Even though the dinner was scheduled for ten, we didn't get there until ten-thirty, and most of the other people were just arriving. At the door, we had to sign a release, stating that if our pictures were taken they could be used in publicity.
The restaurant was quite a pretty place. Every table had a mammoth floral display, like complete trees, in the center, and there were little nameplates and gifts at each place. My nameplate said guest of MR. Stosz—I was seated next to the nameplate of stash stosz—and my gift was apparently selected by someone who must have known my situation as well as my vocation: it was a large fake diamond engagement and wedding ring set. Stash got a set of tattoos, water soluble, and a toy motorcycle—Stash had a motorcycle himself—which, when he wound it up, zipped across the table and fell over. Other artists received Etch-a-Sketch kits, voodoo dolls, exploding cigars, wind-up jack-in-the-boxes in the shape of clam shells which contained Botticelli's Venus leaping out to music, and their signatures made into rubber stamps.
The food was really delicious: slices of raw meat, thin as paper; angel-hair pasta speckled with shreds of crab meat and roasted peppers; little fried fish hot and curling on platters, with their teensy eyes still intact. In one corner of the room a man played the accordion—various haunting tunes—possibly as a special treat in honor of the occasion. Or maybe he was there all the time. For an appetizer I had a plate of slightly sandy mussels in a sauce of vermouth and garlic. Stash had smoked mozzarella with basil and tomatoes. We had agreed to share. But frankly, I couldn't enjoy it as much as I would have liked. For one thing, by eleven-thirty at night my appetite was gone and I was ready to go to sleep, and for another, I only liked to eat alone with Stash. I wanted to relish my food without having to worry about why I wasn't being included in the conversation or whether I was getting food on my chin. This was my sad but minor handicap, not something that revealed a character trait: sometimes food or grease would get on my chin and I couldn't feel it. I had had a minor operation when I was fifteen and the sensation never returned. It wasn't the most glamorous of handicaps to have, but it was mine. The one handicap that really appealed to me as tragic and romantic was the one that Laura had, Laura of The Glass Menagerie— she was lame. There aren't too many lame people around these days, nowadays they just limp.
I was seated next to a girl wearing a rubber dress; it looked like a coat of latex paint. The sign in front of her plate said Samantha BINGHAMTON, and every two seconds one of the photographers would come and snap her picture. She had wild black hair (maybe a wig) and a long skinny neck, which was either very elegant or goosey—I couldn't decide. So much for my one fancy evening outfit of sequined top and black velvet skirt—it was nothing compared to what Rubbermaid had on. I could have strangled her. The people across from me pretended I didn't exist. While twirling pasta with my fork, I quizzed Samantha on her life story. She had known her husband—he was seated on her other side—since second grade. He came from a fabulously wealthy family and now had one of the hottest galleries in the world. She used to be a top-notch agent—she was best friends with Dustin Hoffman and John Huston, and one of her clients was in the movie that swept the Academy Awards last year. But even though she was only twenty-eight years old and close to the height of her profession, she decided she wasn't happy. Since her husband could support her, and she didn't really need to work, she quit two weeks ago to become a rock star. This was what she really wanted to do. So far she hadn't landed a manager, but it seemed likely that this would happen soon.
Maybe I had had a little too much champagne: it certainly was delicious, with large, real, lumps of raspberries stuck in the bottom of every glass. "Isn't it strange," I said, "to be trying to land an agent and a record contract when this is what you used to do for other people?"
"No."
Her best friend, in a feathered tutu, was seated across from us, and when the tutu girl got up to go to the restroom I asked Samantha what her friend did. "She goes out with Fritz," Samantha said. Fritz was a sculptor, famous for his work in lemons and mirrors. "She's only eighteen and a real witch." So much for best friends, I thought.
In the restroom we applied various kinds of makeup from Samantha's handbag. "That guy next to you," she said as she powdered her nose, "you're with him, right?"
"We live together," I said. "That's Stash."
"That's what I was going to ask you," she said. "He's Stash Stosz, right? Who just got a terrible review?"
"Yeah," I said.
She took a joint out of her bag.
"Is he rich?" she said, lighting the joint and handing it to me.
"No," I said.
"Are you?" "No."
"Well, why would you go out with him?" she said.
"I—" I said. I was stunned.
"Come out with us after the dinner," she said. "My husband has a brother who'd love to meet you—we'll go with Fritz to the club."
I smoked some of the joint with her. Maybe she had had too much to drink, too.
Back at the table Stash was having an active argument with a racehorse painter, a man with a goatee and rabbit teeth. "What you're doing, that's not art," the horse painter was saying. He was wearing a cowboy hat of soft and furry felt.
"I've seen your work," I said to him. "My mother bought some paper plates one time, for a cookout, and your paintings were on them."
Everyone had changed places. The photographer was walking around taking candid pictures. One artist, with his long white arms curled around the back of the chair next to him, and his round, bloblike head, resembled an octopus. Another made strange movements with his mouth like a kissing gour-ami. One artist was so famous he refused to sit with the rest of us: he had his own private table on the balcony, where he was seated with a famous French movie actress. The one sitting across from me was quite drunk; he had a red face and a superior attitude. While he was talking to someone he picked up a full ashtray in front of him and emptied it under the table.
When the dinner was over, one of the artists picked up a plate of cake (a special kind of Venetian cake known as a "pick-me-up") and dumped it on the head of a less-famous artist. The less-famous artist didn't even blink, just called for the photographer to come over.
Stash got stuck talking to someone at the coat-check room and I went outside. Samantha rolled down the window of a limousine and leaned out. "Eleanor, come here," she said. "I want you to meet my brother-in-law, Mitch."
I squinted in the window: some guy with red hair and a beard was sitting next to Samantha; he had the wild eyes of a trotter at a fifth-rate racetrack, hopped up on who knew what. "Nice to meet you, Mitch," I said. He handed me a glass of champagne.
"Where are you going now, Eleanor?" Samantha said.
"Downtown."
"Come on, get in with us," she said. "We'll take you."
I thought for a second: I should wait for Stash, go home with him, walk the dog, and watch TV. I'd try to tell him about why all these people drove me crazy. How I was tired of everyone being wrapped up in themselves. But I knew all he would say was that I had had too much to drink. Or I could open the car door, jump in, and whizz off someplace. Even if I changed my mind, Stash would probably forgive me, eventually.
"Stash is still inside," I said. "I'm waiting for him. I don't want to keep you, I'll call you next week. 'Bye, Mitch." Samantha shrugged and the window rolled back up. I was left standing on the curb with a glass of champagne in my hand.
By the time we got home I was pretty depressed. While I brushed my teeth and cleaned my contact lenses, I thought about Samantha, in her rubber dress. Let's face it, she wasn't prettier than me, or more intelligent, and what did she do? Just one out of the millions who want to be rock stars. So how come she kept getting her picture taken and all the men were making a fuss over her and asking if they could snap her latex wear? Because (a) she had an important husband who ran a big gallery and (b) she probably hung out with these people every night, taking drugs—cocaine or whatever—whereas it was a rare thing for me just to smoke a joint. On the other hand, maybe she really had a better personality than me, and really was more attractive physically and psychically, and I was just deluding myself.