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 f**k 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 Zoe 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 f**king 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.