Waking Beauty (28 page)

“That’s true,” said Don. They exchanged a knowing glance. Dawn rolled her eyes and laughed.

George said, “The Dons had to sell their last cottage.”

“These
awful
people moved in next door,” confided Dawn.

“Nah,” said Don, “they were nice enough, there was just too damned many of them.”

“We tried to count once, and we couldn’t even tell how many were in there!” laughed Dawn.

“It was like they imported an entire village every weekend. There’d be tents set up on the lawn—”

“No way,” said George, laughing.

“I’m telling ya, frickin’ pup tents all over the lawn to hold the spillover.” Don laughed. “And they roasted a goat out there. Remember, honey? At least we thought it was goat.”

“They were
characters,”
said Dawn. “That’s for sure.”

“Are you okay?” said George.

I had stood up and stumbled over to a table. I was leaning on the table with both arms. My heart seemed to think I had just run the Boston Marathon.

“What’s wrong?” George stood and came toward me.

“I don’t know. I think I just need some air.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” I started to move toward the sliding glass doors. That’s when the first bizarre thing happened. All of a sudden,
with no warning, the contents of my stomach erupted out of my mouth. It was incredible, as if the stomach collapsed violently into itself, forcing everything out in one hot shot. Like a sledgehammer coming down on a burrito. Insides out. An entire evening’s worth of intake: martini and Kettle Chips and mesclun salad and New York steak and giant scallops and corn on the cob and wild-blueberry pavlova and several glasses of Burgundy wine spewed out in one fast blast onto off-white carpeting.

“OH MY GOD!” shrieked Dawn, jumping up off the sofa and clawing at herself.

“Holy shit!” said George. “I’ll call Phil Hanson; he’s two cottages down!”

“Is he a doctor?” shouted Don. And I wasn’t too sick to think: No, brainiac, he’s a fucking fan dancer. He’s the guy who irons the little creases into the paper cupcake holders.

“Yes,” said George, dashing into the kitchen.

Now, here’s the next bizarre thing that happened. George ran back from the kitchen—not having called Phil Hanson—and like a gunslinger, aimed an aerosol can at the pile of stinking vomit. He pressed the trigger. A long squiggle of white shot out of the nozzle like Silly String. George kept spraying until the pile was completely covered in expanding white foam.
Then
he ran back to the kitchen and called Phil Hanson.

I described my symptoms—palpitations, dizziness, nausea—to George, who relayed them via phone to the doctor. Then I barricaded myself in the bedroom’s en suite bathroom, and brushed my teeth and washed my face. I lay down in the cool bathtub and listened to the hushed voices murmuring outside the door.
Probably too much rich food. Think we’ll be able to go? Well, you guys can go. But what about you
?

Silence then, until Phil Hanson tapped on the door. I got out of the tub and admitted him to the room. He interviewed me and took my pulse—which had slowed considerably but was still going at a mad gallop—before making his diagnosis:
anxiety attack exacerbated by alcohol consumption. “Alcohol is a stimulant, you know? Did you know that?” he asked. “I didn’t know that,” I said, trying not to look at his spider-veined nose. He gave me an Ativan to take right away. It was from his wife’s stash; I saw the name on the prescription bottle: Sharon Hanson. He left another one for me to swallow in the morning if I needed it, and told me to see my GP if I ever felt this way again. When he went into the bedroom to speak to George, I eavesdropped on their lowered voices. “Is there anything I should do?” said George. “Just keep her calm, you know…rub her back, watch a funny movie. That sometimes works for Shari. Try to make her laugh.”

“We’re supposed to go to a club opening later.”

“What, that Heaven thing?”

“Yeah.”

“You have invites?”

“Father is buddies with the guy who owns it.”

“Sweet. Well, let her rest awhile. Then if she feels up to going, there’s no reason why she shouldn’t.”

“Okay. Thanks, Phil.”

The doctor said, “But if you’re not going to use those invitations, give me a call.”

When I heard them leave the room, I went in and lay down on the bed and thought about Sharon Hanson, eating Ativans and watching funny movies while the world swirled around her. Then I had a vision of all the pretty wives in all the pretty cottages doing the same thing.

A couple of minutes later George returned.

“How are you feeling?” he said.

“A bit dizzy.”

“You’re not still nauseous, are you?”

“A little.”

“Um…would you mind if I asked you to lie down in another bedroom? It’s just, this bed is brand new and Father will—”

“No problem.” I got up.

“Here, it’s just across the hall…. Unless, do you feel like watching a movie or something? We have that new Danny DeVito comedy—”

“No, thanks.”

“The Dons went back to the boathouse.”

“I don’t feel like watching a movie.” I lay down on one of two twin beds in the small white room. There was a decorative washbowl and pitcher on a pine stand. George carried the washbowl over and set it on the floor beside the bed.

“In case you need it,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“So, you want a backrub or something?”

“No, thanks.”

He sat on the end of the bed and I could see him trying to think of something funny to say, something that would relax me as per doctor’s orders. “Hey,” he said, laughing. “Did you see those kids today?”

“What, swinging on the rope?”

“Yeah. The Parkers. Gross, eh? We call them the Porkers, or the Three Little Pigs, or”—he assumed a heavy Scottish brogue
—“the fat bastards
.” He laughed.

I did not laugh. I said, “I think I’d better close my eyes for a while.” The Ativan, thank goodness, had started to kick in.

Total blackness. Complete silence.

I was alone. I knew it even before I found the lamp, and the note:
Allison, thought it best to let you sleep. We’ve gone to check out the club. Shouldn’t be too late—G
.

Right. Nice. Who cares if Allison is puking/panicking alone in the cottage? Gotta catch a glimpse of Kurt and Goldie, or Matthew Broderick, who’s filming a movie in the area. Best to let her sleep. Yes. Because if I wake her, she might not want to go to the exclusive club, she might ask me to stay with her at the cottage, which would impede my ogling of Goldie and Kurt. Grrrr!

I went to the main room to find a clock. Two forty-seven
A.M. I thought about calling a taxi, but I had no idea where to call it to:
Um, the big cottage by the lake
? I thought about hoofing it—it wasn’t far to town—but it was dark and scary, and I was reluctant to become an all-you-can-eat blood buffet for bugs. I thought about going back to bed, but I was far too awake now for that. I cupped my hands on the window and peered outside. Don and Dawns SUV was not in the driveway. Was the Vanquish still in the garage? I put on a bug jacket and crunched across the gravel drive, dodging rioting moths in the exterior light. I hoisted the door.

It was well after three A.M. when I arrived at the club. Still, there was a cluster of dolled-up twenty-somethings hovering around the entrance, trying to get in. Great, I thought, eyeing the beefy bouncers as I high-heeled my way to the door. Here we go again. I had visions of my ex-roommate, Elda, stomping, rebuffed and irate, down Richmond Street. But as I got closer, as I mentally rehearsed the pretext about George being inside and having my invitation, the biggest and beefiest bouncer simply unhooked a velvet rope and took a beefy step aside. And I can assume only that I looked like I belonged, because I didn’t need George Thomas in order to gain entry to Heaven & Earth. All I needed was to be gorgeous in a gossamer slip dress, and they just smiled and let me in.

Yes, they did.

And it was music, bodies, lights, smoke, and several minutes before I adjusted to the atmosphere inside, to the mad percussive motion and the flash of strobe, to the heads thrown back in laughter and the trays of drinks floating by, and I was seeing without comprehending for at least five minutes until it all began to settle into some kind of focus.

The room was huge with a high ceiling. Everything white and illuminated. The floor, lit from below, glowed white. As did the bar-stool stems at the curvy white bars, which were
hung from the ceiling. White clouds—suspended by barely visible wires—floated above the massive dance floor at different levels. On each cloud was a nearly naked go-go dancer dressed as an angel. Half were males (in white thongs and wings), half were females (G-strings, pasties, and wings). The slutty angels gyrated to the music and sprinkled handfuls of glitter onto the dancers below. I grabbed a cocktail from a passing tray and sipped quickly, moving through the crowd looking for George or Simon Penny.

When I had done a full pass of the main floor, I descended to the basement, where the design concept of the club fully registered. Downstairs was a dark, comparatively quiet area, the Earth part of Heaven & Earth. Throughout the room were giant papier-mâché tree trunks that stretched from floor to ceiling. The ceilings were low and had been done up to look like a thick canopy of leaves—gazillions of tiny paper leaves hung from branches that extended out from the papier-mâché tree trunks. Also suspended from the branches were hundreds of dimly lit patio lanterns that glowed red and barely illuminated the veiny detail of the paper leaves. Love seats and tables were scattered here and there in the intimate faux-forest. Obviously, Earth is where you went to have a conversation. Heaven was where you went to dance.

I downed another drink while I strolled around, looking for familiar faces. No go. I went back upstairs to the chaotic swirl of Heaven, where I foolishly plucked yet another cocktail from a passing tray. Oddly enough, even though the club was thick with smoke, it didn’t seem to bother me. Apparently, my new body wasn’t allergic. Another extremely welcome improvement.

I positioned myself on the sidelines of the dance floor and watched the hypnotic pulse of humans moving to the music. As I declined offers from men of all ages to go shake my groove thing, it occurred to me that I had never danced in public. Never. Only alone in my bedroom had I danced, and the booze and the beat were making me bold. After finishing
my drink and starting another, I thought, This isn’t eighth grade, I don’t have to stand snarky on the sidelines. Then a “Disco Inferno” remix came on, and the next thing I knew, I was putting my glass on the floor and shimmying shy into the throng.

And it swallowed me up. Swallowed me whole. And everywhere I looked there were beautiful bodies and beautiful clothes and beautiful hair and beautiful teeth. The strobe light flashed and the glitter fell shiny from the angels onto the beautiful throbbing throng, and I was in the belly of the beautiful glittering beast—in sync with it, a part of it, moving with the mob, my eyes half-closed. Then men started bumping one another out of the way so they could dance directly in front of me, shaking their gym bodies manic in front of me, bumping one another out of the way. It struck me as some kind of ludicrous display, some kind of mating ritual that I might see on
Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom
. And I began to laugh. I laughed again when I caught a glimpse of Dawn and Don, herky-jerking around the floor, spastically trying to find the beat, and failing tragically. Eventually, I returned to the sidelines to stand snarky where I belonged (a fat woman trapped in a supermodel’s body) to sip my drink and mock the dancers (my specialty). I noticed an emaciated woman—skinny skinny in a striped vinyl dress, with a peroxide buzz cut and improbably giant jugs. She reminded me of a doll. Concentration Camp Barbie. I wished I had someone to tell it to. But I didn’t. I really didn’t.

So I just stood there on the sidelines, feeling more alone than I’d ever felt before, drinking and drinking, until the crowd thinned out, and the waitstaff began collecting glasses and ashtrays, until I felt something ping me on the top of the head. I looked up, just in time to get hit squarely on the forehead by a cocktail onion (after it ricocheted off my face, I saw it roll across the floor). Then I noticed, beyond the clouds, where the go-go angels no longer gyrated, an iron catwalk, and leaning over the railing were two men, both of whom I
recognized. One was a movie star whose career had been derailed by drug addiction. The other was an aging rock star—lead singer in one of the big heavy-metal bands, Tiger’s Eye or Bubonic—who was now also an actor. I had seen him featured recently in
TV Guide
, for doing a guest spot on an episode of
The Trouble with Angie
.

Of course, I thought, the upper levels of Heaven were naturally reserved for the gods, the gods of movies, music, fashion, and finance (no wonder I hadn’t seen George or my father all night). And one of those gods—the rock star/actor—was waving and gesturing for me to come up and join them. I gave him the I-don’t-know-how-to-get-there shrug. He pointed to the far right corner of the room.

I weaved my way to an iron stairway that was being blocked by a bouncer wearing a wireless headset. The rock star/actor shouted something down, and the bouncer allowed me to ascend to the upper stratum, where I was greeted with an effusive hug. “Hey, angel, what’s your moniker?” The rock star/actor introduced me to the drug-addicted movie star, who gave me a bleary-eyed sluts-like-you-just-make-me-tired smile, then the lead singer of Tiger’s Eye or Bubonic pulled me aside and informed me that he would really like to bang me if I was into it. I was not into it. I excused myself to go find a bathroom.

At the end of the catwalk was a pair of white vinyl doors. Through the swinging doors was a small VIP lounge. No George. No Simon. Just three strung-out girls, obviously models, on a white vinyl couch. One was sprawled back, her arms and legs spread wide, her rib cage jutting. The other two were hunched forward over a table, snorting what I assumed to be cocaine. I went to the bar and fixed myself a gin and tonic. Then I carried it into a corridor that led off from the lounge, in search of a bathroom.