“Could you write that down, JD?” I ask.
“No one who uses the term ‘fagulous.’” JD nods, makes a note.
“And what’s with the fucking DJ situation?” Damien asks disinterestedly. “Alison tells me someone named Misha’s missing?”
“Damien, we’re checking all the hotels in South Beach, Prague, Seattle,” I tell him. “We’re checking every rehab clinic in the Northeast.”
“It’s a little late, hmm?” Damien asks. “It’s a little late for Misha, hmm?”
“Victor and I will be interviewing available DJs all day,” JD assures him. “We’ve got calls in to everyone from Anita Sarko to Sister Bliss to Smokin Jo. It’s happening.”
“It’s also almost eight o’clock, dudes,” Damien says. “The worst thing in the world, guys, is a shitty DJ. I’d rather be dead than hire a shitty DJ.”
“Man, I am so with you it’s unbelievable,” I tell him. “We have a hundred backups, so it’s happening.” I’m sweating for some reason, dreading the rest of this breakfast. “Damien, where can we find you if we need to get ahold of you today?”
“I’m in the Presidential Suite at the Mark while they finish doing something to my apartment. Whatever.” He shrugs, chews some muesli. “You still living downtown?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“When are you gonna move uptown with everyone else—hey, leave the foot-shaking outside,” he says, staring at a black lace-up from Agnès b. my foot happens to be in. “Are you okay?”
“Fine. Damien, we’ve got—”
“What is it?” He stops chewing and is now carefully studying me.
“I was just gonna ask—” I breathe in.
“What are you hiding, Victor?”
“Nothing, man.”
“Let me guess. You’re secretly applying to Harvard?” Damien laughs, looking around the room, encouraging everyone else to laugh with him.
“Yeah, right.” I laugh too.
“I just keep hearing these vague rumors, man, that you’re fucking my girlfriend, but there’s like no proof.” Damien keeps laughing. “So, you know, I’m concerned.”
The goons are not laughing.
JD keeps studying his clipboard.
I’m inadvertently doing Kegels. “Oh man, that’s so not true. I wouldn’t touch her, I swear to God.”
“Yeah.” You can see him thinking things out. “You’ve got Chloe Byrnes. Why would you do Alison?” Damien sighs. “Chloe fucking Byrnes.” Pause. “How do you do it, man?”
“Do … what?”
“Hey, Madonna once asked this guy for a date,” Damien tells the bodyguards, who don’t show it but in fact are impressed.
I smile sheepishly. “Well, dude, you dated Tatjana Patitz.”
“Who?”
“The girl who got fucked to death on the table in Rising Sun.”
“Ri-i-ight. But you’re dating Chloe fucking Byrnes,” Damien says, in awe. “How do you do it, man? What’s your secret?”
“About … hey, um, I don’t have any secrets.”
“No, moron.” Damien tosses a raisin at me. “Your secret with women.”
“Um … never compliment them?” I squeak out.
“What?” Damien leans in closer.
“Not disinterested, exactly. If they ask tell them, y’know, their hair looks bleached .… Or if they ask tell them their nose is too wide .…” I’m sweating. “But, y’know, be careful about it .…” I pause faux-wistfully. “Then they’re yours.”
“Jesus Christ,” Damien says admiringly, nudging one of the goons. “Did you hear that?”
“How’s Alison?” I ask.
“Hell, you probably see her more than I do.”
“Not really.”
“I mean, don’t you, Vic?”
“Oh, y’know, me and Chloe and, um, probably not, but whatever, never mind.”
After a long and chilly silence, Damien points out, “You’re not eating your muesli.”
“Now I am,” I say, lifting my spoon. “JD, some milk, please.”
“Alison, oh shit,” Damien groans. “I don’t know whether she’s a sex-pot or a crackpot.”
A flash: Alison sneering at me while letting Mr. Chow lick her feet, punching open a coconut, listing her favorite male movie stars under twenty-four, including the ones she’s slept with, slugging down Snapple after Snapple after Snapple.
“Both?” I venture.
“Ah hell, I love her. She’s like a rainbow. She’s like a flower. Oh god,” he moans. “She’s got that damn navel ring, and the tattoos need serious laser sessions.”
“I … didn’t know Alison had a, um, navel ring.”
“How would you know that?” he asks.
“Anywa-a-a-ay—” JD starts.
“I also hear you’re looking at your own space.” Damien sighs, staring right at me. “Please say I’m hearing abstract, unfortunate rumors.”
“A vicious rumor, my friend. I’m not into even contemplating another club, Damien. I’m looking at scripts now.”
“Well, yeah, Victor, I know. It’s just that we’re getting a lot of press for this and I cannot deny that your name helps—”
“Thanks, man.”
“—but I also cannot deny the fact that if you use this as—oh, what’s a good phrase? oh yeah—a stepping-stone and will then dump all of us the minute this place is SRO and then with that cachet open up your own place—”
“Damien, wait a minute, this is a complex question, wait a minute—”
“—leaving me and several investors along with various orthodontists from Brentwood—one who happens to be part vegetable—who have placed big bucks into this—”
“Damien, man, where would I get the money to do this?”
“Japs?” He shrugs. “Some movie star you’ve boned? Some rich faggot who’s after your ass?”
“This is what’s known as big news to me, Damien, and I will ponder who leaked this rumor profusely.”
“My heartfelt thanks.”
“I just wanna put a smile back on clubland’s face.”
“I’ve gotta play golf,” Damien says vacantly, checking his watch. “Then I’m having lunch at Fashion Café with Christy Turlington, who was just voted ‘least likely to sell out’ in the new issue of Top Model. There’s a virtual-reality Christy at Fashion Café—you should check it out. It’s called a spokesmannequin. It looks exactly like Christy. She says things like ‘I look forward to seeing you here again soon, perhaps in person,’ and she also quotes Somerset Maugham and discusses Salvadorian politics as well as her Kellogg cereal contract. I know what you’re thinking, but she brings class to it.”
Damien finally stands up, and the goons follow suit.
“Are you going to any of the shows today?” I ask. “Or is another Gotti on trial?”
“What? There’s another one?” Damien realizes something. “Oh, you’re kind of funny. But not really so much.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m going to shows. It’s Fashion Week, what else does one do in this world?” Damien sighs. “You’re in one, right?”
“Yeah. Todd Oldham. It’s just guys who date models escorting them down the runway. Y’know, it’s like a theme: Behind every woman—”
“There’s a weasel? Ha!” Damien stretches. “Sounds fan-fucking-tastic. So you’re ready for tonight?”
“Hey man, I am a rock. I am an island.”
“Who’s gonna dispute that?”
“That’s me, Damien. All dos, and no don’ts.”
“Are you down with OPP?”
“Hey, you know me.”
“Crazy kid,” he chuckles.
“Lucidity. Total lucidity, baby.”
“I wish I knew what that meant, Victor.”
“Three words, my friend: Prada, Prada, Prada.”
26
On a small soon-to-be-hip block in TriBeCa and up a flight of not-too-steep stairs and through a dark corridor: a long bar made of granite, walls lined wit
h distressed-metal sconces, a medium-sized dance floor, a dozen video monitors, a small alcove that can easily convert into a DJ booth, a room off to the side cries out for VIPs, mirror balls hang from a high ceiling. In other words: The Fundamentals. You see a flashing light and you think you are that flashing light.
“Ah,” I sigh, looking around the room. “The club scene.”
“Yes.” JD nervously follows me around, both of us guzzling bottles of Diet Melonberry Snapple he bought us.
“There’s something beautiful about it, JD,” I say. “Admit it, you little mo. Admit it.”
“Victor, I—”
“I know just inhaling my manly scent must make you want to faint.”
“Victor, don’t get too attached,” JD warns. “I don’t need to tell you that this club’s going to have a short life span, that this is all a short-term business.”
“You’re a short-term business.” I run my hands along the smooth granite bar: chills.
“And you put a lot of energy into it, and all the people who made it beautiful and interesting—hey, don’t snicker—in the first place go somewhere else.”
I yawn. “That sounds like a homosexual relationship.”
“Sorry, darling, we got lost.” Waverly Spear—our interior designer, dead ringer for Parker Posey—sweeps in wearing sunglasses, a clingy catsuit, a wool beret, followed by a hip-hop slut from hell and this dreadfully gorgeous mope-rocker wearing an I AM THE GOD OF FUCK T-shirt.
“Why so late, baby?”
“I got lost in the lobby of the Paramount,” Waverly says. “I went up the stairs instead of going down the stairs.”
“Ooh.”
“Plus, well …” She rummages through her black-bowed rhinestone-dotted Todd Oldham purse. “Hurley Thompson’s in town.”
“Continue.”
“Hurley Thompson is in town.”
“But isn’t Hurley Thompson supposed to be shooting the sequel to Sun City 2? Sun City 3?” I ask, vaguely outraged. “In Phoenix?”
Waverly moves away from her zombies and motions me toward her, pulling me from JD.
“Hurley Thompson, Victor, is in the Celine Dion Suite at the Paramount trying to persuade someone not to use a rubber as we speak.”
“Hurley Thompson is not in Phoenix?”
“Certain people know this information.” She lowers her voice gravely. “They just don’t know the why of it.”
“Does someone in this room? And don’t tell me one of the idiots you brought.”
“Let’s just put it this way: Sherry Gibson can’t shoot any more ‘Baywatch Nights’ for a while.” Waverly puffs greedily on her cigarette.
“Sherry Gibson, Hurley Thompson—I dig the connection. Friends, lovahs, great PR.”
“He’s been freebasing so much that he had to leave the set of SC3 after he beat Sherry Gibson up—yes, in the face—and Hurley is now registered under the assumed name Carrie Fisher at the Paramount.”
“So he is quitting Sun City?”
“And Sherry Gibson resembles a weepy raccoon.”
“Nobody knows this?”
“Nobody knows but moi.”
“Who’s Moi?”
“That means me, Victor.”
“Our lips are sealed.” I move away, clap my hands, startling the other people in the space, and walk toward the middle of the floor.
“Waverly, I want a minimal generic look. Sort of industrial-preppie.”
“But with a touch of internationalism?” she asks, following, out of breath, lighting another Benson & Hedges Menthol 100.
“The ’90s are honest, straightforward. Let’s reflect that,” I say, moving around. “I want something unconsciously classic. I want no distinctions between exterior and interior, formal and casual, wet and dry, black and white, full and empty—oh my god, get me a cold compress.”
“You want simplicity, baby.”
“I want a no-nonsense approach to nightlife.” I light a Marlboro.
“Keep talking like that, baby, and we’re on our way.”
“To stay afloat, Waverly, you need to develop a reputation for being a good businessman and an all-around cool guy.” I pause. “And I’m an all-around cool guy.”
“And, ahem, a businessman?” JD asks.
“I’m too cool to answer that, baby,” I say, inhaling. “Hey, did you see me on the cover of YouthQuake?”
“No, ah …” Waverly says, then realizes something and adds, “Oh, that was you? You looked great.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, somewhat dubiously.
“But I saw you at the Calvin Klein show, baby, and—”
“I wasn’t at the Calvin Klein show, baby, and have you noticed that whole wall is the color of pesto, which is, like, a no-no, baby?”
“De rigueur,” says the impeccably-put-together young thing behind her.
“Victor,” Waverly says. “This is Ruby. She’s a bowl designer. She makes bowls out of things like rice.”
“A bowl designer? Wow.”
“She makes bowls out of things like rice,” Waverly says again, staring.
“Bowls made from rice? Wow.” I stare back. “Did you hear me say ‘wow’?”
Mope-rocker wanders over to the dance floor and looks up at the dozen or so disco balls, trancing out.
“What’s the story with goblin boy?”
“Felix used to work at the Gap,” Waverly says, inhaling, exhaling. “Then he designed sets for ‘The Real World’ in Bali.”
“Don’t mention that show to me,” I say, gritting my teeth.
“Sorry, darling, it’s so early. But please be nice to Felix—he’s just out of rehab.”
“What—he OD’d on stucco?”
“He’s friends with Blowpop and Pickle and he just designed Connie Chung’s, Jeff Zucker’s, Isabella Rossellini’s and Sarah Jessica Parker’s, er, closets.”
“Cool, cool.” I nod approvingly.
“Last month he went and fucked his ex-boyfriend—Jackson—in the Bonneville salt flats and just three days ago they found Jackson’s skull in a swamp, so, you know, let’s be careful.”
“Uh-huh. My god it’s freezing in here.”
“I see orange flowers, I see bamboo, I see Spanish doormen, I hear Steely Dan, I see Fellini.” Waverly suddenly gasps, exhaling again, tapping her cigarette. “I see the ’70s, baby, and I am wet.”
“Baby, you’re ashing on my club,” I say, very upset.
“Now what about Felix’s idea for a juice bar?”
“Felix is thinking about where he’s going to score his next animal tranquilizer.” I drop my cigarette carefully into the half-empty Snapple bottle JD holds out. “Plus—oh god, baby, I don’t want to have to fret over a juice bar that serves only—what—oh god—juice? Do you know how many things I have to worry about? Spare me.”
“So nix the juice bar?” Waverly asks, taking notes.
“Oh please,” I moan. “Let’s sell submarine sandwiches, let’s sell pizza, let’s sell fucking nachos,” I sigh. “You and Felix are being muy muy drippy.”
“Baby, you are so right,” Waverly says, mock-wiping sweat from her forehead. “We need to get our shit together.”
“Waverly, listen to me. The new trend is no trend.”
“No trend’s a new trend?” she asks.
“No, no trend is the new trend,” I say impatiently.
“In is out?” Waverly asks.
I smack JD on the shoulder. “See, she gets it.”
“Look—goose bumps,” JD says, holding out an arm.
“Lemons, lemons everywhere, Victor,” Waverly says, twirling around.
“And Uncle Heshy is not invited, right, baby?”
“Sweet dreams are made of this, huh, Victor?” JD says, watching vacantly as Waverly twirls around the room.
“Do you think we were followed here?” I ask, lighting another cigarette, watching Waverly.
“If you have to ask that question, don’t you think that opening this behind Damien’s back is no
t, like, such a good idea?”
“Nonresponsive answer. I move to strike,” I say, glaring at him. “Your idea of hip is missing the boat, buddy.”
“I just don’t think it’s hip to have your legs broken,” JD says warily. “Over a club? Have you ever heard the phrase ‘Resist the impulse’?”
“Damien Nutchs Ross is a nonhuman primate,” I sigh. “And your POV should be: sleeping person zzzzz.”
“Why do you even want to open another club?”
“My own club.”
“Let me guess. Bingo! Instant friends?” JD shivers, his breath steaming.
“Oh spare me. I see all this and think money-in-the-bank, you little mo.”
“A guy needs a hobby, huh?”
“And you need some more Prozac to curb your homo-ness.”
“And you need a major injection of reality.”
“And you need coolin’, baby, I’m not foolin’.”
“Victor. We’re not playing games here,” JD asks, “are we?”
“No,” I say. “We’re going to the gym.”
25
At a gym in the Flatiron District, in what last week became the most fashionable stretch of lower Fifth Avenue, my trainer, Reed, is being filmed for a segment on “Entertainment Tonight” about trainers for celebrities who are more famous than the celebrities they train, and in the gym now—which has no name, just a symbol and below that the motto “Weakness Is a Crime, Don’t Be a Criminal”—beneath the row of video monitors showing episodes of “The Flintstones” and the low lighting from a crystal chandelier Matt Dillon, Toni Braxton, the sultan of Brunei’s wife, Tim Jeffries, Ralph Fiennes—all in agony. A couple of male models, Craig Palmer and Scott Benoit, pissed off over something I said about Matt Nye’s luck, semi-avoid me as they towel off in the Philippe Starck-designed changing room. Danny Errico from Equinox set the place up for Reed when the issue of Playgirl Reed appeared in sold something like ten million copies and he subsequently was dropped from the Gap’s new ad campaign. Now Reed’s costarring in a movie about a detective whose new partner is a pair of gibbons. Reed: $175 an hour and worth every goddamn penny (I stressed to Chloe), long blond hair never in a ponytail, light ’n’ sexy stubble, naturally tan, silver stud in right ear, designer weight-belt, a body with muscles so well defined he looks skinned, license plate on his black BMW reads VARMINT, all the prerequisites. It’s so freezing in the gym that steam rises from the lights the “ET” camera crew has set up.
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