Bruce Wagner - I Met Someone

Anton, a beautiful, sixtyish black with a suavely indiscernible accent, spoke up. “First off, we want to thank you for coming to see us during this very busy time — I am sure it is always a very busy time. But we are most grateful and delighted, absolutely. We welcome you!”

The group, smiling in approbation, deferred to the powerful chair, giddily holding themselves in check.

“No, no,” said the honoree. “Thank you . I know it’s taken too long for us to meet and I’m so thankful for your patience. Elise and I have been talking about this forever . And I just wanted everyone to know the delays weren’t a diva thing. My schedule has been out of control .”

“Not at all, not at all,” said the chair — though more, a king enamored of a neighboring country’s queen.

“We are totally honored ,” said an insanely stylish Frenchwoman with Gertrude Stein hair. “I was telling Dominic, we will wait forever!” With the last, she tapped her fist to the table, militant and nobly resolute, as if sealing a Rosicrucian blood oath.

“Well, maybe not forever,” twinkled the chair.

“But close ,” said Dominic, a few seats away. “Not forever but ‘for -almost .’ I said we would wait ‘for -almost .’”

The room laughed as its expansions and contractions began in earnest.

“I feel so horrible asking you to come here on a Sunday!” said Dusty.

“That you would come to visit on your day of rest from filmwork is really so much appreciated.”

“‘Day of rest’ sounds so biblical,” said the actress.

“But it’s true, mais non ?” said the Gertrude. “When you compose a film, you are making the world from Creation.”

“I can only imagine how exhausting it can be,” said the chair.

“The exhausting part doesn’t happen until the red carpet! And the junkets. But I do feel a little guilty — you should all be at home . It’s so kind of you to accommodate my sometimes ridiculous life.”

The banter went on in that vein, the mutual praise and phony apologies, with shyer, lesser lights down-table testing the waters by volunteering a clumsily worshipful remark about the star’s body of work and their general gratitude at being born in her time— apart from the incomparable joy of meeting her today in the flesh , breathing the same air, potentially sharing the same sewage plumbing, etcetera. Allegra wondered how high the bullshit would fly.

A stately woman in head-to-toe Missoni said, “I cannot remember when our team has been this excited about a fragrance.”

“I’m excited too!” said Dusty.

“I like to tell Anton,” said a raffish man, clearly a “creative,” “that the Dusty Team is a bit like the Venus flytrap.”

“Oooh!” said Dusty. “ Love me a Venus flytrap!”

“I promise we won’t close on you all the way,” he added.

“It will be a velvet glove!” said Dominic.

The same smile had been slapped on Allegra since she’d arrived, and her face was starting to ache. She felt like a block of ice with teeth stuck in it; a rube and a loser.

The Missoni said, “You’ve been the Holy Grail around here.”

“Aw!” said Dusty. “That’s so sweet .”

“Welcome to the Bartok family,” said Anton.

They spontaneously applauded and Allegra thought, Oh my God, it will not stop! They were so far up Dusty’s ass you’d need a search party to find them. She wanted to rogue out. I’m gonna spray this fucking room like the self-radicalized homegrown lone wolf I am!

Dominic gushed about the most recent film she’d won an Oscar for — five years ago, already — and was echoed by a chorus of heartfelt, anachronistic congratulations.

“Aw, thank you!” said Dusty, as if she’d come straight from the ceremony. “You know, I always think of wanting to do a Woody and not show up. Can’t seem to pull that off!”

“That was your third, no?” said the Missoni. “Bit of a rare club.”

“Fourth time’s the charm,” said Dusty blithely. “Am I greedy?”

“We’ll be there when you accept the fourth,” said the chair.

“And the fifth,” said the “creative.” “And the sixth!”

“Let’s talk about the fragrance ,” said the chair, down to unctuous brass tacks. “We are expecting to do very well.”

“ You are going to do very well,” said Dominic to the star.

“Oh no! I can’t deal with the pressure!” said Dusty melodramatically. “But I want to do well. Like, White Diamonds well!”

“It is our high hope,” said Anton, “that it may be arranged.”

“Dusty, we are looking at this on a White Diamonds scale,” said Gertrude. “We believe we definitely have the same potential.”

“She was my hero,” said the actress, with a crestfallen little girl look.

“We used to go drinking in West Hollywood,” said the “creative.”

“Oh my God,” she shot back. “Me too! At the Abbey? Why didn’t we ever see you there?”

“You may have,” he said coyly. “I might even have bought you and Dame Elizabeth drinks.” He winked. “I am nothing if not discreet.”

“You are so not!” said Gertrude, and everyone laughed.

Dusty turned to her wife and said, “It’s important to me that Allegra is very much involved .” The crew nodded, almost gravely. “Her taste and her instincts are amazing .”

“Of course!” said Anton to Allegra. “You are in our family now!”

“Like mafia, one can never leave,” said the “creative.”

The Missoni ogled her and said, “Allegra, you have incredible style.”

The “creative” took in her biker jacket. “Rick Owens?”

“Yes,” said Allegra, more stiffly than she’d have liked.

“I love Rick,” said the “creative.” “Rick and Michèle.”

“Michèle?” said the Missoni.

“Lamy,” said Gertrude. “His muse.”

“I just saw them in Paris,” said the “creative.” “There’s a huge statue of Rick in front of Selfridges… and the furniture he designs — my God .”

They included Allegra in their space now, as if to cue her, and she hungrily took the bait, offering, “Aren’t his furnishings amazing?”

“ So genius,” said the “creative.”

“We have some in the Zurich office,” said Dominic.

“I didn’t know Rick was fabricating furniture,” said the Missoni.

The “creative” swiveled toward her to enlighten. “Some of the pieces are… promethean . They’re incredible! Museum pieces — literally. They always remind me of Rodin .”

“We have a few,” said Allegra, très engagé , her cherry taken at last. “At Point Dume.”

“A bed in one of the guest rooms,” said Dusty. “It’s petrified wood, isn’t it, Allegra? Like, thousands of years old. You don’t actually go there to nap —you go there to die .”

Everyone thought the remark was beyond funny.

“And crazy expensive,” said the “creative.” “I mean, crazy -crazy.”

Some talk ensued about the scent itself… kudos to boutiques such as Le Labo and Byredo… the Osmothèque in Versailles. Legendary “noses” that might assist in creating DNA (none of whom Allegra recognized) were bandied about with cryptic, gossipy bluster, and even a little aside about Chanel No. 19 between Dusty, the Missoni, and Gertrude went over her head. The celebrity wife was at sea.