One Fifth Avenue - Candace Bushnell [55]
When she questioned him about it, he took a seat near her on the arm of the leather club chair in front of the fireplace and gave her a lecture about the importance of authenticity in fiction. At first Lola was mystified, then bored, and finally fascinated. Not by what Philip was saying but by the fact that he was speaking to her as if she, too, possessed the same interests and knowledge. This happened a few times, and when he went back to his office abruptly, as if he’d just thought of something, and she’d hear the tap of his fingers on his keyboard, Lola would tuck her hair behind her ears and, frowning in concentration, attempt to Google the information he’d requested. But she had a short attention span, and within minutes, she’d be off on the wrong tangent, reading Perez Hilton, or checking her Facebook page, or watching episodes of The Hills, or scrolling through videos on YouTube. If she’d had a regular job in an office, Lola knew, these activities would have been frowned upon—indeed, one of her college friends had recently been fired from her job as a paralegal for this particular infraction—but Philip didn’t seem to mind. Indeed, it was the opposite: He appeared to consider it part of her job.
On her second afternoon, while looking at videos on YouTube, Lola came across a clip of a bride in a strapless wedding gown attacking a man with an umbrella on the side of a highway. In the background was a white limousine—apparently, the car had broken down, and the bride was taking it out on the driver. “Philip?” Lola said, peeking into his office.
Philip was hunched over his computer, his dark hair falling over his forehead. “Huh?” he said, looking up and brushing back the hair.
“I think I’ve found something that might help you.”
“The address of Peartree’s?”
“Something better.” She showed him the video.
“Wow,” Philip said. “Is that real?”
“Of course.” They listened to the bride screaming epithets at the driver. “Now, that,” Lola said, sitting back in her little chair, “is authenticity.”
“Are there more of these?” Philip asked.
“There are probably hundreds,” Lola replied.
“Good work,” Philip said, impressed.
Philip, Lola decided, was book-smart, but despite his desire for authenticity, he didn’t seem to know a lot about real life. On the other hand, her own real life in New York wasn’t exactly shaping up to be what she’d hoped.
On Saturday night, she’d gone clubbing with the two girls she’d met in the human resources department. Although Lola considered them “average,” they were the only girls she knew in New York. Clubbing in the Meatpacking District had been both an exciting and depressing adventure. At the beginning of the evening, they were turned away from two clubs but found a third where they could wait in line to get in. For forty-five minutes, they’d stood behind a police barricade while people in Town Cars and SUVs pulled up to the entrance and were admitted immediately—and how it stung not to be a member of that exclusive club—but during the wait, they saw six genuine celebrities enter. The line would begin buzzing like a rattlesnake’s tail, and then all of a sudden, everyone was using their phones, trying to get a photo of the celebrity. Inside the club, there was more separation of the Somebodies and the Wannabes. The Somebodies had bottles of vodka and champagne at tables in roped-off tiers protected by enormous security guards, while the Nobodies were forced to cluster in front of the bar like part of a mosh pit. It took another half hour to get a drink, which you clutched protectively like a baby, not knowing when you’d be able to get another.
This was no way to live. Lola needed to find a way to break into New York’s glamorous inner circle.
The second Wednesday of Lola’s employment found her stretched out on the couch in Philip’s living