Imperial Bedrooms - By Bret Easton Ellis Page 0,29

at the bruise. "Oh, that?" she says. "You did."

Entering the party at the Sunset Tower we're behind a famous actor and the cameras start flashing like a strobe and I pull Rain with me toward the bar and when I catch my reflection in a mirror my face is a skull, sunburned from the hour spent at the observatory, and on the terrace overlooking the pool, snaking through the hum of the crowd with Rain, I say hello to a few people I recognize while nodding to others I don't but who seem to recognize me and I make small talk with various people about the Kelly Montrose memorial even though I wasn't there and then I spot Trent and Blair and I move in another direction since I don't want Blair to see me with Rain, and projected onto the walls are black-and-white photos of palm trees, stills of Palisades Park from the 1940s, girls who were cast in the new James Bond movie, and trays of doughnuts are being passed around and I'm chewing gum so I won't smoke and then I spot Mark with his wife and I bring Rain over to where they're standing and Mark frowns when he sees her, and then erases it with a smile before we fake-hug, his eyes never leaving Rain, his wife's reaction a barely concealed hostility, and then I launch into an explanation as to why I haven't been at the casting sessions and Mark says that I should come in tomorrow and I assure him I will and just as I'm about to make a pitch for Rain my phone vibrates in my pocket and I pull it out and there's a text from a blocked number that says She knows and after I type in ? Mark and his wife drift off and Rain, seemingly uncaring that I didn't pitch her to Mark, is behind me talking to another young actress and a new text arrives: She knows that you know.

Heading back to the Doheny Plaza trying to keep steady on Sunset, I ask casually, "Do you know a guy named Julian Wells?" After I ask this I'm able to loosen my grip on the steering wheel - the question is a release.

"Hey, yeah," Rain says brightly, fooling with the stereo. "Do you know Julian?"

"Yeah," I say. "We grew up together out here."

"I didn't know that. Cool." She tries to find a track on a CD Meghan Reynolds had burned for me last summer. "He might have mentioned something about that."

"How do you know him?" I ask.

"I did some work for him," she says. "A long time ago."

"What kind of work?"

"Just like an assistant. Freelance," she says. "It was a long time ago."

"I actually know that you know him," I say.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asks, concentrating on locating the song. "You say that so weird."

"Where is he right now?" I ask. "I'm just wondering."

"How would I know that?" she asks, pretending to be annoyed.

"Well, aren't you his girlfriend?"

Everything is suddenly in slow motion. It's as if suddenly she forgot her lines. Her only response is to laugh. "You're crazy."

"Let's call him up."

"Okay. Sure. Whatever, Crazy."

"You don't believe me, do you?" I say. "You think this is a joke?"

"I think you're crazy," she says. "That's what I think this is."

"I know about you and him, Rain."

"And what do you think you know?" Her voice remains playful.

"I know you were in San Diego with Julian last week."

"I was with my mother, Clay."

"But you were also with Julian." Saying this relaxes me. "Didn't you think I was going to find out about this?"

At the light on Doheny she stares straight out the windshield.

"Didn't you know I was going to find out that you're still fucking him?"

She suddenly cracks. She whirls toward me in the passenger seat. A series of questions pour out in a pleading rush. "So what? What does it matter? What are you doing? What do you think this is about? Will you just leave it alone? What does it matter what I do when I'm not with you?"

"It matters," I say. "In this situation, for you to get what you want, it matters very much."

"Why does it matter?" she shouts. "You're crazy."

I calmly make the left and start heading down Doheny.

"You couldn't even play this part for a fucking month?" I ask quietly. "What, you needed his cock so badly that you had to jeopardize everything for yourself? If being with me was so important