My heart skipped a very small beat. ‘This morning? It’s Sunday! What are you talking about?’
‘Oh, it wasn’t nearly as bad as some of the others. Don’t worry,’ she rushed to say. I knew she intended to make me feel better, but her statement had the opposite effect. ‘Avery showed me a few minutes ago. It just has some snarky comment about how you were wearing a business suit to a costume party.’
It was incredible! Relatively speaking, the installment was totally innocuous, but for some reason it was even more upsetting than all the lies and misrepresentations about my nighttime activities: if I couldn’t even make clothing choices without inviting public commentary, there was not a shred of privacy left.
‘Great. That’s just great’ was about all I could manage to say. ‘Well, as evidenced by the fact that I did indeed wear a suit to a costume party last night, you can see that I wasn’t planning on leaving your dinner.’
‘I know, Bette. We’re past that, okay?’
We were about to hang up when I remembered that I hadn’t invited Penelope to the BlackBerry party.
‘Hey, Pen, why don’t you come on Tuesday? Bring Avery if you want, or just come by yourself. It should be fun.’
‘Really?’ she asked, sounding pleased. ‘Sure, that sounds great. You and I can finally sit down and catch up. It feels like it’s been a while, doesn’t it?’
‘I’d love to, Pen. All I want to do is sneak off to some corner and make fun of everyone we see, but I should tell you now that I’m not going to have a free second. I’m in charge of the whole thing, and I just know I’ll be racing around, dealing with a hundred things. I’d love for you to come by, but it won’t be the best night for catching up.’
‘Oh, right. Of course. I knew that,’ she said.
‘What about right after Thanksgiving?’ I asked. ‘We could have dinner alone, just the two of us, before you go.’
‘Uh, sure. Why don’t we play it by ear?’ I’d lost her again; she sounded desperate to hang up.
‘Okay. Well, uh, I’m sorry again about last night. I’m looking forward to next week …’
‘Mmm. Have a good day, Bette. Bye.’
‘Bye, Pen. Talk to you soon.’
17
When you’re twenty-seven and the phone rings in the middle of the night, you’re apt to think it’s some guy drunk-dialing an invitation to come over and ‘hang out’ rather than a work-related disaster that will surely change your life forever. Not so the night before the BlackBerry party. When my cell phone blared at three-thirty in the morning, I was certain I would have to deal.
‘Is this Betty?’ an older woman asked as soon as I’d flipped open the phone.
‘Hello? Who is this? This is Bette,’ I said, still groggy even though I’d already bolted upright and had a pen in hand.
‘Betty, this is Mrs Carter,’ the woman’s voice said.
‘I’m sorry. Could you say your name again, please?’
‘Mrs Carter.’ Silence. ‘Jay-Z’s mama.’
Aha! ‘Hi, Mrs Carter.’ I thought about the way I’d separated the invites on the party list and how Mrs Carter was the only person who was cross-referenced as ‘Celeb Mother.’
‘We are just so excited to be hosting your son and his whole pos – uh, his friends tomorrow. Everyone’s just really looking forward to it!’ I said, silently congratulating myself on the feigned sincerity I heard in my own voice.
‘Yes, dear, well, that’s why I’m calling. Is this too late? I figured a big party planner like yourself would definitely still be awake at midnight. I wasn’t wrong, was I, sweetheart?’
‘Um, no, not at all. Of course, I am in New York, so it’s three in the morning here, but please don’t worry about a thing. You could call me anytime. Is something wrong?’ Please no, please no, please no, I chanted silently, wondering what else I could add to the $150,000 paycheck, penthouse suites at the Hotel Gansevoort, and business-class plane tickets we’d thrown in for the man, his mom, his superstar girlfriend, and his nine closest friends. When I’d asked why they needed hotel rooms at all – even I knew Jay-Z had a palatial New York pad – his mom had laughed and said, ‘Just book it.’
‘Well, dear, my son just called and said he really doesn’t see the need to take a flight that early tomorrow. He was hoping you could book us all on something later.’
‘Something later?’
‘Yes, you know, a flight that gets in later than the one already—’
‘I understand what you mean,’ I said a little too sharply. ‘It’s just that the event starts at seven and as of now you’re all scheduled to land at two. If we make it any later, there’s a chance you won’t arrive in time.’
‘Well, I’m sure you’ll figure that all out, dear. I’ve really got to be getting some rest for our big travel day tomorrow – that LA-to–New York leg always tuckers me out – but just fax me the confirmation when it’s all fixed. Ta-ta now.’ And she hung up before I could say another word.
Ta-ta? Ta-fucking-ta? I threw my cell phone against the wall and felt absolutely no satisfaction when it made a weak bleating sound, right before the battery cover popped off and the screen went blank. Millington had buried her face under my pillow hoping to escape my wrath. I wondered if it wasn’t too late in life to develop a severe and all-consuming addiction to tranquilizers. Or painkillers. Or both. Blessedly, the airlines were open all night, and I was dialing American from my land line before I could damage any more of my belongings.
The operator who answered sounded just as tired and hassled as I felt, and I braced myself for what would surely be an unpleasant interaction.
‘Hi, I have an annoying question. I made reservations for a party of twelve to fly from LAX to JFK on your eight A.M. flight and I was hoping I could change them all to something just slightly later?’
‘Name!’ she barked, sounding not just disinterested, which I expected, but downright hostile. I wondered if she was going to ‘accidentally’ disconnect me just because she didn’t feel like dealing. I could almost understand.
‘Um, the reservation is actually under Gloria Carter. They’re all flying business class.’
There was a moment of heavy silence before she said, ‘Gloria Carter? As in the Gloria Carter? As in the mother of Jay-Z?’
How on earth people knew these things was a mystery to me, but I sensed a momentary advantage and went for it. ‘That’s the one. He’s flying to New York to perform, along with a few friends and his mother. Of course, if you’re based in New York and you could work this out, you’d be more than welcome to come by and hear him sing his set.’
She exhaled audibly and said, ‘No way! Really? I’m actually working out of our call center in Tampa right now, but my brother lives in Queens, and I just know he’d love to go.’
‘Well, let’s see what we can do about changing that flight. I don’t want them coming in too late – maybe just an hour or two later, max. Is that flight usually on time?’
‘Honey, LAX to JFK is never on time.’ I cringed. ‘But it’s usually not too bad. Let’s see, I’ve got a flight leaving Los Angeles at ten A.M. arriving Newark at four. Would that work?’
‘Yes, yes, that would work just fine. And you have twelve open seats?’ I asked hopefully, thinking that this woman just might be the best thing that ever happened to me.
She laughed. Or, rather, cackled. A bad sign. ‘Sure, I’ve got twelve seats open, but they’re not all business. The best I can do is four in business, six in first class, and two in coach. You’ll of course need to pay the difference for the first-class seats, which comes to, oh, let me see here … a total of seventeen thousand dollars. Does that work?’
It was my turn to laugh. Not that anything was actually funny, of course, but the only alternative was weeping. ‘Do I have a choice?’ I asked meekly.
‘You sure don’t,’ she said, sounding suspiciously like she was enjoying this. ‘And you should probably make up your mind soon because another business-class seat
just disappeared.’
‘Book it!’ I practically screamed. ‘Book it right now.’
I gave her my corporate card number, rationalizing that it was better than telling Mrs Carter there were no later flights and having them cancel altogether, and fell back under the covers.
When the alarm blared static a couple hours later, I felt like I’d spent the night curled up on a hard cement floor. Blessedly, I’d already packed my outfit for the night’s party in a separate bag, so the only real task was to remain standing and fully conscious in the shower.
Figuring if there was ever a time to splurge for a cab it was now, I chased one halfway down my block and dove into it head-first. Not being stuck underground in the signal-free subway also allowed me to check a few of the morning’s websites from my brand-new BlackBerry, a gift from the company’s corporate department so I could ‘familiarize myself with their product.’ I pulled clips of the Shrek 3 premiere, the Grey Goose relaunch, and of course the New York Scoop column featuring Philip, me, and my pantsuit.
Naturally, the cab got stuck in gridlock less than three blocks from my apartment, and naturally I decided – against the cabbie’s advice – to remain in the temperature-controlled vehicle at all costs, regardless of how high the meter ran or how many minutes it took to cover an eighth of a mile. I needed to complete the check-list for the BlackBerry event. With Red Hots and an early-morning cigarette in hand (the cabbie had given me his blessing), I checked my cell phone to ensure that Mrs Carter hadn’t left a message in the four hours since I’d last spoken to her. To my great relief, she hadn’t called, but neither had Penelope, and that was disconcerting. My attempts to explain that it wasn’t what it appeared, that Philip had just shown up and I hadn’t lied to get out of her dinner, had sounded flat and pathetic even to my own ears, and I imagine to Penelope they sounded even less believable. The worst part of it all was that she and Avery had switched their tickets and were flying out tonight. I didn’t understand what the big rush was – especially since Avery wouldn’t be starting school for over a month – but I imagined it had something to do with Avery’s eagerness to embark upon a brand-new West Coast party circuit. That and the fact that Penelope would do anything to avoid spending Thanksgiving with either her or Avery’s parents. Penelope’s mother had dispatched her own domestic staff to collect their boxes and suitcases and ship them ahead, and Avery and Pen were set to fly out of JFK, with their carry-ons and each other. Michael was planning to see them off, but it wasn’t even an option for me.
The only message was from Kelly, a text reminding me to have my checklist filled out and on her desk first thing that morning so we could go over the last-minute stuff together. I unfolded its now-crumpled pages and pulled the pen cap off with my teeth. I stared at them for the few remaining minutes in the cab processing nothing. I’d have plenty of time before she got in, and the most important thing right now was to make sure Jay-Z and his entourage knew about the flight change and got on that plane with absolutely no problems.
A quick scan of the Dirt Alert revealed good news for once. Page Six had upheld their end of the bargain and written about my party in a way that made it sound exclusive, exciting, and really, really cool:
We hear that Jay-Z will be making a surprise appearance at tonight’s party at Bungalow 8 to celebrate the launch of BlackBerry’s redesigned handhelds. While Bette Robinson of Kelly & Company declined to confirm, watchers insist that boyfriend Philip Weston’s friendship with the rapper ensures he’s the mystery guest. In a related tidbit, Mr Weston and friends were spotted at a Saturday-night birthday party canoodling with Brazilian models, the youngest of whom was a mere fourteen years old.
I couldn’t have been happier if they’d provided a web address for ordering the new BlackBerry: everything was exactly as I’d directed, and I knew Kelly would be deliriously excited when she saw it. I patted myself on the back, pleased with this mention, and thought back to one of Elisa’s mini-lessons to me.
‘Remember, there’s a big difference between scoop and favor,’ she’d said, spreading printouts of gossip columns all over the table at work.
I stared at them. ‘What? What do you mean?’
‘Well, look here.’ She pointed to a couple of sentences from an on-set stylist who’d first noticed that Julia Roberts needed to have her costumes let out because, the girl assumed, Julia was newly pregnant. Page Six had been the first to talk to the stylist, who’d been the first to notice this shift. ‘What is that – scoop or favor?’
‘You’re asking me?’
‘Bette, you need to know these things. How else are you going to get our clients the coverage they pay us for?’
‘I don’t know … it’s scoop,’ I said, choosing one of the words at random.
‘Right. Why?’
‘Elisa, I appreciate that there’s something important here, but I don’t know what it is. But if you’d tell me rather than quizzing me, it’d probably save us both a lot of time. …’
She’d rolled her eyes dramatically and said, ‘If you look carefully, there’s a difference between “scoop” and “favor.” Something juicy and revealing and slightly scandalous is “scoop.” A celebrity spotting at a party or in public, or a mention of somewhere they’ve been, is a “favor.” You can’t ask the columnists for all favors without giving them scoop. Information is currency, and the more you have of it, the more favors you get.’
‘So you’re saying that some publicist out there wanted her client’s name mentioned in the column and provided this bit about Julia Roberts in exchange?’ It sounded so sordid, but it certainly made sense.
‘Exactly. The publicist hand-delivered that stylist to Page Six and then made demands for coverage of her own.’
Well, that didn’t seem too hard. Perhaps Page Six might be interested in knowing that quite a few of the city’s most eligible bachelors had been keeping company with certain Brazilian girls who were not just underage, but who were years away from attending an R-rated movie without parental accompaniment. In fact, they had been interested, and when I followed up with the usual Tip Sheet we prepared for all the press – the blast-fax that went out with all the information about the party should anyone want to write about it – a researcher had expressed enthusiasm in possibly mentioning the BlackBerry party. Hmm, that wasn’t hard, now was it? Morally abject and devoid of all integrity? Absolutely. But difficult it was not.
By the time Kelly had descended upon the office at nine, I’d completed the checklist and triple-checked that the plane-change fax had gone through to Jay-Z’s compound and his mother’s compound, as well as to his publicist, agent, manager, and a half-dozen other handlers. I marched into her office at ten after nine with an entire file folder of schedules, contact information, and confirmation numbers and planted myself in the zebra-print loveseat directly underneath the window.
‘Are we all set for tonight, Bette?’ she asked, scrolling rapidly through her inbox while slugging back a liter of Diet Coke. ‘Tell me we’re good.’
‘We’re good,’ I sang, thrusting the Post under her nose. ‘And even better, considering this.’
She scanned the piece hungrily, her smile growing ever larger with each word she read. ‘Ohmigod,’ she murmured, barely swallowing a mouthful of soda. ‘Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod. Was this you?’
It was all I could do not to do a little jig right there on the zebra-print shag carpet. ‘It was,’ I said quietly, confidently, although my insides were flipping with excitement.
‘How? They never cover events before they happen.’
‘Let’s just say I listened very carefully to Elisa’s valuable lesson on the concepts of scoop and favor. I think the BlackBerry people will be happy, don’t you?’
‘Fan-fucking-tastic, Bette. This is amazing!’ She began reading it for a third time and picked up the phone. ‘Fax this to Mr Kroner at BlackBerry immediately. Tell him I’ll call him shortly.’ She hung up and looked up at me. ‘Okay, we’re off to a perfect s
tart. Give me an update on where everything stands.’
‘Sure thing. Tip sheets went out ten days ago to all the usual dailies and weeklies.’ I handed over a copy and continued while she surveyed it. ‘We have confirmed attendance for writers or editors from New York magazine, Gotham, the Observer, E!, Entertainment Weekly, the New York Post, Variety, and the Styles section. I approved a few people from the monthlies as a gesture of goodwill, even though they’ll never cover it.’
‘What about the Daily News?’ she asked. They were one of the papers that had just dropped Will’s column, and I’d felt like a traitor for even contacting them.
‘So far no one’s RSVP’d, but I’d be shocked if someone wasn’t there, so all the doormen have been instructed to allow admittance to anyone in possession of a business card from a legitimate media outlet.’
She nodded. ‘Speaking of which, we are controlling the door, correct? I will not have any of the Grey Goose people trying to bring randoms, will I?’
This was a slightly sticky point. Grey Goose had offered to sponsor the event and put up thousands of dollars’ worth of free booze in exchange for a logo on the invite and the press we’d promised would be there. They claimed they understood they wouldn’t be permitted to allow guests who weren’t prescreened by us and placed on the list in advance, but sponsors were notorious for dragging in dozens of their friends and associates because they thought it was their party, too. I’d discussed it with Sammy – unnecessary because he’d done hundreds of these and knew the drill – and he’d assured me that it wouldn’t be a problem.
‘Everyone will be trying their best to ensure that doesn’t happen. Sammy is the best and most senior bouncer at Bungalow, and he’ll be in charge of the door tonight. I’ve spoken with him.’ And simultaneously dreamed of draining the collagen right out of his girlfriend’s lips, I thought, but that was a different story.
Unlike Elisa, Kelly connected the name and the person immediately. ‘Excellent. I always thought he was bright, at least as far as bouncers go. What VIPs do we have confirmed?’
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