Bergdorf Blondes (6 page)

Daphne lives in Beverly Hills in a sprawling Span-ish-style house set in grounds that sprawl almost as far as the Hotel Bel-Air. The driveway was lit with flares
and as usual Daphne had gone way overboard with the flowers. There were huge vases filled with jasmine flowers and branches absolutely everywhere you looked, even in the restrooms. She’d gone completely over the top with the staff, too. Daphne likes to have about fifteen butlers per guest, which makes for a very crowded party. When we arrived, the drawing room was so full that guests were already spilling out onto the terrace towards the pool. The whole garden was lit with lanterns Daphne had picked up on one of her shopping trips to Morocco, and loungey tapestried rugs and cushions were spread out on the lawn. I’d barely had a chance to take in the scene before Zach veered off in the direction of Daphne’s collector friends, leaving me standing alone in the center of the party.

Daphne suddenly grabbed my arm and introduced me to a young actress, Betthina Evans, who’d just won a Golden Globe. Betthina was an immaculate size zero; you know, how actresses are: tiny, petite, perfect. She had long, gleaming, honey-colored hair and was dressed in a yellow satin slip dress and strappy silver sandals. She was totally channeling Kate Hudson, which is what everyone is doing in LA right now. She was wearing a sparkling engagement ring the size of Manhattan.

“Oh, I’m engaged, too,” I said.

“Where’s your ring?” said Betthina examining my left hand.

“My fiancé hasn’t got it yet.”

It was true. Zach kept saying he was going to get me a ring, but somehow he never got around to it. I don’t mean to sound superficial, but it was bugging the hell out of me. I mean, an engagement with no ring is like Elvis without the rhinestones, or a Bellini without the peach juice. I didn’t care what kind of ring it was, but I wanted one. Zach had it easy with me. I’d made no specific demands regarding the ring, whereas Jolene had told her husband-to-be before he proposed that anything less than a D-flawless, five-carat diamond would be unacceptable.

“Eew!” shrieked Betthina. “There is no way I would have agreed to marry Tommy if he hadn’t given me a ring bigger than California when he asked me.”

“I’d feel terrible if someone got me a huge ring,” I said.

This isn’t quite true, actually. Secretly, I wanted a ring that was bigger than the planet but that isn’t the kind of thing you should admit, so I never do.

“No matter how big a ring starts out, it shrinks when you wear it. And, okay, so this ring was, like, a quarter of a million, but when you look at it from the point of view of what Tommy’s getting—
me
—it makes it seem cheap, because I am priceless,” said Betthina conclusively.

“Oh,” I said. Starlets must be exceptionally good at figures because I could never have come up with that equation.

“Is it true, what I read in Liz Smith? That he gave you the
Drowned Truck?
How romantic! And listen, even if there wasn’t a ring, I’d agree to an engagement with the hottest photographer in New York. What a fabulous career move! And you’ll get so much press when you break up with him, but just make sure you end it before anyone thinks you’re really gonna go through with it.”

I must have looked beyond upset, because Betthina suddenly put her arm around my shoulder. She patted me, as though I needed comforting.

“God! I’m sorry! I say the worst things! But…you’re really going to marry a…
photographer?
It’s just everyone gets engaged here all the time and they don’t really mean it, especially with really creative people like your fiancé,” she gasped, embarrassed. “I mean, there’s
no way
I’m marrying Tommy. Eew,
gross
! Shall we go and talk to your guy? God, look at him! He’s
unbelievably
cute.”

Betthina started walking toward Zach. I held her back and whispered, “Actually, um…do you mind? It’s just, we’re not getting on brilliantly tonight. I mean, actually…he’s not really speaking to me. He’s real stressed about work.” I was pink with shame.

“Hey, don’t worry about it! My first two husbands hardly ever spoke to me. It’s very common. Don’t be upset. You know what they say, the only important thing about a husband is to have one!” She giggled.

“Oh, I’m not
upset
,” I said, suddenly bursting into tears. “I’m just, you know, madly in love and, you know, being in love makes you cry almost all the time, doesn’t it? I’m going to the restroom. Nice to meet you.”

I was completely freaked out. The minute I was out of earshot of the party, I called Julie from my cell. I wanted to kill some time while I tried to calm down.

“Hi, Julie-shmoolie,” I said. “I’m having a really fun time.”

“Is that why you’re crying like a Balenciaga bag that lost its buckle?” she replied. “Is something wrong?”

I told Julie that I was happier than I’d ever been in my life, that there were apple martinis everywhere you looked, and that Le Cirque’s Symphony of Desserts was just delicious. I was just calling to say I wished she could have been at the party.

“Honey, when you’re drinking martinis and your martini glass is full of tears, you gotta ask yourself, is the Universe trying to tell me something?” said Julie.

Oh god, when Julie starts talking about the Universe I worry about her. It means she’s been reading an unhealthy amount of horoscope books again. But maybe she had a point, even if she was getting her information from
Moon Magic: How to Cast a Natal Horoscope
.

“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, “Someone
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.