"Dad," I start.
"What?"
I can't really look at him.
"That's a guy, but whatever."
"You're kidding me."
"No, that is a guy. He has that whole, y'know, boy-girl thing going."
"You've forgotten to take off your sunglasses."
"I haven't forgotten." I take them off, blinking a couple of times. "So what's the story, morning glory?"
"Well, I've been keeping tabs on you." He taps the folder ominously. "And whenever I think about my only son, my thoughts drift back to that conversation we had last summer about perhaps returning to school?"
"Oh shit, Dad," I groan. "I went to Camden. I barely graduated from Camden. I don't even know what I majored in."
"Experimental Orchestra, as I recall," Dad says dryly.
"Hey, don't forget Design Analysis."
My father's gritting his teeth, dying for a drink, his eyes roaming the room. "Victor, I have contacts at Georgetown, at Columbia, at NYU for Christ sakes. It's not as difficult as you might think."
"Oh shit, Dad, have I ever used you?"
"I'm concerned about your career and-"
"You know, Dad," I interrupt, "the question that I always dreaded most at Horace Mann was whenever my counselor would ask me about my career plans."
"Why? Because you didn't have any?"
"No. Because I knew if I answered him he'd laugh."
"I just remember hearing about you being sent home for refusing to remove your sunglasses in algebra class."
"Dad, I'm opening this club. I'm doing some modeling." I sit up alittle for emphasis."'Hey-and I'm waiting to hear if I have a part in Flatliners II."
"This is a movie?" he asks dubiously.
"No-it's a sandwich," I say, stunned.
"I mean, my god," he sighs. "Victor, you're twenty-seven and you're only a model?"
"Only a model?" I say, still stunned. "Only a model? I'd rethink the way you phrased that, Dad."
"I'm thinking about you working hard at something that-"
"Yeah, Dad, I've really grown up in an environment where hard work is the way people get rich. Right."
"Just don't tell me you're looking for, um, artistic and personal growth through-let me get this straight-modeling?"
"Dad, a top male model can get eleven thousand dollars a day."
"Are you a top male model?"
"No, I'm not a top male model, but that's not my point."
"I lose a lot of sleep, Victor, trying to figure just what your point is."
"I'm a loser, baby," I sigh, slumping back into the booth. "So why don't you kill me?"
"You're not a loser, Victor," Dad sighs back. "You just need to, er, find yourself." He sighs again. "Find-I don't know-a new you?"
"`A new you'?" I gasp. "Oh my god, Dad, you do a great job of making me feel useless."
"And opening this club tonight makes you feel what?"
"Dad, I know, I know-"
"Victor, I just want-"
"I just want to do something where it's all mine," I stress. "Where I'm not... replaceable."
"So do I." Dad flinches. "I want that for you too."
"A model... modeling is... I'm replaceable," I sigh. "There are a thousand guys who've got pouty lips and nice symmetry. But opening something, a club, it's..." My voice trails off.
After a longish silence Dad says, "A photo of you in People magazine last week was brought to my attention."
"What issue? I didn't see this. Who was on the cover?"
"I don't know," he says, glaring. "Someone on my staff brought it to my attention."
"Goddamnit!" I slam my hand down on the table. "This is why I need a publicist."
"The point being, Victor, that you were at a fairly lavish hotel somewhere-"
"A fairly lavish hotel somewhere?"
"Yes. In Miami."
"I was at a hotel? Somewhere in Miami?"
"Yes. A hotel. In Miami. Wearing-barely-a bathing suit made of white linen and very, very wet-"
"Did I look good?"
"Sunglasses. Smoking what I can only hope was a cigarette, your arms around two nubile well-oiled Penthouse Playmates-"