The Year Of Living Famously. Laura Caldwell

does anyone recognize the minor celebrity on the street, but once introduced at a party, people respond with, Oh, I know you. I read about you in People magazine. And suddenly others at the party who’ve heard the comment turn to catch a look at you, and the buzz slips through the party like smoke. Soon, people are watching how much salmon mousse you put on your cracker, whether you’re getting blotto on that red wine.

      My celebrity status has been good for the sale of my designs, certainly. All my clothes with my diamond circle logo (some of them with real diamonds now instead of CZs) are moving fast. Still, I was never one of those people who worshipped celebrities, probably because I didn’t need it. I’ve always had at least a vague sense of who I am, where I’m going, what I want to do with the next minute of my life. This trait made me something of a freak when I was younger, one of those girls who was bored by the cliques in school, the sharing of nail polish and the double-dating for dances. I was more interested in reading the novels and short stories my parents left behind or making skirts from old tablecloths.

      It’s not that I didn’t have friends throughout my life. There was Bobby. There was Margaux and the girls here in New York. And of course there was always Emmie, my godmother, who’s cared for me since I was a kid.

      Anyway, I suppose the point I’m trying to make is that, relatively speaking, I had it together. I knew myself, my life, my place in it. So if you’re looking for a story about a poor neurotic girl who finally turned her life around, this isn’t it. This is about how I met Declan McKenna, and how my world went spinning.

      chapter 2

      As it turns out, the next place I saw Declan was in the National Enquirer. I knew the paper, of course. I’d seen it in the grocery store, but I’d never bought it, never thought I’d buy it.

      The first of many phone calls that day came from Bobby. He was already at his L.A. office at 7:00 a.m., and he was going through the trades and all the papers, looking for mentions of his clients like he did every day.

      “Kyr,” he said when I answered. “Go get the Enquirer, and call me back.”

      “Why?”

      “Just do it.”

      “Forget it,” I said. “I’ve got a job this morning, and I’m already late.” I was working for a few temp agencies at the time, doing meaningless, thankless jobs in places where no one wanted to get to know you, since you’d be gone in a few days anyway. The meager, occasional cash from my designs couldn’t sustain me, not in a city like New York, nor could the modest payments from the fund my parents had set up.

      “Pick it up on your way,” Bobby said. “Trust me.”

      And because I did trust him, I bought an Enquirer at the corner newsstand before I caught the subway to a marketing office in Midtown.

      “Okay,” I said, calling Bobby from the copy room of the office, where, thankfully, you could call long distance. “What am I supposed to look at?”

      “You didn’t find it?”

      “Jesus, Bobby, I’m working,” I said, as though an entire corporation of employees waited for the decisions I would make that day.

      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