Suddenly Beau leans over me with the new revised guest list, whispers something unintelligible about the Gap into my ear, hands over a sample of the invitations, which Damien never bothered to look at but wants to see now, along with certain 8 x 10s and Polaroids of tonight's various waitresses, stealing his two favorites-Rebecca and Pumpkin, both from Doppelganger's.
"Shalom Harlow sneezed on me," Damien's saying.
"I've got chills," I admit. "They're multiplying."
I'm looking over the menu that Bongo and Bobby Flay have come up with: jalapeno-cured gravlax on dark bread, spicy arugula and mesclun greens, southwestern artichoke hearts with focaccia, porcini mushrooms and herb-roasted chicken br**sts and/or grilled tuna with black peppercorns, chocolate-dipped strawberries, assorted classy granitas.
"Did anyone read the Marky Mark interview in the Times?" Damien asks. "The underwear thing is `semi-haunting' him."
"It's semi-haunting me too, Damien," I tell him. "Listen, here's the seating arrangements."
Damien studies Beau suspiciously for a reaction.
Beau notices this, points out certain elements about the menu, then carefully says, "I'm semi-haunted... too."
"Yesterday I wanted to f**k about twenty different strangers. Just girls, just people on the street. This one girl-the only one who hadn't seen the 600SEL, who couldn't tell Versace from the Gap, who didn't even glance at the Patek Philippe-" He turns to the goons, one who keeps eyeing me in a f**ked-up way. "That's a watch you might never own. Anyway, she's the only one who would talk to me, just some dumpy chick who came on to me in Chemical Bank, and I motioned sadly to her that I was mute, you know, tongueless, that I simply couldn't speak, what have you. But get this-she knew sign language."
After Damien stares at me, I say, "Ah."
"I tell you, Victor," Damien continues, "the world is full of surprises. Most of them not that interesting but surprising nonetheless. Needless to say, it was a mildly scary, humiliating moment. It actually bordered on the horrific, but I moved through it." He sips his latte. "Could I actually not be in vogue? I panicked, man. I felt... old."
"Oh man, you're only twenty-eight." I nod to Beau, letting him know that he can slink back upstairs.
"Twenty-eight, yeah." Damien takes this in, but instead of dealing he just waves at the stacks of papers on the table. "Everything going as planned? Or are there any imminent disasters I should be apprised of?"
"Here are the invites." I hand him one. "I don't think you ever had the time to see these."