Alan is the sort of guy who is a an embarrassment in many situations — an investment banker/aspiring poet, he’s been known to bellow, apropos of, say, a Ponzi scheme, Ginsberg’s preamble to “Howl” – “I’ve seen the best minds of my generation destroyed starving hysterical naked!” But this was new. He was … well, nearly nude. Could he actually have been having some sort of affair with Lizzie? This would have been an unprecedented low — even for us. But what had happened? Before I could ask, Alan dragged Oliver into one of the five bedrooms (we were in the club-adjacent Glitter & Garbage suite – Bruce had a talent for tossing consumerism on its head – in a very consumerist way, at least when it came to little things like room titles), and the two of them began screaming like banshees.
I looked over at Twink. She had a half-sucked candy cane in her lap and was sitting in a red velvet chair, eyes closed again. A part of me wondered if Oliver had dropped a Valium in her drink (he wasn’t above such things when children annoyed him). When the words, “Love can touch us one time/And last for a lifetime” escaped her valentine mouth, I breathed a sigh of relief; at least she was still alive.
Bruce followed Alan and Oliver and closed the door, and I listened in shock (the truth is, I was also surprised Bruce had appeared at all tonight, what with his family-agoraphobia). Soon, the hubbub died down, but the tension remained — and occasionally words drifted out: “clementine,” “fidelity” and finally, inexplicably, “revenue.” I didn’t know what to think.
“Honey, please put this at the top,” Mother said to me, handing over a ceramic angel, golden and pink. I remembered buying this tchotchke in a gift shop in Inverness, a little town we used to go to as a family back when we were normal — or at least before father left us for his “other family.” By now, we knew he wasn’t coming tonight — again. I’d been fourteen when it happened, Bruce 11, Oliver 9. I still had a hard time accepting it and the truth is, I think of everything he bought as my “parents” to this day. I think of the years before the split sometimes, in dark bars and on late nights on the Upper East Side of Manhattan or in Mayfair after long hours at my day job as a fashion publicist for houses like and Celine and Dior and Galliano. Once… Once upon a time we were people.
“But we still are!” shouted Twink, suddenly awake and giddy. She was talking about celebrating Christmas — mother had said it was too bad we weren’t being festive anymore. I hoisted the Twinkster onto my knee (she’d been cleaned up by Harold, making me almost love him). She jumped off. “Let’s go to the elevator.” She tugged on my leg. “I want to see Heavens.” Her eyes twinkled. “Honey,” I said, “No.” She meant Hebbens. Could she really be into S&M, at least emotionally, at this tender an age? God help us.
“Open a present instead.”
Bruce walked back out, calmer, but went straight to the window and looked out at Vegas like he wanted to eat it. “How are you two?” I asked, jumping down off the stepladder after putting the angel — crookedly — at the tree’s top. I was referring to him and Lizzie. He turned to me, steely. My mother was holding her breath. Things were bad, still – we could both see it.
“I’ll go find her,” I said.
* * *
I wandered the hall. I was still woozy from whatever it was that led me to pass out: Grey Goose mixed with Adderall? Klonopin? I looked down for a moment and saw I was wearing something fabulous – a mink shrug and hot pants. (This, by the way, is an enduring secret of fashion: your best outfits grow out of being cold, or naked and needing something quickly — that is, if you have an eye. Which I, professionally, do.)
The hall was vertigo-inducing, peppered with glitter, seemed like it was melting: Fuck drink and drugs and the horse that rode them in. I found Lizzie and Bruce’s door, and knocked. Sharon Stone opened it. Oops, wrong door. But I stood there, transfixed: Sharon was laughing. She laughed and laughed, head back and loudly. Was it a mirage? To this day, I don’t know. Finally, she closed it.
Lizzie appeared down the hall. She slammed her door shut, and I saw she had Fluffers, her tiny over-serviced Shih Tzu, in one hand, and a giant Hermes suitcase in the other. She wheeled the bag toward me. Then she pointed at my head.
“Antlers,” I said. “You know, mother’s Christmas thing.”
She stopped walking. “No, da red. In your eyes.” Have I mentioned that Lizzie is a hot-blooded Spaniard with a trash-meets-tough accent via Charo, 1978?
“It’s a long story,” I told her.
“Welcome to da club,” she replied, turning on her tiger print Louboutins: Could she really be leaving Bruce? Were we all that lucky?
“Where are you going? Liz.”
“Your brudder’s a whore,” she said with emotion. “I can’t do dis anymore.”
“He’s a whore?” I bellowed. “You… You are a whore.”
She set Fluffers down and lit a cigarillo, surveying me. It was like she wanted one final showdown. “What do you dink happened? Who do you dink I ham?”
Of course, I didn’t know. “I just saw him with one of your showgirl things…And then Alan…”
She told me the story. Alan was in Lizzie’s closet – that much was true. He’d gotten the key to their suite from her when he’d arrived a few hours early and hadn’t been able to track down the rest of the family. She’d left and he’d indulged a secret penchant for dressing up like Ziegfeld girls and Rockettes, Cher at the Grammys and other Bob Mackie wet dreams. But with Bruce and Lizzie’s history, when my brother came in and she was changing out of her clothes for the evening – and there was a naked man there too (Bruce and Alan had never met) there’d been a misunderstanding. Bruce, in other words, thought they were fucking – and Alan wasn’t in the mood to explain that he just had a weakness for sequins. By the time he’d tried to straighten it out, Bruce was gone, running after Lizzie – who was already on the run from her “vackadoodle” husband. At least that’s how I think it went.
“Just tell Bruce,” I said, softening. “You’re in the right. Listen, I’m sure Alan already has told him. He still seems upset — but that’s just him.”
Fluffers was jumping up on a 100-year-old woman with pink hair. “Foofers!” Lizzie called. The minute dog ran back, gaily.
“No. You vont to know da problem? Bruce doesn’t LIKE me. No one in dis family likes me. I try — and I not perfect, I know dat. But wut can you do? You know?”
Yes, I knew.
Lizzie was genuine now. I realized this was the first time we’d actually talked. “Why you not like me?”
“Me?”
“All of dem.” She waved her cigarillo in the air.
It was true: It wasn’t just my mother who had a problem. “We don’t like anyone. None of us do. Don’t take it personally.”
Lizzie put the cigarillo out in her silver case, scooped up Fluffers, and started for the elevator.
Watching her, something overtook me. She never was a true mother to Twink, but in that moment I felt for the little girl. In fact, I felt I was Twink. If I’m being honest, I’d been Twink for a long time – we all had. Ever since dad went away.
“Don’t go,” I said. “She needs you. He does too.”
Lizzie stopped, and turned around.
* * *
When we arrived back at my family’s suite, the lights were dim, only tiny twinkling ones on the tree matching the glitter of the Strip outside. I wasn’t sure where everyone had gone. Oliver came out of the bedroom. He had another Viva Lost Vegas in hand, and Alan could be glimpsed inside — now in a suit – on the phone.
Twink came out of the shadows, and walked up to her mother, who was her usual self: Twink’s incessant tugging on her arm was ignored.
I walked Twinks over to the minibar and broke out a giant Capri Sun, putting the straw to her mouth. “You wanna see Heavens again, huh?”
“I want to make him know trouble,” she said between guppy-like gulps.
“You know you really should behave, darling-lu,” I said. “I mean, I think you’re a wonder, but polite society–”
Oliver walked up. “Let’s be honest: Hebbens had it coming to him.”
Twink shook her head like a 40-year-old. “But didn’t he?”
“Where’s your mother?”
“Your mother went downstairs to try her luck again.” He was smoking now, and accidentally ashed on Twink’s head. She giggled and wrinkled her nose. I brushed the ash away and gave him a look re Lizzie — who was putting antlers on Fluffer. “Don’t make a scene.” He went over, gave her a hug: “Nice to see you.” He turned back to me and mouthed: “What?”
I saw a small crown on the floor – apparently Twink had opened one of her presents and out had come this somehow joke-like toy. I picked it up and placed it gently on her head. She started to twirl around the room.
“Where’s Bruce?”
“With mother and Harold.”
“How did that happen?”
Oliver shrugged. “He likes being famous. Among the ‘people.’ Even if it means being around people who love him too.” He drained his cocktail. “We’ll see the club tomorrow. This is enough for one night. Oh, and Glen sent me another text,” he said. “Apparently, Suzy Wetlaufer has terrible shoes. Is your boyfriend gay?”
“Probably,” I said, glum. Oliver patted my head; I let him.
“What happened earlier?”
“You know as much as I do, dear,” Ol replied.
“No, in the bar.”
“Ask Harold,” he said mysteriously, and did a pas de deux with Twink.
Alan walked out, turning off his phone and looking warily at Lizzie. “Are we ready?”
“Ready for wut?” Lizzie asked, taking a swig from a half-gone bottle of Veuve.
“Christmas,” Alan said, forcing cheer.
“Why?” Twink said, slowing down. Her crown had fallen off, but she now had on a pink tutu and tiny Uggs. Still a platinum blonde princess.
We all looked at Alan: Oliver, Lizzie, Twink, me.
He pointed to the clock and smiled: “Because it’s already here.”
