Wasted Beauty (10 page)

SCARY THINGS BECOME NORMAL, SAFE THINGS BECOME
scary. Easy stuff becomes difficult, difficult stuff, like walking down a runway in front of a zillion people is too easy. The folks I thought were important are nobodies, the silly men and skinny women I thought were nobodies, run the world. And everybody lies. And I make ten thousand a month.

What do I know now? Valentino. Oscar de la Renta. Ungaro. Lanvin. Missoni. Issey Miyake. Herrera. Louis Vuitton. Balenciaga. Gucci. Klein. Prada. Sander. Dolce & Gabbana. Viktor & Rolf. Lagerfeld. DKNY. Tracy. Lang. Boss. Westwood. Smith. Fendi. Givenchy. Rykiel. Sisley. Dior. Comme des Garçons. Kors. Galliano. Matsuda. agnès b. Alfaro. Alaïa. Blahnik. Polo. Nautica. Cartier. Lancôme. Tiffany. L’Oréal. Clinique. Chanel. Coty. TAG Heuer. Bulgari. Winston. Jade. Rolex. Hermès. J. Crew. Nordstrom. Spiegel. Lands’ End. Just Silk. Banana Republic. Gap. Sears. Kmart. Macy’s. Bloomie’s. H&M. Target. Fred Segal. L’Occitane. Tootsie Plohound. Abercrombie.

Nivea. Schick. Kotex. Tampax. Oil of Olay. Prell. Neutrogena. Wrangler. Adidas. Puma. Vans. Levi’s. bebe. Aldo. Guess. Fossil. Skechers. Hard Candy. French Connection. Otto. Dr. Martens. Oakley. Swatch. Diesel.

Coco Pazzo, Nobu, Ivy Bistro, Balthazar, Indochine, The Whiskey, Bains Douche, MK, Bowery Bar, Bungalow 8, Lot 61, Mercer Kitchen, Pastis, Standard, The Dresden, Bouley, Kate Mandolini, Bar Marmont, House of Blues, Viper Room, Moomba, Cipriani, La Quinta, Zen Palate, Time Cafe, Fez, The Delano, Coffee Shop, Fashion Cafe, Industria, Hard Rock Cafe. The Viceroy. I get in everywhere.

The Hamptons, the Azores, Boca, Vegas, Bryant Park, Bermuda, Canyon Ranch, Beaver Creek, Aspen, Costa Rica, Puerto Vallarta, Kaleakala, Cap d’Antibes, Positano…Harley, Ducati, Beemer, Caddie, Hummer, Rover, Lamborghini, Mercedes Coupé, Lotus, Maserati, Porsche, Porsche, Porschessssssss, yeah.

And Johnnie Walker Black, Jack Daniel’s, Tanqueray, Absolut, Jägermeister, Smirnoff Ice, Stella Artois, Lafite-Rothschild, Source Perrier, Hennessey VSOP, Cristal, Dom Pérignon, Perrier Jouët, San Pellegrino, Veuve Clicquot, Glenlivet, Stoli, Grolsch. Lattes, cappuccinos, espressos, bitters. Camel Lights, Camel Reds, Marlboro Lights, Newports, American Spirit, Kools, Luckies, Players, Dunhills, English Ovals, Gauloises. Mescaline, shrooms, windowpane, blotter, X, Special K, poppers, Valium, Librium, Xanax, Klonipin, Vicodin, hash, sens, cocaine…

THE STRETCH SLIPS INTO THE TRAFFIC LIKE A SLEEK
black shark. Pissed-off hands-free drivers hammer their horns in the screeching wake. The other girls blab on their cells, squealing with phony hilarity, long legs squirming. Rena props herself against the black glass, a broken-necked swan, the sparkly L.A. night traffic sizzling outside clouding sky blue eyes, crowding her perfect skull. Honking and revving all around like geese, a flock of Beemers and Suburbans escort the dream mobile. Like bees. Like a zillion bees. Are there honeybees in L.A.? The place is jammed with flowers, must be bees somewhere. Flowers planted around every strip mall, in every yard way, on every median, guarding the hotel, scenting the lobby, the halls, the suite. Are the blossoms still out there at midnight? Do the bees ever taste them? The label could say “Pure Hollywood Hills Honey.”

The world filters through prisms of mascara. Out on the pavement, broken glass and mirror shards mark the latest smashup, like a spray of diamonds, a sixty-minute memorial to someone’s fucked-up life. Gigantic pink faces on billboards, illuminated rectangles of ego and desire loom. Is that me up there? I know I’m somebody, ’cause everybody’s looking at me.

Beneath the adamant traffic lights, the sad Mexicans with their plastic net sacks of oranges have gone home to their arroz and beans. In their place, a scruffy black man cajoles the guilty and plays his lanky beggar’s comedy, hip-hop car-to-car clutching a scribbled-on chunk of cardboard that reads: “I haven’t eaten for two days. I am HIV positive and can’t work. I had to give my dog away. Any and all contributions are welcome.”

What’s-his-face (Who are these guys? Agents? Producers? Rock stars?) is buddying up with the chauffeur, his new best pal, urging him to take the stem. He leans through the glass guillotine. “Smoke it! C’mon brother! One hit!!!”

“No, man, no, man,” chuckles the driver, “no, man, I’m driving, I’m the driver, I’m in charge of yo’ safety.” Fake-laughing it off. The freaked-out whites of his eyes visible in the rearview mirror.

“C’mon dude!” The tormentor sucks on the pipe. “See, it’s easy.” He winks at Rena. Like: We’re all in this together. We’re party people, living large.

The chauffeur struggles. “Look, in the day, in the day, I did all that. But I’m driving yo’.” Rena understands where the guy’s coming from, even if the knucklehead with the pipe doesn’t. This guy is an ex-addict. Got sober, got himself a job as a driver. He just wants to be left alone to drive the damn car.

An SUV packed with black kids slides past and the thump of the bass vibrates through the limo’s doors. “We’re all driving!” shouts the witty agent-
producer-fashionista-whatever. Skip, his name is Skip. Skip takes another hit off the stem. Rena remembers now. Skip is the one with the gun. In the club Skip bragged about the chrome-plated .38 tucked under his waistband and all the girls tittered and called him “Mac Daddy.” Skip calls out to the driver, a thin black kid wearing a silly cap. “Dude, were you ever in a gang?”

“Let’s not get into that. I’m going to school now.”

“Hey everybody, the driver was in a gang. Dude, take us to the hood!”

“No, no. Now, you all relax back there, leave the driving to me. Gotta get you to your party.”

“Dude, I’m telling you, take us to Compton! We’ll drive around. See the brothers.”

Skip is grinning at Rena. Having the time of his life. Drugged-up asshole. We’re all drugged-up assholes. You know where we should drive, Skip? Let’s drive back east to the farm. You can meet my big brother, Billy. Come on back home with me, Skip. Big brother Billy’ll teach you a thing or two. He’d be more than happy to show you his gun, more than happy. Blow your skinny treadmilled ass to kingdom come, dig a deep dark hole under the old apple trees and bury your drug-riddled bones.

But Skip won’t let it drop. “Come on, man. What’sa matter, you afraid?” Skip gives her more eyes. She knows what’s coming. Touching me all night. Letting me know he’s claiming me. Taking charge. I know what he wants.

Billy. Where’d you go, Billy? I know you’re out there somewhere, just like I’m somewhere. Everyone’s somewhere until they’re not anywhere anymore.

Martinis and coke. Martinis and coke. Martinis and coke. New apartment, no more filthy roommates. Airports and hired cars. The Brits. The Frenchies. Milan runway. Italian guys with their motorcycles. Long, long fucking days in Paris. Five-hour makeup. Greek islands. The Caribbean. Saint Bart’s. Nevis. Martinique. So good at it now. So good. Everyone says so. So fucking good. Been to Greece twice, Italy three times, including the Milan shows, the Caribbean ten times, Los Angeles six. I’ve hung out in the Hamptons, worked in Paris, got laid in London.

Where’s the club? Where’s the couch I should sprawl on to? Gimme the boys. Gimme the boys. Never thought I could laugh so much. Flash, flash, laugh. Now I know how to show my teeth when I laugh. Now I know how to hold my head high and toss my hair. Hold a drink. Give eyes. Give more teeth. Swing my arms when I stride the catwalk, while all the old postmenopausal ladies in pearls and black stare at my nipples and pussy and ass like hungry vampires. Want to drink my blood, don’t you? ’Cause it’s the fountain of youth.

Jump in the turtle pond, everyone’s skinny-dipping. Hey, Billy? Hey, BILLY, you FUCK! You wanna go sell some apples?

I’m here, I’m really here, with the shutterbugs and stalkers in their dirty parkas toting their autograph books. Treating me like I’m a big deal.’Cause I guess I am. That’s me up on that billboard, Mom. See? ’Cause I’m special. ’Cause I’m PERFECT. Marissa always says so. That’s why I’m in this big stretch limousine, with all these crazy people.

Soon I’ll be in Skippy’s hotel room where the sheets are starched white and crispy and the towels are changed two times a day. Where I can call for massages and pick at thirty-dollar salads all sprinkled with flower petals and wrap myself in the softest cashmere.

So Skippy has a gun and Skippy has an eight ball and Skippy will have a hard-on by the time everything collapses into shit tonight. Wants to be a man and put it someplace. He’ll expect it. Grabbing and fussing like some kind of spastic molester. By the time everything winds down to blackout, what difference will it make? I’m doing it.

AT THE PARTY HE THROWS FOR RENA’S TWENTY-FIRST
birthday, Paul pulls her into the darkroom to show off some fresh contact sheets. He lights a joint and they check out the prints, not a bad shot in the batch. He kisses her in an innocent way and she kisses him back. They finish the joint and go back to the party. Someone says to Rena, “Where you been?” And Paul’s wife says, “Paul, could you please carve the turkey?” Paul’s little girls, dressed in black velvet and lace, run in and out like midget Elizabethans.

Luc has stopped by with his new girlfriend. Rena and Luc had sex three times. Once was in the middle of a bridal gown shoot. And here’s Andre who did the punk-rock layout for “Fashions of the
Times
.” For that Rena had to paint her fingernails black and wear thick kohl under her eyes. It was fun.

Everyone is in the biz. Like a huge dysfunctional family. For this party, the claws are retracted and when people smile, they mean it. Paul will not invite anyone who is not “nice” and so the party emanates real warmth. For half these folks, this is the only family they’ve got.

Rena finds a good spot on the couch while the gathering whirls around her. This is not a pickup scene, so when a sorrowful-looking guy in an old corduroy jacket flops down next to Rena, she thinks: I know he’s cruising me but that’s OK. It’s kind of pathetically sweet.

The minutes tick by and he says nothing. Rena asks him why he’s at the party and he says he works freelance for
POP,
the new British magazine. She tells him she’s on page forty-eight and he seems surprised. He tells her he’s a novelist and pays his rent by writing two thousand words about the city for each issue, adding that he’s already run out of ideas. He says he hates parties, hates the scene, even hates the magazine. He has a novel to write and no money.

His name is Fred and unlike the gangs of smiling people at this party, he doesn’t smile. Rena tells him that it’s her birthday and she has been modeling for almost six months now. He says he’s sorry to hear that and Rena can’t tell if he’s joking. Then they sit in silence, watching the commotion of the party gyrate like a big lopsided machine.

Rena asks Fred if he would like to get something to eat. He says he isn’t hungry. Three cigarettes later, he asks her if she would like to come to his place. He says, “I’m not asking for anything more than that. I can’t stay here another minute, but sitting next to you is calming me down. Excuse me for being so forward.”

Rena thinks, I’m being bad, but the party’s boring.

Fred lives in a Brooklyn neighborhood caught between epochs. Corroded chunks of nineteeth-century industry jumbled and bent sprawl in the dead ends. The old railroad tracks lead nowhere, rotting docks no more than submerged blackened stumps. Monstrous redbrick warehouses loom vacant and dark, waiting to be made into new quarters for the nouveaux riches. A pattern of cobblestone lies under layers of asphalt, like exposed muscle beneath flayed flesh. Rats scurry in packs, thick, sleek and fearless.

Fred does not live in a loft. He lives in a tiny apartment on a side street only a few blocks from the water. The cramped flat is cluttered with books and newspapers. It is underlit, but not repulsive, imbued with the sweet smell of tobacco and old paper. The place has a view to the street and before the windows two battered armchairs face one another. Between them is a small coffee table littered with ashtrays and stained china cups.

Fred leaves Rena and fusses in the kitchen. Books cram every shelf, every horizontal surface. Rena decides it would be stupid to ask him if he’s read them all. She picks one up and flips through it, doesn’t bother to scan the words. Used to get A’s in English Lit. Hah. Now books are something I carry on to the flight and never get around to reading.

On the street below people pass like yellow ghosts. Dead leaves freeze onto the damp asphalt. Fred returns and smiles at her for the first time as he hands her a coffee cup. It smells like burned rubber and holds no more than a spoonful of black liquid. For a moment she thinks she might have made a mistake. The gooseflesh rises on her forearms.

The two sit facing each other in the armchairs, again saying nothing. Fred doesn’t return Rena’s smile. Rather, he picks a book off the stack at his side.

In the dim light, Fred reads out loud. “ ‘I would not allow a person to damage her soul in order to love me; I would love her too much to allow her to demean herself.’” He says, “Kierkegaard” and Rena nods as if to say, “Of course.”

“Rena.” He stops, pauses, starts again. “I slog around in that toxic fashion sewage because I don’t mind being destroyed doing what I have to do to get what I want. But you’re not like all those cretins at the party.”

“I’m just—”

“—wait, let me finish. I can see that and I can feel that. But see, just because I can see that, doesn’t mean that I’m not a motherfucker, too. Because I am. I tend to hurt people. It hurts me when I do it, but I can’t help myself.” Fred sits back.

Rena says, “First of all, Fred, you don’t know me, even though you think you do. You can’t see what people are like on the outside. And second of all, I’m a pretty good judge of people and I don’t think you could hurt a fly.” Should I tell him about Skip in L.A.? Or my three-night stand with Luc? Or Frank. Or Dallas? No. Don’t tell him anything.

“Well, give me time, baby, give me time.” Fred suddenly howls with laughter, frightening her.

Rena lifts her cup and finds it is empty. She places it down on top of a book. “You think I haven’t run into my share of jerks? I’m not stupid. I get what that’s about. I get it.”

“I know you do. Why do you think I invited you here?”

“Maybe I’m a motherfucker, too.”

“Oh, I bet you’re a real heartbreaker, huh? Bodies strewn all by the side of the road. I’m sure. Someone as beautiful as you, it’s unavoidable.”

“I don’t know about bodies. But I have my nasty side.”

“I’d love to see it.”

It’s Rena’s turn to smile. “Be careful what you wish for.”

“I’ll tell you a secret. You’re the first woman to enter this flat since I moved in.”

“Yeah, right.” But it’s clear that no one comes here.

Again, Fred laughs his wolf laugh. “Do you know why that is?”

“You’re gay?”

A weary chuckle. “No. It’s much better than that.” Fred taps the ash off his cigarette and closes his eyes for a moment before speaking again. Later when Rena thinks of Fred she remembers his pregnant pauses and is sure he had been doing it for effect. “See that little bit of tinfoil on the table? A harmless bit of trash. But that harmless bit of trash is my master. It rules me. Because I chase the dragon’s tail. You know what I mean?”

“No.”

“That’s why I had to run from that party. And that’s why I’m stuck here. My shit’s here. I smoked some in the kitchen while I was fixing the coffee.”

“Drugs?”

“Not drugs. Please. Heroin. The king. All these assholes on coke and X, babbling like monkeys, feeling each other up, thinking they’re something special. It’s like they’re committed to triviality. They want to live nothing, think about nothing, it confirms how they really feel about themselves. Heroin is not about any of that. Not at all.”

“Are you addicted?”

“Everyone’s addicted. Don’t you have to eat every day? Piss? Shit? Life is an addiction.” He smiles sheepishly. “Sorry. I’m sounding stupid.”

“Well, you’re kind of depressing me, I think.” Rena thinks of the leaves stuck to the wet street beneath the window.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fuck with you.”

“So why did you ask me up?”

“You should run back to your friends now. Thank you for making my night perfect. I’ll think of you and it will be a very happy memory.”

“Hey, you don’t have to make it so complicated. I like hanging with you, too. I get worn out by all the knuckleheads.”

They sit not speaking for another moment. Fred breaks the silence. “Rena? Would you mind if I, you know, smoke in front of you?”

“Smoke? No, of course not, I smoke.”

“I mean…you know…”

“Oh. No. Whatever you want, it’s your house.”

Coming to life in a way Rena hasn’t seen all evening, Fred digs a tiny envelope from a crevice in the wall, slips a square of tinfoil out from between the pages of a book and in moments, is sucking the white fumes up off a blot of bubbling black, as intent as a jeweler cutting a diamond. When every bit of smoke has been sucked away and only a dry crust remains, Fred leans back in his chair and gazes at Rena with such a thorough look of love she has to turn away.

His voice is hollow as if from underwater. He says, “Would you believe that I pray? I do. Every day. And I have to apologize, because I’m so selfish. I prayed for you to show up in my life.”

“Yeah?” This guy is so great.

“I’m sorry, but it’s true.”

“Stop saying you’re sorry! It’s nice being here. I feel like we’ve known each other for a long time.”

“Another lifetime, maybe? Ancient Egypt?” And Fred laughs his sardonic laugh. He closes his eyes. “I am the answer to no one’s prayers.”

Does he want me to leave? “It’s getting late,” she says.

“Oh, no. I can…wait a minute, can we just sit for a moment?”

“Sure…”

“And could you do one thing for me?”

“You want to smoke some more?”

“No. Well, yes, but not right now. I was going to ask, could you hold my hand?”

Fred closes his eyes again. Rena leans forward and touches him. The flesh is absolutely still, pulseless, like Dad’s the day he died. Yet it is warm and she feels his fingers twine into hers. Then very slowly, Fred brings her hand to his lips. He does not open his eyes.

They sit like this for minutes. Rena’s shoulder aches, but she doesn’t mind. She searches his face to see if he’s fallen asleep until he says, “I’m not asleep,” and opens his eyes. He lets her fingers slip out of his. “I’m sorry. That was so nice. You have the hand of Beatrice.”

“Yeah? Who’s Beatrice?”

“A girl. No one. Forget it. You know, I love the feminine presence. But for me it’s different. I don’t have the normal impulses.”

“That’s not such a bad thing, believe me.”

“I’m sure the world wants to get as close to you as it can.”

“That stuff you smoked. Is it good?”

“This?” He pinches the empty envelope of drug between his fingers.

“Could I try it?”

“Famous last words.”

“One time?”

“I have a better idea. Stay here tonight with me. We’ll hold hands all night. Would you do that?”

“I have a job in the morning at six. It’s already one now. It wouldn’t be a good idea not to show up for work.”

“A responsible girl. Funny.”

“You’re pretty funny yourself.”

A veil descends between them. “The first thing you see every morning in the mirror is beauty. What can that be like?”

“You’re pretty beautiful yourself. Except I wish you weren’t so sad.”

“Listen. I have to see you again. I’m not sure when. Promise me that when I call, you’ll come? No matter what? Even if you have a new boyfriend, whatever. Even if you’re married. Even if you’re dead. You have to come. OK? Promise?”

“OK. It’s a promise.”

Fred starts to get up, but Rena stops him. “It’s OK, you don’t have to. I’m cool on my own. I carry Mace. The real stuff.”

Fred eases back into his armchair. “Thank you. For visiting.”

Rena kisses him quickly on the lips and splits.