Diamond Girl (26 page)

Carly’s 'little cottage' on the property was a ten thousand square foot Tudor mini-mansion. Like I said before, her parents' strange adoration of her, and their desire to spend time with their child, continued to puzzle me, but despite the lure of a weekend in the Hamptons' version of the Sultan’s Palace, I declined Carly’s offer. 

She took my no gracefully - for her - saying only, “Okay, fine. I guess your plan is the usual: take a suite but spend all night at Endpoint and hope that Michael will take you home with him in the morning light, huh?”

I didn’t bite back. I smiled and told her that if she didn’t find what she was looking for over the weekend, to stop by Endpoint and I’d buy her a drink. Unsaid as she waved goodbye to me on her way out, was that we both knew Scott was going to be out in the Hamptons that weekend too, staying at his parents' estate, a nice old place, one millionth the size of Gold House but sharing the same stretch of beach.

I went home and packed a small bag for the long weekend and called Milan on my way out to the heliport, asking her if she was coming out.

She answered, sounding frazzled. “Oh no, Cares, not this weekend.” 

“Why not?” I asked her plaintively. When Milan was at Endpoint, we were the party, and also when she was there, Michael was forced to spend time with me as she was his most valued client. Without her, I just ended up drifting around, drinking too much, using too much, and looking lost and pathetic.

Her voice was cautious when she answered. “I just don’t feel like it, Cares. Endpoint's not like my first destination choice. I think I might fly out and see Mother and Daddy or, who knows, maybe I’ll just stay in and try to pay off a little of my sleep debt.” 

“No, come on, Mills. Hey, I know, we can stay at Carly’s place. You haven’t seen it and ...”

“Oh Gawd, Carly’s going out this weekend? Why, to try and hook up with Scott? How sad can you be?”

Eager to agree with her I jumped in. “Oh, I know. I mean, like can’t she tell he’s done with her?”

Milan’s voice sounded sad when she answered me. “Yeah, I guess not, huh? Sometimes a girl needs to just go away but she doesn’t know how to.” 

I wanted off the phone then. “Okay, well I guess I’ll see you next week. You have a good long sleep, Mills, or, you know, whatever you’re doing.”

“Cares, listen, don’t go. Stay in the city with me. We’ll have a slumber party like we used to. We’ll go on an all-chocolate diet and watch eighties hook-up movies.” 

“Whoa, sounds good, Mills - not. No, I’m going. It’s going to be a hot weekend in every sense of the word. You should come.”

“No, I don’t think so, Careybeary. It sounds to me more like a long drama trauma weekend with a bunch of girls, who should know better, out in the Hamptons chasing things they should forget about. The weekend of the train wrecks. Are you sure you think you have to go?”

“Gawd, nice shot, Mills, double ouch. And I don’t have to go, I want to go. I am going. Oops, listen, we’re taking off. The 'copter's too loud.” 

She said something I couldn’t hear, probably asking me not to go again.

I made kissing noises into the phone. “Okay, well, I’ll miss you. I love you and I’ll call you Monday and tell you everything you missed.”

Of course, I didn’t have to call her Monday. By then, along with everyone else on the Eastern seaboard, she had read or watched on TV all about what she missed.

Chapter 28

I spent Friday at Endpoint, and all of Saturday night. Basically I lived out Carly’s worst case scenario. I wasted the weekend angling for Michael’s attention. He was unavailable on Friday, and when I arrived again Saturday after a late dinner, he was distant and sent me off into to the tiny V.I.P. room, telling me to order something and that he’d join me in a minute.

V.I.P. rooms are only fun if they’re a novelty, which they aren’t for me, or if I was part of a group preferably centered on Milan. When she is with me, I always feel happier, or at least I don’t feel like some weird lost spectacle like I did that night. Hoping to please Michael, I ordered one of his stupid thousand dollar bottles of Cristal and I sat there with a whole booth to myself, while around me everyone else was either crowded ten deep in their booths or doing the usual floor space mambo, trying to hold onto their two inch space and look cool at the same time - no easy task.

I sat there alone for over an hour until Michael breezed in. When he did, he had two strange men with him, Arab guys, typical rich Middle-Eastern losers who would shell out ten grand for the privilege of being ignored by everyone.

Michael brought them over to my table. “Carey, this is Hamir and his brother, uhm, Samir? Gentlemen, this is Carey. Carey, you don’t mind if they join you, do you? You look like you’ve got the only available space in the place.”

The two guys looked at me uncomfortably, recognizing my glare of death, even if Michael was ignoring it.

The one he had introduced me to, raised his hands apologetically saying, “No, Michael, my brother Amil and I have no wish to disturb such a beautiful girl and one who is clearly enjoying her privacy.” He might have been trying to defend me but all I wanted to do was throw my nearly empty bottle of champagne in his face. 

His remarks only drew attention to my obvious aloneness, like anyone would be voluntarily seeking privacy in a breathing-room-only space. I heard a rude laugh coming from inches away and I turned to look.  In the adjacent booth, staring at me with a nasty grin on her ugly flat face, was the awful Karmen from L.A.. I hadn’t seen her since the night years before when I had met Michael, nor had I noticed her that night, but apparently she must have been watching me.

She said, “Hi, Carey, surprise! You didn’t even know I was here, did you? It’s great to see you again. You know the night I met you, I was so impressed. I called all my trashy L.A. girlfriends up the next day. That’s what you called us, right, trashy L.A. bitches? Yeah, anyway, I called them all up and said, guess what,
bitches, I spent last night partying with Milan Marin and Carey Kelleher. They had all heard of Milan, of course, but, you know what, Carey, not one of them knew who you were. So maybe that’s how you manage all that space. No one knows you and no one wants to.” She gestured to the two guys with her champagne glass, slopping half of it down her flat chest as she did so. “You two can join my table. We’re a little crowded, but if you don’t mind lap sharing, you’re good.”

I flushed, hoping Michael would rescue me. Naturally, he didn’t. As
always, he sucked up to his customers.

I smiled at her.
“Karmen with a K, right? Great to see you too. Well maybe not from this angle.” I addressed her skanky group of girlfriends who were watching our exchange with drunken interest. “Karmen and I only met once before but she’s hard to forget, isn’t she?” One of them nodded uncertainly. I flashed my dimple at Karmen. “I remember right after I met you, I said to Milan, 'Now there’s a standout girl'.” Karmen’s eyes widened in surprise. I nodded, still smiling, and toasted her with my empty glass. “I told her 'That is the first girl I have ever met who looks totally hawt … from the back'.”

Before she could jump over into my booth and pull out her switchblade, or whatever people like her carried in their bags, Michael jerked me out of the booth by my arm. He dragged me across the floor and outside. Sad to admit this, but I was happy. At least he was paying attention to me again.

When we got outside he pushed me against the wall and, ignoring the curious doorman and the line of people hoping to get in, he said, “You know what, Carey, that does it, you can’t ...”

“Michael, did you hear what she said to me?” 

His hair was hanging in his eyes and I automatically reached up to brush it away. He caught my hand, stopping me, and seeing the look in my eyes, he relented and brought my palm to his lips, kissing it.

“Carey, what am I gonna do with you?” I leaned into him, inhaling his Michael smell.

“You could take me home with you,” I said hopefully.

He straightened up. “I can’t, you know I can’t.”

“No, I don’t know, why can’t you?”

“Carey … Carey, listen, you have to stop coming out here every weekend,
you have to stop looking at me all the time like I’m the only person you see. You ...”

“You are the only person I see, Michael. I love you, I need you. That crazy bitch Karmen was right, I’m alone, and you know what, I don’t mind being alone. God, most of the time I think I’m better off alone. I never know what people want from me or what they want me to do, not even my own family, and I think I can deal with all that if I can be alone with you.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and, when he opened them again, I saw they were filled with tears. Taking advantage of his momentary weakness, I put my arms around his waist and buried my face into his chest. He groaned a little and pulled me into him, tangling his hand in my hair.

Some moron from the line cheered. “Oh look, they’re making up.”

I ignored them, chanting his name over and over in my head,
Michael, Michael, Michael,
a mantra against loneliness and lovelessness.

“Carey, baby girl, little lost girl, don’t you get it, baby? I can’t do this, not now.
Maybe one day, maybe. Baby, I’m twenty fucking years old, I’m not special ...”

“You are
, you are special.” I started to cry. “You’re special to me, the most special.” 

He leaned his head over mine and, for a second, we were alone, enclosed in each other.

“Don’t, baby, don’t cry, and don’t make me more than I am. All I am, Carey, is a pretty ordinary guy. I’m not big enough, or old enough, or anything enough to fill up your holes. You need …” His voice drifted off and I felt him shudder against me.

“I need?”

“You need to grow up too, baby, find something that means something to you, something you can’t buy. I don’t mean me, I mean … well, I don’t know, I just know I can’t do this right now.”

“This being with me?”

He sighed and pulled away from me. I tried to stand but I wobbled without him and started to fall. He steadied me, putting his hands on my shoulders, his face hardening. “Yeah, being with you and, Carey, I don’t just want you to stop coming out here because I need some space. I’m worried about you. Look at you, for Christ’s sake. When’s the last time you went to bed, how much have you had to drink, how much have you used?”

Before I could decide whether to scream at him or beg some more, we heard the sound of a large vehicle screeching up close behind us. I turned around, curious, and saw Carly at the wheel of a Mercedes S.U.V.. She saw me too and leaned out of her open driver’s window. “Hey, Carey, what’s up? See, I decided to take you up on that drink after all. Oh, hey, Michael. You two crazy kids makin’ up or breakin’ up again?” 

Someone in the line giggled. Mortified, I pulled out from under Michael’s hands and spun back toward the door. I heard the doorman say. “Maam, Maam, you can’t park there, that’s a fire lane.”

I heard Carly scream back at him in a slurred voice. “Fuck you, white trash.”

I shuddered. The night was starting to come down on me. I made it to the bar of the V.I.P. Room, planning to order vodka shots for myself and Carly, when I heard a booming crash and saw, in what felt like slow motion, people falling from their booths. I heard horrible Karmen scream out. “What the fuck?” and watched as she smashed face first down onto the floor, followed by a pile up of sprawled bodies.

I didn’t move until I heard the sirens and saw the red flashing lights reflect in the bar's mirror.

Slowly I headed to the main room of Endpoint and edged out the front door. It looked like a mini nine-eleven. There were ambulances everywhere and a cloud of dust from where something had smashed through the bars outer wall. The awning was gone and what seemed like a hundred people were screaming at once.

I think I was in shock because when I saw the flashing blue lights strobing over a huge pile of bloodied people, I didn’t faint or vomit or react. That’s how I got photographed, standing in front of Endpoint in a blue silk mini, still holding a vodka shot, with a dazed half smile on my face. When the camera flashed in my direction, I didn’t move. When the paparazzi said. “Carey, were you hurt?” I just shook my head, saying, “No, I was at the bar.” 

That was the picture and the headline in Monday’s Post in huge red letters.

She’s not hurt - she was at the bar.

The story, as I understood it later when I read the papers, was that Carly, in an enraged drunken stupor, had flipped off the doorman, put the car in reverse and backed over sixteen people, coming to a stop only when the rear of the Mercedes went through the club. Then she had put it into drive, running over a couple more people’s feet in the process, and peeled away, leaving the scene of the crime.

Like everyone else, I saw her walk of shame on all the stations as she was led into Manhattan's downtown precinct in cuffs, her long hair hiding her swollen face. I mourned my friend’s humiliation and my own even more. The news stations had cleverly unearthed a piece of footage from a fun little documentary I had made the previous winter.

The doc was called 'It Girls' and it was just a harmless fluff thing that showcased a few minutes of footage of various Manhattan socialites. Milan had refused to participate for no reason I understood then, but it did very well that Sunday. My air time was short, just two pieces: one showing me walking down
Fifth looking pretty and dressed for a luncheon, the other was in my apartment.