Everyone Worth Knowing (3 page)

his crystal tumbler and hurled one of his Belgian shoes at the TV.

"Hi, Will," I said, helping myself to a handful of the chocolatecovered

raisins he always kept in an Orrefors bowl on his desk.

"Of all the people qualified to discuss politics in this country,

to offer some insight or an intelligent opinion on how media coverage

did or did not affect these elections, and these idiots have to

interview someone from
TJje New York Times?
The whole place is

more bleeding than a rare steak, and I need to sit here and listen

to their opinion on this?"

"Well, not really, Will. You could turn it off, you know." I suppressed

a smile as his eyes stayed riveted ahead. I silently debated

with myself how long it would take for him to refer to
The New

York Times
as
Izvestia,
or to bring up the Jayson Blair debacle as

further proof that the paper's trash at best and a conspiracy against

honest, hardworking Americans at worst.

"What, and miss Mr. Aaron Brown's blatantly opinionated coverage

of Mr. Frank Rich's blatantly opinionated coverage of whatever

the hell they're talking about? Seriously, Bette, let us not forget that

this is the very same paper whose reporters simply create stories

when deadline looms." He took a swig and jabbed at the remote to silence

both televisions simultaneously. Only fifteen seconds tonight—

a record.

"Enough for now," he said, hugging me and giving me a quick

peck on the cheek. "You look great, honey, as always, but would it

kill you to wear a dress once in a while?"

He'd not so deftly moved to discussing his second-favorite

topic, my life. Uncle Will was nine years older than my mom and

both swore they'd been born to the very same set of parents, but it

seemed impossible to comprehend. My mother was horrified I'd

taken a corporate job that required me to wear something other

than caftans and espadrilles, and my uncle thought the travesty

was the suit as uniform instead of some killer Valentino gown or a

fabulous pair of strappy Louboutins.

"Will, it's just what they do at investment banks, you know?"

"So I've gathered. I just didn't think you'd end up in banking."

That again.

"Your people, like, love capitalism, don't they?" I teased. "The

Republicans, I mean—not so much the gays."

He raised his bushy gray eyebrows and peered at me from

across the couch. "Cute. Very cute. It's nothing against banking,

darling, I think you know that. It's a fine, respectable career—I'd

rather see you doing that than any of those hippie-dippy-save-theworld

jobs your parents would recommend—but you just seem so

young to lock yourself into something so boring. You should be

out there meeting people, going to parties, enjoying being young

and single in New York, not tied down to a desk in a bank. What

do you
want
to do?"

As many times as he'd asked me this, I'd never come around to

a great—or even decent—answer. It was certainly a fair question.

In high school I'd always thought I'd join the Peace Corps. My parents

had taught me that that was the natural step following a college

degree. But then I went to Emory and met Penelope. She

liked that I couldn't name every private school in Manhattan and

knew nothing about Martha's Vineyard, and I, of course, loved that

she could and did. We were inseparable by Christmas break, and

by the end of freshman year, I had discarded my favorite Dead

T-shirts. Jerry was long dead, anyway. And it was fun going to basketball

games and keg parties and joining the coed touch-football

league with a whole group of people who didn't regularly dread

their hair, or recycle their bathwater, or wear patchouli oil. I didn't

stand out as the eccentric girl who always smelled a little bit off

and knew way too much about the redwoods. I wore the same

jeans and T-shirts as everyone else (without even checking to see if

they originated in a sweatshop) and ate the same burgers and

drank the same beer, and it felt fantastic. For four years I had a

group of similar-minded friends and the occasional boyfriend,

none of whom were Peace Corps-bound. So when all the big companies

showed up on campus waving giant salaries and signing

bonuses and offering to fly candidates to New York for interviews,

I did it. Nearly every one of my friends from school took a similar

job, because when you get right down to it, how else is a twentytwo-

year-old going to be able to pay rent in Manhattan? What was

incredible about the whole thing was how quickly five years had

gone by. Five years had just vanished into a black hole of training

programs and quarterly reports and year-end bonuses, leaving

barely enough time for me to consider that I loathed what I

did all day long. It didn't help matters that I was actually good

at it—it somehow seemed to signify that I was doing the right

thing. Will knew it was wrong, though, could obviously sense it,

but so far I'd been too complacent to make the leap into something

else.

"What do I want to do? How on earth can I answer something

like that?" I asked.

"How can you not? If you don't get out soon, you're going to

wake up one day when you're forty and a managing director and

jump off a bridge. There's nothing wrong with banking, darling, it's

just not for you. You should be around
people.
You should laugh a

little. You should
write.
And you should be wearing much better

clothes."

I didn't tell him I was considering looking for work at a nonprofit.

He'd start ranting about how his campaign to un-brainwash

me from my parents had failed, and he'd sit dejectedly at the table

for the rest of the evening. I'd tried it once, just merely mentioned

that I was thinking of interviewing at Planned Parenthood, and

he'd informed me that while that was a most noble idea, it would

lead me straight back down the path to rejoining, in his words, the

World of the Great Unshowered. So we proceeded to cover the

usual topics. First came my nonexistent love life ("Darling, you're

simply too young and too pretty for your job to be your only

lover"), followed by a bit of ranting about Will's latest column ("Is

it my fault that Manhattan has become so uneducated that people

no longer wish to hear the truth about their elected officials?"). We

cycled back to my high school days of political activism ("The Incense

Era is blessedly over"), and then once again returned to

everyone's all-time favorite topic, the abject state of my wardrobe

("Ill-fitting, masculine trousers do not a date outfit make").

Just as he was beginning a small soliloquy on the far-reaching

benefits of owning a Chanel suit, the maid knocked on the study

door to inform us that dinner was on the table. We collected our

drinks and made our way to the formal dining room.

"Productive day?" Simon asked Will, kissing him on the cheek

in greeting. He had showered and changed into a pair of Hefesque

linen pajamas and was holding a glass of champagne.

"Of course not," Will responded, setting aside his dirty martini

and pouring two more glasses of champagne. He handed one to

me. "Deadline's not until midnight; why would I do a damn thing

until ten o'clock tonight? What are we celebrating?"

I dug into my Gorgonzola salad, grateful to be eating something

that hadn't originated in a street cart, and took a gulp of

champagne. If 1 could have somehow finagled eating there every

night without appearing to be the biggest loser on earth, I

would've done it in a second. But even I had enough dignity to

know that being available for the same people—even if they were

your uncle and his partner—more than once a week for dinner

and once for brunch was truly pathetic.

"What, we need to be celebrating something to drink a little

champagne?" Simon asked, helping himself to a few pieces of the

sliced steak their housekeeper had made for the main course. "Just

thought it would be a nice change. Bette, what are your plans for

the rest of the evening?"

"Penelope's engagement party. I'm going to have to head there

soon, actually. The mothers put the whole thing together before either

Avery or Penelope could veto it. At least it's at some club in

Chelsea, though, rather than somewhere on the Upper East Side—I

think that was their one concession to their children actually enjoying

themselves."

"What's the name of the club?" Will asked, although there was

little chance he knew anything about it if it wasn't dark, woodpaneled,

and filled with cigar smoke.

"She mentioned it, but I can't remember. Begins with a B, I

think. Here," I said, pulling a torn slip of paper from my bag. "It's

on Twenty-seventh between Tenth and Eleventh. It's called—"

"Bungalow 8," they replied in unison.

"How did you both know that?"

"Honey, it's mentioned so often in Page Six that you'd think

Richard Johnson owned the damn place," Will said.

"I read somewhere that it was originally modeled after the bungalows

at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and that the service is just as

good. It's just a nightclub, but this article described a concierge

who will cater to any whim, from ordering in a special kind of rare

sushi to arranging for helicopters. There are places that are hot for

a few months and then vanish, but everyone agrees that Bungalow

8 has staying power," Simon said.

"I guess sitting at the Black Door on my nights out isn't really

helping my social life," I said and pushed my plate away. "Do you

guys mind if I bail early tonight? Penelope wanted me there before

the hordes of Avery's friends and her family arrive."

"Run, Bette, run. Stop only to reapply your lipstick and then

run! And it wouldn't hurt a damn if you found yourself a dashing

young gentleman to date," Simon declared, as though there would

be roomfuls of gorgeous, eligible guys who were just waiting for

me to walk into their lives.

"Or even better, a dashing young bastard to play with for one

evening." Will winked, only half-kidding.

"You guys are the best," I said, kissing each one's cheek before

gathering my bag and cardigan. "You have no compunction whoring

out your only niece, do you?"

"Absolutely none," Will announced while Simon shook his

head gravely. "Go be a good tart and have some fun, for Christ's

sake, will you?"

There was a crowd—three deep and a block long—when the

cab pulled up in front of the club, and if it hadn't been Penelope's

party, I would've had the cabbie keep driving. Instead, I plastered

on a smile and strolled to the front of the forty-person line, where

a giant guy wearing a Secret Service earpiece stood, holding a clipboard.

"Hi, my name is Bette and I'm with Penelope's party," I said,

surveying the line and not recognizing a single face.

He gazed at me blankly. "Great, nice to meet you, Penelope. If

you could just wait in line like everyone else, we'll get you inside