Evelyn stands by a blond wood counter wearing a Krizia cream silk blouse, a Krizia rust tweed skirt and the same pair of silk-satin d'Orsay pumps Courtney has on. Her long blond hair is pinned back into a rather severe-looking bun and she acknowledges me without looking up from the oval Wilton stainless-steel platter on which she has artfully arranged the sushi. "Oh honey, I'm sorry. I wanted to go to this darling little new Salvadorian bistro on the Lower East Side–'
Price groans audibly.
"–but we couldn't get reservations. Timothy, don't groan." She picks up a piece of the yellowtail and places it cautiously near the top of the platter, completing what looks like a capital T. She stands back from the platter and inspects it. "I don't know. Oh, I'm so unsure."
"I told you to keep Finlandia in this place," Tim mutters, looking through the bottles – most of them magnums – at the bar. "She never has Finlandia," he says to no one, to all of us.
"Oh god, Timothy. Can't handle Absolut?" Evelyn asks and then contemplatively to Courtney, "The California roll should circle the rim of the plate, no?"
"Bateman. Drink?" Price sighs.
"J&B rocks," I tell him, suddenly thinking it's strange that Meredith wasn't invited.
"Oh god. It's a mess," Evelyn gasps. "I swear I'm going to cry."
'The sushi looks marvelous," I tell her soothingly.
"Oh it's a mess," she wails. "It's a mess."
"No, no, the sushi looks marvelous," I tell her and in an attempt to be as consoling as possible I pick up a piece of the fluke and pop it in my mouth, groaning with inward pleasure, and hug Evelyn from behind; my mouth still full, I manage to say "Delicious."
She slaps at me in a playful way, obviously pleased with my reaction, and finally, carefully, airkisses my cheek and then turns back to Courtney. Price hands me a drink and walks toward the living room while trying to remove something invisible from his blazer. "Evelyn, do you have a lint brush?"
I would rather have watched the baseball game or gone to the gym and worked out or tried that Salvadorian restaurant that got a couple of pretty good reviews, one in New York magazine, the other in the Times, than have dinner here but there is one good thing about dinner at Evelyn's: it's close to my place.
"Is it okay if the soy sauce isn't exactly at room temperature?" Courtney is asking. "I think there's ice in one of the dishes."
Evelyn is placing strips of pale orange ginger delicately in a pile next to a small porcelain dish filled with soy sauce. "No, it's not okay. Now Patrick, could you be a dear and get the Kirin out of the refrigerator?" Then, seemingly harassed by the ginger, she throws the clump down on the platter. "Oh forget it. I'll do it."
I move toward the refrigerator anyway. Staring darkly, Price reenters the kitchen and says, "Who in the hell is in the living room?"
Evelyn feigns ignorance. "Oh who is that?"
Courtney warns, "Ev-el-yn. You did tell them, I hope."
"Who is it?" I ask, suddenly scared. "Victor Powell?"
"No, it's not Victor Powell, Patrick," Evelyn says casually. "It's an artist friend of mine, Stash. And Vanden, his girlfriend."
"Oh so that was a girl in there," Price says. "Go take a look, Bateman," he dares. "Let me guess. The East Village?"
"Oh Price," she says flirtatiously, opening beer bottles. "Why no. Vanden goes to Camden and Stash lives in SoHo, so there."
I move out of the kitchen, past the dining room, where the table has been set, the beeswax candles from Zona lit in their sterling silver candleholders from Fortunoff, and into the living room. I can't tell what Stash is wearing since it's all black. Vanden has green streaks in her hair. She stares at a heavy-metal video playing on MTV while smoking a cigarette.
"Ahem," I cough.
Vanden looks over warily, probably drugged to the eyeballs. Stash doesn't move.
"Hi. Pat Bateman," I say, offering my hand, noticing my reflection in a mirror hung on the wall – and smiling at how good I look.
She takes it; says nothing. Stash starts smelling his fingers.
Smash cut and I'm back in the kitchen.
"Just get her out of there." Price is seething. "She's doped up watching MTV and I want to watch the goddamn MacNeil/Lehrer report."
Evelyn is still opening large bottles of imported beer and absently mentions, "We've got to eat this stuff soon or else we're all going to be poisoned."
"She's got a green streak in her hair," I tell them. "And she's smoking."
"Bateman," Tim says, still glaring at Evelyn.
"Yes?" I say. "Timothy?"
"You're a dufus."
"Oh leave Patrick alone," Evelyn says. "He's the boy next door. That's Patrick. You're not a dufus, are you, honey?" Evelyn is on Mars and I move toward the bar to make myself another drink.
"Boy next door." Tim smirks and nods, then reverses his expression and hostilely asks Evelyn again if she has a lint brush.
Evelyn finishes opening the Japanese beer bottles and tells Courtney to fetch Stash and Vanden. "We have to eat this now or else we're going to be poisoned," she murmurs, slowly moving her head, taking in the kitchen, making sure she hasn't forgotten anything.
"If I can tear them away from the latest Megadeth video," Courtney says before exiting.
"I have to talk to you," Evelyn says.
"What about?" I come up to her.
"No," she says and then pointing at Tim, "to Price."
Tim still glares at her fiercely. I say nothing and stare at Tim's drink.
"Be a hon," she tells me, "and place the sushi on the table. Tempura is in the microwave and the sake is just about done boiling…" Her voice trails off as she leads Price out of the kitchen.
I am wondering where Evelyn got the sushi – the tuna, yellowtail, mackerel, shrimp, eel, even bonito, all seem so fresh and there are piles of wasabi and clumps of ginger placed strategically around the Wilton platter – but I also like the idea that I don't know, will never know, will never ask where it came from and that the sushi will sit there in the middle of the glass table from Zona that Evelyn's father bought her like some mysterious apparition from the Orient and as I set the platter down I catch a glimpse of my reflection on the surface of the table. My skin seems darker because of the candlelight and I notice how good the haircut I got at Gio's last Wednesday looks. I make myself another drink. I worry about the sodium level in the soy sauce.
Four of us sit around the table waiting for Evelyn and Timothy to return from getting Price a lint brush. I sit at the head taking large swallows of J&B. Vanden sits at the other end reading disinterestedly from some East Village rag called Deception, its glaring headline THE DEATH OF DOWNTOWN. Stash has pushed a chopstick into a lone piece of yellowtail that lies on the middle of his plate like some shiny impaled insect and the chopstick stands straight up. Stash occasionally moves the piece of sushi around the plate with the chopstick but never looks up toward either myself or Vanden or Courtney, who sits next to me sipping plum wine from a champagne glass.
Evelyn and Timothy come back perhaps twenty minutes after we've seated ourselves and Evelyn looks only slightly flushed. Tim glares at me as he takes the seat next to mine, a fresh drink in hand, and he leans over toward me, about to say, to admit something, when suddenly Evelyn interrupts, "Not there, Timothy," then, barely a whisper, "Boy girl, boy girl." She gestures toward the empty chair next to Vanden. Timothy shifts his glare to Evelyn and hesitantly takes the seat next to Vanden, who yawns and turns a page of her magazine.