Party Girl

by Anna David

  Out loud I say, “I don’t know. Maybe I was experiencing a kind of ‘natural high’?”

  I make a quote mark gesture around the phrase because it’s just the sort of expression Stephanie and I would have mocked not too long ago, but I secretly love the idea of it. I can get natural highs while other people need chemical ones, I think before I remember that Tommy used to say if you feel better than people, all that means is that at some point you’re going to feel worse than them. But then I think, Tommy doesn’t know everything. If he did, why would he spend his days working at an almost completely dilapidated rehab in West L.A.?

  “Amelia Stone on a natural high.” Steph laughs. “Who could have ever predicted it?” She smiles and sips her coffee.

  I light a smoke, careful to blow it out the window, and think about how grateful I am that she feels comfortable talking to me about my sobriety. Other people who’ve heard about me going to rehab have been so awkward that it’s unnerving. “We should meet for a drink,” this publicist said to me at a premiere last week. And then, as if my sobriety had rendered the word “drink” sinful, she added nervously, “I mean, a water or soda?”

  “I’m just worried that Tim’s going to find out,” I say, grabbing a bag of Trader Joe’s Sweet, Savory & Tart Trek Mix from the kitchen and scooping a handful into my mouth.

  Stephanie motions for the bag, which I hand her, as she leans back on the couch. “Please—it doesn’t matter. If you look the part and hand in great copy, why should he give a rat’s ass if you’re sober as can be or on 12 hits of E?”

  “Good point,” I say.

  “Maybe I’ll sell Page Six that story,” Stephanie says as she brushes peanuts that have fallen onto her lap into her hand and tosses them into the garbage can. “‘Amelia Stone Not Really a Party Girl!’” We both laugh. My phone starts ringing, so I walk over to it and see Tim’s cell phone number on my caller ID.

  “Tim,” I say, deciding not to pick up. “I’m sure he just wants to know when I’m sending him copy.”

  “When’s the column due?”

  “Tomorrow.” I peel a bit of my right thumb cuticle off.

  “Jesus! Why do you always wait until the last minute? You’re insane.”

  I shrug. I noticed when I did the first column that something in me really got off on the adrenaline that started flowing through me when my deadline was imminent. I almost feel like I’m setting myself up for some impossible sprint and my fear of not making it to the finish line motivates me all the more. Or maybe I’m just a martyr. But I suddenly feel incredibly stressed, like the first column was a fluke and everyone has gotten overly excited about me when I really can’t deliver. Stephanie must see the look of panic that crosses my face because she walks over to the couch as she picks up her bag. The idea of a line of cocaine floats through my mind and that terrifies me, but I don’t say anything. I’m sure it’s perfectly normal.

  “You’ll be fine, Party Girl,” she says as she walks toward the door. “And if you’re not, look at it this way: you can always start writing a Sober Girl column.”

  “Ha ha.”

  As soon as Stephanie leaves, I turn on the computer, open a new Word document, and stare at it, thinking, Okay, here’s where the writer’s block happens. I’ve never actually had writer’s block, but people are always talking about it, so I figure that it’s only a matter of time for me.

  Then the phone rings and I jump at it eagerly without even glancing at caller ID, grateful for the procrastination tool.

  “Amelia?” It’s a young girl’s voice.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s Charlotte. We met the other night? We, um, danced?”

  Oh my God. Tube Top. I’d just sort of assumed she would disappear into the ether.

  “Hey, Charlotte. What can I do for you?” At first I think, Christ, is she going to ask me out on a date? Then: That would make a really great column.

  “I hope it’s okay that I’m calling you. You were listed, so I figured you wouldn’t mind.” I make a mental note to get myself unlisted. “It’s just…well, I really love your column. When I read it, I thought, ‘Oh my God, this woman is describing my life,’ except, to be honest, my world is a bit crazier.”

  “Hmmm,” I say, still not remotely clear on where she’s trying to go with this.

  “And, well, I was just curious how you got started? I ask because I want more than anything to be a writer. I actually wrote my first novel when I was twelve. And I’ve been doing poetry since eighth grade, and journaling for as long as I can remember.”

  I think it’s around the time that she uses the word “journaling” that I start completely tuning her out. She sure is a pushy little thing, I think as she regales me with stories about editing the school newspaper and literary magazine.

  “Look,” I say, cutting her off before she starts reciting poems written to, like, her dead grandmother. “I can’t help you get a writing job. The best thing I can tell you is go to college, then go get a job at a magazine. That’s what I did.”

  Tube Top—Charlotte—laughs. “Oh, I’m not trying to get a job yet. I’m only eighteen. I just wanted to know if you’d read some of my work and…I don’t know…tell me if you think I have promise.”

  I don’t know if it’s the shock of hearing “I’m only eighteen,” or my resentment over the fact that this chick manages to boogie her perfect body on top of bars and still be motivated enough to have written multiple novels before puberty. But her whole I’m-more-motivated-than-anyone-else shtick is really rubbing me the wrong way.

  Of course I don’t say that. “Why don’t I give you my e-mail address and you can send me some of your stuff?” I say, figuring I can always delete it and then duck her calls if she ever bugs me again.

  “Oh, that would be so great!” she yelps. I listen to her tell me how cool and great I am and how she wants to be just like me when she “grows up” until I can’t take it any longer.

  “Charlotte, I really have to go—I have a column to write,” I say and hang up the phone before she can say anything else that makes me feel ancient, and then go back to staring at my computer and picking at my cuticles.

  I stand up, sit down again, then stand up to go get the bag of Trader Joe’s Sweet, Savory & Tart Trek Mix, then plop down again at my desk. Tim and John responded so well to my story about going to Guy’s with Chad Milan and leaving with Rick Wilson that I figure that’s a good topic. And once I come up with a title, “The Obligatory Good-Night Kiss,” I just start typing.

  If a guy shells out for your tiramisu, you’d better accept the fact that he’s going to expect some tongue. I realize that nine out of ten men surveyed wouldn’t admit this (and the tenth would only if he thought that confessing as much would get him some tongue) but I’m here to tell you that we women make an intrinsic promise every time we allow the check to be pulled to the other side of the table. Still, going to a bar afterward and leaving with someone else because you “can’t find” your dinner date will probably create more problems than it will solve.

  For a second I worry about Chad Milan reading the column, but then I realize that the only person the incident really reflects negatively on is me. You’re a genius when it comes to self-deprecation, one of the Chat senior editors had said at dinner in New York. Besides, I tell myself as I continue to type, this material is too good not to use. I light a cigarette and think about the possibility of running into Chad at the gym and being confronted by him again. And then I think, I’ll switch to Equinox. It’s supposed to be a much nicer gym anyway.

  24

  When I walk in the door after a pre-Emmys party, the phone is ringing but I decide to hang a metaphorical “Do Not Disturb” sign and not answer. I feel the need to chain-smoke while unpacking the three shopping bags I’ve filled with thongs, conditioner, skirts I won’t ever wear, and cleansers that promise to deliver “face lift–like results.”

  The fact that I’ve just been to a freebie Emmys event and have nothing to
do with the Emmys—in fact, I couldn’t even begin to guess who’s been nominated—hardly seems relevant. I was invited by a publicist who sounded so thrilled I’d accepted her invitation that it was immediately obvious she thought getting me there would somehow generate coverage in Chat. Oh, well, I’d decided. I’d heard about these award show events where all the nominees and presenters are invited to some mansion to get all this free shit in exchange for allowing photographers to catch them clutching the newly acquired products, and figured there wouldn’t be any harm in attending.

  Inhaling deeply on my cigarette, it occurs to me that I may have been wrong. From the minute I’d been allowed into this English Tudor mansion that was rumored to rent for $20,000 a day and walked from booth to booth, I’d felt this childish greed well up in me. My eyes darted around in a feverish panic—I wanted to be at the Keds shoe booth and the MAC makeup table and the Toys “R” Us mini castle all at the same time, even though I don’t like Keds, rarely wear makeup, and certainly don’t need any toys. Every person stopping me from getting everything all at once—which is to say, every person there—seemed an irritant. Yet no one booth seemed to whet my appetite. The best stuff is over to the right, I’d think. Or, ohhh, Nailtiques nail polish—now that’s what I should be getting. I felt like a contestant on a game show I used to watch when I was little, where the winners could take home everything they could pile into a shopping cart in the allotted time. It used to bring up simultaneous feelings of panic and excitement that I could barely stand. But actually being one of the participants inspired a far more powerful emotion: greed.

  And I didn’t much like the sycophantic aspect of my personality the event seemed to bring out. I absolutely adore sarongs, I’d found myself saying to this woman giving out inexplicably tacky tie-dyed sarongs. Or I’ve been looking for sunglasses just like this I said to the guy giving out Ray-Bans I’d never wear. Most everyone was almost painfully nice—way too nice, considering the fact that I was taking things they typically sell and not giving them anything in return—and it seemed impossible to believe in that environment that something like poverty or a famine in Africa or even George Bush existed. Conversations seemed to revolve around plastic surgery and Emmy after-parties and the new line of Juicy now at Lisa Kline. And where were the Emmy nominees, anyway? The crowd seemed to be comprised of tabloid reporters, publicists picking things out “for their clients,” and other seemingly soulless moochers. And I couldn’t deny the fact that I was one of them.

  Now that I’m home and have all the contents out of their bags and divided into small piles, I have this strong desire to give everything away. Not to the homeless or anything crazy, just to friends. I don’t deserve all this stuff, I say to myself as I mash a cigarette out, but I don’t know why.

  Then I start resenting the event for making me depressed. I’d been feeling so good since getting sober—like I’d exited my life and wandered into someone else’s—that I guess I’d begun to assume that malaise was simply a feeling from my old life that I no longer had to be bothered with. But in my heart, I know it’s not the event that has me down; it’s the fact that it’s been over a month since Adam and I talked in New York and he still hasn’t called.

  My phone rings and, as soon as I check caller ID and determine that it’s not Adam, I return to the couch and my pack of cigarettes. I shouldn’t be isolating, I think as I eventually pick up my phone to listen to the messages. They’d warned us about isolating in rehab, telling us that if we felt like being alone, we should do “contrary action” and get out. But I really just don’t feel like it.

  There’s a message from Tim saying that he loves the new column, a couple of hang-ups, Stephanie asking if I want to go to a screening with her, and Rachel wanting to know why I hadn’t checked in with her for a few days. How the hell can he claim to be thinking about me obsessively and then not call? I wonder.

  I turn on my computer to start going through e-mails I still have to respond to and somehow land on the one Charlotte (aka Tube Top) sent with all her writing attached. I open up the first document, thinking that reading her attempts to sound like a writer should make me feel better about myself.

  And then something altogether shocking happens: I’m thoroughly transfixed. Her first attachment is an essay she wrote about meeting a nude photographer, asking him to take pictures of her and then almost backing out of the portraits until he gives her painkillers that subdue her enough to help her lose her self-consciousness. The piece so perfectly captures the conflict I’ve felt about being proud of my body while simultaneously ashamed of that pride. It’s funny and honest and so unlike anything I’d ever imagine an eighteen-year-old—let alone an eighteen-year-old that looks like her—writing that I’m in complete shock. Screw her, I think, wishing I hadn’t read her e-mail in the first place.

  My phone rings and it makes me half jump out of my skin. It’s a private number but I will myself to do “contrary action” and answer.

  “Hel-lo.” I sound a bit singsongy and, I notice, almost shockingly normal.

  “Party Girl?” I immediately recognize the voice but pretend I don’t.

  “Yes?”

  “Jeremy Barrenbaum. What are you doing there? Why aren’t we out tearing the town up?”

  I feel immediately self-conscious about having been caught at home with no plans on a Thursday evening. “Oh, I’m on my way out,” I say, glancing at the clock: 7:30 P.M. Sounds reasonable.

  “Cool, where to? Maybe I’ll join you.”

  Momentary panic, and then: “Just to a friend’s. Private party, sorry.”

  “That’s cool,” he says. “How about tomorrow? Nobu in Malibu?”

  I’ve never liked fish so I certainly don’t eat raw fish, which has long made me a complete anomaly in Los Angeles. But, most of all, I don’t like the idea of being out with Jeremy Barrenbaum and having to continue to perpetuate this notion that I’m wild when I’m not. What am I going to do, have the waitress crack open a bottle of Martinelli’s apple cider and pretend it’s champagne?

  I take a breath. “You know, Jeremy, I should have told you something the other night.”

  “Oh, I read that Page Six thing about how you’re not into guys. I don’t buy it for a second.”

  I stifle the urge to hang up on him. “Oh, I’m straight. But I am actually seeing someone. A guy.”

  A slight pause and then: “Look, I don’t care. I’m seeing someone, too.”

  Oh my God, no wonder he has so many movie credits, I think. What a pushy bastard. “Yeah, well, I only want to be with the person I’m seeing,” I say. I picture Adam and for a second believe he and I really are dating.

  “Oh, okay.” He doesn’t sound put out in the slightest. “Want to take my number? Things may not work out with this guy.”

  “Sure,” I say, knowing I’m being spineless. He recites a few numbers—home, office, cell, and a place in Palm Springs—and I pretend to be writing them down while I lie on my back not moving. Then I say, “I’ll talk to you soon.” I immediately know I shouldn’t have said that because I don’t want to but it just automatically comes out of my mouth when I’m trying to get off the phone. He says good-bye and I sit there holding the phone for only what seems like a second when it rings again. A 212 number on caller ID. I figure it might be a Chat editor trying to close my column so I answer.

  “Hello.” I’m not as singsongy but my voice still sounds misleadingly cheery.

  “Sweetie, it’s Nadine. What on earth are you doing home?”

  Oh, God. Nadine seems to be under the mistaken impression that I spend every waking minute going to A-list parties, and to be fair to her, I haven’t done anything to correct that impression. “Just stopping home for a minute,” I manage. “I had to change my purse.”

  “Oh, of course.” I’d known that excuse would work; people like Nadine changed their purses a lot, while I tend to carry the same one for months or years at a time. “Where are you off to?”

  “Just a frien
d’s private party.” By now, I was definitely beginning to believe myself. “A movie producer.” I plan to give her Jeremy Barrenbaum’s name if she presses further.

  “Oh, fabulous! And I’m calling with even more fabulous news! Ryan Duran’s people called. Apparently, he read your column and wants to go out with you.”

  Now I’ve heard of this kind of thing happening. Supposedly, Tom Cruise saw Nicole Kidman’s first movie, Dead Calm, then called her agent and set up a date. But it still shocks me to hear that it’s possible to look at life like it’s a Pottery Barn catalog or Pink Dot menu, and order people—even if you happened to be world-famous and adorable.

  Ryan Duran, a well-respected movie star who had first become well known as a teenager in the ’80s and somehow managed to avoid the inevitable backlash that should have followed his initial success, has a fairly well publicized reputation as both a troubled soul and a ladies’ man—which means, of course, that I’ve had a crush on him for as long as I can remember. I’d actually just read a piece on him in Premiere where he’d talked about how all he wanted to do was run with his dog on the beach near Zuma, and I’d fantasized about being the one waiting at the Malibu house for him to come home to after said run. All I can manage to say is, “What?”

  “‘He thinks she’s hot,’ his manager said. ‘Can he call her?’ I told him I thought so, but I’d have to check with you.”

  I feel a bizarre internal tug-of-war—I don’t really care but this latent adolescent part of me is beyond thrilled. “What am I supposed to say?”

  “Say yes! It could be fabulous publicity for the column!”

  I’m slightly surprised by Nadine’s response, even though I probably shouldn’t be. What did I think, she was suddenly going to transform into a spiritual giant and talk to me about something besides publicity?