“You two know each other?” Damien asks again, pressing.
“Oh yeah, sure,” I say. “You’re friends with Chloe.”
“Yes,” she says. “And you’re …”
“I’m her … yeah, well …”
“You two knew each other at college, right?” Damien asks, still staring at us.
“But we haven’t seen each other since then,” Lauren says, and I’m wondering if Damien catches the harshness of her tone, which gratifies me.
“So this is like a little reunion?” Damien jokes. “Right?”
“Sort of,” I say blankly.
Damien has now decided just to continue staring at me.
“Well, Damien, um, you know …” I stop, start again. “The DJ situation is—”
“I called Junior Vasquez today,” Damien says, lighting the cigar. “But he has another party tonight.”
“Another party?” I gasp. “Oh man, that is so low.”
Lauren rolls her eyes, continues studying her nails.
Damien breaks the silence by asking, “Don’t you have a meeting soon?”
“Right, right, I gotta get outta here,” I say, moving back toward the door.
“Yeah, and I have a how-to-relax-in-cyberspace seminar in ten minutes,” Damien says. “Ricki Lake told me about it.”
JD buzzes on the intercom. “Sorry, Damien—Alison on line three.”
“In a minute, JD,” Damien says.
“It’s hard to tell her that,” JD says before getting cut off.
“Victor,” Damien says. “You wanna walk Lauren out?”
Lauren gives Damien an almost imperceptible glare and gets up too quickly from the sofa. In front of me she kisses Damien lightly on the lips and he touches the side of her face, each of them silently acknowledging the other, and I can’t look away until Damien glances over at me.
I can’t say anything until we’re outside the club. I picked up my Vespa from the coat-check room and am now wheeling it across Union Square, Lauren listlessly moving next to me, the sound of the vacuums inside the club fading behind us. Klieg lights are being rolled across patches of lawn and a film crew is shooting something and extras seem to be wandering aimlessly all around the park. Guillaume Griffin and Jean Paul Gaultier and Patrick Robinson stroll past us. Hordes of Japanese schoolchildren Rollerblade toward the new Gap on Park Avenue and beautiful girls drift by wearing suede hats and ribbed cardigans and Irish jockey caps and there’s confetti strewn all over the benches and I’m still looking down as my feet move slowly along the concrete, walking across large patches of ice so thick that the wheels on the Vespa can’t even crack them and the bike still smells of the patchouli oil I rubbed into it last week, an impulsive move that seemed hip at the moment. I keep my eyes on the guys who pass Lauren by and a couple even seem to recognize her and squirrels skate over the patches of ice in the dim light and it’s almost dark out but not yet.
“What’s the story?” I finally ask.
“Where are you going?” Lauren hugs her wrap coat tighter around herself.
“Todd Oldham show,” I sigh. “I’m in it.”
“Modeling,” she says. “A man’s job.”
“It’s not as easy as it may look.”
“Yeah, modeling’s tough, Victor,” she says. “The only thing you need to be is on time. Hard work.”
“It is,” I whine.
“It’s a job where you need to know how to wear clothes?” she’s asking. “It’s a job where you need to know how to—now let me get this straight—walk?”
“Hey, all I did was learn how to make the most of my looks.”
“What about your mind?”
“Right,” I snicker. “Like in this world”—I’m gesturing—“my mind matters more than my abs. Oh boy, raise your hand if you believe that.” Pause. “And I don’t remember you majoring in Brain Surgery at Camden.”
“You don’t even remember me at Camden,” she says. “I’d be surprised if you even remember what happened Monday.”
Stuck, trying to catch her eyes, I say, “I modeled … and had a … sandwich.” I sigh.
Silently we keep moving through the park.
“He looks like a goddamn schmuck,” I finally mutter. “He gets his shorts tailored. Jesus, baby.” I keep wheeling the Vespa along.
“Chloe deserves better than you, Victor,” she says.
“What does that mean?”
“When’s the last time it was just you and her?” she asks.
“Oh man—”
“No, seriously, Victor,” she says. “Just you and her for a day without any of this bullshit around you?”
“We went to the MTV Movie Awards,” I sigh. “Together.”
“Oh god,” she moans. “Why?”
“Hey, it’s the twentysomething Oscars.”
“Exactly.”
A giant billboard of Chloe that went up last week above the Toys ‘Я’ Us on Park suddenly comes into sharp focus through the dead trees, her eyes glaring down at us, and Lauren sees it too and then I’m looking back at the building the club is in and the windows appear blackened in the cold light of late afternoon.
“I hate this angle,” I mutter, pulling us out of the shot and steering Lauren across Park so we have some privacy on a street behind the Zeckendorf Towers. She lights a cigarette. I light one too.
“He was probably watching us,” I say.
“So act natural,” she says. “You don’t know me anyway.”
“I want to know you,” I tell her. “Can we see each other tomorrow?”
“Aren’t you going to be too busy basking in the glow of your success?”
“Yeah, but I want to share it with you,” I say. “Lunch?”
“I can’t,” she says, taking another drag. “I have a luncheon at Chanel.”
“What do you want, Lauren?” I’m asking. “Some yuppie guy to take you out to Le Cirque every night?”
“What’s better?” she asks back. “Unable to pay your rent and depressed and trembling in the local Kentucky Fried Chicken?”
“Oh please. That’s the only alternative?”
“You’d marry him if you could, Victor.”
“Damien’s totally not my type, baby.”
“That’s probably not true,” she says softly.
“You want him to give you—what? Things? You want to discover the true meaning of suburban life? You think that goombah’s even in the Social Register?”
“Damien is in the Social Register.”
“Well, yeah, right, sure.”
“There was a time, Victor, when I wanted you,” she says, taking a drag on the cigarette. “There was actually a moment, Victor, when all I ever wanted was you.” Pause. “I find it hard to believe myself, but well, there it is.”
“Baby, you’re cool,” I say very softly. “Please—you’re very cool.”
“Oh stop it, Victor,” she says. “You’re so full of shit.”
“What? You’re still not into me?”
“I need a commitment, Victor,” she says. “You’re the last person on earth I’d ever ask for one from.”
“Like you’re gonna get it from Damien Nutchs Ross? Spare me, baby. Just spare me.”
She finishes the cigarette and starts to move slowly up Park.
“How long have you been doing it with Alison Poole?”
“Hey, watch it.” Almost instinctively I look for Duke or Digby, but they’re not around. “Why do you think that shit’s true?”
“Is it true?”
“If it is: how do you know?”
“Oh god, Victor, who doesn’t?”
“What does that mean?”
“The only two books she owns are the Bible and The Andy Warhol Diaries, and the Bible was a gift,” Lauren mutters. “Queen of the fucking pig people.”
“I guess I’m not following.”
“That doesn’t sound like you, Victor.” She smiles at me and then says, “It’s nice to have someone responsible around—�
��
“You mean loaded. You mean rich. You mean moola.”
“Maybe.”
“What? You don’t like me because maybe I’m hustling a little? You don’t like me because I’m like affected by the recession?”
“Victor,” she says, “if only you cared this much when you first met me.”
I lean in, kiss her on the mouth hard, and I’m surprised that she lets me and after I pull away she presses her face up into mine, wanting the kiss to continue, her hand clutching mine, her fingers grasping my fingers. Finally I break it off and mumble that I’ve got to get uptown and in a very casual, hip way, without even really trying, I hop on the Vespa, kick it into gear and speed up Park without looking back, though if I had been I would’ve seen Lauren yawning while she waved for a cab.
14
A black Jeep, its top up, its windows tinted, wheels in behind me on 23rd Street and as I zoom through the Park Avenue tunnel whoever’s driving flips on his brights and closes in, the Jeep’s fender grazing the back of the Vespa’s wheel guard.
I swerve onto the dividing line, oncoming traffic racing toward me while I bypass the row of cabs on my side, heading toward the wraparound at Grand Central. I accelerate up the ramp, zoom around the curve, swerving to miss a limo idling in front of the Grand Hyatt, and then I’m back on Park without any hassles until I hit 48th Street, where I look over my shoulder and spot the Jeep a block behind me.
The instant the light on 47th turns green the Jeep bounds out of its lane and charges forward.
When my light turns I race up to 51st, where the oncoming traffic forces me to wait to turn left.
I look over my shoulder down Park but I can’t see the Jeep anywhere.
When I turn back around, it’s idling next to me.
I shout out and immediately slam into an oncoming cab moving slowly down Park, almost falling off the bike, and noise is a blur, all I can really hear is my own panting, and when I lift the bike up I veer onto 51st ahead of the Jeep.
Fifty-first is backed up with major gridlock and I maneuver the Vespa onto the sidewalk but the Jeep doesn’t care and careens right behind me, halfway on the street, its two right wheels riding the curb, and I’m yelling at people to get out of the way, the bike’s wheels kicking up bursts of the confetti that litters the sidewalk in layers, businessmen lashing out at me with briefcases, cabdrivers shouting obscenities, blaring their horns at me, a domino effect.
The next light, at Fifth, is yellow. I rev up the Vespa and fly off the curb just as the traffic barreling down the avenue is about to slam into me, the sky dark and rolling behind it, the black Jeep stuck on the far side of the light.
Fashion Café is one block away and at Rockefeller and 51st I hop off the bike and run with it behind the mostly useless vinyl ropes that stand outside the doors keeping away no one because there’s no one to keep away.
I’m gasping at Byana, the doorman this afternoon, to let me in.
“Did you see that?” I’m shouting. “Those assholes tried to kill me.”
“What else is new?” Byana shrugs. “So now you know.”
“Listen, I’m just gonna wheel this in.” I motion toward the bike. “Just let me leave it right inside here for ten minutes.”
“Victor,” Byana says, “what about that interview you promised me with Brian McNally?”
“Just give me ten minutes, Byana,” I pant, wheeling the bike inside.
The black Jeep idles at the corner and I duck down to peer through the glass doors of Fashion Café, watching as it slowly makes the turn and disappears.
Jasmine, the hostess, sighs when she sees me move through the giant lens that doubles as a hallway and enter the main room of the restaurant.
“Jasmine,” I say, holding my hands up. “Just ten, baby.”
“Oh Victor, come on,” Jasmine says, standing behind the hostess podium, cell phone in hand.
“I’m just gonna leave the bike there.” I point back at the Vespa leaning against a wall near coat check.
“We’re empty,” she relents. “Go on in.”
The whole place is totally deserted. Someone hollowly whistles “The Sunny Side of the Street” behind me and when I turn around nobody’s there and I realize it could be the last notes of the new Pearl Jam song over the sound system but as I’m waiting for a new song to start it becomes apparent that it sounded too clear, the whistling was too human and I shrug it off and move deeper inside Fashion Café, past someone vacuuming confetti off the floor and a couple of bartenders changing shifts and a waitress adding up tips at the Mademoiselle booth.
The only person at any of the tables is a youngish guy with a Caesar haircut looking like a thirtyish Ben Arnold, wearing sunglasses and what looks like a black three-button Agnès b. suit, sitting in the Vogue booth behind the fake Arc de Triomphe that hogs the middle of the main dining room. DJ X is looking a little too sharp this afternoon, though pretty sleek nonetheless.
He looks up questioningly, lowering the sunglasses, and then I take a semi-arrogant turn around the room before moving over to the booth.
He takes the sunglasses off and says, “Hello.” He offers his hand.
“Hey, where’s the baggy pants?” I sigh, slipping into the booth, lightly slapping the hand around. “Where’s the oversized zigzag-print T-shirt? Where’s the new issue of Urb? Where’s that groovy mop of bleached chopped hair?”
“I’m sorry.” He cocks his head. “I’m sorry, but what?”
“So here I am,” I say, spreading my arms wide. “I exist. So will you do it or not?”
“Do … what?” He puts down a purple menu in the shape of a Hasselblad camera.
“One of the DJs we interviewed today actually wanted to play ‘Do the Bartman,’” I moan. “He said it was ‘unavoidable.’ He said it was his ‘signature’ song. Can you believe how fucked up the world is at this moment?”
The guy slowly reaches into his jacket and pulls out a card and hands it to me. I look at it, vaguely catch a name, F. Fred Palakon, and below that a phone number.
“Okay, baby,” I say, breathing in. “Top fee for a DJ on a Thursday night in Manhattan is five hundred but since we’re in a bind and according to all my gay friends you’re the hippest thing since Astrolube and we need you badly we’ll up it to five-forty.”
“Thank you, Mr. Johnson—excuse me, Mr. Ward—but I’m not a DJ.”
“I know, I know. I meant music designer.”
“No, I’m afraid I’m not that either, Mr. Ward.”
“Well, uh, like who are you then and why am I sitting across from you in a booth in Fashion Café?”
“I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for weeks,” he says.
“You’ve been trying to get ahold of me?” I ask. “You’ve been trying to get ahold of me? My answering machine’s not really happening this week, I guess.” I pause. “Do you have any pot?”
Palakon scans the room, then looks slowly back at me. “No. I do not.”
“So what’s the story, morning glory?” I’m staring at the remake of La Femme Nikita on one of the video monitors hanging near the Arc de Triomphe. “You know, Palakon, you really got that whole very well dressed educated rich junkie thing going on, man. If you don’t have it”—I shrug helplessly—“well, my man, you might as well be sucking up a soft-serve cone in an Idaho Dairy Queen in between painting barn silos, huh?”
Palakon just stares across the table at me. I offer him a cinnamon toothpick.
“Did you attend Camden College in New Hampshire during the years 1982 to, ah, 1988?” Palakon asks gently.
Staring back at him, I blankly answer, “I took half a year off.” Pause. “Actually four of them.”
“Was the first one in the fall of 1985?” Palakon asks.
“Could’ve been.” I shrug.
“Did you know a Jamie Fields while attending Camden College?”
I sigh, slap my hands on the table. “Listen, unless you have a photo—no dice, my man.”
&nb
sp; “Yes, Mr. Ward,” Palakon says, reaching for a folder sitting next to him. “I happen to have photos.”
Palakon offers me the folder. I don’t take it. He coughs politely and sets it on the table in front of me. I open the folder.
The first set of shots are of a girl who looks like a cross between Patricia Hartman and Leilani Bishop and she’s walking down a runway, the letters DKNY vaguely legible in the background, photos of her with Naomi Campbell, one with Niki Taylor, another of her drinking martinis with Liz Tilberis, various shots of her lounging on a couch in what looks like a studio at Industria, two of her walking a small dog in the West Village and one, which looks as if it was taken with a telephoto lens, of her moving along the commons at Camden, heading toward the rim of that lawn before it drops off into the valley below, nicknamed End of the World by students suffering from vertigo.
The second set of shots abruptly place her in front of the Burlington Arcade in London, on Greek Street in Soho, in front of the American Airlines terminal at Heathrow. The third set I come across is a pictorial I’m in with her and Michael Bergin and Markus Schenkenberg, where we’re modeling ’60s-inspired swimwear. I’m about to jump into a pool wearing white trousers and a Nautica tank top and she’s looking at me darkly in the background; the three of us are fooling around with hula hoops; another has us dancing on a patio; in one I’m on a raft in the pool, spitting out an arc of water while she bends down at water’s edge motioning for me to come closer. Since I do not remember this shoot at all, I start to close the folder, unable to look at any more photos. My first reaction is: that’s not me.
“Does this help your memory?” Palakon asks.
“Whoa, pre-tattoo,” I sigh, noticing my bicep curled around Michael’s neck before I close the folder. “Jesus, that must’ve been the year everyone wore Levi’s with ripped knees.”
“It, um, may have been,” Palakon says, sounding confused.
“Is this the girl who signed me up for Feminists for Animal Rights?” I ask. “FAR?”
“Um … um …” Palakon flips through his file. “She was a”—he squints at a sheet of paper—“a pot activist. Does that help?”
“Not enough, baby.” I open the folder again. “Is this the girl I met at Spiros Niarchos’s fortieth-birthday party?”
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