Less Than Zero Read Free Page B

Tahoe and I’ll shut my eyes and light another cigarette, gritting my teeth. Sometimes I just get up and leave.

    I ’m sitting in Du-par’s in Studio City, waiting for Blair and Alana and Kim. They had called me and asked me to go to a movie with them, but I’d taken some Valium and had fallen asleep earlier that afternoon, and I couldn’t get ready in time to meet them at the movie. So I told them I’d meet them at Du-par’s. I’m sitting at a booth near a large window, and I ask the waitress for a cup of coffee, but she doesn’t bring me anything, and she’s already started to wipe the table next to mine and taken another table’s order. But it’s just as well that she doesn’t bring me anything since my hands are shaking pretty badly. I light a cigarette and notice the big Christmas display above the main counter. A plastic, neon-lit Santa Claus is holding a three-foot-long Styrofoam candy cane and there are all these large green and red boxes leaning against it and I wonder if there’s anything in the boxes. Eyes suddenly focus in on the eyes of a small, dark, intense-looking guy wearing a Universal Studios T-shirt sitting two booths across from me. He’s staring at me and I look down and take a drag, a deep one, off the cigarette. The man keeps staring at me and all I can think is either he doesn’t see me or I’m not here. I don’t know why I think that. People are afraid to merge.
Wonder if he’s for sale.
    Blair suddenly kisses me on the cheek and sits down along with Alana and Kim. Blair tells me that Muriel was hospitalized for anorexia today. “She passed out infilm class. So they took her to Cedars-Sinai which is not exactly the closest hospital to U.S.C.,” Blair says in a rush, lighting a cigarette. Kim is wearing pink sunglasses and she also lights one and then Alana asks for one.
    “You are coming to Kim’s party, Clay? Aren’t you?” Alana asks.
    “Oh yes, Clay. You’ve totally got to,” Kim says.
    “When is it?” I ask, knowing that Kim always throws these parties, once a week or something like that.
    “Sometime near the end of next week,” she tells me, though I realize that probably means tomorrow.
    “I don’t know who to go with,” Alana says suddenly. “Oh, God, I don’t know who the fuck to go with.” She pauses. “I just realized that.”
    “What about Cliff? Weren’t you going with Cliff?” asks Blair.
    “I’m going with Cliff,” Kim says, looking at Blair.
    “Oh, that’s right,” Blair says.
    “Well, if you’re going with Cliff, I’ll go with Warren,” Alana says.
    “But I thought you were going out with Warren,” Kim says to Blair.
    I glance over at Blair.
    “I was, but I’m not ‘going-out’ with Warren,” Blair says, missing a beat.
    “You were not. You fucked. You didn’t ‘go-out,’ ” Alana says.
    “Whatever, whatever,” Blair says, flipping through her menu, glancing over at me, then away.
    “Did you sleep with Warren?” Kim asks Alana.
    Alana looks at Blair and then at Kim and then at meand says, “No. I didn’t.” She looks back at Blair and then at Kim again. “Did you?”
    “No, but I thought Cliff was sleeping with Warren,” Kim says, confused for a moment.
    “That might be true, but I thought Cliff was sleeping with that creepy Valley-turned-Punk, Didi Hellman,” says Blair.
    “Oh, that is not true. Who told you that?” Alana wants to know.
    I realize for an instant that I might have slept with Didi Hellman. I also realize that I might have slept with Warren also. I don’t say anything. They probably already know.
    “Didi did,” says Blair. “Didn’t she tell you that?”
    “No,” Kim says. “She didn’t.”
    “Me either,” Alana says.
    “Well, she told me,” Blair says.
    “Oh, what does she know? She lives in Calabasas for God’s sakes,” Alana moans.
    Blair thinks about it for a moment and then says slowly, evenly, “If Cliff slept with Didi, then he must have slept with …