Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection

by Lauren Weisberger

  ‘It’s not ruining anything,’ she lied.

  Again, no response. He continued to stare at the screen.

  ‘Why don’t I go build us a fire and we can watch a movie. How does that sound?’

  ‘Fine. Good. I’ll be out in a few minutes, okay?’

  ‘Perfect,’ she said with forced cheerfulness. She gently closed the door behind her and silently cursed those goddamn photographers, that miserable Last Night column, and – only partially – her husband for being famous in the first place. She would do her best to be strong for Julian, but he was right about one thing: their blissfully quiet, much-needed retreat was over. No one dared drive down the driveway or walk across the lawn, but the crowd on the street only continued to grow. They slept that night to the distant sounds of men talking and laughing, engines turning on and off, and although they tried their best to ignore it, neither of them succeeded. By the time the snow melted enough the next day to leave, they’d only dozed an hour or two and felt like they’d run two marathons, and they barely spoke at all on the drive back to the city. They were followed the whole way home.

  Twelve

  Better or Worse Than the Sienna Pictures?

  ‘Hello?’ Brooke said into her phone.

  ‘It’s me. Are you dressed yet? Which one did you choose?’ Nola’s voice sounded breathy, eager.

  Brooke sneaked a look at the thirtysomething woman standing next to her and saw the woman sneaking a look right back. The security guards at the Beverly Wilshire were doing their best to keep out the paparazzi, but plenty of reporters and photographers had circumvented the rules by booking rooms at the hotel. She’d caught this same woman watching her in the lobby before when she’d run down to see if the gift shop had Altoids, and sure enough, she’d slid onto the elevator with Brooke just before the doors closed. Judging from her appearance – silk tank top tucked into well-tailored pants, expensive pumps, and elegantly understated jewelry – Brooke deduced she wasn’t a blogger, gossip columnist, or secret paparazzo à la the guy who sat outside their building and the supermarket stalker. Which made her something even scarier: a real, live, thinking, observant reporter.

  ‘I’ll be in my room in one minute. I’ll call you back then.’ Brooke clicked the phone off before Nola had a chance to utter another word.

  The woman smiled at her and revealed a beautiful set of pearly white teeth. It was a gentle smile, one that said, I understand what it’s like! I too get pestering phone calls from my friend, but Brooke had honed her instincts the past few months to perfection: despite her unthreatening appearance and her sympathetic ex-pression, this woman was a predator, a scoop-seeking, always-on-the-record vampire. Stay and you’ll get bitten. Brooke was desperate to escape.

  ‘You here for the Grammys?’ the woman asked kindly, as though she was all too familiar with the rigors of preparing for such an event.

  ‘Mmm,’ Brooke murmured, unwilling to commit to anything more. She knew, just knew, this woman was about to spring a series of rapid-fire questions on her – she’d seen this disarm-and-attack routine before with a particularly aggressive blogger who’d approached her after Julian’s Today show performance pretending to be an innocent fan – but she still couldn’t bring herself to be preemptively rude.

  The elevator stopped on the tenth floor and Brooke had to endure an ‘Oh, is this going up? Well, I’m going down’ conversation between the woman and a couple who had that telltale European look (both the man and the woman were wearing capris, his tighter than hers, and each had a different version of the same neon-colored Invicta backpack). She held her breath and willed the elevator to move.

  ‘Must be exciting going to your first Grammys, especially considering your husband’s performance is so highly anticipated.’

  There. Brooke exhaled and felt, oddly, momentarily better. It was a relief having her suspicions confirmed; now neither of them had to fake it. She silently cursed herself for not letting Leo’s assistant run the errand, but at least now she knew what was expected of her. She fixed her eyes on the button panel above the doors and did her best to pretend she hadn’t heard a word the woman said.

  ‘I was just wondering, Brooke’ – at the sound of her name, Brooke’s head reflexively snapped up – ‘if you had any comment on the recent photographs?’

  Recent photographs. What was she talking about? Brooke once again stared at the elevator doors and reminded herself that these people would say anything to elicit a single sentence from you – a sentence they’d then twist and turn to fit whatever garbage they’d just dreamed up. She pledged she wouldn’t fall into the trap.

  ‘It must be so difficult to endure all those awful rumors about your husband and other women – I can’t even imagine it. Do you think it will keep you from enjoying tonight’s festivities?’

  The elevator doors finally whooshed open on the penthouse floor. Brooke stepped out into the foyer that led to their three-bedroom suite, currently ground zero of Grammy Preparation Madness. She wanted nothing more than to roll her eyes and say that if Julian was actually sleeping with the number of women the tabs suggested, he would not only have Tiger beat by a mile, but he wouldn’t have a second left to perform a single song. She wanted to say that after you’d read countless detailed accounts from unnamed sources about how your husband has fetishes for everything from tattooed strippers to overweight men, claims of regular old infidelity barely even registered. Most of all, she wanted to tell this woman what she knew beyond all doubt to be true: that her husband, while superbly talented and now undeniably famous, still puked before every performance, visibly sweated when teenage girls shrieked in his presence, and had an inexplicable affinity for clipping his toenails on the toilet. He just wasn’t the cheating type, and it was obvious to anyone who really knew him.

  But of course she couldn’t say any of this, so, as usual, she said nothing at all and merely watched as the elevator doors closed.

  I’m not thinking about any of that tonight, Brooke instructed herself as she unlocked the door with her key card. Tonight is all about Julian. Nothing more, nothing less. It was the night that would make all the invasions of privacy and the scheduling horrors and the carnival aspect of their lives worth it. No matter what happened – a new, vile rumor about Julian and other women, a humiliating paparazzo shot, a nasty comment made by someone on Julian’s staff trying to be ‘helpful’ – she was determined to enjoy every second of such a momentous evening. Only a couple hours earlier her mother had waxed poetic about how a night like this was ‘once-in-a-lifetime stuff,’ and it was her obligation to experience it as fully as she could. Brooke vowed to do just that.

  She strode into the suite and smiled at one of the assistants – who could keep them straight these days? – who ushered her directly into a makeup chair without so much as a hello. The anxiety that hung over the room like a wet blanket didn’t mean the night itself wasn’t going to be fabulous. She wouldn’t let the preparations get her down.

  ‘Time check!’ one of the assistants called out in an irritatingly screechy voice, made even worse by a thick New York accent.

  ‘Ten after one!’ ‘A little after one!’ ‘One ten!’ Three other people answered simultaneously, all with hints of panic.

  ‘Okay, people, let’s step it up! We are T-minus one hour and fifty minutes, which means, judging from the look of things’ – she paused and surveyed the room with an exaggerated swivel and locked eyes with Brooke, maintaining full eye contact as she finished – ‘we are not even close to presentable here.’

  Brooke gingerly raised her hand, careful not to disturb the pair of people working on her eyes, and motioned for the assistant to come over.

  ‘Yes?’ Natalya asked, making no effort to hide her irritation.

  ‘When do you expect Julian back? There’s something I need to—’

  Natalya jutted her barely-there hip out and consulted a Lucite clipboard. ‘Let’s see, he’s just finishing up with his relaxation massage and is en route to
his hot shave. He’s due back here at exactly two o’clock, but he’ll need to meet with the tailor to make sure we finally have the lapel situation under control.’

  Brooke smiled sweetly at the harried girl and decided to take a different tack. ‘You must be so looking forward to having this day be over. From the looks of it, you haven’t stopped running for a second.’

  ‘Is that your way of saying I look like shit?’ Natalya snapped back, her hand automatically flying to her hair. ‘Because if it is, you should just say it.’

  Brooke sighed. Why was it impossible to say anything right around these people? Just fifteen minutes earlier, when she’d gamely asked Leo if the Beverly Hills hotel they were staying in was the same one where they filmed Pretty Woman, he’d snapped back that she should sightsee on her own time.

  ‘I wasn’t saying that at all. Just that I know it’s super-crazy today, and I think you’re doing an amazing job handling it all.’

  ‘Well someone has to,’ Natalya said, and walked away.

  Brooke was tempted to call her back and have a little conversation about common courtesy, but she reconsidered when she remembered the reporter observing everything from eight feet away. This one, unfortunately, had been approved to follow them for the hours leading up to the Grammys, as research for a long feature piece the magazine was doing on Julian. Leo had negotiated some sort of deal whereby he would grant unfettered access to Julian over the course of a week if New York magazine would guarantee the cover, and so now, four days into the week, Julian’s entire entourage was working hard to maintain an all-smiles-we-love-our-job facade – and failing miserably. Every time Brooke caught a glimpse of the reporter – a nice enough guy, it seemed – she fantasized about killing him.

  She was impressed by how skillfully a good reporter could blend into the background. Back in her civilian days, it always seemed ridiculous that a couple would fight or reprimand an employee or even answer their cell phone in the presence of a scoop-hunting journalist; now she had nothing but sympathy for the subjects. The man from New York magazine had been shadowing them for the last four days, but by acting blind, deaf, and mute, he felt as threatening as wallpaper. Which, Brooke knew, was exactly when he was most dangerous.

  She heard the sound of the doorbell but couldn’t turn around without risking curling iron mutilation. ‘Any chance that’s lunch?’ Brooke asked.

  One of the makeup artists snorted. ‘Not likely. Doesn’t really look like the Schedule Nazi thinks food is a priority. Now, no more talking while I work on hiding your laugh lines.’

  Comments like that barely even registered anymore; Brooke was happy the girl hadn’t yet asked if she’d considered lightening treatments to eradicate her freckles, something that seemed to be a go-to topic of discussion these days. She tried to distract herself with the Los Angeles Times, but she couldn’t concentrate with the surrounding excitement. Brooke surveyed the 2,100-square-foot duplex penthouse suite and identified two makeup artists, two hairstylists, a nail artist, a stylist, a publicist, an agent, a business manager, the New York reporter, a fitter from Valentino, and enough assistants to staff the White House.

  It was undeniably ridiculous, but Brooke couldn’t help being excited by the whole thing. She was at the Grammys – the Grammys! – about to escort her husband down the red carpet in front of the entire world. To say it felt surreal was an understatement; would an event like this ever feel real? From the first time she’d heard Julian sing at the divey Rue B’s nearly nine years earlier, she’d told anyone who would listen he was going to be a star. What she never envisioned was the reality of that word – ‘star.’ Rock star. Superstar. Her husband, the same guy who still bought only Hanes boxers by the three-pack and loved the bread sticks at Olive Garden and picked his nose when he thought she wasn’t looking was an internationally acclaimed rock star with millions of screaming, adoring, devoted fans. She couldn’t imagine a time, now or in the future, when she’d be able to wrap her mind around that fact.

  The doorbell rang a second time before one of the impossibly young assistants scampered over to open it – and promptly squealed.

  ‘Who is it?’ Brooke asked, unable to open her eyes while they were being lined.

  ‘The security guard from Neil Lane,’ she heard Natalya answer. ‘He’s got your jewelry.’

  ‘My jewelry?’ Brooke asked. She didn’t trust herself not to squeal as well, so she clamped her mouth shut and tried not to smile.

  When it was finally time to put on her dress, Brooke thought she might faint from excitement (and lack of nourishment, but even with the army of helpers in that hotel suite, not one seemed concerned about food). Two assistants held open the magnificent Valentino gown and another held her hand as she stepped into it. It zipped smoothly up the back and hugged her recently slimmed hips and expertly pushed-up chest as though it had been custom fitted – which, of course, it had. The mermaid shape highlighted her somewhat trim waist while completely masking her ‘curvy’ bum, and its scalloped sweetheart neckline accentuated her cleavage in exactly the right way. Aside from its color (a deep gold hue, not metallic, but like she was wearing a perfect, shimmering tan), it was a lesson in how gorgeous fabric and a flawless fit went miles farther than ruffles, beads, sleeves, sashes, sequins, crinoline, or crystals ever could in taking a dress from beautiful to absolutely spectacular. Both the Valentino fitter and Brooke’s own stylist nodded their approval, and Brooke was ecstatic that she’d redoubled her workout efforts over the past couple months. It had finally paid off.

  The jewels came next, and it was almost too much to handle. The security guard, a shorter-than-average man with shoulders the size of a linebacker, handed three velvet boxes to the stylist, who opened them immediately.

  ‘Perfect,’ she declared as she plucked the pieces from their velvet boxes.

  ‘Ohmigod,’ Brooke said, catching a first glimpse at the earrings. They were pear-shaped diamond drops outlined in a delicate pavé, and they had a look of very Old Hollywood glamour.

  ‘Turn around,’ the stylist commanded. She expertly clipped the earrings to Brooke’s lobes and clasped a similarly styled bracelet to her right wrist.

  ‘They’re gorgeous,’ Brooke breathed, staring at the glittering pile of diamonds on her arm. She turned to the security guard. ‘You better follow me into the bathroom tonight. I have a habit of “losing” jewelry all the time!’ She laughed to show she was kidding but the guard didn’t even crack a smile.

  ‘Left hand,’ the stylist barked.

  Brooke extended her left arm, and before she realized what was happening, the woman removed her plain gold wedding band, the one Julian had engraved with their wedding date, and replaced it with a diamond ring the size of a macaroon.

  Brooke snatched her hand back as soon as she realized. ‘No, that’s not going to work, because you know, uh, that’s, um—’

  ‘Julian will understand,’ the girl said, and underscored her decision by snapping the ring box closed. ‘I’m going to get the Polaroid so we can take a few test shots and make sure everything looks good on film. Don’t move.’

  Finally left alone, Brooke spun around in front of the full-length mirror that had been brought in especially for the occasion. In her entire life, she couldn’t remember ever feeling close to this beautiful. Her makeup made her feel like a prettier but still real version of herself, and her skin was glowing with health and color. Diamonds sparkled everywhere, her hair looked chic yet natural gathered and twisted low at her nape, and her dress was complete, utter perfection. She beamed at her reflection and grabbed the bedside phone, excited to share this moment.

  It rang before she could dial her mother’s number, and Brooke felt a familiar anxious jolt deep in her stomach when the number for NYU Medical Center came up on the caller ID. Why on earth would they be calling her? Another nutritionist, Rebecca, had agreed to cover Brooke’s two missed shifts in exchange for two regular shifts, one holiday, and one weekend. They were brutal concessions, b
ut what choice did she have? It was the Grammys. Another thought flashed in her mind before she could push it away: was Margaret calling to tell her that the entire peds rotation was all hers?

  Brooke allowed herself a moment of hopeful excitement before deciding that it was probably just Rebecca asking for clarification on a chart. She cleared her throat and said hello.

  ‘Brooke? Can you hear me?’ Margaret’s voice boomed through the line.

  ‘Hello, Margaret. Is everything all right?’ Brooke asked, trying to make her voice as calm and assured as possible.

  ‘Oh, hi there. I can hear you now. Listen, Brooke, I was just wondering if everything is okay. I was starting to get a little worried.’

  ‘Worried? Why? Everything’s great here.’ Could Margaret have read whatever trash the reporter from the elevator had been referring to? She prayed that wasn’t it.

  Margaret sighed heavily, almost sadly. ‘Look, Brooke. I know this is a huge weekend for you, for Julian. There’s nowhere else you should be, and I hate having to call you right now. But I still have a staff to run, and I can’t do it when I’m short on people.’

  ‘Short on people?’

  ‘I know this is probably the last thing you were thinking about in light of everything that’s going on, but if you’re going to miss work, it’s imperative that you find someone to cover for you. Your shift began at nine this morning and it’s already after ten.’

  ‘Ohmigod. I’m so sorry. Margaret? I know I can clear this all up. Please just give me five minutes. I’ll call you right back.’

  Brooke didn’t wait for an answer. She disconnected the call and scrolled through her phone to find Rebecca’s number. She prayed as the phone rang and felt a surge of relief when she heard Rebecca answer.

  ‘Rebecca? Hi. It’s Brooke Alter.’

  There was a second’s hesitation. ‘Oh, hi! How are you?’