Party Girl_ A Novel - Anna David [30]
But thank God for my ADD—I took the test and literally have it, but “a mild case that doesn’t conflict with my ability to live normally,” according to the shrink, meaning I don’t get Ritalin, which is probably a good thing, based on what I’ve heard about how fun it is to chop up and snort. I’d pitched Linda Lewis to the New York editors ages ago and forgotten all about it. It’s always shockingly wonderful when the New York editors approve something—like finding $100 in the jeans that went out last year and you stopped wearing. I am so turning my work troubles around, I say to myself as I run from Brian’s office back to my cubicle.
I call Linda’s publicist, Tina, immediately, and she screams with excitement when I say that Absolutely Fabulous wants to profile Linda. But as I’m explaining the requirements of an Absolutely Fabulous profile—she has to talk in some kind of detail about who she’s dating, and we’ll print her age and check it with the DMV—Tina gasps.
“Oh, Linda doesn’t say her age,” Tina says. “She really thinks of age as just a number.”
Oh, God. Something I learned on my first story here is that it’s the people whose ages we care about the most who think “age is just a number.”
“Can’t you make an exception in this case?” she asks. I tell her I don’t know but doubt it, put her on hold and then call Brian on the other line and say Linda’s rep is kicking up a fuss about us printing Linda’s age.
“Tell her if she doesn’t want us to print the age, there won’t be a piece.”
Returning to Tina’s line, I repeat Brian’s words.
Tina sighs. “Maybe she can be convinced,” she says. I put her on hold and switch back to Brian.
“Maybe she can be convinced,” I repeat.
“Hmmm,” Brian says. “If the publicist is hesitant now, we might be better off dropping this one.”
“But Brian—”
“You’ll get another good assignment soon. Seriously, I’d just forget it.”
I hang up the phone and decide that Brian’s wrong. Linda can be convinced, and I can be the one to do it. I need to kick some ass at work, and I just know this is the story that’s going to allow me to do it. I call Tina and tell her we should go ahead and schedule the interview and we’ll just work out the details later.
My other line clicks in as I set a time to meet with Linda at her West Hollywood house but I ignore it until I notice that the person is devil-dialing me—that is, letting the phone ring and ring, hanging up when they get voicemail, and calling right back.
“I better see who’s stalking me,” I say to Tina. “Thanks for everything.” I hang up with her and answer the other line.
“Amelia, this is Amy Baker, Ken Stinson’s publicist.” With a start, I realize the “Most Beautiful People” issues are out today. I haven’t even had a chance to see them yet.
“What’s going on, Amy?” I ask but I can already tell something’s wrong. Celebrity publicists only have two tones—happy, when you’re doing the story on the client that never gets any press, and pissed the rest of the time—and she definitely is giving me the latter.
“You’re going to need to print a retraction on the piece,” she says. “You got his weight and height completely wrong, and you completely misquoted his friend.”
She’s speaking to me the way one would talk to a very small child or incredibly stupid adult and I immediately start panicking. I’m always half-convinced I’m screwing everything up, and feel entirely vulnerable to this attack since I haven’t seen the issue.
“Amy, let me just take a look at the piece and give you a call right back,” I say, placing the phone down before I can even hear her objections. I rush over to Brian’s office, where the new issues are stacked, grab a copy, and