The Rules of Attraction

PAUL The four of us — me, Richard, Mrs. Jared, my mother — are sitting in the middle of the dining room at The Ritz-Carlton. Classical music is being played by an expert pianist. Waiters dressed in new expensive tuxedos move quickly, gracefully, from table to table. Elderly women with too much make-up on, slumped lazily, drunkenly in the red velvet chairs, stare and smile. We’re surrounded by what Mrs. Jared likes to call, “old, very old money,” as if the Jared’s money was new, very new. (Yeah, those banks have been in the family for only about a century and a half, I refrain from saying.) The whole thing is just really unnerving, especially since Richard, even after a shower and a new suit, hair still greased back, sunglasses still on, as of yet, hasn’t sobered up. He looks, unfortunately, pretty hot. He sits across from me, making lewd gestures that I pray neither mother will notice. His foot is now in my crotch but I’m too nervous to get hard. He’s drinking champagne Kirs and he’s downed about four, all of them carefully and with what looks to me a definite sense of purpose. He’ll alternately stare at his glass or raise his eyebrows up suggestively at me, then dig his shoeless foot into my crotch and I’ll squirm and make faces and my mother will ask if I’m okay and I’ll just cough, “Ahem.” Richard stares at the ceiling, then starts humming some U2 song to himself. It’s so quiet in this elegant, tacky, big cave that I’m afraid people are staring at us and, if not us, then at least at Richard, and they probably are and there’s nothing to do but just get drunker.

After Mrs. Jared asks Richard for the sixteenth time to take his sunglasses off and he refuses, she finally uses the reverse psychology bit and says, “So Richard, tell us about school.”

Richard looks at her and reaches into his pocket pulling out a Marlboro and grabbing the candle from the middle of the table, lights it.

“Oh, don’t smoke,” Mrs. Jared says disapprovingly, as he places the candle back.

I’ve refrained all evening from smoking and am seriously dying of a violent nicotine attack and I eye Richard’s cigarette hungrily. I am trying to rip my napkin in half.

“My name’s not Richard,” Richard reminds her, quietly.

Mrs. Jared looks at my mother and then at Richard and asks, “Then, what is it?”

“Dick,” he says, making it sound like the filthiest name imaginable.

“What?” Mrs. Jared asks.

“Dick. You heard me.” Richard takes a long drag from the Marlboro and blows it across the table at me. I cough and sip my drink.

“No. Your name is Richard,” Mrs. Jared corrects.

“Sorry,” Richard shakes his head. “It’s Dick.”

Mrs. Jared pauses. She’s slipping. She has not eaten much and has been drinking steadily, even before dinner began, and now she calmly asks, “Well, Dick … how is school?”

“Sucks cock,” Richard says.

I’m sipping champagne when he says this and burst out laughing, spraying my plate. I quickly place the napkin I’m trying to rip apart over my mouth, attempt to swallow but start coughing instead, then choking. My eyes water and I breathe in, gasping.

“What are you taking … Dick?” Mrs. Jared asks, looking at me, trying to hold her composure, a stare of reprimand fixed on her face. I wipe my mouth and shrug.

“I don’t know. Gangbanging 111. Freebasing tutorial,” Richard shrugs, laughing, digging his foot even harder against my crotch. I cough again and grab at his foot beneath the table. “You like that?” he asks.

“What else?” Mrs. Jared is clearly trying not to act nonplussed, but her hand trembles as she finishes the rest of her drink.

“Oral Sex Workshop,” Richard says.

“My God,” my mother whispers, and she hasn’t said a word all night.

“What’s that like?” Mrs. Jared asks, still calm. Reverse psychology not working.

“I got a joke,” Richard says, still rubbing his foot against me, puffing on the cigarette. “You all wanna hear it?”

“No,” my mother and Mrs. Jared say at the same time.

“Paul wants to,” he says. “See, Julio Iglesias and Diana Ross meet at this party and they go back to Julio’s place and they fuck—”

“I do not want to hear this,” Mrs. Jared says, waving a passing waiter away after pointing at her empty glass.

“Neither do I,” my mother speaks again.

“Anyway, they fuck,” Richard continues, “and afterwards, Diana Ross, who’s come about fifty times and wants more of Julio’s dick, says—”

“I don’t want to hear this either,” my mother repeats.

“She says,” Richard goes on, getting louder, “‘Julio you gotta fuck my pussy again, I loved it so much’ and Julio says ‘Okay baby, but I need to sleep for a leetle beet—’”

“What has happened to you?” Mrs. Jared asks.

“‘But, you must keep one hand on my cock and the other on my balls’ Julio says, ‘and then after thirty minutes we fuck again, okay?’” Richard is getting animated and I’m just dying, tearing at the napkin.

“Oh my God,” my mother says, disgusted.

“And Diana says,” and now Richard does a really bad Diana Ross impersonation, “‘Why do I have to keep one hand on your cock and another on your balls, Julio?’”

“What has happened to you?” Mrs. Jared asks, interrupting again.

Richard’s getting pissed off that she’s interrupting and his voice gets louder and I just slump down deeper into the chair, let go of the napkin and light a cigarette. Why not.

“And Julio says, ‘You wanna know why you have to keep one hand on my cock and one hand on my balls?’” He says this with a fierce leer on his face.

“What has happened to you?” Mrs. Jared is shaking her head and I feel sorry for her, sitting in this dining room, being abused by her son, dressed in that ugly outfit she probably got at Loehmann’s.

Richard gets even angrier that she’s interrupting his joke and I know what’s coming and I don’t even care who Sean is fucking tonight, at this moment. I just want the punchline to be over with, and Richard, the asshole, delivers it loud, staring at his mother: “‘Because the last time I fucked a nigger she stole my wallet.’” And then he sits back, drained, but satisfied. The table becomes hushed. I look around the room and smile and nod at one of the old ladies at the table across from ours. She nods approvingly and smiles back.

“What has happened to you?” Mrs. Jared asks for the fourth time.

“What do you mean, what has happened to me? What do you think?” Richard asks, followed by a gruff snort of contempt.

“I can see what that school has done to you,” she says.

Great, I’m thinking. It’s taken her three years to find this out? Actually Richard was always a rude jerk. I don’t understand what the big surprise is now. I look down at my lap as the foot disappears. I finish my drink and suck on an ice cube, leaving the cigarette burning, unsmoked in the ashtray.

“That’s really too bad, huh?” Richard sneers.

“Obviously I can see we should never have sent you there,” Mrs. Jared says, and as much of an asshole as Richard’s being, she’s still a bitch.

“Obviously,” Richard says, mimicking her.

“Do you want to leave the table?” she asks him.

“Why?” Richard asks, his voice rising, getting more defensive.

“Will you please leave the table,” she says.

“No,” Richard says, getting hysterical. “I will not leave the table.”

“I am asking you to leave the table now,” Mrs. Jared says, her voice getting quieter but more intense.

My mother watches this exchange in silent horror.

“No no no,” Richard says, shaking his head. “I will not leave the table.”

“Leave the table.” Mrs. Jared is turning crimson with fury.

“Fuck you!” Richard screams.

The pianist stops playing and whatever quiet din of conversation there was in the dining room is killed. Richard pauses, then takes a last drag from his Marlboro, finishes his Kir, and gets up, bows and walks slowly out of the dining room, one of his feet shoeless. The maitre d’ and the head waiter rush over to our table and ask if anything is wrong; if perhaps we want the check.

“Everything is fine now,” Mrs. Jared says and actually musters a faint smile. “I’m really terribly sorry.”

“Are you sure?” The maitre d’ looks me over suspiciously as if I were Richard’s twin.

“Positive,” Mrs. Jared says. “My son is not feeling well. He has a lot of pressures … you know, with … with mid-terms coming up.”

Mid-terms at Sarah Lawrence? I look over at my mother, who’s staring off into space.

The waiter and the maitre d’ look at each other for a moment as if they’re not quite sure how to proceed, and when they look back at Mrs. Jared she says, “I would like another vodka Collins. Eve, would you like anything?”

“Yes,” my mother says, stunned, shaking her head slowly, still horrified by Richard’s exit. I wonder if I’ll sleep with him tonight. “I mean … no,” she says. “Well … yes.” My mother is still confused and looks at me — for what? Help?

“Get her another one.” I shrug.

The maitre d’ nods and walks away, conferring with the waiter. The pianist resumes playing, slowly, unsure. Some of the people who were staring finally look away. I notice when I look down at my lap that I have almost succeeded in ripping my napkin in two.

After a while my mother says, “I think I want the next car to be blue. A dark blue.”

No one says anything until the drinks arrive.

“What do you think, Paul?” she asks.

I close my eyes and say, “Blue.”