she shrieked into the phone.
‘Oh my God! Is that not cool, cool, cool?! Totally, totally–we will be there honey and don’t you worry about a thing–it’s on us, no absolutely, don’t worry about a thing!’ I became annoyed. Just listening to her I knew exactly what was happening and I did all I could to stifle my frustration.
I had been working with Sheryl for almost six months by that point and was always surprised, though I should’ve at some point probably gotten used to it, at her sheer excitement for absolutely everything and nothing. Just that morning she doubled over in joy at a most recent purchase: a gift for a friend’s baby shower.
‘And, if you pull on that right there,’ she said, showing me the glossy catalogue in her hand, ‘the diaper bag turns into a backpack! How cool is that!’ I had stopped trying to conceal my boredom months ago after a half-hour rant concerning Candle Belts, which are exactly as they sound–a decorative belt for your candle.
Part of me pitied Sheryl, while my other, more sympathetic half felt bad for feeling bad. She was, by all definitions, a very in-demand makeup artist in Hollywood. From spreads in Los Angeles magazine to booking the occasional job for a daytime drama, she did it all. Though she had very kindly taken me under her wing, I couldn’t help but notice her enthusiasm seemed to compensate for something, something I didn’t know. She had set up shop in one corner of a chic salon on Beverly Drive, though we rarely worked out of there, instead using it more for office space to schedule shoots, take meetings, and market her services than anything else. When people did come in for meetings, I was always blown away by her ability to make eyeliner, makeup brushes, and lip gloss sound so wildly exciting, but was almost certain that the people who left would never come back again. But shockingly enough, most did.
Here’s the thing, Sheryl was a divorced forty-something who left her cheating husband and McMansion in the Calabasas to become a swinging-single career woman in Beverly Hills. This was all, no less, inspired by an episode (her first, for the record) of Sex and the City on TBS. I’ve heard her quote Kim Cattrall from that episode enough to make my ears bleed. Perhaps I was a pessimist, but no one in her right mind could be that excited all the time, and I was just sort of waiting for her to crack…
‘I got you a gig!’ Sheryl shouted in a singsongy voice as she hung up the phone. I braced myself…I knew exactly what she was going to say. ‘Okay, well, don’t get mad at me…I told Nan Dressner we’d–well, you–would do her daughter’s makeup tomorrow morning. She’s walking in the “Women in Hollywood” fashion show. It’s a favor, so we’re not getting paid,’ she said, meaning I wasn’t getting paid. ‘But, oh-my-God Jackie! I mean,’ she continued, ‘the Dressners! They would be great people to know!’
This was typical Sheryl, and this is what I mean about feeling bad for her. She was so desperate to be seen and liked, especially by the society types who lunched at the Polo Lounge, that she always did them favors to ingratiate herself to them. Although when I really thought about it, she adored attention from almost anyone willing to give it to her and was known to flirt with men half her age after no more than a single appletini. The Dressner job, however, was a definite step in the right direction for her as it was one more step up the social ladder. To me, it meant a wasted Saturday afternoon spent with a bratty teenager and her friends and no compensation in sight.
‘Sure,’ I mumbled, feigning rapture with something on my computer screen, which I hoped would mask my annoyance.
‘Fabulous! I would go–but I’ve got a hot date with a hotter man,’ she said before she leaned in closer to me. ‘And I probably won’t get out of bed ‘til noon, if you know what I mean.’ Making a whispering voice without whispering, she said, ‘Ted Painter,’ and then sat there smiling, waiting for my reaction.
‘Oh that’s great–I was supposed to meet friends at one of his restaurants for brunch tomorrow…’ I hinted. Standing up, I grabbed my coat as fast as I could in fear that she might start spouting more–where they were going, how they met, what he was like in bed. Just the thought of Sheryl and the sixty-year-old restaurateur holding hands made me gag.
‘So, I have to go now, bye,’ I said as I practically ran toward the door.
‘Oh–don’t forget, we have a big job on Sunday,’ she called after me.
‘We do?’ I asked, halfway out the door.
‘Come on, you remember, the music video shoot in the Valley,’ she said.
‘Oh right, those dancing, singing boys from that Nickelodeon show, right? The ones with kind of spiky hair?’ I asked nonchalantly.
‘The Emerson Brothers!’ she shrieked.
‘Yeah, them.’ I shrugged. She looked at me like I was crazy, but I wasn’t a twelve-year-old girl and I had no idea who they were.
‘They’re huge, Jackie, they just signed an endorsement deal with Street Cred!’
‘Who is that? A rapper?’ I asked, genuinely confused.
‘Street Cred?!’ she asked incredulously. ‘The energy drink? Well, anyway, we’re not doing their makeup exactly…’
‘Great,’ I thought, sure she was about to tell me we were doing their mother’s makeup for her dinner reservation that night.
Much to my relief, she responded, ‘We’re doing the makeup for this up-and-coming singer named Brooke Parker…a real cutie, she was Miss Teen Florida last year. She was discovered by some kind of talent manager or someone, doing her cute little song and dance in the pageant–anyway, she’s their opening act and she’s shooting her first video. I’ll see you Sunday.’
I was running late as usual the next day and hurried to put the finishing touches on the Dressner daughter’s face while the Hollywood elite took their seats in the ballroom of the Regent Beverly Wilshire–soon to be filled with the amateur designs of local rich kids dabbling in the fashion world on their parents’ dime. I giggled about this to myself as I spotted Delia Lutz, the Queen of Gossip and ruler of her own online domain, deliasdirt.com, sitting just a few seats away. She was snaky, sort of, in a very Page Six sort of way, but was even better because she sank her teeth into local personalities just as hard as international celebrities. And even though Delia could be cruel, I knew that she’d still write up the fashion show favorably since the proceeds were benefiting the Children’s Hospital. She’d call the attendees fashionistas instead of fogies, and describe the clothing with supple adjectives like sleek, flirty, and hip, instead of boring, ugly, and uninspired. As I mused, her gaze unexpectedly met mine, and then the strangest thing happened. Delia cringed, either in a state of embarrassment or horror, or maybe it was a combination of both, and looked away immediately.
‘That’s strange,’ I said to Lauren, my longtime friend who had accompanied me to the show, ‘did you see the way that woman just looked at me?’
‘It’s not that surprising considering she just lit up your boss online,’ Lauren laughed.
‘She what?’ I asked.
‘Don’t tell me you didn’t see it!’ A look, similar to Delia’s, spread across Lauren’s face now. She punched a few keys on her BlackBerry and flipped through a few entries–obviously having read Delia’s Dirt more than once on the go–and handed it over to me. Squinting slightly, I read:
Which well-known restaurateur currently going through a mid-life crisis was left waiting alone at a table in his very own nightclub while his recently separated, social-climbing date (who’s been known to do her fair share of both making out and ‘makeup’ all over town) gave a little ‘hand service’ to a hard-rocking musician in the next room over?
‘This is bad,’ I said to Lauren, ‘I mean, everyone knows that Sheryl’s been seeing Ted Painter…’
‘Who’s the hard-rocking musician?’ Lauren giggled.
‘I’m surprised that you don’t know!’ I laughed