Everyone Worth Knowing (21 page)

quiet and uptight that it gave the impression something might blow

up at any second.

"Great. Thanks for inviting me to dinner last night. It was, uh,

really interesting."

"So you hated it?"

"No! Bette, I didn't say anything like that. I didn't hate it at all.

It was just, uh, different from what we usually do. Hope you don't

mind that I bailed early, but I was exhausted. How was the rest of

the night?"

"Are you asking just to be polite or have you not seen the

news today?" I mentally crossed my fingers that she hadn't heard.

"Yeah, I'm just being nice. Avery forwarded it to me first thing

this morning. It's taken every last ounce of willpower not to call

you. I want the full play-by-play. Start with 'When I met him at

Bungalow he was wearing a black ribbed shirt and black pants

with a thirty-four-inch inseam and he bought me a Stoli Vanilla and

Sprite.' Proceed at that detail level, please."

"Pen, I can't really get into it here," I said tersely, looking up to

notice that half of my coworkers were pretending to stare at their

screens while listening to me intently.

"Bette! You can't be serious! You go and have sex with one of

the hottest guys in the free world—Avery's always talking about

how every female in Manhattan worships him—and you can't tell

me about it?"

"I didn't sleep with him!" I all but screamed into the phone.

Skye and Leo—in addition to a few assistants—jerked their heads

up and grinned at me in unison.

"Whatever," I heard someone else whisper.

Leo just rolled his eyes as if to say, "Oh, dear God, we're not

all
that
stupid."

And for a minute I was flattered. So what if it was slightly

slutty to meet someone and sleep with him that very night? Better

everyone considered it a
possibility
that Philip Weston would

deign to have sex with me, I suppose, than just assume he'd taken

me in for the night out of pity and a sense of obligation and spent

as little time as possible actually
in
the bed I occupied.

"Whoa," Penelope was saying. "Touchy, touchy. Okay, so you

didn't have sex with him. I believe you. The only question I have

now is, why the hell
not?
I'm sure you don't need me to remind

you of your recent celibacy. What are you holding out for? He's

supposedly incredible!"

I finally laughed for what I realized was the first time all morning.

Seriously, what was the big deal? If I wasn't going to get fired

for my rather public indiscretion—and that certainly didn't seem to

be an option—then why not just enjoy it?

"I remember very little about what actually happened last

night," I whispered, placing my hand over the receiver, "but I'll tell

you whatever I can dredge up when I get home tonight."

"Can't. Avery and I have dinner at his parents' house and I

can't seem to talk him out of it. What about tomorrow night? Can

we meet /or a drink at the Black Door?"

"I'd love to, but I'm meeting the book club for dinner and

drinks. Little Italy, I think."

She sighed. "Well, we should probably make a plan now for

the weekend after next since I'm in St. Louis for work the next two

weeks. Are you around?"

It felt strange to have plans with people other than my book

club, Will, or Penelope, but work had already begun to seep into

my weekends, too. I checked my rapidly filling calendar. "Yeah, totally,

I just promised Kelly that I'd go with our group from here to

scout a new location for the
Playboy
party. It's still four months

away, but everyone's already panicking. Want to come?"

Penelope hesitated. I could tell she wasn't into the idea, but

she couldn't really say no since she'd already admitted to being

free. "Uh, sure. That sounds great. We'll figure out the details this

week. And of course, if you suddenly 'remember' anything about

last night, I'll take that, too."

"Bitch," I shot back.

She just laughed.

"You have fun with your future in-laws, you hear? Be sure to

listen up when they tell you exactly how many grandchildren they

want, broken down by gender and eye color. You do, after all,

have certain obligations now. . . ."

It was good to hear her laughing again.

"Bettina Robinson, I'm not sure you're in a position to offer advice

on such things right now, considering your rather tawdry exploits

in the last twenty-four hours. . . . Talk to you later."

"Bye." I hung up the phone and decided that such a night and

morning warranted a second bacon, egg, and cheese on a buttered

roll. I still had to do that invitation list for five hundred and party

favors, but I decided it could wait. My hangover could not.

9

Three weeks later—three weeks of list-making, wardrobebuilding,

party-going, and general immersion in the culture of

Kelly & Company—I stood waiting for Penelope to arrive. The line

outside Sanctuary looked absolutely unbearable. Whole hordes of

girls smoothed their Japanese-reconditioned hair with manicured

hands while the boys—revitalized from various steak dinners—

gripped their forearms to keep them from tottering over sideways

on their heels. The early November night was chilly, but no one

seemed to notice that it wasn't July anymore. Skin—scrubbed,

buffed, waxed, moisturized, tanned, and glowing—was everywhere,

from huge expanses of bronzed cleavage to slightly

sparkling stretches of stomach to those inches of upper thigh that

are rarely spotted away from the beach or the gynecologist's office.

A few people swayed in time to loungy music emanating from behind

the imposing steel door, and most seemed to twitter at the

mere idea of what the night held: the sensation of that first martini

hitting your bloodstream, the feeling of music pulsating through

your hips, the cigarette smoke burning but delicious, the chance to

press some of that perfect skin against someone else's. There was

nothing quite as heady as a Saturday night in New York when you

were standing outside the newest, chicest place in the city, surrounded

by all sorts of glittering, pretty things, the kind of vibe

where every fantasy was just waiting to unfold . . . if you could

only get inside.

To my surprise, Will had been less than thrilled with the coverage

of my non-one-night-stand three weeks earlier. I'd called after

work to say hi, figuring he didn't even read New York Scoop and

there was a good chance he hadn't seen it, but I was very, very

wrong. Everybody, it seemed, had begun reading New York

Scoop—and worse, they were reading it solely for Ellie Insider's

column.

"Oh, Bette, your uncle has been champing at the bit, just waiting

for your call. Hold on a second, I'll get him," Simon said rather

formally, not even bothering to ask how I was or when I'd next be

over for dinner, as he always did.

"Bette? Is that really you? The celebrity herself deigns to call her

old uncle, huh?"

"Celebrity? What on earth are you talking about?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe just that little piece about my 'mystery

niece.' Apparently your new boyfriend is rather fashionable,

and so his, urn, conquests are often recorded for posterity within

the Scoop's highly journalistic pages. Did you not see it?"

"My boyfriend? You're referring to the illustrious Philip Weston,

I'm guessing?"

"Indeed I am, darling, indeed I am. Not exactly what I had in

mind when I encouraged you to get out there and meet someone,

but what do I know? I'm just an old man, living vicariously

through his beautiful young niece. If you find that whole British

trustafarian thing appealing, well, then, far be it from me to say

otherwise. . . ."

"Will! I should think you of all people would understand that

you can't necessarily believe everything you read in the papers,

you know? It didn't exactly happen like that."

"Well, darling, since you seem to be a bit late to the game,

everyone's been reading Ellie Insider lately. She's surely a conniving

little wench, but she
does
always seem to have the scoop. Are

you telling me you didn't go home with him? Or that it was a different

new Kelly hire? Because if that's true, then I'd recommend

having that corrected as soon as possible. I'm not sure that's the

reputation you'd be looking to create for yourself."

"It's complicated" was all I could manage.

"I see," he replied quietly. "Well, look, it's certainly none of my

business. As long as you're enjoying yourself, that's really all that

matters. See you at brunch on Sunday. We're in prime pre-holiday

wedding season, so I imagine there'll be some real winners in Sunday's

announcements. Wear your snarky shoes, darling."

I'd agreed, but I felt unsettled. Something had changed—or

shifted, at least—and I couldn't quite pinpoint it.

"Hey, Bette, over here," Penelope called a bit too loudly as she

settled up with the cabdriver and waved to me from the backseat.

I waved. "Hi! Right on time. Elisa and crew are already here,

but I didn't want you to have to come in alone."

"Wow, you look great," she said, putting a hand on my hip and

examining my outfit from head to toe. "Where'd you find clothes

like that?"

I laughed, pleased that she had noticed. I'd only been working

at Kelly & Company for a month, but it was long enough for me to

get sick of looking like I was always dressed for a funeral. I'd

thrown my drab suits in the back of my closet, ripped a couple

pages out of
Lucky
and
Glamour,
and made a beeline for Barney's.

Standing at the register, I'd mentally added up the years it was

going to take to pay for all this stuff and then bravely handed over

my credit card. When the salesperson gave it back, I could have

sworn it was warm to the touch. In one afternoon I'd managed to

kiss both dorkiness and credit health good-bye.

While it wasn't exactly couture, I was pretty happy with my

new look: Paige Jeans that cost more than all my monthly bills

combined; a silky, lace-lined lingerie top in kelly green; a tweedy,

fitted blazer that didn't match anything but which the salesman,

Jean-Luc, had declared "ravishing"; and the classic Chanel clutch

Will had bought me for my twenty-first birthday because apparently

"it's criminal to pass into womanhood without a single designer

paving your passage. Welcome to what I hope will be a

long life of shallow consumerism and brand worship."

I had worked at UBS for five years, slaving away for eighty

hours a week. Since I'd never had any time to spend money, I'd

managed to build a little nest egg without really trying. After eight

weeks of unemployment and one afternoon at Barney's, that nest

egg had been seriously compromised, but my ass had never