My Fair Lazy - Jen Lancaster [123]
I come across one grouping of tables, and I practically swoon when I see who’s stationed there—first up, Alec Baldwin, then Candace Bushnell, Jay McInerney, Barbara Walters, and then a couple down from them, the one who excites me most of all, Bethenny Frankel. On the other side of the table, I see spots for the Countess from Real Housewives New York and a bunch of New York Times bestsellers and my friend Stephanie Klein and . . . me? Wait, I’m with them?
Oh, my God, I’m at the “big table.” I’m rock star adjacent! For the first time in my life, it’s like I’m finally sitting with the adults at Thanksgiving! I can turn around and touch Bethenny or Barbara, because they’re both right behind me. Suddenly I’m very, very grateful to the manager for helping me feel like I’m not one huge party crasher.
“Stephanie,” I hiss behind the back of the author seated between us. “Do you see who we’re sitting with? Do you see? Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod!”
Stephanie’s from New York and so doesn’t go into superridiculous tourist mode when she encounters famous people. Actually, she’s so cool and at ease with the situation, when she suggests I talk to some of my idols before it gets busy, I actually do.
I turn around and introduce myself to Bethenny, and she couldn’t be nicer or less intimidating. She’s stunning in person, and taller than you’d think. Plus, she’s wearing a madras dress, yet I do not take this opportunity to explain that her fabric choice makes us besties. Score one for self-control!
Stephanie gets some shots of us together, and Bethenny and I discuss, for lack of a better or less pretentious term, our craft. Bethenny worked with a coauthor on her Naturally Thin book and tells me she wrote the first draft and then went over the final draft, but her coauthor did everything in between. “Don’t you find that part so hard?” she asks me. “Does anyone work with you to write the middle of your books?”
“No,” I giggle, giddy to be having a real conversation where—at least in the writing world—I’m kind of a peer. “I, um, write memoirs. I’m sort of obligated to write the whole thing myself since it’s all about my life.” We talk for another minute or so, and I’m psyched to discover the charm and humor she displayed on the show is genuine; her “reality” is actually real.
Then I meet Countess de Lesseps, and we converse briefly and at no point do I say anything idiotic. I don’t try to touch her hair or remark on the smoothness of her hands or ask if she’ll pretty please tell Jill Zarin I love her or anything. We’re just two authors saying hello; it’s awesome.
Once the event begins, I talk to authors who’d normally intimidate me, but between pep talks from Stephanie and the inn manager, I finally recognize that I have common ground with them.
As patrons drift by my table, we make pleasant small talk about all kinds of stuff, like writing and dining and wine and cheese. I chat with a woman about the show I attended at the Steppenwolf Theatre earlier this month and I have fun doing it. But our conversation isn’t pretentious—it’s just stuff I happen to enjoy now.
All too soon, the event comes to an end and I make it through with barely a faux pas, especially if you don’t count Fletch going around taking pictures of celebrities’ butts. (“But Baldwin wasn’t wearing a belt!” he explains later when we review the shots on my computer. “And Barbara Walters had visible panty lines. Aren’t you glad to know she’s not into thongs?”)
Right before we leave for the second part of the evening—the dreaded dinner—I talk to my icons. First, I see Candace Bushnell and thank her for inadvertently starting me on this project. She says she remembers me, but even if she doesn’t, I still feel like I’ve come full circle from last spring when I didn’t know my Baudelaire from a bowling ball.
I tell her, “Remember when you said your husband was with the American Ballet Theatre