Everyone Worth Knowing (20 page)

that the answer was no.

"Good lord, I wish! Closest I ever came to sleeping with him

was watching him take his shirt off at a charity auction where the

organizers were selling a date with him. Three hundred other

women and I went berserk when he yanked it over his head. Very

Coyote Ugly,
if you can picture it: wonderful and pathetic all at the

same time."

I let my guard down and forgot—for a split second—that I was

talking to my boss. "I saw that chest when he got out of the

shower this morning, and it was every bit as beautiful as you say,"

I added before I could realize what this implied.

Kelly's head snapped around, and she stared at me with an

odd combination of envy and urgency. "I'm assuming that when he

calls you again, you'll go out with him, right?"

This didn't really sound like a question. "Oh, I'm not sure he'll

be calling," I mumbled, realizing that absolutely no one would believe

we hadn't slept together.

She peered at me intently and then broke into a wide grin.

"Bette, sweetie, you might be the last person to realize this, but in

your own unique way, you're beautiful. And it's a widely known

fact that no one loves beautiful girls more than Philip Weston. Of

course he will call. And you'll say yes, right? And naturally, please

invite him to all our events or stay out as late as you need to when

you're with him."

I could feel a weird sense of elation—like a high school

crush—rising in my chest.

"Uh, sure. Okay, I'll keep that in mind." Suddenly, I wanted to

hug her.

"Great. I'm so excited for you! Definitely keep me updated.

Should we get started?"

"Yes, let's," I breathed, relieved to end this very strange discussion.

"You were going to tell me about The List, right?"

"Yes. The List. The single most crucial tool for ensuring a firm's

success. We're nothing without the people we can provide for our

clients, so I've spent years putting together one of the biggest databases

in the industry. Pull your chair around so you can see."

I yanked the furry stool to her side of the desk and settled in as

she double-clicked an icon on her desktop. "Here it is," she

purred. "My baby. The most comprehensive list of tastemakers

ever, anywhere."

The screen resembled a search page you might encounter on a

personals or apartment-rental website. You simply chose your

search requirements, ticked their adjacent boxes, and hit Find.

There were four main locations you could browse—New York, Los

Angeles, Miami, and the Hamptons—but smaller, less complete lists

existed for another dozen cities in the United States, and about two

dozen abroad. The search criteria appeared endless. In a vertical

row starting in the upper-left-hand corner, they were listed, in no

particular order: Art, Literary, Film Production, Newspapers, Fashion,

Record Label, Social, Young Social, Media Elites, Finance, Magazines,

Architecture, Retail, Miscellaneous.

"You just key in the types of people you're looking for and the

program provides you with all the information. Here, watch." She

quickly checked off "Literary" and "Young Social" and showed me

the thousands of returns. "We know everything about everyone.

Full name, home address, work address, all phones, faxes, pagers,

emails, country houses, beach houses, international addresses,

birthdays, spouse information, and details on both the children and

their nannies. There's also a subset—if you need to narrow it down

even further—that tells you if a particular person is gay, straight,

single, monogamous, or cheating, in addition to whether they

party, travel, or get mentioned in gossip columns a great deal. It

makes it pretty easy to hand-pick exactly who will be there when

you know everything about their lives, you know?"

I just nodded, as there seemed no more appropriate response.

"Here, let's take your uncle, for instance." She typed his name

into a search field and up popped all his relevant info: Central Park

West address and phone, office information, his exact title at the

paper and the name of the column, the number of years he'd been

writing, his nationwide readership, his birthday, and a short sentence

about how he traveled frequently to Key West and Europe.

Under "cross-reference" he was described as "Gay," "Literary,"

"Newspaper," and "Media Elite." I noticed there was no Christian

Coalition Reactionary category, but I said nothing.

"I've never seen anything like this." I was unable to tear my

eyes from the screen.

"It's incredible, isn't it? And that's not all. If you'll notice, there

are no regular media people or celebrities in this database. We

have separate ones for them since those are the two most crucial

groups."

"Separate ones?"

"Well, sure. Look." She closed down the first program and

clicked on an icon that read "Press." "There are media elites—people

like your uncle, Frank Rich, Dan Rather, Barbara Walters, Rupert

Murdoch, Mort Zuckerman, Tom Brokaw, Arthur Sulzberger,

Thomas Friedman, etcetera, etcetera, who of course you want at

events because of their high profile, but you can't honestly expect

them to cover anything. They're just like celebrities in their own

right, which is why we need to have a completely separate database

of real working media—all the people at the papers, magazines,

TV, and radio who can actually give us the coverage we

promise our clients. Of course, there's always overlap. You can

have a socialite who also happens to work in magazines or a film

exec who writes reviews for a local paper, so we just cross-list

everyone."

I took the mouse from her and scrolled through the separate

fields, noticing that the media database was broken down by demographic,

so you could best pitch the specific people covering

music, design, travel, lifestyle, fashion, entertainment, gossip,

celebrity, sports, or social engagements.

"This is absolutely incredible. How many are there total?"

"Between all three databases, probably close to thirty-five thousand.

You haven't even seen the celeb one yet, which is our most

important." Another couple clicks and a list of the world's richest,

most famous, and most beautiful people popped to the forefront.

"This is the industry list. With each celeb, we've also listed their

current publicist, agent, manager, assistants, and family information,

in addition to birthdays, current and upcoming projects, and

preferences—everything from airlines to flowers, waters, coffees,

liquors, hotels, designers, and music. We update this one pretty

much hourly."

She opened the profile for Charlize Theron and I saw that she

had homes in South Africa, Malibu, and the Hollywood Hills; was

dating Stuart Townsend; would only fly American Airlines first class

or private jet; was currently shooting a movie in Rome; was signed

on for another film in five months; and maintained a staff of four,

with her agent temporarily also acting as her publicist.

"How do they all get updated? I mean, how could you possibly

know all this stuff?"

Kelly threw her head back, clearly delighted by my shock.

"Elisa introduced you to the List Girls, yes?"

I nodded.

"It's not the most glamorous job in the world, but they've got the

right connections, and we give them lots of perks to read every sin-

gle publication known to man—in print and online—and take from

that whatever they can to fill in the blanks. There are three of them,

and they're all very socially connected family-wise, and they go out

constantly anyway and meet people everywhere. Just this morning

New York
magazine came out with their Baby Power issue—the fifty

kids in New York under the age of thirty who are the most accomplished

in their fields. If they weren't in there already, every one of

them has now been entered into our database."

"Amazing. Really, Kell, it's amazing."

"It sure is. Why don't you put a practice list together? Let's say

we're planning a party for Asprey to celebrate the opening of their

second store in the United States. It'll be held at the store on Fifth,

and the company's main concern is that Americans simply aren't as

familiar with the brand as the English are, and they're looking for

more name recognition. Pull five hundred total fits: four hundred

regular attendees and a hundred mixed of celebs and targeted

press. Of course, an actual event like that would only have a hundred

to a hundred fifty, max, but this will just be an exercise."

It had suddenly occurred to me that I still hadn't dealt with my

hangover, which was gearing up again in such a way that it demanded

immediate attention.

"Sure, I'll have that to you on Monday?" I asked as cheerily as

possible, standing up carefully to avoid any extra queasiness.

"Perfect." Kelly nodded. "Think about potential party favors,

too. Oh, and Bette?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you have any plans to see Philip this weekend?"

"Philip? Who's Philip?" I thought she was still talking about The

List, but apparently we'd transitioned seamlessly back to my personal

life.

"Bette!" She giggled. "That gorgeous super-stud whose bed you

occupied last night? You will be seeing him, right?"

"Oh, right, Philip. It wasn't exactly like that, Kelly. It was more

like—"

"Oh, Bette, stop right there. You don't owe me any explanations

at all. It's your life, you know," she pointed out, apparently

seeing no irony whatsoever in the statement. "I just hope you'll

consider going out with him over the weekend, is all. Maybe have

dinner at Matsuri or stop by Cain or Marquee?"

"Uh, well, I'm not sure he'll call me, but if he does, then well, I

guess—"

"Oh, he'll call, Bette, he'll call. I'm glad to hear you're into the

idea. Because frankly, you'd be crazy if you weren't! I'm headed

out early today, so have a great weekend, okay?"

"Sure. Will do. You, too, Kelly," I said, inching closer to

the door, still not really believing that I had just promised my boss

I'd continue sleeping with a guy I hadn't slept with yet. "See you

Monday."

She picked up the phone, smiled, and gave me a thumbs-up. I

beelined for my area, near Elisa, but was stopped several times on

the way by people grinning at me in knowing ways or calling out

"Nice work" or "Great work with Philip." Elisa had gone out to

lunch (read: a liter of Fiji water, a Baggie of baby carrots, and a

half-dozen Marlboro Lights), according to a note she left on my

computer, so I picked up the phone and called Penelope.

"Hey, how are you?" she asked.

"I'm fine. And you?" I responded in my detonation voice, so