Aftermath of Dreaming(91)

During the months he was seeing Stephanie, she would sometimes call while we were in his bed and he would have to answer, but he always expected it and would warn me ahead. I’d wait silently while devouring and dissecting every fragment of his side of their conversation. She required tons of shoring up from him. He was constantly having to tell her what a great job she did, and yes, she was the best, no other actress compared to her and on and on. It was shocking. All that animal confidence she exuded was bullshit. Every word she uttered and thing she did needed his constant encouragement.

His bedside phone, like all the others, had a row of buttons, and I knew that only a few persons had the number that lit the one button that would make Andrew pick up, like I did. That was the button that was blinking as he was moving on top of me, speaking into my ear, my hurried breath answering him, together moving forward, so near, but then his arm reached out and the phone was at his ear.

“Hello.”

He had stopped moving, which made me stop, but my body inside was a few beats behind. I wanted to continue moving—f*ck the caller—but figured I’d better not.

“When does her plane leave?”

“That’s obscene,” he said to the answer.

“Okay, see you in a little bit.”

Before I could register what had just happened, Andrew hung up the phone, kissed my lips, and, withdrawing from bed, said, “Come on, we have people coming over; we’re getting dressed.”

Fuck. I wanted it to be just me and him. Who were these goddamn people coming over at ten after eleven? Then I realized it was me with him meeting some of his friends. That hadn’t happened since the lunch in New York when actor best friend regaled me with funny Andrew tales. If this would be like that—all right, it could be fun. But who was this “she” whose plane was leaving God knows when?

Fuck.

She was a model from Germany. I had seen pictures of her the year before when she had exploded onto Vogue and everywhere else. Her beauty was rarified it was so complete, though a bit lupine, I thought. Andrew’s friend—the one who had called him and had brought her—was a famous photographer, and I vowed to never again like the hard and beautiful pictures of fashion and celebrities he shot.

We had settled in the kitchen where the stark, brightly lit whiteness seemed to outline the color and flesh of each of us as if we were in a flat cardboard set. I hoped it was hugely obvious that Andrew and I had been having sex. Andrew had wanted me to pull myself together, but I’d let my hair stay a bit mussed, having a feeling I might need the extra armor of our interrupted coitus. Take that, you f*cking model.

She was wearing an exquisite dress that I had seen in last month’s Vogue and loved. If I remembered correctly, it cost over three thousand dollars. Though up close and live, it didn’t look as good on her slumping body and had a wine stain near the neck. What a slob. I tried to remind myself that Andrew loved my dress, but I felt small in it, silly, eighty-nine dollars on sale could not compete with that dress, even stained and slumped.

“Where’s the bathroom?” the model asked after introductions were made.

She was barely out of the room when the photographer looked at Andrew, turned toward him really, with his back to me like I was more kitchen counter, and said, “So what do you think about her—pretty hot, huh? She’d be nice. And perfect for you.”

Andrew was quiet for a second, then said, “She’s a very pretty girl.” He stated it simply, like the fact it was.

But the photographer’s words began furiously reprinting themselves in my head. “So what do you think about her—pretty hot, huh? She’d be nice. And perfect for you.” Again and again and again.

Andrew had changed the subject; they were talking about mutual friends, but my mind was reeling.

“Ooo, that bathroom was sssooo cold,” the model declared as she entered the kitchen’s hot glare. “My pee froze midair before it hit the john.”

Andrew looked at me and I looked at him. I knew he knew what I was thinking and I knew he agreed. Growing up in the South, there were some things you just didn’t mention because of an implicit understanding that they weren’t interesting to anyone else, particularly to people you’ve just met, like your bodily functions. I wondered if it was her upbringing—it kind of matched how she was with the dress—or a hazard of being that beautiful, the misguided belief that every part of her, refuse included, was a fascinating subject. God, I hated her.

“How about a little food?” Andrew said, practically clapping his hands to help break the moment. “Yvette, will you help me see what’s in the fridge?” We both knew exactly what was in the fridge, but I inwardly thanked him for an activity that put me in the hostess role.

“Oh, we’re not hungry,” the photographer said. Did the model ever allow herself to be? “We just came from Patricia’s birthday party—Patricia Alpert.” He addressed the last part to me, which I could have believed was a nice inclusion, but instead his tone built a wall around the three of them who knew Patricia already.

“She was so sorry you weren’t there,” he continued, his focus back on Andrew and the model. “She went on and on about how important you were to her growing up.”

That I hadn’t known, but could have guessed. Patricia Alpert was the daughter of a legendary studio mogul and had come into success on her own as a film producer, plying her access to her father’s movie star friends.