“Yes,” Lola said loudly, over the music. “I was with my boyfriend, Philip Oakland.”
“I love Nicole.” The girl sighed.
“Do you know her?” Lola asked.
“I’ve known her my whole life. She came to my third birthday party.”
Francesca took Lola into the bathroom, and they put on lipstick. The bathroom smelled of damp towels and vomit. “Philip Oakland is cool,” Francesca said. “How’d you meet him?”
“I’m his researcher,” Lola said.
“I dated my teacher when I was sixteen. I love older men.”
“Me, too,” Lola said, glancing out at Thayer and Josh, who were pretending to box each other. She rolled her eyes and decided she’d tortured Philip long enough. “I have to go,” she said.
When she got back to One Fifth, she found Philip in the kitchen, pouring himself a glass of wine. “Kitty,” he exclaimed. He put down the glass and immediately gave her a hug, then he tried to make out with her and put his hand on her breast. She stiffened and pulled away.
“What’s wrong?” he said. “I tried to call you.”
“I was busy.”
“Really?” he asked, as if surprised that she might have something else to do. “Where were you?”
She shrugged. “With friends.” She took out a glass and poured herself some wine, taking the glass with her into the bedroom.
He waited a beat and then followed her. “Kitty?” he said, sitting next to her on the bed. “What are you doing?”
“Reading Star magazine.”
“You don’t have to be pissed off,” he said, trying to pull the magazine away.
“Stop it,” she said, swatting at his hand and pretending to concentrate on an ad for Halloween costumes. “I have to figure out what I should be for Halloween.” She paused. “I could be Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton, but then I don’t know what you would be. Or I could be a dominatrix.
Then you could be a businessman, like that guy who lives in the penthouse. The one you hate.”
“Paul Rice?” Philip said. “A scumbag hedge-fund guy? Lola.” He stroked her leg. “I will do nearly anything for you. But I will not dress up for a child’s holiday.”
She sat up and glared at him. “It’s Halloween,” she said pointedly, as if the subject wasn’t open for discussion. “I want to go to parties. That’s what people do on Halloween. It’s the biggest holiday of the year.”
“Tell you what,” Philip said. “You can dress up however you want for me. We’ll stay home and have our own Halloween.”
“No,” Lola said. “What’s the point of dressing up if no one sees you?”
“I’ll see you,” Philip said. “Am I no one?”
Lola looked away. “I want to go out. There’s a Halloween party at the Bowery Hotel. This guy Thayer Core told me about it.”
“Who’s Thayer Core?”
“He’s this kid who works for Snarker.”
“What’s Snarker?” Philip asked.
Lola sighed dramatically and jumped off the bed, throwing down the magazine. She went into the bathroom. “How come we never do what I want to do? Why do we always have to go out with your friends?”
“My friends happen to be very interesting,” Philip said. “But it’s okay.
If you want to go to this Halloween party, we’ll go.”
“Will you dress up?”
“No,” he said.
“Then I’ll go by myself.”
“Fine,” he said, and went out of the room. What was he doing, playing this game? He was too old for this, he decided. He picked up the phone and called the director of Bridesmaids Revisited, who happened to be home, and got into a discussion with him about the film.
A few minutes later, Lola came into his office and stood in front of him with her arms crossed. Philip looked at her, looked away, and went back to his conversation. Lola went into the living room, steaming. Trying to think of a way to push his buttons, she remembered the spread of him and Schiffer Diamond in Vogue magazine. Removing the magazine from the shelf, she banged it down noisily on the coffee table and opened it up.
Sure enough, Philip came in a few minutes later, looked at her, saw what she was reading, and stiffened. “What are you doing?” he demanded.
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Where did you get that?” he said, standing over her.
“It was on your bookshelf,” she said innocently.
“Put it back,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because I’d like you to,” he said.
“Who are you? My father?” she asked teasingly, pleased to have gotten such a big reaction out of him.
He grabbed the magazine out of her hands. “This is off-limits,” he said.
“Are you embarrassed about it?”
“No.”
“Oh, I get it,” Lola said, narrowing her eyes. “You’re still in love with her.” She jumped up and ran into the bedroom and started pounding on a pillow.
“Lola, stop,” Philip said.
“How can you be in love with me when you’re still in love with her?”
Lola shrieked.
“It was a long time ago. And I never said I was in love with you, Lola,”
he said firmly, then immediately realized his mistake.
“So you’re not in love with me?” she asked, her voice rising in outrage.
“I didn’t say I wasn’t in love with you. I’m saying we’ve only known each other for two months.”
“More than that. Ten weeks. At least.”
“Okay.” Philip sighed. “Ten weeks. What’s the difference?”
“Were you in love with her?” Lola said.
“Come on, Kitty,” Philip said. “You’re being silly.” He went up to her, but she tried — not very hard, Philip noted — to push him away. “Listen,”
he said. “I’m very, very fond of you. But it’s too soon to say ‘I love you.’ ”
She crossed her arms. “I’m going to leave.”
“Lola,” he said. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to be in love with me. And I want to go to that Halloween party.”
He sighed. Relieved to be off the topic of his feelings for her, he said,
“If you want to go to the party, we’ll go.”
This seemed to mollify her, and she put her hands in the waistband of his jeans. She unzipped his pants, and unable to object, he put his hands in her hair as she knelt in front of him. At one point, she pulled her mouth away from his penis and, looking up at him, said, “Will you dress up?”
“Huh?” he said.
“For Halloween?”
He closed his eyes. “Sure,” he said, thinking, If it means more blow jobs, why not?
In the week before Halloween, the city was hit by a cold snap. The temperature dropped to thirty degrees, causing people to remark that maybe global warming wasn’t such an issue. For Thayer Core, the weather simply put him in a bad mood. He didn’t own an overcoat, and the cold air reminded him that he was about to experience his third winter in New York, in which his lack of proper attire would make him hate the cold, hate the businessmen in their long cashmere coats and cashmere scarves and thick, leather-soled loafers. He hated everything about winter: the giant puddles of slush on the street corners and the disgusting puddles of dirty water in the subway and the puffy coat filled with acrylic batting that he was forced to wear when the temperature dropped below forty. His only protection against the icy weather was this silly ski jacket his mother had given him for his birthday the year he’d moved to New York. She’d been so excited about the gift, her flat brown eyes exuding a rarely seen sparkle of anticipation that had hurt him because his mother was pathetic, and irritated him because he was her son. Still, she loved him no matter what he did. She loved him although she had no idea who he was or what he really thought. Her assumption that he would love the gift of a ski coat for its practicality annoyed him and made him want to drink and drug away his infuriation, but when winter came to New York, he wore the coat. He had nothing else.