Everyone Worth Knowing (39 page)

I could almost understand.

"Urn, the reservation is actually under Gloria Carter. They're all

flying business class."

There was a moment of heavy silence before she said,

"Gloria Carter? As in
the
Gloria Carter? As in the mother of

Jay-Z?"

How on earth people knew these things was a mystery to me,

but I sensed a momentary advantage and went for it. "That's the

one. He's flying to New York to perform, along with a few friends

and his mother. Of course, if you're based in New York and you

could work this out, you'd be more than welcome to come by and

hear him sing his set."

She exhaled audibly and said, "No way! Really? I'm actually

working out of our call center in Tampa right now, but my brother

lives in Queens, and I just know he'd love to go."

"Well, let's see what we can do about changing that flight. I

don't want them coming in too late—maybe just an hour or two

later, max. Is that flight usually on time?"

"Honey, LAX to JFK is never on time." I cringed. "But it's usually

not
too
bad. Let's see, I've got a flight leaving Los Angeles at

ten A.M. arriving Newark at four. Would that work?"

"Yes, yes, that would work just fine. And you have twelve open

seats?" I asked hopefully, thinking that this woman just might be

the best thing that ever happened to me.

She laughed. Or, rather, cackled. A bad sign. "Sure, I've got

twelve seats open, but they're not all business. The best I can do is

four in business, six in first class, and two in coach. You'll of

course need to pay the difference for the first-class seats, which

comes to, oh, let me see here . . . a total of seventeen thousand

dollars. Does that work?"

It was my turn to laugh. Not that anything was actually funny,

of course, but the only alternative was weeping. "Do I have a

choice?" I asked meekly.

"You sure don't," she said, sounding suspiciously like she was

enjoying this. "And you should probably make up your mind soon

because another business-class seat just disappeared."

"Book it!" I practically screamed. "Book it right now."

I gave her my corporate card number, rationalizing that it was

better than telling Mrs. Carter there were no later flights and having

them cancel altogether, and fell back under the covers.

When the alarm blared static a couple hours later, I felt like I'd

spent the night curled up on a hard cement floor. Blessedly, I'd already

packed my outfit for the night's party in a separate bag, so

the only real task was to remain standing and fully conscious in

the shower.

Figuring if there was ever a time to splurge for a cab it was

now, I chased one halfway down my block and dove into it headfirst.

Not being stuck underground in the signal-free subway also

allowed me to check a few of the morning's websites from my

brand-new BlackBerry, a gift from the company's corporate department

so I could "familiarize myself with their product." I pulled

clips of the
Shrek 3
premiere, the Grey Goose relaunch, and of

course the New York Scoop column featuring Philip, me, and my

pantsuit.

Naturally, the cab got stuck in gridlock less than three blocks

from my apartment, and naturally I decided—against the cabbie's

advice—to remain in the temperature-controlled vehicle at all

costs, regardless of how high the meter ran or how many minutes

it took to cover an eighth of a mile. I needed to complete the

check-list for the BlackBerry event. With Red Hots and an earlymorning

cigarette in hand (the cabbie had given me his blessing), I

checked my cell phone to ensure that Mrs. Carter hadn't left a message

in the four hours since I'd last spoken to her. To my great relief,

she hadn't called, but neither had Penelope, and that was

disconcerting. My attempts to explain that it wasn't what it appeared,

that Philip had just shown up and I hadn't lied to get out

of her dinner, had sounded flat and pathetic even to my own ears,

and I imagine to Penelope they sounded even less believable. The

worst part of it all was that she and Avery had switched their tickets

and were flying out tonight. I didn't understand what the big

rush was—especially since Avery wouldn't be starting school for

over a month—but I imagined it had something to do with Avery's

eagerness to embark upon a brand-new West Coast party circuit.

That and the fact that Penelope would do anything to avoid spending

Thanksgiving with either her or Avery's parents. Penelope's

mother had dispatched her own domestic staff to collect their

boxes and suitcases and ship them ahead, and Avery and Pen

were set to fly out of JFK, with their carry-ons and each other.

Michael was planning to see them off, but it wasn't even an option

for me.

The only message was from Kelly, a text reminding me to have

my checklist filled out and on her desk first thing that morning so

we could go over the last-minute stuff together. I unfolded its nowcrumpled

pages and pulled the pen cap off with my teeth. I stared

at them for the few remaining minutes in the cab processing nothing.

I'd have plenty of time before she got in, and the most important

thing right now was to make sure Jay-Z and his entourage

knew about the flight change and got on that plane with absolutely

no problems.

A quick scan of the Dirt Alert revealed good news for once.

Page Six had upheld their end of the bargain and written about my

party in a way that made it sound exclusive, exciting, and really,

really cool:

We hear that Jay-Z will be making a surprise appearance at

tonight's party at Bungalow 8 to celebrate the launch of Black-

Berry's redesigned handhelds. While Bette Robinson of Kelly &

Company declined to confirm, watchers insist that boyfriend

Philip Weston's friendship with the rapper ensures he's the

mystery guest. In a related tidbit, Mr. Weston and friends were

spotted at a Saturday-night birthday party canoodling with Brazilian

models, the youngest of whom was a mere fourteen

years old.

I couldn't have been happier if they'd provided a web address

for ordering the new BlackBerry: everything was exactly as I'd directed,

and I knew Kelly would be deliriously excited when she

saw it. I patted myself on the back, pleased with this mention, and

thought back to one of Elisa's mini-lessons to me.

"Remember, there's a big difference between scoop and favor,"

she'd said, spreading printouts of gossip columns all over the table

at work.

I stared at them. "What? What do you mean?"

"Well, look here." She pointed to a couple of sentences from an

on-set stylist who'd first noticed that Julia Roberts needed to have

her costumes let out because, the girl assumed, Julia was newly

pregnant. Page Six had been the first to talk to the stylist, who'd

been the first to notice this shift. "What is that—scoop or favor?"

"You're asking me?"

"Bette, you need to know these things. How else are you going

to get our clients the coverage they pay us for?"

"I don't know . . . it's scoop," I said, choosing one of the words

at random.

"Right. Why?"

"Elisa, I appreciate that there's something important here, but I

don't know what it is. But if you'd tell me rather than quizzing me,

it'd probably save us both a lot of time. . . ."

She'd rolled her eyes dramatically and said, "If you look carefully,

there's a difference between 'scoop' and 'favor.' Something

juicy and revealing and slightly scandalous is 'scoop.' A celebrity

spotting at a party or in public, or a mention of somewhere they've

been, is a 'favor.' You can't ask the columnists for all favors without

giving them scoop. Information is currency, and the more you

have of it, the more favors you get."

"So you're saying that some publicist out there wanted her

client's name mentioned in the column and provided this bit about

Julia Roberts in exchange?" It sounded so sordid, but it certainly

made sense.

"Exactly. The publicist hand-delivered that stylist to Page Six

and then made demands for coverage of her own."

Well, that didn't seem too hard. Perhaps Page Six might be interested

in knowing that quite a few of the city's most eligible

bachelors had been keeping company with certain Brazilian girls

who were not just underage, but who were years away from attending

an R-rated movie without parental accompaniment. In fact,

they
had
been interested, and when I followed up with the usual

Tip Sheet we prepared for all the press—the blast-fax that went out

with all the information about the party should anyone want to

write about it—a researcher had expressed enthusiasm in possibly

mentioning the BlackBerry party. Hmm, that wasn't hard, now was

it? Morally abject and devoid of all integrity? Absolutely. But difficult

it was not.

By the time Kelly had descended upon the office at nine, I'd

completed the checklist and triple-checked that the plane-change

fax had gone through to Jay-Z's compound and his mother's compound,

as well as to his publicist, agent, manager, and a half-dozen

other handlers. I marched into her office at ten after nine with an

entire file folder of schedules, contact information, and confirmation

numbers and planted myself in the zebra-print loveseat directly

underneath the window.

"Are we all set for tonight, Bette?" she asked, scrolling rapidly

through her inbox while slugging back a liter of Diet Coke. "Tell

me we're good."

"We're good," I sang, thrusting the
Post
under her nose. "And

even better, considering this."

She scanned the piece hungrily, her smile growing ever larger

with each word she read. "Ohmigod," she murmured, barely swallowing

a mouthful of soda. "Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod. Was

this you?"

It was all I could do not to do a little jig right there on the

zebra-print shag carpet. "It was," I said quietly, confidently, although

my insides were flipping with excitement.

"How? They never cover events
before
they happen."

"Let's just say I listened very carefully to Elisa's valuable lesson

on the concepts of scoop and favor. I think the BlackBerry people

will be happy, don't you?"

"Fan-fucking-tastic, Bette. This is amazing!" She began reading

it for a third time and picked up the phone. "Fax this to Mr. Kroner

at BlackBeriy immediately. Tell him I'll call him shortly." She hung

up and looked up at me. "Okay, we're off to a perfect start. Give

me an update on where everything stands."

"Sure thing. Tip sheets went out ten days ago to all the usual

dailies and weeklies." I handed over a copy and continued while

she surveyed it. "We have confirmed attendance for writers or editors

from
New York
magazine,
Gotham,
the
Obsewei;
E!,
Entertainment