The Diary of Elizabeth Hearst

10 PM PST

Thursday, February 12

United flight LAX->JFK

"Per federal regulation, we appreciate your being mindful to keep your mask on at all times. With a flight time of five hours and 47 minutes, we expect to touch down in New York at approximately 6:08 AM. The flight attendants will be dimming the cabin lights for those passengers who wish to sleep. So sit back, relax and enjoy your flight,"…the Captain droned on with all the usual pre-flight announcements. I glanced around the empty cabin and wondered if we could take a vote about the lights. With only eight of us on the flight, it should be easy to determine a majority.

The plane rumbled down the jetway. The swaying was beginning to make my stomach queasy; it seemed like I absorbed every bump in the concrete below. I could feel my face flushing and began to take shallow breaths, reminding myself we would be in the air shortly. Leaning forward, I put my head between my knees to curb nausea.

My mind started racing, overwhelmed by the events of the day. Uhoh, I shouldn't have eaten that sushi in the Admirals Lounge. How could I forget that sushi is a big no-no when you are pregnant? I wonder why that is? How much sushi could the baby have absorbed? Is it a baby or still an embryo? Baby, definitely, baby. I couldn't be expected to know all the rules on Day 7, could I? That thought took me back to this morning when I sat on the cold paper examining table, the open-backed gown doing nothing to bring comfort to the knots in my stomach. I remember the nurse had beautiful white hair and a sparkle in her eye like she owned the hospital. I was relieved not to have someone my age to discuss my situation with. She was old school, though, and was adamant that a pregnancy test, taken less than a week after ovulation, could not accurately reflect a pregnancy; she told me to come back in two weeks. It took a visit with the doctor to get a blood test, but I had to know. I just had to. Intuition was right. I was seven days pregnant and had less than nine months to figure out the rest of my life. I wasn't unhappy. I had wanted another baby for a long time, but a baby was not in the budget.

Suddenly the plane came to a halt, sending my body jerking forward, my head hitting the seatback in front of me. I cradled my head in my hands as the Captain said something garbled over the loudspeaker about a luggage cart on the runway. I wondered whether I was going to make it to JFK without losing that sushi dinner. Just in case, I fished around in the seat back for an air sickness bag. I ran my hand along the bottom seam of the pocket and cringed as I felt the squish of used tissue and crumbs from God knows what. Instinctively I pulled my hand out to douse it with a bottle of hand sanitizer, brushing by something that felt neither like a barf bag nor the Sky Mall catalog.

Just small enough to fall into the recess of the seatback pocket was a 5x7 black Moleskin journal. The word PRIVATE was written in big, bold letters on the inside cover. I immediately forgot about my nausea. I turned past the blank front page, and there, in the most beautiful scripted handwriting, was written The Diary of Elizabeth Hearst. Jackpot!! This might not be such a bad flight after all. I knew I was snooping, but honestly, I didn't care. Someone else's drama was exactly what I needed in my life right then. At that moment, I had no idea how juicy things were about to get. There right in front of me was the answer to my financial baby dilemma. I just didn't know it yet.

I quickly tucked the book under my leg as the stewardess came by, offering drinks and crackers. I took both, and while waiting for her to move on, wondered who this Elizabeth Hearst girl was. I had read about 20 pages so far, and she had some crazy drama with her former best friend, her ex-boyfriend, and she had gone into some detail about a fling with a hot guy she met in the First Class lounge en route to Australia. I looked up to see the flight attendant organizing her mini liquor bottles and asked, "do you know where this plane came in from?" She paused, then leaned down, and in a conspiratorial tone, said, "Sydney." It felt like, at that moment, she had determined I was not a hijacker, yet she still was a little worried I might be some sort of airline spy. I glanced away before she could catch me rolling my eyes, like a pre-teen, with an overbearing mom. Seriously, Covid has everyone worrying about everything way too much.

Sydney? Sydney, Australia. Was it possible this First Class tryst happened on Miss Hearst's most recent trip? Or was this another rendezvous between her and Mr. First Class? Oh wow. If she went to Australia to see this guy, knowing his girlfriend was the one person in the government with the power to revoke passports, what a baller. All of a sudden, I had mad respect for our sweet little journaling darling. I just realized I jumped ahead. Sorry, ADD (really), let me back up.

So, the guy she met in First Class? Apparently, he is the significant other of a foreign dignitary. Like a really big deal foreign dignitary. Think Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris, if they were single (her words, not mine.) I guess he was foreign Hillary's walker, but the press bought the "boyfriend story" her PR team sold, so they'd been going along like that for years now. I really couldn't even judge him. Who wouldn't want to jet around the world meeting celebrities and foreign dignitaries? Ends up, the flight they met on was eight years ago in the time since the two love birds had connected a few more times. Once, in New York, when his girlfriend was in town for the UN summit. Scandalous, but not the most outrageous of their encounters. The time he visited her in LA wins, hands down. He was heading home after a ski trip in the States with his kids. While he was in the Qantas lounge at LAX, he got nostalgic about meeting Elizabeth there and decided to call her on a layover. She laid it out for him, saying if he really wanted to see her, he would. An hour later, he had rebooked his flight, said goodbye to his daughters, and took a taxi to Elizabeth's house in Hollywood. I wonder how the daughters explained why their dad wasn't with them when they landed. So there he is headed to Elizabeth's house, and the best part, she wasn't even there. She was out of state, flying in the next day but instructed the doorman to let Mr. First Class in. Savannah, her ever-faithful friend, camped out in the lobby to send her a video of his arrival. Wow, just wow. It is one thing to change your plans mid-trip. But to jump off your flight on your layover to Australia and send your kids home without you?!? Who is this girl?

I wondered if she realized her diary was missing yet. Probably not. It was the middle of the night in Los Angeles. She was likely sound asleep with those Hollywood lights casting a glow across her bedroom, in the bed that Mr. First Class slept naked in. Okay, those are unconfirmed details, but her stories are juicy at baseline so just go with it. She did say he showed up with only a backpack. If I were more cynical, I would start questioning what I was reading and wonder if she was embellishing. Yet there were just enough details, stuff you wouldn't make up, to make me confident this was the real deal. Like, she didn't sleep with Mr. Australia. I hope you are raising your glass to this girl right now. She did wonder if she should have, though, and that, that is right there. Her moral compass forbade it, as she was dating some music mogul and wasn't sure where it would go. He was a big deal, and she said, "his house had a name." What is that? There are houses in LA that have names??? Next time you go shopping, try this: pick out an outfit, try it on and then ask yourself, "does this outfit make me look like my house has a name?" She ended up breaking that off not long after when she found out the music man had the herps. Now there is the guy not to go to bed with. Though his bed technically lives in a house with a name. Oh god, I can't deal with that.

It was about that same time she had decided she was done with "the scene." She took Mr. Australia with her to look at new places on the beach. I am not clear on what happened to put her over the edge, but it sounds like she had some drama with a "Real Housewife of wherever." They had been "best friends," and then, all of a sudden, Elizabeth was struggling to get the knife out of her in the back. Sounded pretty brutal. The housewife stiffed her on a big design job, then dropped her as a best friend without an explanation and, if that wasn't bad enough, started sabotaging her with her other clients. Sad, but not surprising. I feel like many reality show personalities do live amidst the level of drama they portray on TV. What did surprise me? Elizabeth had designed a 600SF closet for this housewife and discovered the majority of the celebutante's "designer wardrobe" was counterfeit. She had a pattern of using people, stringing them along and then stiffing them and burning them so that it never gets out that she wronged them. But the truth was, the housewife never actually had the money to pay the bills, to begin with. They say karma is a bitch. It will come around. It always does.

I closed my eyes and leaned my seat back. The ladies seated kiddie corner behind me talked in hushed voices about their need for some juicy gossip. "I thought we would come back with something. I had no idea all the celebs would be quarantining in LA." The girl in the window seat said something, but I couldn't make out what she said. The one closest to me responded, "He for sure will pay. He is desperate to make a big splash since coming over to the Post. But, this is Page Six. We have to bring him something outstanding. Think Housewives, moguls, politicians…and nothing Trump, he is so 2020."

10 AM EST

Sunday, February 15

Pastis

"Have you read Page Six yet?"

"Finally, a few blind items worth speculating about."

"I heard they got a new editor last month, someone from The Sun."

"Reminds me of the good old days, before TMZ scooped everything."

I listened to the bits of conversation around me and raised my mimosa, virgin of course. Thank you, God, I thought silently. This was going to make preparing for a new baby a whole lot easier. As soon as I got home, there were two things I had to do. First was to send the diary back to Miss Hearst. Second was to stop by Frame and order the baby's first gift. A copy of today's Page Six paired with the $20,000 check from the Post will make an excellent focal point for the nursery, don't you think?

Thanks, Keith.