Party Girl: A Novel (22 page)

I decide to write about Mark’s wedding, and start by titling the piece “Here Come the Groomsmen.” And then it just flows.

It’s not every day that a wedding takes place in the house where yougrew up. And it’s certainly not every day that a wedding takes place in the house where you grew up, and you end the evening in bed with two of the groomsmen. Then again, everyday experiences have never really been my thing.

I keep going from there, describing the competitiveness of my ménage partners in the sauna, the triangular dance we did all night, and finally the bedroom antics, adding, as almost an afterthought, the cousin-of-the-bride incident earlier in the evening. I decide to leave nothing out, except for the alcohol. It’s obvious that Tim thinks of my partying as the frosting to my fabulous life, not understanding that without the drugs and alcohol, all of these so-called exciting things would never have happened. And since Tim wants this column to be funny and sexy, and there’s nothing funny or sexy about drug addiction, rehab, and sobriety, I opt not to mention the succession of Amstel Lights we were drinking or the bottle of champagne I’d had at dinner. If people wanted to believe I could be this wild without any chemicals in my system, they were welcome to.

When I finish the column and print it up, I try to read it the way a stranger would. And, I have to say, I’m impressed: it’s amusing, self-deprecating, and somewhat titillating. Then I start to second-guess myself, deciding that since I wasn’t pulling my hair out over it, it couldn’t be good.
How could I possibly be making the equivalent of a month’s salary at
Absolutely Fabulous, I think,
to write something funny off the top of my head?
And then I hear Rachel’s voice telling me that sometimes things are easy. People in recovery call it the “easier, softer way,” and as I think about that, I realize how so much of what Rachel and Tommy and Justin and everyone else has told me just flows naturally through my brain now.

Before I can talk myself out of it, I e-mail the piece to Tim and try not to obsess over what his reaction is going to be. So then I switch over to my other newfound obsession, Adam. I decide to Google him and discover that there’s all this information out there about this “unknown Norm’s waiter” who just landed a major part on the hottest new TV show. I’m getting fully into fantasy mode now, imagining the two of us on the red carpet at a premiere and having picnics at the top of Runyon when I realize what I’m doing. One of the reasons it’s not a good idea to get into a relationship in your first year, Tommy always said, is that alcoholics and addicts can do anything alcoholically. Books, movies, Pop-Tarts, Cosabella thong-buying, dating—whatever it is, if you can lose yourself in an obsession with it, we will.

So I force myself to step away from the computer and set about cleaning my apartment, which always seems coated in a thin or thick layer of cat fur, and the activity feels good. I don’t recall actually enjoying the act of cleaning before. I know I’ve liked it when things have been clean, but having fun while Dust Bustering and scrubbing is altogether new to me. I start blasting Eminem and singing along as I clean the living room floor and the music is so loud that I almost don’t hear the phone ring. But I see the red light on my cordless flashing so I turn down Eminem and answer.

“Hello,” I say, as I plop down on the couch.

“Amelia, darling,” says Tim, “John and I were just sitting here discussing how we have to do big, glamorous, sexy shots of you to accompany each of your columns. We were thinking of using Jean-Paul Blanc unless you have a photographer you prefer.”

I try to slow my heart, which seems to be racing like Lance Armstrong in his last mile. Jean-Paul Blanc does all the
Vanity Fair
cover shoots and his photos are constantly being exhibited.

“Pictures of me by him—really?” I manage. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” he laughs. “In fact, it turns out that he has a hole in his schedule—meaning, if you’re game and approve Jean-Paul, we could get you shot this week.”

I don’t know what to say, and don’t want to ask him again if he’s sure. “So does that mean you like what I turned in?”

“Like it?” he brays.
“Like
it? Darling, it’s ace. You and ‘Party Girl’ are going to take us to the next level. I have no doubts now—not that I did before, mind you. But after reading your copy, which is lively and sexy and at times laugh-out-loud funny, we’re all terribly excited.”

My heart continues to do its dance and I don’t say anything because I don’t think I know the words that are supposed to accompany the ecstatic feeling flowing through me. In a strange way, this moment reminds me of sitting in Robert’s office being fired.
This can’t be happening
, my inner voice seems to be saying,
but it is.

19

“
Tres belle,
” Jean-Paul coos as his camera snaps away. Three assistants flank him, holding various and sundry lights and pieces of equipment, and a hairdresser, makeup artist, and clothing stylist stand to the side—ready to rush in should they see something on me that doesn’t look exactly perfect.

While this shoot—which is taking place in the penthouse of the Chateau Marmont, which I happen to know rents for $10,000 a day—is far more exciting and surreal than anything I’ve ever experienced, I’m doing a decent job of acting like I’m used to having everything revolve around me, and assistants fetching me Evian, apples, or really whatever else I might desire. I’m afraid that if I let on how shocked I am by the sheer amount of money clearly being spent on my shoot, I’ll reveal just how small-time I am.

The stylist, a well-known one whom I’d actually interviewed over the phone several times while I was working at
Absolutely Fabulous
, had greeted me when I got here with racks of everything from Armani gowns and Gucci blouses to Chloe suits and Marc Jacobs jeans.

“Tim said he wanted us to shoot the photos for your next several columns,” the stylist informed me. “Since we don’t know what’s going to be in the columns yet, he said we should choose a bunch of different looks: casual, dressy, sexy, demure, whatever we could think of.”

I nod and decide not to remind her that we’ve spoken before.
It was
, I think,
a lifetime ago.

She has me try on beautiful skirts, dresses, shirts and jeans—even lingerie from La Perla—and while I usually obsess over my protruding stomach, she seems to know exactly what’s going to hide the tummy and play up my assets and I end up feeling like all I’ve ever needed in order to feel constantly beautiful was a stylist.

Jean-Paul came over to introduce himself when we were first going through the clothes, and I immediately found him sexy, even though the stylist has already warned me that he’s a “dog,” “pig,” and every other animal you can imagine. Figures I’d like him.

“Ah, you are truly exquisite,” he said with a strong French accent and devilish smile. “The photos will take themselves.” He continued to watch me as the stylist pinned the gown I was wearing so that it hoisted my cleavage up.

And then, once I’ve been made up and gelled and sprayed and shellacked until I look like the supermodel version of myself, Jean-Paul starts snapping. The entirety of my knowledge about modeling has been culled from
America’s Next Top Model
, but one thing I’m positive of is that I love having my picture taken. Apparently, I cried nonstop for my first three months of life, until a professional photographer showed up to shoot me and I suddenly gave him the biggest, most toothless grin a person who’s only been alive for ninety days possibly could. As I switch my poses around, Jean-Paul mumbles words like
magnifique, belle,
and
tres belle.

In between shots, Jean-Paul and I smoke while his assistants set up the lights for the next set of pictures, and a stand-in takes the place where I’ll be. Then, when I’m done with my cigarette, the stylist comes and gets me to change. Rather than allowing all of this treatment to bring out my inner diva, I’m the very picture of kindness, asking everyone else how they’re doing. I swear, if I was treated like this all the time, I’d be a pleasure to be around 24-7.

We’re getting ready to do our last set for the day—I’m in an insanely flattering purple, pink, and black-striped Missoni gown and tottering around in high-heeled purple Jimmy Choo’s—when Tim and John show up.

“You look stunning,” Tim says, as he leans in to kiss each of my cheeks. John trails behind him and gives me an awkward salute. Then Tim turns to Jean-Paul. “Have you done the champagne-drinking shot yet?”

I sort of inadvertently flinch at the word “champagne” as Jean-Paul hits his head. “
Mon Dieu,
I almost forgot,” he says.

Jean-Paul says something to two of his lackeys and they leave the room, then come back holding these plastic contraptions that they piece together to make an enormous, six-foot-tall champagne Plexiglas. Tim shows Jean-Paul how he’d like me to sit in it as John lets in a room service waiter delivering bottles of Dom Perignon. And even though I may well be in the middle of the single most validating day of my life so far, I grow concerned enough by what’s happening to wander over to Tim and ask him if I can speak to him for a moment.

“Of course, go ahead,” he says, continuing to stand there next to Jean-Paul and his minions. Couldn’t he see that what I wanted to say was private?

Completely uncomfortable, I force myself to ask, “Is it absolutely imperative that we do this champagne thing?”

Tim looks slightly flummoxed. “Oh, do you not like it?” For the first time since we’ve met, I get a glimpse of the fact that Tim may not be perfect. He looks, in fact, slightly irritated by my intrusion.

“Well, I just was wondering, do I have to be holding champagne in the shot?”

Tim, now making no effort to hide his annoyance, sighs. “Amelia. You’re the Party Girl. We have to convince readers of that not only through your column, but also visually—through pictures.” He’s suddenly talking to me like I’m seven and don’t understand what the word “visually” means.

I nod. Ridiculously, I feel tears start to well up, but I close my eyes for a second and force them to go away. It seems like it should be simple enough to explain my situation to Tim, but I just can’t seem to.
Tell him you’re sober
, my head says. And then I think,
Hell, no. He’ll startasking questions and figure out that you’re really not this wild-and-crazy girl anymore.
Instead, I try channeling the confident, egoless diva-in-the-making that I’d been acting like all day.

“Is there going to be a problem?” Tim asks, quite sternly, just as John wanders over to see what’s going on.

I take a breath and push all my negative thoughts to the back of my brain. “No. Not at all.”

Jean-Paul asks, “So you are ready,
ma cherie
?” I nod, allow two of the assistants to hoist me into the mammoth champagne glass, get as comfortable as I can in an enormous piece of plastic, and accept the bottle and glass of champagne that the set designer hands me. Tim and John move to the back of the room while Jean-Paul starts clicking and muttering his French compliments.

But the magic seems to be gone. Before, I’d been feeling natural and happy and pretty just by smiling or laughing or gazing into the camera and thinking of funny or intense moments. But now, lounging in this life-size champagne glass, I feel forced. I keep thinking,
This is what a girl who’s playing the part of a “Party Girl” should look like.

Jean-Paul apparently doesn’t notice because he keeps shooting and cooing at me and calling me
belle
and
tres belle.
I try not to concentrate on the fact that my lips and nose are less than a foot from a glass of champagne.

When I got into rehab, I was perfectly willing to admit that I had a problem with coke and sleeping pills, but I still never really bought into this whole idea of being “alcoholic.” I’d told Tommy on one of my first days at Pledges that I was willing to consider the fact that alcoholism and drug addiction might be the same thing, but I still wasn’t convinced. In fact, in those meetings, when people introduced themselves by saying their name and the word “alcoholic,” I clung steadfastly to what I truly knew about myself, so I replaced the word “alcoholic” with the word “addict.” I wasn’t the only one. A guy who used to be in Twisted Sister, who’d done the Pledges program the month before me and I’d heard share in the alumni meetings, was also clinging hard to the word “addict.”

And sitting in the champagne glass, with the scent of Dom Perignon wafting up my nostrils, I become more convinced than ever that my problem never has been with alcohol. The glass is so close that I could easily tip the flute into my mouth and sip—a slew of assistants would surely spring to attention at the opportunity to re-fill it—but I really have no desire. All these wonderful things in my life—this new gig, my friendship with Justin, the reconnection with Stephanie and potential romance with Adam, not to mention the overall sense of peace that seems to have replaced all those self-absorbed feelings of misery that I’d come to accept as normal—are, I feel, completely related to my having gotten sober. And I’m not interested in screwing any of that up, even if it means having to go along with this notion of being an “alcoholic” without actually believing it.

I seem to be shooting okay pictures during the entire time I’m zoning out and thinking of the proximity of the glass to my lips, because Jean-Paul is looking genuinely thrilled and Tim and John are smiling as they whisper to each other and point at me. And I think,
Screw what the people at Pledges are going to think if they see this picture of me that’s essentially an ode to champagne. I’m wearing a Missoni gown in the Chateau Marmont’s penthouse suite being fawned over by a photographer who’s a household name. Why the hell should I care what anyone thinks?

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