An Innocent Fashion (37 page)

I had started to lose track of their enlightened conversation when I got distracted by a queasy feeling and had to close my eyes. I felt my heart strike against my chest like a drumstick—
kaboom, kaboom, kaboom
—and I heard Plum count, “One—two—three—four,” and when I opened my eyes she was staring at her fingers, concentrating very hard. “Four,” she repeated. “This is her fourth divorce.” She blinked hard, then I blinked hard, then somehow we were no longer by the bar but passing into the next room, onto a dance floor full of lights and bobbing heads. Next to my ear, someone said, “I never accept a drink unless it's spiked,” and somebody else said, “Tequila brings back memories of not having memories,” and then I think Kaija said to no one in particular, “If all of us liked each other, we would have nothing to talk about,” but I didn't see her lips move so I wasn't sure it was her, and after that I lost track of who was saying what and whether any of it was even being said to me, and all the voices became a blur.

“. . . have so much trouble typing with my fake nails . . . if it feels comfortable, then you shouldn't wear it . . . why fat people think black will make them skinny? . . . everyone is texting me . . . I need to go to the bathroom, there's the hottest guy over there . . . don't you hate it when
your roommate's sweater doesn't fit? . . . out of lobster at Indochine, I was forced to get the filet mignon . . .”

The next time I looked around, a swimming pool had been unveiled in the middle of the room, while a burlesque queen was dancing on an adjacent platform. In a black bustier and fishnet stockings, she resembled a French courtesan at a funeral, her white-blonde hair held up in a towering bouffant by a spiderweb of ornate black pins. Slowly unfastening her corset, she let it slide to her feet, and stalked back and forth in her high heels like a black-cat shadow on Halloween, before, suddenly—she leaped over the pool.

Catching hold of an upholstered leather swing I hadn't seen, she went swooshing through the air like a nude pendulum, heels gleaming behind her. Her white fingers rippling over the water, she perfumed the air with the scent of chlorine; then swinging back and forth, back and forth, she began to splash.

“Come on! Come on!” Dorian's voice rushed past me, as if I was zooming by on a roller coaster. The whole room was like that—one minute loud, as the roller coaster plummeted toward the populated ground, then
whoosh!
I went shooting into the silent sky and it all died away.

I saw Dorian jam my suit jacket between the couch and the window—“Nobody will take it,” he said, even though I had scarcely felt him undress me to begin with. He began to unbutton my shirt—fast, like we were running out of time. I let my head drop back and my jaw fall slack. A laugh escaped my throat. Dorian wrestled the shirt away, and the coolness of the air-conditioned room fell upon my chest. I felt a yank around my sleeves—evidently the buttons on my sleeves had stumped him—then another set of fingers was pressing down my bottom lip.

“Open up,” Kaija cooed into my ear, nudging the cold edge of
a glass against my teeth. Champagne filled my mouth—I choked a little, laughing blindly, then let the bubbles spill down my throat while Dorian gave one last tug and stumbled away with my shirt. When I lifted my head, he had tied it around his head like a turban—“Look, Plum, I look like you.”

Bubbles trickled like sweet acid rain down the corners of my smiling mouth, dripping down my neck, filling my clavicle like an overflowing stream.

Dorian giggled into my face. “Are you happy?” he asked. He wrapped his arm around my neck and pressed our foreheads together, and I remembered thinking the first time I'd seen him after his return from Paris—across the nightclub, with a martini against my lips—that Dorian Belgraves was so far . . . that after he had left, he would always be so
far
.

Now he was all I could see. Everything about him was as I had remembered it: his lips, his strong hands, that incredible feeling of being somehow connected to him.

By this point, his shirt was off too. He glistened with champagne, froth running down the middle of his chest. We were both stripped down to our boxer briefs, and for the briefest second I wondered where my pants were, and my shoes, and how any of them had gone away. Dorian pulled me to the pool's edge. We sat with our legs in the water for a minute, maybe ten. The temperature was cool: I was reminded of bygone summers, licking popsicles and standing in front of the open refrigerator door. Then I was inside. We were inside.

It was only a few of us in the beginning—me and Dorian and Kaija, while Plum complained about having nowhere dry enough to put her expensive clothes. More heads popped up around us like grapes. In the dark the sofa adjacent to the pool
began to look like a cutting board, with discarded clothes piling up like fruit rinds—and in no time the pool was brimming with everyone from the pink-haired stylist to Plum, who had given up resisting and was gliding around in her cornucopian headpiece and a waterlogged white lace slip.

The topless burlesque dancer drifted with nymphean serenity in front of me. Behind her, a shout was heard from the sofa, as a pair of arms flailed over the water: the pool's first casualty. He teetered—the surface of the pool surged as a swarm of bodies escaped from underneath his lunging shadow—then
splash!,
the air sparkled, and a rain-like pitter-patter descended over the crowd. Too late, the dancer shielded her painted face with a forearm. An upward surge of bubbles at the site of the collision produced a drenched head and a shout about “my fucking Gucci shirt, man!” Not a minute later, another shout rang out, and the perilous pile of clothes on the sofa tumbled inevitably into the water. The expensive mass bobbed on the surface, then began to sink as the garments unstuck amid the pressure of the pulsating jets.

A stranger's face appeared before me. Too much champagne, combined with the mystery of their long, clinging hair, made their gender unclear: he or she came nearer, just two glassy eyes and a pair of searching lips. Bodies all around—the pool was too popular. In all the commotion, I had tried to keep my glasses dry, but now pressed them against my face and escaped with a deep breath in the only direction I could think of: downward.

Water lopped over my head. My hair floated. Sudden quiet, except for bubbles pouring apocalyptically out of holes in the wall. All around I saw stammering feet and clothing grazing like catfish along the murky bottom.

When I came back up for air I realized I was still holding my champagne flute. I pushed my hair out of my face and took a breath, gazing through the empty glass. I guided it bobbing along the surface, like a crystal buoy, then pulled it under by the stem; filled it with water; and dumped it out again.

It was a game Dorian might have liked too.

Dorian
. Expecting to find him right behind me, I swirled around, only to find people I didn't know at all. I tried to remember when I'd last seen him, but the only memory I had was of the male model with the square face, and this made me sad. I began phasing in and out of consciousness. The contents of my stomach bucked in the water. I felt like throwing up. The lights in the pool had started flashing now, and every time they came on I found myself peering up at a new face, each one dripping and cool and different from the last. As I drifted it was like a slideshow—the faces flashing one after the other, just darkness
BEAUTIFUL FACE
darkness
BEAUTIFUL FACE
darkness
BEAUTIFUL FACE
darkness
BEAUTIFUL FACE
darkness . . .

All the voices faded in and out, like before. Behind my ear I heard . . .
just drink more, it'll make the pain go away . . .
then a
creak!
as the roller coaster of my own wavering cognition took off again, and I was up and down, and up and down again—soaring through the sky, and swooping down past all the never-ending voices . . .
there are two kinds of girls, those that know they're fucked and . . . whoooshhhhhhhhh
silence in the sky, just birds chirping and . . .
so I look over and he's practically face-raping her, with his
. . . clouds drifting coolly by, while the sun beams, and the . . .
best part about it is I can talk shit to her, about her, at her
. . . air is so perfect and still, and the people below look like . . .
they've been chasing their liquor with wine, it's disgusting, like
. . . little ants, tittering over a peaceful hill, and . . .
won't you go with me to the bathroom . . . ?

The mention of the bathroom jolted me. I'd had a lot to drink.

I emerged from the water into a haze of bodies and manufactured fog—shivering, bumping into shadows.

Sticky floor. My shoes—where are my shoes? Actually, where are my—
wow
. Naked. I'm basically naked and everyone can see. Calm down, naked is all right—you're young and reckless and bohemian, remember? Yes, but—is that broken glass? No, just ice. Is that Marc Jacobs? Is that Sofia Coppola? Is that George? I wonder what George is doing now. I hope George hates his life. I hate George. I shouldn't hate anyone, but I do—I hate him, I hate him, I—definitely broken glass. That's what I get for hating George. I don't hate George, I don't hate George—what am I doing right now? Dorian. Where is Dorian? I like Dorian. I love Dorian. Of
course
I love Dorian. And he loves me too, except he's probably with that model, that cardboard-box model. I'm going to find Dorian. I'm going to find him and—Bathroom. Excuse me, where's the bathroom? Hey—!

“Hey, where's the bathroom?”

“That's the line right there.”

My stomach made a full revolution inside me. I gazed at the floor and began to sway, my feet stumbling in front of me. “Excuse me,” I murmured at the floor. I pushed to the front of the line—some guy said, “Hey!” I knocked him out of the way and swung the door open. “Sorry,” I said, shouldering away somebody who was washing their hands. Seizing the mirror, I vomited all over the sink.

“COME ON,” DORIAN PRODDED.

I yawned, and swatted at him.

“Come on, you big baby, let's go.”

“What's happening?” I moaned.

“What's happening is I'm trying to take off your shirt,” he said, in an exasperated tone that made it clear he had been trying to do this for quite some time. I opened my eyes; found myself faceup on the mattress in my apartment, with Dorian's legs straddled on either side of me.

“Oh,” I said seriously, as it dawned on me: Dorian wanted to have sex. A bucket of cold water fell through my body. I was suddenly quite awake. “I—” I thought briefly of Madeline, but I tipped her over in my head like a vase off a ledge. “Well, all right,” I said, and decided not to ask any questions. I couldn't remember how we'd gotten to that point—had we kissed already? Had we done anything else? I struggled to lift myself, and my head swayed around in a circle.

“Finally,” he said. His face was illuminated by my bedside lamp, while behind him the four-foot loft ceiling was pressed directly above his head.

His warm hands under my shirt incited a rushed floundering of my limbs.

“Just—hold still,” he said, as I tried to squirm from under the wet fabric.

“Do I look okay?” I asked, self-conscious.

“What?” He tilted his head. “You look fine. Who cares?”

“I just—are you sure you wouldn't rather—I don't know, take a shower before?”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, stop it—”

“What?”

“Do you think I'm trying to
undress
you?”

“Well, isn't that what's happening?”

“Yeah, but—not like that.” He laughed and rolled his eyes again. “You're all wet,” he said, shaking a clean white shirt in my face. “I'm just trying to change your shirt.”

A mist of disappointment sizzled over me. I frowned. “Oh.” I slumped back on the mattress and limply crossed my hands over my wet chest.

He laughed outright again.

“Go ahead, laugh at me then,” I said. “I'm going to sleep.”

“Oh babe, don't be like that—it's okay—I just—”

“No, get off if you're going to just laugh at me,” I said, pushing his thighs from around my body.

“I'm not laughing at you—I just—come on, let me change your shirt!” He tried to look serious, but now that he'd started laughing, he couldn't stop. “Okay, fine, I'm not laughing, I'm not laughing. Sit up.”

“No.” I pouted.

“Sit up, you big baby,” he nudged. “You're going to get sick tonight and then I'm going to have to do everything at work.”

“Don't you want to sleep with me?” I moaned.

He laughed. “Well, yeah, and that's exactly what I plan to do, sleep
next
to you, as soon as I get you out of this shirt, now come
ooonnnnn
, babe, I'm exhausted.”

I rolled my eyes and barked, “Go away,” and tried to tug my sheets from under his blokeish knees.

“All right, babe, seriously, I'm not laughing—you think I don't know you? Remember that water-gun fight we had on the Davenport lawn?—you woke up in a puddle on Madeline's floor and were sick for two weeks, now—”

“Yes, that was over a year ago, before you left us,” I retorted, and gave the blanket a yank.

“Come on, that has nothing to do with anything. Why would you bring that up now?”

“Why shouldn't I? You never do,” I mumbled. “You just pretend like it never happened, like—”

A knock against the doorframe. “What's going on?” came a familiar voice.

I turned my face to see Madeline standing on the loft ladder, blinking for the first time at my room. “Gosh, your apartment is small,” she said, and poked her golden head in.

“What are you—?” I began.

“Dorian said you were sick,” Madeline explained, and crawled inside. She smiled and reached into a plastic bag she had brought. “Here—I got you some Pellegrino, and some saltine crackers—and your favorite!” She held up a glass bottle of grape soda, and then swooped in. “Hi,” she said, and kissed Dorian hello. With a hand on his back, she knelt beside me, and ran her fingers through my damp hair.