Party Girl Read online

  I transcribe and start writing the piece with the speed of a mad-woman, noting that the height-and-weight stats Ken gave me conflict with the DMV records we always check them against. He must have thought that five foot nine and 180 pounds simply wasn’t “Most Beautiful People” material. Granted, he could have lied when he gave the DMV his stats, which could of course mean he’s even shorter and scrawnier than that, but there’s only so much a reporter can do.

  And then, when I’m putting the finishing touches on the piece, I get an e-mail from Stephanie, which has the formality of an Ed McMahon Publisher’s Clearinghouse notification. Dear Amelia, I read, my heart racing. I’m sorry to have to write this note but I just don’t think I can continue to be friends with you. I think you can figure out why. Best of luck in all your future endeavors—Stephanie.

  Tears start pouring out of my eyes before I’m even aware of them and I have an urge to take the computer and toss it on the ground. She can’t be friends with me? She thinks I can “figure out why”? Jesus Christ. Who the fuck does she think she is, e-mailing me a goddamn friendship rejection letter like I’ve interviewed for a job she’s not hiring me for? You’d have thought Gus was her husband the way she was carrying on.

  After a few minutes, though, I feel strangely calm. If I’m going to be thoroughly honest, I’ve been getting sick of Stephanie lately—she’s been a lot harsher and less comforting of late and I’d been starting to wonder if maybe we didn’t have as much in common as I used to think. Other people seem to have these friends that they’ve known since they were like in the playpen, or at least that they went to high school with, but I’m not very good at keeping those people around. Old friends never seem as exciting and cool as the new ones and Stephanie—who I met a year and a half ago, when I started working at Absolutely Fabulous— had seemed rather exciting for a while. But I’m not going to let her make me feel guilty for the rest of my life, I think, and decide to play her cold game, too, and not even respond to the e-mail. If I see her in the elevator, I decide, I’ll be cordial but distant.

  I write the Ken Stinson piece in record time and the New York editor e-mails me back within minutes to tell me how thrilled she is with my work on this—an altogether unprecedented event. A few minutes later, Brian walks in smiling, saying the New York editor was just raving to him about my work, and hands me a piece of paper. I glance down at it and see that it’s an assignment to interview Kane—a British singer who specializes in inexplicably popular adult contemporary music and tends to date actresses.

  “You’re giving this one to me?” I ask, surprised. Within the world of Absolutely Fabulous, this is a choice assignment and would typically go to a more senior-level reporter who specializes in music.

  “Yeah, I figured he’ll like you,” Brian smiles. I tell myself that my luck has clearly turned and things are going to start getting better from now on. Names like Rick, Gus, Adam, and Stephanie sit lodged in the back of my mind, threatening to fill me with self-loathing, but if I can keep busy enough, I know I can ignore them all for the time being.

  9

  I read everything I can find about Kane on the Internet and then go to meet his manager—a dour woman with a sensible brown bob—in the lobby of the L’Ermitage hotel. She escorts me up to the seventh floor without saying a word, silently leading me down a hall and opening up a room, where Kane is waiting.

  Though not by anyone’s standards attractive, Kane nonetheless radiates massive amounts of star quality—or perhaps it’s the gleaming diamonds in his ears and around his neck. He stands in the middle of the hotel bedroom in a white linen suit, wearing a beaming grin.

  “Come in, come in,” he says, leading me through the room’s sitting area and into the bedroom, then shutting the door. To his manager, he calls out, “Janet, we’ll call you if we need you.”

  I feel immensely relieved to be rid of the grim, personality-less manager—every now and then you’ll encounter a rep who insists on sitting in on the interview, which is about as nerve-racking as the notion of a parent sitting in on an adolescent’s date.

  Kane settles his enormous frame onto the queen-sized bed, his white boots dragging dirt onto the down comforter, and pats the space next to him. “Come join me in bed, darling,” he says, his rather lovely British accent making the sentence seem less like a sexual come-on and more like a sensible suggestion.

  And, truth be told, either one is fine by me. Getting a flirtatious rapport going with people I’m interviewing is one of my tricks of the trade—my other main one being confessing intensely personal information to subconsciously motivate them to do the same. It also doesn’t exactly hurt my ego if a guy significant enough to be interviewed by Absolutely Fabulous flirts with me.

  So I climb onto the bed willingly, just a tad nervous that Manager will come in and catch me, the allegedly professional journalist, in this compromising position. But I soothe my nerves about this by being extra vigilant with my questioning, and Kane compliments me on both my questions and my overall personality.

  Then again, at a certain point it becomes clear that Kane is complimenting me on just about everything, and the conversation is turning into something more akin to a date than an interview. “I don’t have any brothers or sisters, do you, Beautiful?” he lobs back at my sibling query, and though I’m happy to answer him, I’m also quick to point out that Absolutely Fabulous readers don’t give a rat’s ass about the details of my life so we might as well focus on him.

  “Look, don’t worry so much about your article,” Kane says reassuringly. “We’ll make it great.”

  “We haven’t even talked about your first album yet,” I protest.

  “Look, I have an idea,” Kane suddenly says, rather abruptly. “Why don’t we finish this interview at my house?”

  “Really?” Brian had told me that Kane didn’t allow reporters there.

  Kane glances at the door and then back at me. “I just didn’t want a whole slew of photographers traipsing through, but you could come,” he says. “I think it would make your story a lot better.”

  Glancing at him, lying on his back with his heel crossed over his knee and looking quite pleased with himself, I quickly weigh the pros and cons. Pro: I could do a kick-ass story, wowing Brian and everyone else that I was able to talk a source into an at-home interview. Con: He could be a date rapist. But this is unlikely. Additional con: It’s definitely possibly unprofessional. I think of Cynthia Jordan, an Absolutely Fabulous coworker who’s so serious and by the book that she probably would have marched right out the hotel door and over to a sexual harassment complaint center if Kane had suggested to her that she interview him while lying next to him in bed. And then I think about how much I dislike Cynthia, and how dull her life seems.

  “What time tomorrow?” I ask.

  “Seven P.M.,” he answers quickly. And then, after glancing in the direction of the sitting room, he says, “Love, don’t mention this to Janet. Why don’t I just give you my address and we’ll plan to see each other tomorrow?”

  After I say good-bye to Kane—a kiss on each cheek, in front of a scowling Janet—and start to make my way through the lobby, it occurs to me that a screwdriver would taste good. I don’t have to be back at work for the rest of the day—Brian had suggested I go home after the interview and just start transcribing—and the truth is, I feel a bit self-satisfied after scoring the follow-up at-home interview with Kane for tomorrow. I briefly wonder if Kane and I are going to fall in love and entertain other couples at dinner parties at our English countryside estate (or the house in Spain that he mentioned repeatedly during the interview) and laugh about how we met back when I was a reporter for Absolutely Fabulous and I interviewed him.

  As I walk up to the bar, I feel a tap on my shoulder.

  “Well, if it isn’t Amelia Stone,” says the perfectly accented British voice belonging to Tim Bromley. He grabs my hand—yes, grabs my hand—and gives me a kiss on each cheek. I am doing damn well with the Brits today.r />
  “Amelia, this is John Davis,” Tim says, motioning to a not-at-all-cute grayish guy with a paunch. I shake John’s hand as Tim gestures for me to join them at the bar.

  Tim orders a screwdriver for me from the waitress, but before I can tell him that this is exactly what I was going to order, he says, in that delightful British sardonic tone of his, “John may not look impressive, but he is.”

  John smiles at Tim good-naturedly. “Gee, thanks, Tim.” He’s just way too American and not cute and a bit old for me to care about anything he has to say, until he then remarks, “You should hear how Tim talks about people who don’t sign his paychecks.” I give John my friendliest smile.

  “It’s true,” Tim shrugs, and then winks at me. When a cheesy guy winks, it’s cheesy. When a charming British guy winks, it’s heart-meltingly adorable. “John may seem down-to-earth—he is, after all, sitting here getting quite blotto with me—but don’t be fooled. He’s Chat’s publisher.”

  Publishers are never terribly interesting—I’d honestly rather lick paint than be invited to lunch with the Absolutely Fabulous publisher when he’s in from New York—but they are The Bank. “Are you in from New York, John?” I ask. Playfully, I add, “Or should I call you Mr. Davis?”

  John smiles and insists that I only and always call him by his first name, and then launches into some story about the movie he watched on the plane coming out here. I notice that Tim is observing my interaction with John approvingly, and suddenly I feel grateful for John’s presence. Something I learned back in high school was that it’s easier to make a guy like you if you can reel in his friends, or if you can perform your humor-and-flirt routine for a crowd. I’m calmer with two people than I am with one—being alone with somebody tends to make me terrified that I’m going to run out of things to say. As I listen to John talk about the movie he watched in his room here last night—this guy sure likes movies, and boy, can he ramble—I think about how much more comfortable I am being around Tim this time than I was when I first met him. I’m still wearing the attention I was getting from Kane like a protective coat, and am feeling like the very epitome of a Sexy Woman Who Has to Fend Off Advances from Her Interview Subjects on a Regular Basis.

  As if on cue, Tim asks, “And what brings you to the L’Ermitage this afternoon?” I swear, he can make even dull questions sound charming.

  “I was actually interviewing a musician,” I say, and then, after glancing around the bar area, determining that neither Kane nor his sour manager are in the vicinity, and lowering my voice anyway, I proceed to regale them with the story of my recent interview—complete with the bits about being invited into the bed and his suggestion for a follow-up interview tomorrow at his house.

  “You are too much!” Tim exclaims, looking absolutely delighted. “You do realize that these things don’t happen to normal people?”

  Since there’s almost nothing I’d rather be less than normal, I feel utterly thrilled.

  “I hope you don’t think I’m horribly unprofessional,” I say.

  “Absolutely not!” Tim says.

  “You should use what you’ve got,” John adds.

  I continue to revel in my impressive story and their reaction to it for the next half hour as I finish my screwdriver. Just as I’m thinking about how much I want a cigarette and am wondering if I can tell Tim Bromley I smoke because surely the British don’t have the same closed-minded attitude about cigarettes that overly health-conscious Americans do, he glances at his watch and tells me that, regretfully, he and John have to meet some advertisers for a drink across town in twenty minutes and that they should probably be on their way. I love the way he says “regretfully”—it almost makes up for the fact that he’s leaving.

  “Do you have a card on you?” he asks, and as I literally feel my heart alight with delight, I realize that I ran out of cards a few weeks ago and still haven’t gotten around to ordering more.

  “I don’t,” I say. “But why don’t I write my information down?”

  He smiles and slides me a napkin and a ballpoint pen, and I write down my work number and e-mail address. Then I add my cell phone and put a little “x” next to it. Subliminal message that will make him think of kissing when he looks at it, I think.

  The next day at work, I rush over to Brian’s office to gloat about my follow-up interview with Kane, and he asks me when I’m going over there.

  “Three o’clock.” Even though I’m meeting Kane at 7 P.M., this answer just comes out of me, probably because I know that if I tell Brian the truth, he’ll get the wrong idea. I make a mental note to leave the office at two thirty to perpetuate this lie.

  Rather than saying anything, Brian just hands me a sheet of paper: an assignment to interview singer-songwriter Linda Lewis.

  Now I’m a little too cynical to get my panties all in a twist over interviewing any celebrity but from the moment I heard Linda Lewis’s song, “Sinner,” on the radio—on my way to work after a coke-fueled night—I felt inspired. It literally made me go from feeling somewhat suicidal to powerful, and right then I decided that Linda Lewis was going to be the Next Big Thing. Of course, I’ve been convinced of that many times during my Absolutely Fabulous tenure, only to be ignored by the New York editors, and then watch the person become ridiculously famous, and not be remotely interested in being profiled in Absolutely Fabulous or any magazine besides Vanity Fair. I’d also had my misses—people I declared were going to be the next Angelina Jolie or Steven Spielberg who ended up barely causing a ripple—but I was always convinced that if Absolutely Fabulous had profiled them back when I suggested they should, those people would have been superstars, too.

  But thank God for my ADD—I took the test and literally have it, but “a mild case that doesn’t conflict with my ability to live normally,” according to the shrink, meaning I don’t get Ritalin, which is probably a good thing, based on what I’ve heard about how fun it is to chop up and snort. I’d pitched Linda Lewis to the New York editors ages ago and forgotten all about it. It’s always shockingly wonderful when the New York editors approve something—like finding $100 in the jeans that went out last year and you stopped wearing. I am so turning my work troubles around, I say to myself as I run from Brian’s office back to my cubicle.

  I call Linda’s publicist, Tina, immediately, and she screams with excitement when I say that Absolutely Fabulous wants to profile Linda. But as I’m explaining the requirements of an Absolutely Fabulous profile—she has to talk in some kind of detail about who she’s dating, and we’ll print her age and check it with the DMV—Tina gasps.

  “Oh, Linda doesn’t say her age,” Tina says. “She really thinks of age as just a number.”

  Oh, God. Something I learned on my first story here is that it’s the people whose ages we care about the most who think “age is just a number.”

  “Can’t you make an exception in this case?” she asks. I tell her I don’t know but doubt it, put her on hold and then call Brian on the other line and say Linda’s rep is kicking up a fuss about us printing Linda’s age.

  “Tell her if she doesn’t want us to print the age, there won’t be a piece.”

  Returning to Tina’s line, I repeat Brian’s words.

  Tina sighs. “Maybe she can be convinced,” she says. I put her on hold and switch back to Brian.

  “Maybe she can be convinced,” I repeat.

  “Hmmm,” Brian says. “If the publicist is hesitant now, we might be better off dropping this one.”

  “But Brian—”

  “You’ll get another good assignment soon. Seriously, I’d just forget it.”

  I hang up the phone and decide that Brian’s wrong. Linda can be convinced, and I can be the one to do it. I need to kick some ass at work, and I just know this is the story that’s going to allow me to do it. I call Tina and tell her we should go ahead and schedule the interview and we’ll just work out the details later.

  My other line clicks in as I set a time to meet with Linda at
her West Hollywood house but I ignore it until I notice that the person is devil-dialing me—that is, letting the phone ring and ring, hanging up when they get voicemail, and calling right back.

  “I better see who’s stalking me,” I say to Tina. “Thanks for everything.” I hang up with her and answer the other line.

  “Amelia, this is Amy Baker, Ken Stinson’s publicist.” With a start, I realize the “Most Beautiful People” issues are out today. I haven’t even had a chance to see them yet.

  “What’s going on, Amy?” I ask but I can already tell something’s wrong. Celebrity publicists only have two tones—happy, when you’re doing the story on the client that never gets any press, and pissed the rest of the time—and she definitely is giving me the latter.

  “You’re going to need to print a retraction on the piece,” she says. “You got his weight and height completely wrong, and you completely misquoted his friend.”

  She’s speaking to me the way one would talk to a very small child or incredibly stupid adult and I immediately start panicking. I’m always half-convinced I’m screwing everything up, and feel entirely vulnerable to this attack since I haven’t seen the issue.

  “Amy, let me just take a look at the piece and give you a call right back,” I say, placing the phone down before I can even hear her objections. I rush over to Brian’s office, where the new issues are stacked, grab a copy, and sprint back to my cubicle. I can hear him asking, “Is everything okay?” but I ignore him.

  Opening the issue to the page featuring Ken Stinson—man, is he not beautiful—I look at what we’ve listed as his height and weight and remember that he’d given me different numbers than the DMV had listed for him. Ha! I feel a rush of simultaneous redemption and outrage over having been accused of making a mistake when I didn’t.