How to Sleep with a Movie Star

  In other words, all the important things.

  This isn’t exactly what I visualized doing when I graduated from college. I’d been the kind of English-lit dork who preferred a night with Joan Didion or Tom Wolfe to a day lounging by the pool with the latest issue of Vogue. And despite the crash course in the merits of Michael Kors, Chloe, and Manolo Blahnik that I’d received during my first week at Mod, I was, to the chagrin of many of my coworkers, still mostly a Gap girl. With the notable exceptions of the two pairs of Seven jeans I’d fallen in love with and the six Amy Tangerine designer tees I’d developed an obsession for in the last year, most of my clothes were from the sale racks of the Gap, Banana Republic, Macy’s juniors department, or the ever-popular cheap chic of Forever 21 or H&M. The fifteen dollars max I usually spent on a T-shirt was a far cry from the $180 some of my coworkers spent on a white tee that could just as easily have come from Fruit of the Loom.

  Thankfully, the atmosphere wasn’t anything like that of the high fashion magazines where a few of my classmates from college worked. They had all been promptly assimilated and now had matching haircuts, matching Fendi and Louis Vuitton bags for every season, and wardrobes that consisted only of the most expensive and trendy designer clothes. Margaret just asked that we look presentable, polished, and stylish, which I usually didn’t have a problem with, even on my admittedly meager salary.

  After all, I had to look the part if I was going to interact with the fabulously wealthy A-list set. I’d made the mistake my first year at People of dressing professionally but without much of a stylish edge, and I’d quickly learned my lesson. Spending a bit more on designer items—even if I could afford just a scarf to pair with less impressive non-designer threads—would go a long way. When you were an actress decked out in tens-of-thousands-of-dollars of diamonds, strutting down the red carpet, there was just something about a reporter wearing a Gucci scarf that made you just a bit more likely to stop and chat. Sad, right? But those were the rules of the game.

  And the articles. Sheesh, the articles. Don’t get me wrong—I love what I do. I love getting inside people’s heads (even if those heads often belong to vacuous celebrities) and finding out what they’re thinking, what they’re worrying about, what makes them tick. So the job as senior celebrity editor of Mod fits me with a perfection that might surprise you, considering I originally had my sights set on the lofty literary world of The New Yorker.

  But it’s the other articles, the in-between assignments that a Prada-clad Margaret dumps on my desk at the last minute, that drive me crazy. I mean, there are only so many ways you can address your readers’ “Most Intimate Sex Questions” (clue: they’re not so intimate anymore when 2.6 million women are reading about them); the truth behind “How to Drop Those Last Five Pounds” (um, exercise and eat less—duh); and the ever-popular “How to Know If He Likes You” (well, men who like a woman usually want to sleep with that woman—wait, should I be taking notes here?).

  Even the celeb interviews have their moments, when I wish I could just bury my head in Jane Austen and slink back to my college English class with my tail between my legs.

  I became an editor because I love to write. And I took this job at Mod because I really like one-on-one interviews and profiles. As a little girl, I loved reading my grandmother’s celebrity magazines: People, The Enquirer, Star. The lives of the beautiful people in the pictures seemed so glamorous, so exciting. Perhaps that was what had drawn me to celebrity journalism to begin with, although after several years of working in the field, I knew better than to think that everything was as it appeared to be.

  At People, where I worked before I started at Mod, I’d made a name for myself in the business by breaking two major stories in the same year: the biggest celebrity breakup of the decade, the split between movie star Clay Terrell and pop princess Tara Templeton (thanks to the friendly relationship I’d developed after numerous interviews with the down-to-earth Clay); and the story of musical diva Annabel Warren’s breast cancer diagnosis. (I had also interviewed her numerous times, so when the cancer rumors broke, mine was the only call she decided to take.) As a result, Mod had come looking for me. Margaret dangled a higher salary—and much more important, the chance to work on lengthy honest-to-goodness human interest profiles—and I was sold. And just like that, I became the youngest senior celebrity editor in the business.

  I loved the job, but the move had made me some quick enemies. In the ever-gossipy world of magazines, a rumor had circulated (and lingered for six months) that I’d slept with Margaret’s boss, Bob Elder, the president of Smith-Baker Media. Of course I hadn’t, but professional jealousy tends to rage when someone several years shy of thirty snags a dream job that scores of women a decade older were after. I saw the suspicious looks sometimes, and there were still editors out there who refused to speak to me, but I was over it. I hadn’t done anything wrong to get here. I certainly hadn’t slept with Bob Elder, who was pushing sixty and was easily three times my weight. I had just done my job. And ironically, this wasn’t my dream job at all, anyhow.

  When I was an English major at the University of Georgia, analyzing Shakespearean innuendos, I wouldn’t have suspected that four short years later, I’d be enthusiastically asking pop stars whether they wear boxers or briefs. Or asking actresses whether they feel like Sevens, Diesels, or Miss Sixtys lift their already-perfect butts better (as if Gwyneth Paltrow and Julia Roberts had butts to lift).

  Speaking of perfectly sculpted women poured into designer clothing, I was snapped out of my reverie by the approach of a heavy cloud of perfume as Sidra, Sally, and Samantha all glided by in the hallway, as if on cue, on three pairs of Jimmy Choos I couldn’t have walked in if I tried.

  Wendy and I called them “the Triplets.” Somehow, miraculously, the three rulers of the fashion department roost all had names that began with an S, were pencil thin, abnormally tall, and had painfully pointy noses that seemed to match the painfully pointy toes of their stilettos. They all looked perpetually polished, as if they visited a beauty salon each morning before they appeared at the office, which was entirely possible since they normally didn’t grace us with their presence until after 11 a.m. There was never a hair out of place, never an inch of face without perfectly applied makeup, never a moment when their noses weren’t fixed permanently in the air.

  I caught pieces of their conversation as they passed.

  “Oh . . . my . . . God,” Sidra DeSimon, Mod’s coldly beautiful fashion and beauty director, said, sounding remarkably like Chandler’s ex-girlfriend Janice, from Friends. I wondered momentarily just how one managed to develop a voice that nasal. “She was carrying a Louis Vuitton bag from last season.”

  Sally and Samantha both gasped at this apparent mortal sin.

  “Last season?” Sally asked incredulously, scurrying after Sidra.

  “Ugh.” I could see Samantha shudder in horror before they disappeared around the corner.

  I made a face as I choked on the cloud of Chanel No. 5 they left swirling in their wake.

  How they managed to afford the latest in designer fashions on editorial salaries was beyond me. I suspected that, like many of the stick-thin, model-tall fashionistas who inhabited the hallways and abused the expense accounts of the country’s top women’s magazines, all three Triplets were trust-fund babies. It didn’t hurt that their penchant for $2,000 pants and the latest Jimmy Choos, Manolo Blahniks, or Prada boots was assisted by their access to the magazine’s fashion closet and a ream of eager-to-please designers they probably had on speed-dial.

  In fact, just last week when I cruised through the fashion department to pick up some copy Wendy was supposed to edit, I’d heard Sidra cooing into the phone, “But Donatella, dahling, I simply must have that suede skirt for my trip to Paris next week. . . . Yes, dahling, I’d really owe you one if you’d messenger it over right away.” The call was followed an hour later by the conspicuous arrival of a carrier case from Versace, which was whisked into the fashion d
epartment. The doors slammed shut behind it.

  Sidra, the oldest of the Triplets and their fearless leader, was a bit of a legend in the New York editorial world. She claimed to have dated George Clooney for a month or so in the mid-nineties and had used that fact as a sort-of job reference throughout the rest of her career. She was known to frequently drop, “When George and I were dating . . .” into various conversations where the words really didn’t belong.

  For George’s part, he denied that he knew her. That hadn’t stopped her from dragging his name through the mud to her advantage—and to the endless delight of the New York gossip scene. Her name was a Page Six staple.

  For reasons I still hadn’t entirely figured out, Sidra had developed an instant dislike for me the moment I’d set foot through Mod’s doors as the magazine’s youngest senior editor a year and a half ago. The more I got to know her, the more I suspected it was a case of clear-cut professional jealousy. I was fifteen years her junior, and I was just one step below her on the editorial chain. I’d done some checking up on her, and at my age, twenty-six, she had still been an editorial assistant at Cosmo.

  My few attempts during the first month to ingratiate myself with a quick chat were met immediately with a cold shoulder, and to date, we’d never even had an actual conversation. Half the time she refused to even acknowledge my existence, and otherwise she badmouthed me around the office. My coworkers, thankfully, knew her well enough that her complaints tended to go in one ear and out the other.

  Unfortunately, she also loved badmouthing me to people at other magazines who didn’t quite know how catty and bizarre she was. Once, at a Fashion Week celebrity fashion show, I even overheard her telling a senior editor from In Style that I was a delusional intern who liked to pretend that I was Mod’s celebrity editor, and it was best to just ignore me and play along.

  As the director of fashion and beauty for Mod, Sidra oversaw Sally and Samantha, who were clearly being groomed to become her clones. So far, it was working out. Sally, the fashion editor, didn’t yet understand that dressing models in Gucci and Versace couture didn’t quite fly with Margaret, who was—wonder of all wonders—smart enough to realize that most Mod readers didn’t make enough money in a decade to buy the clothes that Sally would order for one shoot. Not exactly the best way to compete with Cosmo in the circulation trenches.

  Samantha, the beauty editor, was responsible for the magazine’s makeup tips. She was apparently equally confused, failing to realize that not everyone had the high cheekbones, full lips, and flawless complexion that she did. Of course, not everyone had the good fortune to be sleeping with Dr. Stephen McDermott, Manhattan’s premier “Dermatologist to the Stars,” either.

  The only way to tell the Triplets apart, I sometimes thought, was by the fact that Sidra was the only one who had already invested $20,000 in breast implants by Dr. David Aramayo, arguably the best plastic surgeon in Manhattan. I was sure that the others weren’t far behind. They were doubtlessly working out payment plans now.

  I wished that Wendy hadn’t gone home already. I would have loved to end the day by trading one-liners about Sidra. It was a favorite pastime of ours. And it was completely harmless, because Sidra liked to pretend, for whatever reason, that she had no concept Wendy and I even existed, despite the fact that we had attended editorial meetings together for the last eighteen months. If we didn’t exist, then I figured our derogatory comments didn’t matter much.

  I looked back at my computer screen, which still appeared to be taunting me. A one-night stand actually sounded frighteningly good at the moment. Hell, even Sidra, who had all the warmth and sex appeal of the iceberg that took out the Titanic, was probably getting laid more often than I was. Maybe some men—apparently including George Clooney, if you believed Sidra—found that Fran Drescher-esque twang to be a turn-on. Maybe I could try holding my nose and squawking nasally at Tom tonight. Maybe that would unlock his chastity belt.

  Was it possible I was grasping at straws here?

  On that note, I printed out the two thousand words I’d managed to choke out throughout the day so that I could do a first edit at home that night, then I clicked on Save, closed the program, and shut down the computer. It was 6:30. On the off chance that Margaret was lurking somewhere in the nearly empty office, I knew I’d better get home before she could blindside me with another ridiculous assignment.

  How to Live Together Happily Ever After

  Okay, day 30. I was getting worried. And this Mod assignment was starting to make me just a little desperate.

  “Is there something wrong with me?” I whispered to Wendy over the wall of my cubicle the next morning. “I mean, there’s obviously something wrong if my boyfriend suddenly stops wanting to sleep with me.”

  “No way,” Wendy said, just like I knew she would. “My question would be, is there something wrong with him? What red-blooded American man doesn’t want to have sex?”

  Okay, so she had a point.

  “Tom,” I muttered. But it wasn’t exactly like he was refusing to sleep with me. It was just that he always seemed to be too busy or asleep when I was ready to go. Our timing was off. That was it.

  Last night, day 29 had turned into night 30 with Newly Celibate Tom. That’s two-and-a-half-dozen sexless nights for all of you who are keeping track. I’d even pulled out the big guns, slinking into the bedroom in a red teddy and a garter belt, feeling ridiculous.

  “You’re going to be cold in that,” he’d said briefly, glancing up from the television for a millisecond before refocusing his attention on a rerun of Gilligan’s Island, which, as you can imagine, created quite the conundrum for me. Was he into Mary Ann or Ginger? Pigtails, or evening gowns? You’d think the teddy would trump both.

  Apparently not.

  “You’d better put something on, sweetie,” Tom added a moment later without glancing up. I gulped and tried again, leaning seductively into the doorframe, wobbling a bit in my stilettos.

  “Tom,” I’d said in my best sexy Ginger voice (he’d probably pick Ginger over Mary Ann). I’d paused, unsure of what to say next. “Uh, I have something I want to show you,” I said throatily. I batted my eyelashes at him flirtatiously as he looked up.

  “Do you have something in your eye, Claire?” he’d asked before turning his attention back to the Professor’s latest ingenious invention, which Mary Ann appeared to be giggling about. “There’s some Visine in the medicine cabinet if you need it,” he’d added helpfully.

  I’d heaved a sigh, stomped back to the bathroom, and changed into a T-shirt and sweatpants while Tom sang along with the Gilligan’s Island theme song in the other room. He hadn’t even looked up when I stormed by him and threw myself into bed, huffing and puffing pointedly.

  It hadn’t always been this way. Tom and I had chemistry from the beginning, which I suppose led to my willingness to tumble into bed within a week of meeting him at a writers’ seminar in the East Village. Okay, I know, I know, you’re judging me. I don’t usually sleep with guys after knowing them for only a week. But with Tom I felt something instantly, something between an animal and an intellectual attraction, which I didn’t know could coexist. He had this gorgeous, kind of tousled floppy hair that seemed to scream “struggling intellectual writer” and the way he kissed always left me breathless.

  The seminar, a free program put on by the Eastside Writers’ Group, had been about how to write a novel. I was impressed that Tom was already halfway through a draft of what he called “a slice of Americana mixed with a slice of suspense and a slice of intellectualism.” All those slices left me a bit woozy, more than a bit awed, and hungry for more. After all, the closest I’d come to writing anything fictional was a short story I had to write for a college lit class. I’d gotten a C+. Here was this Prince Charming who gave great massages, could talk about anything from politics to poultry seasonings, and he was doing the one thing I’d always wanted to do with my life.

  I was instantly in love. I stood by him a month
later when he decided to quit his job peddling medical supplies in order to write full-time, and I’d been only too happy to let him move into my rent-controlled apartment a month after that so that he wouldn’t have to worry about making ends meet while he wrote the Great American Novel. Sure, I was a bit hurt that he still hadn’t let me read any of it. And I was a bit surprised that it was taking so long to write, but we were in love. And the sex was great. Or it had been, before it started to decrease in frequency a few months ago. Then again, he seemed more and more worried about his book. And I figured it probably bothered him a bit that he had lived with me for almost a year and hadn’t been able to contribute to the bills at all. The few times we’d gone out to dinner and he had offered to pay, his credit card had been rejected, and I had to pick up the check. I didn’t mind, though. I knew he’d pay me back when he sold the book.

  “You deserve better, you know,” Wendy said gently, breaking into the slow-motion replay in my head. “I’ve always said that. But I know you think he’s right for you.”

  “He is right for me,” I said. He was, really. He was cute, and smart, and nice. He made me laugh. “Maybe he’s just going through a rough spot or something. I’m sure it’s just our timing, you know? He’s always up late working on his novel, and I’m fast asleep by the time he comes to bed. And I’m up hours before he is in the morning.”