Glamorama (63 page)

And then, trying to lighten Tammy’s mood, I tell her about the last time I did heroin, how I barely woke up the next morning, how when I drank a Coke and puked it up minutes later it was still carbonated,
fizzing in the toilet water. She keeps muttering her lines, trying to remember hollow dialogue about our “relationship.” We have already shot this scene four times this morning but Tammy’s distracted and keeps forgetting what she’s supposed to do or say, putting a mournful spin on what should be innocuous line readings because she’s thinking about the French premier’s son and not Bruce Rhinebeck, who we’re supposed to be discussing in this scene. Plus the international crew speaks various languages so production meetings require interpreters, and the director keeps complaining that preproduction was rushed, that the script needs work. An acting coach has been hired and motivation is discussed, a sense-memory exercise is conducted, we practice breathing. Vacantly I notice that the fountains surrounding the pyramid aren’t working today.

The director kneels next to us, leaning in, his breath steaming in the cold morning air. “This scene is supposed to be played very, um, tenderly,” he explains, lowering his sunglasses. “You both like Bruce. You don’t want to hurt his feelings. Bruce is your fiancé, Tammy. Bruce is your best friend, Victor.” The director pauses gravely. “Yet your love, that overwhelming passion for each other, is just too strong. You can’t keep it a secret from Bruce any longer. I
want
that urgency—okay, darlings?”

Tammy nods mutely, her hands clutched into fists. I tell the director, “I’ll comply.”

“I know,” the director says. “That’s good.”

The director steps away, confers briefly with Felix the cinematographer. I turn to Tammy as someone says “Action.” A boom mike hangs over our heads.

I have to smile and reach out to touch Tammy’s hand. She has to smile back, which she accomplishes with some difficulty.

“It’s cold,” she says, shivering.

“Yes,” I’m saying. “You need to stay warm.”

“I suppose so,” she says abstractly. “I’m sorry about last night.”

“Where’s Bruce?” I ask. “What’s the story, baby?”

“Oh Victor, please don’t,” Tammy sighs. “He went to Athens. I don’t ever want him to come between us again. I’ll tell him everything when he gets back. Everything. I promise.”

“He already suspects,” I say. “It doesn’t matter.”

“If I could only turn back time,” she says, but not at all wistfully.

“Can I believe the magic in your sighs?” I lean in for a kiss.

“You know you can.” This is said too indifferently.

The director calls “Cut.” He walks over and kneels down next to Tammy again. “Baby?” he asks. “Are we all right?”

Tammy’s unable to even nod, just keeps scratching a point on her back that she can’t quite reach.

“It’s all about a light touch, baby,” he’s saying, lowering his sunglasses.

Tammy sniffs, says “I know” but she doesn’t and she’s shivering too hard for the scene to continue, so the director takes her aside and as they walk away from the crew Tammy keeps shaking her head, trying to pull away. Freezing, I light a cigarette, squint at the Seine, the smell of shit everywhere, the Louvre sitting behind us long and boring, then I imagine a Saab with a poodle in the passenger seat driving by. My foot has fallen asleep.

Tammy keeps looking back at me, making sure I’m aware of the schedule, but I’m already checking the face of the watch I was given last night by a member of the French film crew.

In digital numbers it reads 9:57.

Someone from the French film crew Rollerblades by, then slows down, making sure I notice him before he nods and glides off.

I stand up, flicking the cigarette away, and walk over to the director’s chair and pick up a black Prada backpack sitting beneath it.

“I have to use the rest room,” I tell a PA.

“Cool.” He shrugs, inspecting a tattoo, a staff of musical notes, emblazoned on his bicep. “It’s your life.”

I take the bag and wait at the museum’s entrance until the watch hits 10:00 exactly.

As instructed, I place the headphones of a Walkman over my ears, adjusting the volume while securing it to a clip attached to the belt I’m wearing.

I press Play.

The beginning of Ravel’s “Bolero” starts booming through the headphones.

I’m stepping onto an escalator.

The black Prada backpack must be placed next to one of three
pay phones in the carousel at the bottom of the Allée de Rivoli escalator.

From the opening strains of “Bolero” until its final crashing cymbals: 12 minutes and 38 seconds.

At 10:01 the bomb is officially activated.

I’m unfolding a map directing me where to go.

At the bottom of the escalator six of the French film crew, including its director, are waiting, grim-faced, all in black.

The director nods encouragingly from behind the Steadicam operator. The director wants this sequence done in one continuous shot. The director motions for me to remove the sunglasses that I forgot to take off while I was moving down the escalator.

Walking slowly through the Hall Napoléon, “Bolero” blaring, gathering momentum, I try not to walk sporadically, keeping a steady rhythm by counting the steps I’m taking, by focusing my eyes on the floor, by making a wish.

At 10:04 I spot the phones.

At 10:05 I place the Prada bag at my feet. I pretend to make a call at the phone that takes credit cards.

I check my watch at 10:06.

I move away from the phone bank, the film crew walking alongside me.

I’m supposed to stop and buy a Coke from a concession stand, which I do, taking a single sip before dumping it in a nearby trash bin.

I’m moving back into the hall, the film crew walking alongside me, the Steadicam operator moving in front of me.

10:08. “Bolero” grows more insistent, moving at a faster pitch.

But suddenly the crew is slowing down, causing me to slow down also.

Glancing up, I notice their stunned faces.

The Steadicam operator stops moving, lifts his head away from the viewfinder.

Someone touches my arm.

I rip the Walkman off my head and whirl around, panicked. It’s a PA from the American film crew.

A young girl who looks like Heather Graham. The concerned expression on her face melds oddly into relief. She’s panting, smiling uneasily now.

“You left this at the phone booth,” she says.

She’s holding out the Prada backpack.

I stare at the backpack.

“Victor?” she says, glancing first at the French crew and then back at me. “They’re ready for you. I think Tammy’s, um, recovered.”

Total silence.

“Victor?” she asks. “Here.” She hands me the Prada bag.

“Oh … yeah?” I take the bag from her.

I immediately hand the bag to a PA on the French crew.

Trembling, the PA takes the bag and hands it to the director.

The director looks at the Prada bag and then immediately hands it back to the PA, who winces.

“Who are these people?” the girls asks, grinning, waiting for an introduction.

“What?” I hear myself asking.

“What’s going on?” she asks a little more insistently, still grinning.

The director snaps his fingers and is quickly handed a cell phone. He flicks open the mouthpiece, presses buttons and, turning away, whispers something urgently in French.

“Who?” I ask lamely. “What do you mean?”

10:09.

“That crew,” she says, and then, leaning in, whispering, “The crew, like, behind you?”

“Them?” I turn around. “Oh, they just started following me around,” I say. “I don’t know who they are.”

The French PA’s breathing is actually audible, his eyes keep widening helplessly.

“Bolero” keeps rising.

An infinite number of possibilities appear.

I’m taking the slightest breaths.

The girl says, “Victor, come on, I think we should go.” She touches my arm with a small hand.

I look over at the director. He nods curtly.

On the escalator, I turn around.

The French crew has already disappeared.

“Why did they take your bag, Victor?” the girl is asking. “Do you know them?”

“Hey baby,” I say tiredly. “Hey, mellow out. Be quiet.”

“But Victor, why did those people take your bag?” she asks.

“Bolero” ends.

The tape in the Walkman automatically clicks off.

I don’t bother checking my watch.

At the pyramid Tammy stares at me quizzically, casually checking her watch, seemingly recovered.

“I got lost,” I say, shrugging.

In the hazy distance, from where I’m slouching, the PA who looks like Heather Graham is already talking with the director and Felix, and both of them keep glancing over at me—suspicion, whispers, a general aura of cold worry—and confetti is scattered all around, some of it simply falling from somewhere above us, but I’m barely aware of anything. I could be in Malibu lying on a beach towel. It could be 1978 or 1983. The sky could be black with spaceships. I could be a lonely girl draping scarves over a dorm room lamp. All week I’ve been having dreams made up entirely of helicopter pull-away shots, revealing a giant metallic space, the word “beyond” floating above that space in white and gold letters. Someone from the crew hands me a tambourine.

29

Tonight everyone is packed into the first-floor Windsor Suite at the Ritz. Among the minglers: Kristen McMenamy, Sting and Trudie Styler, Kate Moss, Jennifer Saunders, Bryan Ferry, Tina Turner, Donatella Versace, Jon Bon Jovi, Susie Bick, Nadja Auermann in a bubble-lace cocktail dress, Marie-Sophie Wilson in Inca pink, a handful of newly rich Russians, a famous producer just out of prison or rehab, does it matter? A large pug waddles throughout the room, desperately trying to avoid being stepped on. I have no idea what this party is about though it could be for the new fragrance Pandemonium. I feel pinned together, on the verge of collapse, my mouth dry from too much Xanax. We spent the day on a yacht, nodding sympathetically at
one another. Oribe dropped in and did everyone’s hair. Someone standing in the corner faints, I notice idly while lighting a cigarette. Disco classics blare.

Jamie’s wearing—under protest—the bright-yellow leopard-silk crinoline Bobby insisted upon and she’s talking to Shalom Harlow and Cecilia Chancellor, the three of them giggling tiredly, and in a black polo neck and hip-hugger pants, Cecilia’s a little deaf right now because her boyfriend spent the day following her around lighting firecrackers.

When Jamie glances over at me it’s with a look that reminds me: You. Are. Alone.

Someone with blond dreadlocks and a chin spike is behind me, demanding a beer.

Bertrand Ripleis joins Jamie, kisses Shalom, wraps an arm around Cecilia’s waist, glares at me occasionally.

But I’m distracted by the fly that keeps hovering over a giant silver bowl piled high with Beluga, by the faint but noticeable smell of shit filling the room—“Do you smell that?” I keep asking people; “Oh yes,” they keep replying knowingly—and by the guy lolling about in a white lab coat, by the diagrams of rockets and the files stamped with security classifications I saw scattered on a table in an upstairs bedroom in the house in the 8th or the 16th, and by the girl slouching next to me holding a parasol, moaning “How démodé” and then “So last season.”

“It’s all pretty dim,” I concur, shivering.

“Oh, you’re so ruthless,” she sighs, twirling the parasol, dancing away, stranding me. I have been standing in the same position for so long that my leg has fallen asleep.

A trimmer Edgar Cameron—a minor, fleeting acquaintance from New York I haven’t seen since last Christmas and whose girlfriend, Julia, is a reasonably fashionable vacuum I fucked after I first started dating Chloe—has nodded at me several times since he entered the party and now, since I’m standing alone, holding a glass of champagne, trying not to seem too bereft, I am a prime candidate for a visit. Julia told me that Edgar owns a hairless cat and is such a drunk that he once ate a squirrel he found in an alley off Mercer Street “on a dare.” I used to kiss Julia like I really cared, like I was going to stick around.