Bergdorf Blondes

by Plum Sykes

  “Zach’s acting weird, but I can’t explain now. I gotta go,” I said.

  “Okay, feel better. Call me the minute you get back. Love-you-mean-it-later!”

  A few minutes later Daphne found me sitting miserably on a bench outside the restroom. When she saw my tear-stained face she said, “Oh my god, what happened? Has Bradley been mean to you?”

  “No, no. It’s Zach, he never gave me a ring, and Betthina started asking me where it is and…I don’t know, I feel terrible,” I sobbed.

  “Get out!!! If anyone else asks you about the frigging engagement ring, tell them you got the Drowned Truck instead, which would buy six engagement rings, okay? When a man gives you something personal like that, well, that’s real love. Listen, Bradley went to Neil Lane for my ring, but so does everyone in Hollywood. Doesn’t mean a thing. Julia Roberts has like fifteen rings from there and look what happens to all her fiancés. You know how I know Bradley really loves me? When he brings me tea in bed when I’m sick with something really catching like SARS. It’s the small things that count. Now, can I see a smile? Hey, that’s better,” said Daphne as I grinned hopelessly at her. “You gotta look radiantly happy and in love if you want to feel radiantly happy and in love. Here.”

  “Thanks,” I said, taking a Kleenex from her and wiping my eyes.

  I guess I was totally in mood-swing central that night because as I walked back into the party I was overcome by a spontaneous feeling of giddy happiness. Daphne was right, a Drowned Truck is much more significant love-wise than a ring. It’s just a bit of a drag you can’t wear it on your ring finger so that everyone else knows about the significant love, too. I thought of all the adorable things Zach had done when we first met, and I sort of hypnotized myself into a wonderful smiling paralysis that lasted the rest of the night. I felt my appetite disappearing again, which was a relief: I was definitely still in love.

  Daphne led me back into the sitting room, which was now a blur of pastel dresses. The room was crowded with a million girls dressed exactly like Betthina. They were all frantically dissecting some movie that hadn’t even come out yet starring Keira Knight-ley, who they’d all be channeling when they were done with Kate Hudson. All the boyfriends and husbands were hanging on to their beautiful girls as though if they let go they’d never see them again, which was probably très smart of them. I didn’t feel at all Kate Hudson-ish either, which was definitely a handicap in the current surroundings. My murderous dress was totally wrong for tonight—way too New York. What was I thinking wearing black in Los Angeles? I just wanted to go home.

  “Oooh! Mmmm! There’s Charlie Dunlain,” said Daphne, dragging me toward a young guy sitting alone on one of her huge white sofas. Then she added in a whisper, “He’s so cute and he’s a genius young movie director. Well, that’s what Bradley says, I haven’t actually seen any of his movies but don’t tell him that because Bradley’s trying to sign him. Can you go talk to him while I check on the chef?”

  Daphne introduced me and then disappeared to obsess about the canapés or something. Even if Charlie was as cute as Daphne thought, I didn’t notice: no one was as cute as my personal Jude Law, speaking of whom, I couldn’t see anywhere. Hopefully Zach was having a wonderful time with the mogul types elsewhere in the party, even though it was freaking me out that he was being so utterly evasive tonight.

  “Are you okay?” was the first thing Charlie said to me when I sat down. He looked concerned. Was I that transparent? My paralytic smile was obviously très unconvincing.

  “Yes, I…” I couldn’t think what to say.

  “What’s wrong?” he said.

  People can be really rude sometimes, can’t they? I mean I hardly know this guy three seconds and already he’s asking personal questions. It’s hideous, absolutely hideous.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I said, collecting myself. “I’m having a wonderful time. I’m so happy tonight I can’t eat a thing!”

  “Not even Daphne’s incredible desserts? Are you sure you’re all right? You don’t look very happy.”

  “I am fine. One hundred and fifty percent totally great, fine,” I said, attempting to close that particular line of inquiry.

  “So, how’s New York?” said Charlie, getting the hint.

  “How do you know I live in New York?”

  “The dress. It’s pretty serious.”

  “Actually, I call it my Homicide Dress because it’s so dangerous,” I teased, perking up a little. “Thank god for Azzedine Alaia!”

  “As in Clueless?” asked Charlie, chuckling.

  “Totally!” I laughed. (One of my favorite movie moments is when Alicia Silverstone freaks out in Clueless about her Alaia dress getting dirty.) “How do you know about that?” I asked.

  “I’m a movie geek. Everyone in the movie business worships Clueless. You have to study that film if you work here, I’m not kidding.”

  Maybe Charlie was kind of cute. I mean, he knew about Azzedine Alaia, which is a major plus. Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t a patch on Jude Law, but you couldn’t deny he had a great smile. His dark hair was sort of messy, he had unusually blue eyes, and he dressed kind of untidily, in jeans and a rock’n’roll T-shirt and old sneaks, but he sort of looked cool with it, like most LA boys do. Then he had these funny schoolteacher glasses on that he occasionally pushed up on his head. He was a little tan, as though he’d been surfing or something in Malibu. He seemed disarmingly frank and open. Of course, I like something rather more complicated, like Zach, I reminded myself.

  “You wanna see something dumb and clueless for real?” said Charlie, grinning.

  “Sure,” I said, relieved that my mood was lifting.

  “Okay, so here’s what happened the last time I met a girl as pretty and happy and underfed as you. I took a sip of my drink like this”—he sipped his Coke through a straw—“and what happened was this.” Somehow, the straw bounced out of the glass, hurtled through the air spraying Coca-Cola on the gorgeous white sofa, and lodged, miraculously, in the side of Charlie’s glasses, sticking out at a right angle. I laughed and he said, “And that’s why I am officially the Biggest Loser Ever when it comes to women.”

  Coca-Cola dripped drop by drop from the straw down his cheek. Charlie made a face as if to say, “See.”

  “But you’re funny,” I said, giggling. “Funny’s funny and that’s that.”

  I mean, even if I secretly thought it was incredibly rude of him to have pointed out that I possibly wasn’t radiantly happy when we first met, he was definitely amusing.

  “Girls can’t resist a sense of humor. And then you’re a director, too. I bet you have some really beautiful actress girlfriend,” I said.

  “Nope. No girlfriend right now.”

  “Well, do you want one?”

  “I never think about it like that,” said Charlie. “Girlfriends are one of the few things you get less of the more you want one. But yeah, it would be nice. Everyone wants to fall in love when it comes down to it, don’t they?”

  Suddenly, I thought Julie. She’s desperate to fall in love. If he tried really hard not to do the straw trick in front of her, Charlie might be the perfect PH for her, especially since he knew about important fashion icons like Azzedine Alaia. I know she’d said she didn’t want a creative type, but maybe she needed to broaden her horizons.

  “How about if I set you up with one of my friends? What kind of girls do you like?”

  “Happy ones, who can’t eat a thing,” he said flirtatiously.

  “Oh, I’m taken, I’m engaged to him,” I said coyly, gesturing at Zach. He had come into the room and was now standing in a far corner with his back to us. He turned momentarily but didn’t see us.

  “Handsome guy.”

  “Look, I can hook you up with a girlfriend of mine. But you’ve got to be more specific; exactly what kind of girl do you want to date?”

  Charlie paused for what seemed like forever before he answered me. Then he looked me straight in the eye and said, “Som
eone exactly like you,” which was slightly uncomfortable for someone as radiantly happy with her fiancé as moi.

  I shook the ice around in the bottom of my glass while I thought of something to say.

  “I’m in New York a lot for work right now,” said Charlie, breaking the silence.

  “Cool. I’ll set you up at my engagement party,” I said.

  “I thought this was your engagement party.”

  “This is my Los Angeles engagement party. But my friend Muffy’s throwing one for me in New York. Everyone’s so nice to you when you get engaged, it’s completely impossible! Would I have seen any of your movies?”

  “I doubt it,” he said. “They’re an acquired taste.”

  “Are they art house?” I asked.

  “No, comedies!” he exclaimed. “The trouble is, I think they’re funny but no one else does. Most people find my work depressing, but I say there’s no comedy without tragedy. Unfortunately, the studio heads don’t agree with me. Now, would you like to see the straw trick again?”

  I was pretty happy driving home after the party. Seriously, after Daphne had rescued me, I’d laughed all night. Everything was going to be okay with Zach again soon, I was sure of it. I tried to talk to him as we drove along Sunset toward the Chateau. It was only eleven o’clock and I guess I wanted to smooth the way for some Latin American activity when we got back.

  “Darling, even though I’m radiantly happy, I’m…très, très depressed,” I said quietly.

  Oh god, that came out all wrong. I hadn’t meant to say that at all.

  “Are you gonna hassle me about sex again?” said Zach, without taking his eyes off the road. “You’re obsessed. It’s so fuckin’ weird.”

  Finally, Zach was talking to me. It was a breakthrough of sorts after the last few days. Did he have to be so gruesome though? Sometimes New Yorkers can be a little too direct for a demure girl like me, even one who’s realized she’s probably more sluttish than demure-ish.

  “Sweetpea, I wish you wouldn’t say that. It’s not very romantic,” I replied, half-joking and half-trying not to weep, which was all I really felt like doing.

  “You are so fuckin’ superficial. You think a relationship is all about sex. And it’s fuckin’ not, it’s a lot fuckin’ deeper than that.”

  Zach was really upsetting me now. Still, I tried to keep it together and be sweet: I didn’t want this to become an issue.

  “But darling, we’re not best friends. I mean, most people make love with their fiancé—”

  “I’m not ‘most people.’ That’s why you’re with me. I’m a photographer. I don’t live by other people’s rules. I am what I am. You’re so selfish. You need to get a decent value system.”

  Zach jammed on the brakes and stared into the blackness of Stone Canyon. He looked furious. What had I done?

  “It’s all you you you and whether or not you’re get-tin’ laid. Stop goin’ on about the same fuckin’ thing.”

  Zach was freaking me out even more than Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, and I found that book so freaky that I only read the first twelve pages, so I don’t even know the half of it. I guess I was so shocked by what he’d said that I couldn’t say a thing in reply. Finally he started the car again, and we drove back to the Chateau in silence. Hopefully everything would be okay again when we got back to New York, once the Luca Luca shoot was out of the way in a couple of weeks’ time. And, I reminded myself, no one’s perfect all the time, especially me, so I couldn’t really complain. Even if Zach had been cool toward me tonight, I was still nuts about him. I then started wondering what, in theory, it would be like being engaged to someone warmer but less handsome, like that funny movie director. Of course, I put the thought out of my mind almost immediately, so I think of it as a thought that doesn’t really count.

  “Eeew! A movie director? Are you kidding me? Way, way too creative.”

  Julie’s reaction when I told her I wanted to set her up with Charlie was exactly as expected. We were at Bergdorf’s a week or so later for a painted highlight, which is the in highlight now that foiling is over, according to Ariette, who can be completely trusted regarding serious hair-related issues. The reason everyone is obsessed with the Bergdorf salon, which covers the entire ninth floor of the store, is because it’s so relaxing in there you can totally forget icky things, like the fact that your fiancé has barely conversed with you for the last week. The place is just bliss actually. The floor has been divided up into three airy salons—a huge reception area, which always has the most incredible vase of cherry blossoms on the table, a cutting room, and a color room, which is where Julie and I were hanging out. There are mirrors, makeup tables, and manicure and pedicure stations everywhere you look. Assistants dressed in matching lilac blouses bustle back and forth bringing you iced lattes and apple sorbets, and there’s even a whole person—Cherylee—devoted to eyebrow shaping, which has actually become a profession in itself. The entire place is painted pale violet and from the windows that wrap around the floor you can see all the way down Fifth Avenue in one direction and right across Central Park in the other. Who wouldn’t forget they hadn’t had sex in three weeks at the Bergdorf salon? That place is sex.

  “Julie, it’s only a suggestion, but maybe you should think about more diverse possibilities. I mean you could be missing out on some really wonderful men,” I said. “And this guy I want you to meet is funny and sweet. I mean, if I wasn’t with my PH I might want him as a PH.”

  This wasn’t true at all, of course—I was mad about Zach despite everything. But I was trying to reform Julie’s narrow horizons.

  “If you like this guy Charlie, you gotta finish it with Zach.”

  “I don’t ‘like’ like him Julie, I just like him, but what I am saying is if I weren’t engaged—which I very much am—he’s the kind of man I might ‘like.’ And he’s just so funny and adorable. I’m going to seat you next to him at the party.”

  “Is he cute?”

  “Daphne says he’s unbelievably cute.”

  “Well what do you think?

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  Honestly, I had no idea whether Charlie was cute or not now. The only man I could think about with any clarity was Zach. All the others were just a blur.

  “So, tell me everything,” said Julie, as Ariette painted the dye onto her locks. “You sounded terrible when you called me from Daphne’s. What happened after the party?”

  “Oh, nothing,” I said, casually flipping through the new Vogue. (They always have next month’s Vogue in the salon way before it’s come out.)

  “Yeah, right,” said Julie sarcastically.

  Julie knows me too well for me to hide anything from her. I told her about the hideous conversation in the car, selectively skimming over some of the details.

  “Eew! How could he say those things?! What a total See You Next Tuesday. You can’t marry this guy, honey. A marriage without sex would be very disappointing. You’re in complete denial,” said Julie.

  I had no idea what she was talking about.

  “That’s the problem with people who are in denial,” continued Julie. “If they’re in it, they have no idea they’re in it.”

  Sometimes Julie makes zero sense.

  “But I love him,” I said. Even just thinking about Zach made me feel like I was going to drop six pounds then and there.

  “The only person you’re in love with is Jude Law. You’re in love with the idea of being in love,” said Julie. “You’re a hopeless romantic.”

  I thought this was a bit much coming from the original hopeless romantic herself. I mean, Julie admits she’s totally in love with Jude Law too, so I would have thought she’d really understand. And Julie didn’t know a thing about relationships anyway. I mean, she’s had tons and none of them has ever worked out.

  “But maybe Zach’s right, maybe I am really superficial,” I said.

  “You are not superficial, you just seem like you are sometimes because of your Chlo
é jeans obsession. He’s the superficial one, turning all the problems into your fault. Now, do you think it’s chicer to be a single-process blonde or a double-process blonde?” said Julie, tipping her head back into the sink to have the color rinsed out of her hair.

  “Single. Do you think if I gave up Chloé jeans he’d sleep with me?”

  “I’ve got one word for you. Postpone.”

  Julie was absolutely, completely, and utterly deluded. I couldn’t postpone! I couldn’t even contemplate thinking about not marrying Zach. It was like I’d drunk the Kool-Aid: there was no going back now. And anyway, Muffy was twenty-four hours away from throwing me this divine engagement party. She’d gone even more overboard than Daphne and hired Lexington Kinnicut to do the flowers. He is New York’s uncontested king of the Rose Jungle (the in jungle after Lily Jungles). The wait list for Lexington Kinnicut is comparable only to the wait list for the YSL horn bags. If I called off my engagement and Muffy had to cancel Lexington, she’d die on the spot, literally. The other thing was, I’d planned to introduce Julie and Charlie at the party: if I postponed there’d be no party and no introduction.

  Even though there was absolutely no way I was planning to postpone, the second I got home from Bergdorf’s I did call Mom for a postponement consultation. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, because it is, but I was confused beyond belief. I guess I was starting to realize that rushing into marriage with Patrick Bateman wasn’t nearly as appealing as rushing into marriage with Jude Law. I told Mom, in strictest confidence, that Zach and I had a few issues in the Brazilian department and that if I wasn’t exactly considering a postponement, a mini-delay might be in the offing. I made her promise not to tell a soul, since our New York engagement party was the following night. Zach mustn’t find out I had any doubts. After all, why spoil a fabulous party before (especially after Lexington had flown in 200 pink orchids from the Dominican Republic to make the Rose Jungle more exotic), when I could experience the really fabulous party and spoil it afterward?