Lauren Weisberger - Lauren Weisberger 3-Book Collection - Everyone Worth Knowing, Chasing Harry Winston, Last Night at Chateau Marmont

‘I’m so glad you did! And I can’t wait to hear every last detail, but you’ve got an engagement to consummate. Get off the phone with me and go make your fiancé happy. How weird does that sound? “Fiancé.”’

‘Oh, Avery’s on a call from work. I keep telling him to hang up’ – she announced this loudly for his benefit – ‘but he just keeps talking and talking. How has your night been?’

‘Ah, another stellar Friday. Let’s see. Millington and I took a walk over to the river, and some homeless guy gave her a biscuit along the way, so she was really happy, and then I came home, and hopefully killed what must be the largest insect in the tristate area. I ordered Vietnamese, but I threw it out when I remembered reading that some Vietnamese place near me was shut down for cooking dog, and so now I’m about to dine on reheated rice and beans and a packet of stale Twizzlers. Oh, Christ, I sound like a Lean Cuisine commercial, don’t I?’

She just laughed, clearly having no words of comfort at that particular moment. The other line clicked, indicating that she had another call.

‘Oh, it’s Michael. I have to tell him. Do you care if I three-way him in?’ she asked.

‘Sure. I’d love to hear you tell him.’ Michael would undoubtedly commiserate with me over the entire situation once Penelope hung up since he hated Avery even more than I did.

There was a click, which was followed by a brief silence and then another click. ‘Everyone there?’ Penelope squealed. This was not a girl who normally squealed. ‘Michael? Bette? You guys both on?’

Michael was a colleague of mine and Penelope’s at UBS, but since he’d made VP (one of the youngest ever) we’d seen much less of him. Though Michael had a serious girlfriend, it took Penelope’s engagement to really drive the point home: we were growing up.

‘Hi, girls,’ Michael said, sounding exhausted.

‘Michael, guess what? I’m engaged!’

There was the tiniest beat of hesitation. I knew that, like me, Michael wasn’t surprised, but he would be trying hard to formulate a believably enthusiastic response.

‘Pen, that’s fantastic news!’ he all but shouted into the phone. His volume did much to compensate for the lack of any genuine joy in his voice, and I made a mental note to remember that for next time.

‘I know!’ she sang back. ‘I knew you and Bette would be so happy for me. It just happened a few hours ago, and I’m so excited!’

‘Well, we’ll obviously have to celebrate,’ he said loudly. ‘Black Door, just the three of us, multiple shots of something strong and cheap.’

‘Definitely,’ I added, happy for something to say. ‘A celebration is most definitely in order.’

‘Okay, honey!’ Penelope called into the distance, our drinking plans understandably of little interest. ‘Guys, Avery’s off the phone and is pulling on the cord. Avery, stop! I’ve got to run, but I’ll call you both later. Bette, see you at work tomorrow. Love you both!’

There was a click and then Michael said, ‘You still there?’

‘Sure am. Do you want to call me or should I call you?’ We’d all learned early on that you couldn’t trust that the third line had disconnected and therefore always took the precaution of starting a new call before talking shit about the person who’d hung up first.

I heard a high-pitched voice in the background and he said, ‘Dammit, I just got paged. I can’t talk now. Can we talk tomorrow?’

‘Sure. Say hi to Megu for me, okay? And Michael? Please don’t go and get engaged anytime soon. I don’t think I can handle you, too.’

He laughed. ‘You don’t have to worry about that, I promise. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. And Bette? Chin up. He might be one of the worst guys either of us has ever met, but she seems happy, and that’s all you can ask for, you know?’

We hung up and I stared at the phone for a few minutes before twisting my body out the window in a futile attempt to see a few inches of comforting river landscape; the apartment wasn’t much, but it was, thankfully, all mine. I hadn’t shared it in the nearly two years since Cameron had moved out, and even though it was so long and narrow that I could stretch my legs out and almost touch the opposite wall and even though it was located in Murray Hill and even though the floorboards were warping slightly and the water bugs had taken over, I had reign over my own private palace. The building was a cement monstrosity on Thirty-fourth and First, a multi-winged behemoth that housed such illustrious tenants as one teenage member of a dismantled boy band, one professional squash player, one B-list porn star and her stable of visitors, one average Joe, one former childhood actress who hadn’t worked in two decades, and hundreds upon hundreds of recent college graduates who couldn’t quite handle the idea of leaving the dorm or the fraternity house for good. It had sweeping East River views, as long as one’s definition of ‘sweeping views’ includes a construction crane, a couple of Dumpsters, a brick wall from the building next door, and a patch of river approximately three inches wide that is only visible through unfathomable acts of contortion. All of this glory was mine for the equivalent monthly cost of a four-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath single-family home upstate.

While still twisted on the couch, I reviewed my reaction to the news. I thought I’d sounded sincere enough, if not downright ecstatic, but Penelope knew ecstatic wasn’t in my nature. I’d managed to ask about the rings – plural – and to state that I was very happy for her. Of course, I hadn’t mustered up anything truly heartfelt or meaningful, but she was probably too giddy to notice. Overall: a solid B-plus performance.

My breathing had normalized enough to smoke another cigarette, which made me feel slightly better. The fact that the water bug hadn’t resurfaced yet helped, too. I tried to assure myself that my unhappiness stemmed from my genuine concern that Penelope was marrying a truly terrible guy and not from some deep-rooted envy that she now had a fiancé when I didn’t have so much as a second date. I couldn’t. It had been two years since Cameron had moved out, and though I’d cycled through the requisite stages of recovery (job obsession, retail obsession, and food obsession) and had gone on the usual round of blind dates, drinks-only dates, and the rarer full-dinner dates, only two guys had made third-date status. And none had made fourth. I told myself repeatedly that there wasn’t anything wrong with me – and regularly made Penelope confirm this – but I was seriously beginning to doubt the validity of that statement.

I lit a second cigarette off the first and ignored Millington’s disapproving doggy stare. The self-loathing was beginning to settle upon my shoulders like a familiar, warm blanket. What kind of evil person couldn’t express genuine, sincere happiness on one of the happiest days of her best friend’s life? How conniving and insecure does one have to be to pray that the whole thing turns out to be a giant misunderstanding? How did I get to be so wretched’?

I picked up the phone and called Uncle Will, looking for some sort of validation. Will, aside from being one of the brightest and bitchiest people on the planet, was my perpetual cheerleader. He answered the phone with the slightest gin-and-tonic slur and I proceeded to give him the short, less-painful version of Penelope’s ultimate betrayal.

‘It sounds as though you feel guilty because Penelope is very excited and you’re not as happy for her as you should be.’

‘Yeah, that’s right.’

‘Well, darling, it could be far worse. At least it’s not some variation on the theme where Penelope’s misery is providing you with happiness and fulfillment, right?’