American Psycho (3 page)

I look over at Stash to see if he’s pleased with Vanden’s casually blatant lie but he acts as if he wasn’t listening, as if he were in some other room or some
punk rock
club in the bowels of the city, but so does the rest of the table, which bothers me
since I am fairly sure we all know it’s located in New Hampshire.

“Where did
you
go?” Vanden sighs after it finally becomes clear to her that no one is interested in Camden.

“Well, I went to Le Ro
say
,” Evelyn starts, “and then to business school in Switzerland.”

“I also survived business school in Switzerland,” Courtney says. “But I was in Geneva. Evelyn was in Lausanne.”

Vanden tosses the copy of
Deception
next to Timothy and smirks in a wan, bitchy way and though I am pissed off a little that Evelyn doesn’t take in Vanden’s condescension and hurl it back at her, the J&B has relieved my stress to a point where I don’t care enough to say anything. Evelyn probably thinks Vanden is sweet, lost, confused, an
artist.
Price isn’t eating and neither is Evelyn; I suspect cocaine but it’s doubtful. While taking a large gulp from his drink Timothy holds up the copy of
Deception
and chuckles to himself.

“The Death of Downtown,” he says; then, pointing at each word in the headline, “Who-gives-a-rat’s-ass?”

I automatically expect Stash to look up from his plate but he still stares at the lone piece of sushi, smiling to himself and nodding.

“Hey,” Vanden says, as if she was insulted. “
That
affects us.”

“Oh ho ho,” Tim says warningly. “
That
affects us? What about the massacres in Sri Lanka, honey? Doesn’t that affect us too? What about Sri Lanka?”

“Well, that’s a cool club in the Village.” Vanden shrugs. “Yeah, that affects us too.”

Suddenly Stash speaks without looking up. “That’s called The
Tonka.
” He sounds pissed but his voice is even and low, his eyes still on the sushi. “It’s called The Tonka, not Sri Lanka. Got it? The Tonka.”

Vanden looks down, then meekly says, “Oh.”

“I mean don’t you know anything about Sri Lanka? About how the Sikhs are killing like tons of Israelis there?” Timothy goads her. “Doesn’t
that
affect us?”

“Kappamaki roll anyone?” Evelyn cuts in cheerfully, holding up a plate.

“Oh come on, Price,” I say. “There are more important problems than Sri Lanka to worry about. Sure our foreign policy
is important, but there
are
more pressing problems at hand.”

“Like what?” he asks without looking away from Vanden. “By the way, why is there an ice cube in my soy sauce?”

“No,” I start, hesitantly. “Well, we have to end apartheid for one. And slow down the nuclear arms race, stop terrorism and world hunger. Ensure a strong national defense, prevent the spread of communism in Central America, work for a Middle East peace settlement, prevent U.S. military involvement overseas. We have to ensure that America is a respected world power. Now that’s not to belittle our domestic problems, which are equally important, if not
more.
Better and more affordable long-term care for the elderly, control and find a cure for the AIDS epidemic, clean up environmental damage from toxic waste and pollution, improve the quality of primary and secondary education, strengthen laws to crack down on crime and illegal drugs. We also have to ensure that college education is affordable for the middle class and protect Social Security for senior citizens plus conserve natural resources and wilderness areas and reduce the influence of political action committees.”

The table stares at me uncomfortably, even Stash, but I’m on a roll.

“But economically we’re still a mess. We have to find a way to hold down the inflation rate and reduce the deficit. We also need to provide training and jobs for the unemployed as well as protect existing American jobs from unfair foreign imports. We have to make America the leader in new technology. At the same time we need to promote economic growth and business expansion
and
hold the line against federal income taxes and hold down interest rates while promoting opportunities for small businesses and controlling mergers and big corporate takeovers.”

Price nearly spits up his Absolut after this comment but I try to make eye contact with each one of them, especially Vanden, who if she got rid of the green streak and the leather and got some color—maybe joined an aerobics class, slipped on a blouse, something by Laura Ashley—
might
be pretty. But why does she sleep with Stash? He’s lumpy and pale and has a bad cropped haircut and is at least ten pounds overweight; there’s no muscle tone beneath the black T-shirt.

“But we can’t ignore our social needs either. We have to
stop people from abusing the welfare system. We have to provide food and shelter for the homeless and oppose racial discrimination and promote civil rights while also promoting equal rights for women but change the abortion laws to protect the right to life yet still somehow maintain women’s freedom of choice. We also have to control the influx of illegal immigrants. We have to encourage a return to traditional moral values and curb graphic sex and violence on TV, in movies, in popular music, everywhere. Most importantly we have to promote general social concern and less materialism in young people.”

I finish my drink. The table sits facing me in total silence. Courtney’s smiling and seems pleased. Timothy just shakes his head in bemused disbelief. Evelyn is completely mystified by the turn the conversation has taken and she stands, unsteadily, and asks if anyone would like dessert.

“I have …
sorbet
,” she says as if in a daze. “Kiwi, carambola, cherimoya, cactus fruit and oh … what is that …” She stops her zombie monotone and tries to remember the last flavor. “Oh yes, Japanese pear.”

Everyone stays silent. Tim quickly looks over at me. I glance at Courtney, then back at Tim, then at Evelyn. Evelyn meets my glance, then worriedly looks over at Tim. I also look over at Tim, then at Courtney and then at Tim again, who looks at me once more before answering slowly, unsurely, “Cactus pear.”

“Cactus
fruit
,” Evelyn corrects.

I look suspiciously over at Courtney and after she says “Cherimoya” I say “Kiwi” and then Vanden says “Kiwi” also and Stash says quietly, but enunciating each syllable very clearly, “Chocolate chip.”

The worry that flickers across Evelyn’s face when she hears this is instantaneously replaced by a smiling and remarkably good-natured mask and she says, “Oh Stash, you know I don’t have chocolate chip, though admittedly that’s pretty ex
otic
for a sor
bet.
I told you I have cherimoya, cactus
pear
, carambola, I
mean
cactus
fruit
—”

“I know. I heard you, I heard you,” he says, waving her off. “Surprise me.”

“Okay,” Evelyn says. “Courtney? Would you like to help?”

“Of course.” Courtney gets up and I watch as her shoes click away into the kitchen.

“No cigars, boys,” Evelyn calls out.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Price says, putting a cigar back into his coat pocket.

Stash is still staring at the sushi with an intensity that troubles me and I have to ask him, hoping he will catch my sarcasm, “Did it, uh, move again or something?”

Vanden has made a smiley face out of all the disks of California roll she piled onto her plate and she holds it up for Stash’s inspection and asks, “Rex?”

“Cool,” Stash grunts.

Evelyn comes back with the sorbet in Odeon margarita glasses and an unopened bottle of Glenfiddich, which remains unopened while we eat the sorbet.

Courtney has to leave early to meet Luis at a company party at Bedlam, a new club in midtown. Stash and Vanden depart soon after to go “score” something somewhere in SoHo. I am the only one who saw Stash take the piece of sushi from his plate and slip it into the pocket of his olive green leather bomber jacket. When I mention this to Evelyn, while she loads the dishwasher, she gives me a look so hateful that it seems doubtful we will have sex later on tonight. But I stick around anyway. So does Price. He is now lying on a late-eighteenth-century Aubusson carpet drinking espresso from a Ceralene coffee cup on the floor of Evelyn’s room. I’m lying on Evelyn’s bed holding a tapestry pillow from Jenny B. Goode, nursing a cranberry and Absolut. Evelyn sits at her dressing table brushing her hair, a Ralph Lauren green and white striped silk robe draped over a very nice body, and she is gazing at her reflection in the vanity mirror.

“Am I the only one who grasped the fact that Stash assumed his piece of sushi was”—I cough, then resume—“a pet?”

“Please stop inviting your ‘artiste’ friends over,” Tim says tiredly. “I’m sick of being the only one at dinner who hasn’t talked to an extraterrestrial.”

“It was only that
once
,” Evelyn says, inspecting a lip, lost in her own placid beauty.

“And at Odeon, no less,” Price mutters.

I vaguely wonder why I wasn’t invited to Odeon for the artists dinner. Had Evelyn picked up the tab? Probably. And I suddenly picture a smiling Evelyn, secretly morose, sitting at a whole table of Stash’s friends—all of them constructing little log cabins with their french fries or pretending their grilled salmon was alive and moving the piece of fish around the table, the fish conversing with each other about the “art scene,” new galleries; maybe even trying to fit the fish into the log cabin made of french fries.…

“If you remember well enough,
I
hadn’t seen one either,” Evelyn says.

“No, but Bateman’s your boyfriend, so that counted.” Price guffaws and I toss the pillow at him. He catches it then throws it back at me.

“Leave Patrick alone. He’s the boy next door,” Evelyn says, rubbing some kind of cream into her face. “You’re not an extraterrestrial, are you honey?”

“Should I even dignify that question with an answer?” I sigh.

“Oh baby.” She pouts into the mirror, looking at me in its reflection. “
I
know you’re not an extraterrestrial.”

“Relief,” I mutter to myself.

“No, but Stash was there at Odeon that night,” Price continues, and then, looking over at me, “At Odeon. Are you listening, Bateman?”

“No he
wasn’t
,” Evelyn says.

“Oh yes he
was
, but his name wasn’t Stash last time. It was
Horseshoe
or
Magnet
or
Lego
or something
equally
adult,” Price sneers. “I forget.”

“Timothy, what
are
you going on about?” Evelyn asks tiredly. “I’m not even listening to you.” She wets a cotton ball, wipes it across her forehead.

“No, we were at Odeon.” Price sits up with some effort. “And don’t ask me why, but I distinctly remember him ordering the tuna
cappuccino.
”

“
Carpaccio
,” Evelyn corrects.

“No, Evelyn dear, love of my life. I distinctly remember him ordering the tuna
cappuccino
,” Price says, staring up at the ceiling.

“He said
carpaccio
,” she counters, running the cotton ball over her eyelids.

“
Cappuccino
,” Price insists. “Until
you
corrected him.”

“
You
didn’t even recognize him earlier tonight,” she says.

“Oh but I
do
remember him,” Price says, turning to me. “Evelyn described him as ‘the good-natured body builder.’ That’s how she introduced him. I swear.”

“Oh shut up,” she says, annoyed, but she looks over at Timothy in the mirror and smiles flirtatiously.

“I mean I doubt Stash makes the society pages of
W
, which I thought was your criterion for choosing friends,” Price says, staring back, grinning at her in his wolfish, lewd way. I concentrate on the Absolut and cranberry I’m holding and it looks like a glassful of thin, watery blood with ice and a lemon wedge in it.

“What’s going on with Courtney and Luis?” I ask, hoping to break their gaze.

“Oh god,” Evelyn moans, turning back to the mirror. “The really
dreadful
thing about Courtney is
not
that she doesn’t like Luis anymore. It’s that—”

“They canceled her charge at Bergdorf’s?” Price asks. I laugh. We slap each other high-five.

“No,” Evelyn continues, also amused. “It’s that she’s
really
in love with her real estate
broker.
Some little
twerp
over at The Feathered
Nest.
”

“Courtney might have her problems,” Tim says, inspecting his recent manicure, “but my god, what is a …
Vanden
?”

“Oh don’t
bring
this up,” Evelyn whines and starts brushing her hair.

“Vanden is a cross between … The Limited and … used Benetton,” Price says, holding up his hands, his eyes closed.

“No.” I smile, trying to integrate myself into the conversation. “Used Fiorucci.”

“Yeah,” Tim says. “I guess.” His eyes, now open, zone in on Evelyn.

“Timothy, lay
off
,” Evelyn says. “She’s a
Camden
girl. What do you
expect
?”

“Oh god,” Timothy moans. “I am so sick of hearing
Camden
-girl problems. Oh my boyfriend, I love him but he loves
someone else and oh how I
longed
for him and he ignored me and blahblah blahblahblah—god, how
bor
ing. College kids. It
matters
, you know? It’s
sad
, right Bateman?”

“Yeah. Matters. Sad.”

“See, Bateman agrees with me,” Price says smugly.

“Oh he does
not
,” With a Kleenex Evelyn wipes off whatever she rubbed on. “Patrick is
not
a cynic, Timothy. He’s the boy next door, aren’t you honey?”

“No I’m not,” I whisper to myself. “I’m a fucking evil psychopath.”

“Oh so what,” Evelyn sighs. “She’s not the brightest girl in the world.”

“Hah! Understatement of the century!” Price cries out. “But Stash isn’t the brightest guy either. Perfect couple. Did they meet on
Love Connection
or something?”