and rouse myself from the cabin, heading ostensibly to the midnight buffct being served in the Mauretania Room but really to any bar where I can very quickly down four vodkaand-cranberries and find Marina. Prowling along the upper starboard deck as if on a catwalk—it's cold out and dark—I'm spying into windows at all the joyless mingling taking place at the midnight buffet. I spot the gay German holding a plate piled high with smoked salmon and even though he's heading toward a table just a foot or two away from where I'm standing, I doubt he can see beyond his own reflection in the window, but then he begins to squint past his image and his face lights up so I whirl around and run straight into the Wallaces strolling along the deck. She's wearing what looks like a strapless Armani gown, Stephen's tuxedo jacket draped over her shoulders, protection from the midnight chill.

"Victor," Lorrie cries out. "Over here."

I bring a hand to my forehead to block out the nonexistent light that's blinding me. "Yes? Hello?"

"Victor," they both cry out in unison, just yards away. "Over here!"

I start limping as if in pain. "Jovially," I hold out a hand, but then I gasp, grimacing and reaching down to massage my ankle.

"Victor, we wondered where you were for dinner," Lorrie says. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, you were sorely missed," Stephen adds. "Is something wrong with your leg?"

"Well, I fell asleep," I start. "I was also, um, expecting a . . . phone call, but I . . . fell asleep."

Pause. "Did you get your call?" Lorrie asks semi-worriedly.

"Oh yes," I say. "So now everything's fine."

"But what happened to your leg?"

"Well, when I was reaching over for the phone . . . it, well, I accidentally fell off the chair I'd been sitting, er, sleeping in and then, well, while reaching for the phone . . . it actually fell and struck my"—a really long pause—"knee."

Another really long pause. No one says anything.

"So then I tried to stand up-all this while speaking into the phone -and then I actually tripped over the chair . . . by the TV. . ." I stop to let them interrupt.

Finally Stephen says, "That must have been quite a scene."

Picturing how ridiculous this scenario seems, I delicately reexplain: "Actually I handled it all quite suavely."

Lorrie and Stephen both nod, assuring me they're certain that I did. The following is just basic exposition—these lines fall easily and rapidly into place—because I can see, in the distance, Marina, her back to me, standing at the railing, gazing out over the black ocean.

"Tomorrow night, Victor?" Lorrie suggests, shivering.

"Please, Victor," Stephen demands. "I insist you have dinner with us tomorrow night."

"Jeez, you guys are persistent. Okay, okay, tomorrow night," I say, staring at Marina. "Oh wait—I'm having dinner with someone else tomorrow night. How about next week?"

"But we'll be off the boat next week."

"We will? Thank god."

"Please, bring your guest," Lorrie says.

"It's okay if I bring someone?" I ask.

"Oh good—a quartet," Stephen says, rubbing his paws together.

"Actually she's an American."

"Pardon?" Stephen leans in, smiling.

"She's an American."

"Why . . . yes, of course she is," Stephen says, confused. Lorrie tries not to stare incredulously at me and falls.

"And please," Stephen adds, "when you're in London you must stop by as well."

"But I'm definitely going to Paris," I murmur, staring off at the girl by the railing. "I'm definitely not going to England."

The Wallaces take this in stride, seem finally to accept this info, and exit by saying "Tomorrow night, then," like it's some kind of big deal they conjured up. But they seem sated and don't linger and I'm not even bothering to limp away from them. Instead I glide slowly over the deck to where Marina's standing, wearing white slacks and a white cashmere sweater, and because of how these clothes fit on her she's semi-virginal, semi-naughty, and my steps become more timid and I almost slink back, stunned by how beautiful she looks right now and she's eating an ice cream cone and it's pink and white and the decks are generally well-lit but Marina's standing in a darkened spot, a place where it seems vaguely windier. Tapping her shoulder, I offer an inquiring look.

"Where did you get that?" I ask, pointing at the ice cream cone.

"Oh, hi," she says, glancing casually at me. "A nice elderly man—I believe his name was Mr. Yoshomoto—made it for me, though I don't think I asked him to."

"Ah." I nod and then gesture. "What are you looking at out there?"

"Oh, I know," she says. "It's all black."

"And it's cold," I say, mock-shivering.

"It's not so bad," she says. "I've been colder."

"I tried to find you earlier but I forgot your last name."

"Really?" she asks. "Why did you want to find me?"

"There was a jig-dancing contest I wanted us to enter," I say. "Hornpipes, the works."

"It's Gibson," she says, smiling.

"Let's reintroduce ourselves," I suggest, backing away. "Hi—I'm Victor Ward."

"Hello," she says, playing along. "I'm Marina Gibson."

"I hope I'm not bothering you."

"No, no, I'm glad you came by," she says. "You're a ... nice distraction."

"From?"

She pauses. "From thinking about certain things."

Inwardly I'm sighing. "So where's Gavin now?"

She laughs, surprised. "Ah, I see you've memorized your lines." She wipes her lips with a paper napkin, then leans over and tosses what's left of the ice cream cone into a nearby trash bin. "Gavin's in Fiji with a certain baroness."

"Oh, a certain baroness?"

"Gavin's parents own something like-oh, I don't know—CocaCola or something but he never really has any money."

Something catches in me. "Does that matter to you?"

"No," she says. "Not at all."

"Don't look back," I'm saying. "You can never look back."

"I'm fairly good at severing all contacts with the past."

"I think that's a more or less attractive quality."

While leaning against the railing Marina just simply starts talking: the drastic hair changes, the career that semi-took off because of them, the shaky flights to Miami, getting old, how she likes to be shot with the light coming from the left to offset the tilt of a nose broken in a Rollerblading accident three years ago, a club in East Berlin called Orpheus where she met Luca Fedrizzi, the weekends they spent at Armani's house in Brioni, the meaninglessness of time zones, her basic indifference, a few key figures, what the point is. Some of the details are small (the way she would unroll the windows in her mother's Jaguar when racing back from parties in Connecticut so she could smoke, the horrifying bitchery between agents, books she never read, the grams of coke carried in compacts, the crying jags during shoots that would ruin two hours of carefully applied makeup), but the way she tells them makes her world seem larger. Of course during the modeling phase she was always strung out and brittle and so many friends died, lawsuits were started then abandoned, there were fights with Albert Watson, the ill-fated affair with Peter Morton, how everything fizzled out, her mother's alcoholism and the brother who died of cardiac arrhythmia linked to the ingestion of herbal Ecstasy tablets, and all of this leading up to the designer who fell in love with her—platonically—and subsequently died of AIDS, leaving Marina a substantial sum of money so she could quit modeling. We both admit we know someone who signed a suicide note with a smiley face.

At first I'm able to look as if I'm concentrating intensely on what she's saying and in fact some of it's registering, but really I've heard it all before; then, while talking, she moves closer and there's a quickening and I'm relieved. Silently focusing in on her, I realize that I've been activated. I stare into her face for over an hour, asking the appropriate questions, guiding her to certain areas, mimic responses that I'm supposed to have, offer sympathetic nods when they're required, sometimes there's a sadness in my eyes that's half-real, half-not. The only sound, besides her voice, is the sea moving below us, faraway waves lapping against the hull of the ship. I notice idly that there's no moon.

She sums things up bitterly by saying, "The life of a model-traveling, meeting a lot of superficial people—it's all just so—"

I don't let her finish that sentence, because my face is so close to hers—she's tall, we're the same height—that I have to lean in and kiss her lips lightly and she pulls back and she's not surprised and I kiss her lips lightly again and they taste like strawberries from the ice cream and cold.

"Don't. Please, Victor," she murmurs. "I can't."

"You're so beautiful," I whisper. "You're so beautiful."

"Victor, not . . . now."

I pull back and stretch, pretending nothing happened, but finally I can't help saying "I want to come to Paris with you" and she pretends not to hear me, folding her arms as she Icans against the railing with a sad, placid expression that just makes her face seem dreamier.

"Hey, let's go dancing," I suggest, then check the watch I'm not wearing and casually pretend I was just inspecting a nonexistent freckle on my wrist. "We can go to the Yacht Club disco. I'm a good dancer."

"I don't think you'd like the Yacht Club," she says. "Unless you'd like to dance to the disco version of 'Don't Cry for Me, Argentina' for hours on end. There's a DJ named Jamtastica too."

"Well, what about a drink? It's not that late." I check the nonexistent watch again. "I've gotta stop doing that."

"It actually is getting late," she says. "I should get to sleep."

"You want to come by my room? For a drink?" I ask, following her as she walks away from the railing. "I have an unopened fruit basket in my room that we can share. I'll be on my best behavior."

"That's very sweet, Victor," she says. "But I'm tired."

"I want to come to Paris," I say suddenly.

Marina stops walking and turns to me. "Why?"

"Can I?" I ask. "I mean, we don't have to stay at the same place but can I like travel with you?"

"What about London?"

"London can wait."

"You're being impulsive," she says apprehensively, resuming walking.

"It's one of my many really really great qualities."

"Listen, let's just . . ." She sighs. "Let's just see how things go."

"Things are going fine," I say. "Things can only get better. Look, I'm embarrassed to admit this, but

I've just spent the last hour gazing at you and and and now I want to come to Paris."

"What do you want me to say to that?"

"Just say yeah, cool, hip. just say, 'Yes, Victor, you can come to Paris with me,"' I tell her and then, mock-seriously: "You know, I don't need an invitation, baby- I can just simply follow you."

"So you'd be, um, like stalking me through Paris?"

"Just say, 'Victor, you may come with me-I give you my permission,' and then I'll bow and kiss your feet and—”

"But I don't know if I can say that yet."

"I'm saving you the embarrassment of admitting what you really want to express."

"You have no idea what I want to express."

"But I know all about you now."

"But I don't know anything about you."

"Hey." I stop walking, spread my arms out wide. "This is all you need to know."

She stares, smiling. I stare back until I have to look away.

"Will you at least join me for dinner tomorrow night?" I ask "bashfully."

"That would be . . ." She stops, considering something.

"Um, babe? I'm waiting."

"That would be . . ." She pauses again, looking out past me at all that blackness.

I start chewing a nail, then check my pockets for Kleenex, a cigarette, Mentos, any prop to keep me occupied.

"That would be . . . nice."

I let out a great sigh of relief and hold my hand over my heart as if I've just recovered from an enormous blow. We aren't miked anymore when we say good night and the crew's been waved away and there's another kiss and in that kiss I can't help but sense some kind of pattern being revealed, and then departure.

9

While I'm getting dressed to meet Marina at the Queen's Grill Lounge at 7:30 before dinner with the Wallaces, the captain makes an announcement over the intercom, something about a distress signal emanating from a shipping vessel that the QE2 will be intercepting around 9 in order to pick up a diabetic crewman who ran out of insulin, and walking to the lounge I'm passing dozens of worried old people asking if this unscheduled stop is going to delay the arrival time at Southampton and the exceedingly patient ship directors, harried but sincere, assure them it will not and I'm wondering what if it fucking does? You're old. If I was a ship director my answer would've been, "It doesn't matter, you'll be dead before we dock this boat."

Tonight my hair's slicked back, I used a tiny splash of cologne, I'm wearing the Comme des Garqons tuxedo—freshly pressed—and I'm feeling semi-retro. When I called Marina this morning and suggested maybe lunch she said she planned to spend the day pampering herself out of her funk—facial, massage, yoga, aromatherapy, palm reading—and since I already felt linked to her I didn't have to be told to spend the day basically keeping to myself, bumming around, goofing off in the gym, replaying imaginary conversations with her while on the StairMaster, rehearsing the words I'd use during sex.

I order a martini, positioning myself on a plush antique couch by the bar where a steward lights my cigarette and 7:30 turns into 8:00 rather suddenly and I've ordered another martini and smoked two more Marlboro Lights, staring at the extras. It's a formal night on the ship and men are wearing tuxedos (I actually don't spot a single decent one) and cheesy sequined gowns hang off old women, everyone passing by on their way to various dining rooms, chattering incessantly about absolutely nothing.

From the bar phone I dial Marina's cabin but there's no answer.

At 8:15 the crew finally says it's time for the next setup, that the Wallaces are waiting. I stub out a half-smoked cigarette, cursing, and before I can finish the rest of the second martini the director takes it "gently but firmly" away, suggesting I've had "enough," that perhaps I should "Pace" myself, that maybe this will "aid my performance." I grab the martini back from the director, finish it and, smacking my lips together, say loudly, "I—don't—think—so." I toss the Gold VIP Caya prop at him and mutter, "Sign for it, doofus."

8

The Queen's Grill is jammed but the Wallaces are at a table for four up front by the entrance. As I make my way down the steps leading to the table, Stephen stands up, dressed in a tuxedo, waving me over as if this were some sort of grand occasion, Lorrie sitting primly next to him wearing the same strapless Armani gown from last night. There are huge flower arrangements everywhere in the Queen's Grill to navigate around and dozens of waiters carrying trays of champagne glasses brush past me. I gently bump into a maitre d' at the table next to ours as he prepares crêpes for a group of Japanese women, who smile admiringly at the handsome young gall'in as he shakes Stephen Wallace's beefy hand.

"Ah, Victor—hello," Stephen says as a waiter pulls a chair out for me. "Where's your guest?"

"I'm not sure, man," I say, about to lift my wrist to check my nonexistent watch. "She said she'd meet me in the lounge for a drink and never showed." I pause glumly. "She knows where we're eating, but man, I'm bummed."

"Well, we do hope she comes," Stephen says. "in the meantime—champagne?"

Definitely," I say, reaching for a glass.

"That's, um, mine," Lorrie says tentatively.

"Oops, sorry," I say as a waiter pours from a bottle of Dom Pérignon into a flute sitting by my napkin.

"So Victor, what is it you've been doing?" Stephen asks.

"You know, Stephen old chum," I start vaguely, pondering this while chugging down the bubbly, "I'm really not quite sure what I've been doing."

Dismayed, they both laugh.

"What do you two do?" I finally ask, catching my breath.

"Well, I work in an advertising agency in London—" Stephen starts.

"Oh really? That's nice," I interrupt. "But I actually meant on this boat, but whatever. Continue. Can I get another glass of champagne?"

"I open restaurants," Lorrie offers, a little too greedily, while a waiter fills my empty flute. "We were just in Manhattan scouting locations in TriBeCa. It would be my first in the States."

"Oh really?" I say again, groaning inwardly. "That's super. What kind of restaurants?" I finish the new glass of champagne and point to the flute again after the waiter finishes topping off Stephen's and Lorrie's glasses. Hesitantly, he fills mine again. Stephen then nods at the waiter, a gesture to bring another bottle.

"The last one I opened was in Holland Park," Lorrie says. "Which I would love to have you visit when you're in London."

"But see, I'm not—going—to—be—in—London, baby," I say, straining, leaning toward Lorrie for emphasis, but when I realize how rude that sounds, I add, "Though that's a very, um, cool offer."

"Lorrie's a splendid cook," Stephen adds.

"Oh really?" I say again, grinding my heels into the floor. "What's your specialty, babe?"

"It's a variation on classic Californian cuisine, you might say." Lorrie tilts her head thoughtfully.

When it becomes apparent that I'm supposed to say something, I ask, staring, "You mean compared to just . . . Califomian cuisine?" and then, measuring each word carefully, totally not interested in an answer, "or . . . post-Californian cuisine?"

"There's definitely a Pacific Rim influence as well," Stephen adds. "I mean, we know it sounds awfully trendy, but there is a world of difference."

Stuck, I ask, "Between?"

"Between ... Californian cuisine and, well, post-Californian cuisine," Stephen says, a little too patiently.

"And Pacific Rim as well," Lorrie adds.

There's a long pause.

"Does anybody have the time?" I ask.

Stephen checks his watch. "Eight-forty."

There's another long pause.

"So it's like the whole baby-vegetable-guava-pasta-blue-corn-scallops-in-wasabi-fajitas situation, huh?" I ask, glazing over.

"Well, that's in the ballpark," Lorrie says hesitantly.

I have nothing more to say and just when I'm about to look over at the director and shout out "Line!" I'm startled by the sound of a champagne bottle being uncorked, followed by Stephen asking, "So you're still going to Paris, Victor?"

"I think I was always going to Paris, Stephen old chap," I say.

"What's really taking you to Paris, Victor?" Stephen asks, his eyes narrowing. "Do you have friends there?"

"Actually I'll let you in on a fittle secret," I say.

"Yes?" they both say, leaning in.

"I was supposed to go to London," I admit, then smile sheepishly and whisper, "I got sidetracked."

"Well, I hope not for too long," Stephen says. "You must stop by London on your way back to the States."

"We'll see how things turn out in Paris, Stephen old chap," I say confidently, downing another glass of champagne.

Since my back is to the entrance of the Queen's Grill I don't see Marina come in but heads start turning and even though Stephen and Lorrie have never met Marina, their drone is interrupted by her arrival, and instinctively, on cue, I turn around. Marina looks stunning, effortlessly inhabiting the role that will create a star; Makeup and Costume have done an unbelievable job and her hair is pulled back so tightly and in such an elegant way that I'm practically squirming in my chair and then I'm holding out a hand, guiding her to the table. Delicately she accepts it, as if I were helping her cross a threshold she was wary about but since I'm on the other side—hey, it's okay. Introductions are made as she's seated.

"I'm so sorry I'm late," Marina says genuinely.

"Oh, that's okay," I say. "We were having a very, very interesting and I ively conversation about. . ." Stuck, I have to look over at the Wallaces.

"Californian cuisine," Stephen reminds me.

"Oh yeah."

"Champagne?" Stephen asks Marina a little too eagerly.

"Thank you," Marina says as Stephen pours, and then, trying to insinuate herself immediately into the conversation, asks, "Are we supposed to be stopping soon?"

"In about fifteen minutes," Stephen says, placing the champagne back in its bucket. I lift out the bottle and pour myself another glass.

"Doesn't anybody find this odd?" Marina asks, letting the maitre d' drape a napkin across her lap.

"I think the law of the sea requires vessels to help each other in times of distress," Stephen says. "I don't think the QE2 is exempt."

"It's really not that much of an inconvenience," Lorrie says, slowly looking Marina over.

"I don't know how they'll find that boat in all this fog," Marina says.

"Really—there's fog?" I ask, having assumed that I had been staring at a giant gray wall but actually it's a huge window that overlooks the starboard deck. "Whoa," I mutter.

"Well, radar is quite sophisticated these—" Stephen starts.

"Excuse me," Lorrie says, staring intently at Marina, "but do we know each other?"

Marina studies Lorrie. "I'm not—"

"I mean, have we met?" Lorrie asks. "You look remarkably familiar."

"She's a model," I interject. "Thass why."

"No, no, it's not that," Lorrie says, then, gently prodding, "Are you from New York? Could we have met there?"

"I don't believe we have," Marina says, then smiles and tightly adds, "But who knows?" She lifts her champagne flute, brings it to her lips but doesn't sip.

"But I'm sure we have," Lorrie murmurs, gazing. "Positive, in fact."

"Really?" Marina asks with a subtle kind of panic.

"Yes, I'm sure we've met," Lorric insists.

"Where, darling?" Stephen asks.

"That's what I can't place," Lorrie murmurs.

"Are you in the States often?" Marina asks.

But our waiter arrives and Stephen suggests we order dinner now, before the boat makes its stop, which I'm all in favor of so this night can proceed elsewhere. Marina demurs, saying she really isn't that hungry. Stephen says something along the lines of "Well, my dear, you can't order off the children's menu," and that's our cue to "laugh heartily." First course: caviar. Second course: the girls opt for lobster medallions instead of foie gras. Third course: duck. Siephen orders two bottles of wine from the sommelier, who seems impressed by the selections.

"So how do you all know each other?" Marina asks.

"Actually we know Victor's father," Stephen says.

"Yes, I've never met these people before in my life."

"Oh really?" Marina asks, turning to me. "Who's your father?"

"I really don't want to get into that right now," I say. "I'm on vacation and I'd like to keep it that way."

"Were you in Berlin recently?" Lorrie suddenly asks Marina.

"No." Marina smiles but freezes up slightly before answering again. "No."

"I think it was Berlin, but your hair's different," Lorrie murmurs, implying something. "Yes, it was in Berlin."

"Darling, please," Stephen says. "Let's move on."

"I haven't been to Berlin in years," Marina,says, frowning.

Lorrie's squinting at her. "This is driving me mad, but I know we've met."

"She's a model," I say, tugging at a waiter for more champagne. "That's why, baby."

The sommelier has opened both bottles of wine and after Stephen tastes each the sommelier decants them into carafes and the four of us concentrate on that. Gold-rimmed plates are placed in front of us as a tin of Beluga is wheeled toward the table. While the maître d'arranges the caviar on our respective plates and I'm babbling on about the new design—not the old design but the new design—of Raygun magazine, a photographer who has been combing the room interrupts us by askng if we'd like our picture taken.

Great idea," I say too loudly, clapping my hands together.

"No, no," the Wallaces insist, shaking their heads.

"Perhaps after dinner," Lorrie says.

"Oh come on," I say, turning to Marina. "It'll be like a souvenir."

"Victor, no," Marina says. "Not right now."

"Yes, Victor," Stephen says. "Perhaps later."

The photographer crouches at the table, waiting for a decision.

"Well, damnit," I say. "Come on, guys. Oh, just take it," I tell the photographer. "Just do it."

"Victor, please," the Wallaces say in unison.

"I'm not feeling very photogenic right now," Marina adds improbably.

"Well, I'm camera-ready, babies," I exclaim. "Go for it, dude."

Just as the flash goes off I try to lean into Marina, who backs slightly away toward the maitre d', who has stepped aside, waiting patiently to continue serving the caviar.

The Wallaces glare at me sternly while I give the photographer my name and cabin number and ask for four copies. As he walks away, the captain announces over the intercom that the QE2 will be stopping in a matter of minutes and to please stay seated, that there's really no need to get up since the fog will probably obliterate the view and we'll be moving again shortly. But most of the hoi polloi in the Queen's Grill ignore the captain's suggestion and drift from their tables to the starboard side, including—thankfully—the Wallaces, though it just seems like an excuse to confer with the director. The maitre d' finishes serving the caviar and moves away. I'm pouring myself a glass of white wine from one of the carafes when Marina touches my shoulder.

"Victor," she says.

"I think they're mad at me," I say. "I don't think they liked having their picture taken. The fucking English, y'know? Jesus Christ. I mean, I know that you and I are used to it, but—"

"Victor," she says again.

"I know, I know, I'm sorry," I say. "But baby, you look gorgeous."

"Victor, you're drunk," she says.

"And you're gorgeous—"

"Victor, I have to talk to you."

"And I have to talk to you, baby." I grab her hand beneath the table.

"No, I'm serious," she says, pulling away.

"And so am I," I say, leaning toward her.

"Victor, stop it," she says. "You have got to sober up."

"Baby, you're—"

"I have to leave," she says, glancing over at the Wallaces. "Call me when you're through with dinner."

"No-no-no-no," I say, immediately sobering up. "No way, baby. You've got to stay. Don't leave me with—"

"I'm leaving and you're calling me in my cabin when you're through with dinner," Marina explains patiently.

"Why can't I come with you?" I ask. "What's the story? What's wrong?"

"I have to leave," she says, starting to get up.

"I'm coming too," I say, holding on to her arm. "I'll pretend I'm sick."

"No, that's not possible," she says. "Let go."

"Baby, come on—"

"It's imperative that you call me immediately after dinner," she says, pulling away from the table. "Do you know what 'imperative' means?"

"That I"—I squint up at her—"that I . . . have to call you after dinner?"

"Okay," she says, semi-relieved.

"Baby, what's happening?"

"There's no time to go into it now."

The Wallaces start heading back along with most of the other passengers, murmurs of disappointment floating around the dining room about what-that they didn't catch a glimpse of a diabetic seaman? I am so lost.

"Baby," I start. "I'm not comprehending this—”

"Tell them good night for me," Marina says, walking quickly out of the restaurant.

I watch as she disappears down a corridor, then notice a nearby waiter who takes in the expression on my face and shrugs sadly, sympathizing with me.

"Too bloody foggy," Stephen says, pulling Lorrie's chair out.

"Where did your friend go?" Lorrie asks, sitting down.

"I don't know," I sigh. "She's freaking out about something."

"I hope we didn't upset her," Lorrie says.

"Darling, eat your caviar," Stephen says.

Later the Wallaces insist I join them at a karaoke party in Club Lido but I'm drunk and the details surrounding me are swimming out of focus in front of my eyes and before I bolt for my cabin the camera moves in on dessert: a gold-rimmed plate, raspberries, blueberries, two scoops of vanilla mousse bordering a chocolate bonsai tree.

7

Back in my room pretty much totally sloshed I dial Marina Gibson's cabin but there's no answer. When I ask the operator to make sure she's ringing the right room, she pitches a snotty reply and I hang up on her and then scrounge around the minibar for a split of champagne, drinking it out of the bottle, foam cascading out of the head all over my hands which I wipe off on my complimentary QE2 bathrobe. I look for a copy of the script, can't find it, give up, tumble around the room, light cigarettes, the view from the prow of the ship on the TV screen almost totally obscured by fog. The phone rings.

"Victor?" Marina sounds as if she's been crying.

"Hey baby," I say soothingly. "Did like Gavin call? What's the story? You sound bummed."

"We have to talk."

"Great," I say, sitting up. "How about my room?"

"No."

"Okay, okay," I say, then, guessing, "How about . . . your room?"

"I don't think it's safe," she whispers.

I pause, considering this. "Marina," I say softly. "I have condoms."

She hangs up.

I immediately dial her room back.

She picks up midway through the first ring.

"Hey baby, it's me," I say.

"This isn't going to work," she mutters to herself, sounding vaguely panicked.

"What do you mean?" I'm asking. "Do . . . you have condoms?"

"That isn't what I'm talking about!" she shouts.

"Whoa, baby," I start, holding the phone away, then bringing it back to my ear. "What isn't?"

"Victor, something's happening that needs to be explained to you."

"Listen, I'm sorry I'm rushing things," I apologize. "I'll read the rest of the script, we'll get to know each other, whatever."

"You're in fucking danger, Victor," she cries.

"Now don't go psycho on me, baby—"

"Victor, did anyone give you something to bring with you to London?" she asks breathlessly.

"What do you mean, baby?" I'm checking my hair in the mirror above the dressing table.

"Did anyone tell you to bring something—a package, an envelope, anything—to London?" she asks again, straining to calm down.

"Like what?"

"I don't know," she moans. "A gift or something. Something to bring someone."

"Oh yeah, right," I say, as if it's slowly dawning on me.

"What? What was it?" she asks in a rush.

I pause before giggling. "Just my beautiful self, baby."

"Damnit, Victor," Marina shouts. "Are you sure? Think carefully."

"At this point I don't think I can."

"Victor, please, you've got to sober up."

"I'm coming over to your room," I tell her. "You sound stressed. You need a massage. Let me administer my famous stress-reducing—"

"Just meet me in Club Lido—now."

"Baby, why not your room?" I whine, disappointed.

"Because it isn't safe," she says. "Because we have to meet where there are other people around."

"Hey baby—"

She hangs up. I'm supposed to look at the phone and shrug, which I do.

6

Cold water splashed on my face doesn't really hasten my sobriety so I just try not to lurch my way to Club Lido, which is actually close enough to my cabin that I'm able to get there without any passing out or major tripping going down. And Club Lido isn't crowded since the karaoke party the Wallaces mentioned has moved on to Mr. Kusoboshi's cabin, the bartender tells me when I take a seat and restrain myself from ordering a martini, sipping a light beer instead, occasionally staring out the large window that looks over the fog-shrouded deck and a small, shallow pool where steam rising from the lit water mixes in with all that fog. A crew member, exasperated, points out someone standing by the railing, the fog sometimes swirling around but mostly just a heavy wall of vaguely transparent granite sitting there, the figure lost within. I sloppily sign a bill for the beer then head outside.

On deck it's quiet, the sounds of the dry-ice machines churning out huge enveloping clouds of fog the only real noise, and the boat seems to be moving more slowly than usual. Marina's back is to me and she's wearing a very cool oversized hooded Prada wool jacket and when I touch her shoulder she automatically stiffens', still looking away, and I'm shivering and damp and she seems even taller and I try to bend down to check if she's wearing heels but oddly enough she has Nikes on her feet, which also look larger, though since I don't really remember ever seeing her feet what the hell am I talking about?

"Marina?" I'm asking. "Marina—is that you?"

There's a pause, then the hood nods.

"Hey, are you okay?" I squint, uselessly waving bad-smelling fake fog away. "What's the story? Did Gavin call you? What happened?"

"You can't go to Paris with me," she whispers, her voice raspy, as if she's been crying. "You have to go to London."

"Hey baby, why the change of heart?" I say, gripping her shoulder. "Hey, look at me."

The hood shakes its head.

"Victor," she says, pulling away, her back still to me. "You're drunk." "How can you tell if you won't look at me?" I plead.

"I can smell it," the voice coughs.

"Hey baby, get closer," I murmur, leaning in. "I wanna come to Paris with you."

"Victor, you're drunk," the voice protests, moving away.

"I need a better excuse," I say. "You could at least—ahem—do me the honor of a more intelligent excuse." This is followed by an enormous belch, which I follow with an apology. I keep trying to get her to face me but she keeps pulling away, tightening the hooded jacket around her.

"Just go," she coughs, then mumbles something else.

"I'm not going anywhere," I say.

"Victor, please—"

"You wanted to talk to me," I point out. "I'm here. I'm ready. I'm in a fairly responsive mood."

"I just wanted to tell you that you can't come to Paris -

"Hey baby, please look at me," I tell her. "Let's go into the bar and I'll order some coffee, a nice cappuccino, huh?"

Reaching around, she grabs my hand without turning to face me and whispers something about my room.

"What? What did you say, baby?" I whisper back, leaning into her, suddenly woozy with the prospect of sex, all the champagne, the smells coming off the Prada overcoat.

"Let's go to your room." She breathes in, her voice husky and thick.

"Baby," I start. "That is such a good - "

Still holding my hand, she turns and walks away, cutting a path through the fog along the deck, and it's hard to keep up with the long, wide strides she's taking and I'm mumbling "Baby, baby, slow down" but I just let her pull me along, rushing toward my cabin.

Once at my door, giggling and out of breath, I pull a key out of my pocket and drop it-laughing "You're taxing my mind-eye coordination, baby"—and I reach down, fumbling for the key, but she grabs it first and I try to grab her hand but when I finally stand up straight, gasping, she has already pushed the door open and is walking into the ' room, dragging me along and switching off all the lights, her back still to me. I fall onto the bed, reaching out for her leg as she walks by.

"I'll just be a minute," she says from the bathroom before closing the door.

Grunting, I sit up and slip my shoes off, hearing them drop by the side of the bed, and then reach over to turn some of the lights back on but I can't reach them and quickly realize I'm just too tired and too drunk to really do anything right now.

"Hey baby?" I call out. "Can we keep the lights on?" I fall back onto the bed. "Honey?"

The bathroom door opens and Marina briefly stands in the entrance, the hood now draped over her shoulders, but even by squinting I can't make out her features since she's backlit in the doorway, just a dark shape moving toward me, the door slowly closing partway behind her, and it's so freezing in the cabin that my breath steams in the half-light coming from the bathroom and she drops down onto the floor, her hair covering her face, and she proceeds to yank down my tuxedo pants along with the Calvin Klein boxer-jockeys and tosses them in the corner and with both hands on my thighs spreads my legs open, moving in between them until her head is at my waist, and my dick—amazingly—is rock hard and she starts rolling her tongue around the head while sucking on it at the same time, her hand gripping the base and then, keeping the head in her mouth, she starts sliding her hand up and down the shaft.

"I want to kiss you," I groan, hooking my hands underneath her arms, trying to pull her on top of me, but her arms are bound up in the bulky jacket, which I finally manage to move down a little, revealing muscular pale shoulders and what looks like a tattoo, partly covered by the strap of a white tank top, on the right shoulder blade. Reaching out, I try to touch the tattoo. "Come on," I groan, "take ' your clothes off," but she keeps pushing me back, my cock moving in and out of her mouth, her hair hanging down, brushing across my hips, her tongue expertly sliding up the shaft, and then I'm angling myself so I can push the entire dick back into her mouth and with both hands holding my hips she starts swallowing it over and over and I'm making soft moaning noises, pulling my shirt up, not wanting to come on it, and I start jacking myself off while she eats my balls, a finger pressing against my assholc that I keep brushing away but she slips it in and I start coming and afterwards, panting, things spinning away from me, through a blurry lens I notice her moving around the room opening drawers and I'm murmuring "Why are you wearing a wig?" before I pass out, which I don't want to do because there are so many things I need to show her.

5

The noon whistle is what stops the dreaming. In the middle of the night I was wrapped in blankets after I passed out but no one removed the tuxedo shirt and bow tie. Unable to stay motionless in the tightly curled fetal position I'm in—due to a great deal of pain—I reach for the phone but in mid-reach realize I've missed brunch and there's no possibility I could keep anything down anyway so I nix room service. In desperate need of water, I stumble up, stagger to the bathroom in pain, squealing "Spare me, spare me," and drink greedily from the sink, which tastes awful, and then I stare at my reflection in the mirror, utterly confused: my face looks completely dehydrated and splotchy, the hair on my head is sticking up at weird angles in a totally ungroovy '80s kind of way and below that the sparse hair on my stomach is matted with dried semen. After a shower the day seems halfway salvageable and much less grim. I get dressed, take three Advil, flush my eyes with Visine, then fall into a violent heap on the bed.

I call Marina's room but there's no answer.

4

I find Marina's room and knock on the door but there's no answer and, predictably, it's locked. I knock again, place my ear against the door: silence. While lingering in the corridor, out of it, still hazy, wondering what I should do after I apologize for being drunk, I notice maids five doors down cleaning rooms, moving slowly this way. I take a walk along the starboard deck but end up pacing just one small stretch of it, sunglasses on, mumbling to myself, the wind off the Atlantic causing me to weave around, until I move back to Marina's hall. Her door is open now and a maid is given her cue to enter, leaving in the open doorway a giant canvas hamper piled high with laundry.

I knock, peering in, clearing my throat, causing the maid to look up while she's stripping the bed. Without smiling and with some sort of bossy Scottish accent, she asks, "May I help you?"

"Hello," I say, trying to be genial and totally failing. "I'm just looking for the girl whose room this is."

"Yes?" the maid asks, waiting, holding the bundle of sheets.

"I, um, left something here," I say, moving into the cabin, noticing an unopened fruit basket, knocked over, on the dressing table, the phone Marina used to call me on the floor in the corner next to the bed instead of the nightstand, as if whoever was last talking on it was huddled down on the floor, hiding behind the bed.

"Sir—" the maid begins impatiently.

"It's okay, it's okay," I'm saying. "She's my girlfriend."

"Sir, you should come back later," the maid says.

"No, no, it's okay," I'm saying, realizing that the room seems totally unlived in. I move past the maid to the closet and open it.

"Sir, you should wait until—"

I hold up a hand. "I said it's okay," I murmur.

The closet is completely empty: no clothes, no luggage, not even any hangers. I close the closet door and move past the maid over to the dressing table and start opening drawers. All of those are empty too.

"Sir, I'm asking you to leave," the maid says, looking me over unfavorably. "If you don't leave I'm going to have to call Security."

Ignoring her, I notice that the wall safe is open and a Prada handbag—nylon with the trademark metal triangle—is halfway hidden inside. As I move toward the safe, behind me the maid walks out of the cabin.

Slowly I unclasp the purse, opening it. I reach in and it's basically empty, except for an envelope.

Queasy, suddenly breathing hard, the hangover washing back over me intensely, I pull a series of Polaroids out of the envelope.

There are eight photographs of me. Two were taken backstage at what looks like a Wallflowers concert: a poster for the band in the background; a sweaty Jakob Dylan holding a red plastic cup behind me, a towel draped over his shoulders. Two were taken during a magazine shoot: hands in the frame with a makeup brush touching up my face, my eyes closed serenely, Brigitte Lancome setting up a camera off to the side. The other four: me standing next to a pool wearing shorts and a vest with no shirt, mattresses on the ground everywhere, and in two of the Polaroids it's bright out and a giant orange sun beats down through smog, and behind a long glass partition near a teenage Japanese waitress wearing a sarong, Los Angeles is spread out behind me. The other two Polaroids were taken at dusk and Rande Gerber has his arm around my shoulder while someone lights tiki torches in the frame next to us. This is a place I recognize from various magazines as the Sky Bar at the recently opened Mondrian Hotel. But my nose is different-widcr, slightly flatter-and my eyes are set too close together; the chin is dimpled, more defined; my hair has never been cut so that it parts easily to one side.

I've never been to a Wallflowers concert

Or had my photo taken by Brigitte Lancome.

I've never been to the Sky Bar in Los Angeles.

I drop the photographs back in the Prada handbag, because I don't want to touch them anymore.

The bathroom reeks of blcach and disinfectant and the floor is wet and gleaming even though the maid hasn't started cleaning in here yet; a bath mat is still crumpled by the tub and towels lie damp, oddly stained, in the corner. There are no toiletries anywhere, no bottles of shampoo, no bars of soap lining the tub's edge. Then someone positions me by the tub so that I'm crouching next to it and I'm urged to move my hand to the drain and after feeling around in it my fingers come away stained slightly pink and when I move a finger farther into the drain I feel something soft and when I pull my hand away again involuntarily, alarmed at what I'm touching, something soft-the pinkness is darker, redder.

Behind the toilet there's more blood—not a lot, just enough to make an impression—and when I run my fingers through it they come away streaked with pink as if the blood has been watered down or someone had tried to clean it up in a hurry and failed.

Just off to the side of the toilet, embedded in the wall, are two small white objects. I pull one of them out of the wall, applying pressure at a certain angle in order to extract it, and after inspecting the thing in my hand I turn to the crew. There's an empty silence, people are fixating on the bathroom's cold light.

"I may be out of it," I start quietly, breathing hard, "but this is a fucking tooth. . . .” And then I'm talking loudly, as if I'm accusing them of something, holding it out to them, my arm outstretched, offering it. "This is a fucking tooth," I'm repeating, shaking hard. "This is a fucking tooth," I say again, and then I'm told to race out of the room.