Sundance Day 2: The
Second Party
We head to
Little Black Book’s mixer for young industry executives. The party is in a suite in the Caledonian
hotel. I think it’s going to be fancy,
but it’s a lot of shag carpeting and things with bears on them. Our coats get
thrown into a pile in the corner and Eddie says hello to a few people he
recognizes. Whenever Eddie can’t
remember someone’s name we play the game where I introduce myself in an effort
to lure the other person into saying his name.
Then I secretly whisper the name to Eddie. This only works about 50% of the time, since
many people in Hollywood simply say, “Nice to meet you,” when you introduce
yourself, leaving their own identities forever a mystery.
We are
standing in a small group of APA agents and people seem a little bored, so
Eddie brings up my outstanding shooting range performance. Everyone perks up. We are Americans, so talking about guns
always interests us. The talk turns to
the difficulty of raising children in Hollywood, another favorite topic. None of us actually has children, but we are
all married and hope to have them someday, so we all anxiously share our
potential solutions. The consensus seems
to be that moving to Santa Barbara is probably the best bet. Either that or Sherman Oaks.
Eddie has
to take a call, so I find myself alone in a room full of hungry young execs who
aren’t super-interested in chatting with someone who can’t directly help their
careers. As I am trying to squeeze
through a crowd of people I meet Aaron, a young exec at Sony. Not long into the conversation we discover
that that he attended the same Boston school where I used to teach. Although we didn’t overlap, we know teachers
in common and this delights us. As I am
putting on my coat, I overhear him saying to his friends, “I mean, what are the
odds?”
We head
back to our friends’ house in Park City to quickly pick up our things so we can
drop them off at our new lodging before the big dinner event. Our friends are watching the History Channel
and prepping ammunition shells. It looks
so relaxing that we are immediately drawn in, and several hours pass with me
happily stretching out the brass as we talk animatedly about favorite books we
have read, mostly history and presidential biographies. This is by far my favorite part of the
evening.
Sundance Day 3: The
Third Party
Eddie drops
me off at the High West Distillery, where Entertainment Weekly is hosting a
dinner for Austenland. While he is
parking the car, I walk in and quickly realize this is a plated dinner with
assigned tables. I find Eddie’s name
card at Shannon’s table but there is no seat for me. I ask a lady in a furry vest, who looks
flustered and says she will figure something out. In the meantime, I sit in Eddie’s seat and wonder
what I will do or where I could skulk if they can’t find any room for me. Suddenly, the fur vest lady talks to the
young woman seated next to me, and the girl gathers up her things to leave. I discover that she has been asked to give up
her chair for me. I am horrified and
insist that she stay, but she says sadly, “That’s OK. All I did was arrange the transportation for
the stars, so I don’t really need to be here.”
I think she might actually be leaving
the party, and this fills me with a terrible guilt. But short of making some weird scene or
leaving myself, there isn’t really anything I can do. Eddie arrives soon after and we enjoy a lively
conversation with our tablemates, which include Jane Seymour, her sister Annie,
and Sara, a young photographer from Entertainment Weekly. Annie plays the role of “ugly maid” Patience
in the movie, so they frizzed out her hair didn’t allow her to wear any make up
for filming. As a person who wears
makeup daily, Annie was horrified. She
laughs as we praise her for her “brave performance.”
The first reviews
for the film have come in and they’re good ones. Everyone keeps pulling out their phones to
read the latest ones. There is a giddy buzz in the air. Ricky wears his gorgeous suit, saying that if
he had to clean it and carry it to Utah, he might as well wear it to
something. People wander from table to
table, hugging and congratulating one another. Jennifer Coolidge, who wasn’t
expected to make it, walks into the room and everyone breaks out in spontaneous
applause.
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