I'm trying to meet the vice president of casting and talent at Sony but too many retailers and armies of associates and various editors with what seems like hundreds of cameras and microphones hunched over them keep pushing through the tents, relegating me to the boyfriends-and-male-models-sitting-around-slack-jawed corner, some of them already lacing up their Rollerblades, but then I'm introduced to Blaine Trump's cook, Deke Haylon, by David Arquette and Billy Baldwin. A small enclave consisting of Michael Gross, Linda Wachner, Douglas Keeve, Oribe and Jeanne Beker is talking about wanting to go to the club's opening tonight but everyone's weighing the consequences of skipping the Vogue dinner. I bum a Marlboro from Drew Barrymore.

Then Jason Kanner and David, the owner of Boss Model, both tell me they had a wild time hanging with me at Pravda the other night and I just shrug "whatever" and struggle over to Chloe's makeup table, passing Damien, who has a cigar in one hand and Alison Poole in the other, her sunglasses still on, angling for photo ops. I open Chloe's bag while she's being interviewed by Mike Wallace and search her datebook for Lauren Hynde's address, which I find and then take $150 and when Tabitha Soren asks me what I think about the upcoming elections I just offer the peace sign and say "Every day my confusion grows" and head for Chloe, who looks really sweaty, holding a champagne flute to her forehead, and I kiss her on the cheek and tell her I'll swing by her place at eight. I head for the exit where all the bodyguards are hanging out and pass someone's bichon frise sluggishly lifting its head and even though there are hundreds of photo ops to take advantage of it's just too jammed to make any of them. Someone mentions that Mica might be at Canyon Ranch, Todd's engulfed by groovy wellwishers and my feelings are basically: see, people aren't so bad.

12

I pull up to Lauren's apartment at the Silk Building right above Tower Records where I saw her earlier this afternoon and as I roll the Vespa up to the lobby the teenage doorman with the cool shirt picks up a phone hesitantly, nodding as Russell Simmons walks past me and out onto Fourth Street.

"Hey." I wave. "Damien to see Lauren Hynde."

"Er... Damien who?"

"Damien... Hirst."

Pause. "Damien Hirst?"

"But actually it's just Damien." Pause. "Lauren knows me as just Damien."

The doorman stares at me blankly. "Damien," I say, urging him on a little. "Just... Damien."

The doorman buzzes Lauren's apartment. "Damien's here?" I reach out to feel the collar of his shirt, wondering where he got it. "What is this?" I'm asking. "Geek chic?"

He waves my hand away, taking a karate stance. A pause, during which I just stare at him.

"Okay," the doorman says, hanging up the phone. "She says the door's open. Go on up."

"Can I leave the moped here, man?"

"It might not be here when you get back."

I pause. "Whoa, dude." I wheel the bike into an elevator. "Hakuna matata."

I check my nails, thinking about the Details reporter, the crouton situation, a conversation I had on a chairlift in a ski resort somewhere that was so inane I can't even remember what was said. The elevator doors slide open and I lean the bike in the hallway just outside Lauren's apartment. Inside: all white, an Eames folding screen, an Eames surfboard table, the roses I saw in Damien's office lie on a giant Saarinen pedestal surrounded by six tulip chairs. MTV with the sound off on a giant screen in the living room: replays of today's shows, Chloe on a runway, Chandra North, other models, ABBA's "Knowing Me, Knowing You" coming from somewhere.

Lauren walks out of her bedroom wearing a long white robe, a towel wrapped around her hair, and when she looks up to see me standing in the middle of the room asking "What's the story, baby?" she lets out a little yelp and falls back a few steps but then composes herself and just glares, eyes frozen, arms crossed, mouth set hard-a woman's stance I'm familiar with.

"Aren't you going to bother to hide your annoyance?" I finally ask. "Aren't you gonna like offer me a Snapple?"

"What are you doing here?"

"Don't freak."

She moves over to a desk piled high with fashion magazines, flicks on a crystal chandelier, rummages through a Prada handbag and lights a Marlboro Medium. "You've got to get out of here."

"Hey, can't we just talk for a minute, baby?" "Victor, leave," she warns impatiently and then scrunches her face up. "Talk?"