Free Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis Page A

shit, the liquor guy just arrived” and walks off and I look out past the big lighted pool, out over Hollywood; blanket of lights under a neon purple sky and Blair asks me if I’m okay and I say sure.
    Some young guy, eighteen or nineteen, brings in a large cardboard box and sets it on the bar and Kim signs something and tips him and he says, “Happy New Year, dudes” and leaves. Kim takes a bottle of champagne out of the box, opens it expertly and calls out, “Everybody take a bottle. It’s Perrier-Jouet. It’s chilled.”
    “You convinced me, you rat.” Muriel runs over and hugs Kim and Kim gives her a bottle.
    “Is Spit pissed at me or something? All I said was that he looked dead,” Muriel says, opening her bottle. “Hiya, Blair, hi, Clay.”
    “He’s just on edge,” Kim says. “Wind’s weird or something.”
    “He’s such a moron. He tells me that, ‘Well, I used to do well in school before they kicked me out.’ Huh? What in the fuck does that mean?” Muriel asks. “Besides, the idiot uses a blowtorch to freebase.”
    Kim shrugs and takes another swallow.
    “Muriel, you look wonderful,” Blair says.
    “Oh, Blair, you look gorgeous, as usual,” Muriel says,taking a swallow. “And oh my God, Clay, you must give me that vest.”
    I look down while opening my bottle. The vest is just a gray-and-white argyle, one of the triangles dark red.
    “It looks as if you got stabbed or something. Please let me wear it,” Muriel pleads, touching the vest.
    I smile and look at her and then realize that she’s totally serious and I’m too tired to say no so I pull it off and hand it to her and she puts it on, laughing. “I’ll give it back, I’ll give it back, don’t worry.”
    There’s this really irritating photographer in the room and he keeps taking pictures of everybody. He’ll walk up to someone and point the camera in their face and then take two or three pictures and he comes up to me and the flash blinds me for a second and I take another swallow from the champagne bottle. Kim starts to light candles all over the room and Spit puts on an X album and someone starts to pin balloons up to one of the bare walls and the balloons, only half blown up, just hang there, limply. The door that leads out to the pool and veranda is open and also has a couple of balloons pinned on it and we walk outside, over to the pool.
    “What’s your mom doing?” Blair asks. “Is she going out with Tom anymore?”
    “Where did you hear that? The Inquirer?” Kim laughs.
    “No. I saw a picture of them in the Hollywood Reporter.”
    “She’s in England with Milo, I told you,” Kim says as we get closer to the lighted water. “At least that’s what I read in Variety.”
    “How about you?” Blair asks, starting to smile. “Who are you seeing?”
    “
Moi?
” Kim laughs and then mentions some famous young actor I think we went to school with; can’t remember.
    “Yeah, I heard about that. Just wanted you to verify.”
    “It’s true.”
    “He wasn’t at your Christmas party,” Blair says.
    “He wasn’t?” Kim looks worried. “Are you sure?”
    “He wasn’t,” Blair says. “Did you see him, Clay?”
    “No, I didn’t see him,” I tell her, not remembering.
    “That’s weird,” Kim says. “Must have been on location.”
    “How is he?”
    “He’s nice, he’s really nice.”
    “What about Dimitri?”
    “Oh, so what,” Kim says.
    “Does he know?” Blair asks.
    “Probably. I’m not sure.”
    “Do you think he’s upset?”
    “Listen, Jeff is a fling. I like Dimitri.”
    Dimitri’s sitting on a chair by the pool playing a guitar and is really tan and has short blond hair and he just sits in the chaise longue playing these strange, eerie chords and then starts to play this one riff over and over again and Kim just looks at him and doesn’t say anything. The phone rings from inside and Muriel calls out, waving her hands, “It’s for you, Kim.”
    Kim walks back inside and I’m about