A cue for everyone to move up the stairs to the second floor for dinner.
"A sense of frenzy in the air?" JD whispers to me.
"There's a mass branding at Club Lure in about two hours," I hiss at him. "It's Pork Night and your name's on the list."
"Oh Victor," JD says. "Be aware if you dare."
We'll slide down the surface of things...
How it got to be eleven so suddenly is confusing to us all, not that it really means anything, and conversation revolves around how Mark Vanderloo "accidentally" ate an onion-and-felt sandwich the other night while viewing the Rob Lowe sex tapes, which Mark found "disappointing"; the best clubs in New Zealand; the injuries someone sustained at a Metallica concert in Pismo Beach; how Hurley Thompson disappeared from a movie set in Phoenix (I have to bite my tongue); what sumo wrestlers actually do; a gruesome movie Jonathan just finished shooting, based on a starfish one of the producers found behind a fence in Nepal; a threesome someone fell into with Paul Schrader and Bruce Wagner; spinning lettuce; the proper pronunciation of "ooh la la." At our table Lauren's on one side of me, Chloe's on the other along with Baxter Priestly, Johnathon Schaech, Carolyn Murphy, Brandon Lee, Chandra North, Shalom Harlow, John Leguizamo, Kirsty Hume, Mark Vanderloo, JFK Jr., Brad Pitt, Gwyneth Paltrow, Patsy Kensit, Noel Gallagher, Alicia Silverstone and someone who I'm fairly sure is Beck or looks like Beck and it seems like everyone's wearing very expensive pantsuits. Earlier in the day I was upset that Chloe and I weren't seated at Damien's table (because there were things I had to say to David Geffen and an apology I had to make to Calvin) but right now, watching Alison slumped against Damien while trying to light a joint the size of a very long roll of film, everyone very buzzed, people knocking into each other as table-hopping on a very massive scale resumes while cappuccino's served, everything sliding in and out of focus, it's okay.
I'm trying to light a cigarette someone's spilled San Pellegrino on and Lauren's talking to a kneeling Woody Harrelson about hemp production and so I tap in to Chloe, interrupting what I'm sure is a stunning conversation with Baxter, and she turns reluctantly to me, finishing another Cosmopolitan, her face taut with misery, and then she simply asks, "What is it?"
"Um, baby, what's the story with Damien and Lauren?" I inquire gingerly.
"I am so bored with you, Victor, that I don't even know how to answer that," she says. "What are you talking about?"
"How long have you known about Damien and your so-called best friend Lauren?" I ask again, lowering my voice, glancing over at Lauren and Woody.
"Why is my so-called boyfriend asking someone he actually thinks supposedly cares?" she sighs, looking away.
"Honey," I whisper patiently, "they're having an affair."
"Who told you this?" she asks, recoiling. "Where did you read this? Oh god, I'm so tired."
"What are you so tired of?" I ask patiently.
She looks down glassy-eyed at the scoops of sorbet melting into a puddle on her plate.
"You're a big help," I sigh.
"Why do you even care? What do you want me to say? You wanna f**k her? You wanna f**k him? You-"
"Shhh. Hey baby, why would you think that?"
"You're whining, Victor." She waves a hand in front of my face tiredly, dismissing me.
"Alison and Damien are engaged-did you know that?" I ask.
"I'm not interested in the lives of other people, Victor," Chloe says. "Not now. Not tonight. Not when we're in serious trouble."
"I think you definitely need a toke off that major joint Alison's smoking."
"Why?" She snaps out of something. "Why, Victor? Why do you think I need to do drugs?"
"Because I have a feeling we're on the verge of having that conversation again about how lost and fat you were at fourteen."
"Why did you ask me last night not to wear this dress?" she asks, suddenly alert, arms crossed.
Pause. "Because... you'd resemble... Pocahontas, but really, baby, you look smashing and-" I'm just glancing around, smiling gently over at Beck, fidgeting with a Marlboro, searching for Chap Stick, smiling gently over at Beck again.
"No, no, no." She's shaking her head. "Because you don't care about things like that. You don't care about things that don't have anything to do with you."
"You have something to do with me."