Pictures in Magazines

Pictures in Magazines

by A. Diao Lavina

It is Thursday and I am wearing gray seersucker by Cerruti 1881, a light-weave casual shirt in off-white by Polo Ralph Lauren, a light brown pair of deck shoes by Topsiders, and eyewear by Giorgio Armani Ochialli. Outside, Boston is 70 degrees and rising; it's the middle of June.

Before I leave my Charles Street apartment, I eat a wholewheat muffin with no butter but with apple jam, a sliced kiwi, and wash everything down with Evian. The healthiness of the breakfast consoles me about last night's bingeing. Last night I had fetuccine alfredo with a sinful sauce, what amounted to a bottle of French white wine, and many tokes of some aromatic and smooth-on-the-throat hash which my friend Eric had brought back from Asia on board his father's absolutely gorgeous seventy-foot sailing vessel made from teakwood and fiber glass. This morning while shaving I noticed that the pasta had puffed my eyebags, and this made me yell at the bathroom mirror, so I opted to wear the faux tortoiseshell Armani eyewear, the rims of which help disguise the unflattering eyebags. At ten-thirty this morning, I have an appointment for a facial at Gio's on Boylston. I am fervently hoping that the eyebag will go away at noon, when Eric is meeting me for lunch at a hip new concept restaurant in Cambridge to tell me of tonight's plans.

When the elevators open, I saunter in, glad that it is summer and I can wear this light seersucker suit. The men in the magazine look like mummified bankers in their pinstriped blacks, midnight blues, and grays. They are mostly dull, overgrown geeks, preferring to talk about the Dow Jones and bestsellers, for Christsakes, which is the reason why I do not hang with them socially. One of the younger guys on the staff, Michael Hunter, is also a banker in dark blue today, but he has on a new Perry Ellis tie which oozes with panache, and I am glad that at least he is showing a sign of life. He sees me across the room and smiles and waves. I nod and smile in a friendly way because he and I went to Exeter together, and of course, because he has on that tie.

When I reach the door to my ffice which I share with another associate editor, I smile at my secretary, Connie, who I am sure is in love with me, and tell her to confirm my ten-thirty at Gio's. She smiles warmly, her eyes crinkling at the corners, and I notice that she has on a cream summer suit by Laura Biagiotti and fake but authentic looking pearl jewelry. Rumor has it that Connie graduated magna from Bryn Mawr in History and wanted to write for the magazine, but ended up in secretarial because she is a woman, and this very old, very prestigious magazine is composed of men and very few women who write like men.

Charles Lee, with whom I share my office, is already at his desk. He looks up as I enter and nods. I nod back. Charles is wearing a tacky red silk shirt from who knows where, and I am guessing his trousers are black, faded at the cuffs, and I don't want to even guess what shoes hw is wearing today. He wears prescription eyewear from Christian Dior and a black-leather-banded Timex. For the life of me I cannot figure wht Charles will not spend money on better clothes when he is earning as much as I am. He also needs a better haircut.

As I sit down at my desk, Charles says, "Meyer wants you to check the banana article. He came in a few minutes ago."

I pick up a sheaf of papers neatly paperclipped together and glance at the lead. Some eco-political feature on the banana industry in Latin Am. "What the fuck do I know about bananas?" I mutter loudly.

I unclip the pages and begin to read each line slowly, marking in blue pencil the details and facts I have to call people to verify, hating the fact that sooner or later, I have to call on the help of Luis Carruthers, the fag two offices down, because he can speak to the sources in Spanish.

Charles has laughed at my comment. He seems to find swearing extremely amusing. I am slightly irritated with him and have some derogatory remark at the tip of my tongue but then I don't bother In a far recess of my mind I feel sorry for the bastard. He was hired, I believe, because of something called affirmative action.

Eric is late, as he always is, and I take the time to glance around at the restaurant. It is a small, narrow room with square tables made from naked iron, sculptured chairs, also iron, and the bar is stremalined dark wood. The walls are white, but brick painted white, a surprisingly interesting effect. GRowing on the walls are what look like ivy vines. Scattered around the room are young people in tee shirts, shorts, and deck shoes. College kids. One of the females catches my eye and smiles a little smile, and I smile back because she is a hardbody with fantastic hair. She then flips away her hair in a gesture oh so vlley and I lose interest. Girls who flip their hair turn me off; the gesture viz-a-viz hair which turns me on is when a girl casually runs her fingers through her hair from the forehead roots because the hair has been semi-covering her eyes.

Eric drives up to the restaurant in the cream Porsche his father gave him for graduation, parks at the curb and leaps out, striding into the restaurant. He is wearing white sailing drawstring trousers by Nautica, a sports shirt in white and navy blue stripes by Lacoste, and sockless, canvas sneakers by Ralph Lauren footwear. His wavy brown hair flops around his face, he needs a haircut, but not in a distasteful way.

"Chase, you bastard."

I pump Eric's hand. "Asshole. You're late."

He grins, "But you waited anyway, you loser. Margarita?" At my nod he signals the waitress and sits. She comes to take our orders. Eric is having the Caesar salad with bacon bits, clam chowder and the salmon steak with paprika sauce. I order the salad without the bacon, clam chowder and the sole baked in lemon sauce. After the waitress reads back our orders, I instruct her to watch our margaritas. Good service should include making sure that fresh drinks are ordered and/or brought before the last two sips of the previous drink.

"So what's on the agenda?" I ask Eric the question I have asked him for ten years, since we were at Exeter.

"Anything with tits and poison," we chorus, laughing.

Eric leans to me as our laughter fades, his eyes twinkling. "Linda."

"Linda. Tell me about Linda."

"Canadian. Total hardbody. Educated. Recently signed on by that friend of Oscar de la Renta's--Prach Rintoroj."

I give a low wolf whistle. "And I am meeting this babe?"

Eric grins. "Tonight. The boat at eight."

The waters of Boston harbor lap on the sides of Eric's yacht, the Sweet Angel, like a lullaby, rhythmic and soft. The sound brings back a lot of summer nights like this one, when Eric and I were boys, what, fifteen or sixteen, lying on the deck smoking cigarettes we paid his chauffer to buy, talking about what we would do after Exeter, after the Ivy League. I mouthed my father's dream, to be some hotshot surgeon like him. Eric always talked about weird ambitions--to be a stunt pilot, a detective, a horse trainer, jobs which we spoke of at length but knew to be mere brave words because Eric was destined to own his father's bank. In the end, I was the one who did the unexpected. After dinner the night my family celebrated--although it was expected--my acceptance into Harvard, I turned to my father and said that I wanted to be a press man.

He didn't blink as he looked at me. This is one of my father's facial gestures: a stare so blank and so full of meaning at the same time that when you look at him you feel pure intense fear for a full minute that you have certainly displeased him. In that minute I thought of his displeasure like I had so many times in my life, and I almost retracted my words at once, I was ready to swallow them and taste the bitterness, and say, Yes, I would be a surgeon, sir.

All Father said was, "Are you sure, Rex?"

I managed to swallow the dryness in my throat and say, "Yes, Sir." And that was it. Four years of Political History at Harvard, and I was on my way at one of the country's oldest and most prestgious magazines, the only one that in over a hundred publishing years has had a mere three editorial mistakes and two retractions.

Eric went on from Exeter to Princeton, where his father and two previous generations had gone before him. He didn't really need to go to university, he had this destiny, the poor bastard, but he did anyway. Seven years trying to finish a Philosophy degree. Late nights at my apartment in Cambridge, having driven all thay distance to labor, to agonize over arguments which he constructed beautifully with language so elegant, reminiscent of Neitzsche, and then doubted. I spent many of those nights swigging vodka tonics with Eric, the only philosopher I knew who could argue against himself so flawlessly and with absolute objectivity. He tore up his own premises and spit on his own constructs. When he finally graduated, his father showed unbounded pleasure by purchasing for him a unit at the Trump Plaza, a Porsche, and much leisure time and money. A lot of which he spent with models and boarding school friends.

A car's headlights cut into my thoughts. A fire engine red Maserati, very sexy. It's Courtney, Eric's new girl, with Linda. I glance once more at the water. Pitch black. In the distance the houses on the jagged inlets beside the Harbor wink their living room lights. The moon is huge and low. The breeze ruffles my hair. I sigh and turn to greet the women who are just walking on deck.

"Rex," says Courtney, and her voice is deep and beautifully modulated without her trying. She wears a body suit by Karita ossel, shoes by Susan Bennis Warren Edwards. Escada. Courtney introduces me to Linda, and I take Linda's hand, her hand is warm and dry, and I hold it for a heartbeat longer than protocol allows because I want her to know that she is indeed very welcome this evening. Linda is wearing a long, flowing trouser suit by Giorgio Armani and shoes by Sidonie Larizzi. On her I detect Armani for Women.

I take Courtney and Linda below deck to the living-dining area where Eric is mixing margaritas. Courtney quickly goes to the kitchen counter, behind Eric, as he pours Triple Sec into the blender. She embraces him from behind, running her hands over his chest and kissing his neck, saying, "Mmm."

Linda has chosen to grace the couch, and I follow suit. I step out of myself for a few seconds to view us on the couch. We make a great couple tonight. I am wearing a beige linen suit by Armani, a weave polo shirt by Elle, and loafers by A. Testoni.

Because I know that Linda is educated, I do not ask her how she likes working the catwalk. This is how it is with models; the ones who have twelve-year old brains enjoy talking about clothes, and the educated ones like other, more mentally-stimulating conversation.

By the time we finish eating the catered meal, Eric and Courtney are both buzzed on the margaritas and have moved to the far side of the cabin to become busy French kissing, their shadows moving giant and slow through the dim light of the cabin. Linda and I are deep into a discussion of Quebec seccessionist politics and I am actually enjoying talking with her. When she speaks her voice is deep, soft and cultured with a hint of an accent, probably speaks French like a nineteenth-century Frenchwoman, and I find myself warming toward her, so during a lull in the conversation as we both mused the Anglophile side of the argument, I ask if she wants cappucino or something.

She says, "Decaf herbal tea," and I make the tea for her and the cappucino for me, and we take our cups up on deck, standing aft, away from the flourescent glare of Boston Harbor.

We stare out at the ocean for a few minutes, not talking, sipping. Then Linda surprises me with, "Am I expected to sleep with you tonight, Rex?"

I am too startled by the question, she sees this, and we laugh.

"Well," she persists gently, and I hear the smile in her voice.

"I suppose yes," I say, regaining composure, smiling back. I look at Linda's profile in the meagre light. She is stunning, attractive, sexy, a harbody. Yes. But curiously, I do not want to sleep with her. No, that's not true. I do. But I do not want to fuck her.

A small breeze plays with her hair, and I feel like bending down to press its fragrance against my face. I don't do it. Instead, I say, "Linda, um, we don't have to." I surprise myself as I say this, hearing a voice that is soft with tenderness, and I am afraid to say any more.

The next day Eric calls at the magazine with questions. "C'mon, Chase, what the fuck happened?" He is referring, of course, to Linda. After our comfortable silence on deck, she said she had to get home for the next fourteen hours of sleep, and when we entered the cabin, Eric and Courtney were already in one of the lowerdeck bedrooms doing the wild thing, so I decided to take Linda home in my black Miata. I drove Linda from Boston to her house in Albany.

"Nothing happened, Eric," I say calmly.

Eric grows savage nad bloodthirsty at the other end, cursing me, "--fucking closemouthed about it, c'mon Chase, tell old Eric. I want to know, you bastard."

I think of getting to Albany, to Linda's doorstep,in two hours flat, her hesitation to let me in. It was almost one in the morning, and perhaps realizing this, she finally invited me in for more decaf herbal tea. We ended up talking until she couldn't stifle the yawns any more, so I asked if I could nap on her couch until five-thirty and then drive back to Boston. She had smiled at me then, it felt good not to have the sexual tension thing between us, and I got the downstairs bathroom for some rudimentary washing up and she went off to get me a sheet and a pillow.

"Look, Chase, I got you the date. The least you could do is tell me how it was." He has taken on a whining tone, mock hurt.

"I know, Eric, I am grateful, I like her. But nothing happened, OK?"

Eric sighs exasperatedly at the other end and asks what I'm doing this weekend. I tell him something vague. He invites me to his family's estate on Cape Cod, but I don't make any promises. We hang up.

This is what I do not want to share with Eric. After the bathroom, I wrapped myself in the sheet Linda had left on the couch, lay my head on the pillow, and was falling asleep fast. But in the twilight just before unconsciousness overtook my senses completely, I felt rather than saw Linda descend the stairs in bare feet, then I felt her standing over me, perhaps to ensure I was asleep, then she bent down to brush my forehead with her lips, whispering, "You're a nice guy, Rex Chase."

Meyer, my direct superior at the magazine, hands me a short feature on a new Broadway musical after lunch. Since it is Friday, and in a few hours I am free, I plod with the verification on the phone, gritting my teeth at the three faggy voices I speak with at the offices, wincing at the poor choice of words of the play's press agents, but I want the thing done, and done well, because once it is done I can leave.

At three the article is covered with notes in blue pencil, I have rechecked it five times, and it satisfies me. I am about to call Connie to take it to copywriting when the phone rings.

It is mother. "Rex, will you be home this weekend?" She means my father's estate in the Hamptons.

I could go home this weekend, but it depends on what my father wants. So I ask Mother, "What are your plans?" which means what does my father want. This is a ritual going back to Exeter days. My mother, the ambassador, the bearer of familial concerns, called on Fridays to ask if I were coming home, and I asked questions the answers to which tell me what is expected.

My mother has been saying something about a lecture in Brussels my father has to give. She ends, "...we leave for London tomorrow evening."

"What about Lucille?" I ask after my sister, who is a cellist.

"She needs to stay in school this weekend." My sister is only fourteen, born nine years after me, but she has been accepted into Juillard on some meritocratic scholarship.

I sigh inwardly with relief. Lucille and I are not close at all; sometimes I think that her music is all that matters in her life. I do not let on about my feelings and instead tell my mother, "Perhaps I should stay in Boston this weekend, Mother."

"Yes, perhaps," my mother agrees, and the matter is settled, no one feels any guilt.

I am free for the weekend. No commitments to Eric, no date(s), no family weekend. This thought feels vaguely comforting; I think of staying homw to unpack and test the new Panasonic RQ-V197 stereo with a feature called the Virtual Motion Sound. On headphones, VMS systems capture what Panasonic advertised a "More realistic listening experience." I am testing the system with Crystal Waters' new dance album on CD; if the system shows off Crystal's deep, throaty and powerful vocals and the throb and hiss of the backup band, I am sending a confirmation to the Panasonic dealer on Boylston to purchase the stereo.

The only thought which bothers me about a weekend by myself is the fact that I shall have to dine alone.

To avoid feeling alone, I decide to dine beside the Harbor, at Mario's Lobsters. The proprietor is a large Italian with a Boston Irish accent. He is extremely friendly and knows Eric and me from Exeter days. Mario's boasts one of the best clam chowders in the entire Boston area, and his other specialties include baked oysters, fresh oysters with a tangy lemon and powdered Santa Fe chilli sauce, and of course lobster with all kinds of palate-pleasing sauces. Many young people who live and work around the Boston area come to dine at Mario's, especially since from the waterside tables the sunset catches and creates a sense of being in a foreign, romantic and beautiful place. It is also a stylish place. Even though the tables are wooden, picnic style, and the table linen is checkered red-and-white, the clientele know how to dress, so one feels quite at home in the restaurant.

When I get to my apartment, after a ten-minute drive from the magazine building, I shower and change into more comfortable clothes. Today at work I worea neutralized seaweed-colored linen double-breasted suit, a cream shirt, and a patterned tie (onions and lemon wedges!) all by Giorgio Armani, and cap-toed leathers by Allen Edmonds. I change into a light silk and cotton shirt with tapered cuffs by Paul Stewart, khaki chinos by Polo Ralph Lauren, and dark brown deck shoes by Sebago Docksides.

I am extremely hungry and want to get to the Harbor area before my hunger ignites a fiery temper and I run the risk of wrecking the Miata, but as I groom my hair, I observe that the new gel I bought from Gio's has darkened my normally brown hair and I look like a fucking Chink. So I spend twenty minutes styling and restyling to schieve the look I want, in the meantime screaming to the mirror, "I look like a fucking Chink! Fuck!" etc etc.

At Mario's, ravenous, striding to a table near the water, I am glad that I spent the extra time grooming myself because Courtney and Linda and another girl are at the restaurant. I pretend not to notice them until the waitress is seating me at a table next to theirs, and then I get up again to saunter to their table and say hello.

"Rex!" exclaims Courtney, and Linda introduces the other girl as Kristanna from Latvia. In the protocol of the circles I move in, a model must pretend not to be too interested in her friend's male friend, so instead of Linda asking the question, Courtney does. "Dining alone tonight, Rex?" Of course, Linda's interest in whether or not I date heavily ideally means she is interested. Coolness.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I am," I say with my best smile. I look into Linda's eyes, and perhaps detect a smile or twinkle of something? and then I decide to go for it, still looking deep into Linda's eyes, our glances locked and feeling like live wires brushing my chest, and I say, "I could only think of one number I wanted to call when I thought of dinner, but unfortunately I was not in possession of that number."

Linda looks away but not before she gives me a smile, and Courtney visibly beams at my timely flirting. I can tell the other girl, Kristanna, is puzzled by all of this. She looks like an eighteen-year old from an old country, which she is.

"Why don't you join us, then?" asks Courtney.

I check with Linda. She grabs me again with her eyes, and locked in Linda's smile I say, "Yes, please," and sit while everyone laughs a little. I am sitting flanked by Linda on the left and Latvian girl on the right. Linda is wearing an ivory white fitted suit by Bella Freud with nothing much on underneath, her vertical shoulder lines exciting me a little. The Latvian girl wears a cream Krizia and Courtney looks shapely in a tight tee shirt by Ferrari and white jeans by agnes b.

"Will you be joining us this weekend, Rex?" asks Courtney.

Before I answer, the waitres comes for our orders. We all favor the smoked salmon salad and the clam chowders. Courtney wants the grilled oysters with a sauce made from dried and powdered Santa Fe chillis and the stuffed grilled tomatoes. I order the red mullet mussel and pepper risotto with saffron. Linda and Latvian girl are skipping the main course. Courtney and I decide to split a bottle of Caliterra Sauvignon Blanc from Chile; it would go beautifully with the oysters and risotto with its elegant, refined, purposeful and simply superb balance of fruit and acid.

The wine and main course will undoubtedly plague Courtney with guilt afterwards, but she is paper thin with a fantastic complexion which cosmetics giants pay ten grand to feature in ads, so this one binge will not really hurt her.

"Eric urged me to go this afternoon," I answer Courtney's question (which is really Linda's question, maybe?). I desperately want to know for certain who the "us" is that Courtney mentioned, whether she means Eric and herself or if she means Linda as well. I search for clues in Courtney's eyes, but all I get is blank but bright light.

"If you decide to go, we could drive two cars," miraculously Courtney has read my thoughts and her statement indicates that yes, Linda is going. So I turn to Linda and ask, "What time tomorrow would you like to leave Albany?"

"Midmorning, noon at the latest," Linda offers, her voice trails around my neck like velvet ribbons and I am very, very pleased, the sun's orange drenches Boston with a warm, warm glow.

As soon as I get up the next morning, a shocking ten minutes before my Phillips World Traveller alarm clock pulses, I am humming some vague Gershwin tune. I take great care to pack the weekend bag and spend forty minutes in the shower, whistling, and another twenty minutes shaving and pampering my face with the new moisturizing treatment from Clinique. I splash on some XS by Paco Rabanne and walk into the bedroom in my blue and red Tommy Hilfiger boxers. I decide to wear a cotton-poplin crew shirt by Wilke-Rodriguez, cotton and seersucker shorts by Perry Ellis, and sneakers by Cole Haan.

Before heading for Albany, I stop by Winston Flower Shop, which luckily opens at 9.00 on weekends, to pick up a dozen long-stemmed white roses peppered with baby's breath and purple heather.

I arrive at Lind'a doorstep at eleven-oh-six, and instead of honking the horn as she asked, I ring the bell clutching the bouquet behind me like some old, misted-over Valentine's card. Linda opens the door quickly, as if she's been anticipating my arrival, with this amazingly gorgeous smile on her face, and I say Hi as if it gave her the entire world, and she says Hi as if it meant everything. I hand her the flowers with a flourish and say, "Not as beautiful as you are."

She exclaims delight and surprise and takes them, cradles the bouquet in her arms, steps back, "Come in, Rex."

It happens quickly. One minute I am stepping into the hall of Linda's bright and airy house, the next minute we are moving close urgently, my face seeking hers, our lips finding each other's, opening, tongues touching and wanting, the kiss deep and breathless and smelling of crushed roses.

It was well into five in the afternoon when Eric's call came. I picked up knowing it was him, saying, "Uhmm," because Linda had at that moment decided to kiss me.

Eric was yelling so both Linda and I could hear, "Chase, you bastard, are you at least making it for dinner?"

I consult my langorous Linda and she nods. "Yes, Eric, we'll be there by eightish." I laugh into the phone. Linda whispers that she's showering now, and speechlessly I watch her slowly get out of bed, naked, walking to the bathroom. I begin to be excited all over again watching her this way so I turn to the phone and Eric's unexciting voice. He is telling me about the agenda. Dinner at the house, then if we feel like it, a short sail to the edge of the Cape. He begins to mention some drugs he scored this morning and I cut him off with, "Um, Eric, I am not positive on that."

"What, excuse me, Chaseman?"

"Look, Eric, I'll do some if I feel like it, OK?"

"Hey, Chase," Eric is incredulous, "what, she's changing your habits now?"

I say nothing.

After a pause, Eric breathes out, "OK. You don't have to. He sounds confused. I have no way of explaining to him how it is: when I am with Linda, other intoxications seem diluted to the elevnth-thousandth chemical unit.

"It's cool, all right, Eric?" I try.

"Yeah," he finally says, the old voice coming back, "it's cool, Chase."

Eric's father's estate on the Cape employs one of the best chefs working for a household. Dinner was sumptious, starting with the tempura oysters with fried and drained Japanese white noodles and an exciting mysterious sauce, followed by the Caesar salad with bacon bits, then, skipping soup, we all had various-sized portions of pasta primavera with a mix of healthy courgettes, baby caroots, sugar snap peas and chopped parsley. The cream sauce, which the women skipped, was tinged with the taste of sweet red bell peppers, a culinary feat in its subtlety as it bewildered the tongue. Also served to accompany the meal was a pleasant English wine, a vintage from Thames Valley Vineyards which tickled where the pasta left off.

Tonight I wear a white dress shirt with cuffs fastened by pearl and onyx cufflinks, white trousers, a double-breasted, six-buttoned pinstriped black suit jacket, a silk tie, and captoed leather oxfords, all by Polo Ralph Lauren. Eric sports a pinstriped cream linen suit by Perry Ellis, a tee shirt from agnes b. and suede wingtips by Polo Ralph Lauren Footwear. Courtney has on a black Krizia and d'Orsay pumps by Manolo Blahnik. But the evening's beautiful one, truly, is Linda, who outshines us all in a long, flowing dress by Erreuno which bares her shoulders and back, held up by a metal ring around her graceful neck and moves sensually with her as she moves.

All through dinner Eric makes the women laugh with stories from Exeter, and even though I chip in details, I am somehow distracted because I can't help observing how utterly attractive and stylish the four of us are in Eric's father's dining room with its high ceilings and Swedish chandeliers. Every bite we chew seems designed for us, and every inch of fabric clothing our bodies seem to fit our expectations in the most perfect ways, and I begin to wonder if we weren't living in some magazine picture somewhere, and this thought scares me with its surreality, and I let myself fall fast from the thought without gestating its meaning by commanding my senses to focus acutely on the pleasures before me.

I am somewhat relieved that dinner did not linger, and Eric stood up to announce that perhaps we could have espressos and decaf herbal tea on the Sweet Angel as we sailed to the edge of the Cape.

Linda became extremely busy with the new show to open the following month, and I did not see her except for the ocassional evening when I would take the short flight to New York after leaving my car at her Albany place. I picked her up from rehearsals and "concept meetings" which I suspect totally bored her because she never talked about them and which I suspect consisted of fags sashaying around talking in their faggy voices about how fabric should drape and mold and how the body was a mere tool for showing off clothes, Darling.

After I picked her up at the agency building across from Tiffany's, we jetted into Albany and took cabs to her place,