Glamorama (60 page)

“I knew Bobby wasn’t faithful .… He was sleeping with big models … famous socialites in good shape … the occasional guy or … underage girl—girls who attended Spence or Chapin or Sacred Heart—and if he got in trouble with their mothers he’d fuck them too .… He would weigh girls … you had to be a certain weight … and mostly but not all the time a certain height … in order to fuck Bobby Hughes .… If you got on that scale and passed, then he … fucked you .…”

My arms are falling asleep and I adjust my position, light another joint a crew member hands me.

“A lot of girls disappeared or … OD’d … or they ‘had accidents,’ and by this time I was breaking down on the Concorde when I would see the curvature of the earth and the clouds seemed hundreds of miles below us … and I’d freak out … even on large amounts of Xanax and at the height of my fame …. I was responsible for the increased suicide rate among … teenage girls and young women who realized they would never look like me …. I was told this in editorials … angry letters from overweight mothers … essays by women in NOW .… I was told I was destroying lives … but it didn’t touch me because no one we knew was real … people just seemed … fake and … Bobby liked that I felt this way .… It ‘helped,’ he said … and anyway, in the end I was too famous for him to get rid of .…”

Her voice quavers, regains its composure, then falters again and she just starts murmuring strings of words, how she moved into films, her first movie,
Night of the Bottomless Pit
, the arrangement of fake passports, soldiers of fortune from Thailand, Bosnia, Utah, new social security numbers, heads struck with such force they broke open as easily as soft-boiled eggs, a form of torture where the victim has to swallow a rope. “In Bombay … ,” and now she shudders, swallowing rapidly, eyes clamped shut, tears immediately pouring out of the slits. “In Bombay …” She refuses to follow through and then starts shrieking about a serial killer Bobby befriended in Berlin and I hop out of bed and tell the director “Hey, it’s over” and while they pack up to leave Jamie writhes on the bed, sobbing hysterically, clawing at the sheets, sometimes shouting out names in Arabic.

33

Outside the building in the 8th or 16th under a hazy sheen of floating mist the film crew waits after the director and Felix the cinematographer have set up a simple establishing shot that will be of the six of us walking “gaily” to a black Citroën waiting at the curb that will take us to a party at Natacha. But this crew doesn’t know that earlier this afternoon the film crew I was introduced to the other night at Hôtel Costes has been let into the house by Bobby and has spent the last three hours laying cable, setting up lights, filming sequences I’m not in, including a long unresolvable argument between Tammy and Bruce, a sex scene with Jamie and Bobby, another segment with Bruce, alone, playing a guitar, strumming the old Bread song “It Don’t Matter to Me,” and they now move quietly around the living room—electricians and a beautiful key grip and the black-bearded director—all conferring with a cinematographer who resembles Brad Pitt in
Johnny Suede
and upstairs in Bentley’s room the first AD keeps parting the Mary Bright blackout curtains, peering out at the other film crew in the street, offering updates over the muffled sounds of another fight between Tammy and Bruce—this one not filmed—concerning the actor playing the French premier’s son and predictably doors are slammed, voices are raised, doors are slammed again.

I’m wearing a Prada suit totally unaware of who helped me put it on and I’m positioned in one of the Dialogica chairs in the living room, playing with a lime-green tie someone chose for me. On the TV screen, with the sound off, reruns of “Cheers” followed by “Home Improvement” run endlessly on a tape someone stuck into the VCR. A PA hands me a book of notes that Bobby made, I’m told, especially for me. Continents are investigated, floor plans of the Ritz have been reproduced, an outline was printed from a computer of the TWA terminal at Charles de Gaulle, diagrams of the layout of Harry’s Bar in Venice, handwriting experts preoccupied with verifying signatures are interviewed, entries from a diary someone named Keith kept concerning a trip he made to Oklahoma City, pages about plastic explosives, the best wiring, the correct timer, the right container, the best detonator.

I’m reading “Semtex is made in Czechoslavakia.” I’m reading “Semtex is an odorless, colorless plastic explosive.” I’m reading “Libya has tons of Semtex.” I’m reading “It takes 6 oz. of Semtex to blow up an airliner.” I’m reading a profile on a newly manufactured plastic explosive called Remform, which is made and distributed only “underground” in the U.S. and is still unavailable in Europe. I’m reading a list of Remform’s “pros and cons.” I’m reading the words Bobby has scrawled on the side of a page:
More useful than Semtex?
and then two words that I stare at until they move me to get up out of the Dialogica chair and walk purposefully into the kitchen to make myself a drink: “ … tests pending …”

On this much Xanax it’s remarkably easy to concentrate solely on the making of a Cosmopolitan. You think of nothing else while pouring cranberry juice, Cointreau and lemon citron into a shaker filled with ice that you yourself attacked with an ice pick and then you’re rolling a lime and slicing it open, squeezing the juice into the shaker, and then you’re pouring the cocktail through a strainer into a giant martini glass, and back in the living room Makeup fixes my hair and I can’t help but keep imagining what Jamie and Bobby are doing in their bedroom and I’m glancing up at the ceiling and while sipping the Cosmopolitan I zone out on the Paul McCartney and Wings sticker on the front of the notebook Bobby made for me.

“Didn’t we hang in Sérifos?” the hairdresser asks me.

“We didn’t hang out in Sérifos,” I say, and then, “Oh yeah.”

I attempt to read an interview in
Le Figaro
that Jamie gave on Wednesday but I’m unable to follow it, realizing midway through that I’m unable to speak or read French. I barely notice the hand grenade leaning against an automatic rifle on the table my drink is sitting on. Why this Paul McCartney and Wings sticker is on my notebook is a question easier to concentrate on. Crew members debate whether the latest U2 record really cuts it, until the director calls out for silence.

Bobby glides in. I look up solemnly from whatever it is I’m doing. “You look nice,” he says.

I soften, smile weakly.

“What are you drinking?” he asks.

I have to look at the color of the drink before answering, “A Cosmopolitan.”

“Can I have a sip?”

“Sure.” I hand him the martini glass.

Bobby takes a sip, brightens up and smiles. “Great Cosmo, dude.”

A very long pause while I wait for him to hand the drink back. “I … appreciate the compliment.”

“Listen, Victor,” Bobby starts, kneeling down in front of me.

I tense up, cross my legs, the copy of
Le Figaro
slipping to the terrazzo floor.

“I appreciate you watching Jamie and—”

“Hey man, I—”

“—I just wanted to let you know that—”

“Hey man, I—”

“Hey, shhh, chill out.” He breathes in, stares intently up at me. “Listen, if I chastise you at times, if I seem to”—he pauses effectively—“warn you a little too harshly about where your place is in all of this, it’s just to keep you on your feet.” He pauses again, holding direct eye contact. “I really trust you, Victor.” Another pause. “Really.”

A long pause, this one on my part. “What’s going to happen, Bobby?” I ask.

“You’ll be prepped,” Bobby says. “You’ll be told what you need to know. You’ll be given just the right amount of infor—”

Upstairs someone slams a door and Tammy cries out and then it’s silent. Someone stomps down a hallway, cursing. From inside Tammy’s room Prodigy starts blasting out. Bobby flinches, then sighs. “
That
, however, is getting out of hand.”

“What’s the story?” I ask slowly.

“Tammy’s conducting an affair that is important to us but shouldn’t mean anything to Bruce.” Bobby sighs, still on his haunches in front of me. “But it does. And that is proving to be a problem. Bruce needs to get over it. Quickly.”

“What is”—I start, breathe in—“the problem?”

“The problem …” Bobby stares at me sternly. Finally a smile. “The problem really doesn’t concern you. The problem will be resolved soon enough.”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh,” I’m saying, trying to sip the drink.

“Are you okay, Victor?” Bobby asks.

“As well as … can be”—I gulp—“expected.”

“I actually think you’re better than that,” Bobby says, standing up.

“Meaning what?” I ask, genuinely interested.

“Meaning that I think you’ve adapted well.”

A long pause before I’m able to whisper, “Thank you.”

Bruce walks down the circular staircase wearing a black Prada suit and a bright-orange turtleneck, holding a guitar and a bottle of Volvic water. Ignoring both of us, he flops down in a corner of the room and starts strumming chords before settling again on the Bread song “It Don’t Matter to Me,” and the entire crew is silent, waiting. Bobby studies Bruce for a long time before turning back to me.

“Look,” Bobby says. “I understand where you’re coming from, Victor. We plant bombs. The government disappears suspects.”

“Uh-huh.”

“The CIA has more blood soaked into its hands than the PLO and the IRA combined.” Bobby walks over to a window, peels back a dark, lacy curtain and stares out at the other crew milling about on the street, just silhouettes whispering into walkie-talkies, movement in the mist, more waiting. “The government
is
an enemy.” Bobby turns to face me. “My god,
you
of all people should know
that
, Victor.”

“But Bobby, I’m not … political,” I blurt out vaguely.

“Everyone is, Victor,” Bobby says, turning away again. “It’s something you can’t help.”

My only response is to gulp down the rest of the Cosmopolitan.

“You need to get your worldview straightened out,” Bobby’s telling me. “You need to get your information about the world straightened out.”

“We’re killing civilians,” I whisper.

“Twenty-five thousand homicides were committed in our country last year, Victor.”

“But … I didn’t commit any of them, Bobby.”

Bobby smiles patiently, making his way back to where I’m sitting. I look up at him, hopefully.

“Is it so much better to be uninvolved, Victor?”

“Yes,” I whisper. “I think it is.”

“Everyone’s involved,” he whispers back. “That’s something you need to know.”

“I’m just, man, I’m just, man, I’m just—”

“Victor—”

“—man, having a hard time having to, like, justify this and …” I stare at him pleadingly.

“I don’t think you have to justify anything, man.”

“Bobby, I’m an … American, y’know?”

“Hey Victor,” Bobby says, staring down at me. “So am I.”

“Why me, Bobby?” I ask. “Why do you trust me?”

“Because you think the Gaza Strip is a particularly lascivious move an erotic dancer makes,” Bobby says. “Because you think the PLO recorded the singles ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’ and ‘Evil Woman.’”

Silence until the phone rings. Bobby picks up. Bruce stops playing the guitar. It’s the film crew from outside and they’re ready. Bobby tells them we’ll be right out. The film crew inside is already packing it in. The director, obviously satisfied, confers with Bobby, who keeps nodding while staring over at Bruce. On cue Tammy, Bentley and Jamie walk down the circular spiral staircase, and outside the film crew shoots us three times walking from the front door to the black Citroën, the six of us laughing, Bentley leading the way, Jamie and Bobby holding on to each other “playfully,” Bruce and I flanking Tammy and she’s clasping our hands, looking at each of us happily, because in the movie the crew outside is shooting I’m supposed to be in love with her. Jamie has to take a black Mercedes to Natacha because she’s wearing a dress that cost $30,000.

And at Natacha MTV’s filming a party upstairs where the girls are all wasted and beautiful and the guys are looking their hunkiest and everyone’s wearing sunglasses and waiting for assistants to light their cigarettes and there’s another party downstairs where Lucien Pellat-Finet is hanging out with the hat designer Christian Liagré and Andre Walker shows up on the arm of Claudia Schiffer who’s wearing a feathered jumpsuit and has a red pageboy and Galliano’s wearing a little black trilby hat and Christian Louboutin plays “Je T’Aime” on the piano with Stephanie Marais by his side singing the Jane Birkin part and we’re receiving fans at the table we’re slouched at, people flocking around us, whispering things, the prerequisite number of oohs and aahs, caviar sitting untouched on silver plates in front of us and it’s all really youthquakey and the mood is light until Ralph and Ricky Lauren show up and tonight’s theme is the unbearable lightness of being
and everything is ubiquitous, the smell of shit rising up faintly from somewhere and floating all over the room.