The Gift Bag Chronicles (8 page)

“Oh, come on, they have Joan and Melissa on their team now,” I say.

“I rest my case,” Steven says.

He’s got a point. For every corporate sponsor that would see them as a draw for the ailing franchise, there was a publicist who wouldn’t be caught dead letting their clients anywhere near them. “Okay, let’s not emphasize Joan then,” I say. “Get more of our people on it, and call over to PMK and see if some of their clients can be dragooned into showing up. And call all the networks again. Tell them it’s going to be the
Vanity Fair
of Emmy parties — tell them specifically that Oscar’s producing it — and they should plan on having their executives and stars stop by. And then, let’s follow up the invites with e-mails. I want to at least be able to give the magazine a great RSVP list, and we can worry about the actual head count later.”

I drop my bag and start leafing through the compost heap that is my desk. From the looks of it, I’ll be here all night. “Oh, I almost forgot,” I say, looking up. “What did Oscar say about his meeting with Jennifer this morning? Did they resolve the gift bag garter-ribbon-finish issues?”

“What do you think happened?” he says, heading for the door. “She rescheduled.”

I push the mail to one side — deal with that later — dig my water bottle out of my bag, and log on to attack my e-mails in earnest.
I’m just going through them — there’s at least 150 since last Thursday; doesn’t
anyone
ever go on vacation out here? — when the receptionist clicks on the speakerphone. “Charles in New York.”

Shit. I’d tried him in the car, but his assistant told me he was in a meeting.

“Hey,” I say, picking up. “I tried you earlier when I got your e-mail.”

“I’m actually here with Suzanne,” he says on the speaker-phone.

Speakerphone?
I don’t even get a private hey-that-was-a-really-fun-weekend call? It’s what, not even ten hours since we were together, and already he’s back to being Charles Evers, DWP-ED president.
“Okaay,”
I say slowly, pushing away from the computer.

“We’re having a little meeting after a rather disturbing phone call I had earlier this morning.”

“Okaay,”
I say again, dropping into my autopilot mode: never play a card until you know what the game is.

“Andrew McFeeney called me this morning.”

“Andrew
called?” I say, sounding more incredulous than I want to.

“Exactly.”

Okay, this is definitely strange. Not only is Charles acting like the past forty-eight hours never even happened, but Andrew McFeeney, editorial director of
C
magazine, is famous for never talking to anyone. Well, with the exception of Giorgio Armani or one of the Dolces or some other A-list designer aka advertiser. God knows, Andrew never talks to me or even most of his own staff. He’s notoriously reclusive. Rumor has it there are at least half a dozen employees —
editorial
employees — who have never even seen him, let alone talked to him. He’s the Howard Hughes of magazines.

In all my dealings with
C
, all their product launch cocktail
parties with advertisers, their fall fashion gala, Christmas party, and their big Oscar party, I had dealt only with Karlin, the publisher, and Amanda, the VP of marketing, and their staffs. And whatever clueless New Yorkers they stocked their West Coast bureau with. Andrew McFeeney was never involved. At least not directly. He showed up at maybe one out of ten events, looking as uncomfortable and out of it as Leo in
The Aviator
. Plus twenty or thirty years. Minus the whole dirty-fingernails-and-long-hair thing. That Andrew had picked up the phone and called the agency was not a good sign; that he had called Charles, and not me, was even worse.

“And?”
I say.

“And, to put it mildly, he’s not happy with DWP’s handling of their events,” Charles says, sounding less than happy himself. “He’s thinking of making some changes.”

“Oh, he is?” I say, sounding more upset than I mean to, but between this speakerphone call, Charles’s orange-alert attitude, and his apparent disregard for the weekend we just spent together, who wouldn’t be getting pissed? “Well, that’s news to me.” Actually, it isn’t news to me. Or the complaining part isn’t. The magazine was always whining about everything. That’s what they did, they whined but never actually worked up the energy to
change
anything. They really just liked to complain. It was their way of getting attention.

But now this call from Andrew, saying they may need to make actual changes, is different. Out of character. Besides, the last event we’d run for them—a Chanel fragrance launch party, the last
C
event before Patrice joined the magazine — had gone very well. I’d even gotten an e-mail from Karlin saying how well they thought it had gone.

“Frankly, their last event at the Chanel boutique, we had three-hundred-plus people and even got it on
E.T
. when Matthew McConaughey showed up on his motorcycle,” I say. “There’s no problem there as far as I’m aware.”

“Okay, Alex, there’s no need to get defensive,” Suzanne says, interrupting. “This kind of churn happens all the time. We’re just trying to figure out how—”

“I’m not defensive,” I say. “I’m just telling you the facts. I still have the e-mail I got from Karlin saying what a great event it was and how especially happy everyone was with the coverage we got.”

Now I’m seriously annoyed. True, I wish
C
would just cut and run. Let some other agency deal with them for a change. Still, there’s the prestige of handling the hippest fashion magazine in Hollywood, and nobody really likes losing clients. But mostly, I don’t like getting jerked around for the sake of getting jerked around, and Andrew, who wouldn’t know how to conjure a Hollywood A-list if his life depended on it, calling Charles and hinting about “making some changes,” is royal jerk-around treatment.

“And why is he calling you?” I add, seriously worked up now. “Or doesn’t he know how to dial an area code?”

“Calm down,” Charles says, sounding pretty uncalm himself. “Andrew called me because we’ve known each other for years. You know that. My father was his father’s lawyer.”

“Yes, I do know all this,” I say.

“Well, that’s why he called me and not you. Look, it’s no big deal. Andrew and I are going to have lunch. I’ll get his take on what’s really going on, and let’s see how we can save this thing.”

How
we
can save this thing? Okay, stop right there. You might be my boyfriend and we just spent a great weekend together, or at least I thought it was a great weekend, but now you’re acting like the school principal putting me on detention. “If you’re having a meeting with him, then I’m going to be there,” I say.

“Alex, there’s no reason —” Suzanne says, but Charles cuts her off.

“It’s not a meeting, it’s a lunch. Between old friends. I’ll just feel him out, and we — and
you
— can take it from there.”

“I’m sorry, I think that just sends the wrong message.”

“What wrong message? That we’re willing to meet with him on his terms?”

“No, that we don’t have a chain of command, a division of labor.”

“You’re blowing this way out of proportion,” he says.

I swear, that’s what men always say when they know they’re wrong. Blame the woman for being hysterical. I take another deep breath. “Let me put it this way,” I say coolly. “What would your reaction be if one of your clients, say Cirque du Soleil, that you just signed, called me up and told me they were unhappy with your work and I offered to step in and fix it?”

“Uh, ‘thank you’?”

“You would not.”

“Both of
yew
stop,” Suzanne says, her steel magnolia accent in full roar now. “Look, we
survahve
loss of clients all the time. Every PR agency does. If Andrew wants to have lunch with Charles, let him. For one thing, they’re both in New York, and more important, Andrew’s enough of a head case that if this is what he’s suggesting, then let’s go along with it. For now.”

“Which is what I’ve been saying,” says Charles.

“I still disagree,” I say, reluctant to give up. “I don’t think we should let Andrew set the terms for how we do business. I don’t think we should let anyone set the terms for how we do business.”

“Alex, I’m with Charles on this,” Suzanne says in her let’s-wrap-this-up voice. “It’s one reason why we have New York and L.A. offices, to ease the workload this way. But, Charles, once you find out what the deal is, then you turn it — and Andrew — over to Alex. Agreed?”

“It’s what I’ve been suggesting all along,” Charles says.

I slump back in my chair. “Well, if I’m outvoted, I’m outvoted.”

“Okay, now can we move on and talk about other business?” Suzanne says.

We spend the next several minutes going over company business, the usual list of premieres, magazine covers, product launches, and events. We’re still a small enough agency that we run most things by each other — as a courtesy — although after today, I’m giving that some serious reconsideration. Might be time for more independence, on all our parts. If I want a snowball’s chance in hell of getting Charles and me
closer
, maybe I need to keep our work lives more separate.

“When’s the Hawker wedding again?” Charles asks.

“Two weeks from Saturday. Coming out for that?” I say, trying to put the genie back in the bottle.

“Not on your life,” he says, like I’m totally crazy to suggest it. “I’ve got two events that weekend myself.”

“Well, if you change your mind,” I say lamely, “I’m sure we can use the extra help, given Jennifer.”

“Why, what’s she doing?” he says, his voice rising again.

“Nothing, nothing,” I say quickly, suddenly anxious to end this conversation. “She’s not doing anything. She’s lovely. It’s fine. Look, call me later and we’ll talk then.”

We hang up just as Caitlin wanders in from lunch, working on the last of an iced tea.

“Hey, so how was your weekend?” she says, fiddling with the straw.

Oh, what’s the point? “It sucked, thank you, and yours?”

I spend the rest of the afternoon going through everything that’s piled up since I’ve been gone. No wonder I never take a real vacation. I’m out of the office for four days, three of which are an official holiday, and it takes me a full day just to catch up. And I haven’t even started on personal stuff yet — all the bills that will be waiting for me at home and the messages on my home
phone, including the lovely one my landlady left saying the painters would be coming in two weeks and I need to call and make the arrangements with them about getting in while I’m at work. Great. Just what I need. Workmen underfoot and a house full of paint fumes when it’s 150 degrees outside, which it will be until fall finally hits. Which in L.A. means just around Thanksgiving.

“You want to grab a drink?” Steven says, sticking his head in my door.

“Now?” I say, looking up. “What time is it?”

“Quittin’ time, baby.”

I check my watch. Almost 7:00
P.M.
PST, which means it’s really, what, 10:00
P.M.
? No, 11:00. No, 10:00. I give up, too tired to do the math. “No, thanks. I’m wiped,” I say, slumping back in my chair for the thousandth time today. “Maybe later in the week. I’m just going to go home, open all the mail that’s piled up
there
, get into bed, and see what TiVo has for me.”

“You know, your life doesn’t sound all that different from before you started going out with Charles.”

“Thanks for that helpful observation,” I say. “Now you really do sound like Helen.”

“Actually, you never finished telling me about the weekend,” he says, heading for the sofa in my office.

“You know, it was fine,” I say, suddenly beyond exhausted. “Look, let’s find a night this week and we’ll go for a drink the way we used to — we can even go to Tom Bergin’s — and I’ll fill you in then.”

Steven puts his hands over his heart and cocks his head. “They grow up so fast,” he says, a fake catch in his voice.

I look on my desk for something to throw at him. The crystal paperweight — a miniature Hollywood sign with the initials
D-W-P-E-D
— I got when I became president? The stack of party invitations from L.A.’s hundred other event producers? My BlackBerry? “I’m too tired to even throw anything at you,” I say.

“Okay, I’m going,” he says, heading for the door. “But I’m holding you to that rain check. And you’re buying.”

It takes me another hour to finish everything up. One last check of e-mails. Spam. Screening invites. Nothing from Charles. Hmm. I’ve been so busy all afternoon, it only hits me now that he never called back after the speakerphone call with Suzanne. I check my watch. 8:00
P.M.
11:00 in New York. That’s a little late, but I could still call him. Oh, screw it.
He
didn’t call
me
, and he should have. After that phone call. If not to apologize, at least to explain without Suzanne listening in. Besides, I’m exhausted. I have no idea what’s in my refrigerator, but whatever it is, it will have to do, because when I leave here I’m not stopping until I hit my front door.