How It Ended: New and Collected Stories - By Jay McInerney Page 0,97

important to me than any movie role could ever be.” (Alt, BABY.) And the ever popular “Actually, I've always been really insecure about my looks. I definitely don't think of myself as a sex symbol. When I look in a mirror I'm like—Oh God, what a mess.” (Shift, WHAT, ME SEXY?) Right now I'm trying to write a piece about Chip Ralston, boy movie star, but cannot seem to track him down. Although Chip Ralston allegedly agreed to this piece, his agent, his business manager and his publicist are all somewhat evasive at the moment. Is it possible that Chip remembers a rather negative—all right, very negative—review in the Tokyo Business Journal that I wrote about his second movie, in which I said that the best acting was done by his car, a racing-green Jensen Healy with sexy wire wheels and a deep, throaty voice?

Metropolis

After twenty-four hours, still no message from Philomena but one from the narrator's boss, Jillian Crowe, asking for an update on the Chip Ralston piece. There was a twinkling moment when Collin seemed to have the gift of pleasing Princess Jillian, a time when he detected an almost girlish interest in his person and his so-called work, culminating in the evening when he was her escort, a last-minute substitute but an escort nonetheless, to the Costume Gala at the Metropolitan Museum. This was the metropolis as it was meant to be seen, in the flattering aphrodisiac light of eminence, a brilliant republic compounded of wealth, power, accomplishment and beauty. The atmosphere of festive mutual regard extended even to tourists, like Collin, on the happy assumption that their applications for citizenship were pending. He was with Jillian Crowe, therefore he was. If he had first taken the whole thing more or less as a joke, secure in his self-knowledge as a flunky, toward the end of the night he started to feel remarkably comfortable in this new role. Infected by both a desire to please and half a dozen glasses of Krug, he regaled the table with colorful anecdotes about the sexual practices of the Japanese and with the untold story behind a recent celebrity interview. He didn't think that Jillian appreciated these stories quite as much as he'd hoped. But then again, he doesn't exactly remember. He does recall her saying, “Darling, when I try to show you the ropes, do try to pick up more than just enough to hang yourself.” And then there was Philomena's reaction: furious at being left out, she was also irate at the datelike aspects of what Collin tried to present as a tedious professional obligation.

“Why don't you ask Jillian Crowe to fuck you?” became a late-night refrain in their bedroom for some time. It seemed to Collin that he paid dearly for this little outing. At work his novelty simply and immediately wore off, novelty being the cardinal virtue in the value system of the magazine; after that night, the frisson between Collin and Jillian Crowe fizzled.

Suspicious Information

Collin calls his girlfriend's modeling agency to ask for her hotel in San Francisco.

“San Francisco?” says the booker. “What's in San Francisco? I show no booking for Philomena in San Francisco. In fact, I'm showing no bookings at all. She booked out. Told me she was taking the week off.”

Collin feels a painful outward pressure on either side of his skull, above and behind the ears, as if he were growing horns.

Fall

Yellow leaves fluttering down the face of the building across the street, like messages from a princess in a high tower. Another year going past.

Neutral Information, i.e., Raw Data

Philomena Briggs, born Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, July 13, 1963. Height: 5′ 10″. Hair: auburn. Dress size: 4. Shoe size: 8. Measurements: 34-24-34.

Interpretation

The above data comes from Phil's composite, the business card with pictures distributed by her modeling agency, and is in fact not raw at all but cooked to a turn. The actual birth year is 1961. The place of birth was a town too small to show up on any map. The measurements are obviously suspect. And the last time I bought her a dress, I had to return the four to Barneys and get the six. “The salesclerk told me they ran small,” I noted helpfully as she tried it on, knowing that if she got upset with the way she looked in it I might not get lucky for days.

How I Got My Job

The joke around the office is that Jillian Crowe gave me my current job on the celeb