The driver stares at me until he loses interest and looks elsewhere.
"Right," I say tensely. "O-kay."
I open a gate and then it closes automatically behind me and then I'm walking through the darkened garden while R.E.M.'s "How the West Was Won" plays and above me, in the house, the lights in some of the windows don't reveal anything. The back door that leads into the kitchen is half-open and after I've walked in and closed it there's that series of electronic beeps. I move uncertainly through the space-nobody's downstairs, there's no sign of the crew, everything's spotless. I pull an Evian out of the fridge. A video-the end of Die Hard 2-silently plays on the giant TV, credits roll, then the tape starts rewinding itself. I brush confetti off the giant pistachio-colored sofa and lie down, waiting for someone to appear, occasionally glancing toward the stairs leading up to the bedrooms, listening intently, but hear only the whirring of the tape being rewound and the R.E.M. song fading. I vaguely imagine Jamie and Bobby together, maybe even with Sam Ho, in bed, and there's a pang; but after that, nothing.
A script lies on the coffee table and absently I pick it up, open it to a random page, an odd scene, descriptions of Bobby calming someone down, feeding me a Xanax, I'm weeping, people are getting dressed for another party, a line of dialogue ("what if you became something you were not") and my eyes are closing. "Fall asleep," is what I imagine the director would whisper.
2
Wakened suddenly out of a brief dreamless nap by someone calling "Action" softly (though when I open my eyes and look around the living room there's no one here), I get off the couch, noticing vacantly that the script I fell asleep reading has disappeared. I pick up the Evian bottle, take a long, deep swallow and carry it with me as I move uncertainly through the house, past spaces where someone has turned off various lights while I was sleeping. In the kitchen I'm staring into the refrigerator for what seems like days, unsure of what to do, when there's a strange noise below me-a rapid thumping sound, followed by maybe a muffled wail, and at the same instant the lights in the kitchen dim once, then twice. I look up, quietly say "Hello" to myself. Then it happens again.
Because of the way the set is lit, a door I never noticed in a hallway adjacent to the kitchen practically glows now. A framed Calvin Klein poster covers the top half-. Bobby Hughes on a beach, shirtless, white Speedos, impossibly brown and hard, not seeing a near-naked Cindy Crawford standing next to him because he's looking directly into the camera, at you. Drawn to it, I run my hand along the glass it's encased in and the door slowly swings open onto a staircase dotted with confetti and my breath immediately starts steaming because of how freezing it suddenly is and then I'm moving down the stairs, gripping the icy railing, heading toward the bottom. Another thump, the strange faraway wailings, the lights dimming again.
Belowground I'm moving down a plain, undecorated hallway, one arm extended, fingers trailing along the cold brick wall that lines this corridor, humming to myself-hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry-and I'm heading toward a door with another Calvin Klein poster on it, another beach scene, another shot of Bobby proudly baring his abdominals, another beautiful girl ignored behind him, and in a matter of seconds I'm standing in front of it, straining to assemble the vague noises I'm hearing on a sound track where the volume's too low. There's a handle, something I'm supposed to turn, and piles of confetti are scattered all over the concrete floor.
Vacantly, in this instant, I'm thinking of my mother and the George Michael concert I attended just days after she died, the azaleas on the block we lived on in Georgetown, a party where no one was crying, the hat Lauren Hynde gave me in New York, the tiny red rose on that hat. A final sip of Evian and I turn the handle, shrugging, the lights dimming once again.
"It's what you don't know that matters most," the director said.
Movement behind me. I turn around as the door opens.
Jamie's walking toward me quickly, dressed in sweats, her hair pulled back, wearing yellow rubber gloves that run all the way up to her elbows.
I smile at her.
"Victor," she shouts. "No-don't-"
The door swings open.
I turn, confused, looking into the room.
Jamie yells something garbled behind me.
Fitness equipment has been pushed aside into the corners of what looks like a soundproofed room and a mannequin made from wax covered in either oil or Vaseline, slathered with it, lies twisted on its back in some kind of horrible position on a steel examination table, naked, both legs spread open and chained to stirrups, its scrotum and anus completely exposed, both arms locked back behind its head, which is held up by a rope connected to a hook in the, ceiling.