“I don’t care if you did it or not. Did you leave us open to a lawsuit? That is what I want to know.”
Of course that was all they cared about. Fucking politically correct bullshit. Those girls throw themselves at you and if you take them up on it you’re the one with the problem. Since when did it become illegal to fuck a woman? His thoughts were racing now, or trying to race. He regretted having had that third drink, which he had downed unthinkingly on this, his most pathetic of all birthdays. Sexual harassment. If they fired him over the merest suspicion of something like that, his career was toast. What career? For a brief moment he had nothing but contempt for all the choices he had made since swanning into New York on the wings of that overhyped Harvard BA. Everyone wanted to take a meeting with the culture editor of the Crimson, but what had come of it over time amounted to less and less and less, clouds floating in a queer blue sky. He had spent eleven years writing nothing about people who were doing nothing.
In the rising of his self-doubt, he unwisely let the silence go on too long. “Answer the question,” Eric snapped. He should have taken more care with Eric. There were plenty of writers out there who wanted his idiotic column—there were plenty of writers, in fact, who would happily shoot him in the head if they thought they could crawl over his body and grab that stack of party invites.
“No. No. No lawsuit,” he promised. “Just give me a minute, would you? Alison and I are old friends, and we were, honestly, Eric, we were horsing around.”
“You’re ‘friends’?”
“Swear to God. We’ve known each other for years. She was like, best friends with one of my old girlfriends, and I hadn’t seen her for a while, so we were just, you know—”
“I don’t know, Seth, which is why I’m asking. ’Cause the shit I’ve been hearing about you, it is not good.”
“Eric, I don’t know what you’ve been hearing, but I know you wouldn’t just go flying off the handle because of some whispering campaign. Everybody talks shit on each other in this business, but that’s all it is. As I think you well know.”
This time, Eric paused. It was a fairly played hit; Eric had been famous for his cocksmanship in the day. He was tired, he was pissed, the job wasn’t any fun anymore, all that was a given.
“You want Alison to make a statement that this is all a big misunderstanding, I can call her and ask her to do that,” Seth offered. “But I think it’s making too much of it.”
“There are plenty of people who have already made too much of it.”
“That’s my point.”
“No, that’s my point.” An edge of exhaustion had drifted into Eric’s side of the conversation. “Just take care of it,” he sighed. “Get her to call somebody over at Page Six and set it straight.”
“Page Six isn’t going to do us any favors.”
“Then get somebody else to do us a favor! Get her to tweet about it! I don’t care where it shows up, but someone has to print a story that exculpates you on this, or so help me God you’ll be writing obituaries for the next six months.”
Seth raised his finger toward the bartender; this warranted another Jameson. Thirty-three years old, a degree from Harvard, a byline at the Times, features in every major magazine that still existed, and now he was going to have to get on his knees and beg some actress to publicly vindicate him for telling the truth for once.
“Today’s my birthday,” he told Eric.
“Yeah, happy fucking birthday,” Eric said.
Seth hung up the phone and stared at it. Who would have Alison’s cell number? Didn’t he get it from her—when was that even—three years ago?
He sighed. The only person who might know how to get in touch with her was Lisa, to whom he hadn’t spoken since the night he stepped out on her—which had been, in fact, three years ago. This was going to be an endless saga of sucking up.
twelve
ALISON STARED as the tribe of waiters marched into their private dining room, twelve of them—all in black tuxes, even the women—carrying course number eight, pork belly with wilted chard. She had been warned ahead of time that this was going to happen; this restaurant was duly famous for serving ten-course dinners and a flight of wine with each. But it was one thing to hear about it and another thing to experience it.
“They’re small courses, but it’s definitely a long-distance event. You have to pace yourself,” Ryan informed her. They had gone out for cocktails to discuss how things were going with the oh-so-shiny movie director who had a lot of projects she “might be right for.” An invitation to a private dinner party with his closest friends and their wives and girlfriends indicated that things were progressing nicely. But as usual Ryan had a lot of advice. “Wear something tight. It’ll show off your figure, and keep your appetite in line. One bite of each course. That’s it.”
“You said they serve the most beautiful food in New York.”
“Beautiful food is for you to look at, and other people to eat,” he warned her.