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myself as I continue to type, this material is too good not to use. I light a
cigarette and think about the possibility of running into Chad at the
gym and being confronted by him again. And then I think, I ll switch
to Equinox. It s supposed to be a much nicer gym anyway.
When I walk in the door after a pre-Emmys party, the phone is ringing
but I decide to hang a metaphorical Do Not Disturb sign and not
answer. I feel the need to chain-smoke while unpacking the three
shopping bags I ve filled with thongs, conditioner, skirts I won t ever
wear, and cleansers that promise to deliver face lift like results.
The fact that I ve just been to a freebie Emmys event and have
nothing to do with the Emmys in fact, I couldn t even begin to guess
who s been nominated hardly seems relevant. I was invited by a pub-
licist who sounded so thrilled I d accepted her invitation that it was
immediately obvious she thought getting me there would somehow
generate coverage in Chat. Oh, well, I d decided. I d heard about these
award show events where all the nominees and presenters are invited
to some mansion to get all this free shit in exchange for allowing pho-
tographers to catch them clutching the newly acquired products, and
figured there wouldn t be any harm in attending.
Inhaling deeply on my cigarette, it occurs to me that I may have
been wrong. From the minute I d been allowed into this English Tudor
mansion that was rumored to rent for $20,000 a day and walked from
booth to booth, I d felt this childish greed well up in me. My eyes
darted around in a feverish panic I wanted to be at the Keds shoe
booth and the MAC makeup table and the Toys R Us mini castle all
at the same time, even though I don t like Keds, rarely wear makeup,
and certainly don t need any toys. Every person stopping me from get-
ting everything all at once which is to say, every person there
206 A N N A D A V I D
seemed an irritant. Yet no one booth seemed to whet my appetite. The
best stuff is over to the right, I d think. Or, ohhh, Nailtiques nail polish
now that s what I should be getting. I felt like a contestant on a game
show I used to watch when I was little, where the winners could take
home everything they could pile into a shopping cart in the allotted
time. It used to bring up simultaneous feelings of panic and excite-
ment that I could barely stand. But actually being one of the partici-
pants inspired a far more powerful emotion: greed.
And I didn t much like the sycophantic aspect of my personality
the event seemed to bring out. I absolutely adore sarongs, I d found my-
self saying to this woman giving out inexplicably tacky tie-dyed
sarongs. Or I ve been looking for sunglasses just like this I said to the guy
giving out Ray-Bans I d never wear. Most everyone was almost
painfully nice way too nice, considering the fact that I was taking
things they typically sell and not giving them anything in return
and it seemed impossible to believe in that environment that some-
thing like poverty or a famine in Africa or even George Bush existed.
Conversations seemed to revolve around plastic surgery and Emmy
after-parties and the new line of Juicy now at Lisa Kline. And where
were the Emmy nominees, anyway? The crowd seemed to be com-
prised of tabloid reporters, publicists picking things out for their
clients, and other seemingly soulless moochers. And I couldn t deny
the fact that I was one of them.
Now that I m home and have all the contents out of their bags and
divided into small piles, I have this strong desire to give everything
away. Not to the homeless or anything crazy, just to friends. I don t de-
serve all this stuff, I say to myself as I mash a cigarette out, but I don t
know why.
Then I start resenting the event for making me depressed. I d been
feeling so good since getting sober like I d exited my life and wan-
dered into someone else s that I guess I d begun to assume that
malaise was simply a feeling from my old life that I no longer had to be
bothered with. But in my heart, I know it s not the event that has me
P A R T Y G I R L 207
down; it s the fact that it s been over a month since Adam and I talked
in New York and he still hasn t called.
My phone rings and, as soon as I check caller ID and determine
that it s not Adam, I return to the couch and my pack of cigarettes. I
shouldn t be isolating, I think as I eventually pick up my phone to listen
to the messages. They d warned us about isolating in rehab, telling us
that if we felt like being alone, we should do contrary action and get
out. But I really just don t feel like it.
There s a message from Tim saying that he loves the new column,
a couple of hang-ups, Stephanie asking if I want to go to a screening
with her, and Rachel wanting to know why I hadn t checked in with
her for a few days. How the hell can he claim to be thinking about me ob-
sessively and then not call? I wonder.
I turn on my computer to start going through e-mails I still have to
respond to and somehow land on the one Charlotte (aka Tube Top)
sent with all her writing attached. I open up the first document, think-
ing that reading her attempts to sound like a writer should make me
feel better about myself.
And then something altogether shocking happens: I m thoroughly
transfixed. Her first attachment is an essay she wrote about meeting a
nude photographer, asking him to take pictures of her and then almost
backing out of the portraits until he gives her painkillers that subdue
her enough to help her lose her self-consciousness. The piece so per-
fectly captures the conflict I ve felt about being proud of my body
while simultaneously ashamed of that pride. It s funny and honest and
so unlike anything I d ever imagine an eighteen-year-old let alone
an eighteen-year-old that looks like her writing that I m in com-
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