“P.Q.?”
“Personality Quotient. You know, like I.Q. All stars have P.Q.’s or else they wouldn’t be stars. P.Q.’s are different from R.Q.’s...”
She went on to tell me about Recognition Quotients (mine was high, according to her) and how, despite Brokaw’s likability, the Nielsen ratings hadn’t been tiptop on the Today show.
I sat there going into a reality warp. Here I was, sitting in a restaurant filled with people who made handsome livings in all forms of communications and finance and who spoke their own trade lingos, and this average housewife sounded just like them. Maybe it came through the air and you absorbed it via osmosis. But the main difference between Gina and the media types and moguls surrounding us was that she believed it all without question. The kid was like a comatose patient hooked up to a vital life support system that pumped fantasy and vicarious involvement into her.
The plan called for me to squire her around town and get our names in the columns — a real press agent push. With her addiction, she seemed like a sitting duck, but I had to test her F.Q. (that’s Fidelity Quotient, folks). I dangled a fix before my heavy user.
“Frank Sinatra,” I said, so low it was barely audible. But celebrity freaks have built-in sonar.
“Where?” Her head swiveled a hundred and eighty degrees east and west, and then she turned sideways to sweep north and south. “Where?”
“Where what?”
“Frank Sinatra. You said Frank Sinatra!”
“Oh, I must have mumbled out loud, Gina. Forgive me. I was reminding myself to give him a call about next Tuesday night.”
“You are seeing Frank Sinatra on Tuesday? Really, Chick?”
“On the contrary, Gina. I won’t be seeing Frank on Tuesday. My date wouldn’t want to go to the United Charities Ball with a guy with a gimpy leg.”
It’s working like an ounce of gold in a bear market. She’s drooling. And she was about to have her credibility sullied with the Providence legal eagle.
“You mean to tell me,” Gina is appalled, “that the girls in your set” (set yet!) “would turn down a fellow for a date because he had a limp? A temporary limp, at that?”
“Well, you know how it is, Gina. A lot of these Hollywood types dote on physical perfection...”
“Farrah Fawcett!”
“Where?”
“No, not here, Chick. I mean, that’s your date, right? Don’t bother to deny it. I never liked her. Big deal, she was married to the Six Million Dollar Man for a while...”
It was obvious that Farrah was at the top of Gina’s hate parade at the moment, and Suzanne Somers, Cher, and, for some reason, Penny Marshall were tied for a close second. Listening to Gina was like a trip through the junk tabloids. Finally, she got down to it.
“You know, Chick, I have half a mind to say I’ll go to that ball with you myself, but...”
“I know... I know...” I lowered my eyes woefully (eat your heart out, O’Toole!) “...I noticed the wedding band three hours ago.”
“Oh, Chick,” she bubbled, “you really are shy. Actually, at the moment, I’m estranged. You know, like Burt Bachrach and Angie Dickinson... he lives in L.A. and she’s in Beverly Hills. Just giving each other some space. Same with Samson and me. The reason I’m hesitant about dating you is that I’m bound to bump into Laszlo Milne in your set.”
I had been able to keep up pretty well with her stellar stream of showbiz consciousness. Will Doris Day and Barry Comden have a reswoonion some day... will Sally get Burt... will Sly really stay with Sasha this time... all this I could follow. But a Laszlo Milne? In my set?
“Laszlo Milne, the director of Tomorrow’s Children. If we meet, he’ll probably make a scene.”
I knew that Tomorrow’s Children was a soap opera, and she filled in the rest. She had spotted a continuity booboo on the show — actress walks into elevator wearing scarf, gets off without one — sent it in to one of the tabloid TV blooper columns, and got twenty dollars and a write-up.
“Gina, that’s the continuity girl’s flub. It happens once in a while, and a director could care less. How long have you and your husband been estranged?”
Well, she sure had been chock full of information about Angie and Burt and Doris and Barry and Sly and Sasha, but on Gina and Samson, she was a big “no comment” except to imply that a reswoonion was not imminent. But it gave me a clear shot, and I had started setting up our rendez-woo when I damned near choked on a cherrystone clam.
The geography of the first floor saloon room at 21 puts Benchley’s corner directly in view of the entry from the outer lobby, and what do I see? I see Byerle Dorian Pemberton standing at the reception desk. Panic time for me. Her husband always sits at Number 5, which is directly across from us, or at least he did when I was bopping around town with him. If somewhere out there in the lobby is Jay Porter taking wifey to lunch, and if Byerle gives me a wave and Gina is hip to my knowing the millionaire, it is goodbye mortgage money. It was time to move.
“Where are you going, Chick? Oh, sandbox. Take it easy on the ankle.”
I “painfully” made my way across the saloon and into the foyer.
“Oh, hello. Chick Kelly, isn’t it? Have you had an accident?”
“Sprained ankle,” I said, looking around unsuccessfully for Jay Porter. I turned back to Byerle, which is not too hard to do. The Caribbean sunkiss still clung to her tinted skin, which heightened the blonde in her hair and the famous Dorian good looks. But although old
Skip may have put his physical imprint into this long, lean beauty, his devil-may-care style didn’t take. Byerle Porter was a bit of a stick, and prone to looking down her nose at things; but then, come to think of it, that fitted her husband’s world.
“Jay Porter with you?”
“No, heavens no,” she said, her eyebrows arching. “Not during the Levcott merger.”
“The only reason I’m asking is that the saloon is very noisy today and...”
“...and Jay Porter hates babble,” she interrupted. “I know, that’s why his fascination with your place has always amazed me. I won’t be sitting in the saloon anyway. Mr. Pete has a table for us up in the Bottle Room. We’re meeting Phil Dunn from Sports Illustrated. Oh, here you are, Buzz, late as usual.”
“Sorry, Mrs. P.” The speaker was what my niece would call a blond hunk. He had just brought his tanned face, blond hair, and snow white teeth in from 52nd Street to warm our spirits better than the fireplace crackling in the small lounge area of the lobby.
I guess Byerle felt she had to be polite. “Buzz, meet Chick Kelly.” Then, to me, “Buzz Tierney is the lead driver on the Sea Dart — my father’s hydroplane.”
I shook hands, or rather, I stuck mine out and had it worked over as if it were a bilge pump.
“Hey, Chick,” he said with exuberance, “been to your place a couple of times. Very funny stuff.” He turned to his boss. “Dunn here yet?”
“No, but we’ll go up anyway.” She gave an imperial nod to Harry behind the reservation desk, who rebounded it to Freddie, the stairway escort, and off they started, to my relief. Byerle was almost out of earshot, but I could hear her unladylike response to something Tierney told her. “Damn it, you promised it would work. Suppose Jay Porter finds out.”
That little piece of pattycake was none of my business, so I got back into my act and entered the “sandbox” and gabbed with Otis, the attendant, for a few seconds before heading back to Miss Stars-In-Her-Eyes.
She had a hurt look on her face. “They were nobodies, Gina. I do know some nobodies.”