So 5 Minutes Ago (12 page)

“It might be a minute,” the minion says, trying again. I shoot her another
fuck-you
smile.
Like I said babe, I got all day.

When I am finally, grumpily waved in, Suzanne is predictably tight-lipped, dressed like Ashley Wilkes in another one of her white suits and going in a million directions at once in her South Carolina drawl.

“Alex, we ah not off to a good start,” she says, not looking up from her desk, but focusing, a little too intently, it seems, on the piles of papers she’s sorting through.

What does she mean,
good start
? To the day? To the merger? To my signing Troy? But then, obfuscation, not precision, is the name of our game.

“Tell me whut exactly happened,” she says, glancing up and waving me to her office sofa—white Haitian cotton, another seventies affectation. This time, I obey and sink gingerly onto its spongy, stained surface.

“Look, I won’t pretend this is a plus, but we can spin this in a way that works for everyone,” I say, bypassing a recitation of last night’s events and moving directly to The Solution. If I’m supposed to fake out the public, why not my boss?

“Really?” Suzanne says, eyeing me sharply. “How’s that?”

Okay, maybe this won’t be a slam dunk. There’s a reason why she’s lasted as long as she has: that before she became officially over the hill, Suzanne was once considered good at her job. Brilliant, even. Still, these are dangerous times and I’m reluctant to be totally honest.

“Look, I’ll be honest,” I say. “Troy is proving to be more of a handful than I—than
we—
were led to believe. It’s one reason why I’m having to baby-sit him at so many routine events. I’m meeting with Peg to go over exactly where we are in his rehab schedule. I mean, it could be that we’re in some recidivistic situation here, although I don’t want to use the words
Robert Downey, Jr
. At least outside this office.”

It’s a bit much but I’m betting that among the BIG-DWPers, she and I are the only ones who can use
recidivistic
in a sentence. And that she knows it.

“Go ahn,” she says, mustering a sterner tone than her expression conveys.

“Well, until we get a clearer bead on Troy’s, ah, behavioral limits, I’m recommending that we take him, temporarily of course, out of circulation. Forget the events. The meet-and-greets. Let Peg do the heavy lifting. Get him an actual job and then we’ll go back to work.”

Suzanne nods, which I take to be a green, or at least a yellow, light and plunge ahead.

“In the meantime, I’ll be dealing with the media today. I’ve already prepared our statement,” I say, rising and handing her a printout. “And I’ll be getting on the phone this afternoon. Then, depending on what happens to the court case—although I’m banking on a dismissal—I’ll handle that.”

She doesn’t say anything for a minute as she reads my statement. And then rereads it.

Okay, I can wait for my final grade. I slide my hands underneath my thighs and hunch up my shoulders, leaning forward on the sofa. If my feet didn’t reach the floor, I would wag them. Just a kid in the principal’s office.

She picks up a pen and makes a few editing marks. And a few more.

Oh, come
on.
It sounds like a plan and you know it.

“So, Gal Pal,” Suzanne says, looking up finally. “Sounds like ah plan.”

It’s a good parting shot, but we both know I’m home free with the requisite slap on the wrist. Time for my
mea culpa
’s and I’m outta there.

“Look, I was there.
Of course
I was there,” I say, dropping my eyes to my lap—
okay, you got me
—where I realize bits of Haitian cotton have shed onto my black pants. No wonder it went out of fashion. “But if you’re asking me did I see Troy’s inclination to fisticuffs and could I have stopped it?” I say, raising my face, eyes wide. “No.”

“So the photo was just—”

“Routine,” I say quickly, cutting her off.

You got me. I’m the Gal Pal. Now, let’s move
on.

“Troy had left and then he suddenly showed back up on the bike, looking a little the worse for wear, I might add.”

Let’s not forget who’s really the asshole here.

“They snapped. Literally. Who wouldn’t shoot him?”

“And yew wuh just—”

“Waiting for my car,” I say, shrugging. “I assumed Troy was long gone.”

Spinning always goes best when you wind up at the truth. Even if you have to lie to get there.

“Speaking of long gone,” I add, eager to move to new business. “I hear we actually did lose a client.”

Suzanne’s smile evaporates. I may be off the hook, but don’t fuck with her.

“Don’t believe everything you hear, Alex,” she says evenly and I wonder, for just a second, if I don’t hear more sadness than anger in her voice.

“So I’ll let Doug know you and I have spoken,” she says, standing, handing me my edited statement. My trip to the woodshed is officially over. “But he’ll want to meet with you in any event. And I want you to keep us both apprised of what happens today and with the court case.”

I make the appropriately conciliatory noises and head for the door. But when I glance back over my shoulder to make my good-byes and catch her standing there in her suit that I realize is a little rumpled, I feel a similar stab of, what—guilt? fear? sorrow?—that I felt for the valets last night. At one time, she was a legend. Or as much of a legend as a woman who is not an A-list star is likely to be in Hollywood.
Suzanne Davis. The publicist who pioneered the post-studio-era Hollywood PR machinery.
She’d even won a Producers Guild Award and had a whole section in
Variety
devoted to her. Now, at fifty-three, she looks battle-weary, and the same town that once lauded her is ready to consign her to the discard pile. And they’ve sent G to do the actual garroting.

“You know, I meant to say this earlier,” I say suddenly, and I feel my face flush. “I’ve really learned a lot from you. I mean
you.
Not just DWP,” I add, stammering slightly. “So I’m just glad. Glad I got to work here. When it was just your agency. Yours. And not Doug’s.”

I stop and I realize I’m not spinning her. That I actually mean what I’m saying.
Whoa.
Isn’t this what I was wailing to Steven about the other night.
Authenticity?
Well, be careful what you wish for. Because authenticity or sincerity or whatever this is feels odd. Like a “very special episode” of
Frasier,
or
Friends,
or something.

“Okay,”
I say, rushing to restore the world to rights and my tone of self-mockery. “Alex, thanks for sharing—”

But Suzanne cuts me off. “If Peg gives you any shit,” she says, matching me olive branch for olive branch, “tell her to talk to me.”

My warm and runny feminist bonhomie lasts as far as BIG’s outer offices—still Christo-ed in all that plastic sheeting—where I am instantly waved on in. I should take this as a good sign.
A member of the team.
But I have only the look of the guilty. A sheep to the abattoir.

I take a minute to hide out in the bathroom, gather my thoughts. But it’s amazing how even here, with the tasteful white phalaenopsis and the flickering red currant bougie perfuming the air, I feel G’s bullying presence.

I make a note never to buy overpriced French red currant candles—and certainly never date any man who does—and head out, hoping some fresh burst of courage will hit me. But the distance from the bathroom to G’s office is short. Much too short. Not even the second minion—again I am waved on in—slows me down.

And then I am here, swaying slightly on G’s spongy carpet, breathing in his leather-scented air, ready to meet my maker. The glowering Toby jug behind the leather desk, the
Post
spread out before him. Even before he speaks, I can tell this will be much worse than I anticipated. That I’m about to get up-close-and-personal with G’s legendary short fuse.

“I know you’ve been through this already, but if you could, ah, indulge me with an explanation of last night’s events, that would be so helpful.”

Sarcasm. Right off the bat. Whatever playbook I had driving over here is clearly out the window. I take a second to stall for time. Look around, like I’m not sure whether I should sit or stand. Which I’m not. But G is not into any routine pleasantries.

“I don’t care if you stand on your head,” he snaps, spittle flying. “Just tell me what happened. Or should I say your
version
of what happened.”

I feel my face instantly flush. Like I’ve been slapped. Which, I realize, I have. In all my time as a publicist, I’ve had my share of spoiled clients, bossy managers, and patronizing assistants. Seen plenty of petulant, rude behavior. Head-fucking, even. But I’ve never had any real contact with the pros—the screamers, the producers who throw phones at their assistants, the studio bosses who physically threaten their lessers, the agents who—well, agents are in a class by themselves. I do not realize, until this meeting with G, how incomplete my Hollywood education has been.

“I’m waiting.”

G drums his nails on the desk, the light glinting from their polished surface.

I take a good breath. The old Hail Mary.

“So you actually broke down crying?” Steven says when I reach him on my cell as I’m heading out of the BIG garage. Burning rubber, actually. Can’t put enough distance between me and G.

“No, it was more like
tremulousness.
The quivering damsel in distress.”

“But the effect was what? ‘If you hit me, I’ll fall apart’?”

“Are you kidding? With all that leather in there? I was going for ‘If you hit me, I’ll come.’ ”

“Oh,
fuck
you,” Steven says, sputtering with laughter. “You were not. Besides, you don’t even live in West Hollywood.”

“Hey, I’ve been to the Pleasure Chest,” I say. “No, I just beat G to the punch. ‘You can’t punish me worse than I’m punishing myself.’ It always worked great on my parents.”

“But I thought he blamed you for letting the evening get out of hand.”

“No, I blamed
Troy
for letting the evening get out of hand and I asked G for his advice and counsel, blah, blah, blah. By the end, he was practically showing me tae kwan do moves. That whole Mike Ovitz thing. ‘I’m a killer, but I’m Zen about it.’ He said it was a great way to fend off ‘overly aggressive’ photographers. And clients, I guess. He never got that specific and I sure didn’t. Besides,” I say, anxious to move the conversation along, “G has bigger fish to fry with Suzanne and the Phoenix.”

“Speaking of which. Suzanne put out a memo.”

“I heard that. What does it say?”

“ ‘A loss but not unexpected. Redouble our efforts. A time of consolidation and change.’ The basic.”

The basic. If there is anything about this day, this week, it’s definitely not basic. What was it, a month ago, I was bored out of my mind? Now every breath requires a game plan. Just to get through the day.

“So you’re coming back?” Steven says. “Because there are tons of calls.”

Where else would I go? I glance at my watch: just about three. Just twenty-four hours since Charles asked me out. Since daylight pierced the shroud. Now, I’m back in the smoke and ash. Hours of phoning ahead of me, hours of stamping out Troy’s fire. Suddenly I’m exhausted, wrung out from my meeting with G.

“No, I’m coming back to put out the fires,” I say, a tad too heartily.

“To put out the fires,” Steven repeats.

“And then I’m getting ready for my date with Charles.”

“Your date with Charles,” Steven says, and I can’t tell if he’s teasing me or mocking me or is just as spaced out as I feel.

“Yes, my date with Charles,” I say, clicking off. My date with Charles. My date with Charles. My date with Charles.

9 No, but I Can Hum a Few Bars

                  Saturday dawns, not with salvation but terror. My date with Charles.

Oh God. I haven’t been on a date since . . . I can’t even remember when.

There was a producer, I think, when I first moved to L.A. Or maybe he was just a DWP client I was baby-sitting. Anyway, he spent more time talking on his cell phone than talking to me. And then there was drinks with that stuntman. That was more like Margaret Mead out with the natives than a date, although Steven thinks I cut the research unduly short when I decided not to sleep with him. “Five percent body fat, but you couldn’t get past the lack of a BA,” Steven had said, sounding genuinely shocked. “You’ll never get laid in this town.”

And then Rachel tried to fix me up with some cousin. A dentist or a chiropractor from Scarsdale who was in town shopping a screenplay.

Oh, fuck it. I haven’t had a real date since I left New York. I don’t even know what a real date is anymore. But then, I’m not supposed to know what a date is anymore. I’m supposed to have moved
on
to a real relationship.

I roll over and stare at the magazine pile moldering by my bedside. Isn’t this what
Vogue
is for? Or the
Psychoanalytic Review
I’d mistakenly subscribed to back in my therapy days when I was trying to be my own best friend? I root around the pile and find amid the
Food & Wine
s and the Brown alumni news a
Vogue
with Charlize on the cover. Jesus, how old is this? And why have I kept it? I flip through the issue. Nothing but the usual fashion screed, which was out of date two minutes after the issue went to press, a feature on brow lifts—have I been thinking of this?
should
I be thinking of this?—and, oh yeah, that director client I had that I managed to get into “People Are Talking About” when in fact no one had talked about him for years.

I toss the
Vogue
aside and roll back in bed, checking my watch: 8
A.M.
I’ve been awake since five and have pretty much memorized all the cracks in the ceiling, not to mention the bags under my eyes when I mistakenly looked in the mirror earlier this morning.

I knew going out drinking last night was a mistake. But it was almost impossible not to. Not after the day I had. Not after we finished rolling the last calls on Troy, and Steven all but dragged me down to Tom Bergin’s on Fairfax, our usual hangout when we’re on “
E!
Watch”—monitoring news about clients on the Hollywood shows—because they have a TV and a bartender Steven once dated when he was in his Irish phase and we can get him to switch channels at will. Especially when Steven is doing shots.

“You’re not watching for Troy on
Access Hollywood
and
ET
in this office,” Steven said, handing me my bag. “Not with everyone here waiting to see blood in the water.”

In hindsight, we should have stayed, since my spinning of the whole thing—poor, harassed, recovering Troy—played like gangbusters.
I
almost felt sorry for him. They even flashed my official publicist statement on the screen. Word for word.

“I think this means you’re a published author,” Steven said, raising his glass.

After that we hit Ago. And then Falcon, where even in my lubricated state I realized the crowd was about a generation and several IQ points below where I tend to hover in the food chain. After that, things got hazy. I just remember feeling incredibly happy when I finally got home and found another message from Charles on my machine. “Just checking in.”
Checking in? Checking in?
How cool is that? We hadn’t even been on our date and already he was “checking in.” I was so happy, I crawled into bed with a box of crackers and my cell phone and caught almost all the
Law & Order
rerun I’d Tivo-ed before I fell blissfully asleep.

Now, all I feel is crumbs and the lump of the cell phone and the remote underneath me. And my head. Movement is clearly in order. The tidal pool that’s collected under my eyes is not going to recede by itself.

I make my way to the bathroom, where I fumble around for the Advil and squintingly assess the damage. In the early morning light . . . well, never mind. If I can spend the rest of the morning in the tub, tea bags on my eyes, downing about a gallon of Arrowhead, I should rejoin the land of the living. Or at least pass under Orso’s lighting. One of the best in town. All shimmery pinks and golds, like a Caravaggio painting. Or a Barbra Streisand special. Everyone in the restaurant looks rested. Serene. Ready for their close-up.

By the time I land at Orso, I feel about as ready for my close-up as I’m going to feel after hours in the tub, a quick trip to Fred Segal, and a professional blow-dry, although at the moment, the only one eyeing me is my sulky-looking waiter. Because Charles’s plane is late—he called while they were still over Albuquerque and I was still in the stylist’s chair—and because I live way up in the hills and not anywhere near the Peninsula Hotel, where he’s staying, he suggested we just meet at the restaurant.

Oh,
great.
Two cars, which will screw up any chance of a long and lingering good-bye at my house or his hotel. No chance of that now. Not in the Orso parking lot buzzing with valets.

“No problem,” I lie, yelling over the dryer. “I’ll meet you there.”

“Look, I know the car thing is a bummer,” Steven said when I reached him right before I was leaving for the restaurant. “But let’s remember what’s really important.”

“That we’re
both
designated drivers?”

“That no matter what happens, you still have to work with this guy.
For
this guy.”

That is unfortunately true. The latest rumor going around is that Charles is the heir apparent to head the New York office. That Stan Woolfe—the
W
of DWP—is definitely retiring and Charles is to take his place. That he and Suzanne and G will be the jolly triptych heading BIG-DWP although G, technically, is the head cheerleader. Or owner. Or the ranking partner. Or whatever he is.

“So think twice before you fuck your boss,” Steven said. “Since you’re already fucking with G.”

“Thank you, Dr. Phil,” I said, clicking off. “I’ll be sure to keep my knees closed and my résumé open.”

I check my watch. I’ve been here for ten minutes and still no sign of Charles. First the car thing and now he’s late and the waiter has already been by twice—“No, I’m
still
waiting for my guest, thanks”—and I’m starting to get paranoid. Maybe I got the night wrong. Or the place. Maybe I got the whole thing wrong. Why didn’t I bring something to read? Right. Marion the Librarian. Just the look we’re going for.

I think about calling him. See if he’s stuck in traffic. Or lost. It happens. No. Too anal. Too something my mother would do. The waiter drifts by again and I wave him off with another shrug and pained smile. The universal sign for No-I-still-don’t-know-where-the-hell-my-date-is-but-I-swear-he’s-coming-so-don’t-pity-me-

yet.

I’m in the midst of feeling officially pathetic when a new fear hits me. I haven’t seen Charles since before the photo shoot with Troy, which was almost two weeks ago, and what if I’m remembering him wrong? What if he’s not Mr.-Nantucket-sailing-trip-taxi-ride-through-snowy-Central-Park-perfect but really an asshole? Just an East Coast asshole and I don’t recognize the breed anymore? I’m starting to work myself up into a genuine panic, when I see a blurred figure at the door.

Okay, forget Fear Number One. He didn’t stand me up. As for Fear Number Two, there’s no way this guy’s an asshole. Not in that button-down shirt, suede baseball jacket, and with his wavy gray-streaked hair, although I admit I’m a pushover for preppy-looking guys. A holdover from college that even my three years with Josh couldn’t erase. Like bisexual women who go back to men because they just miss fucking.

“Hey,” Charles says, putting a hand to my shoulder. “Sorry I’m late.”

“Hey, no problem,” I say, half-rising and giving him a brilliant “no-problem” smile. That’s me. Miss No Problem.

He sinks into the chair, gives me one of the crinkly-eyed smiles I remember, and I feel Miss No Problem begin to weaken. “So,” I say brightly, fumbling for the menu.

We do the “God, flying these days” speech, which ends in the usual “What can you do?” eye rolling, and then head into the “Should we order a drink?” portion of the evening, and I’m thinking we are off to a good if not exactly great start when Charles says something behind the wine list that I can’t quite catch.

“Sorry,” I say, lowering my menu.

“I said, I’m so glad you were able to move our meeting to dinner. Made it so much easier for us to get together, given my time here.”

Your
time
here?
Your time here?

I must look stricken. Or pissed. Because he starts to backtrack. “And I mean your time, your time as well,” he says, stammering slightly. “I know you’ve been busy. With Troy. And actually I want to hear about that. I’ve heard versions from Suzanne. And G, of course. But I need to hear about it from you. Get up to speed.”

I am falling down a rabbit hole of my own stupid hopes. This isn’t a date. This isn’t Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon getting together at the end of
Bull Durham
after two hours of sexual tension. This is a
business
dinner. With my new boss. How could I have been so blind? Didn’t I go over this and over it? Fly it all by Steven? And didn’t I play and replay his message a million times?
“I’m sick of work getting in the way of this.” This! This!
How the hell did I mistake that?

I feel my face flush and my shoulders sag under my new black cashmere sweater. The one I bought just a few hours ago. The one with the boat neck. The one that makes me look like Audrey Hepburn.

In my dreams.

I am losing my will to live. Or the energy to get through the rest of the evening. The rest of this business dinner.

Before I can say anything, the waiter flies up and in the flurry of drink ordering—yes, a bottle will do
nicely
—I try to rally what dignity I have left. What forces I have left. Like Henry V before the St. Crispin’s Day battle. If it had been waged at the intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards. I mean, I finessed Troy. And G. And without the advantage of Orso’s lighting and a good bottle of Pinot Grigio. I can certainly finesse Charles. If this is a business dinner, then I’m working it. And
you.
I
am
Miss No Problem.

“Ah, Troy, well that
is
a story,” I say, shaking my head and putting on my best you-don’t-know-the-half-of-it smile. “But first,” I say, raising my water glass in mock salute, “thanks for taking the time to meet with me.”

We’re on the last of the bottle and the remains of the
osso bucco
is crusting on our plates. We’ve tagged all the bases. Work. His promotion. G. Troy. I take it as a good sign that I got him to laugh during my recitation of Troy’s shoot-out at the Chanel boutique. But then I did leave out the part about Troy kissing me. Not going to push my luck. Not when G doesn’t know about it. Not when it’s the only kiss I’m ever going to have for the rest of my life.

We’ve also talked about the Yankees, real estate, our junior years abroad (I went to Scotland, he went to Madrid), our intended careers (mine in publishing, his in international law), our detours into publicity (both accidental, and in my case criminally so).

“It doesn’t sound like it’s the kind of job you ever envisioned for yourself,” he says, looking in the candlelight less like a boss than a friend.

“Well,” I say, fiddling with my wineglass. “I try not to think about it, Counselor.”

We talk more. About our childhoods (mine in Philly, his in D.C.), my divorce, his divorce (I
knew
it), how it seems like you can never live up to your parents’ expectations no matter what you do (well, with my parents that was true; his father was a lawyer, so technically no one except his clients lived up to his expectations), whether the electoral college should be abolished (Gore would be president!), and how we both love, love, love the bar at the Ritz Carlton in Boston. A table overlooking the Garden on a crisp fall day, a nice Sauvignon Blanc, and a lobster sandwich. “Sometimes I think I could live in a Cheever short story,” I say before I remember my own upbringing on the Main Line was supposedly pretty Cheeveresque.

“I think you should get back to that bar one day,” Charles says, and for a second I can’t read his expression—wistful, mocking, sincere, patronizing?—and I wonder if I was wrong about this being a business dinner. You go out for dinner with girls, even girls you don’t know, and of course you wind up talking about your divorce and your parents and how you can’t stand your own sister most of the time. But not with guys. Not straight guys. And certainly not with your boss. Not unless it’s a date.

Before I can parse this further, I hear a burbling sound. And another.

“I think that’s you,” Charles says.

“Excuse me?”

“Your phone?”