Glamorama (23 page)

“Really happening place,” I yawn.

A waitress walks by. I whistle for her to stop.

“Hey baby, I’ll have an ice beer.”

She nods. I watch her move away, thinking two words: not bad.

“Don’t you have a runway show at six?” Palakon asks.

“I’m a model. I’m a lush. But it’s cool. I’m cool.” I suddenly realize
something. “Wait—is this like an intervention or something?” I ask. “Because I’ve laid off the blow for—jeez, it must be weeks now.”

“Mr. Ward,” Palakon starts, his patience snapping. “Supposedly you
dated
this girl.”

“I dated Ashley Fields?” I ask.

“Her name is
Jamie
Fields and at one point somewhere in your past yes, you did.”

“I’m not interested in any of this, man,” I point out. “I thought you were a DJ, man.”

“Jamie Fields disappeared three weeks ago from the set of an independently financed movie that was being shot in London. The last sightings of Jamie Fields were at the Armani store on Sloane Street and L’Odeon on Regent Street.” Palakon sighs, flips through his file. “She has not been heard from since she left the set.”

“Maybe she didn’t like the script.” I shrug. “Maybe she felt they didn’t develop her character well enough. It happens, man.”

“How”—Palakon looks down at his file, confused—“would
you
know?”

“Proceed, O Cool One,” I say casually.

“There are certain individuals who would be pleased if she was found,” Palakon says. “There are certain individuals who would like her brought back to America.”

“Like her agent and stuff?”

Palakon, at the instant I say this, immediately relaxes, almost as if he suddenly realizes something, and it makes him smile widely for the first time since I sat down and he says, “Yes. Her agent. Yes.”

“Cool.”

“There have been unconfirmed sightings in Bristol, but that was ten days ago,” Palakon says. “Basically we have not been able to locate her.”

“Baby?” I lean in again.

“Er, yes?” He leans in too.

“You’re pitching a concept nobody gets,” I say quietly.

“I see.”

“So she’s an MTA?”

“Excuse me?”

“Model-turned-actress?”

“I suppose so.”

Models are sashaying endlessly down runways on the giant screen above the Arc de Triomphe, even Chloe a couple of times.

“Did you ever see me on the cover of
YouthQuake
magazine?” I ask suspiciously.

“Er … yes.” Palakon has trouble admitting this, for some reason.

“Cool.” I pause. “Can I borrow two hundred dollars from you?”

“No.”

“Cool. That’s cool.”

“This is superfluous,” he mutters. “Totally superfluous.”

“What does that mean? That I’m a jerk? That I’m some kind of asshole? That I’m a bakehead?”

“No, Mr. Ward,” Palakon sighs. “It doesn’t mean any of those things.”

“Listen—you’ve got the wrong guy,” I say. “I’m outta here.” I stand up. “Spare me.”

Palakon looks up at me and with a dreamy gaze says, “We’re offering you three hundred thousand dollars if you find her.”

There’s no hesitation. I sit back down.

“Plus all traveling expenses,” he adds.

“Why … me, dude?” I’m asking.

“She was in love with you, Mr. Ward,” Palakon says loudly, startling me. “At least according to her journal entries for the year 1986.”

“How … did you get those?”

I ask. “Her parents showed them to us.”

“Oh man,” I groan. “Why don’t
they
come to me, then? What are you—their flunky? That was last decade, man.”

“Basically,” he says, reddening, “I’m simply here, Mr. Ward, to make an offer. Three hundred thousand dollars to find Jamie Fields and bring her back to the States. That’s it. You seem to have meant a lot to this girl, whether you remember her or not. We think you might be able to … sway her.”

After a while I ask, “How did you find me?”

Without pausing, Palakon says, “Your brother told me where to find you.”

“I don’t have a brother, man.”

“I know,” Palakon says. “Just testing. I trust you already.”

I’m studying Palakon’s nails—pink and smooth and clean. A busboy
rolls a barrel of avocados into the kitchen. Loops of the fall shows repeat themselves endlessly.

“Hey,” I say. “I still need a DJ.”

“I can arrange that.”

“How?”

“Actually I already have.” He pulls out a cell phone and hands it to me. I just stare at it. “Why don’t you call your associates at the club?”

“Uh … why?”

“Just do it, Mr. Ward. Please,” Palakon says. “You don’t have much time.”

I flip the cell phone open, punch in my number at the club. JD answers.

“It’s … me,” I say, scared for some reason.

“Victor,” JD says breathlessly. “Where are you?”

“Fashion Café.”

“Get out of there.”

“Why?”

“We’ve got Junior Vasquez tonight,” he squeals.

“How?” I’m staring right into Palakon’s face. “How … did that happen?”

“Junior’s manager called Damien and said Junior
wants
to do it. We’re set.”

I hang up the phone and place it slowly, deliberately, on the table. I study Palakon’s face very carefully, thinking a lot of things through, and then I ask him, “Can you do anything about getting me into
Flatliners II
?”

“We can talk about that later, Mr. Johnson.”

“Also any role where I could play a callow American Eurail traveler.”

“Will you consider this proposal?” Palakon asks.

“You haven’t sent me any faxes, have you?”

“What faxes?” he asks, placing the folder of photos in a thin black briefcase. “What did they say?”

“‘I know who you are and I know what you’re doing.’”

“I already know who you are, Mr. Johnson, and I already know what you’re doing,” he says, snapping the briefcase shut.

“Whoa—what are you?” I ask, vaguely impressed. “A fucking watchdog?”

“You might say so,” he sighs.

“Listen.” I check my watch. “We’ll, um, talk later, I guess. That’s just too much moola to ignore, baby.”

“I was hoping that you could give me an answer now.”

I stare at him, lost. “You want me to go to London and find some girl I don’t even remember dating?”

“So you’ve understood me,” Palakon says, visibly relieved. “For a moment there I was worried that nothing was registering.”

Suddenly contemplative, I stare into Palakon’s face. “You look like the kind of guy who eats his own scabs,” I murmur. “Did you know that? That you look like that kind of guy?”

“I’ve been called many things, Mr. Ward, but a scab-eater has not been among them.”

“Hell, there’s a first time for everything, buddy,” I sigh, pushing myself away from the table, standing up. Palakon keeps staring at me, which makes me nervous and all tingly, creeps me out in a way I’ve never been creeped out before.

“Hey, look—it’s Ricki Lake hugging a street urchin.” I point at a video monitor behind Palakon’s head.

Palakon turns his head to look.

“Ha-ha—made you look.” I start walking away.

Palakon stands up. “Mr. Ward—”

“Hey,” I call from across the room. “I’ve got your card.”

“Mr. Ward, I—”

“I’ll talk to you later, man. Peace.”

The restaurant is still totally deserted. I can’t even see Byana or Jasmine or the waitress I ordered the ice beer from anywhere. When I reach my bike someone’s stuck a giant fax on one of the handlebars: I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND I KNOW WHAT YOU SAID. I grab it and run back into the soft light of the main room to show Palakon, but that room, too, is empty.

13

The show’s at Bryant Park even though it was supposed to be in an abandoned synagogue on Norfolk Street but Todd freaked when he
heard it was haunted by the ghosts of two feuding rabbis and a giant floating knish and as I roll up to the back entrance—42nd Street jammed with TV vans and satellite dishes and limousines and black sedans—photographers have already lined up, calling out my name as I flash my pass at the security guards. Behind barricades groups of teenagers shout out for Madonna even though she’s not expected to show because she’s too busy facing down her latest stalker in court but Guy from Maverick Records promised to appear and Elsa Klensch and a CNN camera crew’s interviewing FIT students about their favorite designers and just an hour ago the runway was shortened because of the supposed overflow of five hundred and there was a desperate need to add room for the three hundred standees. Video monitors have been set up outside for the overflow’s overflow. The show cost $350,000 to put on so everyone needs to see it.

Backstage preshow is a blur of clothes racks and taped instruction sheets and Polaroids of outfits and tables of wigs along with a lot of fierce airkissing and hundreds of cigarettes being lit and naked girls running around and basically no one really paying attention. A huge poster overlooking the scene screams
WORK IT
in giant black letters, the sound track from
Kids
plays at an excruciating decibel level. Rumors abound that two models are missing, either running late from another show or being abused by their scummy new boyfriends in a limo stalled in traffic somewhere on Lexington but no one really knows.

“The buzzword today is
tardy
, no?” Paull, the director of the show, bitches direly at me. “I don’t think so.”

“As
if,”
I Alicia-Silverstone-in-Clueless back at him.

“Okay—five minutes to first looks,” calls out Kevin, the producer from Hastings, Minnesota.

Todd runs around frantically, managing to somehow calm shaking, frightened, wiped-out models with just a kiss. I’m kissing a heavily eye-shadowed Chloe, who is surrounded by clothes hanging from racks and looking exactly like someone should look who has been shooting a Japanese soda-pop commercial for most of the day, but I tell her she looks like a “total doll” and she does. She complains about blisters and the brown paper pedicure sandals on her feet while Kevyn Aucoin, wearing a clear plastic tool belt and an orange ruffled Gaultier body shirt, powders her cleavage and glosses her lips. Orlando Pita has done
the girls’ hair and we’re all definitely opting for semi-understatement here and pearly cream pink eye shadow, upper lids done, lower rims just about. Someone rubs a fake tattoo of Snappy the Shark on my left pectoral while I smoke a cigarette then eat a couple of Twizzlers that I wash down with a Snapple an assistant hands me while someone inspects my belly button, vaguely impressed, and someone else camcords the event—another modern moment completed.

Modeling Todd’s new ’70s-influenced punk/New Wave/Asia-meets-East-Village line are Kate Moss paired with Marky Mark, David Boals with Bernadette Peters, Jason Priestley with Anjanette, Adam Clayton with Naomi Campbell, Kyle MacLachlan with Linda Evangelista, Christian Slater with Christy Turlington, a recently slimmed-down Simon Le Bon with Yasmin Le Bon, Kirsty Hume with Donovan Leitch, plus a mix of new models—Shalom Harlow (paired with Baxter fucking Priestly), Stella Tennant, Amber Valletta—and some older ones including Chloe, Kristen McMenamy, Beverly Peele, Patricia Hartman, Eva Herzigova, along with the prerequisite male models: Scott Benoit, Rick Dean, Craig Palmer, Markus Schenkenberg, Nikitas, Tyson. There will be one hundred eighty costume changes. My first walk: black swimsuit and black T-shirt. Second walk: bare-chested. Third walk: pair of slacks and a tank top. Fourth walk: bikini briefs and a tank top. But everyone will probably be gazing at Chloe, so in a way it’s all kind of mooty. Todd recites his preshow instructions: “Big smiles and be proud of who you are.”

On the first walk Chloe and I head toward a multitude of long zoom lenses that go nuts when we approach. Under the TV floodlights models glide by each other, each foot swinging effortlessly around the other. Chloe’s hips are swaying, her ass is twisting, a perfect pirouette at the runway’s end, both our stares unflinching, full of just the right kind of attitude. In the audience I’m able to spot Anna Wintour, Carrie Donovan, Holly Brubach, Catherine Deneuve, Faye Dunaway, Barry Diller, David Geffen, Ian Schrager, Peter Gallagher, Wim Wenders, Andre Leon Talley, Brad Pitt, Polly Mellon, Kal Ruttenstein, Katia Sassoon, Carré Otis, RuPaul, Fran Lebowitz, Winona Ryder (who doesn’t applaud as we walk by), René Russo, Sylvester Stallone, Patrick McCarthy, Sharon Stone, James Truman, Fern Mallis. Music selections include Sonic Youth, Cypress Hill, Go-Go’s, Stone Temple
Pilots, Swing Out Sister, Dionne Warwick, Psychic TV and Wu-Tang Clan. After the final walk with Chloe I back off slightly and Todd grabs her by the waist and they both bow and then she pulls away and applauds him and I have to resist the impulse to stand back next to her and then everyone jumps onto the runway and follows everyone else backstage to Will Regan’s after-show party.