Wasted Beauty (13 page)

IN SAINT BART’S THINGS ARE PERFECT. EXHAUSTED FROM
a long day out on the boat, everyone dog-paddles ashore to meet up with the caterers. They end up sitting Indian-style on beach blankets, cracking spiny lobsters and drinking beer. Reddened and wasted by the sun, the other girls and the crew eventually drift back to their rooms to smoke dope and watch
Survivor
on satellite TV. Rena and Paul remain on the beach, sedated by the sand’s memorized warmth, splitting a bottle of Haut-Brion. Last month in Nevis everyone had been bitchy and irritable. But Lands’ End pays big bucks so today the sky is wide and blue.

In an atypical burst of energy, Paul trots down to the lapping surf and wades into the lagoon’s bathwater. He waddles farther until he’s barely visible, then shouts something Rena can’t make out. In the half-light of the slow winter sunset, naked under her sarong, she strips down and joins him. It’s like being a kid, in the days before sex, before all the bad stuff, innocent and naughty at the same time. She thinks, Paul is my dad now.

The amniotic water laps her breasts, soothing and voluptuous. Paul bobs in the dark brine like a luminescent dolphin. With a silly smile on his face he slips up beside her and takes her into her arms. They kiss. The kiss of an uncle for a child. And there’s his thing wagging in the tidal current. So what?

Rena drifts away and Paul floats onto his back spitting jets of seawater into the air like the spouting baby whale he is. Rena makes a show of laughing. Why should she take him seriously? She doesn’t want to take him seriously, why spoil it?

In the torchlit twilight they towel off, Paul huffing from the exercise. All this swimming has been an expenditure on his part. Rena can’t help herself, she comes up to him from behind, gently fits her arms around his thick waist and lays her head on his shoulder.

Later, at a reception thrown by the hotel, fortified by several brandies, Paul says, “These snowbirds think they’re special because they can hang out with the New Yorkers and brag about their backhand and their handicap.” He grabs Rena’s hand and they retreat to a balcony overlooking the black and silver sea. A monstrous pink moon. “Isn’t it sublime? And completely wasted on these fools. Like everything. Pearls before swine. I work so hard, and who sees it? What’s the saying? If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? The clients only want impact. So who am I doing this for? The women under their hair dryers in Duluth? The fashion queens in Miami Beach? I create a dream. But what’s the real dream, Rena? If we can’t see it, touch it, who can? I make dreams for all those poor souls out there, but who makes dreams for me?”

“We dream our own dreams, Paul. We live our dreams. I do.”

“Do you?” Paul is handsome in the evening light.

“I think I do. I used to dream about doing what I’m doing right now. And here I am.”

A sea breeze caresses Rena’s cheek and she inhales as Paul leans into her and says, “You are so beautiful.” He kisses her behind the ear.

“So are you, big guy.” She thinks, when Paul kisses me, I feel good. I’m happy right now. Right this second, I am happy. I like being touched.

Paul says, “Marissa called before dinner. You landed the Nordstrom contract. Don’t let her know I said anything. She wants to tell you herself.”

Rena reaches for her wine, drains the glass and flips it into the blackness below their feet. “I knew I’d get it.”

“Yes. But listen, keep the exclusive contract to two years. No more. There’s gonna be a lot more where that came from. You can go all the way. I’ve always seen it in you.”

“Marissa knows what to do.” Beneath them the surf is a long piece of fabric ripping.

“Listen! You are precious. You are alive. Don’t trust them with your soul. Don’t trust them with your happiness.” Paul has slipped an arm around her waist.

“I trust you.”

“Thank you. Your loveliness saves me every day.” Paul is flush with drink. “You are a flower. An incredible flower. Do you know why a flower is so beautiful, Rena?”

“Why?” Over Paul’s shoulder, their host is trying to catch her eye. He’s been flirting with her all night. He’s hot and he knows it. She keeps her focus on Paul.

“Because it wants to be pollinated. Everything in you, Rena, every molecule wants to be pollinated. That’s why they want you, because you are the thing itself, the thing that draws the bee to the flower.”

“You are so full of shit! Who wants me?”

“The men. The women, like Marissa. The buyers. The editors. The industry. They want to devour you. They want to possess what you have. They’ll use you up and step over your corpse when they’re done with you.”

“Well, I’m not going to let them use me up. Whatever that means. Besides, I get paid pretty fucking well to get possessed.” Rena nuzzles Paul’s shoulder.

“Problem is, I want to possess you too, my dear.”

When the door clicks behind them, they hug, swaying. This is all he wants, to know that I’ll say yes. He’s so fucked up he’ll fall asleep and won’t even remember I ever came to his room.

Paul does not fall asleep. He strokes Rena’s hair, caresses her arms and legs, leaving her breasts for last as if they were sacred. She doesn’t stop him. It’s as if it’s his body, too, he knows it so well. So tender, so careful. When has anyone been this careful with me? This is a kind of love, right? Affection is love. Paul’s touch feels more like a mother’s than a man’s.

When he climbs onto her, his volume is soft and delicate. The whole enterprise isn’t wrong, it’s just different. A brother and sister making love. And Paul’s wife is far away and we’re only making each other feel good. We’re friends, good friends, taking care of each other. Just this one time. It’s nice that there is something awkward about Paul, he isn’t sure of himself the way that Dallas and Luc were. He’s like a big dumb puppy.

Even so, when Paul finally comes, panting and flushed, Rena’s relieved it’s over. A long day is over. Sun, swimming, drinking, she’s asleep before he has rolled off her.

In the middle of the night, she wakes. The candle is guttering. Paul snores with the depth of a happy man. She pulls the covers over him, thinking how much like a giant baby he looks. It feels good to lie next to him, it feels safe. She lets the tropical air nudge her back to sleep. Through the open window the moon has risen, no longer pink and huge, but high and blue and small.

ELEGANT AND GLOWING, PAUL AND RENA SNUGGLE AT
Balthazar and Pastis and Nobu, sip Perrier Jouët at midnight, nibble beluga in the back of the town car that waits for them wherever they go. At gallery openings Paul boldly holds her hand as the crush of cologne-scented cognoscenti grin and burble. Paul is providing entertainment for everyone. Showing up in public with a girlfriend is dangerous and fun and great P.R. He introduces Rena to his chums, CEOs and movie stars, almost all of whom he’s shot. Rena doesn’t want anyone thinking she doesn’t truly love Paul, so she links her arm through his and squeezes it against her side.

Rena thinks: I make five thousand dollars an hour now, give half to Marissa, send some to Billy, spend the rest. Everything is different. Everything I thought I knew I have to forget. Life works different here. It’s a big game and you play the hand you’re dealt. You work it. I’m working it. So Paul’s my boyfriend, so what?

I’m no longer just another pretty girl. I’m an “important new face.” With my Nordstrom contract, with all the new jobs, I am in the eye of the fashion storm. Marissa calls me on her cell phone ten times a day. Tells me how to play my hand. Marissa says, “You have to want it.” And I tell her, “I want it and I’m going to get it.” Marissa tells me I have to be smart. I have to play for keeps.

Rena stops by Fred’s place every few days. He never leaves the apartment now. Wakes up early, his bowels loose, the world colorless. When he hasn’t stockpiled enough of Barry’s dope to get him through, he’s forced out to the street at six
AM
with the rest of the stone-cold junkies, cops his drugs, runs home and is nodding out by eight. Rena finds him back in bed in the late morning. She brings take-out coffee, they munch on honey-dipped doughnuts and gossip. Fred entertains her with stories of scary street dealers wielding rusty golf clubs. He tells her about anonymous slots in anonymous doorways of rotten buildings. Fred probes Rena relentlessly for details about her sex life with Paul. He revels in the romantic ineptitude and self-consciousness. Rena feels guilty when Fred makes fun of Paul, but Paul’s nasty, too. She thinks: everyone’s nasty. That’s part of the fun of the life I’m in now. We dish, we gossip, we backstab. But nobody means it, really. And I have a secret weapon—Fred. I always have Fred and he’s my true friend.

Paul insists that Rena keep her eyes open when they make love. Sometimes he can’t maintain an erection even after he’s inside her and ends up masturbating while she lies there next to him. After sex he drinks until he passes out. Or if he manages to stay semilucid, he makes long confessions about his miserable teen years and how girls couldn’t even conceive of dating him. He tells Rena he dropped a lot of acid in those days, smoked a lot of pot. He says he had wanted to kill himself until he discovered photography. Rena tries to stay awake during the confessions, but she always falls asleep.

Paul books her for sessions as often as possible and they enjoy lazy days in the Caribbean and Mexico and the Hamptons. At first, Rena ignores interest from other guys, but then, out of perversity or boredom, she starts to spend more and more time with the narcissistic straight male models. The danger is fun. The sex is meaningless. There are motels and hotel rooms everywhere.

In Quintana Roo Rena gets caught making out with Larry, a Calvin Klein “boy.” Larry’s so fearful of incurring Paul’s wrath that everyone, even the makeup guys, conspire to convince Paul that Larry is gay. Rena thinks, “Yeah, I’m being bad, but who’s good? Nobody.”

Rena, in addition to assignments, seeing Paul, seeing Fred and seeing whomever, has her schedule packed by Marissa, who has Rena make an appearance at every opening and function she can find. She crams four shows of Bryant Park runway work into one day. Marissa drags Rena around to six art openings in one Saturday afternoon. Every charity benefit, every new club is a must. Marissa tells Rena, “I want people to ask ‘Who is that girl?’” To that end, dating Paul is a good thing. Rena’s bookings hit gridlock and this forces her base rate even higher.

One morning in Barbados while shaking off a wincing hangover Paul discovers that his wife, Annette, is divorcing him. He spends all morning on the phone, sucking down endless soda and bitters, trying to find his lawyer while Rena watches TV and eats Cap’n Crunch out of the box. Paul’s cozy house in Sag Harbor and the Central Park apartment (six pages in
Architectural Digest
) are at stake.

Things get worse when Annette figures out that the affair has gone on for almost two months, that she’s been in the dark while everyone else knew. Paul’s lawyer tells Paul to stay away from Rena but Paul books Rena every chance he can and sees her more than ever.

The legal fees eat up Paul’s assets. The studio gets sucked into the whirlwind of Annette’s fury. She places a lien on the rights to his copyrighted photography. Paul’s doctor gives him a prescription for Xanax and he begins each day drinking and continues until he passes out. One morning, Rena arrives for a job and finds him in his studio, trying to load a camera by himself.

“Where’s Adam?”

“Fired his ass. Everyone. Fuck ’em.”

“Where are the other girls? The client?”

“I don’t know.”

The loft echoes, empty. The sun streams in from the high windows. Paul won’t meet her eye, continues to play with the camera. She’s alone with him. She says, “Paul, I’m here to work.”

“We’re going to work. We’re going to work. Don’t you start giving me shit, too.”

“I’m not giving you shit, Paul, but there’s nothing happening here.”

“That’s what you think.” Paul abandons the camera on a stool and fiddles with a strobe. It pops repeatedly. “I’m working. I’m dealing with it. There’s a shoot here today.”

“Paul, you’re drunk.”

“Whatever.”

Paul finds the Stoli and sucks from the bottle. Rena comes up behind him and touches his shoulders. “Paul, I care about you so much.”

He turns and buries his face in her shoulder. She holds him, little Paul in his mommy’s arms. Then, head bowed, he leads her by the hand to his bedroom in the back. She sits on the edge of the bed and he begins to kiss her and she lets him. He unbuttons her blouse, yanks her jeans off, her thong. Naked, she waits for him as he gets his pants open. Smothered under his weight Rena knows he’s too drunk to get hard. After five minutes he stops moving. His breathing becomes even. She extricates herself from his slack body, gets dressed, and leaves him passed out on the bed.

A few days later Paul comes by Rena’s apartment. When she opens the door, he lurches in and scuttles into the bedroom. He has mud stains on his suit, he reeks of wine and weed.

Rena follows Paul. “What are you doing?”

“Is he here?” Paul smacks his lips and wipes his brow with his handkerchief.

“Who?”

“You know who.” He can’t catch his breath.

“Paul, come back when you’re sober. Or better, don’t come back. This is getting really boring.”

“Fuck you. Wait. I don’t mean that. Listen, I need you, Rena. Things are getting really crazy with Annette.”

“I told you to apologize to her. Did you do that?”

“I love you. I know you don’t love me, but I love you. I want to take care of you. You need me to take care of you.”

“Actually, I don’t, Paul. I need you to leave.”

“Let’s get married.”

“You’re already married to Annette!”

He winces like an animal caught in a trap. “This isn’t fair.”

“Paul, we had our fun.”

“I lent you money when you were homeless! I took care of you!” His flushed face goes slack, tears gather in the corners of his eyes.

“You know I’m grateful, Paul.”

“I don’t care if you’re grateful. I want to be with you. And I’m being crucified for it.”

“Things change.”

“No.”

“It’s better this way.”

“Don’t hate me, Rena.” His eyes roll large like a steer’s just before slaughter.

“Paul, it’s time to move on.”

“No.” Crying, full-bore, head hanging.

“Yes!”

Rena places a hand on his shoulder, but when he looks up at her, his face is twisted and wet. He lurches away. She tries to touch him. He shoves her. “You fucking bitch. I am one of three top fashion photographers in New York. Do you think it’s some small thing that I chose you? That I ruined my life for you? What are your priorities? What do I mean to you? Nothing? Are you hollow? Are you heartless? I think so. Here’s the news: without heart, you’ll never make it. Without a heart, you’re just good bones and a pussy. Not special. Nothing. Not special. Just a cunt.”

Rena slaps him, and he falls to his knees sobbing. A blubbering child, fleshy and miserable, glossy with booze sweat. Snot drips from his nose. She tries to pick him up but he won’t, can’t, stand up. He smells bad, like garbage that’s been left in the heat. My god, Rena thinks, he’s wet himself. She leaves him there, on the floor. That night, when she returns, he’s gone.