Glamorama (90 page)

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Jamie told me, “You’re the only sign in the horoscope that’s not a living thing.”

“What do you mean?” I muttered.

“You’re a Libra,” she said. “You’re just a set of scales.”

I was thinking, This is just a fling, right? I was thinking, I want to fuck you again.

“But I thought I was a Capricorn,” I sighed.

We were lying on a field bordered by red and yellow trees and I had my hand thrown up to block my eyes from the sun slanting through the branches, its heat striking my face, and it was September and summer was over and we were lying on the commons lawn and from an open window we could hear someone vomiting in a room on the second floor of Booth House and Pink Floyd—“Us and Them”—was playing from somewhere else and I had taken off my shirt and Jamie
had haphazardly rubbed Bain de Soleil all over my back and chest and I was thinking about all the girls I had fucked over the summer, grouping them into pairs, placing them in categories, surprised by the similarities I was finding. My legs had fallen asleep and a girl passing by told me she liked that story I read in a creative writing workshop. I nodded, ignored her, she moved on. I was fingering a condom that was lodged in my pocket. I was making a decision.

“I don’t take that class,” I told Jamie.

“No future, no future, no future—for you,” Jamie half-sang.

And now, in a hotel room in Milan, I remember that I started to cry on the field that day because Jamie told me certain things, whispered them in my ear so matter-of-factly it suggested she really didn’t care who heard: how she wanted to bomb the campus to “kingdom fuck,” how she was the one responsible for her ex-boyfriend’s death, how someone really needed to slit Lauren Hynde’s throat wide open, and she kept admitting these things so casually. Finally Jamie was interrupted by Sean Bateman stumbling over, holding a six-pack of Rolling Rock, and he lay down next to us and kept cracking his knuckles and we all started taking pills and I was lying between Sean and Jamie as they exchanged a glance that meant something secret.

Sean whispered into my ear at one point, “All the boys think she’s a spy.”

“You have potential,” Jamie whispered into my other ear.

Crows, ravens, these flying shadows, were circling above us and above that a small plane flew across the sky, its exhaust fumes forming the Nike logo, and when I finally sat up I stared across the commons and in the distance, the End of the World spread out behind them, was a film crew. It seemed that they were uncertain as to where they were supposed to be heading but when Jamie waved them over they aimed their cameras at where we were lying.

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The next day production assistants from the French film crew feed me heroin as they fly me into Milan on a private jet someone named Mr.
Leisure has supplied, which is piloted by two Japanese men. The plane lands at Linate airport and the PAs check me into the Principe di Savoia on a quiet Friday afternoon in the off-season. I stay locked in a suite, guarded by a twenty-three-year-old Italian named Davide, an Uzi strapped across his chest. The film crew is reportedly staying in the Brera section of town but no one provides me with a phone number or an address and only the director makes contact, every three days or so. One night Davide moves me to the Hotel Diana and the following morning I’m moved back to the Principe di Savoia. I’m told that the crew is now filming exteriors outside La Posta Vecchia. I’m told that they will be leaving Milan within the week. I’m told to relax, to stay beautiful.

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I call my sister in Washington, D.C.

The first time, her machine picks up. I don’t leave a message.

The second time I call, she answers, but it’s the middle of the night there.

“Sally?” I whisper.

“Hello?”

“Sally?” I whisper. “It’s me. It’s Victor.”

“Victor?” she asks, groaning. “What time is it?”

I don’t know what to say so I hang up.

Later, when I call again, it’s morning in Georgetown.

“Hello?” she answers.

“Sally, it’s me again,” I say.

“Why are you whispering?” she asks, annoyed. “Where are you?”

Hearing her voice, I start crying.

“Victor?” she asks.

“I’m in Milan,” I whisper between sobs.

“You’re where?” she asks.

“I’m in Italy.”

Silence.

“Victor?” she starts.

“Yeah?” I say, wiping my face.

“Is this a joke?”

“No. I’m in Milan .… I need your help.”

She barely pauses before her voice changes and she’s asking, “Whoever this is, I’ve gotta go.”

“No no no no—wait, Sally—”

“Victor, I’m seeing you for lunch at one, okay?” Sally says. “What in the hell are you doing?”

“Sally,” I whisper. “Whoever this is, don’t call back.”

“Wait, Sally—”

She hangs up.

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Davide is from Legnano, an industrial suburb northwest of Milan, and he has black and golden hair and he keeps eating peppermint candies from a green paper bag as he sits in a little gold chair in the suite at the Principe di Savoia. He tells me he used to be a champagne delivery boy, that he has ties to the Mafia, that his girlfriend is the Italian Winona Ryder. He flares his nostrils and offers penetrating looks. He smokes Newport Lights and sometimes wears a scarf and sometimes doesn’t. Sometimes he lets slip that his real name is Marco. Today he’s wearing a cashmere turtleneck in avocado green. Today he’s playing with a Ping-Pong ball. His lips are so thick it looks as if he were born making out. He plays a computer game, occasionally looking over at the music videos flashing by on MTV-Italia. I gaze at him restlessly from my bed as he keeps posing in place. He makes spit bubbles. Rain outside thrashes against the window and Davide sighs. The ceiling: a blue dome.

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