Ms. Nagel, 18, is about as far as you can get from the lurching teens on NYC Prep. A native of Carnegie Hill, she is the youngest lobbyist in Washington, D.C. When she was a junior, she visited Montpelier, Va., to see the home of James Madison. “The docent told me that there was no monument for James Madison—I was very surprised,” Ms. Nagel said. “I didn’t quite believe her, so it researched it myself and found that yes, there is no monument on the Mall, Federal Hall, nothing, Independence Square, nothing!” She began meeting with Joseph Ellis, the Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, and started an organization called Americans for Madison. “And he came on board,” Ms. Nagel said. “And I’m working with congressmen.”

Louise Mirrer, the society’s president, came by for a hug. “She’s really quite remarkable,” Ms. Mirrer said of Hadley.

Ms. Nagel’s mother, Susan Nagel—a writer whose book Marie-Therese, about Marie Antoinette’s daughter, was just published in paperback—is her biggest fan. “I say that I wish to grow up and be Hadley one day!”

Hadley’s résumé is indeed impressive. Last spring, she interned at Cason Nightingale Advertising. “Hadley is pulling together all the knowledge she will ever need in the future,” said the company’s CEO and president (and a family friend), Cason Nightingale, on the phone. “I don’t know what her future holds. Maybe the presidency?” Hadley is also the founder of www.Playintraffic.com, a travel Web site for teenagers around the country. “I love to travel,” she said. She is attending Johns Hopkins University in the fall, as a Hodson Trust scholar, one of 20 in the freshman class. It covers four years’ tuition, along with numerous other perks. “We are going to join the expensive-shoe-of-the-month club!” Mama Nagel said, joking.

“When I received the scholarship, my dad”—Jon Nagel, corporate secretary at a global financial services corporation—“thought it was one of his friends playing a joke on us,” Hadley said with a laugh. “I mean, I didn’t apply for it, so it was totally out of the blue!”

Susan Nagel said she and her daughter “are creative collaborators. We inspire each other. During our travels, even as a very young girl, she has often been more knowledgeable than docents. She was once offered a job at the Tower of London because she asked the Lady Jane Grey’s role in something. At Winterthur, when she was only six years old, she pointed out a chandelier and said, ‘That doesn’t look American.’ It was something the ambassador had brought back from Russia—the only thing in the house that was not American. She was six.” How will she deal with the imminent separation anxiety? “Believe me, we are happy she is only going to Baltimore! It’s only a train ride away.” This is convenient, as Hadley has three debutante balls upcoming: The New York Junior League Thanksgiving Eve Ball; St. Nicholas Society; and the Junior Assemblies.

“We are very close,” Hadley said of her mother. “I think it’s bad when teenagers hide stuff from their parents because then they don’t trust them, and we definitely have an open relationship. We both give each other advice. I trust her! She was a teenager, too. When parents become the best friends of their kids but aren’t parenting, that’s not good, either. I definitely know what that line is.”

On a recent sunny morning, Ms. Nagel, wearing pink Lacoste and Ray-Bans, rang the doorbell to shoe designer Vanessa Noel’s boutique. “Hi, Hadley—let me get Vanessa!” said a young, bubbly saleswoman.

Hadley has been shopping here since she was a little girl, and because Constitution Day is coming up, on Sept. 17, she needed a pair of black shoes. She likes to feel put together. “Sweatpants make me feel half-asleep. Like I just rolled out of bed or something,” Hadley said. She likes Diane von Furstenberg, Stella McCartney, Catherine Malandrino, Cynthia Rowley, Marc Jacobs and J. Crew “for filling-in pieces.”

“How is my favorite debutante doing?” squealed Ms. Noel, emerging to greet her.

“For many of the important occasions in my life, I have bought Vanessa Noel shoes,” Ms. Nagel said. Including prom. “I wore this great turquoise Carlos Miele dress, with a Hermes belt I stuck around it, and I had to change into my pink very twirly Betsy Johnson prom dress in the Port-a-Potty!”

The doorbell rang and Susan Nagel walked in wearing a pink-and-white blouse, white pants and pink shoes.

The elder Ms. Nagel was raised in the South and moved to New York about 30 years ago. She would go to Studio 54 with Kathy and Rick Hilton (who are still “best of friends”), Anne Hearst, Roger de Cabrol, Cornelia Guest, Anne Eisenhower, Chappy Morris, Christine Biddle and Anthony Haden-Guest. She met her husband in a snowstorm. They were founding members of the Metropolitan Society. “We hosted Donna Karan’s first fashion show at Bergdorf Goodman, as well as some very interesting benefits on behalf of New York City arts organizations,” said Ms. Nagel, an organized woman who keeps track of her schedule the old-fashioned way. She has her date planner at home, and numerous Post-It notes in her bag with different things she has to do that day. At the bottom of her pink bag, there was a portfolio containing numerous pictures of Hadley. “There she is at prom, and here she is at the NOFA charity with Lauren Bush and Christie Brinkley,” Ms. Nagel intoned.

One of the Nagels’ favorite spots in Manhattan is the Metropolitan Club on 60th Street near Central Park. Hadley started to join her parents at the club when she was just a baby, and met her first Santa on the large, grand stairwell.

A devotee of museums, she said that the Met is her favorite. “It has something for everybody. For a more specialized experience, I would recommend the Frick, the Cloisters, the Rubin Museum and, of course, the New York Historical Society.”

Hadley took a breath. “By living in New York City you’re exposed to all sorts of resources you perhaps wouldn’t get as a teenager in other areas. There is all sorts of …” She paused for a moment, squinting. “You are always coming into contact with different cultures. The thing that is similar with everyone is that everybody is always in a rush, but yet I’ve seen tourists stop people and everybody is always so willing to be nice. I think it’s important in a city to be interested in something but always be willing to learn about and willing to try new things.”

Where would Hadley never go in this city?

“Brooklyn,” she said. “I haven’t run out of things yet to do in Manhattan.”

editorial@observer.com

It was the inaugural game of the event, which will be held for seven weeks on Saturday from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. in Bridgehampton. The VIP tent was sectioned off by a small white fence that paralyzed the Transom, who peeked tentatively over to see that PC Peterson from the infamous television reality show NYC Prep had a cast on his right arm—though he of course could still somehow hold a drink in it. Barron Hilton was right by his side. Model and star player Nacho Figueras briefly stood by the Ralph Lauren tent with his wife before joining them. The crowd also included actor Chace Crawford, former Viewster Star Jones and Howard Stern's lady love, Beth Ostrosky.

One guy refused to order a cocktail called "Pink Polo" because "my shirt is actually salmon-colored, thank you very much!" Men strolling the grounds were all dressed similarly: khaki pants or shorts and a polo shirt in a bright color. Yellow, pink, purple, green, red ... our eyes hurt.

Hours later, Mr. Figueras was spotted at a house party in Watermill, standing outside talking to his thirsty conferes, who were drinking glasses of Sangria and smoking one cigarette after another, before melting into the crowd. "What a great game that was earlier!" said one. Did he play? "Next year. I need to get my rest, but until then, cheers!"

And cheers to you, big fella!

Ben Stiller, who stood at the front of the theater before the movie began, said that after he saw The Cove at the Nantucket Film Festival, he "wanted to go to Japan and become an activist." But he couldn’t, because he had a rental on Nantucket!

His wife, actress Christine Taylor, told the Transom of the film, "It changed our lives. Literally. It was the best way to get my kids to leave the house and I could say to them, 'Were going to see the film that will change the dolphins!' It blew me away."

Actor Adrian Grenier walked in wearing a T-shirt, sat down with a group of women, and was one of the first to stand up and clap when the movie was over.

Publicist Kristian Laliberte was crying in the back. He originally wasn’t going to attend but after watching the trailer he decided to go. "Unbelievable," he said. "You should have seen me at Brokeback Mountain. They had to ask me to leave I was crying so loud!"

Richard O'Barry went from being the man who trained the dolphins for the television show Flipper, which led to the multibillion-dollar business of places like Sea World, to being an activist against dolphin captivity. For the last 35 years he has been around the world trying to free these animals.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., actor Fischer Stevens, Netscape founder Jim Clark and Mr. O’ Barry sat in front of the audience after the movie and took questions.

Mr. Kennedy told the Transom he thought the film was riveting. "All people have to do is see this, and it’s going to change because it’s so outrageous what is happening there. They’re destroying public health, they’re destroying 23,000 dolphins a year, they’re slaughtering them in the most inhuman, awful way, they’re subverting democracy, they’re corrupting democratic institutions across the world."

As guests left the theater, one girl in a bright purple mini dress said, "And my bag is made out of Sting Ray!!" as her friend said back, "I’m going to get my mercury level checked, like tomorrow.”      

From Third Avenue to Fifth, some guests walked, and others took their town cars to the Rouge Tomate restaurant for dinner and cocktails. Mr. Clark and his wife pulled up in their Maybach. 

"Does this mean I can’t eat Sushi anymore? I love Sushi. I live right next to Nobu," one guest said as she held on to the book that everyone received called Diagnosis: Mercury: Money, Politics, and Poison,  by Jane Hightower.

"We invited so many people and they just said they all could come!" said Ms. Mortimer, the Gisele Bundchen–resembling sister-in-law of better-known, blond Tinsley. "I didn’t think so many people would say yes because Montauk is so far away, but they all are coming this way!"

The hostess herself stood for most of the party, kneeling down to mingle with her friends and family. She was raving about her new love for surfing, in which she is being tutored by her husband, director Stephen Gaghan. "He’s a great teacher!" Ms. Mortimer said proudly.

Mr. Gaghan, a calm, serious man, looked very happy to be there. "If you told me I would be where I am today, I wouldn’t believe you," he said. "I definitely didn’t win the Most Likely to Succeed award in high school. I grew up in Kentucky, and I had to get out. People from home will ask me why there is such bad language and gore in movies, and I ask them the last movie they saw. They can’t even remember! I’m not going to talk about movies with people who don’t see movies." Still, Mr. Gaghan said he generally eschews the glitzier side of moviemaking. "When I was younger, I would come out here Monday through Friday and then I would go back to the city on the weekends. It was great. Just earlier today I was sitting by the pool, with one of my kids on my lap, while the beach balls swirled around with the wind, and I was so happy to be there in that moment."

The most eccentric guest was Minnie's cousin Alexander Mortimer, there sitting on a tree trunk with a pack of Marlboro Reds as the Felice Brothers played. "You gotta do what you gotta do, man," Mr. Mortimer said. Wearing a yellow summer dress and black heels, Amanda Hearst stood with a glass of Champagne, laughing at how the last time she was in Montauk was at her stepfather Jay McInerney’s book party. "Wasn’t that fun?" Ms. Hearst said. She has been in California and London the last few weeks and had spent most of the day poolside. "I love it out here, but it really is far!"

Vogue contributing editor Lauren Santo Domingo strolled in just in time for the first course, also smoking a cigarette, wearing an orange dress. "Am I late?" she asked. "Oh, thank God! I honestly thoguht it would take 20 minutes to get here!"

From Southampton? Come on, Lauren!

Real Housewife Kelly Bensimon's jacket covered most of her outfit. "Everyone is like, 'What are you wearing?' and I’m like, 'Patagonia and Prada!'" she said. "Tonight is a special night for me because my kids are out of town, so I’m actually going out a few parties. I have to be honest, the first time I met Minnie, I was like, 'She is so cute, fun and spirited.' And you know when Michael Jackson said 'PYT'? Like that’s what girls want to be. Pretty young things. And I love that about Minnie. She’s a great girl, a great mom, and also has amazing style."

After salads, scallops, skirt steak, bass and the restaurant's signature dish of crab meat with cranberries and popcorn (burp!), the rain started again, making the crowded bar inside basically impossible to walk through.

"It’s like boarding school, or camp," said Peter Davis, Ms. Mortimer's half-brother, of the bad weather. "Just deal."

But some guests repaired to the infamous Memory Motel, a grungy, loud and cheap bar near the water.

He bought a 1994 BMW on eBay: an attempt to escape from the life he was living.

Mr. Milhone—a filmmaker, screenwriting professor at NYU and columnist for Men’s Health—just published a memoir about that hellish year called The Patron Saint of Used Cars and Second Chances (Rodale).

Leaning against a white wall in a penthouse apartment on West 12th Street, the kind of apartment you know is going to be grand and fancy before you even enter, Mr. Millhone said that writing the book is what got him through the tough time. “It really brought me closer to my family and friends,” he said, as his two young sons grabbed athis legs. “I feel very lucky in that way.”
 
Actress Kristen Johnson was walking around the clean, marble-trimmed apartment in a black dress and Tory Burch flats. She was accompanied by her dog, Tinky, who “has been so upset recently when I leave him home, so now I try and bring him everywhere.”

Smoking a cigarette on the windy terrace (in a scene eerily reminiscent of her Sex and the City appearance), Ms. Johnson said she'd conquered her own demons. “I’ve become a shopping addict, because I quit drinking,” she said. “I quit doing all sorts of nefarious activities. I go to Home Depot and spend all of my money. I’ve become this crazy home lady, craft lady. I have two glue guns! I make these huge mirrors I give to my friends. I mean, I was like, what do people do when they quit drinking?“

Mr. Millhone's wife, meanwhile, seemed only stronger for her annus horribilus.

“I met Mark and now I have luck,” she said.

On Friday, July 3, business was booming at Savanna’s restaurant in Southampton—a favorite of effusive Real Housewife Ramona Singer. “The people that are running it are from T-Bar in the city, which I love,” she said. “The food, just so everybody knows, is great food now, and great service. Because that was always the killer. People would want to go there, but—bad food, bad service. And now the food is great and so is the service. I’m serious!” O.K.!

Meanwhile, on Main Street in East Hampton, Walter Struble, the manager at Della Femina’s, said that Friday was the busiest he thinks the restaurant has ever been. “It was quite surprising because of the state of this economy, but because of the wonderful weather, everyone was very positive and energetic.” Weather anchor Sam Champion made an appearance, along with a Scarlett Johansson look-alike. By the end of the night, employees decided the comely customer was not, in fact, the actress. “She looked identical to her, though!” Mr. Struble stressed.

Guests dining at the Blue Parrot in East Hampton the next night, meanwhile, were surprised with a concert by Jon Bon Jovi. The singer came to the restaurant with his wife, Dorothea Hurley, and performed “Who Says You Can’t Go Home?” “Free Bird” and “Dead or Alive.” Actress Renée Zellweger was there with author Kristen Gore. Democratic Leadership Council chair Harold Ford came to the restaurant for the second time that weekend, after dining with hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons the night before. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani came for dinner at the restaurant on Sunday night.

Just a couple miles away, at Georgica on Wainscott Road, executive chef Robert Hesse from the show Hell’s Kitchen said that the restaurant served 600 to 700 covers on Friday and Saturday night, compared to 400 to 500 every other weekend. Actors AnnaLynne McCord and Kellan Lutz showed up for dinner, along with Rolling Stone daughter Alexandra Richards and more Real Housewives. “It was packed. The scene was nuts!” Chef Hesse said.

The next morning, Ms. Richards drove up to the Surf Lodge in Montauk in her new Audi, got her makeup done by Maybelline and put on her Tracy Feith bikini. While Ms. Richards DJ’d a selection of reggae music, a huge crowd stood on the deck, including some of her best friends from high school in Weston, Conn.

Designer Calvin Klein’s former wife Kelly stopped by the Lodge on the Fourth, and 300 star Gerard Butler partied all weekend long at the bar. Ad man Jerry Della Femina also made an appearance.

At Day and Night Beach Club in Southampton, co-owner Derek Koch reported that one customer spent $45,000 in a single visit. “When I looked at his bill, I was like, ‘Oh my God!’” he said. Another guy bought every single bottle of Champagne. Day and Night is known for parties that start at noon and end around 8:30 p.m.; Mr. Koch said that on Saturday he was in bed by 10:30. “I mean, I did have to wake up the next morning and do it all over again! It was an amazing turnout. We had around 700 people. It was our biggest weekend, ever.”

Spending was big, too, at Dune Nightclub’s Axe Lounge in Southampton, where one customer dropped around $30,000 dollars on the Fourth, said Mike Heller, president of Talent Resources, which deals with all of the celebrities that go through the nightclub. “Towards the end of the night we ran out of Cristal!” he said.

DJ Vice flew out from the West Coast, “did a whole tribute about Michael Jackson, and, you know, talked about how it’s America’s birthday, blah, blah, blah,” Mr. Heller said, adding, in some wonderment: “There were bottles flowing, sparklers all night and bottles of Champagne! Where’s all the money coming from?”

Dune also enjoyed a huge stampede after the nearby Pink Elephant, already wounded by bankruptcy woes, was closed down to a carbon monoxide scare.

Security was tight, meanwhile, at the Social Life Estate in Watermill, which held only 150 people. Publicist Kristian Laliberte described the atmosphere as being “very young Hollywood meets Manhattan art scene with an East End twist.”

Socialite Lydia Hearst, the cover girl of Social Life Magazine this month, was supposed to host the event along with Mr. Lutz, but was stuck at home with gallstones, Mr. Laliberte said.

The theme of the party was “Great Gatsby,” and while many guests donned borrowed couture, socialite Minnie Mortimer wore a blue-and-white-striped T-shirt dress of her own design.

Fashion designer Ashleigh Verrier was also wearing her own creation: a silvery-white camisole-skirt combo. “It was a really nice crowd,” she said of the event later. “It was intimate. Enough people, but at the same time a level of it being not too crowded.”

Perhaps lulled by the sense of intimacy, actor Nick Stahl fell asleep in the pantry at some point during the evening, said a source.

Ms. McCord was also drowsy. At the end of the party, Mr. Lutz drove her to the Axe Lounge, where another source said she hung out in the car, taking a nap, while Mr. Lutz went back and forth inside the club and back to the car. “They looked very coupley, I guess,” said the source. “Towards the middle of the night, she left the car and came out with him. She was just chilling in the car.”

For the rest of the night, Ms. McCord drank from water bottles and sat at the table, “unlike Lindsey Lohan! When she was here, she was also drinking from a water bottle,” said a different source at the Axe. “But she was dancing all night.”

Not everyone was in the Hamptons, of course, though it felt that way at times. Designer Marc Jacobs and fiancé Lorenzo Martone were rumored to be relaxing in the Berkshires over the holiday weekend, and socialite Lauren Santo Domingo flew to Brittany, France, for a wedding. “Not very patriotic, I know!” she said.

On Tuesday, June 30, members of the Marines, New York Police Department, Air Force and other guests gathered at the New York Athletic Club for Mess Night, the annual re-creation of an event held on Saturday, March 20, 1920, by the 9th ( Scottish) Division at Oddenino’s Imperial Restaurant on London’s Regent Street that was attended by Winston Churchill.

Guests started to arrive around 6 p.m., soaked by the unsurprising downpour, and welcomed with Nat Sherman cigars. Before walking into the dining room at 8 p.m., they were shown “The Rules,” a long list of things they were not allowed to do therein without a fine from Mess President Joe Lisi, former Corporal in the U.S. Marine Corps: elbows on the table, chewing gum, and so forth.

“Poule au Pot Alexandra” and “Culotte de Boeuf Imperial”—re-creations of the 1920 fare—were served as “Mr. Vice,” a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps named Arthur V. Gorman Jr.,  walked around looking for people to fine.

Jarred Sper, an ex-Marine who now currently co-owns Choice Productions, an event production company, was feeling voluble.

“It’s very elegant and posh, and by the end of the night they’ll be standing on chairs, and hollering Mr. Vice and he’ll make them do shots.” Mr. Sper said. “That’s the thing about the Marine Corp. You go through so much, and it’s miserable at times, but as hard as they work, they’re going to play even harder.”

How has Mess Night changed over the years?

“If anything, I would say now it’s a little more tame,” Mr. Sper said. “I mean, the Marine Corp was started in a bar! They keep it to the roots. They like to go out, entertain, have a good time, but at the same time, when you’re on the clock, there is no ‘What about last night?’ ‘No, we’re not talking about that. That was last night. This is right now and we got to get this done.’

Mr Vice had nabbed a man wearing a black shirt with a white tie. “This is a black-tie event, not a white-tie,“ Mr. Lisi said. “What are you, in the entertainment business or something? Fined $20!”

One man brought in his own booze; another was wearing brown shoes with a blue tie. Both were tithed, and willingly forked up.

All of the money went to the Marine Corp, and the National Foundation for Facial Reconstruction, which works with children born with craniofacial deformities.

Three men emerged and reenacted a scene from the behind the front lines near Belleau Wood, France, in July 1918.

“It’s not stuffy, right?”  Mr Lisi asked the Transom rather proudly of the evening's program. “When it’s all military people, all Marines, nobody talks. They don’t violate the mess.” Of the fines, he said: “I know these people can afford it. They want to be fined.”

Speaking of Marines' constitutional loyalty, Mr Lisi went on: “That is put into your skull when you’re in boot camp, or in office candidate school. Around the time when you’re 18, if you’re an enlisted man, or 21 as an officer, that is drummed into your head. They say they take your heart out and they put an eagle globe anchor inside and you never forget it. That’s why when that guy said he was a former Marine, they all said, ‘Wowwwwwww!” Because there is no such thing as a former Marine.”

He pointed to the front of the grand hall. “We have up at the head table the guy who fought on Iwo Jima. He’s 85 or 86 years old. But when he gets with these guys, you look in his eyes, he’s 20 years old again. That sparkle comes back.”

Tim Zagat (of the Zagatsdining guide) sat on a stool eating a hamburger, an item that most people wished they actually served on South West airlines. “This is going to do a lot for New York City,” Zagat said of South West's opening a terminal at La Guardia.  A waiter wearing the signature yellow “South West Porch” T-shirt walked up to Mr. Zagat, offering him another hamburger, but he politely declined, and said, “I want one, but I can’t”

It was a couple of hours before the sun set. Chef Tom Colicchio, founder of the Craft restaurant empire and head judge of Bravo’s Top Chef, who is bringing his casual 'wichcraft menu to the South West Porch, was hanging around, too.

Mr. Colicchio noted that he doesn't expect great food on airplanes.

“I have a certain expectation, and it is not that high going into planes, so I’m fine with the food on planes. I don’t have a problem with it. If you have to eat on a short flight, then bring something of your own food! I am not expecting a lot.”

Kelly Bensimon from The Real Housewives of New York City (Bravo again!) ordered a beer, making a point that beer is the only kind of alcohol she drinks.

“It’s funny because one time they did this thing about me in the Post, saying I was drinking and downing whatever it was, and I was like ‘Anyone who knows me knows that I only drink beer, so that would be a joke!’”

Some people sat in the rocking chairs and porch swings, while others stood at the bar. Stylist Robert Verdi was quite preoccupied with his pulled pork sandwich.

“This brings out the worst in me, the part that’s hungry.” Verdi said. “This is why I don’t have sex anymore! It’s really the substitute.”

Verdi, a man known for his expertise in style, looked quite fashionable, even as he ate his sloppy sandwich.  Wearing dark jeans, an orange sweater, and sunglasses on top of his head, he said in a serious tone, “I would take a pulled pork sandwich over a hand job any day … I would!”

O.K.!

Cameron Diaz plays the mother; Sofia Vassilieva the daughter.

“I know what it is to love very deeply,” Ms. Diaz said, wearing a white dress with a strap over one shoulder, “to the point where I would do anything for the people that I love, but obviously, I don’t know what it’s like to have a child dying with cancer.”

Ms. Vassillieva had to shave her head for the part. “Getting the role happened so quickly. It was in February of 2008, right after finals, and I remember being exhausted and crazy and having this script. ... I feel when you become invested in something, when you smile for something or when something makes you cry, you become invested, there is a bond created.”

The movie was directed by Nick Cassavetes, and his mother, actress Gena Rowlands, was there to support him, resplendent in red lipstick.

“I like this movie very much,” she said. “I think that we have been through a period where we have seen so much mechanical stuff and cars crashing into another, that we are quite happy to see something that actually happens to other people.”

Jason Patric, who plays Ms. Vassilieva's father, agreed.

“I think if anything is behaviorally real, people connect to it,” Mr. Patric said, wearing a gray suit and black tie. “Hopefully, people need to contact to their humanness, and if something is heavier in the middle of, you know, the robot weekend, they’ll take a peek.”

Evan Ellison, 20,  was cast as neglected boy in the family. “This kind of movie doesn’t come out that often,” he said. “The depth of it is very good and the cast is great. The story line is sad, very sad, but I thing is there is also a lot of happiness in it.”

Alas, we did not get a chance to speak to Little Miss Sunshine star Abigail Breslin, who plays the healthy sister.

Children from the program performed a dance, then filed out as fresh fruit and Skyy Vodka bottles were laid out on tables.

“We work on bringing healthy foods into the schools for kids and teaching them that healthy food, working out, and being fit, fabulous, and fierce is what it’s all about,” said Ms. Voltage, a recovered anorexic, bulimic, drug addict and alcoholic. “Energy Up is a vibe. It’s a mind-set. We work with the girls to be the best, and they’re the best. And this is America. Anyone of these girls can be anything they want to be.”

She hasn’t always worked with children. “I worked for 30 years with very high-network individuals all over the world.” One of these was CBS anchor Katie Couric, there wearing a black dress, admiring Ms. Voltage's white Spandex ensemble. “I could never get away with that,” Ms. Couric said. “I haven’t worn Spandex since I was 13!”

She praised her friend's efforts. “Not only has she helped girls get healthy, but she improved their self-esteem immeasurably, and their academic performances have followed suit. You know, you hear so much about childhood and teenage obesity. You hear about all of these different programs, but this one actually works. ... I wish a lot of people would recognize what she has done, and follow her lead.”

Ms. Voltage was gyrating around the room. “Well, we are going to kick the energy up in here tonight, we’ll have the adult version of dancing and have some fun!” she said.

“I feel like we’ve done our job when one of the kids comes up to me and says ‘Oh my God, Voltage! I was with my friend and we went into Mickey D’s and that food smelled nasty!’ I’m like ‘ Yes!’ When you see their eyes light up!

“If you eat crap you feel like crap,” she said. “Duh!”