Party Girl: A Novel by Anna David Page A

still-tuning Greg who doesn’t bother to say good-bye and to my car that’s parked at the curb outside his front door. Giving me a kiss on each cheek, he smiles.
    “Good night, darling,” he says. “Drive safe.”
    I smile back. “So I’ll call tomorrow to get those numbers from you?” I say, more as a question than a statement.
    He takes a step back and it’s so dark that I can barely see him anymore. “Yes, darling,” he says. “Good night now.”
     
    Linda Lewis’s publicist calls me on my cell the next morning and asks if I can do the interview that day at noon. Since she lives near me and the office is across town, I call Brian to let him know that I’m going to prep for my interview at home and come into the office later.
    “That’s fine,” he says, sounding completely distracted.
    “I did my follow-up with Kane,” I say, wondering why I’m bringing up something I don’t even want to talk about.
    “Good, good,” he says, and I can tell there’s someone in his office that he wants to talk to more than he wants to chat with me.
    I don’t want to let him go without some guarantee that he’s back on my side again. “By the way, I ran into Tim Bromley yesterday,” I say.
    This fails to captivate Brian. “Did you? Tell him hello,” he says. Bastard’s not even listening to me.
    I decide to give him a test to see if he’s paying even the slightest bit of attention. “So, I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” I say, even though I’d said I was coming in this afternoon.
    “See you tomorrow,” he says and hangs up the phone.
    Staring at the phone, I think about how much I’d like to call Stephanie and tell her about the Kane experience, and about Linda Lewis and inadvertently getting the day off work, and then I feel myself starting to get sad.
    Whatever , I think, as I put on Linda Lewis’s CD and blast “Sinner” as loud as I can. Maybe Linda Lewis can be my new best friend.
     
    It was tragic,” Linda says, her features scrunched together as a tear falls out of one of her eyes and hits her lap. “I was devastated.”
    And so there it is—my first interview subject to cry in my presence. I had just innocently asked her about the cat she references on the fourth song on her CD; it turns out Daisy was run over by a car, and next thing I know she’s crying. It’s not like I’m angling to be the next Barbara Walters, or that making people cry has been some kind of a career goal, but you have to admit that you’re probably doing something right if a subject’s tear ducts are activated when you simply ask a question. I kind of want to hug her, but after last night’s brush with Kane’s lips, I feel distinctly aware of that reporter-subject line and how much I don’t want to cross it.
    I gently lead Linda back to happier subjects, like the moment she got signed by her record label, when she first heard “Sinner” on the radio, and how it feels to be getting the acclaim she so clearly deserves. She cheers up and regales me with anecdotes and thoughts that I completely relate to—like her take on authority (that she doesn’t have the instinct that other people do to respect the people in charge, and it’s always getting her in trouble), feelings about her sexuality (just because she embraces it doesn’t mean she’s not a feminist) and San Francisco (“overrated”). I feel like most of what she says could have come directly from my mouth. Jesus, I’m developing a platonic crush on this woman , I think as she tells me that she so likes the taste of salty and sweet together that when she’s feeling particularly indulgent, she’ll throw Milk Duds into her buttered popcorn at the movies—something I’ve been doing since about the age of ten.
    “Me, too!” I shriek for about the thirty-ninth time during the interview.
    “Amazing,” Linda smiles. “We’re very connected.”
    She actually cares about what I have to say , I think, unlike other people I’ve interviewed who