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

Table of Contents

Title Page Everyone Worth Knowing Chasing Harry Winston Last Night at Chateau Marmont by Lauren Weisberger

Everyone Worth Knowing Everyone Worth Knowing

Chasing Harry Winston

Last Night at Chateau Marmont

About the Author

Also by Lauren Weisberger

Praise for Lauren Weisberger

Copyright

About the Publisher

To my grandparents: This should help them remember which grandchild I am.

Contents

Title Page EVERYONE WORTH KNOWING Lauren Weisberger

Dedication To my grandparents: This should help them remember which grandchild I am.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Acknowledgments

How does it feel to be one of the beautiful people?

– From ‘Baby, You’re a Rich Man’ (1967)

by John Lennon and Paul McCartney

Though I’d caught only the briefest glimpse from the corner of my eye, I knew immediately that the brown creature darting across my warped hardwood floors was a water bug – the largest, meatiest insect I’d ever seen. The superbug had narrowly avoided skimming across my bare feet before it disappeared under the bookcase. Trembling, I forced myself to practice the chakra breathing I’d learned during an involuntary week at an ashram with my parents. My heart rate slowed slightly after a few concentrated breaths of re on the inhale and lax on the exhale, and within a few minutes I was functional enough to take some necessary precautions. First I rescued Millington (who was also cowering in terror) from her hiding place under the couch. Then, in quick succession, I zipped on a pair of knee-high leather boots to cover my exposed legs, opened the door to the hallway to encourage the bug’s departure, and began spraying the extra-strong black-market vermin poison on every available surface in my minuscule one-bedroom. I gripped the trigger as though it were an assault weapon and was still spraying when the phone rang nearly ten minutes later.

The caller ID flashed with Penelope’s number. I almost screened her before I realized that she was one of only two potential refuges. Should the water bug manage to live through the fumigation and cruise through my living room again, I’d need to crash with her or Uncle Will. Unsure where Will was tonight, I decided it’d be wise to keep the lines of communication intact. I answered.

‘Pen, I’m under attack by the largest roach in Manhattan. What do I do?’ I asked the second I picked up the phone.

‘Bette, I have NEWS!’ she boomed back, clearly indifferent to my panic.

‘News more important than my infestation?’

‘Avery just proposed!’ Penelope shrieked. ‘We’re engaged!’

Goddammit. Those two simple words – we’re engaged – could make one person so happy and another so miserable. Autopilot quickly kicked in, reminding me that it would be inappropriate – to say the least – if I were to verbalize what I really thought. He’s a loser, P. He’s a spoiled, stoner little kid in the body of a big boy. He knows you’re out of his league and is putting a ring on your finger before you realize it as well. Worse, by marrying him you will be merely biding your time until he replaces you with a younger, hotter version of yourself ten years down the line, leaving you to pick up the pieces. Don’t do it! Don’t do it! Don’t do it!

‘Ohmigod!’ I shrieked right back. ‘Congratulations! I’m so happy for you!’

‘Oh, Bette, I knew you would be. I can barely even speak, it’s just all happening so fast!’

So fast? He’s the only guy you’ve dated since you were nineteen. It’s not like this wasn’t expected – it’s been eight years. I just hope he doesn’t catch herpes at his bachelor party in Vegas.

‘Tell me everything. When? How? Ring?’ I rattled off questions, playing the best friend role fairly believably, I thought, all things considered.

‘Well, I can’t talk too long because we’re at the St Regis right now. Remember how he insisted on picking me up for work today?’ Before waiting for my answer, she raced breathlessly ahead. ‘He had a car waiting outside and told me it was just because he couldn’t get a cab, and said that we were expected for dinner at his parents’ house in ten minutes. Of course, I was a little annoyed that he hadn’t even asked if I wanted to go to dinner there – he’d said he’d made reservations at Per Se, and you know how tough it is to get in there – and we were having pre-drinks in the library when in walked both our parents. Before I knew what was happening, he was down on one knee!’

‘In front of all your parents? He did the public proposal?’ I knew I sounded horrified, but I couldn’t help it.

‘Bette, it was hardly public. It was our parents, and he said the sweetest things in the world. I mean, we never would’ve met if it weren’t for them, so I can see his point. And get this – he gave me two rings!’

‘Two rings?’

‘Two rings. A seven-carat flawless round in platinum that was his great-great-grandmother’s for the real ring, and then a very pretty three-carat ascher-cut with baguettes that’s much more wearable.’

‘Wearable?’

‘It’s not as though you can roam the streets of New York in a seven-carat rock, you know. I thought it was really smart.’

‘Two rings?’

‘Bette, you’re incoherent. We went from there to Per Se, where my father even managed to turn off his cell phone for the duration of dinner and make a reasonably nice toast, and then we went for a carriage ride in Central Park, and now we’re at a suite in the St Regis. I just had to call and tell you!’

Where, oh where, had my friend gone? Penelope, who’d never even shopped for engagement rings because she thought they all looked the same, who had told me three months earlier when a mutual college friend had gotten engaged in the back of a horse-drawn carriage that it was the tackiest thing on earth, had just morphed into a very close approximation of a Stepford Wife. Was I just bitter? Of course I was bitter. The closest I’d come to getting engaged was reading the wedding announcements in The New York Times, aka the Single Girls’ Sports Page, every Sunday at brunch. But that was beside the point.