Invisible Boy Read Free Page B

since we’d graduated, back in ’81—just
     kept doing this jagged über-Euro party-girl circuit of London and LA and Palm Beach and the Upper East Side.
    It was pointless trying to keep an up-to-date address or phone number for her on hand. I relied on directory-information operators
     to tell me whether our orbits had aligned whenever I was in New York.
    This time I’d put it off for a couple of months, what with moving, looking for work, and stowing my furniture and old Porsche
     in a friend-of-Mom’s barn on Long Island. You know: life. All the grown-up crap I so royally sucked at.
    I dialed 411, gritting my teeth in anticipation of having to spell Astrid’s surname for the operator. It was Niro-de-Barile,
     shortened by Dean to “Nutty Buddy” in the very first phone message he’d written down for me the week he and I moved in together
     back in Syracuse.
    Today’s operator indeed had a listing for her—in the East Fifties, no surprise.
    I dialed, expecting to get her machine, and was surprised by her live actual “Hello.”
    “Hey,” I said.
    “Madissima, how the hell
are
you?”
    “Decent,” I said. “And at long last actually living in the city, thank God. You?”
    “I’ve been meaning to phone
you
, in fact, but couldn’t remember what they call that
last
godforsaken town you were living in, after Syracuse—”
    “Pittsfield.”
    “The aptly named. How
could
one have forgotten?”
    “With great pleasure and appalling haste,” I said. “What’s your news?”
    “Darling, it appears I’ve gotten
married
.”
    “Good God.”
    I heard her blow a stream of cigarette smoke against her phone’s mouthpiece. “Last Saturday, actually. Decided I was overdue.”
    “Who’s the lucky winner?”
    “Well, Antonini was out of town, so I stuck a pin in my address book and landed on Christoph.”
    “Was that the polo guy or the one with a Bugatti?”
    “The Swiss one.”
    “There was a Swiss one?”
    “I brought him up for drinks the summer you were all crammed into that place on Park and Eighty-ninth? He said he’d never
     seen a filthier bathroom?”
    “I thought you were mad for Prentice that year.”
    “
Fuck
me, I’d have had to live in Boston. Anathema.”
    “I’m rather fond of Switzerland,” I said. “Hot cheese. Subtitles in three languages. Not much for foreplay, if memory serves,
     but excellent value overall. Congratulations to him, and best wishes to you.”
    “We had great fun. Chartered a plane to Southampton.”
    “My least favorite place on earth, but whatever.”
    “And how is Dean?” she asked.
    “Fine, thank you. Looking for work.”
    “He’s an inventor or something?”
    “Or something,” I said.
    “I told Mummie you’d married a cabinetmaker.”
    I laughed. “How’d she take it?”
    “Oh, she was quite, quite pleased for you. She said, ‘How marvelous, just like David
Linley
.’ ”
    I cracked up.
    “Don’t
laugh
, Madeline,” said Astrid. “One has to break these things to Mummie gently. She’s not accustomed to reality.”
    “Oh, please. I mean, admit it, the image of
me
married to anyone even slightly
resembling
the offspring of Princess Margaret is pretty fucking funny.”
    I heard the click of Astrid’s lighter as she lit a fresh Marlboro.
    “Oh, and of course
Camilla
was asking after you,” she continued.
    I’d known the bitch as Cammy at Sarah Lawrence, and had made the mistake of introducing her to Astrid.
    “And how
is
darling Chlamydia?” I asked, not caring at all.
    “Blonde,” said Astrid. “Very,
very
blonde.”
    “I saw that. Some party shot in
Town and Country
, if memory serves—which just goes to show what an appallingly nouveau-riche rag it’s become.
And
she’s stolen my nose.”
    “Be generous. Her birth-schnozz was hideous.”
    “
My
nostrils disporting themselves at B-list Eurotrash galas attached to that odious Nescafé-society cow? She should at least
     rivet a small plaque to her upper lip crediting the