A Little Trouble with the Facts Read Online Free PDF Page B

plush duvet in his penthouse flat to tell her I was permanently engaged back east.
    Jeremiah leaned in to kiss me, right on cue. And then he backed me up against the limo. “Wow,” I said. “What a wonderful night. I can’t wait to see you again.”
    “Mmmmm,” he said, and pushed at the side of my gown.
    “I’d better get inside.”
    “Sounds great,” he said.
    I moved to the side, to press him away. Even if things happened fast in the movies, the first kiss always ended with a polite hat tipping at the door, a happy skip in his step as the leading man backed away. But Jeremiah wasn’t budging.
    “Can I make you dinner next week? I’m a very good cook, and I…”
    Now he stumbled back. He wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist. “No, no, not possible.”
    “Not possible?”
    “I’m not going to meet your mom, okay?”
    “Of course not, silly; she’s in Oregon,” I said. “I mean, if she visited—”
    He leaned against his limo and shook his head slowly. “You seem like a very nice girl, and we’ve had a good time tonight. But, uh, this”—his arm swept the air, to indicate, well, everything—“this doesn’t mean we’re dating, okay?”
    “But what about…?” I was about to say it, to articulate my celluloid dream, as if he’d been in on it with me all along.
    Jeremiah touched my face, placing two fingers under my chin. “Don’t you read the papers, princess? I’m engaged to an Astor.”
    “You’re engaged to an…” It took a minute to sink in. “I didn’t know…. I thought…”
    “Yeah. I know you thought. Funny. Girls and their ideas. Oh well.” He hopped back into the limo and gave me a halfhearted wave. Then the car door shut with a decisive thud. I stood there for a long time, until I saw the sun coming up over Avenue C, like an egg over hard.
     
    I have to hand it to Jeremiah. He taught me one essential lesson: never skip the tabloids.
    After that, the city became my teacher, and she was a strict schoolmarm. She didn’t like innocents and was suspicious of charmers. The city wasn’t teeming with Larrabees, only colorful cads who’d twirl a girl at midnight and disappear by dawn. She was quick with a ruler when she saw me falling into George Cukor daydreams, and she taught me that success didn’t fall out of the sky like pollen in springtime; it was won by hardscrabble sweat.
    My schoolmarm’s daily pop quiz asked one question, and one question only: Who’s on top?
    Who’s on top? I didn’t have the answer. I didn’t even know where to begin. To find it, I tried loitering near the jockeys atthe “21” Club and lingering near the Picasso stage curtain at the Four Seasons Grill Room. I idled in the velvet chairs at the Algonquin, sipping Earl Gray, watching for signs of a new Dorothy Parker salon. But my hours in these haunts were long and futile, as they were only living shrines to ghosts of cachet.
    At the New York Public Library, behind the great lions, I began my research. I found clippings about the city’s oldest families and the rise of the nouveau riche. I jotted notes from Forbes and Fortune, Us and W, Interview and Details . Between admin duties at Gotham’s Gate, I searched the Internet for Mormon-style genealogies of Manhattan family trees. I tacked a map to my wall and marked off notable natives and recent arrivistes. I connected dots, and I followed my own routes, until I could’ve led a Hollywood-style Starline tour.
    And then I did the tour. I pressed my nose to the glass at Pravda and Pastis, observing how the clientele swirled their $100 reds. Skulking around Gramercy Park, I took notes on where and how to walk a well-groomed pet. With my snoop’s pad and pen, I lurked behind mailboxes and streetlamps, scuttled under canopies, and raised the suspicions of a thousand doormen, just to figure out who could be who.
    Whenever I had a free minute from my admin duties at the magazine, I badgered Bernie Wabash for legwork on his column. Despite my