“Yes, he’s with us, with Rex, I mean,” Amelia says, matter of factly. “Come on, come on, I’m so glad you’re here, this is such a huge bore, it’s hilarious that you came, what are you wearing, Mom is going to throw a fit …” Shelly and the giant security guys all relaxed and kind of grinned at each other; it’s amazing what a pretty girl can achieve, without even trying.
So next thing I know Amelia has me by the arm, and she’s dragging me back into the throngs of bachelors and bachelorettes, hopping a little every now and then, because she’s so short, and she seems to be looking for somebody. “Come on, I’ll get you a drink. Do you see a waiter with like kind of blue stuff in his hair? He’s our waiter, you just tell him what you want and he brings it. Like anything. You just say, I’ll have like a mango margarita and they bring it to you. I had one but I drank it too fast and I got one of those headaches in your nose. Can you believe that? Like is it not even noticeable to anybody that I’m, like, fourteen years old? And they’re serving me margaritas? This is so stupid. Maybe now that you’re here, Mom’ll let me go home, I have so much homework to do. Hi, can we get another mango margarita?” She found the waiter with the blue hair, who was at the bar receiving thousands of drinks from about four bartenders. “Sure, absolutely, not a problem,” says blue hair, and he turns back, calling suavely, “I need another Em Em.”
Amelia grabs me by the arm and pulls me in the opposite direction now, still yakking. “Can you believe that?” she says, without even looking back. “So now they’re giving out total alcoholic beverages to total teenagers, it’s pathetic, someone should report these people. Rex is a complete drip, it’s hilarious, you have to come meet him, what a jerk. How old do you think he is, forty or something? He’s like got his hand down Polly’s pants, I’m not kidding. What a sleezeball.” And she shoves me into another room.
And there, sitting straight across the room, lit by moody little tubes of something approximating light, is Rex. Even in the dark you can tell that he has a tan, and he’s leaning back on this big slick banquette, with six or seven people lounging around him, looking like Henry the Eighth, with one arm stretched out along the back of the banquette, and the other arm around Polly, his hand discreetly stuck down the back of her pants. It was spooky, really; he looked just like he looks in the movies, where he’s always waving a giant weapon around and screaming, “Get in the truck!” But he had no weapon, and he looked real little. That’s something I never considered when I thought about meeting movie stars … usually, when you see them? They’re like four stories tall, on some giant movie screen somewhere. But when you meet them, in person? They’re actually just sort of people-sized. Which makes the whole experience kind of surreal, if you haven’t thought about things like that ahead of time. Plus, if the guy has his hand down your sister’s pants, he looks significantly less like a movie star, and more like your average piece of shit asshole.
Not that Polly seemed to mind. She was leaning in and telling him some sort of secret, it looked like, and he grinned at whatever it was she said, not like it was earth-shattering, but like it was a good minor joke, and he was enough of a mensch to give a small smile to this pretty girl less than half his age, while he meanwhile had his hand down her pants. He didn’t actually look at her, but he was conscious enough of the social protocols that it was a definite smile. Mom, sitting across from the banquette, was deep in consultation with an enormous woman who was wearing something that looked like a giant green sack. She also had this major bead thing going on, strings and strings of them, big stone-like things, and crystals hanging off silver chains. She was seriously the only person in the room dressed worse than me, but Mom was hanging on her every word.
“Daria’s pissed because Polly got to sit next to Rex,” Amelia narrated. “She clearly doesn’t know about the hand down the pants part of the deal. He tried it on me, and I shoved my elbow in his stomach. Then I acted like it was an accident so he couldn’t get mad. What a creep. His last movie sucked anyway, I don’t know why people think he’s so hot. He smells, too: I think he went to the gym and then didn’t take a shower. Isn’t that gross? Plus all those guys who hang out with him? They’re like total morons. I told Mom I wanted to go home like an hour ago—she keeps ignoring me. She thinks he’s so great, she should try sitting next to him. I thought meeting a movie star would be cool but it is so totally no fun. How’d you get here, the subway? Let’s go home.”
“You think I could get some food first?” I really was hungry by this point, plus now that I had made it past all the different levels of security and screeners and fact checkers into the inner sanctum, I didn’t want to just turn around and go home. Besides which, standing around and holding a huge drink in front of a bunch of adults who couldn’t have cared less really does have a kind of weird thrill. Unfortunately, Amelia didn’t have to fight her way in there past the gate keepers; she wasn’t hungry and she was really bored. “We can go get some pizza,” she said. “Come on. I got homework to do. I have a chemistry test tomorrow.”
“Who’s the lady in the green tent?” I asked.
“Philip, who cares? These people are creeps. I’m not kidding. This is no fun. We have to get out of here.”
“You want to leave, and not tell Mom?”
“We’ll tell one of the waiters to tell her. Or call her cell from the street. Come on. She won’t care.”
But a waiter with a giant sort of pu-pu platter of appetizers was heading across the room, toward the near end of the banquette, where the lady in the green tent and Mom were deep in consultation. “I’ve been eating pizza all week,” I said. In retrospect, I wish I had just done whatever Amelia said. That is generally what I think about life anyway: Just do what the fourteen-year-old tells you, you know she’s right. But I was hungry, and no one ever invited me to hang out with a movie star before. I wanted some pu-pu platter.
“Hey, Mom,” I said, sliding into the chair next to her. Behind me, Amelia was hopping up and down, nervous. I pretended I didn’t see her while I eyed the Chinese appetizers and bolted my margarita.
“Philip,” Mom observed. “I’m surprised to see you, darling.”
“Who’s this?” said the woman in the tent, smiling. “Your son? You didn’t tell me you had a son.” This woman, whoever she was, had an incredible voice, musical and light, every syllable perfectly modulated with amusement and kindliness and intelligence. No kidding, it was startling, to hear this beautiful voice come out of a woman wearing a green tent, so I may have stared.
“His name is Philip,” said Amelia. “He’s come to take me home.”
“Philip!” smiled the green ogress. “I’m Maureen. I’m Rex’s producer.” It was hard to see her face in the weird light, but her crystals and beads sparkled on her massive chest. The beads in particular were quite distracting, they were enormous, egg-sized pieces of amber, six or seven strands of them. The whole look was puzzling and a little magical.
“It’s really nice to meet you,” I said. “Um, can I have one of those?” I pointed to the pu-pu platter, which looked unbelievably delicious—golden egg rolls piled neatly on top of each other, little meats on little sticks, plump little dumplings. I can still remember the way it smelled, that’s how hungry I was. My mouth was actually starting to water, so before anyone could say no, that’s for Rex, I just grabbed some food with my fingers, and stuffed it into my mouth. It tasted delicious.
“Philip, please,” said Mom, handing me a napkin. Maureen the giant laughed, a beautiful bell of a laugh.
“Boys,” said Maureen. “They’re different from girls.”
“Oh yes,” said Mom. I thought, if this is the quality of the evening’s conversation, no wonder Amelia is ready to bolt. But then Mom said, “Philip loves Kafka. Tell Philip about your great-grandmother, Maureen. Philip, you’ll find this interesting.”
Now,