Glamorama (10 page)

“My mouth suddenly is so dry I can’t even like gulp, man.”

Damien starts laughing and joking around, so I try to laugh and joke around too.

“Listen, bud,” he says. “I just don’t want the city’s most bizarre bohemians or anyone who uses the term ‘fagulous’ near me or my friends.”

“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 with 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.”