Glamorama (11 page)

“Uh-huh,” I say, somewhat dubiously.

“But I saw you at the Calvin Klein show, baby, and—”

“I wasn’t at the Calvin Klein show, baby, and have you noticed that whole wall is the color of pesto, which is, like, a no-no, baby?”

“De rigueur,” says the impeccably-put-together young thing behind her.

“Victor,” Waverly says. “This is Ruby. She’s a bowl designer. She makes bowls out of things like rice.”

“A bowl designer? Wow.”

“She makes bowls out of things like rice,” Waverly says again, staring.

“Bowls made from rice? Wow.” I stare back. “Did you hear me say ‘wow’?”

Mope-rocker wanders over to the dance floor and looks up at the dozen or so disco balls, trancing out.

“What’s the story with goblin boy?”

“Felix used to work at the Gap,” Waverly says, inhaling, exhaling. “Then he designed sets for ‘The Real World’ in Bali.”

“Don’t mention that show to me,” I say, gritting my teeth.

“Sorry, darling, it’s so
early
. But please be nice to Felix—he’s just out of rehab.”

“What—he OD’d on stucco?”

“He’s friends with Blowpop and Pickle and he just designed Connie Chung’s, Jeff Zucker’s, Isabella Rossellini’s and Sarah Jessica Parker’s, er, closets.”

“Cool, cool.” I nod approvingly.

“Last month he went and fucked his ex-boyfriend—Jackson—in the Bonneville salt flats and just three days ago they found Jackson’s skull in a swamp, so, you know, let’s be careful.”

“Uh-huh. My god it’s freezing in here.”

“I see orange flowers, I see bamboo, I see Spanish doormen, I hear Steely Dan, I see Fellini.” Waverly suddenly gasps, exhaling again, tapping her cigarette. “I see the ’70s, baby, and I am wet.”

“Baby, you’re ashing on my club,” I say, very upset.

“Now what about Felix’s idea for a juice bar?”

“Felix is thinking about where he’s going to score his next animal tranquilizer.” I drop my cigarette carefully into the half-empty Snapple bottle JD holds out. “Plus—oh god, baby, I don’t want to have to fret over a juice bar that serves only—what—oh god—
juice?
Do you know how many things I have to worry about? Spare me.”

“So
nix
the juice bar?” Waverly asks, taking notes.

“Oh please,” I moan. “Let’s sell submarine sandwiches, let’s sell pizza, let’s sell fucking
nachos,”
I sigh. “You and Felix are being muy muy drippy.”

“Baby, you are so right,” Waverly says, mock-wiping sweat from her forehead. “We need to get our shit together.”

“Waverly, listen to me. The new trend is no trend.”

“No trend’s a new trend?” she asks.

“No,
no
trend is
the
new trend,” I say impatiently.

“In is out?” Waverly asks.

I smack JD on the shoulder. “See,
she
gets it.”

“Look—goose bumps,” JD says, holding out an arm.

“Lemons, lemons everywhere, Victor,” Waverly says, twirling around.

“And Uncle Heshy is
not
invited, right, baby?”

“Sweet dreams are made of this, huh, Victor?” JD says, watching vacantly as Waverly twirls around the room.

“Do you think we were followed here?” I ask, lighting another cigarette, watching Waverly.

“If you have to ask that question, don’t you think that opening this behind Damien’s back is not, like, such a good idea?”

“Nonresponsive answer. I move to strike,” I say, glaring at him. “Your idea of hip is missing the boat, buddy.”

“I just don’t think it’s hip to have your legs broken,” JD says warily. “Over a
club?
Have you ever heard the phrase ‘Resist the impulse’?”

“Damien Nutchs Ross is a nonhuman primate,” I sigh. “And your POV should be: sleeping person zzzzz.”

“Why do you even
want
to open another club?”

“My
own
club.”

“Let me guess. Bingo! Instant friends?” JD shivers, his breath steaming.

“Oh spare me. I see all this and think money-in-the-bank, you little mo.”

“A guy needs a hobby, huh?”

“And you need some more Prozac to curb your homo-ness.”

“And you need a major injection of reality.”

“And you need coolin’, baby, I’m not foolin’.”

“Victor. We’re not playing games here,” JD asks, “are we?”

“No,” I say. “We’re going to the gym.”

25

At a gym in the Flatiron District, in what last week became the most fashionable stretch of lower Fifth Avenue, my trainer, Reed, is being filmed for a segment on “Entertainment Tonight” about trainers for celebrities who are more famous than the celebrities they train, and in the gym now—which has no name, just a symbol and below that the motto “Weakness Is a Crime, Don’t Be a Criminal”—beneath the row of video monitors showing episodes of “The Flintstones” and the low lighting from a crystal chandelier Matt Dillon, Toni Braxton, the sultan of Brunei’s wife, Tim Jeffries, Ralph Fiennes—
all
in agony. A couple of male models, Craig Palmer and Scott Benoit, pissed off over something I said about Matt Nye’s luck, semi-avoid me as they towel off in the
Philippe Starck-designed changing room. Danny Errico from Equinox set the place up for Reed when the issue of
Playgirl
Reed appeared in sold something like ten million copies and he subsequently was dropped from the Gap’s new ad campaign. Now Reed’s costarring in a movie about a detective whose new partner is a pair of gibbons. Reed: $175 an hour and worth every goddamn penny (I stressed to Chloe), long blond hair
never
in a ponytail, light ’n’ sexy stubble, naturally tan, silver stud in right ear, designer weight-belt, a body with muscles so well defined he looks skinned, license plate on his black BMW reads
VARMINT
, all the prerequisites. It’s so freezing in the gym that steam rises from the lights the “ET” camera crew has set up.

The
Details
reporter arrives late. “Sorry, I got lost,” she says vacantly, wearing a black cashmere sweater, white cotton shirt, white silk pants and, in true girl-reporter-from-
Details
fashion, tube-sock elbow pads and a bicycle-reflector armband. “I had to interview President Omar Bongo of Gabon and his cute nephew, um …” She checks her notepad. “Spencer.”

“Ladies and gentlemen.” Reed spreads his hands out, introducing me. “Victor Ward, the It Boy of the moment.”

Mumbled “hey”s and a few “yeah”s come from the crew, who remain darkened behind the steaming lights set up in front of the StairMaster, and finally someone tiredly says, “We’re rolling.”

“Take those sunglasses off,” Reed whispers to me.

“Not with those lights on, uh-uhn, spare me.”

“I smell Marlboros,” Reed says, pushing me toward the StairMaster. “You shouldn’t smoke, baby, it takes years off your life.”

“Yeah, my sixties, great. Don’t wanna miss those.”

“Ooh, you’re tough. Come on—hop up here,” Reed says, patting the side of the machine.

“I want calves and thighs and
definitely
abs today,” I stress. “But no biceps,” I warn. “They’re getting too big.”

“What? They’re thirteen inches, baby.” Reed sets the StairMaster to Blind Random, level 10.

“Isn’t your T-shirt, uh, a little tight?” I ask, taunting.

“Arms are the new breasts,” Reed intones.

“Oh, and look,” I say, noticing a tiny blackhead. “You have a nipple.”

“Cut,” the segment director sighs.

“Victor,” Reed warns. “Pretty soon I’m gonna bring up that bounced check of yours—”

“Hey, Chloe took care of the bill.”

“This is a business, baby,” Reed says, trying to smile. “Not a charity.”

“Listen, if you need more work, I need bouncers.”

“This
is
work, man.”

“What? Being familiar with fitness equipment? Spare me.”

“I already supplement my income, Victor.”

“Listen, as long as the sex is safe I personally think being a male whore is cool—
if
it pays the bills.”

Reed smacks me upside the head and growls, “We’re doing squats today.”

“And
abs,”
I stress. “I have a photo shoot, baby.”

“Okay,” the director calls out. “We’re running.”

Automatically, without trying, Reed starts clapping his hands and shouts, “I want some strain, some pressure, some
sweat
, Victor. You’re too tense, buddy. Out with that tension. In with some love.”

“I’ve sworn off caffeine, Reed. I’m teaching myself how to relax by deep-sea visualization. I’m avoiding the urge to check my voice mail on a half-hourly basis. I’m hugging people left and right. And look.” I reach under my CK T-shirt. “My new tranquillity beads.”

“Far out, baby,” Reed wails, clapping his hands together.

Looking into the camera, I say, “I’ve been to Radu and Pasquale Manocchia—that’s Madonna’s personal trainer, by the way, baby—and Reed is definitely the first name in celebrity training.”

“I have an obsession with biceps, with triceps, with forearm flexors,” Reed admits sheepishly. “I have a major sinewy-arm fetish.”

“I have the endurance of a horse but my blood sugar’s low and I need a Jolly Rancher badly.”

“After the next song,” Reed says, clapping endlessly. “PowerBar time, I promise.”

Suddenly Primal Scream’s “Come Together” blares out over the sound system. “Oh god,” I moan. “This song is eight minutes and four seconds long.”

“How do you know things like that?” the
Details
girl asks.

“The better you look, baby, the more you see,” I pant. “Dat’s my motto, homegirl.” My beeper goes off and I check it: JD at the club.

“Reed, baby, hand me your cellular.” I let go of the rails and dial, smiling into the camera. “Hey Leeza! Look, no hands!”

This causes Reed to push up the speed, which I thought was impossible because I didn’t know StairMasters could go past level 10.

“Hey, am I invited to the dinner tonight?” Reed asks. “I didn’t see my name mentioned in any of the columns.”

“Yeah, you’re at table 78 with the Lorax and Pauly Shore,” I snap. “JD—talk to me.”

“Now don’t get too excited, Victor,” JD says breathlessly. “But we’ve—myself, Beau and Peyton—set up an interview with DJ X.”

“With who?”

“DJ X. You have a meeting with him at Fashion Café at five today,” JD says. “He’s willing to do the party tonight.”

“I’m on a StairMaster now, baby.” I’m trying not to pant. “What? Fashion Café?”

“Victor, DJ X is the hottest DJ in town,” JD says. “Imagine the publicity and then come all over yourself. Go ahead—shoot that load.”

“I know, I know. Just hire him,” I say. “Tell him we’ll pay anything he wants.”

“He wants to meet with you first.”

“Oh dear god.”

“He needs some kind of reassurance.”

“Send him a bag of candy corn. Send him some cute, extrasuckable pacifiers. Tell him you give excellent head … do you?”

“Victor,” JD says, exasperated. “He won’t do it without meeting you first. We need him here tonight. Do it.”

“I’m taking commands from someone who uses the word ‘dish’ as a verb?” I yell. “Shut up.”

“Fashion Café,” JD says. “Five o’clock. I’ve checked your schedule. You can make it.”

“JD, I’m in the middle of becoming some kind of brooding god,” I groan. “I mean, is it too fucking much to ask—”

“Fashion Café at five. Bye, Victor.” JD clicks off.

“JD—don’t click off on me, don’t you
dare
click off on me.” I click off myself and blindly announce, “I’m suddenly seized by the need to climb.”

“I think you’ve been doing that your whole life, buddy,” Reed says sadly.

“You turned down a Reebok ad and that makes you tough?”

After “ET” films me doing a thousand crunches and I’ve moved over to the Treadwall, an indoor rock-climbing simulator where you stay in one place while climbing, I notice
Details
girl slouching against a wall, holding her pad under the debut issue of a new magazine called
Bubble
. It’s so cold in the gym that it feels like I’m climbing a glacier.

“Jesus,” I moan, noticing the magazine’s cover. “Yeah, that’s just great. Luke Perry’s opinion of Kurt fucking Russell. We need more of that.”