Everyone Worth Knowing (13 page)

face in the office." He turned to Elisa and said, "Sorry, sweets, but

I've got to run and meet the Diesel jeans guy for a late breakfast.

Tell Kelly for me?" She nodded as he slung a messenger bag across

his chest and bolted toward the door.

"Davide, say hello to Bette," Elisa instructed the only guy left at

the table. Davide's dark eyes peered out broodingly from under

heavy eyelashes and a thick lock of dark hair. He ran his fingers

through the front part and stared at me. After a few more awkward

moments he said "Alio" in what immediately sounded like a questionable

accent.

"Hi, Davide," I said. "Where is that great accent from?"

"He is originally from Italy, of course," Elisa answered quickly

on his behalf. "Can't you tell?"

I decided then and there that there was something going on

between Elisa and Davide—there was a vibe between them that

just screamed "dating," and I congratulated myself on being perceptive

enough to figure it out. But before I finished marveling at

my own cleverness, Elisa fell into Davide's lap, wrapped her arms

around his neck like a little girl would with her daddy, and then

kissed him full on the mouth in a most undaughterlike manner.

"Seriously, Elisa, spare us the office PDA, will you, please?"

Skye whined, her eyes rolled back quite far in her head. "It's bad

enough we all have to envision you guys having sex on your own

time—don't make it a reality for us, okay?"

Elisa just sighed and stood up, but not before Davide managed

to grab her left breast and squeeze. I tried to imagine two coworkers

at UBS sharing the same interaction in the conference room

and nearly laughed out loud.

"So, yeah," she continued as though the mini in-office grope

session hadn't occurred. "Skye, Leo, and Davide are the senior

people. Those three over there"—she pointed to three pretty

young girls, two blonds and a brunette, who sat hunched over

PowerBook laptops—"they're the List Girls. Responsible for making

sure we have all the information for everyone we'd ever want or

need to attend an event. You know how someone once said that

there are only a few people worth knowing in the world? Well,

they know them."

"Mmm, I see," I mumbled, although I had no idea what she

was saying. "Totally."

Three hours later I felt like I'd worked there three months. I observed

a staff meeting where everyone lounged casually around the

loft drinking bottles of Diet Coke and Fiji water and talking about the

party they were throwing for Candace Bushnell's new book. Skye ran

through a checklist as various people updated her on the venue, invitation

status, menu, sponsors, photographer placement, and press

access. When she was finished, Kelly hushed the room and had one

of the List Girls read the most recently updated RSVP list as if it were

the word of God. Each name elicited a nod, a sigh, a smile, a mutter,

a head shake, or an eye-roll, although I recognized only a handful of

them. Nicole Richie. Karenna Gore Schiff. Natalie Portman. Gisele

Bundchen. Kate and Andy Spade. Bret Easton Ellis. Rande Gerber.

The entire cast and crew of
Sex and the City.
Nod, sigh, smile, mutter,

shake, roll. It went on for nearly three hours, and by the time they'd

finished debating the merits and pitfalls of every single individual—

what each might add to the party and, therefore, the coverage or,

worse, what they might take away—I was more exhausted than I

would have been had I just hung up on Mrs. Kaufman. By two

o'clock, when Elisa asked if I wanted to grab a coffee with her, I

couldn't say yes fast enough.

We each smoked a cigarette on the walk over and I was struck

by the sudden and overwhelming desire to be sharing a plate of

falafel on the bench outside UBS with Penelope. Elisa was providing

some sort of running commentary on office politics, who really

ran the show (her), and who really wanted to (everyone else). I

called upon my valuable can-talk-to-anyone-about-anything skill

and kept asking her questions while tuning out her answers entirely.

It wasn't until we were settled into a corner table with our

coffees—Elisa's was skim, decaf, and dark—that I actually heard

something she said.

"Oh. My. God. Will you fucking
look at that?"
she hissed.

I followed her gaze to a tall, lanky woman who was wearing a

very unremarkable pair of jeans and a basic black blazer. She had

sort of drab, brownish hair and a fairly mediocre body, and everything

about her seemed to say "average in every way." Elisa's excitement

seemed to indicate the woman was a celebrity, but she

didn't look the least bit familiar to me.

"Who is it?" I asked, leaning in conspiratorially. I didn't really

care, but thought I should.

"Not 'who,' 'what'!" she practically scream-whispered. She

hadn't yet moved her eyes from the woman.

"What?" I asked, still clueless.

"What do you mean, 'what? Are you
kidding?
Do you not see

it? Do you need glasses?" I thought she was mocking me, but she

reached into her oversized tote bag and pulled out a pair of wirerims.

"Here, put these on and
check that out."

I continued to stare, clueless, until Elisa leaned in closer and

said, "Look. At. Her. Bag. Just try and tell me it's not the most gorgeous

thing you've ever seen."

My eyes went to the large leather bag the woman had nesting

in the crook of her elbow while she ordered her coffee. When it

came time to pay, she rested it on the counter, rooted through it,

and pulled out her wallet before returning the bag to her arm. Elisa

groaned audibly. It looked like any other bag to me, just bigger.

"Ohmigod, I can barely stand it, it's so amazing. It's the crocodile

Birkin. Rarest of them all."

"A what?" I asked. I briefly considered pretending to know

what she was talking about, but it felt like too much effort at that

point in the day.

She peered at me, examining my face as though she'd just remembered

that I was there. "You really don't know, do you?"

I shook my head.

She took a deep breath, sipped her coffee for strength, and

placed her hand on my forearm as if to say,
Noiv listen closely because

I'm telling you the only piece of information you'll ever need

to know.
"You've heard of Hermes, right?"

I nodded and saw a wave of relief wash over her face. "Sure.

My uncle wears their ties all the time."

"Yes, well, much more important than their ties are their bags.

The first huge hit was the Kelly bag, named for Grace Kelly when

she began carrying it. But the really big one—about a thousand

times more prestigious—is the Birkin."

She looked at me expectantly and I murmured, "Mmm, it looks

lovely. Very nice bag."

Elisa sighed. "It sure is. That one's probably in the twentygrand

range. It's so worth it."

I inhaled so quickly that I swallowed wrong and actually

choked. "It's how much? You're joking. That's impossible! It's a

purse."

"It's not a
purse,
Bette, it's a way of life. I would pay that in a

heartbeat if I could just get my hands on one."

"I can't imagine people are lining up to spend that much on a

bag," I pointed out. Which, in my defense, sounded eminently logical

at that moment. I couldn't have known just how stupid I

sounded, but luckily Elisa was prepared to inform me.

"Christ, Bette, you really have no clue, do you? I didn't think

there was anyone left on the planet who wasn't at least on the
list

for a Birkin. Put yourself on immediately and maybe—just

maybe—you'll get one in time to give your daughter one someday."

"My daughter? Twenty thousand dollars for a bag? You're kidding."

At this point Elisa collapsed in frustration and put her head

down on the table. "No, no, no," she moaned, as though in great

pain. "You just don't get it. It's not just a
bag.
It's a lifestyle. It's a

statement. It summarizes who you are as a person. It's a
reason for

living."

I laughed at her melodrama. She bolted upright in her seat

again and began talking at a rapid-fire pace.

"I had a friend who fell into a horrible depression after her favorite

grandmother died and her boyfriend of three years broke up

with her. She couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, couldn't drag herself out

of bed. She got fired because she never showed up for work. Huge

bags under her eyes. Refused to see anyone. Never answered her

phone. When I finally showed up at her apartment after months of

this, she confided that she was considering suicide."

"How awful," I murmured, still racing to keep up with the

rapid subject change.

"Yeah, it was awful. But you know what got her through? I'd

stopped at the Hermes store on the way over to her apartment,

asked for an update . . . just in case. And you know what? I was

able to tell her when I got there that she was only eighteen months

away from her Birkin. Do you believe it? Eighteen months!"

"What did she say?" I asked.

"What do you think she said? She was ecstatic! The last time

she'd checked it was going to be five years, but they'd trained a

whole new crew of craftsmen and her name was due up in a year

and a half. She got in the shower that very moment and agreed to

go to lunch with me. That was six months ago. Since then she got

her job back and has another boyfriend. Don't you see? That Birkin

gave her a reason to live! You simply cannot kill yourself when

you're that close . . . it's just not an option."

It was my turn to examine her to see if she was joking. She

was not. In fact, Elisa looked positively radiant from her retelling of

the story, as though it had inspired her to live her own life to the

fullest. I thanked her for educating me in the ways of the Birkin

and wondered what, exactly, I had gotten myself into. This was a

far cry from investment banking, and I clearly had a lot to learn.

7

It was seven-thirty in the evening on day four of my working at

Kelly & Company as a party planner. The newsstand near my

apartment had only a single copy of the New York
Daily News
with

Will's column by the time I headed home after work. I'd been

reading "Will of the People" nearly every week since the time I'd

learned the alphabet, but for some reason I'd never managed to

subscribe to any of the papers that ran it. Of course, I had never

broached the subject of the column's gradual shift to a soapbox for

Will's crotchety rants about every social "tragedy" that had befallen

his beloved city, but it was becoming increasingly more difficult to

keep my mouth shut.

"Bette! Great column today, if I do say so myself!" my doorman,

Seamus, howled boozily as he pulled open the door to my

building and waved a copy of the paper. "That uncle of yours hits