How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (2 of 3 free samples)

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COPYRIGHT
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People by Toby Young. Copyright 2001 by Toby Young.
All Rights Reserved. Sharing not permitted.

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PROLOGUE (CONT'D)

Then disaster struck. I returned to my hotel at 4 P.M. on Monday after a long, boozy lunch with Alex to find the message light blinking in my room. Kseniak had called while I was out. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this," she began, "but it's not going to be possible to accommodate you tonight. There just isn't enough room. The Los Angeles fire marshals have said that no more than 300 people are allowed to come. I'm terribly sorry."

I rushed over to Alex's room in a state of high dudgeon, only to be greeted by a grinning, dancing fool. He, too, had been called by Kseniak while we were out, only his message had informed him that, provided he arrived no earlier than 11:30 P.M., he could come. The little bastard had been given my place on the guest list!

I was devastated. Up until this point, I'd been exaggerating how much I cared as a way of needling Alex. In common with most intelligent, educated people, he considered it incredibly uncool to get excited about the prospect of hanging out with celebrities. "Who wants to jump through a series of hoops just to rub shoulders with Michael Caine?" he drawled when it looked as though he wasn't going to make it onto the list. Among my peer group, admitting that you were dazzled by movie stars was on a par with confessing to having a soft spot for the Royal Family--it simply wasn't done. Celebrities were just the trained monkeys of the entertainment moguls who ran the media-industrial complex and sophisticated people like us weren't supposed to be impressed by them.

In reality, of course, Alex was no more capable of resisting the allure of movie stars than a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl. The attitude of all my friends towards celebrities was completely phony. They might claim to be indifferent, but they became forelock-tugging serfs the moment a famous person entered the room. They worshipped at the altar of celebrity just like everyone else; they were just too embarrassed to admit it. Consequently, I made a point of erring in the opposite direction. I hammed up my obsession with A-list stars as a way of letting my friends know I found their pretence at insouciance totally unconvincing. If Sylvester Stallone graced me with his presence, I liked to say, I'd drop to my knees and unzip his fly. But this was just a way of shocking people. At least, I hope it was. I don't think I would have been that bowled over by the Rambo star.

However, now that I'd been categorically excluded from the party, I began to get a little frantic. This was partly just a natural human reaction: I wanted what I couldn't have, particularly now that it had been snatched away from me and given to Alex. But I was also starting to buy into the general mystique that had grown up around the party. Vanity Fair's party planners had done their job well: this was the only game in town. If everyone else was clamoring to get on the list, who was I to say it wasn't a privilege worth fighting for? Now that I'd been made to jump through a series of hoops, the prospect of rubbing shoulders with Michael Caine seemed very appealing. There was no way I was going to come this close, only to be excluded at the last minute.

One way or another, I would go to the ball.

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At 11:30 P.M. on the dot, I straightened my bow tie one last time, summoned up as much self-confidence as I could muster and pushed my way past the police barrier until I was face-to-face with the clipboard Nazi. Two enormous bouncers loomed on either side of her.

"Can I help you?" she asked, looking me up and down as if I was a homeless man who'd just emerged from a crack in the pavement.

"Alex de Silva, Daily Mail," I replied, thrusting out my hand. "I'm on the list."

She ignored my outstretched paw and went through the motions of checking the guest list. She was clearly unconvinced that a balding, British hack in a rented dinner jacket had any place on Mount Olympus.

"Your name's not on my list," she said. "I'm going to have to ask you to move on. We need to keep this area clear."

I could hear a few titters from the crowd behind me. Watching pushy young men like me getting their comeuppance was all part of the evening's entertainment for them.

"There must be a mistake," I spluttered. "Beth Kseniak called me only this afternoon to tell me I could come."

"Look, if Beth told you you could come your name would be on my list and it's not here. You're going to have to move along."

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