Part 4 (1/2)

”Two years ago,” Anouschka said in her heavy accent. ”It's okay, but when you take the morning airplanes, you see the j.a.panese men are coughing their lungs into the trash cans. They smoke like crazy,” she concluded, wagging her cigarette between two fingers. Rory listened miserably; poor Stacey was barely surviving in New York and here was Anouschka, who not only had been to j.a.pan but had the luxury of complaining about it. He rattled the ice in his gla.s.s and impatiently cleared his throat.

Anouschka glanced at him and turned serious. ”Still,” she said, ”the culture of j.a.pan is quite important.”

”The culture?” Inge said.

”You know, the museums and this sort of thing.”

Vesuvi, who had seemed on the verge of sleep, roused himself and turned to Anouschka. ”You, inside a museum?” he said. ”That I don't see.”

The girl looked startled.

”You must have gone there on location,” he said.

”Not location! I went for fun. How do you know what I do?”

Vesuvi shrugged and sat back in his chair, his lazy eyes filled with amus.e.m.e.nt. Anouschka blushed to the neck; the pink tinge seemed at odds with her extravagant face. Helplessly she turned to Stacey. ”You have been to j.a.pan?” she asked.

”I wish.”

”But Milano, yes?”

”No,” Stacey said, and Rory noticed with surprise that her drink was almost gone. Normally one c.o.c.ktail would last Stacey an entire night, her sips were so tiny.

”Paris?”

Stacey shook her head, and Rory noticed a change in Anouschka's face as she sensed her advantage. The others were quiet. Vesuvi sat forward, looking from Anouschka to Stacey with great interest, as if they were posing for him.

”You never worked in Paris? I think everyone has worked in Paris.”

”I've never been to Paris,” Stacey said.

”London? Munich?” Anouschka turned to the other girls, confirming her surprise. Though she didn't glance at Rory, he sensed that all this was meant for him, and felt a strange, guilty collusion with her. He saw Stacey's hand shake as she lifted her gla.s.s, and was overcome with sudden and absolute hatred for Anouschka-he had never hated anyone this way. He stared at her, the gush of hair, the bruised-looking mouth; she was ugly, as the man had said today. Ugly and beautiful. Confused, Rory looked away.

”So,” Anouschka said, ”what places you have been?”

Stacey didn't answer at first. She looked double-jointed in her chair, heaped like a marionette.

”I've been to New York,” she said.

There was a beat of silence. ”New York,” Anouschka said.

Vesuvi started to laugh. He had a loud, explosive laugh that startled Rory at first. He had never heard it before. ”New York!” Vesuvi cried. ”That's priceless.”

Stacey smiled. She seemed as surprised as everyone else.

Vesuvi rocked forward in his chair, so that his heavy boots pounded the floor. ”I love it,” he said. ”New York. What a perfect comeback.” Anouschka just stared at him.

It began to seem very funny, all of a sudden.

A chuckle pa.s.sed through the group like a current. Rory found himself laughing without knowing why; it was enough for him that Vesuvi had a reason. His boss gazed at Stacey in the soft-eyed way he looked at models when a shoot was going well. ”It's a h.e.l.l of a place, New York,” he said. ”No?”

”The best,” Stacey said.

”But she has gone only here!” Anouschka protested. ”How does she know?”

”Oh, she knows,” Rory said. He felt reckless, dizzy with the urge to make Anouschka angry. ”You don't get it, do you?” he said.

”What can I get when there is nothing?” she retorted. But she looked uncertain.

Vesuvi dabbed with a napkin at his heavy-lidded eyes. ”Next time you go to New York,” he told Stacey, ”take me with you.”

This was too much for Anouschka. ”f.u.c.k you!” she cried, jumping to her feet. ”I am in New York. You are in New York. Here is New York!”

But laughter had seized the table, and Anouschka's protests only made it worse. She stood helplessly while everyone laughed, Rory hooting all the louder to keep her in her place.

”That's it,” she said. ”Goodbye.”

”Go back to j.a.pan,” Rory cried. He had trouble catching his breath.

Anouschka fixed her eyes on him. Her makeup made them look burned at the rims, and the irises were a bright, clear green. He thought she might do something crazy-he'd heard she once punctured an ex-boyfriend's upper lip by hurling a fork at him. He stopped laughing and gripped the table's edge, poised for sudden movement. To his astonishment, the charred-looking eyes filled with tears. ”I hate you, Rory,” she said.

She yanked her bag from under the table and hoisted it onto her shoulder. Her long hair stuck to her wet cheeks as she struggled to free her jacket from the chair. Rory thought of his high school lunchroom: girls stalking out mad, clattering trays, their long, skinny legs skittering on high-heeled shoes. He felt a pang of nostalgia. She was just a kid, Anouschka-so much younger than he was.

”Hey,” Vesuvi said, standing and putting his arms around Anouschka. ”Hey, we're just having a joke.”

”Go to h.e.l.l with your joke.” She turned her face away so that no one could see her crying.

Vesuvi stroked her back. ”Hey now,” he said.

Chastened, the group sat in guilty silence. Stacey and Rory traded a look and stood up. No one protested as they slid their jackets on, but when Rory opened his wallet to pay for their drinks, Vesuvi winced and waved it away. Anouschka still clung to him, her face buried in his neck.

Vesuvi spoke to Stacey in a lowered voice. ”I've got something coming up you'd be perfect for,” he said. ”Who are you with again?”

Stacey told him the name of her agency, barely able to contain her joy. Rory listened unhappily; Vesuvi said this all the time to girls, and forgot the next minute. It was just a pleasant salutation.

They left the restaurant and headed toward the East Village. Rory longed to reach for Stacey's hand, but she seemed far away from him now, lost in her thoughts. Outside a market, a boy was perched on a stool cutting the heads off beans. A barber swept thick tufts of dark hair into one corner of his shop. From an overhead window came music, and Rory craned his neck to catch a glimpse of someone's arm, a lighted cigarette. The familiarity of it all was sweet and painful to him. He searched the dark shopfronts for something, some final thing at the core of everything else, but he found just his own reflection and Stacey's. Their eyes met in the gla.s.s, then flicked away. And it struck him that this was New York: a place that glittered from a distance even when you reached it.

They climbed the four flights of steps to Rory's apartment. A slit of light shone under the door, which meant Charles was back. They found him standing at the kitchen table, wiping a slab of red meat with a paper towel. He had a blowtorch plugged into the wall, and a dismantled smoke alarm lay at his feet.

”You poor thing,” Stacey said, kissing him on the cheek. ”You never stop working.”

Charles's mouth was like a cat's, small and upturned at the corners. It made him seem happy even when he wasn't. ”Meat is my weak point,” he said. ”I've got a job tomorrow doing steak.”

He was prematurely balding, and Rory admired the look of hards.h.i.+p and triumph this gave him. Lately he'd searched his own hairline for signs of recession, but the blond surfer's mane seemed even more prolific. Most cruel of all, it was Charles who'd been born and raised in Santa Cruz.

”Here goes,” Charles said, firing up the blowtorch. They watched as he moved the flame slowly over the meat, back and forth as if he were mowing a lawn. Its surface turned a pale gray. When the entire side was done, he flipped the steak over and lightly cooked its other side.