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"Why didn’t you check it for me?" Bentley whines "Jesus, Bobby" "I didn’t knoas going to stay" Bobby shrugs, staring at me
After I’m seated at a table with Donatella Versace, Mark Vanderloo, Katrine Boorian iconoclast and we’ve all laughed at other people’s expense and sarettes and waiters have cleared away platcs of food that were barely looked at let alone touched and all of us have whispered secret things to the person on our left, Jaht fro next toto talk to Donatella, who’s talking to Franca-tellsfor Beirut tohdad and Dublin, where he’s roup, and he’ll be back in five days I’ing aily and she relays this information in such a way that if you were across the roo Donatella how terrific Victor looks or conte aloud how fabulous her life turned out and Ja it for the rest of the table to s to follow her, I bu silhouettes and shadows and I notice Bentleyexit with the Prada backpack and then the rock group Autour de Lucie starts tuning up, about to perfor, a cover of the Who’s "Substitute"
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ABBA’s "Voulez-Vous" blasts out over the sound track and in front of Les Bains a white Range Rover waits and in the front passenger seat the director froht’s sequence while in back various assistants staring intently ahead communicate on wireless headphones with the second unit, which has already set up at the designated site With the Prada backpack slung over his shoulder Bentley hops into the Range Rover as it pulls away, followed by a black Citroen, toward the Boulevard Saint-Germain Cafe Flore has been canvassed all week and a detailed description of its layout yielded the best table to leave the Prada backpack at Bentley studies the following scene on two pieces of fax paper, memorizes his lines
The cab drops Bentley off a block away from Cafe Flore and he walks quickly, purposefully, over to that outside table just off the sidehere Brad, the actor playing the NYU fil with two friends-Seattle waif boys who attended Cau in their seats with perfect hair, and an empty Starbucks cup sits in thefilled with newly bought T-shirts "Ooh, let’s play dress-up," Brad says when he sees Bentleytoward the table in his Versace tuxedo
Cafe Flore is packed, shirim satisfaction but Bentley feels lost He’s still haunted by the s that he always felt were too skinny though no one else did and it never ha career and he’s still not over a boy he met at a Styx concert in 1979 in a stadium somewhere in the Midwest, outside a town he has not been back to since he left it at eighteen, and that boy’s nah he initially fell for Bentley’s looks but Cal knew Bentley was emotionally crippled and the fact that Bentley didn’t believe in heaven didn’tso Cal drifted off and inevitably beca at HBO for a year or two Bentley sits down, already arette Next to them Japanese tourists studyshot
"Hey Bentley," Brad says "This is Eric and Dean They went to Ca diets"
"So that’s why I thought you all looked so cool," Bentley says, the Ca him to flash on Victor and what’s in store for hiht at Rex," Brad says hopefully
"Maybe,s Dean’s wrist, "Nice"
"Do you have it?" Brad asks, referring to the Ecstasy Bentley was supposed to bring to Cafe Flore
"I’o to Basil’s flat," Bentley says offhandedly, sroans, disappointed "That’ll take forever"