Lunar Park

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30

2. the party

“You do an awfully good impression of yourself.”

Jayne said this after she looked me over with a confused expression and asked pointedly what I was going as to the Halloween party we were throwing that night, and I told her I’d decided to go simply as “me.” I was wearing faded jeans, sandals, an oversized white T-shirt with a giant marijuana flower emblazoned on it and a miniature straw sombrero. We were in a bedroom the size of a large apartment when we shared this exchange, and I tried to clarify things by raising my arms up and turning slowly around to give her a chance to check out the full-on Bret.

“I’ve decided against wearing masks,” I said proudly. “I want to be real, honey. This is what’s known as the Official Face.” As I continued to turn I noticed Victor, the golden retriever, staring at me, curled in a corner. The dog kept staring and then yawned.

“So you’re going as—what? A Mexican pot activist?” she asked, too tired to glare anymore. “What should I tell the kids about that lovely shirt you’re wearing?”

“I’ll explain to the kids if they ask that—”

“I’ll just say it’s a gardenia,” she sighed.

“Just tell them Bret’s just really into the Halloween spirit this year,” I suggested, turning around again, arms still raised. “Tell them I’m going as a hunk.” I made a playful grab at Jayne, but she moved away too quickly.

“That’s really great, Bret—I’m so proud of you,” she said unenthusiastically as she walked out of the room. The dog glanced at me worriedly, then heaved itself up and followed Jayne. It did not like to be left alone in any room that I was in. The dog had been a mess ever since I’d arrived in July. And since Jayne had been obsessing over a book called If Only They Could Speak (which I thought was an exposé on young Hollywood but was actually an investigation of zoo animals) she had taken the dog through hydrotherapy and acupuncture and to a massage therapist (“Hey, why not get it a personal trainer?” I muttered at one point) and finally it visited a canine behaviorist who prescribed Cloinicalm, which was basically puppy Prozac, but since the drug caused “compulsive licking” a kind of canine Paxil had been prescribed instead (the same medication Sarah was on, which we all thought was extremely distressful). But it still did not like to be left alone in any room that I was in.

The party was my idea. I had been “a good boy” for four months and thought something celebratory was deserved. But since lavish Halloween parties had been a part of my past (the past that Jayne wanted to deny and erase) we fought about this “bash” (my word; Jayne used the term “bacchanal”) amiably, even playfully, until—surprise—she gave in. I credited this to the distraction of the upcoming reshoots for a movie she thought she had finished in April but that the studio wanted to tweak after audience testing proved clarifications were needed to simplify a totally ludicrous big-budget thriller that was impossible to follow. I had seen a rough cut in New York the month before and was secretly appalled but in the limo ride back to the Mercer I raved about the thing until Jayne, seething and staring straight ahead, said, “Shut your mouth now, please.” In the limo that night I realized Jayne was essentially a simple, private person, a woman who had lucked into a career that seemed fast and baffling to her and that this worry about the reshoots was at the heart of why she relented and allowed me to throw the party on the evening of the thirtieth (trick-or-treating would take up the following night). The invitations had been e-mailed to a smattering of my friends (Jay, who was in town on his book tour; David Duchovny; a few cast members from last season’s Survivor; my Hollywood agent, Bill Block; Kate Betts, who was here covering something for the New York Times Style section; and students from my writing workshop) and also, unfortunately, to a couple of Jayne’s acquaintances (mostly parents of Robby’s and Sarah’s friends, whom she couldn’t stand either but had invited in a moment of passive aggression; I kept my mouth shut). Jayne’s second way of protesting the party: no costume, just black Tuleh slacks and a white Gucci blouse. “Nothing accessorized with straw and no apple bobbing” were further demands, and when I complained during the planning stages that Jayne was lacking in Halloween spirit, her concession was to hire an expensive catering company from town. The kids were forewarned that this would be an adult party; they’d be allowed to mingle for the first hour and then it was up to bed since it was a Thursday and hence a school night. In one last-ditch effort Jayne suggested it should be a school night for me as well, that maybe my time would be better spent working instead of throwing a party. But Jayne never understood that the Party had been my workplace. It was my open market, my battleground, it was where friends were made, lovers were met, deals were struck. Parties seemed frivolous and random and formless but in fact were intricately patterned, highly choreographed events. In the world in which I came of age the Party was the surface on which daily life took place. When I tried explaining this in earnest, Jayne just stared at me as if I had suddenly become retarded.

I removed the sombrero and looked at myself in the multitude of mirrors in Jayne’s bathroom (we each had our own), checking my hair from various angles. I’d had it colored the day before to cover the gray on the sides but was afraid I was slowly losing it, like my father had, even though Joelle, my hairdresser, kept stressing that hair loss was represented by the mother’s side of the family. For some reason, “the golden autumnal night” was a phrase that kept repeating itself in my mind as I looked at my hair, and I liked it so much that I decided to incorporate it into my new novel once I sat down the next day to go over the outline. Behind me was a walk-in steam shower with multiple showerheads and a huge tub made from Italian marble that I stared at admiringly whenever I was in Jayne’s bathroom; its extravagance touched something in me, defined in some way who I was now, what I had become even as it was also evolving into a symbol of my precariousness in this world. Hair inspection completed, I left the bathroom and ran my hands across the Frette sheets that hugged our massive bed before turning off the lights.

As I made my way down the grand, curving staircase the cell phone in my back pocket rang. After glancing at my Tank watch I checked the incoming number. It was Kentucky Pete, my dealer, and when I answered the phone he said he was en route.

Note to reader: Yes, I was no longer technically clean. I had mildly relapsed. It hadn’t taken long. A student party on campus during the third week of September, to be somewhat exact. A geek from the graduate program offered me a line—and then another—in a dingy dormitory bathroom, and then I guzzled twenty beers tapped from a keg while students huddled around me as I regaled them with stories about my former successes. Jayne was hardly oblivious but there were certain waves of information she could not bring herself to ride. If her faith in me had been vaguely faltering since the beginning of October—a sense that taking me back was turning into a mistake—it had not yet hit a crisis point. Though I could tell she was fearful, it was contained and hadn’t bloomed out of control. I felt I had time to redeem myself. But not on Halloween.

Because everything was set. The house had been redecorated by the catering company to resemble a huge haunted castle complete with cobwebs dripping everywhere and plastic skeletons and oversized vampire bats dangling from the ceilings and purple lights dousing each wall and a strobe in the foyer. A friend, the artist Tom Sachs, had designed the shipping crate that sat in the middle of the living room and shook and growled at anyone who came near it. From speakers placed outside came the sounds of chains clanking along with various authentic groans and the laughter of the dead. Ghosts made from white crepe paper were floating in the trees and intricately carved jack-o’-lanterns, burning brightly, dotted the stone path leading up to the house. And though this was most decidedly an adult party there was nothing too frightening going down at 307 Elsinore Lane—just something playful and innocent to amuse the guests. As a precaution against crashers we had hired two security guards (one made up as Frankenstein, the other wearing a Dick Cheney mask) and stationed them at the front door behind a velvet rope, each equipped with a blood-spattered guest list and a walkie-talkie. The party would be camcorded by one of my students.

I walked by the kitchen, where Jayne was conferring about canapés with women from the catering company who were dressed suggestively as sexy witches or very alluring cats. Behind them, through the sliding glass doors leading to the backyard, dry ice was being poured into the bubbling Jacuzzi, where the underwater light had been replaced by a dark red bulb for an eerie, cauldronlike effect. And beyond that the crowning touch: the entire nine acres that led from the backyard to a dark bank of trees had been transformed into a giant mock cemetery with crooked gravestones scattered throughout the field, and propped up against the nearest headstone was a plastic ghoul gnawing on a rubber femur.

In the living room a DJ was setting up an elaborate sound system in front of the Andy Warhol silk screen of me holding a pen, and after I introduced myself we went over the song list: “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding,” “The Ghost in You,” “Thriller,” “Witchy Woman,” “Evil Woman,” “Rhiannon,” “Sympathy for the Devil,” “Werewolves of London,” “Spooky Girlfriend,” “The Monster Mash,” etc., etc. The DJ assured me there were enough “scary” songs to last the duration of the party. Across the room was a full bar presided over by a werewolf who was preparing the evening’s specialty drink: a mandarin-flavored margarita punch, with floating lime rinds shaped like tiny green spiders, which would be served from a huge skull-shaped bowl (I would be holding a nonalcoholic beer can filled with that mandarin-flavored margarita punch). I noticed a row of severed hands lining the bar.

The kids were upstairs. Robby and a friend were locked in a Play-Station 2 frenzy (the zombies with Howitzers, the charging minotaur, the deadly extraterrestrials, the forces of hell, the games that commanded “Let me eat you”) while Marta watched over Sarah, who was gazing at her hundredth viewing of Chico, the Misunderstood Coyote. Since they were taken care of for the night, it was time to do something about the dog. I noticed Victor sniffing disinterestedly at one of the dozens of stuffed black cats the decorators had placed around the house, and I called for Jayne to put the dog in the garage. Victor and I had a staring contest for two minutes until Jayne came out of the kitchen and simply said his name without looking at me. He loped over to her, grinning, wagging his tail, and as she led him away, the dog turned its head and glared at me. I let it go. The dog had its world—its reasons—and I had mine.

My cell phone rang again. Kentucky Pete was outside and having trouble getting past Frankenstein, who then buzzed me on the intercom and said that someone—not on the list and dressed as the corpse of Slim Pickens—was waiting impatiently by the velvet ropes. Walking toward the front door I told Pete, “Hang on, I’ll be right there, dude,” and then offered a drawn-out, ghoulish chuckle.

Kentucky Pete was a resilient dinosaur from the seventies that one of my students had hooked me up with. Overweight, with long gray hair and snakeskin boots and a tattoo of an unthreatening scorpion (it was smiling and held a Corona in its pincer) on a forearm covered with sores from the repeated use of nonsterile needles, he was the total opposite of the drug runners I had scored from in Manhattan: trim, sober, good-looking young guys who wore three-button Paul Smith suits and wanted an “in” to the movie business. To make up for his lack of sleekness Kentucky Pete had a more varied selection—he sold everything from lime green Super Vicodin caplets to two-milligram Xanax sent in from Europe to crack dipped in PCP to joints sprayed with embalming fluid to pretty pure coke, which was all I really wanted from him tonight (along with a couple of the two-milligram Xanax to get to sleep, of course). I told Jayne that he was one of my students when she caught him here the first week of October, lounging with me in the media room while we were watching a DVD of American Psycho. When she dragged me into the kitchen and just stared in disbelief, I stressed, “Graduate student, honey. Graduate student.” (When Jayne and I dated in the eighties she basically had an ice cream habit—sometimes she’d indulge, but more often than not she wouldn’t.) Not wanting Jayne to see him here tonight, I needed to take care of business fast—even though the house was now doused in so much deep purple light she could easily mistake him for someone in costume. If Jayne ran into him I would just tell her that he was a student dressed as “the grizzled prospector.”

I let Kentucky Pete in and, after hesitantly granting him a margarita, quickly led him to my office, where I locked the door and pulled out my wallet. He was in a hurry anyway; he needed to get to the college by eight to sell a large amount of dope to an affluent group of juniors. When he asked if I had a pipe he could borrow, I opened my safe. He downed the punch and heaved a huge, satisfied sigh, humming along to the Zombies singing “Time of the Season.”

(What’s your name? Who’s your daddy? Is he rich? Is he rich like me?)

“What’s in there?” he asked, craning his neck, and then, “Dig the sombrero.”

“This is where I keep my cash and guns.” I reached into the safe and gave him a crystal pipe that under no circumstances did I want returned after its use. I needed two eight balls of the pure stuff and a couple of the heavily cut grams for drunken guests who were going to bum off me and be too wasted to notice the difference. After the transaction was finalized and a discount given in exchange for the pipe, I pocketed the tightly wrapped multicolored packages and led Kentucky Pete outside, walking him across the pumpkin-scattered lawn as he admiringly stared back at the elaborately decorated house.

“Whoa—this place has been turned into one spooky shack, man,” he murmured appreciatively.

“It’s a spooky world, dude,” I said hurriedly, checking my watch.

“Ghoulish, man, ghoulish.”

“The spirits will be moaning tonight, my man,” I said, maneuvering him toward the motorcycle parked lopsidedly at the curb. “I know all about the darkness, dude. I am primed to party and ready for anything.”

Even though it was the end of October an Indian summer had lingered and I shivered at the incongruity of this decidedly nonautumnal weather while Kentucky Pete explained the origins of the holiday: Halloween was based on the Celtic day of Samhain—this was the last day of their calendar and the one time of the year when the dead came back and “grabbed you, dude.” And if you went out you had to wear a costume that made you look like one of the dead so they’d be fooled and leave you alone. I kept nodding and saying, “The dead, yeah, the dead.” We could hear “Time of the Season” playing from inside the house.

“Adios, amigo,” he said, revving up.

“Always a pleasure,” I said, patting him on the back. Then, wiping my hands on my jeans, I scurried up to the house and locked myself in my office, where I snorted two massive lines, and exhaling with relief I rushed to the bar with my empty nonalcoholic beer can and had the werewolf fill it with punch. I was now ready for the night to begin.

The guests started arriving. Costumes were fairly predictable: vampires, a leper, Jack the Ripper, a monstrous-looking clown, two ax murderers, someone who seemed to be just hiding under a large white sheet, a bedraggled mummy, a few devil worshippers, and there were a number of fashion models and a plague-ridden peasant, and, as expected, all of my students were zombies. Someone I didn’t recognize came as Patrick Bateman, which I didn’t find funny and had a problem with; watching this tall, handsome guy in the bloodstained (and dated) Armani suit lurk around the corners of the party, inspecting the guests as if they were prey, freaked me out and somewhat diminished my high, but another trip to the office reclaimed it. Cliques began forming. I was forced into meeting a few of the parents of Robby’s and Sarah’s friends, discussing another national tragedy before the conversation turned to topics about as interesting as last week’s weather: the daughter who didn’t get into the desired preschool, unfair soccer leagues, and a book club someone had just started—and when I suggested that they begin with one of my books I was met with what could only be described as “uneasy laughter.” Jayne was hiding her anger exquisitely by playing the charming hostess while I waited impatiently for Mr. McInerney, who was giving a reading in town and had called earlier asking for our address again. Sometime during all this Jayne insisted I strap the guitar I kept in my office (a leftover souvenir from my Camden days when I was in bands and thought I was going to be the next Paul Westerberg) over my shoulder to hide the marijuana leaf, after she noticed the concerned looks from a few of the parents, and so I was soon spinning around the party greeting guests while strumming the guitar—which was also a clever way of disarming my students from wanting to talk about their stories (always one of my least favorite topics of conversation—and tonight I did not want to be asked, “Mr. Ellis, have you read ‘What I Was Thinking When I Gave Him Head’ yet?”). And I didn’t really focus on anything in particular until Aimee Light appeared.

Aimee Light was in the graduate department at the college and, though not a student of mine, was doing her thesis on my work, despite the consternation of her advisor, who had tried unsuccessfully to talk her out of it. We met at that same party I relapsed at. She was enamored of me but coolly, objectively, and this distance made her far more alluring than the usual round of sycophants I was accustomed to. I played my own role distractedly, which I could tell subtly frustrated her. Yes, it was back to the youthful game playing I experienced as a college student and I felt younger because of it. Aimee Light was lithe and agile and had the perfect body of a big-breasted, small-boned teenager even though she was nearing twenty-four. Blond hair with hard blue eyes and a steely attitude—she was exactly my type and I had been trying to get her into bed for about a month now, but so far had managed only a few makeout sessions in my office at school and one in her off-campus apartment. She kept pretending that her purpose was obscure. As with so many things in my life she just appeared from nowhere.

She was standing with a friend by the bar and chatting up the werewolf while the Eagles’ “One of These Nights” blasted out and I started to dance across the room toward her. Seeing my approach she quickly whispered something to her companion—a girlish gesture that betrayed her innocence—just as I appeared directly in front of her, flushed and beaming in the purple light, lip-synching the song, gyrating my hips, strumming the guitar. It was a risk inviting her, but she took a bigger risk by actually showing up. I winked at her discreetly.

After Aimee introduced us—“This is Melissa—she’s a harridan,” and pretty hot as well—I looked around the packed living room and saw Jayne taking David Duchovny outside to show him the fake graveyard.

“Was that wink your idea of an icebreaker?” Aimee asked.

“Wanna play Pass the Pumpkin?” I asked back.

“I like the shirt,” she said, lifting the guitar up.

“I like the whole package,” I said, looking her over. “What are you going as?”

“Sylvia Plath’s divorce attorney.”

I took her hand and asked the harridan, “Will you excuse us?”

“Bret—” Aimee warned, but her grip on my hand didn’t loosen.

“Hey, we need to talk about your thesis.”

She turned back to her friend and made a pleading face.

Still dancing to the Eagles I dragged her through the maze of the party until we reached a bathroom that I made sure was empty before dancing us both inside and locking the door. It was so hushed in there that we might have been the only two people in the house. She leaned against a wall—casual, sly, not really there. I took a long pull from my beer can and then spit out a small lime green spider.

“I thought you weren’t going to come,” I said accusingly.

“Well, neither did I . . .” She paused. “But, sigh, I wanted to see you.”

I took out a gram and asked, “Wanna bump?”

She stared at me, amused, her arms folded across her chest. “Bret, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“What are these reluctance issues you have?” I asked, annoyed. “Where do they come from—that uptight little town in Connecticut you escaped?” I busied myself with the gram and poured a small pile onto the counter by the sink. “I’m just offering you a line. How difficult a decision is that?” Then, in a bachelor’s voice: “Who’s your hot friend?”

She ignored my tactic. “It’s not the line.”

“Well, good, then I’ll do yours.”

“It’s your wife.”

“My wife? Hey, I’ve only been married three months. Give me a break. We’re still testing the waters—”

“Your wife is here plus you’re a little blotto.” She reached for a black and orange hand towel and wiped my forehead.

“When has that ever stopped us?” I asked “sadly.”

“From what?” she asked with mock outrage, but then smiled lasciviously.

I hunched over the sink and Hoovered up both lines with a straw and then immediately turned around and pressed into her, the guitar dividing us. When I kissed her mouth, it opened with no resistance and we fell against a wall. I swung the guitar over my shoulder and kept pushing up against her, an erection pulsing in my jeans, while she kept pretending to push me away, but not really. Somewhere during all of this my sombrero fell off.

“You’re so hot I can’t keep my hands off you,” I panted. “Have you ever played doctor?”

She laughed and broke away. “Look, this isn’t gonna happen here,” and then, studying my head, “Did you do something to your hair?”

I kissed her on the mouth again. And she responded even more urgently this time. We were suddenly interrupted by my ringing cell phone. I ignored it. We kept kissing but I already felt the pangs of disappointment—there was no chance anything more was going to happen in this bathroom tonight—and the phone kept vibrating in my back pocket until I had to answer it.

Aimee finally pushed me away. “Okay—that’s enough.”

“For now,” I said in my sexiest voice, though it came out sounding merely ominous. My arm still around her, I held the phone to my ear with my free hand.

“Yo?” I said, checking the incoming number.

“It’s me.” It was Jay but I could barely hear him.

“Where are you?” I whined. “Jesus, Jay, you are one lost bastard.”

“What do you mean, where am I?” he asked.

“You sound like you’re at some kind of party.” I paused. “Don’t tell me that many people showed up at your goddamn reading.”

“Well, open the door and you’ll see where I am” was his reply.

“Open which door?”

“The one you’re behind, moron.”

“Oh.” I turned to Aimee. “It’s the Jayster.”

“Why don’t you just let me out first,” Aimee suggested, hurrying toward the mirror to make sure everything was in place.

But I opened the door, high and not caring, and Jay stood there, his hair fashionably tousled, wearing black slacks and an orange Helmut Lang button-down.

“Ah, I thought I’d find you in a bathroom.” And then Jay turned his gaze on Aimee and said, after looking her over appreciatively, “It’s where he can usually be located.”

“I have a weak bladder.” I shrugged and bent down to retrieve my sombrero.

“And you also have”—Jay reached over and touched my nose as I stood up—“what I am and am not hoping is baby powder above your upper lip.”

I leaned toward the bathroom mirror and wiped off the residue of coke, then placed the straw hat back onto my head at what I thought was a raffish angle.

“So creative yet so destructive, I know, I know,” Jay said, causing Aimee to crack up.

“Jay McInerney, Aimee Light.” I leaned closer to the mirror and checked my nose again.

“I’m a big fan—” Aimee started.

“Hey, watch it.” I scowled. “Aimee’s a student at the college and she’s doing her thesis on me.”

“So that explains . . . this?” Jay said, gesturing at the scene in the bathroom.

Aimee looked away nervously and said, “Nice to meet you, but I’ve gotta go.”

“Want a bump?” I asked Jay, blocking Aimee’s exit.

“Look, I’ve really gotta go,” Aimee said more insistently and squeezed past me, and then I took one last look in the mirror and followed, closing the bathroom door behind us. The three of us, outside in the hall, were suddenly approached by a very tall and sexy cat holding a tray of nachos. I slung the guitar back across my chest, almost hitting her with the neck but she ducked in time. Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” was now pumping through the house.

“Meow,” Jay said, and took a chip dripping with cheese.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Aimee muttered.

I nodded, watching as she moved back to where her friend was still chatting up the werewolf. “Hey,” I called out. “Enjoy the rest of your evening.” And I continued to stare until it became apparent she was not going to look back.

Knocking me out of my reverie, Jay gestured at the cat with the nachos. “I take it the thought of food is the furthest thing from your mind?”

“Want a bump?” I whispered into his ear involuntarily.

“Even though you’re sounding like a parrot, there is really no other reason to be here.” He looked around the darkened living room as a man dressed as Anna Nicole Smith pushed past us to use the bathroom. “But is there someplace more private?”

“Follow me,” I said, and when I noticed him taking another nacho I snapped, “And stop flirting with the help.”

But we were trapped. Jay and I were huddled on the periphery of the party, and I was strategizing how to get to my office without Jayne seeing us; back inside, she was introducing David Duchovny to the Allens, our neighbors and truly tiresome bores, and my plans had become increasingly urgent since I desperately needed another line—the garage, I suddenly realized, the garage—when I felt someone tugging at my guitar. I looked down: it was Sarah. “Daddy?” she said, her face a frown of concern. She was wearing a little T-shirt with the word BABE on it.

“And who is this?” Jay asked sweetly, kneeling beside her.

“Daddy,” Sarah said again, ignoring him.

“She calls you ‘Daddy’?” Jay asked, sounding worried.

“We’re working on it,” I said. “Honey, what is it?”

I noticed Marta on the outskirts of the living room, craning her neck.

“Daddy, Terby’s mad,” Sarah said, pouting.

Terby was the bird doll I had bought Sarah in August for her birthday. It was a monstrous-looking but very popular toy that she’d wanted badly yet the thing was so misconceived and grotesque—black and crimson feathers, bulging eyes, a sharp yellow beak with which it continuously gurgled—that both Jayne and I balked at buying her one until Sarah’s pleas drowned out all reasoning. Since the awful thing was sold out everywhere I’d resorted to using Kentucky Pete—who was very adept at obtaining contraband—to secure one that according to him had been smuggled in from Mexico.

“Terby’s mad,” Sarah whined again.

“Well, calm him down,” I said, glancing around. “Bring him up some nachos. Maybe he’s hungry.”

“Terby says it’s too loud and Terby’s mad.” Her arms were crossed in a parody of an upset child.

“Okay, baby, we’ll take care of it.” I stood on my tiptoes and waved at Marta, then pointed down and mouthed, She’s here. Relieved, Marta started pushing toward us through the mass of bodies.

And suddenly Sarah was surrounded. Adorable children, I’d begun to notice, had that effect on people. Put them in a room full of adults and they were always the star attraction. Girls from my workshop and some of the cat-woman caterers were now leaning in and asking her questions in baby-doll voices, and Sarah soon seemed to forget all about Terby as I slowly pulled McInerney away. The cute little BABE basked in everybody’s attention even as “Don’t Fear the Reaper” roared through the house—an unsettling moment, but also my chance to escape.

As I led Jay down a long hallway toward the door that opened into the garage, he said, “You took care of that so well.”

“Jay, she’s six years old and thinks her bird doll’s alive,” I said, exasperated. “Now, do you want me to stand there and deal with that, or do you want to shut up and do a line with me?”

“You really don’t know how to do this, do you?”

“Do what? Throw a kick-ass party?”

“No. Be married. Be the dad.”

“Well, being married’s okay—but the dad thing’s a little tougher,” I said. “ ‘Daddy, can I have some juice?’ ‘How about some water, honey?’ ‘Daddy?’ ‘Yes?’ ‘Can I have some juice?’ ‘How about some water instead, honey?’ ‘Daddy, can I have some juice?’ ‘Okay, honey, you want some juice?’ ‘No, it’s okay, I’ll just have some water.’ It’s like some fucking Beckett play that we’re rehearsing constantly.”

Jay just stared at me, grim-faced.

“Hey, but I bought a book,” I said flippantly. “Fatherhood for Dummies, and it is helping immensely. If only my father—”

“Okay, I can see what sort of evening this is turning into.”

“Hey, how was the reading?” I asked, switching gears.

“I like your little town” was his noncommittal answer, and I realized that the reading had probably been a bust. Not high, I would have wanted to pursue this, but wasted I did not.

I opened the door and ushered Jay into the garage and then peered back down the hallway to see if we’d been followed. I closed and locked the door and flicked on the fluorescent lights. The four-car garage contained my Porsche, Jayne’s Range Rover and a motorcycle I’d just purchased with unexpected Swedish royalties. And, I just noticed, a miserable golden retriever that lay waiting for us in the corner, curled up against Robby’s bike. But Jay aroused so little interest that Victor barely looked up.

“Ignore that dog,” I told him.

“Ah yes, your intimacy problems with animals. I forgot.”

“Hey, I dated Patty O’Brien for three months.” And then: “Ready for a little acción?”

“Indeed.” Jay rubbed his hands together eagerly.

“I have brought us some very pure Bolivian Marching Powder,” I said, rummaging through my pockets.

“Ooh—the Devil’s Dandruff.”

I quickly located the stash and handed Jay a packet. He opened it, inspected the coke and then put it down on the hood of the Porsche and started rolling a twenty into a tight green straw.

After I did two huge bumps from my own gram I wanted to show off my new bike.

“Hey, Jayster—check it out. The Yamaha Y2F-RI. A hundred and fifty-two horsepower. Top speed: a hairsbreadth under a hundred and seventy miles per hour,” I purred.

“How much?”

“Only ten grand.”

“Well spent. What happened to the Ducati?”

“Had to sell it. Jayne thought it was giving Robby bad ideas. And my argument that the kid doesn’t care about anything proved totally useless.”

“Like father, like—”

“Start panting with eagerness and just do the fucking coke.”

Jay did a bump and then paused, grimacing. A moment passed.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Actually, this baking powder is cut with way too much laxative.”

“Oops, wrong stuff.” I took the heavily cut junk from Jay, refolded the packet and handed him a proper gram.

“Where’s your guy, your dealer?” he asked, still grimacing, licking his lips.

“Um, back at the college. Why?” I asked. “And please don’t take a dump in our garage.”

“So your refund for that shit is unlikely?” he asked, opening the fresh packet. “Suck-ah!”

“That crap’s for wastoids who can’t tell the difference—I just gave you the real stuff.”

“You’re so cheap,” he muttered. He did two bumps and flung his head back and then smiled slowly and said, “Now, that’s much better.”

“Anything for a bud.”

“So, really, how is married life?” he asked, lighting a Marlboro and easing into coke chat. “The wife, the kids, the posh suburbs?”

“Yeah, the tragedy’s complete, huh?” I laughed hollowly.

“No, really.” Jay seemed mildly interested.

“Marriage is great,” I said, opening my own packet again. “Unlimited sex. Laughs. Oh yeah, and continuous companionship. I think I’ve got this down to a science.”

“And the ubiquitous student in the bathroom?”

“Just part of the package here at Casa Ellis.” I did another bump and then bummed a cigarette.

“No, seriously—who is she?” he asked, lighting it. “I hear today’s college women are ‘prodigious.’ ”

“Prodigious? Is that really what you heard?”

“Well, I read it in a magazine. It was something I wanted to believe.”

“The Jayster. Always a dreamer.”

“I am so relieved. I knew the whole suburban scene was a great idea for you. By the way,” he said, gesturing at a plastic skeleton hanging from a rafter, “is this how the house normally looks?”

“Yeah, Jayne loves it.”

He paused. “And you’re still sleeping on the couch?”

“It’s a guest bedroom and it’s just a phase—but, wait, how did you know?”

He just inhaled on his cigarette, debating whether to tell me something.

“Jay?” I asked. “Why do you think I’m sleeping in the guest bedroom?”

“Helen told me that Jayne said something about you having bad dreams.”

Relieved to have an out, I said, “I’m not having any dreams at all.”

Jay’s expression led me to believe that this was not all he’d been told.

“Look, we’re in couples counseling,” I admitted. “It helps.”

Jay took this in. “You’re in couples counseling.” He considered this as I nodded. “After three months of marriage? That does not bode well, my friend.”

“Hey, earth to Jayster! We’ve known each other for almost twelve years, man. It’s not like we met last July and just decided to elope.” I paused. “And how in the hell did you know I’m sleeping in the guest room?”

“Um, Bretster, Jayne called up Helen.” He stopped, did another bump. “Just thought I’d warn you.”

“Oh, Jesus, why would Jayne call up your wife?” I tried to toss off this question casually but shuddered with coke-induced paranoia instead.

“She’s worried that you’re using again, and I guess”—Jay made a gesture—“she’s wrong . . . right?”

“Haven’t we outgrown all this tired irony? Weren’t we supposed to give up acting twenty-two forever?”

“Well, you’re wearing a marijuana T-shirt at your own Halloween party, where you just were making out with a coed in the bathroom, so the answer to that, my friend, is a definite nope.”

Suddenly the dog had enough and started barking for us to vacate the garage.

“On that note,” I said. “We’re heading back to the party.”

We reentered the labyrinth and weaving through the darkness I felt twitchy. The rooms seemed even more crowded than before, and outside people were swimming in the pool. Realizing that a lot of kids from the college had crashed I started worrying about what Jayne was making of all this. The hallways were so jammed that Jay and I had to walk through the kitchen to get to the living room for drinks and just then Joe Walsh’s familiar opening riffs to “Life’s Been Good” blasted me into a manic moment of air jamming. Jay looked suitably amused. The sweet aroma of pot began announcing itself in the living room. My heartbeat had doubled because of the cocaine, and I had acquired a new crystalline focus and wanted everyone to be friends. That’s when I noticed Robby wandering around in a Kid Rock T-shirt and baggy jeans so I grabbed him roughly by the neck and pulled him toward us. “I bet it took a lot outta you, huh? Coming down all them stairs?” Robby shrugged, and I introduced him to Jay and then handed them both margaritas, which Robby took so reluctantly that I had to playfully smack him around, urging him to drink it. Robby and Jay started having the kind of inane conversations eleven-year-olds have with people approaching fifty. Robby had taken his usual stance when talking to an adult: You mean nothing to me. I noticed he was gripping a baseball designed to look like the moon.

And then more tugging on my guitar: Sarah again.

I rolled my eyes and muttered a curse under my breath. I looked down and sighed: she was wearing tiny white hot pants.

“These are the kids,” I told Jay, gesturing at Robby and Sarah. “Her look is glam, and pink is very in on six-year-olds this season. Robby’s wearing white hip-hop and is now officially a tween.”

“A tween?” Jay asked, then leaned toward me and whispered, “Wait, that’s not like a gay thing, is it?”

“No, it’s a tween,” I explained. “You know, someone who isn’t a child or a teenager.”

“Jesus,” Jay muttered. “They’ve thought of everything, haven’t they?”

Our conversation had not deterred Sarah.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, sweetie? Why aren’t you up in bed? Where’s Marta?”

“Terby’s still mad.”

“Well, who’s Terby mad at?”

“Terby scratched me.” She held out her arm, and I squinted in the purple darkness but couldn’t see anything. This was exasperating.

“Robby—take your sister back upstairs. You know she needs her usual twelve hours and it’s getting late. It is now officially bedtime.”

“Then can I come back down?” he asked.

“No, you cannot,” I said, noticing that half his margarita was gone. “Where’s your friend?”

“Ashton took a Zyprexa and then fell asleep,” Robby said blankly.

“Well, I suggest you take one too, buddy, because tomorrow’s a school day.”

“It’s just Halloween. Nothing’s going on.”

“Hey, I said it’s bedtime, buster. Jeez, kids demand so much attention.”

“Daddy!” Sarah shouted again.

“Honey—you’ve got to get in bed.”

“But Terby’s flying.”

“Okay, well, you’ve got to put him to bed too.”

Robby rolled his eyes anxiously and kept sipping from the margarita. Something got stuck in his teeth and he pulled a green spider out of his mouth and studied it as if it meant something.

“Terby’s angry,” Sarah whined, pulling on my guitar until I knelt down at her level.

“I know, honey,” I said soothingly. “Terby sounds like he’s a big mess.”

“He’s on the ceiling.”

“Let’s get Mommy. She’ll get him down.”

“But he’s on the ceiling.”

“Then I’ll get a broom and knock Terby off the ceiling. Jesus, where’s Marta?”

“It tried to bite me.”

“Maybe it wants you to brush your teeth and get into bed.”

Suddenly Jayne was behind me and above me, talking to Jay, but I couldn’t hear their conversation because of the music. They both looked down at me with accusatory expressions, and when I motioned to her she excused herself from Jay and, as I stood up, Sarah still clutching my hand, gave me a withering look. I suddenly realized I was waving a cigarette around and sweating profusely. The room was so packed with people that we were practically crushed together.

“Are you okay?” she said, but it was a statement, not a question.

“Sure, honey, why wouldn’t I be okay?” I sniffed loudly. “This is one rockin’ party. But your daughter—”

“You’re very talkative and sniffly.” She was glaring. “And you’re sweating.”

Sarah tugged on my arm again.

“That’s because I’m having fun.”

“And look, all around us, half the college showed up and is already inebriated to the point of unconsciousness.”

“Honey, you’ve got to deal with your daughter—her doll’s freaking out on her.”

“People are complaining that the music’s too loud,” Jayne said.

“Only your friends, chica.” I paused. “Plus I can hear you perfectly fine.”

“Chica? Did you just call me chica?”

“Look, if you don’t want to be sociable and can’t be tremendously cool about how to throw a party . . .” I found myself absently fondling a bowl of candy corn.

“There are students in our pool, Bret.”

“I know,” I said. “What? They’re swimming.”

“Jesus, Jay’s wasted and so are you.”

“Jay does calisthenics,” I said indignantly. “He doesn’t get wasted.”

“What about you, Bret?” she asked. “Do you get wasted?”

“Look, being America’s greatest writer under forty is a lot to live up to. It’s so hard.”

She gave me a scathing look. “I marvel at your courage.”

“Will you deal with your daughter, please?”

“Why don’t you deal with her?” she said. “She’s holding your hand.”

“But who’s going to greet the mystery guests and—”

Jayne walked away midsentence and started talking to someone dressed as Zorro, who was in real life a runner-up on last season’s Survivor.

I dragged Sarah over to Jayne and said, “Listen—will you take Sarah back up to bed?” I asked, no joke.

“You do it,” she said without looking at me.

A moment later, after noticing I was still there, she added, “Get lost.”

But Sarah wouldn’t go back to her room—she was too frightened, so Marta escorted her to ours. The cocaine was flowing through me as the Ramones were singing, “I don’t want to be buried in a pet sematary/I don’t wanna live my life again” and when I staggered through a mob of dancing students and saw the Patrick Bateman guy was still here, there was suddenly the sense that the party was verging out of control. Something in me dropped and exploded—a moment of pure, almost visceral despair—and I needed another line. I looked back into the crowd. Jay had drifted over to the celebrities—my wife and David Duchovny—and Robby had disappeared. So I walked up the curving staircase to the second floor to check out Sarah’s room—using my investigation of the alleged Terby incident as an excuse to do more blow.

It was so quiet up there that you could barely hear the party downstairs; that’s how large the house was. It was also freezing, and I shivered uncontrollably as I moved down the darkened hallway. I walked by Robby’s room—his friend was zonked out in the huge king-sized bed, the Steven Spielberg movie 1941 (which had been on a lot lately) glowing from the wide-screen TV, the only light in my son’s room. I continued my walk down the hall and stopped at a huge expanse of window that looked out over the backyard: people were swimming in the heated pool and sprawled on chaise longues. A group of students had congregated in the mock graveyard, sharing a joint, and another group was crawling around each other through the headstones. And above the headstones I noticed the moon and a lunar light fanning over the field and there was actually a mist rolling in from the woods and drifting toward the house. I wanted suddenly to do another massive line and join the students when something behind me flickered, then dimmed—it was a wall sconce, wrought-iron and gold-rimmed, one of many that lined the hallway walls about six feet up from the floor. Tonight, though, they’d all been switched off.

But when I walked toward a sconce it lit up briefly and then dimmed as I passed by. This happened at the second sconce I passed, and then at the third. Each time I neared one it began glowing and then as I passed the sconce it dimmed again, as if they were moving with me, lighting my way down the darkened hallway. I started giggling at what I thought was a brief hallucination, but since it kept happening with each sconce I approached my hope that this was a drug-induced vision no longer made any sense. So I concluded it had something to do with how complicated the electrical situation had become due to the party—all the purple lights and extension cables causing problems throughout the house. That was what I told myself as I made my way toward the darkness of Sarah’s room.

The first thing I noticed was that her window was open, the curtains billowing in the hot night wind. I turned on the lights and moved through the faux French country–style room and looked out the window. The guitar was blocking me from getting a decent vantage point so I took it off and laid it gently on the cowhide carpeting that covered the floor. Below me, I could see the bouncers talking to two girls who were trying to crash the party, all four of them laughing and gesturing intimately at one another and I realized the girls had already been inside and were now just flirting with the guys guarding the door. I also noticed the number of cars crowding Elsinore Lane and then, moving among them, a tall figure dressed in a suit. I breathed in and stuck my head farther out the window to get a better look. The figure briefly turned as if he knew he was being watched, and I glimpsed the face of the guy who came to the party dressed as Patrick Bateman. I shuddered with relief that he was leaving—again, another reminder to boost myself up. (He was just a prank, I told myself; he was just the unexpected detail that materializes at every party, I told myself.) When I shut the window and turned around, whatever whimsy the room once held—cool, girly, Crayola-inspired—had inexplicably vanished.

The only real damage I initially noticed was that a small bookshelf had been overturned. I knelt down and pushed it back up against the wall and haphazardly piled books and toys into its shelves when I remembered something Sarah said and slowly looked up at the ceiling. There were marks directly above her bed. I couldn’t be sure at first but as I neared them I noticed that these marks looked like scratches—as if something had been crawling along the length of the ceiling, hooking its claws into it. I began fumbling for the packet of coke in my jeans when I glanced at the bed. And that was the moment I saw the pillow. Something had torn the pillow open, clawing it in two (yes, that was the word that sprang to mind: clawing) and scattering feathers all over the comforter. The pillow looked as if it had been, well, attacked, since the pillowcase was shredded, as if something had lunged at it continually, and when I touched the pillow, hesitantly, I recoiled, because the pillow was also wet. At that point—when my index finger came away slimed—I immediately wiped my hand on my jeans and decided to head downstairs and lock myself in the office for the duration of the night. I was going to let Jayne and Marta deal with this. My first thought was that Jayne’s troubled daughter had caused this damage herself, and I would leave the pillow as evidence.

But as I turned to leave the room, there it was: the Terby. It was sitting innocently by the door. I had not remembered seeing it when I first entered the room and it just sat there, waiting, covered with its black and crimson feathers, its bulging yellow doll eyes and its sharp glistening beak. I realized, somewhat sickeningly, that I would have to pass the thing in order to get out of the room. Stepping forward, I neared it cautiously, as if it were alive, when suddenly it moved. It started wobbling on its claws toward me.

I gasped and backed away.

I was freaked out but only momentarily, since I realized someone had just left the thing on. So I composed myself and moved toward it again. Its movements were so clumsy and mechanical that I giggled at myself for having become so frightened. The gurgling noises it was now making sounded prerecorded and filled with static—nothing like the abnormal bird sounds I had expected.

I sighed. I needed to take a Xanax and I would go down to my office, maybe finish what was left of one of the grams, drink another margarita and mellow out alone. That was the plan. I was flooded with relief and I continued laughing at myself—at how the combination of the coke and the doll had struck something awful in me, and that awful feeling dissipated entirely as I leaned down and picked up the doll. I turned it over and saw that the red light on the back of its neck was blinking, meaning that the thing had been activated. I flipped a small switch beneath the light and turned the Terby off. There was a whirring noise and the doll went limp. As I laid the doll down on Sarah’s bed next to the mutilated pillow I realized the thing was actually warm and something was pumping beneath its feathers. An unnerving silence had filled the room, even though the party was dancing below me. I suddenly needed to get out of there.

And as I turned away from Sarah’s room something sang out in a clear, high-pitched voice that turned into a guttural squawking—it was coming from the bed—and an adrenaline rush surged through me, out of me, enveloping the cavernous bedroom. I didn’t look back as I raced down the hallway, the sconces flickering on and off as I rushed past them, and as I tumbled down the curving staircase heading toward the sanctity of my office, I realized that for me the party had ended.