“I can’t imagine doing all of that sober,” Stephanie says, as she takes the cup of coffee I offer her. She’s stopped by to bring me a copy of the New York Post, which happens to contain a picture of me and Tube Top (the daughter of some famous photographer and his supermodel wife, as it turns out) dancing on the bar—along with a story about our secret affair. “Stone, who goes by the moniker ‘Party Girl,’ after the highly publicized column she writes for Chat, has been seeing the nineteen-year-old Crossroads grad for some time,” Stephanie reads. “‘Amelia may claim to be straight,’ says a close friend of the comely columnist, ‘but it’s all a front. She’s as gay as can be.’”
Stephanie tosses the paper onto my Shabby Chic coffee table and takes a generous gulp of coffee. “I love it,” she says. “You know you’ve made it when the gay rumors start.”
I pick up the paper and slide it into a folder that contains the other press I’ve received. “Come on, you know you haven’t really made it until people start saying you’re a Scientologist.”
Stephanie laughs and puts her coffee down. “It’s just hard for me to picture you dirty dancing with a scantily clad prepubescent when you’re stone cold sober. I mean, how do you do it—just pretend you’re drunk?”
I think about how I used to drink and do drugs to escape how I felt, even though it never really worked—if anything, partying only exacerbated my loneliness or discomfort. At Pledges they say that it’s important to create a life so comfortable that you don’t need to escape, and I guess that’s what’s happening to me—the sort of self-conscious, occasionally shy daytime personality I’ve always had is mixing with my wild-while-intoxicated nighttime persona. I don’t need what other people need to help them let loose anymore, I think, deciding that such a skill is so rare that it should almost be considered a superpower.
Out loud I say, “I don’t know. Maybe I was experiencing a kind of ‘natural high’?”
I make a quote mark gesture around the phrase because it’s just the sort of expression Stephanie and I would have mocked not too long ago, but I secretly love the idea of it. I can get natural highs while other people need chemical ones, I think before I remember that Tommy used to say if you feel better than people, all that means is that at some point you’re going to feel worse than them. But then I think, Tommy doesn’t know everything. If he did, why would he spend his days working at an almost completely dilapidated rehab in West L.A.?
“Amelia Stone on a natural high.” Steph laughs. “Who could have ever predicted it?” She smiles and sips her coffee.
I light a smoke, careful to blow it out the window, and think about how grateful I am that she feels comfortable talking to me about my sobriety. Other people who’ve heard about me going to rehab have been so awkward that it’s unnerving. “We should meet for a drink,” this publicist said to me at a premiere last week. And then, as if my sobriety had rendered the word “drink” sinful, she added nervously, “I mean, a water or soda?”
“I’m just worried that Tim’s going to find out,” I say, grabbing a bag of Trader Joe’s Sweet, Savory & Tart Trek Mix from the kitchen and scooping a handful into my mouth.
Stephanie motions for the bag, which I hand her, as she leans back on the couch. “Please—it doesn’t matter. If you look the part and hand in great copy, why should he give a rat’s ass if you’re sober as can be or on 12 hits of E?”
“Good point,” I say.
“Maybe I’ll sell Page Six that story,” Stephanie says as she brushes peanuts that have fallen onto her lap into her hand and tosses them into the garbage can. “‘Amelia Stone Not Really a Party Girl!’” We both laugh. My phone starts ringing, so I walk over to it and see Tim’s cell phone number on my caller ID.
“Tim,” I say, deciding not to pick up. “I’m sure he just wants to know when I’m sending him copy.”
“When’s the column due?”
“Tomorrow.” I peel a bit of my right thumb cuticle off.
“Jesus! Why do you always wait until the last minute? You’re insane.”
I shrug. I noticed when I did the first column that something in me really got off on the adrenaline that started flowing through me when my deadline was imminent. I almost feel like I’m setting myself up for some impossible sprint and my fear of not making it to the finish line motivates me all the more. Or maybe I’m just a martyr. But I suddenly feel incredibly stressed, like the first column was a fluke and everyone has gotten overly excited about me when I really can’t deliver. Stephanie must see the look of panic that crosses my face because she walks over to the couch as she picks up her bag. The idea of a line of cocaine floats through my mind and that terrifies me, but I don’t say anything. I’m sure it’s perfectly normal.
“You’ll be fine, Party Girl,” she says as she walks toward the door. “And if you’re not, look at it this way: you can always start writing a Sober Girl column.”
“Ha ha.”
As soon as Stephanie leaves, I turn on the computer, open a new Word document, and stare at it, thinking, Okay, here’s where the writer’s block happens. I’ve never actually had writer’s block, but people are always talking about it, so I figure that it’s only a matter of time for me.
Then the phone rings and I jump at it eagerly without even glancing at caller ID, grateful for the procrastination tool.
“Amelia?” It’s a young girl’s voice.
“Yes.”
“It’s Charlotte. We met the other night? We, um, danced?”
Oh my God. Tube Top. I’d just sort of assumed she would disappear into the ether.
“Hey, Charlotte. What can I do for you?” At first I think, Christ, is she going to ask me out on a date? Then: That would make a really great column.
“I hope it’s okay that I’m calling you. You were listed, so I figured you wouldn’t mind.” I make a mental note to get myself unlisted. “It’s just…well, I really love your column. When I read it, I thought, ‘Oh my God, this woman is describing my life,’ except, to be honest, my world is a bit crazier.”
“Hmmm,” I say, still not remotely clear on where she’s trying to go with this.
“And, well, I was just curious how you got started? I ask because I want more than anything to be a writer. I actually wrote my first novel when I was twelve. And I’ve been doing poetry since eighth grade, and journaling for as long as I can remember.”
I think it’s around the time that she uses the word “journaling” that I start completely tuning her out. She sure is a pushy little thing, I think as she regales me with stories about editing the school newspaper and literary magazine.
“Look,” I say, cutting her off before she starts reciting poems written to, like, her dead grandmother. “I can’t help you get a writing job. The best thing I can tell you is go to college, then go get a job at a magazine. That’s what I did.”
Tube Top—Charlotte—laughs. “Oh, I’m not trying to get a job yet. I’m only eighteen. I just wanted to know if you’d read some of my work and…I don’t know…tell me if you think I have promise.”
I don’t know if it’s the shock of hearing “I’m only eighteen,” or my resentment over the fact that this chick manages to boogie her perfect body on top of bars and still be motivated enough to have written multiple novels before puberty. But her whole I’m-more-motivated-than-anyone-else shtick is really rubbing me the wrong way.
Of course I don’t say that. “Why don’t I give you my e-mail address and you can send me some of your stuff?” I say, figuring I can always delete it and then duck her calls if she ever bugs me again.
“Oh, that would be so great!” she yelps. I listen to her tell me how cool and great I am and how she wants to be just like me when she “grows up” until I can’t take it any longer.
“Charlotte, I really have to go—I have a column to write,” I say and hang up the phone before she can say anything else that makes me feel ancient, and then go back to staring at my computer and picking at my cuticles.
I stand up, sit down again, then stand up to go get the bag of Trader Joe’s Sweet, Savory & Tart Trek Mix, then plop down again at my desk. Tim and John responded so well to my story about going to Guy’s with Chad Milan and leaving with Rick Wilson that I figure that’s a good topic. And once I come up with a title, “The Obligatory Good-Night Kiss,” I just start typing.
If a guy shells out for your tiramisu, you’d better accept the fact that he’s going to expect some tongue. I realize that nine out of ten men surveyed wouldn’t admit this (and the tenth would only if he thought that confessing as much would get him some tongue) but I’m here to tell you that we women make an intrinsic promise every time we allow the check to be pulled to the other side of the table. Still, going to a bar afterward and leaving with someone else because you “can’t find” your dinner date will probably create more problems than it will solve.
For a second I worry about Chad Milan reading the column, but then I realize that the only person the incident really reflects negatively on is me. You’re a genius when it comes to self-deprecation, one of the Chat senior editors had said at dinner in New York. Besides, I tell myself as I continue to type, this material is too good not to use. I light a cigarette and think about the possibility of running into Chad at the gym and being confronted by him again. And then I think, I’ll switch to Equinox. It’s supposed to be a much nicer gym anyway.