Glamorama (45 page)

I find Felix the cinematographer at the piano bar, hunched over an array of snifters half-filled with brandy as he stares miserably at his own reflection in the mirrors situated above the racks of alcohol, relentlessly smoking Gauloises. The pianist—who I’m just noticing much to my horror is also the male aerobics instructor with the hideous teeth—plays a mournful version of “Anything Goes.” I take the stool next to Felix and slap the photograph next to his arm. Felix doesn’t flinch. Felix hasn’t shaved in what looks like days.

“Felix,” I say, trying to contain myself. “Look at this photo.”

“I don’t want to look at any photos,” Felix says miserably in his halting, untraceable accent.

“Felix, please, it’s important,” I say. “I think.”

“I’m not supposed to look at the photo, Victor.”

“Fuck it—just look at the fucking photo, Felix,” I spit out, panicking.

Felix turns to me, muttering “Grouchy, grouchy,” then glances tiredly at the picture. “Yeah? So? People having caviar, people not looking so happy.” He shrugs. “It happens.”

“Felix, I did
not
have caviar with
these
people,” I’m saying. “Yet this photograph ex-ex-exists,” I sputter.

“What do you mean?” Felix sighs. “Oh god, I’m so tired.”

“But this is the wrong photo,” I squeal giddily. “That’s
not
the couple I had dinner with last night. These people are
not
the Wallaces. Do you understand, Felix? I—don’t—know—these—people.”

“But that’s the picture, Victor,” Felix says. “That’s you.”

“Yes, that’s me,” I say. “But who are these people, Felix?” For emphasis I’m running my hand over the photograph. “I mean, what is this? What the hell’s going on?”

“Deluded youth,” he sighs.

“Where, Felix?
Where
?” I ask, whirling around. “I don’t see anyone under sixty on this goddamn boat.”

Felix motions to the bartender for another.

“Felix,” I say, breathing in. “I think I’m scared.”

“You should be, but why?”

“A lot of reasons,” I whisper.

“A certain amount of hardship is to be expected in this life.”

“I know, I know, I need to accept the bad if I want to accept the good—oh god, Felix, just shut the fuck up and look at the fucking photo.”

Felix’s interest rises slightly as he holds the photo closer to his face and the atmosphere surrounding the bar is smoky and vague and the piano player continues with the mournful rendition of “Anything Goes” while various extras playing soused nannies, croupiers and beverage personnel listen, rapt, and I focus on the silence surrounding the music and try to get the bartender’s attention.

“It’s been altered,” Felix says, clearing his throat.

“How do you know?”

“You should be able to see this girl’s face.” He points at Marina.

“Yeah, but I think she turned away when the flash went off.”

“No,” Felix says. “She didn’t.”

“How can you tell?”

“The position of her neck—see, here?” Felix runs a finger along Marina’s throat. “The position of her neck suggests she was looking at the camera. Someone else has been—oh, how do you say?—superimposed over this girl.” Felix pauses, then his eyes move to the Wallaces. “I assume the same thing happened with this couple,” he says, squinting at the photo. “A rather crude job, actually.” Felix sighs, placing the photo back on the bar. “But hell, who knows? Maybe you were really drunk and feeling rather friendly so you joined another table.”

I’m shaking my head. “I’d
never
sit with those people,” I’m saying. “Look at that woman’s hair.” I order an Absolut-and-cranberry from the bartender—with
lime
, I stress—and when he brings it I drink it quickly, but it totally fails to relax me.

“Maybe I just need to get laid,” I sigh.

Felix starts giggling. “You will.” He keeps giggling. “Oh, you will.”

“Spare me the giggling, Felix.”

“Haven’t you read the new draft?” he’s asking.

“I think the script keeps changing, Felix,” I say. “I don’t think this is what I signed on for.”

“You’re really not accustomed to disappointment, are you, Victor?”

“I think something bad happened to that girl,” I’m saying meekly. “To … Marina.”

“You think errors are being made?” Felix asks, taking a long swallow of brandy, moving one snifter aside for another. “I think people can know too much.”

“I just … I just … think there’s been some kind of—oh man—like emergency and …” My voice trails off. I stare over at the piano player, at the extras sitting at tables, on couches, nodding thoughtfully to the music. “And … I just think no one’s responding—oh man.”

“You need, I think, to find a more fruitful and harmonious way to live.”

“I’m on the cover of
YouthQuake
magazine,” I exclaim. “What in god’s name are you talking about?”

“Perhaps the two are unrelated.”

“Tell me I’m not being wrongheaded and foolish,” I plead. “Tell me this isn’t an ‘extraneous matter,’ Felix. I mean, I’m a fairly easygoing person.”

“I know, I know,” Felix says sympathetically, inhaling on a cigarette. “It’s intolerable, eh?”

Finally I ask, “What about Palakon? How is he involved in this?”

“Who is Palakon?” Felix asks.

“Palakon,” I sigh. “The guy who got me on this fucking boat.”

Felix stays quiet, then stubs the cigarette out. “I don’t know anyone named Palakon.”

While signaling the bartender for another drink, I mutter, annoyed, “What?”

“Palakon’s not in the script, Victor,” Felix says carefully.

Pause. “Whoa—wait a minute, wait a minute.” I hold up a hand. “Hello?
You
are driving blind, baby.”

“No, no, I don’t think so,” Felix says. “And please don’t call me ‘baby,’ Victor.”

“Hold on, Felix,” I say. “I’m talking about the guy I met at Fashion Café. That kind-of-euro twit who got me on this floating nursing home in the first place.
Palakon
?”

This doesn’t register with Felix. I stare, dumbfounded.

“I met him after I was chased,” I try to explain. “I met him at Fashion Café after I was chased by the black Jeep? F. Fred Palakon?”

Felix turns to me, looking more worried than bemused, and finally says, “We didn’t shoot a chase scene, Victor.” A long pause. “We didn’t shoot anything in Fashion Café.”

While staring back at the photo, I feel something in me collapse.

“There’s no Palakon in the shooting script,” Felix murmurs, also staring at the photo. “I’ve never heard of him.”

While I’m breathing erratically, another drink is placed in front of me, but my stomach sours up and I push the drink toward Felix.

“I think this is the logical cutting-off point,” Felix says, slipping away.

0

On deck the air felt damp, the sky got unusually dark, almost black, clouds were bulging, distorted, a monster behind them, then thunderclaps, which merited some attention and made everyone feel vaguely
apprehensive, and past that darkness, below that sky, land was waiting. On deck I lit a cigarette, the camera circling me, newly supplied Xanax eliminating nausea and distracting tics, and I kept my Walkman on, the Dave Matthews Band’s “Crash into Me” buzzing in my ears through the headphones, spilling over onto the sound track. I sat on a bench, sunglasses on, blinking frantically, gripping a new magazine Gail Love started called
A New Magazine
until I couldn’t sit still anymore. Images of Marina plunging into the black water, sinking leagues to the calm, sandy bottom, swallowed up without a trace, jumped playfully around the back of my mind, teasing me, or maybe she was leaping off the ship because there were worse things waiting. The hat Lauren Hynde gave me in New York and that Palakon told me to bring was missing, was confirmed “disappeared” after I tore my cabin apart looking for it, and though this shouldn’t be a problem, I somehow knew that it was. I was told by the director that what I didn’t know was what mattered most.

On deck I was aware of my feet moving listlessly past a cotton-candy kiosk opened for “the kids.” On deck the Wallaces drifted by, intent on not dealing with me, and I was unable to interpret the signals their false smiles gave off and my heart continued pounding uneasily but really I was drawn out and apathetic and even that feeling seemed forced and I didn’t fight it and there was nothing I could do. For courage I just kept telling myself that I was a model, that CAA represented me, that I’m really good in bed, that I had good genes, that Victor
ruled;
but on deck I started to semi-seriously doubt this. On deck the gay German youth passed by, ignoring me, but he never really fit into the story and my scenes with him were discarded and it didn’t fuck up continuity. On deck members of the film crew were dismantling fog machines, placing them in crates.

Europe moved toward me, the ocean flowing darkly around us, clouds were dispersing, specks of light in the sky were growing wider until daylight reappeared. On deck I was gripping the railing, adding up the hours I had lost, depth and perspective blurring then getting sharper and someone was whistling “The Sunny Side of the Street” as he passed behind me but when I turned around, predictably, no one was there. Looking down at my feet, staring blankly, I noticed, next to my shoe, a stray piece of confetti, then I noticed another.

3

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