It was too fucking hot to take the subway home so when I ran into Rand at the corner of West 4th and West 10th and he invited me back to his hotel I said yes immediately, pretty much for the air conditioning. I must have given him the wrong idea. He’d just flown back from Monterrey after a monthlong shoot about the Mexican drug wars and was between apartments, or at least that’s what he said. He also said he was staying at The Standard and would I like to cab there with him for a drink. So I told him yes, probably too quickly.
    It’s just that everything was so fucking hot. You can’t hardly hold a person responsible when it’s that hot. I mean just take a look at the streets. There’s no one out there. Yes, I know it’s after midnight. Well when have you seen the Meatpacking District deserted after midnight? 1979? Look, Sophie, it’s after midnight and it’s still 85 degrees and New Yorkers just aren’t conditioned to take this kind of abuse. Did you see some of the outfits on the street today? I swear I saw some shiny muscle guy in cut-off jean shorts rollerskating down Ninth Avenue like something out of Can’t Stop the Music and what’s more, I honestly thought he was straight, so maybe the heat’s crossed my wires or maybe I just don’t understand anything anymore. I don’t give a shit either way. It’s too hot.
    We get to the restaurant downstairs and it’s packed so he invites me up to raid his minibar. It’s not really that nice, this hotel. I don’t know what the fuss is all about. I mean it’s nicer than the one in L.A., the one in West Hollywood, but it’s still just The Standard. Plastic, you know. This time colored to look like wood. But Rand was impressed with himself for staying there. I’ve never spent a month shooting Mexican gang members so I wouldn’t really know where he was coming from, actually. But he said he did mention he’d stayed at the Hotel Habita down there in Monterrey, and Rick Owens did their furniture, so if Rand gives you the impression he was sleeping roadside in a ditch with a Taser for company, you know he’s full of it.
    He poured me a gin and tonic and started in on how good it was to see me, how much better I look than he remembers, all that shit. He really laid it on thick. He told me about the trip, too, how the cartels down there have killed more than a dozen cops, that it’s out of control. That they’re training teachers what to do if dealers start gunfights near schools. That the whole time he was down there he was thinking about me.
    Pretty sad I know. He’s got it bad. But I didn’t sleep with him, so I’m one up there. Don’t sound so fucking surprised. I’m not a whore, Sophie. No he drank a bourbon and asked if I wanted try someplace else for a drink since he hadn’t had a drink in public without wearing a bulletproof vest in a month. I said okay and it did cross my mind that he was going to try to kiss me, but who cares. Then he told me he wanted to shower because he’d been out editing the story all day so I flipped on the TV and watch the last 15 minutes of Oprah and then the first 15 of something on Bravo before I got worried enough to check on him. You know what? He fell asleep. He fell asleep in the shower.
    No, that’s the crazy part. He’s still sleeping now. Yes I’m still at The Standard. Where did you think I was? I haven’t been able to get him up but I haven’t tried very hard. I’m sure he’s fine. He’s getting fat, though. You can tell. He ought to lay off the drinks. Do you want to come over?