The Year Of Living Famously

He sighed. Bobby was a great sigher, a habit that had grown more pronounced since he’d become an agent. “Page twenty-four.”

I put the paper on the copy machine and flipped toward the end, ignoring stories about Cher’s latest surgical misadventure and a two-headed baby born to an ex-Bay-watch star.

“Oh my God,” I said when I found it.

“You’re famous,” Bobby said.

There, in grainy black and white, was a photo of me and the caramel-voiced Irishman. Our heads were close together, the blackjack table in the background. My fifties-style dress gave the photo a timeless quality. The Irishman and I were making what looked like secret smiles. In fact, from the angle the picture was taken, it appeared as if we were about to kiss.

Above the photo, the caption read, Is Lauren Losing Her Touch? and to the right was a tiny inset photo of Lauren Stapleton wearing an extremely annoyed expression. I could tell by the mandarin collar of her shirt that the photo hadn’t even been taken on that night in Vegas.

“Bobby, what is this?” I said.

He chuckled. “Isn’t it great? They call you ‘the mystery woman.’”

I scanned the article and caught the name of the rapper Lauren used to date, a handy list of her other ex-boyfriends and some speculation about how she’d lost her latest beau, the Irish actor, whose name was Declan McKenna.

When I got home that day, there were seven messages from people who’d seen the picture or heard about it. Who knew so many people read this stuff?

I called Margaux back immediately. “Isn’t it a riot?” I said to her.

“Your fifteen minutes of fame,” she said.

I never wanted to be famous. I had hoped to be a successful fashion designer someday, but I never desired celebrity.

Before all this started with Declan, I used to think about Michael Jordan, about how he couldn’t go anywhere in the world, not even the far reaches of Africa, without his iconic face being recognized, without someone, many people usually, scrambling for his autograph or snapshot. Michael Jordan, I thought, can’t do the things that make me happy—having a quiet glass of wine (or three or four) at a café, taking a stroll through my neighborhood in a pair of old jeans and no makeup. Of course, now I have some trouble with those things, too—people occasionally do double takes as I walk by, others sometimes come up and interrupt my glass of wine to ask for an autograph. But let’s face it, I could still go to Africa without a problem.

For weeks, I’ve done nothing but write this book, this story about Declan and me, but today, I put it away and went to lunch with Margaux and some girlfriends from my early days in Manhattan. We went to Gramercy Tavern, one of those places that feels so New York—old hardwood floors, worn Oriental carpets, a mahogany bar stacked high with spirits. It was precisely these places I missed desperately when I lived in L.A.

We were all dressed in slim pants and high shoes, perfect makeup adorning everyone’s faces. I noticed two of my friends were wearing structured blouses I had designed, the ones with the circle pin on the collar. It’s always exhilarating yet strange to see someone wearing my designs and even stranger to see that circle pin, exactly like the one my mother always wore. I wanted other people to wear these clothes with the circle pins, and yet still it was odd. I thanked them, but I wondered why they’d never worn any of my clothes before. I suppose it’s easier now that you can get them at Barney’s.

I had seen some of these girls individually since I moved back from L.A., but we hadn’t all been together like this. I was jumpy and jittery, for a reason I couldn’t ascertain, except maybe that I had been jumpy and jittery for so long now. I thought I would shake that anxiety when I came back to New York, but it lingers, the wonder of whether someone is waiting around the corner.

In the days of yore, we used to talk about the men we slept with, the parties we’d gone to, the handbags and shoes we’d bought. For the last few years, though, the primary topics of conversation have been babies, babies, babies, redecorating the apartment, babies, the house in East Hampton, and more babies.

Of the six of us, only Margaux and I aren’t on the mommy track. And as happy as Margaux and I are for the mommies, and they for us, there’s often a weird envy/disdain thing going on. It works both ways, as far as I can tell. I suspect the mommies pity us ignorant girls who don’t know the heart-soaring joy of seeing your baby fall asleep on your belly. But they envy us, too, for our unadulterated sleep, our still-intact sex lives and our ability to fly to Paris at the last minute just because we feel like it. Margaux and I, on the other hand, feel sorry for these women with their red-rimmed eyes and their talk of breast pumps, but we worry that we’re missing out on something big.

I had been opting out of these lunches since I got back to New York, because I wasn’t sure what to expect, and to be truthful, I have a low threshold for intense discourse about the jog-stroller market. Today, though, Margaux had talked me into it. Margaux is an intellectual-property attorney, and she called from work, even though it was a Saturday.

“You’ve got to come to lunch,” she said. “I need some support. I’m outnumbered by the mommies.”

I had nothing else planned, and once I got to the restaurant, despite my jitters, I was glad I’d joined them. It seemed my friends had come out of their maternal fog and were becoming interested in other things again. Lydia, a real estate agent turned full-time mom, told a story about a bat mitzvah where the guest of honor, a thirteen-year-old girl, wore five-inch Jimmy Choo stilettos.

“Honestly, she was gorgeous,” Lydia said, playing with the cigarette she was no longer allowed to smoke there. “But it was sick. I heard her talking about condoms.”

We shook our heads in wonder. Across the table, Margaux smiled at me big and deliberately, as if to say, See, this isn’t so bad. She took out a clip and pulled back her unruly blond-brown hair that she’s always struggling with.

After that, Darcy, a statuesque redhead, who’s an ex-model and rarely lets you forget it, talked about sitting courtside at a recent Knicks game after smoking pot in the bathroom. “I got so paranoid.” she said. “It was the first time I’d smoked since I had the baby, and every time some player came near me I thought they were going to attack me. I finally made Jake take me home at halftime.”

We laughed and called for more wine; it felt good to be with everyone again.

But eventually I noticed that the questions directed at me had begun to increase in number, and soon I felt as if I was being grilled by a pack of reporters. I knew my friends were simply interested in me—the new me who had seemingly emerged over the last year—but the attention made me uncomfortable. It’s one of the reasons why I left L.A. And yet this is my life now—for better or for worse—because of Declan. Everything lately has happened because of Declan.

But where am I in all this? This is the question I’m mining by writing this book. It’s not meant to capitalize monetarily on our relationship, although I’m sure many will accuse me of that, because it certainly will sell. Already, I’ve received calls from six literary agents who’ve heard from Emmie that I’m writing a book. They know that even with an unpublished writer like me, this book should skip off the shelves.

What I’m trying to figure out, I suppose, is if the me that I used to be—the one these women used to know—is still there, somewhere inside my shell, not a leaf in the wind, but a still-green bud on a tree somewhere in Manhattan.

chapter 3

If there was a Nobel Prize for dating, the inventor of e-mail would surely win. An e-mail is worlds better than that first phone call, one filled with odd starts and stops and shots of silence. E-mail allows you to be the witty person you wish you were. You can spend five hours on the perfect little quip, and yet once you type it and send it zinging across the country, it appears to the reader that it just flew from your fingers with complete ease.

To: Kyra Felis

From: Declan McKenna

Kyra, I hope you don’t mind that I got your e-mail address from Bobby Minter. What I’m supposed to say now is that I’m hugely sorry for the photo in the Enquirer, which made it look like you and I were about to snog, but truthfully it gives me the excuse I’ve been waiting for. We were never properly introduced. I’m Declan, and I’m the eejit who was telling the terrible jokes at the blackjack table. I had a jar or five too many, but I should let you know I’m like that a lot anyway. I hope the photo didn’t cause any problems for you. By the way, did you not want to hear the end of the joke I started telling you?

To: Declan McKenna

From: Kyra Felis

Hey, Declan, great to hear from you, but please, please, please don’t ever tell me the end of that joke. The beginning was painful enough. Speaking of pain, I assume the photo caused you many more problems than it did me. How are things with Lauren?

To: Kyra Felis

From: Declan McKenna

Ah, a crafty girl you are, getting in that question about Lauren. No, no, as I’m sure Bobby has told you, Lauren and I were business partners more than anything else, and now, as CEO and president of that business, she has summarily fired me. Can you provide comfort?

To: Declan McKenna

From: Kyra Felis

If by “comfort” you mean the pharmaceutical kind, alas, I am, unfortunately, not your girl, but let me know what else you had in mind. (Also, if you do find a pharmaceutical-comfort connection, let me know that, too.)

To: Kyra Felis

From: Declan McKenna

My mind reels at the potential comfort you might provide. You have created a monster.

To: Declan McKenna

From: Kyra Felis

I assume now that you mean comfort in only the most banal sense—the handing of slippers to place on the feet, the stoking of the fire.

To: Kyra Felis