How to Meet Cute Boys

by Deanna Kizis

  In the afternoon Nina phoned to tell me her latest theory—that I was addicted to “phantom lovers.” I played Solitaire on my computer while she talked, so I can’t say exactly what her hypothesis was, but it was something about how Max was a phantom who was so absent in my life that I could create a compelling fantasy in the space where a real relationship would have been. All of which was more satisfying for me than a real relationship, which I would most likely find intolerable. In other words, it was actually all my fault. I figured it could be true, but the fact that Nina then confided that she’d started carrying a trial-size bottle of Listerine in her backpack because she kept giving impromptu blow jobs to the assistant professor in her Pavlovian Response class made it a little hard to swallow.

  That night, when Finlay picked me up in his brand-new four-by-four gargantuan mobile, I’d already decided to make the most of the evening and stop acting like such a freak. I was not going to obsess about Max anymore, and I was not going to push away the first really nice guy I’d met in the last year. Finlay, thank God, didn’t mention what happened. He was too delighted with his new car, and eager to regale me with statistics on how big the sunroof was, how much horsepower he had, and how many pounds the SUV could pull if I were ever stuck on some snowy road and needed a tow. I pointed out that we don’t get snowstorms in southern California, but Finlay just laughed and said that the ridiculous impracticality of the car was the whole point. “If you’re going to go L.A.,” he said, “you should bloody well go L.A.” On the ride over, I felt like I was in a monster-truck rally, as emceed by Prince Charles. Finlay kept crying out in joy: “Look at this thing! It’s a bloody elephant! It’s the bloody Titanic! It’s the largest car in Los Angeles!” He pronounced it Los Anjelleeees.

  Kiki was already at the restaurant when we walked in. I saw her beaming approvingly from a spot by the bar, clearly excited to see me on a date with such a suitable match. Curtis was holding her hand. Le Petit Bistro was living up to its name—it was so crowded it took us a few tries just to make it over to them. Then Kiki, Curtis, Finlay, and I were led by a huffy hostess to a teensy booth where we were overpowered by screaming Frenchmen one table over. They were eating steak au poivre. “I’m getting that,” Kiki said, hooking her thumb in their direction. “Oooh, and French onion soup to start!”

  Curtis smiled and said, “I keep telling her she’s too skinny.”

  “How cute is that?” Kiki said, beaming and slathering some butter on a large piece of bread.

  After we ordered, I watched Kiki direct her attention to everything Curtis said. He told a story about the last time he’d been in Paris, something about calling a Frenchman a duck when he thought he was calling him a son of a bitch. (The punch line: “So I screamed, ‘Canard!’”) I laughed out of politeness, but Curtis’s wittiness sent Kiki right over the moon.

  It was nice to see Finlay relax, though. He didn’t fidget, or get all buggy and start Be-e-en-ing me. He dished us all the dirt on Carson Daly, and he was being attentive but not clingy. He got me a new fork when I dropped mine on the floor, and cracked up when I dropped the second fork, too, and the French waiter looked at me like I’d just squirted lemon in his eye. (When the waiter went to get me another, I yelled “Canard!” at him, and Finlay laughed so hard he had to spit his wine into his water glass.)

  Midway through dinner Kiki and I excused ourselves to go to the bathroom so we could talk about the boys. On the way she whispered in my ear, “You like Finlay, don’t you?”

  I said, “I really want to.” And for a brief second I thought, Maybe I do.

  But then, “Ashton?”

  Sitting, stage right, at an intimate table for two with another girl. “Heeyyyy, what are you two doin’ here?” He stood up and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

  “Oh,” Kiki turned around, saw Ashton, plus the date sitting at his table, and immediately took note—as I did—that she was a walking Jane Austen novel with long curly blond hair, a classic jaw, and clear blue eyes. “Hello, there,” Kiki said. “You.”

  I hadn’t found my larynx yet.

  “This is Mina,” Ashton said. “Mina, this is Ben and Kiki.”

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Nice to meet you,” she said.

  Awkward pause here.

  “So. How do you guys know one another?” Mina said, looking around and blinking. “I’m always telling Ash I’d like to know his friends better.”

  “How do we know one another?” I said to Ashton.

  “Just from around,” he said with a smile. “The scene, you know.”

  “Right,” I said. “ ‘The scene.’ ”

  “Hey, maybe we should all go out one night,” Mina said. The girl was clueless.

  “Wouldn’t that be fun?” said Kiki. “Ashton, you should really set that up. Come on, Ben, bathroom time.”

  I excused myself.

  When we got in the bathroom I locked the door, bent my head over the sink, and tried to focus. Kiki sat down on the toilet and said, “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, totally fine.” I started to make myself busy, touching up makeup that didn’t need touching up. “At least now we know why he’s been dodging my calls.”

  “He should have told you.”

  “No, I was the one who broke it off. It’s fine. I mean, we always said it was a casual thing.”

  “Well”—she started to pee—“I think the important thing to remember here is that Ashton wasn’t the right guy for you. Maybe he’s the right guy for pointy face out there, but not you.”

  “Yeah,” I mumbled. “Except it seems like nobody is the right guy for me.”

  “Oh, come on. That’s not true. This doesn’t mean anything! He’s nothing to you, honey.” She flushed and joined me at the sink.

  “Do you have to go?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “I missed my moment.”

  I put my lipstick down and turned to look at her. “Do you think Max goes out on dates?”

  “Max?” She waved her hands away, like pshaw. “I mean, who cares? Even if he does, they’ll never go anywhere. That guy can’t be in a relationship—you know that better than anyone.”

  “Yeah. I guess … I can’t believe Ashton just said he knew me from ‘the scene.’ ”

  “That was completely crazy. And just for the record, she’s not that cute.”

  “Kiki, I’m upset but you don’t have to lie. She was totally cute.”

  “I thought she was gross. Her looks were totally predictable and her face was like this”—Kiki bugged her eyes out and sucked her cheeks in. “She was Milquetoast. I’m sorry. But she looks like a diet shake commercial.”

  “I’m going to die alone, aren’t I?”

  “Oh, cheer up. We all die alone,” Kiki said, holding the door open for me. “It’s the living alone that’s hard.”

  CHAPTER

  13

  The sign outside The Standard Hotel on Sunset hangs upside down. Audrey wanted to know why. I told her I thought it was supposed to cutely suggest that they were setting a new standard. She looked at me like, huh?

  All night over dinner Audrey complained (bragged) about her wedding. How she’d gotten so skinny and couldn’t imagine why—she’d only been working out like four times a week. How she was in a tizzy over whether the bridesmaids should carry tulips or Gerber daisies. How she and Jamie had gotten more yeses than nos so they had to totally rearrange the seating chart. Oh, and she still needed to know if I was bringing a date to the wedding—it would be tacky for the seating card next to my place at the bridal table to say GUEST.

  In self-defense I turned my personality up a notch. I wore a deconstructed skirt by Imitation of Christ, hoping the raw seams and hanging loose threads would put Audrey off. On the way to the hotel I gushed about Finlay, telling her how he had invited me to go with him to a live concert in Scotland that he was producing for MTV. “I’ll probably get to meet Thom Yorke,” I said.

  “Who?”

  “The guy from Radioh
ead.”

  Her eyes were devoid of recognition.

  Of course, I left out the fact that I didn’t know yet if I really wanted to go.

  As we entered the lobby, Audrey’s eyes widened. “Oh my gosh, are they real?” She stopped to gape at two models reclining in an oversize fish tank above the check-in desk. A guy with lips the size of basketballs was sitting Indian-style and reading Wallpaper, while a girl with boobs the size of thimbles slept in his lap.

  “You bet your patootie they’re real,” I said.

  “You can’t put people in a fish tank.”

  “They’re not people. They’re models.”

  We made for the pool deck, and my spike heels sunk satisfyingly into AstroTurf. For once Audrey was in my domain. There were no Martha touches to take the edge off the asylum white walls. No crepe de chine to soften the steel stools in the minimal bar. In my world we mainline our aesthetic. It looked like it was going to be a pretty good party, too.

  “Collin!” I waved. He was perched on the edge of a white chaise longue, wearing a T-shirt that said STAR FUCKER.

  “Darlings.” He air-kissed both my cheeks. “Do you believe this party? I hear the gift bag contains a fucking mountain of product from Kiehl’s.”

  “Urban gift bag myth,” I said. “The same rumor was going around that record release party at the Argyle a couple of weeks ago.”

  “I heard it from Tara Reid,” he huffed.

  “Sure you did. Collin, this is my sister, Audrey. Audrey, this is Collin. Nobody knows how he earns a living.”

  “I’m a celebrity stylist. Designer. Writer. Your basic hyphenate,” he said, giving Audrey’s outfit the once-over. I saw her cringe a little under his gaze, and felt an unexpected urge to protect her.

  “Hey look, Collin,” I said. “There’s Jason Biggs.”

  “Oh my God, is the entire cast of American Pie here?” he said, turning around. “Gotta go—Jason’s a pal.”

  “Of course he is,” I said. Collin gave me the finger and left.

  “Drink?” I asked Audrey.

  “Okay.”

  On the way to the bar, she tapped me on the shoulder. “Look,” she whispered. “I think I see Chandra McInerney.”

  “Where?”

  “Right over there.” Audrey motioned toward a white bearskin rug in the lobby, where a very imposing-looking group was spread out on the floor, drinking cocktails.

  “Okay, let’s get the drinks first.”

  “Chardonnay, please,” Audrey said to the bartender, a girl of indeterminate youth in a spiked collar, white T-shirt, skintight sarong, and black combat boots. She gave Aud a withering glare.

  “They don’t serve Chardonnay, at least not for free,” I whispered. “Two.”

  The bartender pushed two Johnny Walker margaritas at us. I handed one to Audrey and she took a hesitant sip. “Ugh—this is disgusting,” she said.

  THE ART OF WAR

  Plan a party like a Hollywood publicist, from vetting the list to cooking the crudités.

  BY BENJAMINA FRANKLIN

  In Hollywood a person’s value isn’t measured by her job title at the studio alone. To reach the apex of power, one must host the perfect party, planned by a publicist who will ensure that your next cocktail gathering or birthday celebration has the right people RSVPing and the wrong people sticking their heads in the oven and turning on the gas because their invitations “got lost in the mail.” Not all of us can afford such an extravagance, but just because you can’t hire a publicist doesn’t mean you can’t think like one.

  A TROOP OF C-LISTERS MUST NEVER WALK DOWN YOUR RED CARPET …

  Good parties, as any publicist will tell you, start with vetting the list. At studios, the pros list stars in a database where they’re ranked according to A, B, and C. An actress on a low-rated sitcom, for example, is a C. Drew Barrymore is an A. You should do the same. Give prospective guests an alphabetic value. Admit it, you are being shallow. But just because you lack depth doesn’t mean you shouldn’t improve your social status! On your A-list should be: cool friends, hot guys, and “secret celebrities” whom it would be beneficial to get to know better. (Not actors, silly, but restaurateurs, yoga instructors, graffiti artists, and club promoters!) On the B-list will be those who’ll do in a pinch, and on the C-list are people you’d probably rather kill before they show up. Now, the publicist trick is to only start inviting B-listers after A-listers have declined. If you have to stack your party with too many C’s, cancel. A troop of C-listers must never walk down your red carpet.

  Next, consider your theme. Inventive ones—home theater (in which everyone puts on a prepared performance) or an evening of arts and crafts do the job. Avoid trends: A martini lounge is way too ’00. If in doubt, go traditional—champagne, crystal, the works. You won’t be creative, but you’ll be a class act.

  Once you’ve chosen a theme, make sure it informs everything at your party. Home theater is all about popcorn topped in real butter and chocolate-covered raisins from Dean & Deluca. Arts and crafts should come with gourmet peanut-butter-and-plantain sandwiches and freshly baked cookies served in designer lunch boxes.

  When it all comes together, you’ll reap the benefits of being a social diva. Invitations will flow your way, the promotion you deserve will be yours, and men will throw themselves at your feet. And consider this: If you have the stomach for using your birthday as a way to increase your social influence, you may have a future in Hollywood. [[romega]]

  It seemed Her Highness didn’t want a free drink. I tried to explain the concept of a party sponsor while she took these quick, wincing sips that were already getting on my nerves.

  As we approached Chandra, I could feel Aud tensing up. “I don’t really think we should ask for her autograph right now, do you?” she said. Then Chandra spotted us and jumped up, making Audrey almost leap out of her skin.

  “Where the fuck’ve you been, dawg?” Chandra said, wrapping me in a bear hug.

  “What up, McC?”

  “Booyah, baby, booyah.”

  “Chandra, this is my sister, Audrey. Audrey, Chandra McInerney.”

  “You know each other,” Audrey said. I thought she would be excited to meet a movie star, but instead she pointed to her glass and said, “I’ll be right back.”

  “You’ve finished your drink already?” I said. “Okay, yeah, I’ll see you in a sec.”

  Chandra gave Kate-o a nudge to move over so I could sit down next to her (I couldn’t help thinking ha-ha, bitch) and proceeded to yell at me about how happy she was I finally got Max—or, as Chandra called him, “that fucking low-life punk-ass cocksucker”—out of my life. Then she moved on to a tale about how she was convinced her personal assistant was spiking her bottled water with LSD, possibly as part of an assassination plot.

  “I don’t know, Chandra,” I said. I was trying not to look too incredulous. “I mean, I think it’s pretty hard to kill someone with acid.”

  “Tell that to Charles fucking Manson,” she said.

  But before she really got going, Chandra turned her aggression toward the waitress, who’d forgotten she ordered her chicken egg rolls with tofu. Not that Chandra intended to eat them. “I ordered these for my friends,” Chandra said, gesturing to the group, most of whom were already digging in, “and we can’t have meat because I’m a vegetarian.”

  “I’m sorry,” the waitress said, “but they make all the egg rolls in advance. They can’t take the chicken—”

  “I don’t give a fuck when they make the egg rolls,” Chandra interrupted, looking around at us like Can you believe this chick? “I care about what the people I love put in their fucking bodies, mkay?”

  The waitress was getting flustered, reaching for the egg rolls, then straightening up because half of them were already gone, unsure what to do. Krantz, who was in Chandra’s armpit as usual, moved in to smooth things over. But, perhaps taking note of the crowd that was starting to gather, Chandra stood up and got in the waitress’s face, stabbin
g her finger toward the poor girl’s chest and yelling, “Do you wanna piece of this, you fucking bitch? Huh? Do you wanna piece of this?”

  The waitress, scared out of her wits, dropped a tray full of drinks, and Johnny Walker margaritas splashed all over Chandra’s Sigerson Morrison heels. That did it. Chandra grabbed the waitress by the hair, and, as she started to scream, started to wrestle her around—throwing her from side to side. The air got thick with busboys, a hotel manager, photographers, Krantz—who was wrestling with the photographers—and Collin, who rushed over, yelling “Get her, McC! Get her!” Chandra was screaming, “I’m going to fucking end you, ’ho! I’m going to end you!” Scared I might actually get hit, I leapt for the sidelines, where I’d be able to watch the spectacle from a safe distance. But as I tore my eyes away from the horror of Chandra trying to bite the waitress on the back of the neck so I could blot margarita mix off my skirt before it stained, I realized Audrey was nowhere to be seen. Where had she gone?

  I scanned the lobby. No sign. Poolside? Nope, not there either. The bar? Huh. Chandra was stomping down on the waitress’s foot in a very entertaining—and probably effective—manner as a busboy tried to pull her off, but now I was worried. I walked out to the front to see if maybe she was standing outside, but Audrey would rather gargle Drano than smoke, so I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t see her skulking around Sunset with all the banished nicotine addicts. I really wanted to sneak one myself, but I didn’t want to leave Audrey inside alone, what with Chandra on the loose and Collin in a bitchy mood.

  I finally found her talking on the far end of the pool deck with some guy who looked vaguely familiar—I thought maybe he’d been my waiter at Ammo the other day, but then again that didn’t seem quite right. And, wait a minute, why would Audrey be flirting with my lunch waiter? She was perched on a lounge, and he started to lean toward her, his dark hair falling into his eyes. Then she laughed at whatever he said, throwing her head back as if to say you are so funny!