Speed Dial

Vanities

Speed dial kills. Well, maybe not, but it hurts when your manager's phone lists you as No. 15—behind Elayne Boosler and Olga the aromatherAuthoress Jackie Collins wields a mighty index finger, mainly on the road—where speed dialing in her Mercedes 500SEL is as necessary to her as oxygen and Robert Clergerie black boots— for last-minute reservations at Le Dome (09) and Spago (03); last-minute suites at the Ritz in Paris (12) and the Dorchester in London (14); last-minute touch-ups with hairdresser Teddy Antolin (04); last-minute plans with her good friends Joanna and Sidney Poitier (01), Marvin and Barbara Davis (02), Tony and Tracy Danza (10), and Jimmy Woods (11); in-transit chats with her publisher, HarperCollins (06 and 07), her editor, Judith Regan (08), her daughter Tiffany (05), and her fiance, real-estate developer Frank Calcagnini (13) ("Whenever we're apart, I'm on the phone with him. 'Hi, honey. I'm on my way home from Saks!"'). Collins has three edicts for car-phone protocol. "If you're doing business in your car, talk in code," she instructs. | "If you're a baby mogul in a white Porsche, please don't tuck the phone under your chin. And DON'T dial on the freeway."

SUSAN KITTENPLAN