"The thing about it," Dianna says, once again oblivious to anything but herself, "I mean the thing about this whole movie star business which no one gets is that you have to work so hard. You're my best friend, Cecelia, so you know I'm not being an asshole about this, because God knows, Jesus knows actually, that I was always going to be a star and I think I make a fucking good star, but it's never-ending. So, you know, people ought to understand why I get fucked up. Getting fucked up ... if s like a mini-vacation. It's the only way I can ever get any fucking relaxation." And she takes a swig out of a bottle of champagne and I want to tell her to stop talking because I'm still so hungover I'm going to get sick or kill someone.
"What did you think of Fabien?" she says. "Oh. Was that his name?" I say. I look out the window at the white tents of the festival as the Mercedes crawls to a stop.
"I thought he was adorable. I've always wanted to sleep with a Frenchman," she says. And I do not point out that she must have already slept with four or five. Not counting the one in the bathroom at Jimmy'z in Monte Carlo.
Through the window, I see that the small girl with the flowers is standing by the side of the car.
"I wonder if I should import him. To L.A.," Dianna says, laughing loudly as the girl taps on the window with the flowers.
"Madame," she mouths. "Madame, you must come with me.”
The Mercedes lurches forward. I turn to stare out the back window at the little girl, who waves sadly.
"Ohmigod," I say.
Dianna takes a moment to focus on me, and I find, sadly, that I am grateful. "I can't believe Hubert is coming," she says. "I told you my plan would work. As soon as you left, he realized he was a complete fuckwad, and now he's crawling back. Aren't you happy?”
She takes my hand and kisses it as I open the window a crack to let out some of the smoke.
In the bar of the Hotel du Cap, if s the same scene as it was the night before and the night before that and lunch the day before and lunch the day before that. Everyone is drunk on champagne and raspberry cocktails. There's the same group of twenty-five-year old women, all tall, all good-looking, dressed in evening clothes, who spend half their time in the bathroom and half their time trying to pick up anyone famous. There are the badly dressed up-and-coming English movie directors. The perfectly dressed German distributors. Kate Moss. Elizabeth Hurley, whom I hate more than any of them because she's "overexposed." And Comstock Dibble, the five-foot tall mega-movie producer who, even though he must be at least forty-five, still has acne. Out on the balcony, he's mopping his face with a napkin and shouting at the waiters to put two tables together and to take chairs away from other patrons. Dianna is dressed in Goth. We sweep through the lobby the same as we always do. We are someone and we will always be someone, especially when we come to places like this.
"Comstock! Carol Darling!" Dianna screams, in case anyone hasn't noticed her. She's already too drunk, tottering on black strappy sandals, steadying herself on a stranger's shoulder who pats her arm and rolls his eyes.
"Hello, Dianna," Comstock says. "You were in the papers today.”
"I'm in the papers every day. If I'm not in the papers, it's not a good day.”
"You were in the papers too," Comstock says to me, sweating inexplicably, since the temperature has cooled down to about seventy. "But I know you hate being in the papers." He leans in intimately, as if we are the only two people in the place. "That’s the difference between you and Dianna.”
"Is it?" I say, lighting what is probably my fiftieth cigarette of the day.
Suddenly there are other people at the table, but no one introduces anyone.
"They say you're here without your husband.”
“He has to work.”
"You should have an affair. While you're here. In France. Everybody else is.”
"Hey Comstock. I hear you've been looking for a mistress," Dianna says loudly. "I hear you've propositioned every French actress under the age of twenty-five.”
"I'm casting. What can I say?" Comstock says, and I put my napkin on my lap and wonder what the hell I'm doing here.
But where else is there?
"Tanner is the one who's fighting off the girls," Comstock says.
I look up and see that it is indeed Tanner Hart, my Tanner, who is older but thanks to the wonders of plastic surgery doesn't look much different than he did five years ago when he was selected as one of People magazine's Fifty Most Beautiful People, and he sits down and puts his hands up and says, "Don't hassle me, baby," as I stare at him in a sort of alcoholic shock.
"Have a bellini," he says, pushing one toward me. "When this festival is over, Tanner is going to come out the big winner. We sold Gagged all over the world today," Comstock says. "I'm thinking nominations. Best Actor. Best Picture.”
"Hey Comstock," Dianna says. "How come you never propositioned me?”
"Because you're a Jesus freak and I'm a nice Polish boy?" Comstock says.
"I could convert you," Dianna says.
"Baby. You're a star. We all know that," Comstock says. "Right, Tanner?”
But Tanner isn't listening. He's staring at me in tently and I remember why; after we split up, I climbed up a fire escape and broke into his apartment to have sex with him.
Without taking his eyes off me, Tanner says, "By the way, is anyone going to Saint-Tropez? After this?”
There's a full moon as I excuse myself, ostensibly to go to the bathroom. Instead, I hurry down the long marble staircase out to the manicured gravel walkway that leads to the pool. The summer she died, Amanda had decided to "get into the movie business," and she came here with a middle-aged character actor who sent her home after she stayed out all night with an up-and-coming young screenwriter. It was just so Amanda to get everything wrong.
I veer off to the left and into a small enclosed garden with a fountain of turtles in the middle. I sit on a bench.
Sure enough, in about a minute Tanner shows up, fingering a joint. "You look like you could use this," he says.
"Do I look that bad?”
"You just look like ... you're not having any fun.”
“I'm not.”
"How are you, baby?" he says, sitting with his legs open, delicately holding the joint between his thumb and forefinger as he inhales deeply. "I told you not to marry that poofster. Didn't I? Didn't I tell you he'd make you miserable? You should have run off with me when you had the chance.”
"That’s right," I say miserably, thinking about how after Tanner and I had sex, we would both be ripped and slightly bloody. He grabs my wrist now and says, "I'm still hot for you, baby. Still very, very hot," and I say, "Is this a compliment?" and he says, "If s a reality," and I say, "I have to get out of here." I run back up the path, looking over my shoulder to see if he's following and he isn't and I don't know if this is a good or bad thing, and I cross through the lobby and out the front door, where Dianna is standing in front of the hotel, shouting for the car. And moments later we're all drunk and stoned and fucked up and in the Mercedes again, driving back to the yacht in Cannes and there are people, men mostly, in the car whom I've never seen before and never want to see again.
This guy with spiky dark hair and a black T-shirt keeps leaning over me, chanting, "Where I have gone, I would not go back," which is a line I think he read in a Bret Easton Ellis novel, but while I'm seriously wondering if he even can read, I respond, "I don't know why I'm here, I guess because Dianna invited me.”
"I'm a big fucking STAR," Dianna screams.