Starry Night (30 page)

“I just want to get her, get the hell out of that place, get back on this train and go to a coffee shop on the Upper West Side where we all belong,” Charlie said, almost pouting.

“I am not a fighting man, but I feel like I want to sock that guy,” Oliver said, with one arm draped around his girl Vati and the other making its way into a fist. Vati snuggled closer into him and pushed his dreads out of the way so they wouldn't poke her in the eye.

“Bring it, babe!” Vati said.
Babe?
Who calls anyone “babe”? Just so you know, those two are still together. I have a feeling they always will be.

 

53

Oh my goodness,
you should have seen this place. First of all it was way the heck out in Brooklyn. We had to walk for fifteen minutes from the Junius Street station until we got to the deserted strip where Cy Dowd had his den. This was not
The Cosby Show.
This was not BAM or the Brooklyn Museum of Art or the hip streets with organic ice cream shops and knitting stores. No, this place felt as if we had walked to the end of the earth, or at least to the end of Brooklyn.

It wasn't hard to get into the party. You would think from what we were seeing on the Internet that it would be like getting into Buckingham Palace, but there wasn't even a bouncer. We all just walked right through the banged-up door and climbed the narrow staircase. The steps were wooden, like we were in a factory from the 1800s, but in contrast to that ancient feeling there was also a black light that made anything white that we were wearing glow. The thumping of the music from the party closely mimicked my pounding heart.

Inside, the party felt like what I had imagined Andy Warhol's factory was like. The electronic music penetrated everything. It was overwhelmingly loud and unfamiliar, but you could tell it was coming out of expensive speakers. Well, Nolan told me that.

“This place is sick. Those are Grand Utopia EM speakers. They're like $200,000. Who the freak is this guy?” Nolan took my hand protectively as we made our way into the gigantic room.

“This is wild, I mean, we should get her, but it's kind of cool.” Charlie was moving to the music and looked like he would stay if we were not on a mission.

“I think this is scary. I can't believe she's even in here.” It did
not
feel like the night when Nolan took me to see Mikey. That felt like a dancing bunch of kids where I belonged, even if I was in that huge red dress. (The dress, thankfully, was successfully cleaned, but I don't think I will be wearing it again anytime soon. When it came back from the cleaners, Mom held it up for me to see, lifted her eyebrows and the cleaning bill, and said,
“Eighty-seven dollars!”
and pointedly took the dress upstairs, away from me and my wrongdoing.)
This
gathering of, let's face it, adults, felt like we had entered another stage of life that we weren't supposed to see yet. It was a vibe more than anything. Like, have you ever been to a party where you think you will know everyone, but then there are some kids from another school there, and maybe they are in a higher grade? Just those five or six older kids can make you question what you are wearing, your place in the universe, and possibly relegate you into a huddle in the corner with the people you do know, because the unfamiliarity feels chancy and awkward. Cy's party was that feeling times one thousand. Plus it was dark, plus people were drinking cocktails, plus people were smoking, plus some men had goatees. It was just wrong, as Dinah would say.

“I'm going to go to the back, it looks like there are some more rooms that way. Do you see Cy?” asked Nolan. I was standing next to cool-as-a-cucumber Reagan, and even she was flipping her hair repeatedly, revealing insecurity.

“No. But I think I just saw the guy that does the website for the Met,” I whispered to everyone.
“Oh my god, if my parents find out we are here, we are going to fry.”

“I'm getting a beer,” Oliver said. “Come with me, Vats. You guys, these are all just poseurs. They're like loser hipsters, hangers-on.”

“Has anyone seen the little pig?” said Vati.

“You guys go back and try to find Farah. We'll hang out in this room,” said Oliver.

“And keep your eye out for Doodle, his little pig. I need to see that thing,” Vati said. I'm telling you the girl is driven mad by tiny cute creatures.

“Oliver, do you think Dad will find out we're here?” I said.

“Don't freak out, Wren, just go get Farah. They think we're at a St. Tim's Christmas party at Benjer's house,” Oliver said, and gave me a little push.

“I'll stay here with them,” Reagan said, gesturing to Oliver and Vati.

Charlie was already making his way through the moving, dancing crowd. It felt like we were in a sea filled with fish that moved and turned together. The light was even blue. I held on tightly to Nolan's hand. “I bet she's back there,” I said, looking deeper into the cavernous loft space.

“I bet he is back there too. By this point, she's in his inner circle,” Nolan said. He did not seem freaked out, but I sure was. I didn't like the term “inner circle.” It sounded sinister.

Sure enough, Farah
was
there. Unlike the dark front room, the back was a brightly lit kitchen. This was not your average home kitchen; this looked like the kitchen on
Top Chef Masters.
It was all souped up, with stainless-steel ten-thousand-dollar Sub-Zero fridges. (I know how much refrigerators cost because of
Dining with Dinah.
The network paid to replace our old one to accommodate the food for the show.) There was a long, thin table running down the length of the room with chairs that, thanks to my art history classes, I was sure were designed by Mies van der Rohe, the hugely famous German-American architect. On the table were perfectly spaced alabaster eggs that must have been designed with flat bottoms to sit there because they were not rolling around. A few women stood across from the table leaning against sleek black cabinets, drinking from wineglasses with no stems. When we walked in the room, they looked at us like we were the Bad News Bears. Even Nolan looked like a scruffy kid compared to these women, who for sure worked at
Vogue.
I felt like a less-mature Dinah. I actually felt like May.

Sitting at the table in a long sheath of a silvery-gray dress was Farah, drinking deeply colored red wine out of one of those stemless glasses too. She looked like she lived there, and a little bit like an alien because she was wearing plum lipstick that was so dark it looked black. Sitting right next to her was Cy Dowd. No sign of the little pig.

“Farah!” I ran over, squatted down, and hugged her.

“Wren,” she said very slowly, calmly and controlled. “Oh my god,
what are you doing here
?” She had a smile plastered to her face, but she was mad.

“What do you mean? You don't think I can see things on Facebook? Nolan is my boyfriend. Just because my parents don't let me have social media doesn't mean the rest of the free world isn't on it. We all know about this party.”

Farah froze and gave a guilty look at Cy, like maybe she had screwed up by posting everything on her Facebook page. It didn't look like he gave a shit, but then out of the side of my eye I saw Cy Dowd take a thin rectangular piece of slate or something off the table.

“Hello, Wrenny,” he said, in what I perceived as a mocking tone. And I immediately thought it was freakish that he knew my name at all, much less called me Wrenny, which is what my father and my close friends call me.

“Oh, by the way, everyone is here,” I said. Now Farah didn't look so calm, and she sounded edgy.

“Oliver, Padmavati, and Reagan are here too, but they are in there.” I pointed to the room we had just come from. “We've come to take you home.” I did not look up at Cy Dowd. Nolan was standing behind me.

“Cy, wait here, okay? These are my friends and I have to deal for a minute.” He nodded and didn't seem to care at all where she went.

Farah got up and led Nolan, Charlie, and me even farther back into some kind of grownup video game room. She whipped around.

“Nolan, don't you have a gig or something?”

“Farah, what the—? Why wouldn't we all come to a party where we know you are going to be?” Charlie said. “And you look super-strange in that lipstick, you haven't found your color yet.”

Farah looked like a trapped silver fox standing next to an ancient Pac-Man video game machine.

“We think you are in trouble with this guy, Farah,” I said, putting my arms on her shoulders, attempting to calm the beast.

“I am certainly not in any trouble, Wren. I'm totally fine here. I'm here all the time, for your information. This is just a party.”

“What was Cy taking off the table, Farah?” Nolan asked.

“What
was
Cy taking off the table?” I asked too, because I actually didn't know.

“What? What the hell, Nolan, who even are you?” Farah's eyes darted in the direction of the kitchen room with the
Vogue
girls in it.

“What was he taking off the table? Drugs?” Nolan asked steadily.

“DRUGS?”
both Charlie and I said. Somehow, like an idiot, I'd thought this intervention was all about sex. Drugs had never crossed my mind.

“He totally slipped lines or something off the table when we came in. I saw him,” Nolan assured us.

“I'm not doing coke,” Farah quickly said, looking at the video game.

“God, Farah! Are you doing
coke
?” I whispered.

“
No!
God.” She was so lying—or was she? I wasn't sure.

“Farah, look in my eyes,” Charlie demanded.

“Oh, this is insane,” she said, peering into Charlie's eyes.

“Huh.” He sounded confused.

“What?” I said, watching him stare into Farah's widened eyes.

“If she was doing coke, her pupils would be as big as Frisbees,” Charlie said. “They don't look that big, but how can you tell in this crazy light?”

“I
know
I saw him hide something,” Nolan said, almost to himself.

Farah was standing there in what was clearly her mother's dress. I thought she was about to tae kwon do and kick her way out of there (like she said she would do in seventh grade if anyone took advantage of her).

“Farah.” Charlie took her hands. “I think I get why you are here.” She let him talk—we all did. “You are getting swept away by something so riveting and so powerful you can't help but go with it. But I don't think you should. Cy Dowd is a genius and one day you will be surrounded by men like that, but now is not the right time. We're too young. You are too young for him.” Farah looked at all of us and chewed her lipsticked bottom lip.

“You all came down here,” Farah said, buckling. Her shoulders crumpled and she started to cry into Charlie's arms.

“I can't believe you guys are here,” she said, muffled in Charlie's shoulder. Then she pulled away from Charlie for a second. “And it
was
coke.” She looked at Nolan. “He always has it. Everyone here is doing it,” she blurted out as she cried. “I don't do it.” She used both hands to put her hair behind her ears and looked down. “Well, I did it once. That first night.” Then she really started crying. “It was awful. I couldn't sleep and I felt like there were these black lacquer devils in my brain, but I haven't done it since. I hate it, and I just want to get out of here now.”

Nolan looked at me and mouthed, “See?”

Charlie took her in his arms and gave her a big Charlie hug. He was still in his green coat.

“Let's get out of here,” Nolan said and put his hand on Farah's back.

“I have things here—in his bedroom,” she said, looking wet-eyed and exhausted.

“Can you just leave them?” I said, putting my hand on her back too. She rested her head like a little kid on Charlie's shoulder.

“Yeah, I mean, I'd have to leave my favorite desert boots but…”

“I say bag the boots and let's go,” Nolan said.

“Do you want to say goodbye to Cy?” I asked, even after what she had told us. She shook her head no.

“Do you have a coat?” Nolan asked.

“It's in the bedroom.”

“Here, take mine.” Nolan took off his grandpa's overcoat and draped it around Farah.

Cy Dowd was gone from the kitchen when we came back. There was no fight for Farah. The most romantic part of myself thought maybe he would have tried to convince us that he really loved her, but who was I kidding? One word from me to my father about that tryst and his massive career would be in ashes.

Farah, who I thought would give a fight to stay, led us through the party, down the flights of nasty industrial stairs, and out onto the street. Maybe she was waiting to be saved all along. We stood in a circle looking at each other.

“Is your Christmas tree up, Wrenny?” Farah asked.

“Yeah, it is! And Dinah made eggnog today. Oh, let's go home!”

“Yeah, let's go home. It's only ten,” Oliver said, looking at his phone.

“Maybe we can get
It's a Wonderful Life
on Netflix?” Vati said and took Farah's hand.

“That is an awesome idea,” Oliver said, looking at Vati like she was a Christmas angel. Neither one of them knew what Farah had told us yet.

“Oh my god, I can't stand that movie, it was made a hundred years ago!” Reagan whined. She also didn't know what Farah had been doing with Cy Dowd. If she had maybe she wouldn't have put up a fight about
It's a Wonderful Life.

“Oh come on, you Grinch,” said Nolan, as he threw one arm around Reagan and the other around me. Charlie linked arms with Farah, who linked arms with Oliver, who was Velcroed to Padmavati. We made our way back through the fog that was also rolling through Brooklyn and onto the subway, uptown to our house. When we got there, we saw that the tree lights were on, and even though Dinah was asleep, her creamy, nutmegy eggnog was in the fridge. I made popcorn, and if you can believe it, we did go upstairs and watch
It's a Wonderful Life—
with my parents. “Hi,
guys
!” my mother said when she saw us come up the stairs. It was the first time since I'd told her I wasn't going to France that she seemed happy to see me.