Glamorama (8 page)

She continues to stare.

“You’re not naked … or … you are, um, naked?”

“Why?” she asks curtly. “Do you care?”

“Baby baby baby. Last time you did a video you were dancing on the hood of a car in your
bra
. Baby baby baby …” I’m shaking my head woefully. “Concern is causing me to like pant and sweat.”

“Victor, you did how many bathing suit ads? You were photographed for Madonna’s sex book. Jesus, you were in that Versace ad where—am I mistaken?—we did or did not see your pubic hair?”

“Yeah, but Madonna dropped those photos and let’s just say
thank you
to that and there’s a major difference between my pubic hair—which was
lightened
—and your tits, baby. Oh Christ, spare me, forget it, I don’t know what you call—”

“It’s called a double standard, Victor.”

“Double standard?” I take another hit without trying and say, feeling particularly mellow, “Well, I didn’t do
Playgirl.”

“Congratulations. But that wasn’t for me. That was because of your father. Don’t pretend.”

“I like to pretend.” I offer an amazingly casual shrug.

“It’s fine when you’re seven, Victor, but add twenty years to that and you’re just retarded.”

“Honey, I’m just bummed. Mica the DJ has vanished, tomorrow is hell day and the
Flatliners II
thing is all blurry and watery—who knows what the fuck is happening there. Bill thinks I’m someone named Dagby and jeez, you know how much time I put into those notes to shape that script up and—”

“What about the potato chip commercial you were up for?”

“Baby baby baby. Jumping around a beach, putting a Pringle in my mouth and looking surprised because—why?—it’s
spicy?
Oh baby,” I groan, slouching into the booth. “Do you have any Visine?”

“It’s a job, Victor,” she says. “It’s money.”

“I think CAA’s a mistake. I mean, when I was talking to Bill I started remembering that really scary story you told me about Mike Ovitz.”

“What scary story?”

“Remember—you were invited to meet with all those CAA guys like Bob Bookman and Jay Mahoney at a screening on Wilshire and you went and the movie was a brand-new print of
Tora! Tora! Tora!
and during the entire movie
they all laughed?
You don’t remember telling me this?”

“Victor,” Chloe sighs, not listening. “I was in SoHo the other day with Lauren and we were having lunch at Zoë and somebody came up to me and said, ‘Oh, you look just like Chloe Byrnes.’”

“And you said, er, ‘How dare you!’?” I ask, glancing sideways at her.

“And I said, ‘Oh? Really?’”

“It sounds like you had a somewhat leisurely, um, afternoon,” I cough, downing smoke with a gulp of champagne. “Lauren who?”

“You’re not listening to me, Victor.”

“Oh come on, baby, when you were young and your heart was an open book you used to say live and let live.” I pause, take another hit on the joint. “You know you did. You know you did.
You know you did.”
I cough again, sputtering out smoke.

“You’re not talking to me,” Chloe says sternly, with too much emotion. “You’re looking at me but you’re
not
talking to me.”

“Baby, I’m your biggest fan,” I say. “And I’m admitting this only somewhat groggily.”

“Oh, how grown-up of you.”

The new It Girls flutter by our booth, nervously eyeing Chloe—one of them eating a stick of purple cotton candy—on their way to dance by the bathroom. I notice Chloe’s troubled glare, as if she just drank something black or ate a piece of bad sashimi.

“Oh come on, baby. You wanna end up living on a sheep farm in Australia milking fucking dingoes? You wanna spend the rest of your life on the Internet answering E-mail? Spare me. Lighten up.”

A long pause and then, “Milking …
dingoes
?”

“Most of those girls have an eighth-grade education.”

“You went to Camden College—same thing. Go talk to them.”

People keep stopping by, begging for invites to the opening, which I dole out accordingly, telling me they spotted my visage last week at the Marlin in Miami, at the Elite offices on the hotel’s first floor, then at the Strand, and by the time Michael Bergen tells me we shared an iced latte at the Bruce Weber/Ralph Lauren photo shoot in Key Biscayne I’m too tired to even deny I was in Miami last weekend and so I ask Michael if it was a good latte and he says so-so and it gets noticeably colder in the room. Chloe looks on, oblivious, meekly sips champagne. Patrick Bateman, who’s with a bunch of publicists and the three sons of a well-known movie producer, walks over, shakes my hand, eyes Chloe, asks how the club’s coming along, if tomorrow night’s happening, says Damien invited him, hands me a cigar, weird stains on the lapel of his Armani suit that costs as much as a car.

“The proverbial show is on the proverbial road, dude,” I assure him.

“I just like to keep—abreast,” he says, winking at Chloe.

After he leaves I finish the joint, then look at my watch but I’m not wearing one so I inspect my wrist instead.

“He’s strange,” Chloe says. “And I need some soup.”

“He’s a nice guy, babe.”

Chloe slouches in the booth, looks at me disgustedly.

“What? Hey, he has his own coat of arms.”

“Who told you that?”

“He did. He told me he has his own coat of arms.”

“Spare
me,”
Chloe says.

Chloe picks up the check and in order to downplay the situation I lean in to kiss her, the swarming paparazzi causing the kind of disturbance we’re used to.

28

Stills from Chloe’s loft in a space that looks like it was designed by Dan Flavin: two Toshiyuki Kita hop sofas, an expanse of white-maple floor, six Baccarat Tastevin wineglasses—a gift from Bruce and Nan
Weber—dozens of white French tulips, a StairMaster and a free-weight set, photography books—Matthew Rolston, Annie Leibovitz, Herb Ritts—all signed, a Fabergé Imperial egg—a gift from Bruce Willis (pre-Demi)—a large plain portrait of Chloe by Richard Avedon, sunglasses scattered all over the place, a Helmut Newton photo of Chloe walking seminude through the lobby of the Malperisa in Milan while nobody notices, a large William Wegman and giant posters for the movies
Butterfield 8, The Bachelor Party
with Carolyn Jones, Audrey Hepburn in
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
. A giant fax sheet taped above Chloe’s makeup table lists Monday 9am Byron Lars, 11am Mark Eisen, 2pm Nicole Miller, 6pm Ghost, Tuesday 10am Ralph Lauren, Wednesday 11am Anna Sui, 2pm Calvin Klein, 4pm Bill Blass, 7pm Isaac Mizrahi, Thursday 9am Donna Karan, 5pm Todd Oldham and on and on until Sunday. Piles of foreign currency and empty Glacier bottles litter tables and countertops everywhere. In her refrigerator the breakfast Luna has already prepared: ruby-red grapefruit, Evian, iced herbal tea, nonfat plain yogurt with blackberries, a quarter of a poppy-seed bagel, sometimes toasted, sometimes not, Beluga if it’s a “special day.” Gilles Bensimon, Juliette Lewis, Patrick Demarchelier, Ron Galotti, Peter Lindbergh and Baxter Priestly have all left messages.

I take a shower, rub some Preparation H and Clinique Eye Fitness under my eyes and check my answering machine: Ellen Von Unwerth, Eric Stoltz, Alison Poole, Nicolas Cage, Nicollette Sheridan, Stephen Dorff and somebody ominous from TriStar. When I come out of the bathroom with a Ralph Lauren fluffy towel wrapped around my waist, Chloe is sitting on the bed looking doomed, hugging her knees to her chest. Tears fill her eyes, she shudders, takes a Xanax, wards off another anxiety attack. On the large-screen TV is a documentary about the dangers of breast implants.

“It’s just silicone, baby,” I say, trying to soothe her. “I take Halcion, okay? I had half a bacon sandwich the other day. We smoke.”

“Oh god, Victor.” She keeps shuddering.

“Remember that period you chopped off all your hair and kept dyeing it different colors and all you did was cry?”

“Victor, I was suicidal,” she sobs. “I almost overdosed.”

“Baby, the point is you never lost a booking.”

“Victor, I’m twenty-six. That’s a hundred and five in model years.”

“Baby, this insecurity you’ve got has to, like, split.” I rub her shoulders.
“You’re an icon, baby,” I whisper into her ear. “
You
are the guideline.” I kiss her neck lightly. “You personify the physical ideal of your day,” and then, “Baby, you’re not just a model. You’re a star.” Finally, cupping her face in my hands, I tell her, “Beauty is in the soul.”

“But
my soul
doesn’t do twenty runway shows,” she cries out. “My soul isn’t on the cover of fucking
Harper’s
next month. My soul’s not negotiating a Lancôme contract.” Heaving sobs, gasps, the whole bit, the end of the world, the end of everything.

“Baby …” I pull back. “I don’t want to wake up and find you’ve freaked out about your implants again and you’re hiding out in Hollywood at the Chateau Marmont, hanging with Kiefer and Dermot and Sly. So y’know, um, chill out, baby.”

After ten minutes of silence or maybe two the Xanax kicks in and she concedes, “I’m feeling a little better.”

“Baby, Andy once said that beauty
is
a sign of intelligence.”

She turns slowly to look at me. “Who, Victor?
Who?
Andy who?” She coughs, blowing her nose. “Andy Kaufman? Andy Griffith? Who in the hell told you this? Andy Rooney?”

“Warhol,” I say softly, hurt. “Baby …”

She gets up off the bed and moves into the bathroom, splashes water on her face, then rubs Preparation H under her eyes. “The fashion world is dying anyway,” Chloe yawns, stretching, walking over to one of her walk-in closets, opening it. “I mean, what else can I say?”

“Not necessarily a bad thing, baby,” I say vaguely, moving over to the television.

“Victor—whose mortgage is
this
?” she cries out, waving her arms around.

I’m looking for a copy of the
Flatliners
tape I left over here last week but can only find an old Arsenio that Chloe was on, two movies she was in,
Party Mountain
with Emery Roberts and
Teen Town
with Hurley Thompson, another documentary about breast-implant safety and last week’s “Melrose Place.” On the screen now, a commercial, grainy fuzz, a reproduction of a reproduction. When I turn around, Chloe is holding up a dress in front of a full-length mirror, winking at herself.

The dress is an original Todd Oldham wraparound: not-so-basic black-slash-beige dress, strapless, Navajo-inspired and neon quilted.

My first reaction: she stole it from Alison.

“Um, baby …” I clear my throat. “What’s that?”

“I’m practicing my wink for the video,” she says, winking again. “Rupert says I wasn’t doing it right.”

“Uh-huh. Okay, I’ll take some time off and we’ll practice.” I pause, then carefully ask, “But the dress?”

“You like it?” she asks, brightening up, turning around. “I’m wearing it tomorrow night.”

“Um … baby?”

“What? What is it?” She puts the dress back in the closet.

“Oh honey,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t know about that dress.”

“You don’t have to wear it, Victor.”

“But then neither do you, right?”

“Stop. I can’t deal with—”

“Baby, you’re gonna look like Pocahontas in that thing.”

“Todd gave me this dress especially for the opening—”

“How about something simpler, less multicult? Less p.c., perhaps? Something closer to Armani-ish?” I move toward the closet. “Here, let me choose something for you.”

“Victor.” She blocks the closet door. “I’m wearing
that.”
She suddenly looks down at my ankles. “Are those scratches?”

“Where?” I look down too.

“On your ankles.” She pushes me onto the bed and inspects my ankles, then the red marks on my calves. “Those look like dogs did this. Were you around any dogs today?”

“Oh baby,
all
day,” I groan, staring at the ceiling. “You don’t even know.”

“Those are dog scratches, Victor.”

“Oh,
those
?” I say, sitting up, pretending to notice them too. “Beau and JD groveling, mauling at me … Do you have any, um, Bactine?”