This friend of mine, for instance. She and her fiance go grudgingly to this party in Manhattan, the theme of which is everyone has to dress and act like some celebrity. For an hour or so it's utter tedium, as you can imagine. But then something happens. The cocktails start working; the shimmering cityscape outside the eccentric hostess's windows bestows its blessing. Suddenly everyone's into it. They're becoming these celebs. They couldn't stop if they tried. Their drab workaday selves are dissolving, falling away like unfashionable clothing. Mel Gibson is twitching nervously, denouncing the evils of birth control. Sean Connery is sipping champagne, explaining in his Scottish brogue why it's sometimes okay to slap a woman. Shari Lewis lurches by, silver wig, head-to-toe sequins, conversing animatedly with the sock on her hand. Though generally curmudgeonly, my friend and her fiancee are swept up in it, too. She, thin and beautiful, is a famously underfed actress. He, spiky-haired and Harley jacketed, is a dead punk legend.
But here's where things get interesting. The evening ends, the party winds down, but my friend and her beau find they can't bring themselves to knock off the act. The prospect of returning to our drear Pennsylvania rust-belt town is suddenly more reality than they can bear. Instead they find themselves down on Delancey Street, slipping around in a wet snow, hailing a cab to take them to Laguardia. Next thing they know they're on a plane to Reno, behaving badly, she blowing kisses at stewardesses, he spilling drinks and cursing filthily in a bad Cockney accent. A scant two weeks later they're in a motel room in the Mojave, staring at each other in a cracked bathroom mirror, crusts of cocaine around their nostrils, every credit card maxed out. There's a loaded Glock underwater in the sink. They're trying hard to remember each other's names.
