Name Dropping

by Jane Heller

  “Good point,” I said.

  “What’s more, by stealing someone else’s blind date, you’ll be taking an extremely creative approach to the shortage of eligible men in this city.”

  “Thank you. I don’t feel quite as twisted now that we’ve talked.”

  She smiled. “Look, you’ll have dinner with him on Saturday night, do your act, and that will be that. Which brings me to a crucial question: What are you going to wear on the date? I’ll help you pick something out if you want.”

  “I’m all set, wardrobe wise, but I could use your help in another way.”

  “Name it.”

  “Could you search that computer of yours and find out whatever you can about the other Nancy Stern? Maybe she has a Web site. She has everything else.”

  “The magazines she writes for must have Web sites. I’ll click onto them and see if she’s there in connection with specific articles or profiles.”

  “That would be great.”

  “I’ll also try and get some general celebrity trivia for you. So you can sound like you know what you’re talking about.”

  “Even better.”

  “There’s just one thing.”

  “And that is?”

  “What if this guy turns out to be a total sociopath, like Gary, the nutritionist? That would be a downer.”

  “What if he turns out to be the man of my dreams, only he’s repulsed by women who aren’t completely honest with him? That would be a downer.”

  Chapter Six

  I left the city on Wednesday and drove to Pennsylvania to be with my family for Thanksgiving.

  I have a loving family, with the exception of my father’s widower-brother, Uncle Dave, who gets drunk and crabby and then passes out in front of the TV, and I don’t mind spending time at the old homestead, now that I don’t have to live there anymore. But my head wasn’t into this visit; I was fixated on my upcoming dinner date with Bill Harris.

  My mother noticed something was up the first evening, when I suggested we all watch Entertainment Tonight instead of real news.

  “Not interested in current events?” she asked as she passed the meat loaf. We were eating in the kitchen/family room, she and my father and I, saving the dining room for the big meal the next day.

  “Sure, I am,” I said, “but for some reason I’m in the mood for one of those celebrity shows.” For some reason—ha! I was hoping to do research in preparation for Saturday night, hoping to catch a few tidbits about Leonardo DiCaprio or one of those people, hoping to impress Bill Harris with my vast knowledge of Hollywood happenings—in case the conversation meandered in that direction.

  Later that night, as I was reading in bed (the current issues of People and Entertainment Weekly), my mother knocked on the door and asked if she could come in.

  “Of course,” I said, sliding over so she could sit on the bed next to me. “Is anything wrong?”

  “I miss you, that’s all,” she said wistfully. “You’ll always be my special baby, even though you’re grown up and living on your own.”

  Special baby. Here we go, I thought, sensing where she was headed: another spontaneous, unsolicited retelling of the story of the day I was born. I had heard it so often I could recite it word for word.

  “They told me I couldn’t have children,” was how she always launched into the story, establishing for the listener why I was a special baby right off the bat. Next came the visit to her doctor, the confirmation that she was pregnant, and the joy she and my father experienced upon receiving this unexpected but longed-for news. Then came the morning sickness followed by the food cravings followed by the weight gain. Then came the thrill of having her water break in the wee hours of the morning, the flat tire on the way to the hospital, and the good samaritan who appeared out of nowhere to fix it. Then came the arrival at the hospital, the labor pains, and finally the moment the doctor said, “I can see the head now.”

  “You’re our miracle, Nancy,” was how she always ended the story, rendering me miraculous as well as special.

  I once mentioned the story to the therapist I consulted briefly after my divorce. He said that children who are constantly hit with the specialness routine either grow up to be ne’er-do-wells who figure they can never fulfill their parents’ expectations so why try, or they go through life accepting nothing less than achievement, excellence, and glory. In which category do you fall, Nancy? he asked me. I said I didn’t know. He said I should think about it.

  That night at my parents’ house, I did think about it. I decided that I fell into the latter category. Why else would I covet the other Nancy Stern’s life if I weren’t the type to accept nothing less than achievement, excellence, and glory? Of course, it was her achievement, her excellence, and her glory I was after. Not a healthy sign, I concluded.

  “I wish I could see you more often, Nance,” my mother said as she got up from the bed.

  “Then why don’t you come into the city?” I said.

  “Oh, honey,” she said. “You know how hectic it is here.”

  What I knew was that the word travel was not in my mother’s vocabulary. She was raised three houses down from the house where she had raised me, and her life revolved around my father, her charity work, and the little greeting card shop she owned and managed with the woman who had been her best friend since high school. She moved within a very limited radius, but unlike me she never seemed dissatisfied with small-town life. She would never have yearned to be someone else, for example, never have even been tempted to steal the other Nancy Stern’s blind date.

  “One of these days I’ll come in and stay with you,” she vowed.

  “Whenever you want,” I said, hoping she would but not holding my breath.

  Thanksgiving day went pretty much according to past holiday gatherings. Uncle Dave polished off a fifth of Jack Daniel’s, unleashed a barrage of attacks on the United States government, the Pittsburgh Pirates, and his own children (who were smart enough to have avoided spending Thanksgiving with him that year), and conked out on the sofa.

  As I was getting ready to head back to New York on Friday afternoon, my father asked if I had a “beau.”

  “No. Why?” I said, surprised by the question. My father wasn’t one of those hovering, overprotective fathers who felt challenged by the men in my life, nor did he tend to inquire about such matters the way my mother did.

  He shrugged. “You’ve got a look about you,” he replied, studying my face. “Like you’ve got a secret you’re not ready to tell us about. I assumed it was a beau.”

  “No beau,” I said. “But I do have a dinner date tomorrow night.”

  “Oh? Somebody you met through work?”

  “Somebody I met on the phone. He was a wrong number.”

  My father shook his head. “That city you live in. Anything can happen there, huh?”

  “Just about,” I said.

  “Well, this fella may have dialed the wrong number, but he’s a lucky son of a gun that he reached Nancy Stern,” he clucked. “He has no idea what a great gal he’s getting.”

  “None,” I agreed.

  When I returned to my apartment, there was a large envelope waiting for me. “Your friend Janice dropped it off this morning,” said the doorman.

  Must be her research assignment, I thought, figuring she’d been able to unearth some background on Nancy. I thanked the doorman and was on my way to the elevator when the celebrity journalist herself appeared.

  “Oh,” I said, somewhat startled to see her, given that I was holding an envelope that was intended to help me impersonate her that very evening. “How are you, Nancy?”

  “Fine. Fine. How are you?” she asked. She was wearing the shearling coat, I noticed. The freshly dry cleaned shearling coat. It looked smashing on her.

  “I’m great,” I said, wishing I were. “Where are you off to?”

  “Westchester,” she said. “I finally got an interview with Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins for Parade.”

/>   “How exciting,” I said, being a fan of both actors.

  “It is exciting, because I’ve been after their publicists for years to let me come to the house to do an in-depth piece.”

  “Well, good luck,” I said. “I hope it goes well.”

  “So do I. They’ve got children, and children can be such a distraction when you’re trying to conduct a serious interview. Maybe I should take you along, Nancy. While I grill the parents, you could play little games with the kiddies or something.”

  I tried not to take her remark personally. Perhaps she wasn’t condescending, just unenlightened about the appeal of youngsters.

  I went upstairs, unpacked my things, and opened Janice’s envelope. It contained several sheets of computer printouts regarding the other Nancy Stern. My best pal had come through, as usual.

  According to the material, the other Nancy Stern did write for a variety of publications, did travel all over the world chasing down her subjects, did have a glamorous career. And, according to the material, she did, indeed, interview Kevin Costner. But it was another of her interviews that impressed me. Floored me. There in the envelope was a 1998 interview Nancy had done with Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins! At their Westchester home! For Parade!

  Why in the world did she just lie to me? I wondered. Why did she claim to be heading up to Westchester to interview the couple for the first time when it was clear that she’d already done the interview? Where was she really off to when I’d run into her downstairs?

  Apparently, the other Nancy Stern was mysterious as well as glamorous, but I didn’t have time to solve her puzzle. I had a date.

  Okay, I sighed, as I sank onto the bed and began to study the rest of Janice’s material. Here I come, Bill Harris. Ready or not.

  Keeping my word to Bill, I wore a black dress on Saturday night—a midcalf-length, black wool dress that was slimming and versatile and the garment I trotted out whenever I had dinner with a man for the first time. I wouldn’t exactly call it my lucky dress, as these dinner dates rarely went anywhere, but I would call it my security dress in that nothing terrible ever happened to me when I had it on.

  I arrived at the entrance to the restaurant ten minutes early. I am always early and, therefore, am always the one waiting. Even when I try to be late, I am early. I was sure that, in contrast, the other Nancy Stern was the sort of woman who waltzed in long after she was expected in order to heighten the drama of her appearance and make people appreciate her all the more.

  I decided to take a leisurely stroll around the block, to kill time. It was a cold, nasty night, following an hour or so of sleet, and the sidewalks were slick, even icy in patches. Nevertheless, I drew my coat around me and forged on, aware that what I was doing was foolish but doing it anyway.

  I was walking past the Korean produce market where Janice had run into Gary, the nutritionist-sociopath, when I slipped on a banana peel. You heard me.

  I went down hard, the heel of my black leather boot skidding on the slimy underside of the banana skin, and I landed flat on my ass.

  No, nobody helped me up—this was New York, after all—and so I sat there for a second or two, stunned by the fall, grateful that I hadn’t broken any bones, anxious about explaining to Bill how I came to have a yellow stain on the seat of my coat.

  I glanced at my watch. It was only six-fifty-five. I was still early.

  I raced back to my apartment to switch coats and then raced back over to the restaurant, my hair damp with a mixture of sweat and drizzle. I looked like something that had just crawled out of a swamp.

  It was five minutes after seven when I opened the door to the restaurant and made my entrance.

  “I’m meeting Mr. Harris,” I said breathlessly to the maître d’. “I believe he has a reservation for two at seven o’clock.”

  He scanned the book, found Bill’s reservation, and smiled at me. “The gentleman has not arrived,” he said, his accent French, his manner friendly. The place I had chosen was a neighborhood bistro that had been there for years—an old standby as opposed to a trendy newcomer. The food was reliable and not terribly expensive and the atmosphere lively—the perfect setting for a blind date, I thought.

  As the maître d’ led me to a table, I laughed to myself about the fact that even though I was late, I was early, yet again. I also wondered if Bill Harris had somehow found out that he’d been hoodwinked and decided not to show.

  I ordered a glass of wine and played with the silverware, the tablecloth, and the ends of my still-damp hair, checking the door every now and then for a very tall man. At about seven-twenty, a very tall man appeared—a very handsome tall man wearing a trench coat.

  God, is this Bill? I thought, sitting up straighter in the chair. Could this dashing figure with dark hair and dark eyes really be a kindly, self-deprecating jeweler?

  He was much better-looking than I had imagined from the voice on the phone—I’d formed a mental picture of a gangly tall man as opposed to a gorgeous tall man—and his cool, knowing expression evoked those British actors who always play spies.

  Nancy, Nancy, Nancy, I chastised myself. Did you forget he’s the manager of Denham and Villier’s New York store? No wonder he’s dashing. All the people who work there are. Dashing, perfectly groomed, and impeccably dressed. Not a nipple piercer among them.

  I tried to remain calm as the maître d’ escorted him to the table. It occurred to me that most women would be angry with Bill for keeping them waiting for nearly half an hour, but since I was about to pass myself off to him as someone I wasn’t, I didn’t feel I was in a position to be sanctimonious.

  “Nancy?” he said when he reached the table. It was truly a question and it unnerved me, as if he already suspected that I couldn’t possibly be the person Joan Geisinger had encouraged him to call.

  “Yes, I’m Nancy.” I smiled. “Really.”

  “Good. I’m Bill,” he said, shaking my hand, “and I’m very late, I know. You’re probably wishing you’d never agreed to meet me.”

  “Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself,” I said, noticing that the cool, knowing expression had been replaced by an earnestness I responded to immediately. “Did you get lost or something?”

  “I ended up on the wrong subway,” he explained as he removed his trench coat, draped it over the back of his chair, and sat down. “My apartment is on the West Side and I figured that getting crosstown would be a breeze.” He shook his head. “As I said on the phone, I’m not the smoothest guy on the planet when it comes to blind dates.”

  “Not to worry,” I said reassuringly, even though I’d assumed that to be a manager of Denham and Villier you had to be the smoothest guy on the planet—or one of them. “I’m just glad you finally made it.”

  And I was. He was extremely sexy in his dark green wool turtleneck and black corduroy slacks. Very snappy. I found it hard to believe he even went on blind dates, given just how snappy.

  He ordered a glass of wine when the waiter came around.

  “This is a charming little place you picked out,” he commented, surveying the restaurant, which was bustling by then. “You must know all the best spots in town.”

  “Well, yes. I do,” I said. “I conduct a lot of my interviews over lunches and dinners. The job does have its perks.”

  He grinned. “I still can’t believe I’m sitting here with the Nancy Stern, the woman Joan’s been championing.”

  “Neither can I,” I said, meaning it. “Oh, if you’re wondering what happened to the blond hair she mentioned—I was flippant about it on the phone the other day—I chopped most of it off about three years ago and let my natural color grow in. I decided that the Baywatch babe thing was pretty tired.” I groaned to myself as I realized I was parroting Janice’s remark.

  “Your natural color’s very pretty,” said Bill, running his eyes over me. “As a matter of fact, I can’t picture you as a blonde.”

  That’s because I’m The Brunette Who Keeps Her Head. Yeah.

 
“What else did Joanie tell you about me?” I fished.

  “Let’s see. She said you always wanted to interview celebrities, even back when you two were at—which magazine was it again?”

  “Harper’s Bazaar,” I replied, then remembered that I had told him Cosmo the last time the subject had come up.

  “She said you had a knack for getting people to open up,” he added. “What’s your secret?”

  “My secret?” I said. If he only knew.

  “Your secret,” he repeated. “The key to getting celebrities to talk to you.”

  “Oh. Right. Well, I hate to toot my own horn, Bill, but I suppose I’m a good listener,” I said shamelessly. “That’s probably the key to my success—in a nutshell.”

  “I’m sure there’s more to it than that. For instance, I’m guessing the job requires a certain fearlessness, a refusal to be intimidated.”

  “Yes, fearlessness is important.”

  “And the ability to write under pressure.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And you’d have to have an overall knowledge of the arts, as well as the political scene.”

  “No question.”

  He laughed. “Would you listen to me? I’m putting words in your mouth when you’re the wordsmith. Why don’t I let you tell me about this glamorous career of yours.”

  Bill took a sip of his wine. I took three or four sips of mine.

  “Ah, where to begin.” I sighed. “I do a great deal of traveling and I put in killer hours when I’m on deadline, but it is a glamorous career in many ways. I get to meet my share of interesting people, charismatic people. Actually, you resemble one of them.”

  “I do?”

  “Yes. You’re sort of a young, American Jeremy Irons. I interviewed him in Tuscany a few years ago, on the set of The English Patient.”

  Bill looked confused. “Wasn’t it Ralph Fiennes who starred in The English Patient?”

  I drank more wine. “Did I say Jeremy Irons? Boy, do you believe that? Obviously, I meant that you remind me of Ralph Fiennes. A tall, American Ralph Fiennes.”