Speaking of my dad, around this time my mother had threatened to divorce him if he refused to move to New York City so they could be closer to me and my sister, who was attending college upstate. He put up a fight for a full three hours, and then closed his uniform shop and did as she said. Their plan was for her to sell real estate and for him to keep his regular uniform clients via a home office. They swapped our lovely home in New England for an apartment the size of an armoire, and arrived on the Upper West Side with no savings, one subway map, and not a second of regret.
Money became tight in my folks’ transition from Longmeadow to Manhattan, so I’d insist on comping meals for them a couple nights a week at Sarabeth’s. Like most of my customers, they’d salivate over the famous, velvety tomato soup, slurping up spoonfuls and spoonfuls with pure delight. I finally had an appetite again and drank the yummy soup now and then, but by in large, I remained uninterested in food. I would eat whatever didn’t sell from the Sarabeth’s bakery, or grilled chicken salads on dull double dates with Gary, or anything that I could find in the mini-fridge at my studio. Food didn’t turn me on or off, and it certainly didn’t make me moan. But the sexy struggling actor who worked the night shift at Sarabeth’s, while my oblivious boyfriend put in banking hours, took care of that.
Life was good, back in early 2001.
And then one morning, I got off the subway downtown on Fourteenth Street and saw a big crowd on the street. It sounds crazy, but my immediate reaction was Sample sale? I walked to the corner deli and ordered an egg-and-cheese sandwich, and everyone was acting strange in there, too. When I went outside, already unwrapping my breakfast, a woman had dropped her dry-cleaning bags and collapsed into tears in the middle of the street. And then I looked up. The second plane had just hit, and my mom was calling.
AT TWENTY-FOUR, I began my career as a professional journalist by way of a news editor at Us Weekly named Marc Malkin. I befriended Malkin while at ABC Carpet & Home, after I leaked to him a story about Julia Roberts’s shopping spree there. After I aggressively insisted that he give his staff the night off on New Year’s Eve 2002 and relinquish their red-carpet duties to me, I spent the night running around in the freezing cold, barelegged and beaming, interviewing an unknown named Scarlett Johansson and a little girl named Lindsay Lohan. My sister, who had finally broken out of her shell, tagged along and ended up making out with Mark McGrath. We jacked his yellow puffy vest and gave it to my dad for his birthday. The night was too magnificent to comprehend.
Soon after, in 2003, Malkin offered me a well-paid reporting job, my first real gig in magazines. Forever thankful for the position, I would have done anything to please him. I stalked Britney Spears in Kentwood, Louisiana (where I was warned, with a straight face, not to reveal my religion or ethnic-sounding last name), sat for months on a stoop belonging to the Olsen twins, and shopped for silky corsets beside Angelina Jolie at Saks. I adored Jessica Simpson’s then-husband, Nick Lachey, one of the nicest guys I’d ever met. The magazine had me interview him so many times that we couldn’t help but feel like real, and completely platonic, friends after a few months. Once, we spent so much time talking off the record at a nightclub that someone took a picture of him whispering into my ear, and days later, he and I were falsely linked together on the cover of National Enquirer. The silly, short-lived buzz around the story resulted in paparazzi showing up at my grandmother’s house on Thanksgiving because they thought he was there with me, followed by relentless phone calls from publicists, snoops, and lawyers throughout the entire holiday. It was terrible, and gave me a small taste of my own medicine.
But the most stellar part of the job happened when I met my colleague, co-conspirator, and future best friend, Shelley.
Shelley’s temperament distressed me a little at first, but not enough to stay away. On the inside, she was a nice Jewish girl from Michigan—good-hearted and hilarious, my two favorite qualities—and at our core, we shared an instant, unspoken familiarity, an easy closeness, like that of first cousins. But on the outside, Shelley was a real flamethrower. Physically incapable of taking no for an answer, professionally or personally, she owned the New York nightlife scene, never having to wait in lines, always getting what she wanted when she wanted it. She could barge into the ultra-exclusive Bungalow 8 without blinking an eye, and torpedo into a Brad Pitt movie premiere guarded by the feds. She was a bull, and sometimes a bully, but I’ve never had more fun with anyone in my life.
Meeting Shelley, with all her contacts and connections, was like landing on a new planet. She was constantly bellowing into her cell, or banging out e-mails on her Sidekick, demanding to know “Where is ehhhveryone tonight? … I heard ehhhveryone is going to Marquee.… Wait, is ehhhveryone there, already?” I’d listen to her carry on, slightly stunned by the high-school-ish tone, but totally mesmerized by her sensational fast-track life. Eventually, I had to ask her, “Who is this ehhhveryone we’re always chasing?” She didn’t answer, but I wasn’t really that dense. We were playing with the popular group.
Shelley was deeply in the cool crowd. Backstage passes to the Kanye West show? Easy. Free haircuts at Frédéric Fekkai? Obviously. Private jets to the Hamptons? Of course. With enough finesse, she could make anything happen. Especially reservations.
We used our corporate cards to eat at New York’s most fabulous and flashy restaurants. Nobu, where even fancy people save up for celebratory meals, was our daily cafeteria. The owners of Tao, which was absolutely on fire in 2003, treated Shelley from Detroit like the Queen of Dubai. We never got a bill at the booming Dos Caminos, where we’d bounce from table to table like sangria-stained bunny rabbits, because the overgenerous publicist was a pal. I loved going to these restaurants … but not for the food. It was the energy, the electricity, the heartbeat, and the buzz. The truth is I knew nothing about the menus, wine lists, or grass-fed whatever, but that didn’t make the meals any less luminous.
It was a glamorous time, jetting around from the MTV Video Music Awards in Miami to Hollywood premiere parties at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles, feeling all shimmery and self-entitled. I was absolutely enamored with Heath Ledger, whom I’d bump into every now and then on the impossibly guarded third floor of the Spotted Pig. He once touched my shoulder and asked if I wanted to smoke a cigarette together, and for the first time in my life, I fucking froze. We could have been friends.
But we ran with a cutthroat subculture, often dealing with druggies, lies, mean girls, and manipulation, too. Celebrity handlers were always using us to get into the magazine, or abusing us for working there in the first place. (As they say, the only thing worse than being in Us Weekly is not being in Us Weekly.) The rat race—euphoric and evil as it is—can really scrape at your soul. I never would have lasted long without Shellz.
At a Tommy Hilfiger party in Bryant Park, I once spotted a drop-dead-gorgeous guy sitting all by himself. So many people in “the scene” were lonely and hurting—I could never find any correlation between fame and happiness. He looked like one of those lost souls. By this point, I was more or less committed to Gary, so I wasn’t shy about walking over to meet the tall drink of Fashion Week. (It’s always easier talking to cute guys when you genuinely don’t care if they like you or not.) I did notice, as I got closer, that this was the most handsome man I’d ever seen.
“Hey, you okay over there? What’s your name?”
“Oh, yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Just tired. Thanks for asking. That was nice. I’m Tom.” Holy Hilfiger, Tom was hot.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Shelley spontaneously combusting in her platform shoes, trying to send me some sort of telepathic message. Maybe she knew him? Maybe she’d slept with him? I waved her over.
“Shellz,” I said with a nudge. “This is my new friend, Tom.… Wait, what’s your last name, sweetie?”
“Brady.”
Oh boy.
I’d find myself in crazy situations like this all time. In the winter of 2004, at the Sundance Film Festival,
in Park City, Utah, Shellz and I were dropped off by a taxi at our private rental home on the highest point of a mountain, in the middle of the night, only to realize after the driver sped away that we were completely locked out, with no cell phone reception whatsoever, wearing stupid, skimpy outfits and strappy, open-toed stilettos. It was pitch-black and frigid, without any neighboring homes in sight, and no streetlights or passing cars. We were screwed. Like, dead skanks in Park City screwed.
Then, as we were shaking from fear and frostbite, trying to figure out how far we’d have to walk for help—it felt like miles—Nick Nolte stumbled out of the woods, stinking of whisky, holding a walking stick, and saving the day. He couldn’t explain how or why he was up there, but he managed to call a van of angry butch filmmakers (we’ve never figured out the connection), who barely knew him and deplored the ditzy, decked-out Shelley and me from the start, to drive us to shelter in a baby blue minivan. Nolte, in the meantime, scurried back into the arms of Mother Nature before our teeth could stop chattering, and we could say thanks. Miraculously, all ended well. Except no one believed a word of it.
Shellz and I had so much fun being the Thelma and Louise of the gossip scene. I am sure many people found us obnoxious with our Jimmy Choo shoes, diva-like mood swings, and smudged, morning-after eye makeup, but we had each other and that seemed to be enough. The only other person we took care never to offend was Yolandá, the feisty Filipino lady in accounting who signed off on all our expenses for the price of a black ’n’ white cookie. Bless her.
At age twenty-six, while I was half paying attention, I got engaged to Gary and moved into a great apartment with him in the Flatiron district. I dismissed my ambivalence about the whole wedding thing with the excuse that I was too busy with work, calling myself an “Indie Bride,” which I think translated to “screw this.” Following the marriage proposal, I took as many travel assignments as I could, ate most of my meals “on the field,” and avoided domesticity as much as possible. At our beautiful new apartment, I never once turned on the stove or attempted to cook. I never bought groceries or so much as made a cup of tea for my hardworking future husband.
Gary was a more imaginative eater than I was, perhaps one of the first foodies I ever knew. He was always on a mission to evolve my palate, so when an acclaimed new Indian restaurant, Tamarind, opened just down the street from our apartment, he dragged me right out the door. I was reluctant—mostly because it meant skipping a night out on the town, and also because I had never even contemplated eating Indian food. But the staff was so warm and gracious, and the decor so tastefully done, that it was hard to keep up my gastronomical guard.
Gary delved into the menu, eager to please me, as always. He ordered us basic but authentic-enough dishes like biryani (a casserole of saffron-scented rice with vegetables and meat), saag paneer (cubes of unaged cheese floating in warm, creamy spinach), lamb samosas (big, fried triangular pockets filled with meat and spices), and chicken tikka masala (chicken in a rich red sauce). When the food came, I threw a napkin on my lap, pulled back my hair, and crammed as much curry down my esophagus as humanly possible. To say that I liked it would be an understatement. “Um, Indian food is everything,” I texted Shelley.
Gary was “pumped” to take my taste buds even further, and next planned to sequester me at some hard-core Japanese restaurants. It killed him that I wasted precious opportunities to try the most exotic raw fish night after night at Nobu. But he wouldn’t even get the chance to teach me how to hold chopsticks. Before my taste for sake could develop, my relationship with Gary ended. I was not a good fiancée, and he deserved better than what I could bring to the table (or not). For me, real life in New York was just beginning. I was tipsy, untamable, and totally caught up. There were too many mistakes to be made and too many pinch-me moments to be had. Especially when it was guys like Derek Jeter doing the pinching.
Our relationship officially ended on our fifth anniversary, the night Gary planned to take me to Gramercy Tavern, arguably the best restaurant in town. But instead, I was downing margaritas at the Maritime Hotel, flirting with a party-hopping photographer I was in love with for a few seconds, and interviewing Mischa Barton, who was launching a sexy new show called The O.C. Meanwhile, Gary was at the apartment, waiting with flowers, continually calling the restaurant to extend the reservation. I never came home that night and we broke up the next morning. Gary might not have been the great love of my life, but I did love him, and I wish he never got hurt. I still can’t walk past Gramercy Tavern without hating myself a little.
But that’s New York. The streets are filled with neon-lit restaurants that taste like nostalgia, glamour, guilt, and goose-bumps. If you’ve lived here long enough, every corner booth, deli counter, dive bar, coffee shop, and critic’s darling becomes a Polaroid of your life. The meals at Sarabeth’s with my parents, or Nobu with Shelley, or Tamarind with Gary—they are seasoned with moments I pray to remember and things I hope to forget. But for me, the food always came second to the snapshot.
I DON’T know what revolves more in New York, relationships or real estate, but a few weeks later, I was walking up seven flights of stairs, carrying a laundry basket of mud masks, pumpernickel pretzel rods, and Cosabella thongs. I’d moved out of my place with Gary—who let me go gracefully, like the gentleman he always was—and into a shared walk-up on the Upper East Side.
The schlep up the stairs was nothing short of sadistic, but it led to a huge, whimsical furnished triplex, with big bedrooms, a California kitchen, and the most important amenity of all, excellent roommates who were never home. They were a few boho-chic girls I knew peripherally from the magazine world, and, to my benefit, had loaded fiancés with Tribeca lofts and Hamptons weekend homes. This left me with three floors of Moroccan rugs and Barcelona chairs, and a rooftop decorated with lanterns and potted tulips, all to myself. It was like Last Tango in Paris, but with a Pick A Bagel on the corner.
Twenty-seven and newly single, I had promised myself that from this point on I would date only men who intensely intrigued me. I don’t know why I stayed in such an uninspiring relationship for so long. Chalk it up to being young, immature, or the fact that, despite his pin-striped shirts and fantasy football league, Gary was a great guy.
Betrothed to no one, I found that I was happy to just hang out. I had my job, my friends, and, on this particular night, my sister to keep me busy. Rachel, who was working on her master’s in education, was visiting my apartment for something that couldn’t possibly be less academic: she was making an audition tape for The Bachelor and needed my help. After three years of televised weddings, celebrity-endorsed tanning creams, and press releases from Donald Trump’s assistant, I was so turned off by reality stars that I was mortified to even be part of such a mission. But hey, anything for my sister. Even a rose ceremony.
To commemorate “the wrap” of her three-minute monologue—which was not her most poised, Natalie Portman moment—I offered to make us some hot cocoa with a few Nestlé packets, which were covered in cobwebs in the cupboard. There was just one problem: I had no idea where to start. Twenty-seven years old, with double degrees, tons of bylines, and the private phone number to every Queer Eye and straight guy in New York City, here I was with two polka-dotted mugs, a few stale packets of cocoa powder, and a stupid, blank stare on my face. I considered asking my sister for help, but this was a girl who wanted a flower from a stranger with a man-tan. I decided to handle it myself.
One of my roommates kept a shiny coffeemaker on the slate countertop. I thought I’d just fill the carafe with water and heat it on the stovetop. Simple. I was sure that I’d seen my mother do this before. (In hindsight, that was a teakettle.) So I did just that: I turned on the gas stove as high as it would go, and felt quite satisfied with myself. I skipped downstairs with my sister to wash up and get into our pajamas. But as we wiped off the silver glittery makeup from Rachel’s big brown eyes, the fire alarm started to screech. I ran to the kitchen.
“Call 911
!” I screamed. “The house is on fire!”
The plastic carafe had caught on fire. Disaster. I had flashes of my roommates losing all their fancy family heirlooms and Louis Vuitton luggage, and me going to prison for pyromania. We frantically called my father: “Come over! We need you! We set the kitchen on fire!” He must have been watching a Red Sox game because once we assured him that we weren’t in any serious danger, all he really had to say was “Oy vey. You girls.” Thanks, Super-Dad. My mother, much more helpful, urged me to grab my tax returns and run. My guess was that they didn’t want to walk up those seven flights of stairs to save us. Luckily, the sexy NYFD did.
The firefighters arrived at the scene before any serious damage was done. After they saved the day, and the pretty, pre-war apartment, a few of the firefighters even asked for our numbers. Everything worked out in the end, except The Bachelor rejected Rachel, and I became content on giving the kitchen, and all of its compadres, my continued cold shoulder.
Such was life in my late twenties. It was a time of sparks, stories, and self-discovery. It didn’t take long after calling off my engagement with Gary for me to start meeting guys everywhere I went. They landed in my life with ease and delight, swinging gently on the hammock that was my heart, until I affectionately released them to their overprotective mothers, ovulating ex-girlfriends, minuscule bank accounts, enormous penises, Bar exams, probation officers, or some combination thereof. I found a certain thrill, a built-in drama, in the lost puppies I liked and who liked me back. They came in all looks and livelihoods, but they usually shared a similar nature: sweet to the core and microscopically unstable. At least I stuck to my guns … not one fling was boring.
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