Glamorama
"Why didn't you check it for me?" Bentley whines. "Jesus, Bobby." "I didn't know I was going to stay." Bobby shrugs, staring at me.
After I'm seated at a table with Donatella Versace, Mark Vanderloo, Katrine Boorman, Azzedine Alaia, Franca Sozzani and the Belgian iconoclast and we've all laughed at other people's expense and smoked dozens of cigarettes and waiters have cleared away platcs of food that were barely looked at let alone touched and all of us have whispered secret things to the person on our left, Jamie walks by the table with a joint and asks for a light from Donatella, who's sitting next to me, and Jamie-while pretending to talk to Donatella, who's talking to Franca-tells me that Bobby is leaving for Beirut tomorrow and then he's traveling on to Baghdad and Dublin, where he's meeting with a member of a Virginia paramilitary group, and he'll be back in five days. I'm listening intently as she says this and she's encouraging me to laugh gaily and she relays this information in such a way that if you were across the room-as Bobby is now-you would assume she was telling Donatella how terrific Victor looks or contemplating aloud how fabulous her life turned out and Jamie takes just one hit off the joint before leaving it for the rest of the table to smoke and my foot has fallen asleep, and limping away, trying to follow her, I bump into slow-moving silhouettes and shadows and I notice Bentley making a dashing exit with the Prada backpack and then the rock group Autour de Lucie starts tuning up, about to perform their first song, a cover of the Who's "Substitute."
35
The cab drops Bentley off a block away from Cafe Flore and he walks quickly, purposefully, over to that outside table just off the sidewalk where Brad, the actor playing the NYU film student Bentley picked up at La Luna last week, is sitting with two friends-Seattle waif boys who attended Camden with Brad-and they're all stylishly chewing gum and smoking Marlboros, slouching in their seats with perfect hair, and an empty Starbucks cup sits in the middle of the table and by Brad's feet is a Gap bag filled with newly bought T-shirts. "Ooh, let's play dress-up," Brad says when he sees Bentley maneuvering toward the table in his Versace tuxedo.
"Hey Bentley," Brad says. "This is Eric and Dean. They went to Camden and are both aspiring models. We've been comparing diets."
"So that's why I thought you all looked so cool," Bentley says, the Camden reference causing him to flash on Victor and what's in store for him.
"Laurent Gamier is spinning tonight at Rex," Brad says hopefully.
"Maybe, maybe," Bentley says, nodding, exhaling smoke, and then, looking over at the tattoo circling Dean's wrist, "Nice."
"I'm going to have to go to Basil's flat," Bentley says offhandedly, smiling at Dean again.
"Oh man," Brad groans, disappointed. "That'll take forever."