Imperial Bedrooms - By Bret Easton Ellis Page 0,39

was about to make a move on you ... "

"Rip Millar is just ... very fucked up."

"Maybe that's why the two of you got along so well."

"Are you seriously talking to me like this?"

"You knew something that day," I tell her. "You knew that something had happened to Kelly. The day before you left for San Diego with that piece of shit. Kelly hadn't been found yet, but you knew that Rip had done something - "

"Fuck off," she screams.

"I don't really care anymore," I finally say, moving toward her, stroking her neck.

"You really don't care, do you?"

"I didn't know her, Rain."

"But you know me."

"No. I don't."

I lean in to kiss her face.

She turns away. "I don't want to," she mutters.

"Then get out of here," I say. "I don't care if you ever come back here."

"Amanda's missing and you're - "

"I said I don't care." I take her hand. I start pulling her toward the bedroom. "Come on."

"Just let it go, Clay." Her eyes are closed and she's grimacing.

"If you're not going to do this, then you should leave."

"And if I leave, what will happen?"

"I'll make a call to Mark. I'll make another call to Jon. I'll call Jason." I pause. "And I'll cancel everything."

She immediately moves into me and says she's sorry and then she's guiding me toward the bedroom and this is the way I always wanted the scene to play out and then it does and it has to because it doesn't really work for me unless it happens like this.

"You should be more compassionate," she says later, in the darkness of the bedroom.

"Why?" I ask. "Why should I be more compassionate?"

"You're a Pisces."

I pause, letting the statement hang there while it defines where I've ended up.

"How do you know that?"

"Amanda told me," she says quietly.

I don't say anything, even though it's hard to leave that statement alone.

"What's the worst thing that ever happened to you?" she asks, and it sounds like an echo. I know what it is but pretend that I don't.

At the Getty there's a dinner thrown by two DreamWorks executives for a curator of a new exhibit and I go alone and I'm in a better mood, just floating through it all, looking good, a little buzzed, and I'm standing on the terrace gazing out over the blackest sky and asking myself, What would Mara say? And on the tram ride up the hill I was in the same car as Trent and Blair and I was listening to Alana share her frustrations about a plastic surgeon and I nodded while watching the traffic speeding by on the 405 below us and from where I'm standing now nothing is visible in the darkened canyons until the lights of the hushed city fan out of that darkness and I keep checking my phone for messages and I'm almost done with my second martini when a boy in a catering uniform tells me that dinner will be served in fifteen minutes and then that boy is replaced by Blair.

"I hope you're not driving tonight," she says.

"Hey, I had a bad feeling when I showed up but I'm happy now."

"You look like you're in a good mood."

"I am."

"When I saw you at Spago the other night I didn't think you could possibly be happy."

"Well, I am now."

She pauses. "I don't think I want to know why."

I finish the martini and place the glass on a ledge and then smile harmlessly at her, and I'm lightly swaying and Blair's looking at the shimmering sea curving toward us and it's miles and miles away.

"I thought of ignoring you but then decided not to," she says, moving closer to me.

"Now I feel pressured but I'm glad you're talking to me." I turn back to the view of the city. "Why didn't you talk to me for so long? What was that about?"

"I was thinking about my own safety."

"Why are you talking to me now?"

"You don't scare me anymore."

"So you've become an optimist."

"I kept thinking I could change you," she says. "All those years."

"But would that have been who you really wanted?" I stop and think it through. "Or would that have been who I really wanted to be?"

"What you really want to be doesn't exist, Clay."

"Why are you laughing when you say that?"

"I wanted to know if you'd talked to Julian," she asks. "Or did you do what I asked you to and just leave it alone?"

"You mean follow your instructions?"

"If you want to put it that way."

"Yeah, I