Bergdorf Blondes (5 page)

We were seated just as the starter of chilled mint
soup was being served. Our table was right at the center of the room. Everyone else had already sat down. The four PHs Muffy had selected for Julie were
très
ethnically diverse. Julie barely had a moment to take a spoonful of soup before the Italian princeling, who was on her left, declared, “You more beautiful than Empire State Building!”

“You are charming,” said Julie. Her smile was so dazzling that I think the Italian was encouraged and continued, “
Non-non-non
! You prettier than Rock-a Fell-a Cent-a.”

The WASPy, blond-haired real estate heir on Julie’s right interrupted to say, “Maurizio, forgive me, but I disagree. This woman is more beautiful than the Pentagon.”

I’ve never heard a man compare a girl to a government building before. Julie must have been flattered because next she asked her key question.

“Do you believe in drivers?” she said, smiling beautifully at him.

It turned out everyone believed in drivers like they’re a religion, including the record producer opposite, who was originally Polish, and the Thirteenth Man, who was an actor from LA by way of Minnesota. (I guess Muffy had relented and let one in after all.) It also seemed that everyone had pilots as well as drivers, because they all had private planes, except for the actor who “borrowed” the Warner
Brothers jet “like totally like all the time. And you can totally like smoke Marlboro Reds on it, which is, like, genius.”

The men started discussing altitudes and instruments and cigars and the Nasdaq, which must be much more fascinating subjects than they seem to an ignoramus like
moi
because men in New York seem to discuss almost nothing else. No one was talking to Julie, or yours truly, or any of the other girls at the table. Julie opened her gold clutch bag, pulled out a lip wand, and started glossing her mouth, a habit she always falls back on when she’s extraordinarily bored, and said, “Why can’t you guys be a bit more real?”

I thought this was a peculiar thing for Julie to say since she often says the only real thing she understands is a diamond. The record producer patted her on the hand, and said, “You don’t get rich that way, babe.”

“You’re
so
interesting,” said Julie sarcastically, but he didn’t notice because he was back discussing cigars with the real estate guy.

Then the men carried on ignoring everyone but themselves and their jets and so Julie, who is very talented in the redirecting attention to herself department said, “I’ve got a hundred million dollars.” The PHs went quiet. So Julie added, “All to myself,” and suddenly they all started acting very interested in Julie’s
mind, whereupon she sweetly announced, “Excuse me. I have to go kill myself in the ladies’ room.”

While she was away, I explained that this is completely normal, it’s just what Julie always does when she’s really bored by the company and thinks people are interested in her only for her fortune and not for her sparkling personality. All the boys looked shamefully guilty so I said, “Don’t feel bad!
Everyone
except me likes Julie for her money, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. She’s completely used to it, I mean, even her friends in nursery school only played with her because their parents told them she was rich.”

I think I managed to diffuse an abundantly awkward atmosphere because everyone looked very relieved and started asking me where Julie’s wealth came from. Sometimes I feel pretty sorry for the Park Avenue Princesses: they only have to turn their backs for two seconds, and suddenly everyone’s asking how much they’re worth, or are going to be worth, as though they were a biotech stock or something. Naturally I said that I couldn’t divulge anything as private as the source of the Bergdorf family fortune.

“She’s a
Bergdorf
? No wonder her hair’s the perfect blonde,” said a dark-haired girl sitting opposite. “Do you think she’d get me in with Ariette?”

New York girls are always asking favors from complete strangers. They take the thing about the land of opportunity completely literally.

Anyway, while Julie was not really killing herself in the restroom, something amazing happened. I had a PH sighting. At a table in the far corner I glimpsed a potentially perfect man: tallish, leanish, with dark hair, and even darker eyes, he was wearing a suit but no black tie. (I worship a man who throws caution to the wind like that and doesn’t wear a tie when he should.) But no, seriously, he was handsome beyond belief, I mean, he was totally giving Jude Law. I completely lost my appetite on the spot, exactly like I do when I hear Tchaikovsky’s pas de deux from
Swan Lake
. Some things are just so romantic they make you feel like you’ll never eat again. Humphrey Bogart only has to blink at Ingrid Bergman in
Casablanca
and I’m literally in danger of starvation unless I’m not careful.

Julie returned to the table and I pointed out the gorgeous PH to her, very discreetly, of course.

“Hmmm. He looks cute-
ish
, I guess,” she said unenthusiastically. “But, you know, he looks a little, well, cool. You know what I mean, like maybe too cool to be engaged to me or anything trad like that.”

“But maybe…I mean, you never know, he…he could be dying to be someone’s fiancé, just to…” I trailed off, mesmerized. “I mean, all fiancés are single until they’re fiancés, right?”

Everyone at the table was staring at me like I was totally dumb. I wasn’t making any sense. I remember
getting very confused about what I was saying, which is the effect all Jude Law types have on me. You should have seen me after
The Talented Mr. Ripley
; I couldn’t read or write for a week.

“You looking for ’usband?” said the Italian to Julie. “Surely this is not romantic, to be so, ’ow do you say eet?…
sistematico
.”

“Maurizio, what’s unromantic is all those girls who are looking for a husband but pretending they’re not because they think it’s politically correct. There’s nothing
more
romantic than a girl who likes to be in love and is open about it,” replied Julie. She paused and gazed at him flirtatiously. “Fiancés are beyond glamorous in this town. I think one would look really cute on my arm, don’t you?”

Maurizio swallowed.

“’Ow can you treat a man like a fashion accessory?” he said.

“I’m an expert,” sighed Julie. “I learned it from my boyfriends.”

Completely on Julie’s behalf I took it upon myself to perform a reconnaissance trip to the other side of the party. The closer I got, the more handsome Jude Law became, if that’s possible.
God, what am I supposed to say?
I thought anxiously as I approached. I mean, I don’t usually just go up to total strangers and start talking to them at parties.

“Excuse me, I don’t mean to interrupt,” I said shyly when I reached his table. “But my friend over
there has a question for you. Um, she wants to know if…well…if, you know…you believe in…drivers?”

Jude Law laughed, as though I had told the funniest joke in the world. This is always nice, even if secretly you have no idea you are making a joke.

“I take the subway actually,” he answered.

God, how cute, I thought. I would have thought it was cute if he said he traveled by hedgehog, though. Everything’s cute when you’re as cute as he is.

“You’re so original!!!” yelled a stunning brunette sitting opposite, too loudly. “Hi. I’m Adriana A? The model? I’m in the new Luca Luca ads? I don’t think anyone introduced us yet. Hi! You’re Zach Nicholson, the photographer, right?”

He nodded. Adriana was exotically beautiful, with bones like a Siamese cat’s. She had on those professional smoky eyes models all wear for shoots. I made a note to myself to copy the eye makeup but not the personality.

“I mean, what’s it like down there in those subways?” continued Adriana. She was so flirtatious I swear I could virtually see her eyelashes curling while she was talking. “I bet it’s amazing. I bet you get so much inspiration for your work down there. You’re a brilliant photographer!”

God, Muffy is
such
a liar sometimes. This man was 100 percent creative. Julie would be totally against the idea of a photographer as a fiancé.

“Thank you. But my inspiration is all in my mind. I just like to get from A to B the quickest way possible,” replied Zach courteously.

I didn’t think he was into Adriana. She was too much. God, he’s cute, I found myself thinking again. And god, what a
crying shame
for Julie that Monsieur Cute here takes subways not drivers.

“I love love love the latest series. I went to MoMA to look. It’s, like, genius to be at MoMA at twenty-nine!!!” said Adriana.

It really was bad luck for Julie. I mean, the photographer would have made a great fiancé, what with all that talent and charm. Suddenly he looked at me and whispered, “Save me from the Luca Luca model.” Then he said louder, “Hey! Join us, I haven’t seen you in so long,” and pulled me into his lap. “Why don’t you have some dessert,” he said, offering me a plate piled high with profiteroles.

“I’d love to but I just developed an allergy to them,” I said, pushing the plate away. “You wouldn’t believe what a party like this does to your appetite.”

Zach smiled and looked at me seductively.

“Are you the wittiest girl in New York? Or just the prettiest?” he asked.

“Neither,” I said, blushing. Secretly I was flattered beyond belief.

“I think you might be both,” he said.

I was completely, 150 percent charmed. I happily stayed put on Zach’s knee. If someone needs me I can’t
say no. And god it was heaven to save someone this heavenly from a beautiful model. It did suddenly occur to me that it might take me at least another five minutes to disentangle myself from my reconnaissance duty, so I waved at Julie and made a thumbs-down sign, as if to say, what a drag, no PHs with drivers in this area.

At about 1 AM I was still saving Zach from Adriana. And even after she’d gone—not before telling us that we could see her on the billboard above the MTV building in Times Square—I definitely got the impression that Zach still needed saving. And some time after that, somehow (and please don’t ask me how because I am way too virginal to explain) Zach almost definitely ended up with his head pretty close to the aforementioned South American region of myself. And to all those gossips who gossiped that I stole a PH from under Julie’s nose, the truth is Julie didn’t want him anyway.

“Sounds way too creative to me. He’ll never be anyone’s fiancé,” she warned me the next day about Zach.

This was fine. I mean, it was Julie who was looking for a fiancé, not me. I knew Julie was telling the truth when she said she wasn’t upset about the photographer visiting my Latin zones and not hers, because the only remark she made about Muffy’s party was “Well, that was a total waste of Paris couture.”

S
omething happened to me the night I met Zach. Honestly, I never touched profiteroles again. I just went right off them, which is really saying something because they’re literally my favorite food after the vanilla cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery.

I fell for Zach the minute I laid eyes on him. Something inside me went
ping!
and there I was, suddenly smack-dab in the middle of my own
coup de foudre
, just like the brother and sister falling for each other in
The Royal Tenenbaums
. I’m still not quite sure if it was Zach, or the Jude Law in him, but he was beyond romantic. I mean, get this. After we first met he rang me
every day
and asked me to have dinner alone with him each night. I said no exactly every other night because when a man looks like Jude Law and can have anyone he wants it’s very important not to be too available. And it’s a huge stress
getting ready for dinner with Jude Law so I needed a whole forty-eight hours between each date for my lovelorn nerves—which were in total shreds—to recover.

Then, of course, there were other things about Zach that made me melt, like the fact that going to Brazil with him was better than with any of the other
very few
men I have gone with. I mean, he could find Rio absolutely every time, whereas most men only get as far as the suburbs before they want to go home. He seemed to adore everything about me, even the bad stuff. Like he thought it was charming when I offered to cook him dinner one night and ended up ordering in (being a New York girl at heart, the only thing I can cook properly is a twice-toasted bagel). He rewarded me by doing insanely romantic things, like one time he sent me a bunch of peonies (my favorite flower) every day for five days in a row with a note attached each time. The first note read “For.” On the second was written “My.” The next was “One.” After that came two more notes, one saying “And,” the other saying “Only.”
For My One And Only
. It was too cute for words. I didn’t eat a thing the whole week.

Zach was a spectacularly talented gift-giver. He always found things that I really wanted but didn’t even know about until he gave them to me. On my birthday he surprised me with a beautiful black-and-white print of one of his photographs from the “Drowned” series he’d done a few years back. (The photo is of a
burned-out truck, half submerged in a lake. I know it sounds like a weird birthday gift, but I was overwhelmed.) Here’s the pick of the other gifts: leather-bound first edition of my personal bible,
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes; galuchat
jewel case from Asprey (that’s a dead stingray by the way); baby pink monogrammed stationery from Mrs. John L. Strong that takes weeks to order unless you’re someone like Zach and can charm them into doing it in a day; fringed antique Peruvian shawl from the flea market in Lima.

Zach loved to take me for dinner at out-of-the-way, dreamy little restaurants. Of all of them, Jo Jo, on East Sixty-fourth Street, was my favorite. It’s right off Madison Avenue, with a little paned window that you can glimpse twinkling candles and chandeliers through. You sit on slouchy velvet banquettes at little black lacquer tables. The walls are painted a faded old blue and antique screens separate the tables upstairs. Honestly, you can go there and feel like you are the only pair of sweethearts in the world. The night we went there—on an indulgent date celebrating our two-month anniversary—I think Zach wrapped his ankles round mine all night, as though he never wanted to let go. We just giggled and laughed and kissed all through dinner, at stupid things like how awesome the French fries were (the secret is they cook them in truffle oil or something crazy like that).

The only thing that slightly freaked me out in the first few months was Adriana A. A few times when I was over at Zach’s loft in Chinatown, the phone rang and Zach didn’t pick up. Adriana’s voice came on the answering machine, asking Zach for lunch or dinner or drinks, to discuss work. Anyway, it turned out I was worrying about nothing. After a while she stopped calling.

The only person who wasn’t delighted by my romance was Mom. It wasn’t that I shared all the details of my Manhattan love life with her, but she’d read about it in a gossip column and called to check whether or not it was true.

“Darling, I heard Little Earl might be coming home for Christmas”—it was late December—“and I do think you two are meant for each other.”

I took a deep breath.

“Mom, I’m sure Little Earl would loathe me on sight. And I have no intention of spending my life in a drafty castle looking at sheep. Anyway, I’m sure you and Dad would like Zach.”

“Who are his parents, darling?”

“I’ve no idea. He comes from Ohio, he’s a successful photographer.”

It was true that I actually knew very little about Zach—apart from the fact that he was very handsome, lived in Chinatown in a huge loft, and never went to bed without drinking an espresso first. He
took his career very seriously and sometimes would disappear for days without warning. He could be very mysterious and elusive when he wanted—which of course I adored.

Julie always says she can pack a bag for a weekend in St. Barths “in a heartbeat.” This is an outright lie. She actually takes about a week to pack for a trip, but the point I’m trying to make is that when you’re as madly in love as I was, everything seems to happen in a heartbeat. After what seemed like fifteen seconds—but in real time must have been six months, around the middle of March—Zach asked me to marry him. Can you imagine? We’d been having such fun it felt like no time at all had passed.

The only trouble was that the proposal meant that
moi
and not Julie would be the one with the PH, which was somewhat of a conflict of interest. But even if I was secretly freaked that Julie was going to be beyond mad at me about it, I couldn’t say no. I was madly, madly in love. Zach was the perfect PH in every way. Despite the fact that sometimes his work binges meant that he vanished into a black hole for a whole week and didn’t return my phone calls, he’d always emerge with a fabulous dinner invitation and thrill me all over again.

Julie was surprisingly relaxed when I told her I was
engaged. She approved of Zach, recognizing that he was way too arty for her. She didn’t seem to mind as much as you’d think that I’d snagged my PH first, saying, “Your wedding will be my dress rehearsal—I’ll learn from your mistakes.”

You can imagine Mom’s reaction when I told her I was marrying Zach. First she threatened to die of a headache and then she insisted on throwing the wedding at Swyre Castle, which you can hire for functions. Even if it wasn’t exactly my first choice of venue, I was so happy I decided to let Mom do whatever she wanted. She had the church, flowers, hors d’oeuvres, cake, scheduling, and even the particular type of confetti (freeze-dried rose petals from Covent Garden Market) mapped out in immaculate detail within hours of hearing my news. I guess Mom had been planning my wedding since the day I turned sixteen and had decided to put a brave face on the fact that I was marrying an American photographer rather than a British Earl.

After the engagement I felt like the most popular kid in high school or something. Everyone in New York was as addicted to Zach as I was. We were invited everywhere together, and everyone wanted to know about the wedding plans. Even the girls at my office were in love with Zach. They’re all smitten with Jude Law, too. And my skin had never looked better.

You can imagine how delighted I was when my editor asked if I wanted to go out to LA for a few days
to interview a famous actress. She sweetly insisted I take the gorgeous fiancé and booked us into a four-room penthouse suite at the Chateau Marmont, the famous one with a grand piano. People are so nice to you when you’re engaged it’s crazy. A whole four days with Zach sounded like bliss: in fact, it would be the longest time we’d spent together since we’d met. I couldn’t wait.

When my friend Daphne Klingerman, who is an actress-turned-professional-wife of a brilliant agent-turned-producer-turned-studio-head, heard I was coming to LA, she e-mailed me from her Blackberry, saying,

I can’t imagine what yoga position you can send an
e-mail from, but Daphne has been practicing Ashtanga yoga every day since her last role so I guess she’s an expert because her last role was more than two years ago.

Spring is the best time to be in LA and I totally worship the Chateau Marmont, like everyone else in Hollywood. It always makes me think of Rapunzel’s
castle, perched like that just above Sunset Boulevard, with its little turrets peeking serenely above the craziness on the ground. By the time we arrived that night, it was very late. Even so, the lobby was buzzing with the usual super-cool Hollywood kids that favor the Chateau. I wasn’t tempted by the scene: all I wanted to do was get Zach upstairs and take him on a very, very risqué trip somewhere south of the equator.

Our suite was totally sick, in a good way. The sitting room was huge and had two long modern sofas at one end, the grand piano at the other, a huge Art Deco mirror, and a slick, 1950s Italian coffee table in the center of the room. On top of it was an ice bucket containing a bottle of vintage champagne. The bedroom had nothing but a very inviting bed, two silver lamps, miles of stereo equipment, and a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, which opened onto a terrace. While Zach tipped the bellboy I stepped out into the evening air, and looked into the Los Angeles night. The view was electric with its millions of lights stretching from Hollywood to the valley. Even though I was exhausted, the suite was so sexy I thought Zach would have no problem going to Brazil all over it and maybe even exploring as far as the Amazonian jungle immediately.

“Zach! Do you want to…hit the rainforest?” I called coyly from the balcony. He was unpacking in the bedroom.

“I’m busy.”

“Hey, come on!” I giggled. “Stop being so boring.”

“Stop being so needy,” he replied, without turning around from the closet.

“Darling, Sting and Trudy visit the rainforest
all the time
and no one thinks they’re needy,” I said.

Zach didn’t say a thing. He didn’t get the joke at all. He always giggled with me about my silly jokes, but tonight he was different. He said he just wanted me to leave him alone so he could check his e-mails on the Internet, which is a real waste of a four-room suite at the Chateau if you ask me.

By 1
AM
Zach still showed no sign of getting into bed. He was frantically typing at his keyboard in the sitting room, with a hostile look on his face. It was like he hadn’t even noticed the view or anything. And as far as I know, men just don’t turn down sex with women, period. When I finally mentioned this to Zach, he turned away from his laptop and looked very annoyed.

“Can you please let me get on with my work for one second?” he huffed.

I suddenly felt shamefully guilty for demanding his attention all night when he was so busy. “I’m sorry. What are you working on?”

“New ad campaign. It’s a lot of money and the pressure’s really on.”

“That’s great,” I said. “Which campaign?”

“Luca Luca. They want a whole new approach.”

“Is Adriana A in it?”

“Yeah. She’s a drag. Can I get on now?”

Zach went back to his computer and I went into the bedroom and slumped on the bed. I felt disappointed. I lay there and stared out through the windows. Suddenly the view seemed bleak as hell. It was depressing. I felt like I’d woken up and found myself slap-bang in the middle of a Paul Thomas Anderson movie.

I was beyond embarrassed when I called Daphne two nights later. How could I tell her that Zach had barely said a word to me since we’d arrived? I know he was under a lot of pressure, but as far as going to Brazil and all that was concerned, well, I hadn’t left the Arctic Circle once since we checked into the Chateau. I mean, I’m not saying Luca L. isn’t a big deal, but Zach was acting as though he was about to paint the Sistine Chapel. Honestly, he’d barely let me near him. Whenever I even mentioned sex he’d just say, “Stop harassing me,” or something really mean like that. It reminded me of a couple of times in the past few weeks when I’d suggested sex and he’d complained he was too tired or had a backache or something incredibly tiresome like that. I’d believed him,
but maybe he secretly hadn’t wanted to make love. The truth was we hadn’t gone anywhere near Rio for over two weeks. Still, I’d never seen him like this before. He wouldn’t do a thing. When I suggested a drive up South Topanga Canyon to my favorite thrift store, Hidden Treasures (you
have
to check it out, I swear, you just have to), he refused and went back to working on his ideas for the Luca Luca campaign, which is exactly how he’d spent the last forty-eight hours.

Where had Jude Law gone? This was like being engaged to a different person. The only thing that had stopped me from freaking out was knowing that I had to keep myself together to interview the actress, which I’d done yesterday.

“Daphne!” I wailed when she picked up.

“Get out!” she said. Daphne starts every sentence with “get out.” “What is it?”

“It’s Zach. He’s in this horrible mood. All he’ll do is watch CNN and send e-mails. He’s barely spoken to me since we got here, all because he’s shooting the new Luca Luca campaign with Adriana A. Maybe we should cancel?”

“Get out! You can’t cancel! Bradley’s flown in Le Cirque on the studio’s plane to do the food! Look, about the not talking to you, don’t worry! Bradley
hardly ever
talks to me. Men are so sexy when they’re brooding and laconic,” said Daphne. “You gotta
come tonight, there’s going to be a lot of people who want to know you and you are going to want to know them.”

Zach eventually agreed to go to the party, but only after Daphne called him personally and told him there were going to be a lot of Hollywood mogul types there with “serious” photography collections. Strictly on the q-t, I think Daphne exaggerated a little. She has exactly one friend who collects photography. But then Daphne exaggerates everything, especially her age which she claims is twenty-nine but is closer to thirty-nine. As I got ready that night, I tried to be positive. I mean, one of the brilliant things about a virtually silent fiancé is that you have hours to get dressed, so I wore a terribly complicated Azzedine Alaia hook-and-eye number that takes forever to do up. Even my misgivings about Zach’s sudden personality change couldn’t stop me from being thrilled by the Alaia: there are killer dresses and there are killer dresses by Alaia, which are so killer they’re homicidal. At the last minute Zach threw on a white shirt, jeans, and a beaten-up leather jacket, which completely ruined my appetite in advance. He looked so delicious that I knew Le Cirque’s Symphony of Desserts wouldn’t tempt me at all.