The List

by Karin Tanabe

  She handed me some cucumber water and led me to the inner sanctum of the salon, where women got naked and had aestheticians pluck, prod, and remold them until they were ready to face the world again.

  “Coffee?” asked a woman in white scrubs as I looked longingly at a silver urn. “Triple espresso, three Splenda, no cream. And I really appreciate it,” I said before curling back into the fetal position. My hair looked like yarn and my eyes were bloodshot and dry. I felt as sexually appealing as a cactus.

  My attempt to have a caffeine drip while re-creating my time in the womb didn’t last long. Three hours later I was on the red carpet at the Washington Hilton in jeans and a sweater with the hair and makeup of a Las Vegas showgirl. My dress was steamed and hanging from someone’s camera light, but I was waiting five hours to slap myself together in a public restroom. For now, I just had to sit like a yogi front and center on the red carpet, behind a rope, so no one dared take our space. I didn’t pee, I didn’t take a leisurely walk. I just sat, caffeinated and dehydrated, until 5 P.M. rolled around.

  “Lie down in our space!” I hissed at Simon. “Don’t let anyone take it. I have to change.”

  He lay on his back with his knees bent and his camera on his chest while the TV crew from Entertainment Tonight glared at him. “Don’t try to take an inch of our floor space, Mr. Hollywood,” I heard Simon warning as I walked to the bathroom.

  I threw my jeans on the floor, apologized to some poor tourist woman who walked in and saw me creeping around in my underwear, and zipped up a dress so fantastic that my last editor had allowed me to wear it to the Met Ball. It was so not Washington. It was not what a reporter should ever wear, anywhere, but I didn’t care. I felt like a cross between Marilyn Monroe and the girl who was painted gold in that Bond movie.

  “That’s an interesting dress. It looks heavy,” said Simon when I came back outfitted and roaring to go.

  “It is! It’s woven with real gold. Real gold! John Galliano gave it to my former colleague during the Paris couture show, but she didn’t want it. Can you imagine. I mean people used to wear armor. What’s a little gold? It’s not that heavy.”

  It actually weighed about fifteen pounds and felt as if you had a dumbbell tied to each shoulder, but it was worth it. It’s not like Catherine the Great complained that her coronation gown was seven feet across the rump.

  “People wore armor to prevent long iron spears from stabbing them in the heart. Why do you need to wear a precious metal?” said Simon, still inspecting my amazing dress. He touched it and screamed. “It’s cold, too! Why are you wearing that?”

  Why was I wearing this? Because it was a ten-thousand-dollar dress stitched together by the supple hands of John Galliano and a herd of magical Italian grandmothers!

  “Just . . . I dunno. It was a gift,” I mumbled.

  Ten minutes later, I was sweating from the weight of my dress. Simon had me shoved against the red velvet rope with a microphone, and we were elbowing reporters trying to encroach on our space. “Back off, Washington Post girl,” Simon threatened as we heard the front door open and watched the first famous guest walk in. It was six o’clock. It would be nine hours of reporting and stalking and filing stories before I could slump into my Volvo and drive home.

  Lincoln Town Car after Lincoln Town Car pulled up to the front of the hotel. Each one spat a polished and prepped celebrity out into a wave of oohs and aahs and camera bulbs. Rockers, aging rockers, starlets, cinema icons: they all walked the carpet, popping their hips for the press and blessing the rows of salivating reporters with their presence, if they felt like it. Some refused to come near us, all hungry and roped off like zoo animals. Others walked slowly down the line, giving everybody the sound bite their editors were harassing them for.

  “What are you wearing?” I called out politely. Nothing. Kate Hudson completely ignored me. I raised my voice a bit. “Kate! Kate! Who made your dress?” I tried, a little louder.

  “Get her over here!” hissed Simon. Well, sheesh, it’s not like he was helping very much. I needed a fishing rod to nab these people. If I could just reel them in with precision and a worm it would be so much easier. “You have to be more aggressive!” he chided me. “We’ll never get anyone if you keep whispering like that.”

  So I stopped with the indoor voice. When Matthew McConaughey walked through the door, I whooped and hollered at him.

  “Are you a fan of President Obama’s?” I asked as he smiled for Simon’s lens. “I don’t talk politics. Sorry, darlin’,” he said, grinning and crossing his brawny arms as the cameras flashed.

  Really? No politics at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where the president is appearing. Fine, make my job just a little more difficult. Perhaps you’d like to fling sulfuric acid in my face.

  After we nabbed five interviews, thanks to our precious front-and-center red carpet space, Simon suggested we give it up and start chasing celebrities around the building.

  “File that story,” he said, watching me pound out words on the miniature BlackBerry keyboard as fast as I could. “Then let’s get the good stuff where no one is around us to eavesdrop. I saw that Washington Post reporter write down your Jessica Alba quote word for word.”

  We packed up our journalist junk and headed into the crowd. As soon as we began moving, it was obvious that my feet were most definitely broken. I tried to wiggle my toes. Nothing. Clearly, I would have to have them pieced together by scientists tomorrow. “Is this a bone? Or part of a pencil?” they would ask as they picked at the appendages I once called feet.

  “Can you move any faster?” said Simon, watching me trying to walk in Louboutin platforms and a metal dress. Ignoring my death glare, he hoisted his camera up on his shoulder and waited for me to catch up. “Adrienne. We need at least four more celebrity interviews or we won’t have enough footage for a ten-minute montage. I need you to find someone.” He scanned the crowd. “There’s Ben Affleck!” He pointed to a speck of a person all the way across the room, surrounded by a gaggle of guests.

  “I think that’s actually Congressman Aaron Schock.”

  “No way! That’s Ben Affleck. Go run and see. I’m right behind you with the camera rolling. Go, go!”

  “Ben! Ben! Ben!” I screamed, running toward him like a stalker who has a future of solitary confinement and newspaper clippings to look forward to.

  The tall, frowning actor didn’t even turn around. Like a man in deep meditation, he completely ignored my screeching.

  “Hi, Ben!” I said, pushing aside a ruddy-faced rod of a man. “My name is Adrienne Brown. I’m a reporter for the Capitolist. We’re just thrilled you came down to D.C. for this important event.”

  “Mr. Affleck is not doing interviews right now,” said the thin man.

  “I’m with the Capitolist,” I responded, giving him a “know what I mean?” smile. “Would Mr. Affleck have time for just one quick on-camera comment?” I flashed the media credentials around my neck to prove that I worked for the esteemed publication.

  “I’m afraid he does not,” replied the handler. “He’s not doing any interviews. Just here to enjoy the evening.”

  Not doing any interviews? Why would he fly to D.C. and flaunt his famousness if he was not doing any interviews? I knew his causes. Sudan, the African Diaspora, child hunger, Canadian strip clubs. I could speak his language. But Ben Affleck just stood there ignoring me, perfectly still, perfectly mum. I looked up at his face with my best girl in need of a kidney expression. He didn’t crack a smile. He just looked at me like I was a talking worm with a notepad and then turned away.

  I left my pride on the floor and headed back toward the rope line with Simon in tow.

  “Why are we leaving? They were about to say yes,” said Simon, pouting and switching off his camera’s fluorescent light.

  “His agent told me to go out back and hang myself,” I replied, skulking toward the press pool. “He offered me his shoelace. Do you really think it would be a good idea to keep tr
ying?”

  “I do. I do,” said Simon, shaking his head up and down.

  Before we got back to the media rope, one of the security men spotted us and approached us angrily. “Get out of here and back behind the media rope. If I see you off the rope again I’m going to kick your bony ass out forever,” he said, expectorating in my face. One frown from Simon and the spitting man declared, “Really, video boy? You’re both out of here.” Out of Simon’s skinny, sweaty hands, the bouncer grabbed his huge video camera like it was grandma’s rinky-dink Polaroid.

  Won-der-ful. This would be easy to explain. “Me? Oh sure, I’m fine. Just lounging here in prison. Making friends fast. No, no. Not Lisbon. Prison. Also, Simon and I managed to lose a fifteen-thousand-dollar video camera to a man who looked like he ate human skulls for Sunday brunch.”

  This was not going as planned. I had a big fat Capitolist name tag with my picture on it dangling from my neck. This was supposed to be my entrée to everything. Instead, Simon and I found ourselves slipping the bouncer a fifty to give us the camera back and promised to stay behind the rope at all times.

  That lasted for about ten minutes. “I’m going to take the camera and get some B-roll in the pre-parties. You take this Flip cam and get some more interviews,” said Simon. “If we have any chance of getting on E!, we need more. Get more!” He handed me a camera the size of a credit card and ran off to capture famous people shoving canapés down their throats. I turned it on, held it up, and pressed record to make sure there was still time left on the tiny device. No one wanted to talk into a camera the size of a cube of cheese. It wasn’t great for the ego.

  Leaning against a large marble pillar, I panned slowly across the room, happy not to be chasing anyone or worrying about racking up celebrity interviews. I felt like a documentary filmmaker, blending into the background, rather than a journalist stomping through the human jungle.

  I was ready to turn the camera off and resume the hunt for fame when my lens caught a group of Capitolist reporters. Isabelle, with her rippling muscles and pretty blond hair, was one of them. I lifted my hand to wave at her, until I saw that standing in the middle of the group of four was Olivia. Why was Isabelle talking to Olivia?

  I was too far away to capture any of their audio, but I zoomed in on Olivia’s face to watch her as she spoke. With her fiery hair curled and arranged high on her head like a Jane Austen heroine’s, she looked softer, less ready to take out a Glock and threaten someone’s life if she wasn’t chosen for White House duty. Her fair skin glowed pink; she looked much better out of the harsh fluorescent lights of the newsroom. As she spoke animatedly, letting her ethereal forest green dress swish around her, you could almost imagine her having friends, warm blood, the ability to smile. She was talking assuredly to Isabelle and the other two. None of them was drinking; they seemed to occupy a tiny invisible box of personal space.

  I watched my colleagues, transformed into night owls. Through the tiny viewfinder, I watched Olivia nod and frown, obviously talking in her barking, masculine way despite her softened appearance.

  After a few minutes of spying, a tall, lithe man with dark hair walked over to the group. He was gorgeous. He was familiar, too. I zoomed in on his face, telling myself there was absolutely no way, he couldn’t be. But he was! He was the guy from the museum ice-skating rink. The dreamboat with the enchanting whistle and Canadian friends! He was here. Delivered to me by a higher power! And as luck would have it, I was wearing John Galliano. I could have seen this guy when I looked my worst, but the great powers that be had decided for us to meet at a black-tie event. It was fate.

  He immediately started speaking to Isabelle, which made sense. Why shouldn’t this Adonis talk to the Olympian. Maybe that’s who he was, one of Isabelle’s Olympic Village buddies or her latest sports world conquest. He said he didn’t skate, but he was tall and lean, maybe a skier? The only men Isabelle cared about were adrenaline junkies. I carefully looked at his face to see if I recognized him not just from the Smithsonian skating rink, but also from the podium.

  Olivia barked at the other two Capitolist girls in their polyester gowns while Isabelle spoke quietly to the gorgeous man—my gorgeous man—with perfect skin the color of hazelnut mousse.

  Not blinded by lust like I was, Isabelle turned away from him to greet someone else. He moved aside and looked around the room until his eyes fell on me. This was one of those moments, I could feel it. This was the story we would tell our photogenic children during Christmas dinner every year.

  I dropped the camera down to my side, shut it off, and walked over to the group. I waited for him to rush toward me and to start casually caressing my face and nibbling my ears, but speedy Isabelle got to me first.

  “Hi, Adrienne. Wow! I love your dress,” she said sweetly as she approached me. She made me turn around so she could see it from all angles. It really was movable art. My gorgeous man just stood there politely while I fought every impulse to start slow dancing with him, and when Isabelle had stopped swirling in her navy gown, and me in my gold, she remembered her manners and looked at my Latin He-man apologetically.

  “Oh! I’m sorry,” she said, swinging her head around. “I’m so rude. Adrienne,” she said, motioning to me, “this is Sandro Pena, Olivia’s husband.”

  The coy smile of recognition I had been rehearsing froze, half assembled on my face. All the air seemed to leave the room and I was left choking on reality. The man I wanted, the man I had been lusting after was married.

  To Olivia.

  I was positive that I was about to faint directly into the potted plant next to me. My head was light, and my stomach was doing triple axels. I felt just the way I did after Virginia Mill-bank kicked a fluorescent yellow soccer ball directly into my gut in the tenth grade. But somehow, I managed to stay upright, rearranging my dry mouth into a fake pageant queen smile as I took in Isabelle’s words.

  I heard Isabelle laugh and say my name, but it sounded so muffled and distant. I finally noticed that Olivia’s husband was holding his hand out, waiting for me to shake it. I apologized and put my hand in his.

  As soon as our skin touched, I felt my body relax. I could have left my hand in his forever. Up and down our hands went, clasped together, once, twice, before he released mine from his perfect grasp.

  And just like that, everything had changed.

  “Shall we be going.” Olivia’s commanding voice pierced through the heavy hush of my love at second sight. She gave me a disapproving look, one she must have learned in executioner training, put her hand on her husband’s broad shoulder, just like he had put his on mine, and turned away, leaving me with Isabelle and our two colleagues.

  “Cute, isn’t he,” said Isabelle when we broke away. “I didn’t know she was married. She’s so mean, I always figured she was single. I guess some men just like bitchy women.” She laughed and waved to a friend from MSNBC.

  “I think most of them do,” I said in a whisper. He didn’t even look like he remembered me. I was probably just one of hundreds of blond girls who hit on him at skating rinks. The only gorgeous guy in Washington, the only one I’d been excited about in ages was married. To her! To that horrible red-haired cheater!

  I excused myself awkwardly, saying I was still on the celeb hunt, and ran up the escalator steps, or tried to run up the steps, which security had just opened. I started looking everywhere for Julia, who was soon heading into the ballroom to cover the president’s remarks. I scuttled around for ten minutes, starting to feel very hot and teary, but finally found her finishing an interview with David Axelrod. She held her palm up as she finished typing on her BlackBerry and then gave me a hug.

  “I don’t feel great, Julia,” I said as she wiped my sweaty brow with her bare hand.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. She was wearing a red silk dress, magically free of sweat stains, and had her hair back in a chic black chignon. Her dark eyes squinted at me with concern.

  What was I supposed to say to that? Should I te
ll her that Olivia Campo did in fact have a husband, and that I had fallen for him at an ice-skating rink last month, but that God had hand-delivered him to me, and that now, after one handshake, I was desperately in love with him? Or should I just confess everything about Olivia and the senator and ask Julia to casually slip the news and my phone number to Olivia’s husband?

  “I think I’m just tired,” I said instead as she started moving the curled blond strands of my hair back into place.

  “I know. This is such a horrible week. Curt Blye from Warrington Communications came up to me before I talked to Axelrod and bit my ear. He actually bit it, like Mike Tyson. He said, ‘Your face kind of looks like a baby’s butt. But in a cute way,’ and then bit my ear. People here are so fucked up,” said Julia, touching the dimple in her chin cautiously.

  “Who is Curt Blye?” I asked.

  “You know him. He’s that short guy who always wears green plaid. Like he’s just poised and ready in case Santa Claus needs an understudy. He works for War Com.”

  I looked at Julia blankly.

  “They represent very rich criminals with a loud message and a lot of money. Basically, if Lucky Luciano lived today and was looking for a reputation makeover, he would give them a call.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, looking at her face. “You really don’t look like a butt. You’re very pretty.”

  Julia hugged me again and adjusted the straps of my dress.

  “Rob Lowe. Mr. Rob Lowe. Announcing Rob Lowe,” a PR girl from the Bloomberg party said mechanically as she passed us.

  “Crap! Come on!” said Julia, grabbing my hand and running us directly into the pre-party with a nod of her well-known head.

  “I’m going to ask him about the orgy in ’88. Do you think he’ll hit me with a shoe or something?” I asked her.