The Gift Bag Chronicles (23 page)

“You
can quit,” I say, letting him propel me across the threshold. “I can only get fired.”

“Well, if she fires you, she’s firing me,” he says. “We’re a package deal on this. I already told Chuckie boy that if they replace you, I’m walking.”

“You did?” I say, startled. When did this conversation take place? And why didn’t I know about it? “When was this?” I say, trying to sound more casual than I feel. Why would Charles be talking
to Oscar about contingency plans? God, if Patrice is going behind my back and complaining to Charles already … Okay, don’t go down that road. At least not today. Not when I have hours of Patrice hand-holding ahead of me.

“I don’t know, it was earlier,” Oscar says, heading down the hall. “Back when the whole
C
account was still up in the air.”

“It’s
still
up in the air,” I say, reluctant to let this go.

“Alex,” he says, turning to me and pulling his shades off for the first time. He squints in the light, and his eyes look tired. Tired but kind. “It’s just a party. And I say that as a professional event planner.”

“Okay, okay,” I say, holding up my hands. I may have a compulsive terrier’s attitude toward my career, running frantically across any and all lawns to catch whatever balls are tossed in my general direction, but even I know when it’s time to stop yapping frantically. Actually, forget the terrier analogy; most women I know are like that, jumping up at a moment’s notice to rush off and do things, because most of us are convinced that if we don’t do them, things will
not get done
.

We round a corner to the living room. It’s a sea of shag carpeting, white rough-sided paneling, sliding glass doors. Very
Jetsons
meet
The Brady Bunch
. The whole place needs a serious renovation, but the view is spectacular. And the back lawn could hold two hundred easy.

“Hey, didn’t you run a
Details
party here once?” I say, opening the patio door and stepping out onto the pool deck.

“Oh yeah, we did,” Oscar says, following me outside. “But they
are
shag carpeting. That whole metrosexual vibe. I think we served mini-cheeseburgers and malt beer in cans.”

“That was a good party,” I say, turning from the view to flip through the other house specs. Given Patrice’s reaction here, our lineup does not look good. Three out of the six are ranches, and only one is gated. “I got to tell you,” I say, “if she hates this house,
I don’t think she’s going to like any of the rest of them except maybe the Hancock Park one, but you said there were problems with that one.”

“Yeah, the neighbors,” he says, gazing out across the pool. “Make it tough pulling the permits for a party.” He turns. “You through kicking the tires?”

“Yeah,” I say, shoving the specs into my bag. “Let’s go find Goldilocks.”

I’m right. The rest of the day, or seeing the three remaining houses Patrice has time to see, is right out of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” They’re all
too
something. There’s a tense moment after the Sunset Plaza house, one of those fabulous bachelor pads a mile up from the Strip that she declared “too masculine and in a very clichéd way,” when Oscar points out that if the magazine’s party budget had room for an estate, we would have procured an estate.

“It doesn’t have to be an
estate,”
she says, crossing her arms and frowning. “It just should be architecturally significant.”

I look at Oscar. She’s kidding, right? With their budget?

“Okay, what did you have in mind?” he says slowly. “Craftsman, Paul Williams, or Neutra?”

Patrice mulls this over. “Neutra’s something of a cliché at this point, but I don’t see the others working with the magazine’s image.”

“We can get a Neutra,” Oscar says. “But it will be in Silverlake or Winnetka.”

Patrice scowls. She doesn’t have the faintest idea where these neighborhoods are. Well, L.A.’s a big city, and unlike New York, there are no boroughs to keep everything organized. Manhattan
good
, Staten Island
bad
.

“Winnetka’s in the Valley, and Silverlake is over toward Dodger Stadium,” I say finally.

“Ohmigod,”
she says, flinging her suede bag in exasperation. “I can’t believe seventy-five thousand dollars isn’t enough for a
national magazine to throw a party in this city without going to the Valley or a Mexican neighborhood.”

Oh, where to begin? She doesn’t get that Silverlake is totally hip, has been that way for about ten years now, and she really doesn’t get that her precious seventy-five thou doesn’t get you in the door. In fact, that’s what a studio will spend on the catering alone for a premiere. A
small
premiere. Editorial is always the cheapest date on the block. In New York,
C
may be up there with the gods in terms of style and cachet, but in Hollywood, style and cachet don’t count for shit. Not without the cash to back them up.

“Look, we’ve got more houses to see,” I say, rushing to plug this hole in the dam. Not only does Oscar look like he’s about to deck her — so much for his little “it’s only a party” speech — but if we start wrangling over the budget now, we’ll never get out of this driveway. “Your budget is what it is,” I say. “I went over this with Amanda again this week, and there’s no give. All the houses we’re showing you fit within that budget.”

Patrice scowls more deeply and checks her watch. If I have to guess, I’d say she’ll bolt, even if her screening isn’t until later. Clearly she’s not a girl used to hearing the word
no
. I can only imagine the next two months working with her. Every detail of this party is going to be scrutinized like it’s a line item in an Arab-Israeli treaty. Flowers, invites, the list. Belvedere or Grey Goose. Evian or Fiji. Freesia or fig-scented. Hip-hop or Benny Carter. White vinyl or black leather.

A cell burbles, and we all cock our heads. Like mothers listening for their child’s cry. “It’s me,” I say, pulling my phone from my bag and checking the number. Caitlin. “Yeah,” I say, clicking on.

“Jay Reed’s on the line. He says he can’t find you guys.”

That’s because we didn’t drop bread crumbs. “Put him on,” I say.

“Hey,” he says, sounding breathless. “I’m on Doheny, but where is Schuyler? I’ve been driving for ages and can’t find it,” he says.

I turn to Oscar and mouth “Jay’s lost.” Oscar shakes his head. “It’s the other Doheny,” I say, launching into directions. “You’re on Doheny
Drive
, and it’s off Doheny
Road
. Uh-uh. Yeah, I know. It
is
confusing,” I say. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Patrice turn and march toward her car.

“Oh, my God, look at all this wood. You never expect to see that in L.A., do you?”

We’re on the last house — the Hancock Park one, another one-story but bigger, more private, and gated — where Jay, dressed in jeans, T-shirt, blazer, and backward baseball cap, is doing the play-by-play. Patrice has long since bolted. “What do you think this is?” he says, running his hand over the paneling in the dining room. “Cherry?”

“Uh, I think whatever it is, it’s been put in by the new owners,” Oscar says, scanning his BlackBerry. It’s after 4:30 and Jay’s puppyish enthusiasms notwithstanding, Oscar and I need to wrap this up. We’re both exhausted, having skipped lunch, and now we have less than an hour before we’re due at the Design Center for the walk-through with Kia.

We both move away from Jay and hit our cells. I call Caitlin and then Steven, who’s already at the PDC with Marissa, Michelle, and Oscar’s team.

“Hey,” Steven says when I reach him, “I’m marking out where the cars will go with masking tape. Or do you think that’s too déclassé?”

“For Kia?” I say.

“Hey, they’re dropping three hundred grand on this thing,” he says. “I don’t want them to feel like they’re being insulted.”

“Isn’t it the Japanese who read insults into everything?” I say, scanning my BlackBerry. “I thought Koreans were like the Irish. Much more laid-back.”

“Have you
had
any Korean barbecue?” Steven says. “It’s a fantastic sui generis culture. Foodwise anyway.”

“Speaking of that, are we all set with the catering?”

Steven snorts. “Don’t you talk to Oscar about anything except the
C
party?” he says. “Yes, the catering is set. Oscar’s lined up three chefs out of Koreatown. One guy’s doing Korean duck, another’s doing Korean barbecue, and he’s got Korean sashimi from Odaesan at a third station. I swear, people are going to come just for the food.”

“Wait a minute,” I say. “The car is vegan, so how can Oscar be serving meat?”

“And there’s going to be a fourth station with tofu and edamame for the PETA freaks and vegans who actually show. So far we’ve only got Alicia Silverstone down as our vegan host committee member, and Oscar refuses to build his menu around a girl who won’t even wear silk because she’s worried about the mental health of the worms.”

“Okay, okay,” I say. “As long as the corporate guys are cool with the catering, then I don’t care.” Besides, it does sound good. Fun even. All those tree-hugger celebs wandering around, their fingers greasy with spareribs. Even the politically correct like to eat well.

“So I totally vote for this house,” Jay says, bouncing in from the living room. Oscar and I look up from our cells and nod. I hear my other line click. “Look, we’ll be there as soon as we can,” I say to Steven and click over.

“So I just got a call from Patrice,” Charles says.

“And?”
I say, turning away from Jay. I can’t believe I was just talking to Oscar about Patrice doing an end run around me to Charles and already it’s happening.

“And needless to say, she’s not happy.”

“Oh, for the love of God,” I say, stalking out of the dining room and Jay’s earshot. “She couldn’t even rearrange her schedule to
see
all of the houses,” I say, trying to whisper. “Now, before we’re even done, she’s calling you to complain?”

“Look, I know it’s annoying,” he says, sounding like he couldn’t be less annoyed. “But try to see it from her point of view.”

Her point of view? Her point of view is totally out to lunch, given their budget. “Look, she’s never done a party of this size before, and she’s certainly never done a party in L.A.,” I say. “She thinks every ranch house is a piece of shit and should cost a couple grand to rent. I mean, unless she can get Kelly Lynch to donate her Lautner house for the party, she’s dreaming.”

“Kelly and Mitch won’t do that,” Charles says, sounding shocked. “They’re totally tight with Graydon.”

“I
know,”
I say. “I was being facetious.”

“Look,” he says, calmer now. “It’s her first event for the magazine, and she obviously wants to impress Andrew, who is coming out for it, by the way.”

“Oh, great.” Just what I need. Miss Havisham up my ass.

Oscar rolls up. “We got to go,” he says, pointing to his watch.

I shake my head and hold up my free hand. “Charles,” I mouth.

Oscar motions for me to hand him the phone. I wave him off.

“Well, you’re just going to have to find a location she approves,” Charles says.

“Look,” I say. “Jay’s here, and he likes this house — correction,
loves
the house — so I say let them fight it out. I’m calling Amanda and telling her Jay’s approved this venue and we’re good to go.”

“No, no,” Charles says. “We’re not lobbing this into the end zone and praying it works. I want a recommendation for new sites based on what you saw today that addresses her objections. I am not having Andrew think we’re fumbling this already.”

“What?” I can’t believe he’s insisting on this. And using sports metaphors. “We don’t have time for that,” I say. “Not at this late date.”

“Then you’re going to have to make time.”

Oh, I
am?
Even the terrier has its limits. I’m just about to cross a real line and ask Charles since when does he get to tell me, a copresident of the agency, what to do, when Oscar grabs the phone.

“Hey, man,” he says. “The Hancock Park place is pretty great, I got to admit, and Jay’s knocked out by it. I’m sorry Patrice
couldn’t be here. I’ll send over a revised budget proposal in the morning. Think I can shave a couple thousand now that I’ve seen it again. But right now I got to steal your girlfriend. We got a bunch of Koreans to take care of.”

He hangs up and hands me back the phone. “See how easy that was?”

Before I can say anything, Jay bounces in, his baseball cap now turned sideways. “So are we all down with this house or what?”

“Congratulations, dude,” Oscar says, clapping him on the shoulder. “You got yourself a party site.”

“This is Mr. Park, Mr. Pak, Mr. Park, and Mr. Song,” Steven says, making the introductions. Or reintroductions. I met these guys months ago, when they first hired us, but given how busy we’ve been, Steven has pretty much handled the day-to-day on their event. We all nod, shake hands. We’re at the PDC, lined up by the reflecting pool like some diplomatic delegation. Or a scene in a Bill Murray comedy.

“Very beautiful,” Mr. Pak, or maybe it’s Mr. Park, says, gesturing to the sky.