Meg Cabot - Boy Meets Girl

Won’t be around if you call later, I’ve got to go to some benefit at the museum for Dad. Can’t say I mind, really. Rubbing shoulders with people who have more money than they know what to do with beats hanging out with people who can’t stop talking about how adorable it was when little Taylor spat her ubby across the church at Richard Junior’s christening.

No offense.

Mitch

aka The Fucker

Welcome to the opening of the Gregory Shearson

French Nineteenth-Century Drawing Collection

at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Why did I come to this? Oh my God, I’m so bored, I think I’m going to die. I mean it’s not like I

Entertainment provided by

the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

would rather be back at Dolly’s watching the Travel Channel, because I wouldn’t. At least, I don’t

Gregory Shearson’s collection touches on many of the trends in French drawing of the time: the heroic Neoclassicism of David; the refined classicism of Ingres; Delacroix’s expressive Romanticism; the richly textured landscapes of the Barbizon School; Seurat’s luminous sheets of shaded crayon; and the jewel-like watercolors of Paul Signac and Henri-Edmond Cross.

think I would. I don’t know. If I were still with Dale, I’d be sitting in some smoky bar in the East Village right now, waiting for him to go on. Correction, I’d be running around the apartment, helping him find his bowling shoes, since the band wouldn’t be going on until after midnight, and no way would Dale be ready to go by now. And I’m not saying I wouldn’t rather be here, because this is way better than your typical East Village bar, I mean, no one smoking or asking if they can smell my hair. But I don’t feel like I fit in, even with Dolly’s borrowed duds.

The selection captures another facet of the taste of a great American collector famous for the range and depth of his interest in the history of European art.

I mean, first of all there’s the fact that my hair is way bigger than anybody else’s here—but Dolly said it looks good curly. I so should have blown it out. And second of all, well, I think I am the only person here with less than ten grand in my 401K. I might be the only person here who even HAS a 401K—besides Dolly, I mean. I seem to be the only one here without a DATE. I mean, Dolly didn’t exactly mention she was meeting up with Skiboy here. But there he was, waiting for her, right by the red carpet. And can I just say, his shoulders look even BROADER at nighttime.

This exhibition was made possible by

a grant from the Gregory Shearson Foundation.

Okay, one more champagne, and I am out of here. Where is that waiter? Where—OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD, WHAT IS HE DOING HERE?

AND WHO IS THAT WITH HIM? Oh my God, Mitchell Hertzog is here with a date. A DATE! Oh, and look at her. Just look at her. SHE had a blow-out. SHE didn’t take the advice of the style editor for the New York Journal. She looks great. Well, if by “great” you mean seven feet tall and a hundred pounds. She actually looks like a praying mantis, if you ask me.

Oh God, why did I eat all those leftover cold sesame noodles for dinner?

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center program

Maybe I can slip out before he sees me with my hair like this. If I get behind that pillar

Quintet for Clarinet and Strings in A Major, K. 581. . . . . . . . . . . Mozart

and slither over to the coat-check thingie, I can probably make it. Oh please God let me make it

Sextet for Clarinet, String Quartet and Piano . . . . . . . . . . . Copland

NOOOOOOO! He’s seen me! What do I—

Quintet for Two violins, Viola, Cello, and Piano in F Minor , Op. 34. . . . . . . . . . . Brahms

Journal of Kate Mackenzie

Why is it that every time I see Mitchell Hertzog I manage to make a total and complete ass of myself? If I’m not dribbling along about chicken in garlic sauce, I’m dealing with my lunatic ex-boyfriend or acting like I know something about art and classical music, when clearly, CLEARLY, I do not.

And he looked SO nice, too. I mean, really, really, really nice, in his tuxedo. He looked SKIBOY nice. Seriously, even Skiboy’s shoulders paled in comparison to Mitchell Hertzog’s.

He acted nice, too. He was all, “What are YOU doing here? I would’ve thought a girl like you would have something better to do than hang at a thing like this.”

Like I was too glam for the place, or something. Ha, I wish. I told him I’d just come to keep Dolly company, on account of her having an extra ticket.

He looked around for Dolly, but of course she had gone off with Skiboy. The two of them were behind the cellist with their hands down each other’s pants.

And then, me, idiot girl I am, I can’t leave it at that. Oh, no. I keep foaming away at the mouth:

Me: Oh, yes, well, Dolly and I, we go way back. In fact, right now we’re roomies, can you believe it?

Him: Roomies? Really? How did that happen?

Me: Well, you know, I’m between apartments right now, and Dolly, she has that big penthouse, way up on East Eightieth and East End Avenue and I don’t know, she asked and I jumped. . . .

LAME LAME LAME LAME I’m sure the Praying Mantis is a better conversationalist. At least until she bites his head off after they’re done mating (it’s praying mantises that do this, right?)

Then he went, “Well, it’s probably good you’re in the penthouse. That way your musical friend might find it a little harder to serenade you. Since you don’t seem to find his serenades all that appealing.”

Dale! God! I’d managed to forget all about Dale. I’d managed to forget for a minute there that the last time I saw this man, I was begging the NYPD not to use their nightsticks on my psychotic ex.

“Oh,” I said, trying to sound all—what’s the word? Je ne sais quoi, I guess. I’m sure the Praying Mantis would know. “That. Yes. Thanks so much for your help with that, by the way. Um, Dale and I, we, well, we broke up, and he’s not, um, taking it well.”

And he went, “So I gathered. Listen, if you need anything, any kind of legal help with that, a restraining order, or something—“

Oh my God! He wants to help me get a restraining order! Against Dale! I mean, I probably should. Only I don’t want Dale to go to jail. I just want him to go away.

But still. Like if I ever needed a restraining order, I’d go to HIM! I mean, Hertzog Webber and Doyle charge like five hundred bucks an hour, or something. Maybe even more. I could use up my entire savings account for what this guy charges in three hours.

But I swear to God, there I was, standing there thinking, “If I don’t take him up on his offer, he’ll think maybe I’m not serious about breaking up with Dale, and then he’ll never ask me out.”

Mitchell Hertzog, I mean.

Yeah. That’s what I was thinking. About Mitch Hertzog. While I was standing there talking to him at an opening to which he had CLEARLY BROUGHT A LONG, BLONDE, SLINKY DATE! Who was staring right at me from over by the Ingres (which she did not exactly not resemble, if you get my drift. I wonder if Ingres used praying mantises as models for his subjects)!

God, I am pathetic. Give me a guy in a tux—even a guy who is clearly taken—and all I can seem to think about is sharing the Sunday Times and strolls through Central Park.

So then, just to make things REALLY awkward and lame, I laughed all breezily and went, “Well, you know, ha ha, I’m on a human-resources-department salary, I really doubt I could afford you.”