The Gift Bag Chronicles (29 page)

Damn it
. I push out of bed, fumble for my old flannel robe, and head up the stairs.

“Who is it?” I say, grabbing the phone, which also connects to the front gate intercom.

“Hey, man, did I wake you?”

Brad. Oh, God, did he tell me he was coming today? The guy can barely show during the workweek, and now he’s up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday?

“Uh, no, well, sort of,” I say, pushing my hair out of my eyes. “Did you tell me you were coming today?”

“No, man. I mean, I got another job starting next week, and I figured if I got started early, I could finish you off today.”

I gaze around the kitchen, which is back to Brad’s usual mess. Drop cloths, paint cans, brushes, the open ladder. Could the guy ever clean up? “Uh, sure. If you think you can really finish today, come on in,” I say, buzzing him in. I’m considering making a
dash back downstairs for my yoga pants and a sweater, but there’s no time. Oh well. It’s not like Brad hasn’t been here a million times already. Besides, according to Louise, he’s started living with his girlfriend, some actress, over in Venice. I cinch my robe tighter and reach for a pencil to loop my hair into a makeshift ponytail.

“Oh, wow,” he says, gazing at my robe, my hair, as he pushes through the front door, his toolbox in one hand and a tray of takeout coffees in the other. “I really did get you up.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I say, eyeing the coffees. “Is Steve coming too?”

“Nah,” he says, sliding everything on the counter, prying one of the coffees from the tray, and handing it to me. “Half-and-half, no sugar, am I right?”

“Yeah, right,” I say, pulling off the lid and taking a hit. “How’d you know?”

“Well, you know Mercury is out of retrograde,” he says, leaning against the counter and eyeing me over his coffee.

“Really?” I say casually. I
knew
something was up.

“Yeah, it’s like one day you wake up and everything just
clicks
. Like, I don’t even really know how you like your coffee, but then, at Starbucks, I just
knew.”

“Weird,” I say, taking another hit. “And you just knew I would be here to drink it?”

“Nah,” he says. “I was going to call, but I lost your number, and then I figured where else would you be?”

Where else would I be? Like I have nowhere else to be on a Saturday morning? “Well, I might have been at a yoga class. Or out of town.”

He shrugs, takes another sip. “Yeah, but I saw you yesterday morning and you didn’t say anything about leaving, and your boyfriend, what’s his name, doesn’t even live in L.A., does he?”

“No,” I say, pushing the lid back on the coffee, trying to remember when I had ever said anything about Charles to Brad.
“He lives in New York,” I add, sliding the coffee onto the counter. “But what does that have to do with my being here on a Saturday?”

“I just figured you’d be here. Unless you’re sleeping with someone else,” he says, pausing to take a sip. “But then, you don’t seem like that kind of a woman.”

Okay, wait a minute. Not only is this a little too personal, but he’s been here what, all of two minutes, and he’s got me talking about the one thing I’ve spent the last two months trying to avoid thinking about?

“Look, thanks for the coffee, but I’m going to get dressed now,” I say, heading for the stairs.

“Hey, look, I didn’t mean anything, really,” he says, pushing off the counter. “I was only paying you a compliment. Honest.”

I turn and shoot him an oh-sure look.

“Really,” he says, holding up his hands. “You seem like a nice person. I just don’t get why you’re living here all by yourself. That’s all.”

God, do guys still think a woman can’t live by herself and be happy? “Ah, maybe because I want to be?” I say.

“Really? That’s cool.”

“Yeah, it’s very cool,” I say, cinching my robe tighter. “Why wouldn’t it be cool?”

“Well, only if you wanted someone else to be here and they weren’t here.”

“If I wanted someone here, they would be here,” I say stoutly.

“Yeah?” he says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Yeah, although sometimes there are complications. Jobs and careers and things. Although apparently you don’t have that problem.”

“I just don’t think it’s that complicated,” he says, capping his coffee and putting it on the counter. “You want to be with someone. Then
be
with them,” he says, turning back to me, a smile
working at the sides of his mouth. “I mean, when I want to be with someone, I’m with them.”

“Okay, I think we’re talking about two different things,” I say, turning toward the stairs. Oscar was one thing. Falling into bed with this guy is the
last
thing I need. I mean, what is he, twenty-three?

“Are you sure?” he says, leaning against the wall, his hand playing against his abs under his T-shirt.

Oh, God.

“Yeah, Brad,” I say, not looking back. “I’m totally sure.”

By the time I head back up the stairs, fully dressed, game face on, I realize I have more than an hour to kill before I have to meet Patrice and Lucienne at the Chateau. I check my watch. Not even 10:30. Normally, I would just be getting up now. But thanks to Brad, the smell of paint that’s already overpowering, and now Christy, who I can hear playing the piano outside on her deck, I’ve got to go to Plan B. An hour at Fred Segal doing more Christmas shopping. Or grabbing a coffee and reading the paper at the café there. Anything, but I’m not staying here. Not with these two house invaders.

“You leaving?” Brad says when I hit the kitchen, head for the refrigerator and the six-pack of Arrowhead. He’s on the ladder, shirt off, painting the ceiling.

“Yeah,” I say, not even turning in his direction. “So if you get done before I get back, just let yourself out.”

“Will do,” he says, not breaking his brushstroke.

“So I guess this is it?” I turn and give the kitchen a once-over. It does look a lot better. Too bad it just took three months. And ended in a come-on.

“Yep,” he says, dipping his brush in the bucket, wiping off the excess paint.

“Okay, well, thanks,” I say, gripping my water.

“Sure,” he says, turning to the ceiling again.

Okay, maybe I misread the whole thing. Maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe he was only trying to be nice. “Well, okay,” I say, turning for the door.

“Okay.”

“Okay,” I say again. Pointlessly.

“Alex.”

“Yeah,” I say, turning back.

“If you change your mind …” he says, giving me a shit-eating grin.

I’m halfway up the front steps, cheeks on fire, before I realize what Christy is playing: “Time Is on My Side.”

Even after killing an hour at Fred Segal’s baby department trying to find something for less than two hundred dollars for Bevan, I’m the first to arrive at the Chateau. Since it’s blazingly sunny but otherwise freezing out, I head for a chair in the lobby. I order another coffee and check my messages. Mom, saying that she’s looking forward to seeing me Tuesday and that she and Jack will meet me at the airport. Amy, wondering if she’s doing dessert or am I or should we split it because she has this new apple pie recipe she found? And Steven, saying Cyclops survived the surgery and to call him after the meeting. Actually, I’m assuming Lucienne flew in yesterday. I had Caitlin confirm the meeting with Patrice but never thought to check on Lucienne’s actual arrival. Oh well, if it’s just Patrice and Jay, I can wrap this up early and get in some more shopping before my blow-dry at four.

I lean back in the chair, one of those huge Victorian things the Chateau has in its lounge, and close my eyes. God, I wish I had been able to sleep in. It’s only noon, but already I feel tired from being rousted by Brad. Oh well, at least that’s the last I’ll ever see of him. And the painting will finally be done. And. And. And. I’m just trying to decide if I could actually nod off in this chair,
just for a second, when I hear Mercury screech to a halt in its orbit.

“Oh, my God, Alec
, what are you doing inside on a day like today?”

I jerk upright. Patrice, in skintight cropped jeans, leopard print ankle boots, pink turtleneck, and purple ostrich handbag. And Oscar.

Ohmigod
. What’s
he
doing here?

“Hey, doll,” Oscar says, bending down and giving me a kiss on my cheek. “Long time, no see.”

Hey, doll?
Not only is this the first I’ve seen him, I mean other than across a banquet hall, in a month, but he’s going to play this — play us — like he’s one of the Rat Pack? “Hey,” I say, pushing to my feet and aiming for a tone of pure professional collegiality. “I didn’t know you got dragooned into this.”

“Alec, I’m getting us a table outside,” Patrice says, heading for the patio. “It’s just
too
gorgeous to be in here.”

“‘Dragooned’?” Oscar says once she’s out of earshot. “I wasn’t dragooned. Steven called and said he was leaving you to babysit these two. Three, if Lucienne actually shows. I just said I’d drop by if I could.”

Steven? I should have figured he’d pull something like this. And just when I was starting to put the whole Oscar thing behind me. “Well, thanks,” I say, running my hand through my hair and looking around for my bag, for anything other than Oscar’s eyes. “I mean, it’s just a meeting and I —”

“Besides, it’s good to see you, Alex,” he says.

I turn back. “And, and you,” I stutter. “I mean, you’re the one who got Patrice to agree to the Hancock Park site. You’re the one with the magic touch.”

“Alec
, we’re out here.”

We both turn. Patrice in her shades, waving from the patio door.

“Oh, God,” I say. “She’s lived here what, five months now, and she still thinks L.A. is one endless summer? It’s freezing outside.”

“I’ll get them to turn the heaters on,” he says, turning to me. “Unless you just want to blow the meeting and get a room.”

I’m so startled by this, it takes me a moment to recover. Even so, I can’t tell if Oscar’s serious or just fucking with me. Or if Mercury has sputtered back to life. “Don’t do this,” I say, turning to him. “Not now. Not here. Please?”

He looks at me a second and then draws his fingers down the side of my face. “Okay,” he says, dropping his hand. “Okay.”

“So the whole white-and-black idea should be a motif, not a
theme,”
Patrice says, jabbing her straw against the lemon wedged in the bottom of her iced tea.

Hunched in the chair across from her, I uncross my arms to pull the collar of my suede jacket up and nod. We’ve been here forty-five minutes, and even with the heaters on, I’m so fucking freezing I’d agree to anything. Just to wrap this up.

“A concept,” chirps Jay, wiping his plate of curried shrimp with a wedge of bread.

“I mean, it’s meant to evoke, not mimic the Capote party,” Patrice adds, pulling a piece of ice from the glass with her fingers and sticking it in her mouth. “Ah whe chlear?”

“Look, it’s all in the staging,” Oscar says, leaning forward over his latte. “You’ve seen the board. It’s very subtle. The DJ I’ve got lined up is totally into the whole retro thing, and we can choose the furniture from Twentieth week after next,” he adds, mentioning the hip Beverly Boulevard boutique. “They’re being very generous since there was no room in the budget for anything custom.”

Patrice flicks her hair over her shoulder and flags the waiter for another iced tea. Given her body temperature, she could probably just tap a vein.

“Is Lucienne coming?” I say, leaning forward to wrap my
hands around my mug of cappuccino. “All we really have left to work out is the gift bag and what she’s willing to give which host committee members.”

“She called me this morning and said she’d be here,” Patrice says, checking her watch. “Although maybe I said we were meeting at one, not twelve.”

Oh, great. Another hour on the Chateau’s windswept steppe.

“Well, there’s always the list,” Patrice says, leaning back in her chair, closing her eyes, and turning her face to the sun. “We can go over that while we’re waiting.”

Right. The List. Already this is shaping up as our — as my — biggest problem.
C
always demands a really high-end but cuttingedge guest list. Very Gywnnie–Vincent Gallo, like those two would ever be in the same place. This is hard enough to conjure given that
C
isn’t
Vanity Fair
. Or
InStyle
. Not that they seem to care. Now that Patrice is involved, it’s spinning out of control. Whatever good behavior she had exhibited after losing the December cover is rapidly going by the boards as we get closer to the party date. Not only is her guest list absurd but she’s already nixing most of the preliminary list that we had supplied. The same list of celebs, managers, agents, producers, and press we rely on to stoke every party.

“Yeah, okay,” I sigh, reaching in my bag for the list Patrice had e-mailed me yesterday. I scan it again. A traffic accident waiting to happen. Or, actually, not happen. I mean, her guest list drawn from the December issue’s editorial is totally lame. Without a cover, we can scratch one big chance to get an Oscar-hungry A-lister to turn out for the cameras in the middle of awards season. Plus, the stories in the issue are mostly from New York, London, and Paris, and the handful from L.A. are complete nonstarters. The hottest tennis coach? Like anyone younger than Tony Curtis still plays. An unknown male screenwriter who’s just written his first novel? Who isn’t writing a novel in L.A.? An overview on Hollywood’s best psychics? I don’t need a psychic to know that none
of these people, with the possible exception of the screenwriter, are party worthy. Still, that hasn’t stopped Patrice from putting down her dream team. Paris Hilton. Okay, maybe, if she’s in town and we bribe her with a diamond collar for Tinkerbell. But Beyoncé, Kate Winslet, Orlando Bloom, Jack Nicholson, and Don Trump? Dream on.

“I think we’ve got a really strong lineup,” Jay says, reaching for another slab of bread. “Jack and The Donald in the same room? I can’t wait to see it.”

“Yeah, well, don’t hold your breath,” I say.

Patrice’s eyes snap open. “I can’t believe you’re being so negative. This is a fabulous list, and Andrew’s approved it. What you sent us was” — she pauses and raises her hands, the sun glinting off the half dozen rings on her fingers — “was beyond ordinary. I mean, Selma Blair? China Chow? Michael Chiklis? And who exactly is Jason Weinberg?”