“But you didn’t even make it!” I scream. “It was catered!”

“Oh god,” she wails. “I can’t believe it.”

The limousine pulls up in front of Club Chernoble, where a crowd ten deep waits standing outside the ropes in the snow. Evelyn and I get out, and using Evelyn, much to her chagrin, as a blocker, I push my way through the crowd and luckily spot someone who looks exactly like Jonathan Leatherdale, about to be let in, and really shoving Evelyn, who’s still holding on to her Christmas present, I call out to him, “Jonathan, hey Leatherdale,” and suddenly, predictably, the whole crowd starts shouting, “Jonathan, hey Jonathan.” He spots me as he turns around and calls out, “Hey Baxter!” and winks, giving me the thumbs-up sign, but it’s not to me, it’s to someone else. Evelyn and I pretend we’re with his party anyway. The doorman closes the ropes on us, asks, “You two come in that limo?” He looks over at the curb and motions with his head.

“Yes.” Evelyn and I both nod eagerly.

“You’re in,” he says, lifting the ropes.

We walk in and I lay out sixty dollars; not a single drink ticket. The club is predictably dark except for the flashing strobe lights, and even with them, all I can really see is dry ice pumping out of a fog machine and one hardbody dancing to INXS’s “New Sensation,” which blasts out of speakers at a pitch that vibrates the body. I tell Evelyn to go to the bar and get us two glasses of champagne. “Oh of course,” she shouts back, heading tentatively toward one thin white strip of neon, the only light illuminating what might be a place where alcohol is served. In the meantime I score a gram from someone who looks like Mike Donaldson, and after debating for ten minutes while checking out this hardbody whether I should ditch Evelyn or not, she comes up with two flutes half full of champagne, indignant, sad-faced. “It’s Korbel,” she shouts. “Let’s leave.” I shake my head negative and shout back, “Let’s go to the rest rooms.” She follows.

The one bathroom at Chernoble is unisex. Two other couples are already there, one of them in the only stall. The other couple is, like us, impatiently waiting for the stall to empty. The girl is wearing a silk jersey halter top, a silk chiffon skirt and silk sling-backs, all by Ralph Lauren. Her boyfriend is wearing a suit tailored by, I think, William Fioravanti or Vincent Nicolosi or Scali—some wop. Both are holding champagne glasses: his, full; hers, empty. It’s quiet except for the sniffling and muted laughter coming from the stall, and the bathroom’s door is thick enough to block out the music except for the deep thumping drumbeat. The guy taps his foot expectantly. The girl keeps sighing and tossing her hair over her shoulder in these strangely enticing jerky head movements; then she looks over at Evelyn and me and whispers something to her boyfriend. Finally, after she whispers something to him again, he nods and they leave.

“Thank god,” I whisper, fingering the gram in my pocket; then, to Evelyn, “Why are you so quiet?”

“The Waldorf salad,” she murmurs, not looking at me. “Damnit.”

There’s a click, the door to the stall opens and a young couple—the guy wearing a double-breasted wool cavalry twill suit, cotton shirt and silk tie, all by Givenchy, the girl wearing a silk taffeta dress with ostrich hem by Geoffrey Beene, vermeil earrings by Stephen Dweck Moderne and Chanel grosgrain dance shoes—walks out, discreetly wiping each other’s noses, staring at themselves in the mirror before leaving the rest room, and just as Evelyn and I are about to walk into the stall they’ve vacated, the first couple rushes back in and attempts to overtake it.

“Excuse me,” I say, my arm outstretched, blocking the entrance. “You left. It’s, uh, our turn, you know?”

“Uh, no, I don’t think so,” the guy says mildly.

“Patrick,” Evelyn whispers behind me. “Let them… you know.”

“Wait. No. It’s our turn,” I say.

“Yeah, but we were waiting first.”

“Listen, I don’t want to start a fight—”

“But you are,” the girlfriend says, bored yet still managing a sneer.

“Oh my,” Evelyn murmurs behind me, looking over my shoulder.

“Listen, we should just do it here,” the girl, who I wouldn’t mind fucking, spits out.

“What a bitch,” I murmur, shaking my head.

“Listen,” the guy says, relenting. “While we’re arguing about this, one of us could be in there.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Us. ”

“Oh Christ,” the girl says, hands on hips, then to Evelyn and me, “I can’t believe who they’re letting in now.”

“You are a bitch,” I murmur, disbelieving. “Your attitude sucks, you know that?”

Evelyn gasps and squeezes my shoulder. “Pat rick.”

The guy has already started snorting his coke, spooning the powder out of a brown vial, inhaling then laughing after each hit, leaning against the door.

“Your girlfriend’s a total bitch,” I tell the guy.

“Patrick,” Evelyn says. “Stop it.”

“She’s a bitch,” I say, pointing at her.

“Patrick, apologize,” Evelyn says.

The guy goes into hysterics, his head thrown back, sniffing in loudly, then he doubles up and tries to catch his breath.

“Oh my god,” Evelyn says, appalled. “Why are you laughing? Defend her.”

“Why?” the guy asks, then shrugs, both nostrils ringed with white powder. “He’s right.”

“I’m leaving, Daniel,” the girl says, near tears. “I can’t handle this. I can’t handle you. I can’t handle them. I warned you at Bice.”

“Go ahead,” the guy says. “Go. Just do it. Take a hike. I don’t care.”

“Patrick, what have you started?” Evelyn asks, backing away from me. “This is unacceptable,” and then, looking up at the fluorescent bulbs, “And so is this lighting. I’m leaving.” But she stands there, waiting.

“I’m leaving, Daniel,” the girl says. “Did you hear me?”

“Go ahead. Forget it,” Daniel says, staring at his nose in the mirror, waving her away. “I said take a hike.”

“I’m using the stall,” I tell the room. “Is this okay? Does anybody mind?”

“Aren’t you going to defend your girlfriend?” Evelyn asks Daniel.

“Jesus, what do you want me to do?” He looks at her in the mirror, wiping his nose, sniffing again. “I bought her dinner. I introduced her to Richard Marx. Jesus Christ, what else does she want?”

“Beat the shit out of him?” the girl suggests, pointing at me.

“Oh honey,” I say, shaking my head, “the things I could do to you with a coat hanger.”

“Goodbye, Daniel,” she says, pausing dramatically. “I’m out of here.”

“Good,” Daniel says, holding up the vial. “More for moi.”

“And don’t try calling me,” she screams, opening the door. “My answering machine is on tonight and I’m screening all calls!”

“Patrick,” Evelyn says, still composed, prim. “I’ll be outside.”

I wait a moment, staring at her from inside the stall, then at the girl standing in the doorway. “Yeah, so?”

“Patrick,” Evelyn says, “don’t say something you’ll regret.”

“Just go,” I say. “Just leave. Take the limo.”

“Patrick—”

“Leave,” I roar. “The Grinch says leave!”

I slam the door of the stall and start shoveling the coke from the envelope into my nose with my platinum AmEx. In between my gasps I hear Evelyn leave, sobbing to the girl, “He made me walk out of my own Christmas party, can you believe it? My Christmas party?” And I hear the girl sneer “Get a life” and I start laughing raucously, banging my head against the side of the stall, and then I hear the guy do a couple more hits, then he splits, and after finishing most of the gram I peek out from over the stall to see if Evelyn’s still hanging around, pouting, chewing her lower lip sorrowfully—oh boo hoo hoo, baby—but she hasn’t come back, and then I get an image of Evelyn and Daniel’s girlfriend on a bed somewhere with the girl spreading Evelyn’s legs, Evelyn on all fours, licking her asshole, fingering her cunt, and this makes me dizzy and I head out of the rest room into the club, horny and desperate, lusting for contact.