Prometheus 6

I don't know if you like those long NY Times magazine articles. The ones that are 5-10 pages, the ones they leave up longer than your standard new article.

This weekend one was published in the Style section you should read for several reasons: first of all the writer, Coco Henson Scales, is a talented, pleasant, intelligent little hottie (I know her parents, leave me alone) as she would have to be to work at Hue. Secondly, after that article, she ain't going to be doing any similar work in the future.

Celebrities and models are my least favorite customers. They never want to pay and they demand constant attention. The models wear jeans or a jean skirt with heels and a white T-shirt. Drunken skeletons, they stand outside smoking and talking in foreign accents. They don't tip, but if they aren't here, the men who do won't stay, so we cater to models. I don't bother learning their names. I call them all darling.

One night Karim, the owner — a short, bald man with perfect posture, who has the habit of looking people in the eye a little longer than is comfortable — waves me over. "Star Jones is coming tonight," he says. "I want you to take care of her. Where will you put her?"

At Hue there are two floors — a bar at street level and, one flight down, restaurant seating, a lounge and an inner sanctum known as the suite because it has king-size beds for sitting or lying. I tell Karim I will give Star Jones one of the beds.

"Fine," he says, patting my head, which makes me both happy and uncomfortable; I don't want him to feel my tracks of fake hair. I dash upstairs to tell Kevin on the door that Star Jones is coming.

He shrugs. For an hour I run up and down the stairs to the front door, thinking she must have arrived. Then I see Kevin holding her at the door and hear her dressing him down.

"I do not like your attitude," she tells Kevin, who is well over 200 pounds and dressed in a black suit — a good-looking baby giant. Star is in full makeup with a long wavy wig. Short and chubby, she is with a tall man with curly hair, wearing gold MC Hammer-ish glasses. I recognize him as Al Scales Reynolds, a banker who is Star's fiancé (and no relation to me). He is wearing a diamond pinky ring.

"I'm sorry," I interrupt. "Please come inside."

"No!" says Star, backing up. "I don't think I want to. I don't like the way I've been treated."

Here we go, I think. Now someone else's ego is looking for a boost. "I'm sorry," I say. "It's his job to stop everyone at the door. Please come in, let me buy you a drink."

"He has a terrible attitude," Star says. "I am a guest, invited by Karim. I do not have to come here."

"No, you don't," I say. "But I'm so glad you did." I wince, thinking that sounds sarcastic. "He's sorry," I say. She and her fiancé step in cautiously, and I lead them down to the V.I.P. room. She laughs when she sees the beds, and the two of them climb onto one. He orders two Passion Cosmos — girly drinks, I think. I run to the bar and tell Liza, a server, that Star has just sat down in her section.

Liza sighs. "Is she paying?" she asks. I frown at such a silly question.