The Gift Bag Chronicles (10 page)

By the time I reach the house, the saws are deafening, and I feel like I’ve wandered into a construction site. Two hours before the guests are to arrive, the wedding is still a work in progress. Crew guys in T-shirts and shorts are rushing to finish the tents and install the white lattice panels that will transform them into the “Little Chapel in the Dale.” Or whatever fantasy Jennifer wound up wanting her wedding to be.

“Hey, is Oscar around?” I ask one of the guys as I peer inside the tent — a stifling white airless cave that looks like the set for one of those freaky dream sequences on
Six Feet Under
. There’s the requisite Astroturf on the ground, and two guys are setting up rows of white folding chairs while two women, one in a flowing light blue dress and the other in lilac — they dressed in the wedding colors? — are attaching a nosegay of purple and blue flowers tied
with a purple and blue ribbon to the back of each chair. With one hundred chairs, they’ll be lucky to get them all decorated in time.

“He’s out back with Hot Fat,” the guy says, swinging a lattice panel over my head.

“Thanks,” I say, ducking and backing out. It’s marginally cooler outside the tent. Or maybe, because it’s not so searingly bright, it
feels
cooler. I’m heading down the path toward the catering stations set up behind the stone wall that runs behind the house when my cell burbles. “Yeah,” I say, clicking on.

“Hey,” Steven says. “Where are you?”

“I’m
here
. Outside in this fucking heat. Where are
you
?”

“I’m in the house. With the air-conditioning. And the bride and groom and the bridesmaids and the groomsmen and the hairdresser and the stylist and the masseuse and all their assistants. Princess is even here, pretending to go over the guest list with the rest of our team.”

“Cowards. And I’m out here getting heatstroke.”

“Well, get in here. It’s Oscar’s job to worry about the tents and the food.”

“Yeah, I’ll be in in a second. Are the writer and photographer here yet?”

“No, but the video crew is out there somewhere scouting for shots.”

“Okay, well, send Caitlin out here to ride herd on them for now. That’ll keep her busy and out of our way. I’ll be in in a minute, but I need to find Oscar and make sure he’s got some fans or some portable A/C units coming. People are going to seriously pass out in those tents.”

“We can only hope so.”

I click off and am just turning back toward the caterers when I feel something cold and wet on my arm. “What the fuck?” I say, whipping around, braced for one of the llamas to have gotten loose or something. Oscar in his usual work mode — white T-shirt,
white khakis, and a red bandanna wrapped around his bald head. An unlit cigar is in his mouth, and he’s carrying two bottles of ice-cold Evian.

“Figured you could use this,” he says, handing me one of the bottles. “You look fabulous, by the way.”

“God, you startled me,” I say, cracking the water and taking a long hit. “Thanks.”

“Seriously,” he says, nodding at the water. “You should drink one of those every hour or you’ll start to get light-headed.”

“Actually, I was hoping to feel light-headed. Could this be any more ridiculous?”

“Hey, you know I tried to talk her out of this place,” he says, dropping his voice and steering me up the path away from the rest of his crew. “But she wanted a wedding that reminded her of home.”

“Which is where again, Venus?”

He shrugs and takes a long slug of water. “Close. Arkansas.”

“Yeah, well, in this heat it might as well be ‘Little Wedding in Death Valley.’”

“Are you making fun of my work?” he says in mock anger.

“No, I just don’t know why she bothered to hire us — and you — if she wanted to spend nearly half a million for over-the-top tacky.”

“Honey, these are the mysteries I don’t have time to ask myself. Like why you’re still dating that stiff of a boyfriend.”

“Hey, Charles is the perfect boyfriend,” I say, whacking him on the arm with the water bottle. “At least he has the good sense to stay in New York this weekend. Besides, if you don’t believe me, ask my parents. They love him.”

“A ringing endorsement if I ever heard one.”

“Hey, just because you never date anybody longer than a month — or over the age of thirty — doesn’t give you the right to criticize those of us who choose to be in age-appropriate relationships.”

“I’m just saying,” Oscar says, finishing the water and shoving the cigar back in his mouth with a big grin.

I shake my head at him. I’m too hot to go down this road. Even if I wanted to. Which I don’t. Especially not with Oscar. For one thing, he’s like every guy in L.A.: refuses to date anyone who isn’t blond, a twig, and barely out of her teens. It may be a power thing, or a
regional
thing, but it still sucks. For another thing, there’s a huge gap between those men you can be friends with and a real boyfriend. Every woman I know can name at least three guys she once had as friends, and the minute you start to think about dating them or, worse, sleeping with them, it all goes to hell. It’s just one of the laws of the universe. Like gravity. Or how your Barneys bill is never quite paid off.

So no, I’m not going to discuss my relationship with Charles with Oscar. Besides, there’s enough to do just getting through the next nine hours.

“So is everything okay out here?” I say. “I’m worried about those tents. People are going to pass out.”

“I’m more worried Hot Fat’s going to pass out. He’s got to grill one hundred boneless quail for the salad and another one hundred salmon filets for the entrée in this heat.”

Okay, I’ve done enough parties to know that the last place you want problems is with the food and beverage. It’s the one thing people remember at a wedding. That, and the gift bag. Still, Hot Fat is known for cooking through anything. Heat, cold, rain, mud slides, Santa Ana winds. He even catered a commitment ceremony out in the San Bernardino Mountains right through a 4.5 earthquake.

“Hot Fat isn’t going to pass out,” I say, sounding more certain than I feel. “That’s the whole reason you hire him. He’s like the mailman. Gets through anything.”

“Actually, that’s just his PR rap.”

“His
PR rap?”
I say. “Hot Fat has a publicist?”

“Well, how do you think I found him?”

“I thought you ate at his restaurant in South Central.”

“Please, L.A. isn’t Chicago. White people don’t go all the way to South Central for ribs.”

“But he was written up in
L.A
. magazine,” I say lamely.

“How do you think those tree-hugging NPR types found him? They don’t go to South Central either. Frankly,
you
should have a publicist.”

“
I
should have a publicist? I
am
a publicist.”

“That doesn’t matter. Your lawyer has a lawyer.”

“I don’t have a lawyer.”

“Well, I do, and believe me, he has a lawyer — and a publicist.”

“Okay, wait,” I say, holding up my hands. “Let’s just stick to the issue at hand. How do we keep Hot Fat happy and cooking?”

“Well, you start with the five cooling units I’ve got coming any minute,” Oscar says, putting his arm around me and leading me back toward the tents. “The only question is if the generator has enough juice to power them all.”

I tell Oscar to do whatever he needs to do to keep Hot Fat cool and cooking and head up the path toward the house, bracing myself to assume command central mode. Running a party is like running a battle. You prepare for the invasion, assign your staff their battlefields, take your positions, and just work it. When the smoke clears, you’re exhausted, hungry, dying for a drink, and sick to death of wearing a headset and a transmitter the size of a brick. But everyone else should have had a fabulous time.

If it’s a big red carpet event, it’s all about the media. Which means it’s all about the photographers. No one cares about the writers, except for
Variety’s
Bill Higgins and except if any of them get obnoxious. Your main objective is carpet control: keep the line of celebs moving, keep the carpet filled but not too crowded, and be prepared to jump in and help out if any stars show up without their own publicists.

Then you have to make sure only the photographers you want inside the event get inside. Almost all of them will stay corralled
outside the rope line. But depending on the size of the event, you can give inside access to one or two of the bigger photographers and, depending on the client and the guest list, a TV crew from E! or
E.T
. But even with the photographers you like and trust, even with the WireImage photographer you’ve hired to shoot your event, you still assign one of your publicists to trail them. Keep everything cool, everyone happy. Nothing ruins a party faster than too many photographers running around sticking their cameras in everyone’s face. That, and too many fashion stylists trying to steal each other’s clients.

But a private party is different. A star’s birthday. A producer’s wedding anniversary. A studio chief’s pre-Oscar cocktail party. These events are about keeping the media
out
. Unless it’s a charity thing, then you want the press there. “See how rich and generous our host is! And please, spread it around.”

For a wedding like Jennifer’s, it’s about more than keeping the media out. It’s about re-creating Fort Knox. These are competitive times in the tabloid biz, and
any
celeb wedding is fodder for the mill. I mean, look at all those
InStyle
wedding issues. You’ve never heard of half the couples, but God knows, they’re each worth a four-page spread.

Holding Jennifer’s wedding at the ranch, as hot as it is, does make sense in terms of security. So much easier than at a hotel, like what Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones did.
Hello?
The Plaza? No wonder they wound up in court. Out in the middle of fifteen sun-blasted acres in Calabasas, you have a much better chance of keeping the drawbridge up. With Oscar’s scarily beefy guys guarding the front gate — only those with invites and the password, “matte,” which was not given out until this morning, get in — and the giant helium balloons bobbing overhead, we’ve pretty much got it covered. And with their exclusive media deal with
InStyle
— which means one writer, one photographer, and a three-man TV crew in exchange for a nice five-figure check to Jeffrey and Jennifer’s favorite charity — the media are not an
issue. Between Oscar and his staff, DWP-ED’s event team, the network publicists, the studio publicists—who are mostly coming as guests, but still—my job is basically traffic flow.

When I finally hit the house, push through the front door — a massive oak thing right out
of Legends of the Fall
with a giant bronzed horseshoe for a knocker — the blast of cool air nearly brings me to my knees. I stagger in, pull off my shades, and look around. Steven was right. It is a party in here. Or was. Techno jazz is blaring over the sound system, and the living room looks like the Fred Segal sale — a jumble of clothes, some on racks, some in piles, boxes of photography equipment stacked everywhere, cables snaking across the carpet, trays of half-eaten sandwiches, and empty water bottles. Down the hall, I hear squealing. Must be the bridesmaids in hair and makeup.

“Well, unlike the Wicked Witch of the West, you made it without melting,” Steven says, emerging from the dining room, which he’s co-opted as the publicists’ holding pen.

“I’m not so sure,” I say, wiping my forehead with the back of my hand. “But the good news is, Oscar has five A/C units coming. I only hope the generator can handle it.”

“Well, I’m not planning on leaving the building for another hour and a half.”

“Speaking of that, how is everyone?” I say, nodding toward the dining room. “Did you tell Caitlin she’s assigned to the TV crew?”

Steven rolls his eyes. “The network and studio publicists aren’t here yet, and Caitlin’s insisting she gets heatstroke, but she’s not our problem,” he says, holding out a headset.

“What
is
our problem? And what are you doing with a headset? We didn’t rent them for this.”

“Jennifer did. Or rather her assistant rented them. She wants us to wear them.”

What? Jennifer’s
rented headsets? For one thing, we
never
discussed this, and for another, headsets are just so wrong for a private
party. Plus, they’re a total pain to wear. “Okay, we never discussed this,” I say. “The security guys are wearing earpieces, but it’s not that big of an event, there’s no media to keep track of.”

“I know, but she says it’s ‘a comfort factor’ thing.”

“Well, that’s only because she’s never worn one.”

“I wouldn’t be so certain of that. Apparently it was her trademark back in her pole-dancing days, when ‘Rocket Man’ was her theme song.”

“Okay, I don’t want to know,” I say, holding up my hands. The girl is out of Little Rock what, a year at most, and she’s already mastered the whole I-want-what-I-want-when-I-want-it celebrity vibe. “We are
not
wearing headsets,” I say, clipping my sunglasses on the neck of my dress. “It’s not necessary, it’s too fucking hot, and it looks all wrong for a private party. This isn’t the White House. I’ll talk to her.”

“Be my guest. I’ve already tried. Besides, there’s another, more pressing problem,” he says, handing me the clipboard he’s holding. It’s the most recent guest list.

“Okay,” I say, scanning it quickly. “Who am I looking for?”

“You’ll know it when you see it.”

I run down the list. It’s the same names we’ve been staring at for the past three weeks. Both families, including Jeffrey’s twelve-year-old son, Max, from his first marriage. Or maybe it was his third. A million Schwartzbaums. About a dozen TV producers and directors, and of course, Les Moonves, the head of Viacom’s TV division, here to kiss the hem of the network’s third biggest star. Jeffrey’s manager, his lawyer, his business manager, his acupuncturist, his trainer, his life coach, his AA sponsor, and his agent, Jeremy Latimer. There are also some ancient TV stars, like James Garner and Tom Selleck, and Jeffrey’s costars from
Taskmaster
and his earlier series,
Howdy
, back when he was just another prematurely balding character actor and not the fixture in Hollywood he is now.