The Ten Best Days of My Life (25 page)

That's about all I really would have done differently though.

See, I guess it's a pretty good thing that we don't know when our number is up. Had I really gotten that e-mail, I would have run to the airport to get on a plane to see my parents. I would have been freaking out in the security line at LAX, which is always so darn long, and lines make me really frustrated so imagine if I had to stand in that line and waste those precious moments? I know myself. I would have screamed out, "TODAY'S THE LAST DAY OF MY LIFE, YOU MORONS, AND YOU'RE WASTING IT!” The security people probably would have thought I was a terrorist, and then they would have taken me to airport jail (or wherever they take you at the airport; thankfully, I have no idea what they do with you). When I finally got onto a computer and showed them the e-mail I got and told them all I wanted to do was get to my parents to give them a hug and set everything straight with my dad, it would have been too late in the day. When I finally got to Philadelphia, my time would probably have been up before I even got to tell them anything. Not to mention the fact that you know with my luck we'd be stuck at the gate for like two hours with some air traffic control bullshit and I would have gone berserk and tried to fit my whole body through the little window on the plane, and then I would have been arrested again—so vicious circle, why bother.

So, for that reason, I think it's a pretty good thing not to know.

Anyway, here are the facts of my last day:

First of all, Peaches had that bowel obstruction, and the poor girl was in so much pain I couldn't just say to her, “Sorry, toots, after tomorrow it's not my problem anymore.” (Taking into account, of course, that I didn't know Peaches was going to die with me.) Also, it was Stan Mitchell's birthday party that night at Jones bar and I had ordered a pair of limited-edition Stan Smith Adidas from China. I had to pick them up at the customs office at the Los Angeles airport because of some annoying glitch in the paperwork. I would have to get to that at some point, but there were too many other things to take care of, first. And I couldn't think of a good enough reason to cancel on Stan Mitchell. I could have used Peaches's bowel obstruction, but just saying the words
bowel obstruction
in polite company sounds gross and inappropriate and you just know the talk at the party would have been that
I
had the bowel obstruction and just used Peaches as my fall guy (or fall dog). Then, of course, the rumor would be that I died of a bowel obstruction instead of a MINI Cooper, and how embarrassing would that have been?

So, on the last day of my life I woke up at 7:30 a.m. and promptly took Peaches over to the vet. The vet had told me the day before that it was just a matter of time before the obstruction cleared so I was to stay with her and soothe her pain. I was nuts over poor Peaches. She had been wailing all night and I had gotten no sleep carrying her around the apartment like a parent who walks their baby around the house until it stops crying. Had it been a slow day (not even taking into account that it was my last day), I would have just stayed home from work to take care of her, but I was working for myself and I had a job to do so I had no choice but to leave her at the vet until after Stan's party. I could tell that Peaches didn't want me to leave her, and I started to cry right in front of the vet.

“You take wonderful care of her,” the vet reassured me. “She'll be fine here.”

“She's like my child,” I cried. “I don't think I'll be able to think about anything else but her for the rest of the day.”

“Call as much as you want,” he said.

So I did. In between shopping for Lloyd and Kate's Hawaiian vacation wardrobe, I called the vet every hour on the hour to see how my dog was doing and, as we all know, the poor girl had that obstruction the entire day.

At about ten that morning, I was in Lloyd and Kate's bedroom hemming a Tory Burch sequined beach top for Kate.

“I look so fat in this,” the five-foot-eight, 115-pound Kate complained as she looked at herself in the mirror.

“You do not look fat in this. I swear, the day I let you go out of the house looking like a hog, first of all, that'll be the day, but, second, I'd fire myself for that.”

“Well, see what else you can find and get back to me, okay?”

“No problem,” I told her in a way that really sounded like it was no problem, but it really was a problem.

“Are you coming back with something today?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, taking a look at my watch. “I saw this great top at Barneys. I can pick it up later today before Stan Mitchell's party.”

“Great, we'll go over together.”

Okay, so now I had that top to think about as well as the other things, and I still had to go down to the airport to get those darn sneakers since I was now totally committed to going to Stan's party. It was about noon when I left Kate, and I was having lunch with some agents about adding them as clients. I was meeting them in Beverly Hills at one and that allowed me just enough time to swing by the vet and visit Peaches, who was stoned on some pain-relieving drug.

“Look, I would know better than anyone in my kind of work that clothes really do make the man,” I told the agents at lunch as I took a sip of my Diet Coke. “All you need is some guy from your office to show up at a meeting in a cheap suit and that'll be all people are looking at, trust me. I know, I've seen it before. I propose that you hire me as your office's personal shopper, and I promise you, you'll be the best-dressed agency in Hollywood.”

“If you can do for our office what you did for Stan Mitchell and Lou Sernoff and Lloyd Kerner, we would love to have you on board,” the agent in the Zegna suit agreed, extending his hand.

That was awesome. I left the lunch a little richer financially, and with a date with one of the guys for that Saturday night. (I wonder if he heard I died? I hope he didn't think I stood him up.)

At about two thirty, I knew I still needed to get to Barneys to pick up that beach top for Kate and then go down to the airport to pick up those darn sneakers, but I also needed to run to Lou Sernoff's office and drop off some jeans I'd had hemmed for him. As I was calling over to the vet to check on Peaches yet again, Penelope called from New York.

“Did you ever send me that Cacharel jacket?” she asked.

“Oh my god, no,” I said. “I'm so sorry, I've been crazy this week.”

“Are you crazy busy today?” she asked. “Do you think you could FedEx it? I want to wear it to my breast cancer luncheon tomorrow.”

“Pen, I'm nuts today. Don't you have anything else?”

“No, Al, I don't. I really wanted to wear that jacket.”

“Fine, I'll run to FedEx.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Am I still your best friend?”

“Yes. Can you imagine ending a friendship after twenty years because of a jacket?”

“Love you, Al,”

“Love you, Pen.”

Okay, so that was another monkey wrench in my day. I had just enough time to run back to Barneys, pick up the top, run to Tory Burch and return the other top, then run to my apartment to pick up Pen's Cacharel jacket, and then run over to FedEx and send her the jacket. Then I would drive down to the airport, but I still had to pick up Lou Sernoff's jeans and bring them over to his office, and, wouldn't you know it, his office was in Santa Monica, which could not have been more out of my way if I tried.

It took two and a half hours out of my day to find a parking spot at Barneys, pick up the new beach top for Kate, return the old one to Tory Burch on Robertson, then run to my apartment, grab Pen's jacket, dash to FedEx, ship the jacket, and then drive down to Santa Monica, stopping on the way at Denim Doctors to pick up Lou's jeans.

“These jeans are too short,” Lou said when he tried on the hemmed jeans. “You think you can loosen the hem by Stan's party tonight?”

“It's done,” I said, grabbing the pants and jumping in my car.

It was 4:47 according to the clock in my car by the time I got to the airport to pick up Stan's shoes. The customs office was closing at five and the only place I could find to park was in the United Airlines terminal when I really needed to be down at the US Airways terminal so I had to run as fast as I could in my goddamned brand-new Stephane Kélian leather boots, which I ended up scuffing (not that it matters now, but boy did it piss me off at the time). I bumped right smack into some family that wasn't looking and plowed their luggage cart into my toe.

The line at the customs office was about fifteen people deep. Now, as you know, normally lines piss me off, but since I had to let the hem out of Lou's jeans, I did that while waiting in line. In between, my cell phone rang twice:

“Hey, it's Kate. You know, I was just thinking, that Tory Burch top was really cute. Did you return it? Do you think you could pick it up again?”

“No problem,” I told her, which couldn't have been further from the truth.

“Hey, it's Pen, so forget about sending the jacket. I found something else to wear.”

“Next!” the customs lady shouted to me from behind the glass partition.

“Just one more second,” I shouted back as I yelled into the phone at Pen. “No, it's already sent! You're wearing that jacket or I'll have to come to New York and beat you,” I shouted into my phone so everyone within earshot of the customs office at LAX told me to please be quiet.

“Ma'am, we've got other customers.”

“Pen, I gotta go,” I said—the last words I would ever speak to her. I didn't even say good-bye.

“Ma'am,” the woman behind the desk shouted again, “we're closing up here.”

“Just one more second,” I said, pulling the last of the threads out of Lou's hemmed jeans.

“Ma'am, we've all got our problems. Now, where's your form to receive your package?”

By six I was back at Lou's house, handing him the jeans.

“Do these make me look cool?” he asked.

“Lou, the day I let you walk out of this house looking uncool is the day I fire myself.”

“All right,” he said. “By the way, you're going to Stan's party tonight, right?”

“Yeah, I'll be there. I just have to run by the vet to see about my dog and then I have to get over to Lloyd and Kate Kerner's to get her a beach top for their Hawaii trip. Oh shoot, I have to go. I have to run to Barneys and return something and then run to Tory Burch to pick up something. I'll see you tonight,” I told Lou.

Now, if you've ever been in Los Angeles traffic in a hurry, especially if you're heading from Santa Monica into Beverly Hills, you know you might as well take a gun and start shooting if you want to get there in a hurry (kidding). I don't think there was anything that pissed me off more in that world than Los Angeles traffic, and I have to say, if there's anything good about dying, it's that I'll never have to drive in that traffic again.

“Come on!” I screamed as I flipped the bird at three separate people and beeped my horn at five more. “LEARN HOW TO DRIVE, ASSHOLE!” I screamed to another two.

By seven o'clock I had missed returning the Barneys beach top but got the saleswoman at Tory Burch to stay until I arrived to pick up the top I'd returned earlier.

Peaches was sleeping when I went back to the vet, so I left her there and told them I'd pick her up when I got out of Stan Mitchell's birthday party.

By the time I got to Kate and Lloyd's it was eight thirty and they were dressed and ready to leave.

“Did you even shower?” Kate asked me.

“I haven't had the time,” I told her, looking down at my J Brand jeans and the black sweater with the neck that exposed my shoulder for that nice hint of sexy.

Everyone and everyone was at Stan's party that night at Jones. I had dressed Stan in a black cashmere sweater and a black Theory suit.

“Are you sure this is black?” he asked when I first saw him. “It looked a little blue in the car.”

“It's black,” I said, kissing him hello. “I'd fire myself if I ever screwed up your colors.”

For the first time that day I found myself relaxed as Lou Sernoff handed me my first Grey Goose martini of the night.

“This is for the jeans,” he said, kissing me on the cheek.

There were too many people to talk to. Don't you love that feeling when you go to a party and you know so many people that conversations start and end with, “Let's catch up when things calm down in here,” as someone else makes their way over to say hello.

I threw back another Grey Goose martini as I laughed with Peter, my Barneys buddy, had my third as I talked to my new agent clients, and by the time 11:00 p.m. rolled around, I was leaning my head on Kate's shoulder, who was leaning her head on Lloyd's shoulder, who had fallen asleep amidst the throngs of people shouting and drinking and cheering.

“I gotta go soon,” I moaned to Kate. “I gotta go and get Peaches from the vet.”

“You've been so worried about her all day,” she said.

“I know, I'm so stressed over her.”

“Alex,” she said, “I've been wanting to ask you something.”

“Sure, what's up?” I asked her.

“Well, how do you do it?” she asked.

“Do what?”

“How did you get your life?” she asked me. “I mean, I can't do anything. I can't even go shopping for myself, and you seem to do everything so effortlessly. This is the first time I've ever seen you stressed out about anything.”