A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes

So Cinderella did go to the ball, and she didn’t lose a glass slipper – only some self respect as yours truly binged in front of (a) the editor of Glamour, (b) fashion designer Roland Mouret (whose dresses I can only dream of ever owning), and (c) Simon Le Bon’s daughter, all of whom were seated at my table. Maybe they didn’t notice that I ate the entire plate of not-very-petite petit fours. (Roland, for one, was jetlagged – he’d been in LA having dinner with Demi Moore – and drunk.) Seriously, a whole plate of chocolate, macaroons, cocoa-dusted almonds, et al – on top of my dinner (fish in some sort of girolle cream sauce), which I consumed at such alarming speed that the so-not-Prince-Charming at my left even commented. Ugh.

With only one exception, these days I only binge when I drink, and it’s not automatic. There are plenty of times I can go out have a couple of drinks – or even a lot of drinks – and be fine.

And then there are the times when I know – I just know – before I’ve even taken the first sip that I am in a f—k it all kind of mood. Sunday – the night of the ball – was one of those evenings. There had been lingering crap with BN2, and I was just… sick of it. I didn’t just want him out of my life – I wanted him out of my head. Alcohol isn’t exactly a fantastic eraser, but in the absence of anything else (maybe because binge eating doesn't really work any more?), I guess I decided it would do.

* * *

The ball was Elton John’s, and I actually was there as a guest, not a reporter. It’s hard to believe writing about celebrities was once my job, when you consider the following: I am dashing (well, as fast as four-inch gold heels allow) down the sweeping staircase when I see a stunning woman whose dress I’ve been admiring all night about to pass me on her way up.

“Your dress is amazing,” I say.

She smiled and said: “Thank you. I love yours – I noticed it earlier. It’s Marchesa, isn’t it?” (Actually, it was.)

The next day I see her picture on the front page of the Evening Standard. She’s the singer Sophie Ellis Bextor.

Oops.

* * *

Early in the evening, when I am (fairly) sober, but Roland Mouret is (by his own admission – I didn’t know the French ever got drunk) not, I gush over his most recent collection.

I interviewed him several years ago for a profile for my former employer, and I’ve seen him at parties in the intervening years.

“You definitely have the figure for them,” he says. I don’t care if he was drunk – I’ll take it.

* * *

I'd planned to go back and edit what I wrote above, to make myself sound like, um, a little less of an alcoholic binge-eating freak. Except I had several missed calls from my sister, plus a message: I need to talk to you.

My sister and I do not use those six words unless it is urgent. If you have ever had a seriously ill relative, you probably know why.

She's pregnant. With triplets.

"I hope I'm going to live through this," she says, telling me her own doctor has already informed her she's got to go see someone for high risk pregnancies.

I feel strangely tearful. I'm thinking: Nothing had better happen to my sister.

"Sorry for the urgent messages," she says. "I didn't want you to be the only one in the family who didn't know."

My father and grandmother are delighted -- my grandmother apparently told my sister she considered this something to live for. And it is. And yet I can't help feeling a little sad -- or maybe that's just sorry for myself -- standing on the shore waving as the boat leaves, and then trudging home alone.