Unwifeable(33)

Despite the celebrities everywhere, I’m more interested in Rick the busboy. Not only is he cute, I may be able to get his number and turn him into a spy.

When our table companion asks Mackenzie if I am really going to get Rick to divulge information using flirtation as a motivating factor, Mackenzie responds, dry as ever: “Journalists are emotional prostitutes. Didn’t you know that?”

Another night, I go with Page Six’s Corynne, and we recognize then Men’s Health editor in chief David Zinczenko sitting with Richard Johnson. We go over to say hello. I tell David I wrote about his book a year ago (in which I also mercilessly made fun of it).

“You wrote that fucking article,” David says, glaring.

“What?” I say. “I was nice.”

I’m such a pussy.

Corynne then takes me to Bungalow 8, where, once I am inside, I suddenly understand what people mean when they talk about secret celebrity worlds. In one corner, I see the club’s owner, Amy Sacco, holding hands with a cornrow-bedecked Axl Rose, jumping up and down near a giant indoor palm tree. In another corner is Mary-Kate Olsen, alternately chain-smoking and making out with her date.

On my way home, I call Jonathan Brandstein at 3 a.m. “I keep seeing all these celebrities,” I slur, “and it made me think of you.”

So classy.

My very last night at the Waverly, before I’m about to leave, I befriend a young man and a blonde I recognize from around 1211 Avenue of the Americas. They are both determined to keep up with me as I try to set a world record for alcohol consumed—bottle after bottle of Bordeaux and endless amarettos on ice—on a single expense account.

Before too long, the man suggests we all go to his place around the corner. The girl and I are the best of friends at this point, building buddy co-conspirators. We move to the second location, and it is not long before we are having what I would characterize as the world’s most tepid orgy (because I’m still not having sex). But when my phone calendar reminder interrupts us, I realize, Oh shit, I have to leave to go meet Rick the busboy.

I sneak out, stumbling to the Blind Pig, where I meet up with him in his metallic studded silver ’80s jacket. He is so eager to meet me. He thinks this is a real date. I am a terrible person.

“I’m actually a reporter with the New York Post,” I say.

His eyes narrow for a split second. Then he recovers.

“I knew something was up, with you there every night,” he says. I pull out my sketch of banquettes, and he helps me peg celebrities to tables and tells me the deal—reluctantly. “Graydon is the only person who has a fixed table,” he says, and then explains the rest of the seating-chart hierarchy in this Darwinian little clubhouse.

After we’re done, I resist the desire to fool around with him, and excuse myself to head out to the nearest cheap pub I can find. I order a Philly cheesesteak sandwich to try to sober up. Minutes later, I am puking it up outside on the street corner. A man and his girlfriend begin talking to me, making sure I’m okay. I guess at some point we exchange email addresses?

The next day I wake up and find, along with my scratched-on-a-napkin notes from my meeting with Rick the busboy (and the phone number of a doctor named Knut, who says I can call him “cunt”), my now-cracked BlackBerry. I check it. There’s a new email. It’s the guy who talked to me when I was puking in the street.

“I don’t know if you remember me, but we met last night/early morning. Hope to hear from you soon.”

Wow. That’s a first. I drag myself out of bed, somehow make it to the office—and who is the first person I see? No, it’s not the woman who said she works in the building with me. It’s the guy from the tepid orgy.

“So,” he says, “is that like a typical night for you guys?”

“Wait . . .” I say. “You work in the building?”

“TV Guide,” he responds. We exchange cards.

It is the single longest elevator ride of my life.



* * *




MY PIECE ON the Waverly Inn—“Secret Scene of the Inn Crowd”—is a big hit when it runs, and it’s fun beating other publications, who soon follow suit with their own Waverly insider pieces.

But the best part is impressing Lauren, the Sunday editor. We keep talking after it publishes, she puts me on a few other long-range stories (“50 Most Powerful Women in New York” and, later, even a Michelle Obama profile), but it’s the small talk that leads to a dating column.

I tell her about my never-ending ridiculous attempts to try to set my friend and editor Katherine up (of course, Katherine needs zero help—and is within a year married to an amazing guy she meets at one of music writer Mary Huhn’s parties, but she endures my efforts). My latest matchmaking attempt for Katherine involves setting up a joint date with a guy who works in media whom I’m not interested in, but I tell him about this great girl I know. Would he want to meet her? We agree that the three of us will get together at Jimmy’s Corner and see if anyone likes anybody.

Of course, after more than a month and twenty emails going back and forth trying to schedule it (at one point, Katherine even writes “witty repartee totally tapped out”), the date is a failure. Not because we’re fighting over the guy, but because both of us exchange a secret glance within the first few minutes communicating the exact same thing: This guy is the reason women give up on dating entirely. He’s not even a bad guy—at all. He’s just so boring. Once you reach your thirties, a fifty-minute date can feel like a lifetime, where the biggest thrill is silently inventing what your excuse is going to be to leave.