“Okay, so let’s review our plan of attack,” I say to Steven. It’s Friday afternoon, two days before the award show on Sunday when, blow-dried, Botoxed, and even more high-strung than usual, two-thirds of Hollywood will converge on the Beverly Hilton dressed in black ties in the middle of the afternoon. All week there have been endless meetings during the day and cocktail parties and events at night, and I still have to confirm two limos, sit through a conference call with the Fox publicists, and have a final confab with the Phoenix’s stylist. A confab because the Phoenix is, for the moment, still our client, this year’s Lifetime Achievement winner or whatever they call it, and, as of two days before the show, undecided about what to wear. As far as I can tell, the Phoenix is either dressing as a statuette in a Versace gold-lamé number and her white wig, or she’s going for Vegas showgirl in a black satin-and-lace number she’s designing herself. Not that it matters. She’ll stop traffic just by showing up.
I also have to get myself in gear. Such as it is. Publicists fall into two groups when it comes to award shows: those who think of themselves as perpetual bridesmaids who accompany their clients dressed in floor-length gowns and looks of blissful beatitude; and those of us who take the White House security detail approach, who come in black pantsuits and a don’t-fuck-with-me look. Buying a new black suit and having my hair blown out Sunday morning—because you never know when even a publicist might wind up on camera—are as far as I’m willing to go.
“Okay, but I still don’t get how we’re going to ride herd on three clients at once,” Steven says, staring at the itinerary—actually the third revised itinerary—the Foreign Press Association has e-mailed over. Other than photo shoots and junkets, award shows are the one time assistants can come out from behind their headsets and work with the clients.
“I told you, the Fox publicists are taking care of Val because the series has been nominated for Best Comedy,” I say. “We have to do Troy because he’s nominated as a guest star. So you and I will double-team Troy and the Phoenix. If all else fails, think of it as the running of the bulls at Pamplona. Just try and stay ahead of it and not get trampled.”
“You know, I did that once,” he says.
“The bulls?”
“Well, close. The White Party out in Palm Springs.”
“Look, are you sure you’re up to this?” I say. “We’ve never had this many clients at an award show before.”
“Are you kidding? And miss the chance to see the Phoenix in person? I want to see if she shows up in that ballerina outfit she wore to the Oscars a few years ago.”
“You’re getting her mixed up with Lara Flynn Boyle.”
“Oh, please,” Steven says, rolling his eyes. “I can tell the divas from the wannabes. Besides, I’m really rooting for the Hindu princess getup she wore during her farewell concert last year.”
“What are you talking about? You know stars never wear the same outfit twice.”
“Well, a girl can dream, can’t she?” he says. “So what do you want to do—flip for who handles who?”
“No, we’re not flipping,” I say, trying not to sound as exasperated as I feel. Steven is a genius behind the scenes, but he’s less reliable in the field. “Suzanne wants me to help her with the Phoenix on the red carpet, so you get Troy. But we can trade off on the parties because Suzanne said she didn’t care which of us helped her then and God knows I’ll have had my fill of the Phoenix by then.”
“Okay, so I’ll, what, ride with Troy in the limo at . . .” He pauses to scan the itinerary again. “Three?”
“God, yes, you’re going in the limo. I know Troy’s sober now, but I still don’t trust him to show up anywhere on time. Besides, you can get him to wear a tie.”
Steven scans the list again. “Okay, so I guess we’re good. By the way, do we know yet if Charles is flying out?”
“No, we do not,” I say crisply. Ever since our disastrous phone call before Thanksgiving, my relationship with Charles, however vague it had been, has become even vaguer. Vague and existing solely in cyberspace—a series of totally businesslike e-mails. As far as I’m concerned the whole thing is dead. Or on hiatus, which in Hollywood everyone knows means “dead but we don’t want to take the heat for its death just yet.”
“What’s his problem, anyway?” Steven says.
“You know, I wouldn’t know.”
“Well, he knows you went and groveled to the Phoenix. And that she’s at least delayed her departure from DWP. What else does the man want?”
“Like I said, I wouldn’t know.” I may have no idea where things stand with Charles, but I do know that between the chaos of award season and the coming showdown with G and Suzanne, my nervous system is about topping out at “Manolo or Jimmy Choo?”
“Well, maybe the stiff will come around when the last piece of the puzzle falls into place on, what, Monday?”
“I don’t know, and really,” I say, dropping my voice and eyeing my door, which is only partially closed, “we can’t talk about it. Not here. It’s done and when it comes out, I don’t know. Rachel doesn’t even know.”
“Okay,” he says, raising his hands and heading for the door. “Fine, but if I see that guy Sunday night and he does not have you locked in his arms, I’m going to throw a drink in his face.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” I say. “God knows in this town that counts as chivalry.”
The day of the Globes dawns gray, damp, and cold. Might as well be Seattle except for the helicopters already buzzing over Beverly Hills. The capper is that rain is predicted, which means the clear plastic awning will go up at the Hilton and my hairdresser has to use the flattening iron to give my hair a fighting chance. By the time I head out in the Audi, a light drizzle is falling and I feel like Cinderella. Not because I’m going to meet my prince, but because the clock is ticking on when my ironed hair turns back into the unruly pumpkin.
I’m driving because the Phoenix has insisted on coming in a Toyota Prius limo—the first limo made from a hybrid car, or so I’ve been instructed to tell the press—which means there’s only room for the driver, the Phoenix, and her outfit. Instead, I’m to meet her and Suzanne at the entrance to the red carpet. Which is like saying you’ll meet somebody in Times Square on New Year’s Eve.
By the time I hit the parking garage in Century City, wedge myself into the hotel shuttle bus that’s packed with the other nonceleb funeral guests—grim-faced, dressed in black, and reeking of perfume and Altoids—it’s just past three and a steady rain is falling. Nearly two hours until the show begins, but it’s already chaos, between the rain, the screaming fans, the limos, and the helicopters. Just getting on the carpet requires pushing through the crowd to the layer of cops ringing the hotel driveway, flashing my credentials, having my bag searched, and being waved through a metal detector.
Finally, I am squirted out onto the plush red runway and under the clear plastic tent. I shake the rain from my hair and scan the crowd. Everyone’s pretty much in place except the A-listers—aka this year’s Oscar hopefuls and the HBO stars—who will not arrive for at least an hour. But everyone else is here. The press and photographers are jammed into their booths, cordoned off to the sides. Media outlets are assigned their own minute square footage that they zealously guard and from which they scream like carnival barkers at a county fair. “Step right up and try your luck with Joan Rivers!” “Right here, folks, Access Hollywood!”
Later, they’ll be herded into the press room, one of the hotel’s ballrooms that has not been rented out to a studio or a network for its after-party, where they’ll scream out their questions to the winners. So much for the glamour of the Hollywood press corps.
As for the river of celebs, it’s still early. Mostly careers-on-the-wane-or-rise presenters like Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Hilary Duff anxious to milk the moment, a few long-in-the-tooth TV stars like David Caruso and Kelsey Grammer and their wives. Wives are their own special category, falling into one of two camps: sylvan or porcine, both of wh
ich merit close study and raised eyebrows.
But mostly the carpet is populated by the folks you can’t tell without a scorecard—dour-looking agents, executives, and producers. There are also fleets of my colleagues already looking panicky, expressionless security people in headsets and sunglasses—even in a downpour, sunglasses are de rigueur—and the requisite eye candy, the portfolio-free pretty young things in pastel evening dresses and expressions of great self-possession. Well, they’re still young.
I check my watch. Just past three-thirty. The Phoenix won’t arrive for at least half an hour—other than the Best Actress nominees, she’s the queen of this ball—so I decide to hunt down Steven and Troy, who for all I know are stuck in the limo line out front. I reach in my bag for my cell and try dialing, but can’t get a signal. Figures. I fish out my new BlackBerry. It’s our latest gizmo from the office, but I still can’t get the hang of typing on a keyboard the size of a credit card. I scrunch up my thumbs and type, Qgwew r U?
Shit. I try again. Where r U?
BH 90210 comes flying back.
Fk U, I type back. WHERE?
“Actually, we’re right behind you,” Steven says so suddenly that I drop the damn thing as I whip around.
“God, these things are great,” he says, waving his BlackBerry. “How’d we ever get by without them?”
“Yeah, they’re great,” I say, diving to retrieve mine from under a security guard’s feet. “So, you look nice,” I say when I resurface, shaking my hair from my eyes. Actually, he looks better than nice. New Armani tux, slicked-backed hair, and the remnants of his Hawaii tan. “God, if I didn’t know you were gay, I’d assume you were an agent.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Steven says, straightening his tie. “Although I wouldn’t try that line at CAA.”
“Right,” I say, glancing around. “So where’s Troy?”
Steven nods over his shoulder. “Back there somewhere. He got snagged. By Merle, I think.”
“He got snagged?” I can’t believe Steven is being this casual. “Then we’re going back there and unsnag him.”
I press through the crowd, scanning the little pas de deux’s going on at the press booths. No sign of Troy. I catch sight of Merle Ginsberg, the indefatigable entertainment writer and fixture at these events, deep in conversation with Shalom Harlow about the lineage of her skintight flame-red gown.
“Great,” I say to Steven. “You’ve been here, what, ten minutes and already you’ve lost him?”
“Wait, there he is,” Steven says, nodding down the carpet. “Talking to People, or is that The Today Show?”
I turn and see Steven Cojocaru, aka Cojo, the legendary wispy-headed, acid-tongued style writer, talking animatedly with Troy. “Oh, fuck!” I say, turning and sprinting down the carpet. G will have my head here and now if he sees Troy talking unescorted to a TV outlet.
“Hey, guys,” I say, pulling up breathlessly, clamping my hand on Troy’s arm. “How’s it going?”
“Hey, girl,” Troy says, flashing me a blazing smile.
“Alex, you look fabulous,” Cojo says, bending down to give me a kiss.
“Not as fabulous as you.”
“No, but then no one does,” he says, shaking his highlighted and flat-ironed locks from his eyes. “Although this lad comes close.”
“Well, Troy is hard to beat,” I say, smiling up at them. “Especially in Armani.”
Troy looks confused. “Wait, isn’t this Gucci? Steven?” He looks at Steven hovering behind me. “Gucci, right?”
“Right,” Steven says, giving him a thumbs-up.
“Honey, it’s Gucci,” Cojo says, running his hand down Troy’s lapel. “And with what, Tony Lama?” He glances down at Troy’s snakeskin cowboy boots.
“Good eye,” Troy says, sticking out his foot. “With a walking heel.”
“A classic,” Cojo says in a tone of voice that is a little too sarcastic for comfort.
“So Gucci, then. My mistake,” I say brightly. But this is what I do here. Prattle, prattle, prattle. Fashion, fashion, fashion. Flatter, flatter, flatter. Keep things moving. Everyone smiling. Everyone talking about bullshit.
The prattle continues while I take a second to gaze around the crowd. It’s almost doubled in the past few minutes. The carpet is a river of black shot with color—red, fuchsia, azure—and with more famous faces swimming into view. Tobey Maguire. Vin Diesel. Reese Witherspoon. Debra Messing. God, is that Kevin Costner? But what’s with the hair? I make out the cast of The West Wing strolling in the way they always do, like the class valedictorians. Just wait until they get canceled. I stand on my toes to get a look at the entrance. Still no sign of the Phoenix—better call Suzanne and find out their ETA—but I make out Val and Melba and the rest of the show’s cast streaming in flanked by Fox publicists. Val’s got a tiara or something glittery clamped to her head, but what else is she wearing? I stand on my toes again. Her dress looks flesh-colored but floor-length, thank God. Still, I better do a drive-by.
“So I’ve been hearing good things about DWP, Alex.”
“What a minute, what?” I say, turning back to Troy and Cojo.
“Troy was just saying the agency is really doing great,” Cojo says. “After the merger. That you guys are really clicking.”
“Really?” I say, giving Troy a what-gives? look.
“Ah, come on, Alex,” he says, grabbing me by the shoulders. “I told him I wouldn’t be here except for you.”
“Oh, don’t believe a word he says, except when he’s talking about me,” I say, laughing and leaning into him. Happy Client and Happy Publicist.
“Oh my God,” Cojo says suddenly, catching sight of Kevin Costner. “Can you say ‘thatch roof’? Kevin,” he says, waving wildly. “Kevin, over here.”
“Okay, we’re done here,” I say, pushing Troy back into the crowd and looking around for Steven. Already, I can hear Troy’s name being called farther down the press line.
“I’ll take it from here,” Steven says, surfacing next to me.
“Are you sure?” I hiss. “You can’t let him out of your sight.”
“Yes, I’m sure. Go find Suzanne and the Phoenix. I’ll see you inside.”
I push off, dive into the crowd, and head upstream. But paddling against the current is difficult. I am jostled around, thrust up against Sharon Stone, the unofficial queen of the Globes who will show up at this thing when she’s in a walker, and nearly trip over Brad Pitt, who looks even cuter and more stoned up close. I finally surface next to Melba, Val’s costar. Actually, I surface next to her breasts. Melba herself is still a few inches away. “Hey, Melba,” I say, trying to wedge past her. Val is just behind her, holding forth to KNBC, her tiara glittering in the light of the video camera.
“I don’t know, I mean the Globes is just, it’s just the start of something big,” Val says, breaking into the song and flinging her arms over her head. The reporter laughs delightedly. Bingo. My little flasher just made the evening news.
I catch sight of the Fox publicist flanking Val. She rolls her eyes at me and I roll mine back. No point in waking the baby. I give the publicist a little wave and disappear back into the crowd.
I head farther upstream, trying to fish out my BlackBerry to check Suzanne’s whereabouts. Suddenly, there’s an eddy in the crowd, like water’s parting. I stand on my toes again. Down at the entrance, surrounded by security guys, the Phoenix emerges from the Toyota like Venus on the half-shell—a blaze of sequins with a black feather boa wrapped around her shoulders and a plume of ostrich feathers exploding from her head. She is flanked on one side by Suzanne, who is grinning wildly and—who’s that on the other? Oh God, it’s G. G, who looks about ready to kill someone.
I try to push my way through the crowd, but get stalled behind some slab of a security guy. I have to stand on my toes and crane halfway around him to keep the Phoenix in sight. God, I still can’t quite see her. I twist further past the security guy. Wait, there she is. A small moat has for
med around her as she stops to pose for the photographers. “Over here!” “Over here!” The Phoenix smiles, hugging the feather boa to her chest. Suddenly, she turns and flings it aside. The crowd screams its approval. On the sequined black lace stretched tight across her very visible buttocks, B-I-G is spelled out in black satin. She turns again. I almost choke. Three more letters are spelled out across her equally visible breasts: D-W-P.
It takes me several minutes to swim upriver. It’s the first time I’ve seen the Phoenix since my disastrous visit to Malibu before Christmas. In fact, I haven’t spoken to her since she predictably did not return any of my calls. But something has definitely happened. I mean, why would she be wearing a billboard for DWP if she planned to let Jerry fire us? “So what’s with the outfit?” I say, sliding in next to Suzanne when I finally reach them, stuck now at E! where Joan Rivers has the Phoenix under house arrest. “Oh my God, who’s that you’re wearing?” I hear Joan say. But then she says that a lot.
“Got me,” Suzanne says, as she keeps her eye on the Phoenix, who is still flanked by G. “All I know is that right about now, five million people are getting a good look at the best advertising we ever had.”
“Which seems weird if she was planning on firing us.”
“She still might,” Suzanne says, turning to me. “The last I heard from Jerry was that we had her through the rest of award season. After that, ‘we will talk.’ ”
We stand there and watch them for several minutes. “So you designed it, but why promote your publicity agency?” I hear Joan say. The Phoenix says something I can’t make out, but G turns and glares in our direction so it must be good.
“Yeah, Doug looks happy,” I say to Suzanne, as I smile and wave at G.
“You think so?” Suzanne says. “Well, fuck him.”
So 5 Minutes Ago Page 26
