Elisa inhaled sharply and fixed her gaze on my face. ‘What did you say?’ she whispered.
‘I said, I thought—’
‘I heard you.’ She was nearly growling now. ‘I just can’t imagine why you’d say something like that. You sure looked like you were having fun when you were all over him on the dance floor. He’s pretty good, huh? Who said practice doesn’t make perfect?’
She very well could’ve still been talking about dancing, but something in her expression, now dreamy and slightly far-off, indicated otherwise.
‘Elisa, what do you mean?’
‘Oh, Bette, come on! This is Philip Weston we’re talking about here.’
‘And that should mean something to me?’
‘Ohmigod, Bette, this is so humiliating for you. Are you serious? You have no idea who he is?’ She began ticking things off on her fingers, one by one. ‘Graduate of Eton and Oxford, with a law degree from Yale? Youngest lawyer ever to be named partner at Simpson Thacher? Grandfather is a duke; father owns the majority of land between London and Manchester, with additional large chunks in Edinburgh? Trust fund large enough to rival the country’s national debt? Ex-boyfriend of Gwyneth, current boy toy of multiple Victoria’s Secret models, and crowned “Nightlife Adonis” by none other than Vanity Fair. Any of this ringing any bells?’ She was almost panting at this point.
‘Not really,’ I said, trying to synthesize everything she’d said while the sound of blood rushed through my ears. A duke? Gwyneth??
‘It’s so ironic,’ she mumbled to herself. ‘Every girl on the planet makes it her lifelong goal to have sex with Philip Weston and you go and do it without even knowing who he is? It’s almost too much.’
‘Have sex with him? What?’ If by ‘having sex’ you mean ‘listening as he fires the maid for gross neglect of $4,000 sheets,’ then yes, we had a mind-blowing night.
‘Bette! Give up the “I’m so innocent” routine. We all saw you last night!’
At that exact moment, it was impossible to comprehend anything other than the fact that the same man who used to have sex with Gwyneth Paltrow had not only seen me naked, but had also witnessed period underwear, unshaved legs, and a viciously overgrown bikini line.
‘Nothing happened,’ I muttered, wondering how quickly I could pack my bags, change my name, and move to Bhutan.
‘Riiiiight.’ She smiled lasciviously.
‘No, really. Granted, I woke up at his place, and granted, I was wearing his clothes, but absolutely nothing happened.’
She looked dumbfounded and disappointed. ‘How is that even possible? He’s much too gorgeous to resist.’
‘Did you sleep with him, Elisa?’ I asked teasingly.
She looked as though she’d been slapped. ‘No!’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest … I was just kidding, I didn’t think you had—’
‘Way to rub it in, is all. I’ve only been lusting after him forever now, but he barely even glances in my direction. I see him out all the time, of course, and he, like, totally knows who I am, so maybe it’s just a matter of time. …’ Her voice once again took on a dreamy quality.
I coughed and she snapped back to attention. I was just about to be flattered by the fact that Philip had taken me home last night when he could have had Elisa instead, but I didn’t have a chance to revel.
‘I mean, the boy will sleep with any decent-looking girl he can get his hands on, so I just don’t understand what’s wrong with me,’ she said tonelessly.
‘Any girl?’ I asked, still determined to hold on to the illusion that I might be his one and only.
‘Well, pretty much any hot girl, which is why I can’t understand why he doesn’t respond to me. Maybe he just doesn’t like his women thin.’
Ouch. Unintentional, but painful. I waited while she continued with her stock-taking.
‘Let’s see. Skye dated him, but that was years ago, way before he became who he is now. So did one of the List Girls – the pretty one – and that girl who was on the cover of Marie Claire last month, and a solid handful of the hottest girls at Condé Nast.’ She continued to tick off names of beautiful and social girls, some that I recognized from years of idly reading the gossip columns and party pages, but I could barely hear her. Luckily, she only hit about a dozen before Kelly bounded from her office and called for me to enter her animal-print hell – the whole room was done in a hallucinogenic mixture of zebra, leopard, and tiger fabrics, replete with oversized furry pillows and a giant, spotted shag rug.
‘Hey there, Bette. How is everything?’ she said happily, closing the door and motioning for me to take a seat on a chair covered in what felt like actual skin and hair.
‘Uh, great. It’s been a great first week so far.’
‘I’m so glad! I think so, too!’ Biggest smile yet.
‘Uh, yeah. Seriously, I’m so happy to be here, and I promise I’ll get all this stuff down as quickly as possible so I can start actually contributing instead of just watching,’ I said with what sounded to me like a reasonable level of sobriety and coherence.
‘Uh-huh, that’s nice. So tell me about last night!’ She clasped her hands together and leaned forward.
‘Oh, right, last night. Yeah, I went to dinner with Elisa and Skye and Leo and a couple others and we had such a nice night. It’s a really great group of people you have here. Of course, I won’t always let them keep me out so late. …’ I laughed, trying to sound casual, since I wasn’t exactly used to discussing nights out with my boss. Aaron most certainly hadn’t been my go-to morning-after confidant, but Kelly seemed eager for it.
‘You mean, you won’t let them keep you out until the next morning …’ She grinned and let her words trail off.
Ahem. I suspected we were toeing the line between personal and professional, and I wasn’t about to cross it. ‘It was a great dinner! I just love everyone who works here.’ A slightly inane non sequitur, but it was the only thing that came to mind.
She leaned forward, brushing her side-swept bangs even more to the left, and placed her elbows on the rough-hewn wooden desk. ‘Bette, dear, you can’t expect to, ah, spend the night with Philip Weston and not have the entire world know about it. Here, look.’ She thrust a piece of computer paper across the table. My hands shook as I took it.
I recognized it immediately as that day’s edition of the column that Abby and Elisa had been talking about the night before, New York Scoop. It had been printed from the Scoop’s website and the headline read: MYSTERY GIRL CHECKS INTO WESTON’S HOTEL. The story went on to detail how Philip had been ‘accosted’ at Bungalow 8 the previous evening by a ‘pretty young thing’ who some sources ‘have fingered as a new hire at Kelly & Company. Keep it tuned right here to see if she resurfaces anytime soon …’ The byline at the bottom of the piece read ‘Ellie Insider.’ That’s a stupid name, I thought.
Despite the ‘pretty young thing’ semi-compliment that was undoubtedly supplied to fill space, my stomach dropped and I looked at Kelly in horror.
‘I’m working feverishly alongside half of Manhattan trying to figure out who Ellie Insider is. It’s fucking brilliant. Do you believe how quickly they get things posted? I suppose that’s the benefit of having it online, although I still can’t help feeling that these, these, blogs are just little diaries for people who can’t actually get published.’
‘Kelly, it’s so not what it looks like. I can explain. It’s just that after dinner, we—’
‘Bette, I know exactly what happened. And I’m thrilled!’
‘You are?’ I was certain this was just her convoluted way of firing me.
‘Of course! Look, this is an ideal scenario. Philip Weston, Bungalow 8, a mention for the office. The only thing I ask is that next time you make sure the real Page Six is watching, too. This is a solid mention, but the column’s still pretty new, and not completely up to par yet with its circ numbers.’
I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. She didn’t seem
to notice, though.
‘He’s amazing, isn’t he? Just between you and me, I’ve always had a thing for him.’
‘You have? For Philip?’
‘Ohmigod, girl, who hasn’t? He’s splendid. Not only is he all boldfaced mentions all the time, he also happens to look amazing without a shirt.’
Her face had taken on the same hazy expression as Elisa’s had earlier. ‘Did you date him?’ I asked, praying with all my energy that the answer was no.
‘Good lord, I wish! Closest I ever came to sleeping with him was watching him take his shirt off at a charity auction where the organizers were selling a date with him. Three hundred other women and I went berserk when he yanked it over his head. Very Coyote Ugly, if you can picture it: wonderful and pathetic all at the same time.’
I let my guard down and forgot – for a split second – that I was talking to my boss. ‘I saw that chest when he got out of the shower this morning, and it was every bit as beautiful as you say,’ I added before I could realize what this implied.
Kelly’s head snapped around, and she stared at me with an odd combination of envy and urgency. ‘I’m assuming that when he calls you again, you’ll go out with him, right?’
This didn’t really sound like a question. ‘Oh, I’m not sure he’ll be calling,’ I mumbled, realizing that absolutely no one would believe we hadn’t slept together.
She peered at me intently and then broke into a wide grin. ‘Bette, sweetie, you might be the last person to realize this, but in your own unique way, you’re beautiful. And it’s a widely known fact that no one loves beautiful girls more than Philip Weston. Of course he will call. And you’ll say yes, right? And naturally, please invite him to all our events or stay out as late as you need to when you’re with him.’
I could feel a weird sense of elation – like a high school crush – rising in my chest.
‘Uh, sure. Okay, I’ll keep that in mind.’ Suddenly, I wanted to hug her.
‘Great. I’m so excited for you! Definitely keep me updated. Should we get started?’
‘Yes, let’s,’ I breathed, relieved to end this very strange discussion. ‘You were going to tell me about The List, right?’
‘Yes. The List. The single most crucial tool for ensuring a firm’s success. We’re nothing without the people we can provide for our clients, so I’ve spent years putting together one of the biggest databases in the industry. Pull your chair around so you can see.’
I yanked the furry stool to her side of the desk and settled in as she double-clicked an icon on her desktop. ‘Here it is,’ she purred. ‘My baby. The most comprehensive list of tastemakers ever, anywhere.’
The screen resembled a search page you might encounter on a personals or apartment-rental website. You simply chose your search requirements, ticked their adjacent boxes, and hit Find. There were four main locations you could browse – New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and the Hamptons – but smaller, less complete lists existed for another dozen cities in the United States, and about two dozen abroad. The search criteria appeared endless. In a vertical row starting in the upper-left-hand corner, they were listed, in no particular order: Art, Literary, Film Production, Newspapers, Fashion, Record Label, Social, Young Social, Media Elites, Finance, Magazines, Architecture, Retail, Miscellaneous.
‘You just key in the types of people you’re looking for and the program provides you with all the information. Here, watch.’ She quickly checked off ‘Literary’ and ‘Young Social’ and showed me the thousands of returns. ‘We know everything about everyone. Full name, home address, work address, all phones, faxes, pagers, emails, country houses, beach houses, international addresses, birthdays, spouse information, and details on both the children and their nannies. There’s also a subset – if you need to narrow it down even further – that tells you if a particular person is gay, straight, single, monogamous, or cheating, in addition to whether they party, travel, or get mentioned in gossip columns a great deal. It makes it pretty easy to hand-pick exactly who will be there when you know everything about their lives, you know?’
I just nodded, as there seemed no more appropriate response.
‘Here, let’s take your uncle, for instance.’ She typed his name into a search field and up popped all his relevant info: Central Park West address and phone, office information, his exact title at the paper and the name of the column, the number of years he’d been writing, his nationwide readership, his birthday, and a short sentence about how he traveled frequently to Key West and Europe. Under ‘cross-reference’ he was described as ‘Gay,’ ‘Literary,’ ‘Newspaper,’ and ‘Media Elite.’ I noticed there was no Christian Coalition Reactionary category, but I said nothing.
‘I’ve never seen anything like this.’ I was unable to tear my eyes from the screen.
‘It’s incredible, isn’t it? And that’s not all. If you’ll notice, there are no regular media people or celebrities in this database. We have separate ones for them since those are the two most crucial groups.’
‘Separate ones?’
‘Well, sure. Look.’ She closed down the first program and clicked on an icon that read ‘Press.’ ‘There are media elites – people like your uncle, Frank Rich, Dan Rather, Barbara Walters, Rupert Murdoch, Mort Zuckerman, Tom Brokaw, Arthur Sulzberger, Thomas Friedman, etcetera, etcetera, who of course you want at events because of their high profile, but you can’t honestly expect them to cover anything. They’re just like celebrities in their own right, which is why we need to have a completely separate database of real working media – all the people at the papers, magazines, TV, and radio who can actually give us the coverage we promise our clients. Of course, there’s always overlap. You can have a socialite who also happens to work in magazines or a film exec who writes reviews for a local paper, so we just cross-list everyone.’
I took the mouse from her and scrolled through the separate fields, noticing that the media database was broken down by demographic, so you could best pitch the specific people covering music, design, travel, lifestyle, fashion, entertainment, gossip, celebrity, sports, or social engagements.
‘This is absolutely incredible. How many are there total?’
‘Between all three databases, probably close to thirty-five thousand. You haven’t even seen the celeb one yet, which is our most important.’ Another couple clicks and a list of the world’s richest, most famous, and most beautiful people popped to the forefront.
‘This is the industry list. With each celeb, we’ve also listed their current publicist, agent, manager, assistants, and family information, in addition to birthdays, current and upcoming projects, and preferences – everything from airlines to flowers, waters, coffees, liquors, hotels, designers, and music. We update this one pretty much hourly.’
She opened the profile for Charlize Theron and I saw that she had homes in South Africa, Malibu, and the Hollywood Hills; was dating Stuart Townsend; would only fly American Airlines first class or private jet; was currently shooting a movie in Rome; was signed on for another film in five months; and maintained a staff of four, with her agent temporarily also acting as her publicist.
‘How do they all get updated? I mean, how could you possibly know all this stuff?’
Kelly threw her head back, clearly delighted by my shock. ‘Elisa introduced you to the List Girls, yes?’
I nodded.
‘It’s not the most glamorous job in the world, but they’ve got the right connections, and we give them lots of perks to read every single publication known to man – in print and online – and take from that whatever they can to fill in the blanks. There are three of them, and they’re all very socially connected family-wise, and they go out constantly anyway and meet people everywhere. Just this morning New York magazine came out with their Baby Power issue – the fifty kids in New York under the age of thirty who are the most accomplished in their fields. If they weren’t in there already, every one of them has now been entered into our database.’
�
��Amazing. Really, Kell, it’s amazing.’
‘It sure is. Why don’t you put a practice list together? Let’s say we’re planning a party for Asprey to celebrate the opening of their second store in the United States. It’ll be held at the store on Fifth, and the company’s main concern is that Americans simply aren’t as familiar with the brand as the English are, and they’re looking for more name recognition. Pull five hundred total fits: four hundred regular attendees and a hundred mixed of celebs and targeted press. Of course, an actual event like that would only have a hundred to a hundred fifty, max, but this will just be an exercise.’
It had suddenly occurred to me that I still hadn’t dealt with my hangover, which was gearing up again in such a way that it demanded immediate attention.
‘Sure, I’ll have that to you on Monday?’ I asked as cheerily as possible, standing up carefully to avoid any extra queasiness.
‘Perfect.’ Kelly nodded. ‘Think about potential party favors, too. Oh, and Bette?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Do you have any plans to see Philip this weekend?’
‘Philip? Who’s Philip?’ I thought she was still talking about The List, but apparently we’d transitioned seamlessly back to my personal life.
‘Bette!’ She giggled. ‘That gorgeous super-stud whose bed you occupied last night? You will be seeing him, right?’
‘Oh, right, Philip. It wasn’t exactly like that, Kelly. It was more like—’
‘Oh, Bette, stop right there. You don’t owe me any explanations at all. It’s your life, you know,’ she pointed out, apparently seeing no irony whatsoever in the statement. ‘I just hope you’ll consider going out with him over the weekend, is all. Maybe have dinner at Matsuri or stop by Cain or Marquee?’
‘Uh, well, I’m not sure he’ll call me, but if he does, then well, I guess—’
‘Oh, he’ll call, Bette, he’ll call. I’m glad to hear you’re into the idea. Because frankly, you’d be crazy if you weren’t! I’m headed out early today, so have a great weekend, okay?’
Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection Page 53