1978 was a great year to live in New York. I was working at the city's #1 punk disco. My girlfriend was a blonde model from Buffalo. Lisa was having an affair with the 10th ranked tennis player in the world and I thought that they were just friends. The tennis player even bought me drinks at Studio 54 after which he asked to dance with Lisa. His European good manners further masked his true intentions. They disappeared for an hour. I never said a word. Love can render a man blind and sex even blinder.
Disco, nightclubs, fashion models, punk rock, drugs, and New York City was an intoxicating cocktail for a man in his early 20s. Girls came onto me everywhere. I remained faithful to Lisa. My friends hinted at her infidelity. They had proof. The newspapers repeatedly published photos of her with the tennis player.
"They're just good friends."
No one bought that line, except for me.
Maybe I was blind to her affair. Lisa and I rarely spent time together. She worked days hunting jobs with photographers. My hours at the club were nocturnal. It was easy to believe she loved me. Her blonde Slavic beauty mesmerized my senses and her words of love after sex were too breathless for lies. No one was happier than a fool.
Six months into our relationship Lisa was invited to a club opening. My boss at the punk disco wanted me to scout out the new venue. He regarded everyplace new as a threat to his business. Lisa was surprised when I asked to accompany her, but said, "It will be fun."
The club was opposite the Holland Tunnel. An unruly crowd clustered before the entrance. Lisa was recognized by the doorman. She was a regular. We went inside and she was met by the tennis player. He shook my hand and then kissed Lisa on the cheek. His lips slipped down to her neck and for once I suspected that they might be more than friends. His smile disarmed that fear and we drank champagne at the bar.
"May I dance with Lisa?" His diction was too Mittel-Europa to be denied by a punk rocker from Boston. They made a good couple on the dance floor. Other people thought the same. Every eye watched their every move, except those of a slender brunette with full lips. She was staring at me. The men around her sensed her shift in attention. They were jealous within a second and with good reason. I had never seen such a beautiful woman, although most men would have considered her too young to be anything but a girl.
I put down my glass and walked up to her, obeying the silent command of her gaze. Her face was lifted from medieval portrait and I felt like I was approaching a ghost. My mouth went dry. I didn't need to speak. She introduced herself, as if I should know her name, "I'm Gia."
"Gia?"
I had never heard that name before. It sounded Italian. I told her mine and she asked me to dance. No one else existed in the club. Only the two of us. Her hand looped around my neck and she whispered, "I like you."
"Why?" I stuttered with a fresh dose of innocence. Somehow she had reversed my age to 15.
"Because your girlfriend is fucking someone else and you don't care."
The hall of mirrors reflected Gia's image into a kaleidoscopic blur with those words. She was telling the truth and I craned my neck to find Lisa. Gina stopped me with a finger to my lips
"Don't be so concerned. I'm sure she will come back to you. It's only business."
Models needed exposure. Lisa got that from the tennis player.
"How do you know?"
"Because I'm a model too." She tilted her head to strike a vogue pose. Even without make-up I could tell she was a cover girl. Everything Lisa wanted to be. $1000/hour. Top photographers. Glossy ads. Her name on everyone's lips. Fame and fortune from the fate of being beautiful and Gia knew it too. "You want to kiss me?"
The answer was yes, but I felt a presence behind me and Gia smiled with half-parted lips. She had good teeth. "Your girlfriend is here."
I knew that and said. "I'll see you around."
Lisa was unhappy with my speaking with Gia. She wanted to know everything she had said to me. I related the brief encounter numerous times like a prisoner in an interrogation cell. My story never changed in the telling. Lisa wasn't satisfied with my version. Neither was I, because given a few more minutes there was no telling what the two of us might have done.
I was guilty in thought rather than deed and Lisa began to stay out later with the tennis player. My faith in her wavered each time she came back to my apartment with her clothing in a state of disarray. She always had a good excuse for a missing button or torn seam.
"Studio is crazy."
Studio 54 was crazy, but not that crazy. We were over, except for the sex. Twice a day. I couldn't figure out why and I never asked her or anyone else for an explanation. The state of my heart was a secret even if the health of my affair wasn't. Friends at the punk disco said to get rid of Lisa. I tried by not calling her. She called instead. When I didn't answer the door, she had the key. One night I decided not to go home at all. I walked the streets of the East Village. Beer at the nursery. Breakfast at the Kiev. Dawn rose in the east early. Only bums and addicts were on the streets. It was time for me to go home.
Crossing 1st Avenue I was almost hit by a red Fiat Spider. I jumped back fast and felt the tug of the slipstream. Another millimeter and its bumper would have broken my knees. The convertible braked twenty yards away. The driver turned around in the seat.
It was Gia.
Her smile mixed surprise with amusement. She waved for me to join her. I sat in the front seat.
"That was close." Both hands were on the wheel. "You should watch where you're going."
"Was that a red light?"
"Yes, but I didn't see you." She shifted into first gear. The motions fluid as water flowing over a rock. Gia had grace. "You have any place to go right now?"
"No." My bed was a good destination, if there was no one there.
"Want to come over my place?" It was a silly question from the most beautiful woman in New York and I gave her the only answer it deserved, "Yes."
She drove like an F1 racer to her 4th Avenue apartment. The doorman nodded as if I were the 12th man to come upstairs that night, but something about her told me that Gia had been with no one. The past months with Lisa was honed my perception about a man's touch on a woman's body.
"What were you doing out so late?" Gia asked inside her small apartment. The day was softening the night to the west. The noise of the city was building toward the rush hour. She put on a Steely Dan song. AJA. The room smelled of expensive incense. The sofa caressed my body. I was completely relaxed and sat next to her. She smelled even better than the incense. I wondered what her body looked like naked and then imagined even more.
"Work?" The club has closed 4 hours ago.
"More like wandering the streets like the lost." Gia pulled out a packet of cocaine. "You want some?"
I nodded in submission to the dual allure, for she had read my soul as clearly as I had read her apathy to to touch of a man.
"I don't do this usually, but it's been a long week. My agent has me working every day. She says that I have to make as much money as I can, because my beauty will one day be gone." She huffed a line. "My agent is also my lover. I don't really like men"
"Oh." My lurid fantasy disappeared with those words. We were only made to share drugs and rock and roll. Sex was reserved for someone else. She did most of the talking. I did most of the drugs. In the end she said, "You know I saw you're girlfriend this evening."
"At Studio 54?"
"Where else?" Gia shook her hair free and looked at her watch. She had a 9am shooting. In another half-hour she would be late. It was time for me to go, but I had to ask, "You talk with her?"
"Only a little. I was wondering where you were. She said at an East Village apartment waiting for her. She really is beautiful."
"But not like you."
"Maybe just like me, only I have a name."
"Gia." Many models have made-up names like porno stars. Hers was hers. No one else could have her name.
"It's my real one." Gia was good at reading my mind and said, "You have to go. I have to work real soon."
She was already unbuttoning her shirt. It dropped to the floor. This was a dare. I walked out of the apartment without taking up her challenge. Back at my place Lisa was in bed. She asked where I was. I told her the truth. She asked if Gia and I had had sex. I told her the truth again. She didn't believe me. Not many people would and I couldn't blame them either. I didn't believe me either. Lisa left for Europe in the Spring. Her phone calls stopped after a month. I gave up on her return at summer's end. She was gone for good.
I never saw Gia again either. Not in person. Only on the cover of magazines. Vogue, Elle, and Cosmos. I thought about telling people about my evenings with Gia. It seemed like bragging and I kept those moments to myself. Enough people spoke her name in the clubs of New York and Paris. She didn't need another another posthumous admirer, although I occasionally thought about her Fiat and looked both ways crossing 1st Avenue.
Even now after these many years.
Her beauty in a grave, yet alive in my memory.
Gia looking over her shoulder.
A crowded dance floor.
Her eyes locked on mine for an instant will never die, because I can hold my breath forever for beauty.
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