Practicing the art of tilting at VIP afterparty

Boots and his friend are talking by the bar inside odd little club Haze, where dim light bulbs glow as fuzzy halos above bartenders' heads.

They compare notes on the ease of being single in Vegas lately, when Boots again spots the petite woman over by a railing.

Boots had seen her all night, twirling her hips to the rhythm in figure eights. Hip, twirl, hip, twirl. Boots says something objectifying about her to his buddy, nothing malicious, but you'd probably think it wasn't great. The friend laughs.

Boots says his friend should try to chat her up after a drink or two. This is what you call "things people do and say after midnight in a dark and loud nightclub."

Next thing being next, Hip Twirl sashays over to where the men are leaning against the bar, and Boots introduces himself to her. Boots' buddy leaves.

Hip Twirl and Boots talk too closely, which is not exactly what Boots is looking for. This is the invite-only afterparty for the official opening of the newest show on the Strip, "Viva Elvis" at CityCenter.

VIPs flirt and schmooze carefully at such Gatsby events. Afterparties are successfully designed to cause loose excitement for the event at hand -- for "Viva Elvis" in this case.

But gossipy movers and shakers in attendance notice your behaviors and everyone else's. Reputations stir in highballs and tumble with every tilt. Do you want to get tilted?

So there they are, talking, tilting. Hip Twirl likes Boots' boots, she says. She and her girlfriends had spied Boots' boots three different times during the party.

"You don't like the rest of my outfit?" Boots asks.

Hip Twirl reaches for Boots' sleeve and brings attention to his not wearing cufflinks. Judging by her cufflink test, she gauges Boots' style a 3 out of 10, she says. If he'd worn cufflinks, it would have been a 10.

"I see," Boots says.

She's a Brazilian artist living in L.A. She also runs a business. She tells Boots what the business is, but he doesn't remember a single detail.

She had told Boots her name, but he had forgot it immediately and tells her so. (In Vegas, there's always another name to forget.)

She puts a finger to his chest and lays her autograph on his left peck one letter at a time. Boots forgets this name the second her finger's lifted.

In his head: "How did this happen?"

Hip Twirl's girlfriends suddenly buzz around them. Hip Twirl turns to her friends for a minute.

Left to his thoughts, Boots realizes the party is still thumping. He wonders, "Who's watching me and Hip Twirl?" He's leaning against the bar. Another pretty woman to his left gives him a very hello "Hello." "Hello," he says flatly back to the blonde. He looks down at Hello's hand and admires her engagement ring.

He thinks Hello might be another taken woman he'll have to brush off. But then Hello's man dashes up behind her, and she gives him his drink.

Ah, Boots thinks, Hello wasn't flirting. She was just being nice. That makes Boots feel better about the world for a moment. There have been other times when he has been chatted up by women in rings and ...

Hip Twirl turns back to Boots. She's nice. They talk about dumb things (her pantyhose, women still wear pantyhose?) and fun things (art, the well-written music in "Viva Elvis," the loveliness of Vegas). She's smart, refreshing.

She blurts, "I have a confession to make": She wore pantyhose as a sort of chastity belt but volunteers they aren't permanent fixtures. She moves to cozy up and senses his hesitation. She asks him what's wrong.

Boots feels he should leave. Boots is careful about inviting people into his living room, but he doesn't tell her that.

Instead, he simply tells her he has to go home and he's not going to ask her to go with him. She says that's good, because she doesn't do one-night stands.

This sounds like someone's New Year's Eve resolution, but it hardly matters.

Sweetly, she says it was a fun hour while it lasted. They smile and hug. She walks away, brushing her hand against his.

He cheek-kisses other VIPs goodbye, retrieves his car from valet and cruises to the Vegas suburbs, never trying to recall the ghost of the name she traced above his well-worn heart.

Doug Elfman's column appears on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Contact him at 383-0391 or e-mail him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He also blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.