Party Girl_ A Novel - Anna David [15]
“Would you look at that, I’m late!” I say, instantly shooting to my feet.
Brian and Tim look surprised by my abruptness, but before I can even begin to analyze that, I start making my way toward the door.
“Good to see you, Brian! Nice to meet you, Tim!” I sort of shriek as I knock into a Kings Road waitress.
“She never even got coffee,” I can hear Tim say in his crisp English tone as I scatter away like a complete freak. I should probably talk to hot men only while intoxicated, I think as I rush back to my car.
I wake up the next morning with the sense of purpose that anyone rising before noon and without a hangover on a Sunday morning must feel before remembering that I told Brian I’d go to this NBC party tonight. Brian tends to pass party invites along to me when he doesn’t want to go, using phrases like “really good career opportunities” and “important just to get out there and network.” The parties always sound terribly exciting at the time—and I always feel flattered that I’m the one he wants to go in his stead—but the day of, I always regret having said yes.
Part of the problem is that invariably you have to go to these things alone. When you’re at Brian’s level, you get an automatic plus one; but when the invite’s been transferred to me, somehow that extra space they would have had at the event evaporates, and I’m left circling the room endlessly, constantly pretending I’m looking for someone specific when really I’m just seeking out anyone I know or someone who looks friendly enough to approach.
As I glance at the invite for the event—which will be held, as all of these things seem to be, at one of those glamorous but nondescript Culver City hotels—a feeling of dread threatens to overwhelm me. Why did I tell Brian I’d love to go to this? What made this sound good at the time?
I put the invitation down and remind myself to think positively. Who knows what could happen here? I could meet a television producer who could decide I’m far too interesting to be wasting away at a cubicle desk and create a show around me. When you live in L.A. and aren’t physically deformed in some way, everyone always asks you why you’re not trying to be an actress. Theatrical though I am, I always felt that I didn’t have the struggle to be an actress in me—I mean, I feel shitty enough without lining up with a bunch of bitchy anorexics to compete for one line on Grey’s Anatomy. No, I’d decided that if acting was going to be in my future, it would come to me because I’d been discovered like Lana Turner. Then I’d be able to have an assistant deal with the stalker-type calls from Chris. A fabulous party is probably just what I need.
As I’m getting dressed for the party—the one little black dress that doesn’t seem to attract the piles of cat fur that the others do, arch-abusing Jimmy Choo’s—I remember that I still have a stash of Alex from last weekend tucked into an envelope in my sock drawer. I’d forgotten all about it before Gus’s get-together, and the sudden realization that I have some coke feels like the best epiphany I’ve had in weeks, if not ever. It will be a perfect pick-me-up for the event, I think. Just the added boost I need to be the schmoozing powerhouse journalist of Brian’s dreams.
I grab the envelope, which contains coke inside one of Alex’s infamous Lotto tickets—his signature coke-holder because everyone in L.A., even the Mexican drug dealers, has to add an ironic twist to everything—tap the powder out onto a CD case, and use my Gap credit card to chop it up on my coffee table. I start to roll up a dollar bill before remembering that I’d recently bought straws in order to avoid trying