Кэндес Бушнелл - Four Blondes

"Really?" he said.

And sure enough, I broke into sobs.

"I know a famous art dealer who's looking for an assistant for his new Soho gallery," the man said. "Will he treat me like a PROSTITUTE?" I said. "Prostitutes are very in right now. Everyone wants to be one. No woman wants to pay for her own Christian Lacroix and shouldn't have to." Naturally, the man turned out to be D.W.

And now he's sitting at an outside table at La Goulue, trying to work his cell phone. I slip onto the rickety white metal chair and say, "You're wearing ... seersucker?”

He says, "If s Valentino. Italian WASP.”

“Ooooh. The newest thing, I suppose.”

"As a matter of fact, it is. What’s your problem? Aren't you leaving tomorrow?”

"Can you get Bentley to lend Dianna a dress for the film festival?”

"Dianna," D.W. says, "is from Florida.”

“You go to Florida.”

"I go to Palm Beach. Palm Beach is not Florida." D.W. pauses while the waiter pours fizzy water. "I've heard she's from somewhere like ... Tallahassee? I mean, who is from Tallahassee? That we know.”

“No one," I say.

"Why does Dianna Moon want to wear Bentley, anyway? She could wear something from Fredricks of Hollywood and it would look the same.”

"That's right," I say.

"I don't like this friendship with Dianna Moon. You understand, don't you, that she's just like Amanda. A more successful version of Amanda, if you can call what girls like Dianna Moon do 'successful.'“

"She's a famous actress ...”

"Her career is, most likely, going nowhere. For some bizarre reason, possibly due to magazines like Vogue, this little upstart wants to come to New York and become the Leader of Society. And she's going to use you to get there. She wants to be you. Just like Amanda.”

"D.W.," I sigh. "Society is dead." He just looks at me.

"She doesn't want to be me. Maybe I want to be her," I say.

"Oh please," D.W. says.

"She's enormously rich. And she doesn't have ... a husband.”

"Because she killed him.”

"He was killed by ... evil forces. And parts of his body were carried off by aliens.”

"Why are you hanging out with a Jesus freak?" D.W. asks calmly, signaling to the waiter.

Good question. Because my mother is ... strange? "It's a very bad look for you. Very bad," D.W. says.

My mother came from a normal, upper-middleclass family, and her dad was a lawyer in Boston, but even today, years after she left the commune, she still refuses to dye her hair and wears Birkenstock sandals.

"Dianna Moon could ruin everything," D.W. says. "Your mother is so ... charming," Hubert said the first time he met her. But the implication was there: We don't really want the press interviewing her, do we, darling? We don't really want the press scratching around in your backyard.

And in a lot of other places as well. "Dianna Moon is ... fine," I say.

D.W. looks at me. "Well, just make sure you don't get rid of Dianna the way you got rid of Amanda. That might be rather ... obvious.”

For some reason, we find this hysterically funny.

I'm in a car and Dianna's driving way too fast and I know something bad is going to happen and sure enough, the car flies off the curve, launching itself over a cliff. We're airborne forever and below is a giant slab of cement and even though this is a dream and we're going to die, I can't believe I haven't woken up yet. Dianna turns to me and says, "I just want you to know that I love you. I really love you," and she grabs me and hugs me and I can't believe that I'm having a dream and I'm actually going to die in the fucking dream, which isn't supposed to happen, and I say, "I love you too," wondering what it's going to feel like when we hit the cement. We plunge down and down and I'm going to die in this dream and doesn't that mean you're supposed to die in real life? And we hit the cement but it doesn't feel as bad as I imagined it would, we just sort of squish through it and tumble out into this other place that is corridors and blue light.

Okay. Now we're dead, but we have to make a decision about whether or not we want to go back. I don't know what to do.

"I'm going back," Dianna says.

"What about me?" I say. "Should I go back?”

“I wouldn't if I were you, darling," she says. "Your face is kind of ... messed up.”

She laughs meanly.

If s probably eleven a.m. and I do wake up, curled in the fetal position, wearing one of Dianna's silk negligees with my white Gucci jacket on top and no underwear. Dianna is on the other side of the bed, lying on her back, breathing heavily through her mouth, and in between us is a small Frenchman, whose name, I think, is Fabien, whom we picked up last night on some other yacht. There's a spilled bottle of Dom Perignon on the carpet. I roll off the bed and crawl toward the bottle. There's still some left in the bottom, and I sit up and polish it off sloppily so champagne dribbles down my chin. I look over at the small Frenchman, who might actually be Swiss, and note that he is wearing blue Ralph Lauren boxer shorts and has too much hair on his chest.

My thoughts: I hate the French, so why should I go to Saint-Tropez?

I get up and stumble out of Dianna's cabin and into my own stateroom, which is littered with clothes (mostly tiny see-through Prada pieces with the labels prominently displayed) and Louis Vuitton luggage. I kick a small hard-sided suitcase out of the way and lurch into the bathroom, where I sit on the toilet and take what feels like an endless crap. As usual, the toilet doesn't flush, and my shit, light brown and in the shape of a large cowpat, sits there defiantly.

"Fuck you," I say to the shit. I look in the mirror and pluck some eyebrow hairs, even though there's supposedly a makeup artist on board who takes care of these things, and while I'm plucking and thinking that one of these days I'm probably going to need Botox, I'm also wondering if I did anything with the small Frenchman, but I'm quite sure I didn't because it isn't the kind of thing I WOULD do.

I've only HAD four boyfriends. Officially.

Dianna, on the other hand, will fuck anyone. I didn't know that about her.

And, I realize, I didn't want to.

Why am I here? For that matter, why am I anywhere? I go upstairs, reeling from the sudden impact of relentless white light. I'd forgotten about the white light in the south of France, so blinding that you always need sunglasses, and even then, it reveals too much. The captain, Paul, a good-looking Australian who is always wearing khaki shorts and a navy-blue polo shirt with the name of the boat, Juniper Berry, discreetly stitched on the pocket, is fiddling with some instruments. "Good morning," Paul says, like he's surprised to see me but is prepared to ignore whatever went on the night before. "Oh, your husband called. Hubert? He says he can't make it today, but he's going to try to get here tomorrow.”

My HUSBAND is coming? Did I KNOW about this?

I am so hungover, I can only nod numbly. After a few seconds I manage to stutter, "Are there any more cigarettes?”

"You smoked the last one an hour ago.”

I just stare at him, realizing that is probably some kind of JOKE that I don't get and never will, and I say, "I think I'll just go and buy some.”

"There are photographers outside.”

"Paul," I say wearily. "There are always photographers outside.”

I walk down the gangplank clutching my Prada wallet, still barefoot and wearing the negligee and the Gucci jacket, which, in the bright sunlight, I see is stained with large patches of what might be wine or raspberry puree or even vomit. I suddenly remember that I have no money because I'm in France and foreign money confuses me, so I stop and ask one of the photographers, all of whom have huge telephoto lenses in hopes of getting a topless shot of Dianna Moon (and maybe me, but I'm not as famous as Dianna is in France), for beaucoup d'argent.