'Twas the night before May Day, and all the town's social creatures were stirring.  

On one side of town, established social fixture Danielle Steel was busy hosting a benefactors' party at her Pac Heights home in anticipation of the next night's biannual Star Ball, the fund-raiser established in memory of her son Nick Traina, who committed suicide after battling severe manic depression. To kick off the event and maintain her social primacy, the romance novelist tapped her network of connections for all the celebrity wattage she could muster. Jetting into town a night early were Al and Tipper Gore (though Al skipped the main party), Jackie Collins, Vogue editor-at-large André Leon Talley, and the socially controversial Princess Michael of Kent (disparaged as Rent-a-Kent in England). They circulated throughout the house where Steel, outfitted in the social armor of a Prada dress and a stunning multimillion dollar yellow diamond ring, entertained with her fabulously over-the-top French style (foie gras before dinner and cheese platters served in her grand ballroom after). 

Meanwhile, up in Napa and at the Matrix, Tatiana Sorokko, a jet-setting Russian fashion muse, was busy entertaining another small, exclusive group of out-of-towners while orchestrating her big event: the 50th-birthday party of gallerist husband Serge at the Legion of Honor. Those flying in for the birthday bash included former foreign minister Andrey Kozyrev and British actor Michael York (in town for the Star Ball), Parisian couturier Ralph Rucci, Harper's Bazaar editrix Glenda Bailey, and New York fixture Georgette Mosbacher.

Two months earlier, Women's Wear Daily reported that Steel had asked Sorokko to move the date of her party, which overlapped with the Star Ball. She didn't. So by May 1, the date of both bashes, the town was abuzz with how the parties would shake out. Topics of the week: Which party are you going to? If both, which cocktail hour are you attending? Was Sorokko, as went some of the overwrought talk, planning her own social downfall, locally anyway?

Well, as with most of the melodramas and psychodramas among the Pac Heights set, the reality turned out to be more prosaic. Both women pulled off highly successful affairs. Clearly, there was more than enough food, fun, and boldfaced names to go around.

At the Star Ball, bawdy Mariah Carey, although reportedly advised to choose a chaster outfit, still managed to spill out of her dress during her performance. Barry Bonds, in the audience, threw his hands up in the air to help her back into her bodice. But it was an assistant with double-stick tape who saved the day. Only a few minutes later, however, the diva did a quick change into a saucier short Versace dress. Between the goings-on and people watching—Sharon (who bid on both of the $10,000-plus puppies on auction) and Ozzy Osbourne, Gary Collins and his wife, former Miss America Mary Ann Mobley, and Clive Davis—the several hundred in attendance were entertained.

Across town, at the Legion, after the Sorokkos' hyperchic dinner (each invitation and menu was handwritten in a Baroque calligraphy) and declarations by pols Mark Leno and Mayor Gavin Newsom (who, along with Denise Hale, skipped out from the Star Ball after cocktails for dinner with the Sorokkos), many headed for the dance floor. Bailey, the fash-mag editor, got the dance bug, removed her white mink fur shrug, and pulled the Socialist onto the dance floor for a good 20 minutes, as others did the limbo. Among the 116 guests who showed to toast Serge's 50th were Wilkes Bashford, Jack and Sharon Owsley, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Daniela Faggioli. "I'm so grateful everyone could make it, especially people from afar," Tatiana told the Socialist. "Georgette passed on the White House correspondents' dinner to come here—I guess friends can come before politics."

Four days earlier, there was a social debut of sorts: a book party for Melanie Craft, the newly minted Mrs. Larry Ellison. While the newlyweds had long been making the dinner and private party circuit around town, the occasion, hosted by Denise Hale and held at Ellison's Broadway manse, marked a major public appearance by Craft. The ostensible purpose was to celebrate Craft's third novel, entitled Man Trouble (a romantic comedy involving the "seduction of the century"—the landing of a billionaire playboy). But most everyone came to eye Ellison's city abode, which, like his other homes, is decorated with an Eastern sensibility. Apparently, Ellison, who talked to the Socialist about his time spent in Asia, has an appreciation for all things Asian. (No reading between the lines here.)

Attendees included Norah Stone (dressed in Asian garb for husband Norman's Asian-costumed birthday dinner party), O.J. Shansby and Yurie Pascarella. Craft handled the crowd well, perhaps because she has that writer's gift of being both aware and detached at once, along with a dry sense of humor. Asked about the impact of her recent marriage, she replied, "Well, it does get me a lot of press that I wouldn't normally have as a new writer." That would include a write-up in the New Yorker about her book party in Manhattan, where she chose to name David Geffen as her neighbor (the Ellisons own several homes) when asked by designer Arnold Scaasi. After all, who are their Woodside neighbors?

Naturally, the Socialist had to ask   the billionaire the $10 million question: Were you the inspiration for the book? "I'm not really that interesting," he said, but offered that he read the manuscript while Craft was writing the novel. (Could this mean he has a sense of humor as well?)