by Susan Conley
Each table was draped in hand-embroidered, hand-woven linen from the hills of Tuscany, and were placed at cunningly discreet distances: far enough apart to promote privacy, but close enough should an occupant want his or her hottest bit of gossip or latest triumph to be overheard and make its way around the room, and out into the world at large.
Lorna instantly found comfort — not via the delicate touches of greenery strewn about or the gorgeous scents wafting out of the kitchen — but in the feeling one can only get when floating on a cumulative cloud of expensive perfume and when bobbing in a sea of Dolce & Gabbana.
Maria Grazia, meanwhile, found the design to be pleasantly airy but pretentious and devoid of originality. She glumly examined the breadbasket, grudgingly left by a waiter hampered by serious delusions of grandeur. Swathed, as if the product of a royal womb, in a square of rust-colored raw silk, were three of the tiniest rolls she’d ever seen.
“If Belle chose to ditch us, I can’t blame her. Look at these!” she demanded, thrusting the basket across the table. “I’ve seen cold sores bigger than these rolls.”
“Do tell, oh celibate one.” Lorna reared back from the carbohydrates as though avoiding flaming toxic waste.
“Cold sores, not herpes.” A waiter with a haircut more expensive than Maria Grazia’s shoes sailed by with an enormous plate that played host to what appeared to be three ravioli and a seared stalk of celery. “Did you see that? I’m going to have to have lunch right after I have lunch. I hate this place.”
“We could have eaten at my desk,” snapped Lorna, and cutting across Maria Grazia’s sarcastic “Woo hoo!” she continued, “But I’m treating, so I get to choose.”
She raised one perfectly polished index finger ever so slightly, and as if on wheels, their supercilious server glided toward them.
“Paolo, I’ll have my usual, thanks.” Lorna handed him her menu, a roll of hand-illuminated parchment, and scanned the room once more. Nobody was here today.
“For appetizers, I’ll have the radicchio and asparagus confit, the mozzarella tomato salad, and the panzanella, and for an entrée I’ll have the bistecca and eggplant roulade with a side order of minestrone soup. Can you tell me if that entrée actually comes with any steak?”
The waiter was looking so far down his nose at Maria Grazia that his eyes were practically shut. Then Maria Grazia smiled, and all was forgiven; Paolo stumbled toward the kitchen and actively contemplated how he could work harder to make Table Sixteen happy.
Lorna laughed. “Don’t you get tired of that?”
“Of?” Maria Grazia quirked a brow.
“The Smile, and the effects thereof.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she sighed theatrically, as she shook out her napkin — or tried to. It was especially large. “Listen, it’s just as well that Belle’s not here. She’s in pieces and this is no place for human emotion. Her sorrow would have clashed horribly with the frescos.”
“I wanted her to feel surrounded by luxury. The good life,” Lorna insisted. “But I will agree that it’s not precisely her style.”
Maria Grazia buttered the tiny pieces of bread as best she could, and waved the now-empty silver basket at the pining Paolo. “She is the true starving artist of the three of us. In theory, anyway. Ideals, idealism, and all that.”
“I wish she’d get her work on track,” Lorna exploded. “We both know that she is an extremely accomplished writer. Why does she insist on focusing these dry-as-dust historical novels? We both know that her talents run more to documentary than narrative, so to speak. How does she stand it? No career, now no boyfriend — good riddance, but she does like having boyfriends — and on top of it she lives in Brooklyn. My God!”
“We love her anyway, despite the geographical flaw.”
“What are you implying? I adore her!” Lorna delicately placed a hand on her heart; several rivals seated nearby wondered if indeed anything beat there. “And I can’t stand watching the friend whom I adore just spin her wheels!”
Paolo arrived laden with plates, all for Maria Grazia, and another serving of bread. He waited vainly for another flash of The Smile but Maria Grazia never grinned with her mouth full.
Lorna went charging on. “And what about all this new age-y witchy business? I’d never been to her apartment, I’d had no idea that there were candles everywhere, and all those straggly pots of herbs on her windowsills, and that truly bizarre lunar calendar — ”
“It’s more a spiritual pursuit than anything else, and, dear Lorna, it’s not really any of our business. No one scolds you about the way you carry on.”
Lorna sat up so straight that it appeared as if someone had tugged her up by the tops of her ears.
“I do not ‘carry on’.”
“You work like a drayhorse — ”
“Excuse me, a what?”
“ — and you sleep around like a Chelsea boy — ”
“A dray horse?”
“ — and smoke too much, but it’s nobody’s business but your own, even though there are those who might think that you’re squandering your life.”
“A horse? Do I look fat in this?”
“My point: I did not come here to dish Belle.”
Lorna’s furious riposte was dampened by the reappearance of Paolo, this time with Lorna’s organic salate di spinaccio in lemon juice, and Maria Grazia’s steak. She looked at her plate, and couldn’t claim to be surprised by its lack of bulk. “This must have been raised on the Upper East Side.” Nevertheless, she dug in.
Lorna stabbed her fork around her plate; she had a vague sensation, the kind she hadn’t allowed herself to experience since she was a teenager, that quite possibly could have been her feelings feeling hurt. How dull, she thought, and strove to keep the rhythm alive.
“So I’m a workaholic-slash-smokeaholic-slash-shagaholic? Are you suggesting I join a group, perhaps?”
Maria Grazia laughed. “You’re outrageous, bitch! I’m starving — let’s defer round two.”
From day one, they had always been the best of sparring partners, from the very first day of college when they met outside a club, trying to fake-ID their way in. After some conversation, Lorna accused Maria Grazia of putting on a cinematic accent (she was still rather proud of the use of ‘cinematic’) because she was in a new situation and no one would know whether or not that was her real voice. MG had roared, “You’re outrageous!” As Lorna had chosen to cultivate such a personality trait the minute she had graduated high school, well, she’d known that they’d be best friends. Their crossfire often made Anna twitch, being the least confrontational of the three — and it could, at times, get fierce.
Lorna watched Maria Grazia inhale her meal, and delicately crossed her knife and fork over the remains of her salad. She waved to a distant table — I thought she got canned, Lorna thought to herself, and cast her eyes around to case the room once more. Hmm, wasn’t that The Aging Daytime Drama Star with Interior Beauty’s resident handyman? That’s interesting —
“Enough with the scanning. I feel like I’m getting a frickin’ x-ray.”
“If you won’t allow the discussion of Anna and her career prospects, can we at least trash Wilson? I have been longing to.”
Maria Grazia nodded as she swallowed the last precious mouthful of her steak. “That we can do. Over dessert. Who’s that one, over there? Silver fox.”
“Oh, him.” Lorna smiled and waved at the rather dashing older man three tables away. “He has tragically found himself on the losing end of a pitch for the three year contract to represent MGM’s east coast interests.”
“I suppose congratulations are in order?” MG raised her glass.
“Oh, yes,” breathed Lorna. “And you?”
“Well.” Maria Grazia hauled up the voluminous napkin and patted her lip
s. “I’m sure I’ve designed the new ‘It’ bag — each one hand made, sadly by me alone at the moment, but don’t tell — and one of Oprah’s people were in the other day looking at them. And in fact, she bought one.” She smiled like the cat that got the cream. Hmm, cream …
“Isn’t that interesting,” Lorna sang, and they smirked at each other. This was where they were at their best, and most at home with each other, in their ambitions.
Maria Grazia cleared her throat. “Breaking my own rule — ”
“How unusual.”
“But. I wish … Oh, I said we wouldn’t dish Belle and here I go, I am hopeless — ”
“Oh, just go on!”
“She’s so talented, but she has no animal instinct, or something. She’s not thinking it through logically. She’s got some romantic image of what being a writer is, and you are right, you are so right, her strength is in, like, living history, remember that series she did on that artist? He’s frickin’ famous now, because she made him famous.”
“And now she’s wasting her time on relics — ”
“Enough, enough. I hate gossiping about friends with other friends, I won’t do it. Shutting up now.”
Lorna sat back and waited. It was part of Maria Grazia’s digestive process to rattle on at length.
“And that Wilson was no help. So patronizing — remember at her birthday, the last one, when he gave her that supremely inappropriate, never mind impersonal, faux leather desk agenda thingie? So crass, not even real leather, and her poor little face, I think she was expecting ‘An Avowal’, as Jane Austen might say. ‘The Ring.’ I know she did. I just know it. She really wanted to marry that stuffed shirt. Bastard. I wonder if she’s heard from him, if he’s looking for post-break-up pity sex, or something. I hope not. She’s not ready to see him. No. You know, I really am convinced that this rupture is a good thing.”
“Oh?” Lorna knew that this was all that was required.
“I just wish she had more energy, I swear that asshole was like a vampire, sucking the life out of her.” She accompanied this with a visual rendering of what she imagined the sucking to look like, using elaborate hand movements. “And that is why all her magick-y stuff is a goddess-send, it’s the only thing he didn’t suck right out of her.” Reprise of hand movements. “I was tempted to drape her door with garlic myself. And he dressed like a clown, a frickin’ banker clown. Dessert?”
• • •
Walking back to Lorna’s office, heads turned in reaction to the both of them. Lorna’s height and Maria Grazia’s curves, each appealing to different strata of the male of the species, meant they had always been each other’s best wing-women. Clearly, even in the swiftly moving Midtown traffic, they still had what it took. Added to their entirely different tastes in said males of the species, their untrammeled ambition, and all the water under years of bridges … well, they understood each other as well as anybody could ever understand another human being, within reason. Frankly, it was seriously annoying Lorna that she suddenly felt she didn’t understand Anna at all.
“All those bloody soul mate books warped her brain.”
Maria Grazia flung her hands into the air, and sent a winning smile to the pedestrian she’d almost knocked to the ground. “Leave it alone! So she wants a long-term partner, so what. You and me, we’re simple, we both don’t want the same thing. We can support her without having to be like her.”
“I think she needs a … how shall I put this? A rebound.”
They paused outside Lorna’s building. Maria Grazia thought about it.
“I might go there with you on that. Has she ever done that? A one night, drunken, reactionary shag?”
“I think after that wrestler guy, she met some guy in a bar who was, perhaps, a guitar guy or a poet guy. Younger.”
“Younger is key, I think. She has all sorts of issues around younger men that won’t let her take it so seriously. Seriously would be bad at the moment. I need to get some display cases built in, the carpenter is a hottie, maybe I’ll make her come over to the shop and then I’ll throw her at him.”
“Excellent. I cannot believe I’ve only just thought of this.” Lorna’s eyes, framed by her lemon yellow shades, narrowed in thought. “We’ve got a pack of interns, one or two of them are sensitive college boy types. Yummy, should one’s taste run to graduates. Any one of them would do. They always give parties — I’ll get invited to one.”
They looked at each other satisfied. Job well done, plan of action agreed, everything under control. Annabelle would be fine. Annabelle would find her way through this. Annabelle —
Was running flat out toward them. Her hair flew straight out, up, and back from her head, her cheeks were flushed with exertion. As she waved at them wildly, both Maria Grazia and Lorna thought, “She’s lost her mind.”
Annabelle grabbed each of them by the arm to stop her momentum, and bent over double, panting. She tried to speak and catch her breath at the same time, which oddly enough didn’t work, as she began to explain herself.
“Ohmigod ohmigod sorry late missed lunch sorry sorry shop tarot shop mind reader psychic vision thing?” Annabelle gasped. “Smoke candles blew out I don’t know I don’t know time warp or something shop gone two hours disappeared ran up here all the way freaked out hazelnut!”
Chapter Seven
The youthful buzz of Matrix PR, Lorna’s employer for the last four years, rocked down the elevator shaft, three floors away. Once the elevator arrived at the forty-second floor, it wasn’t hard to see why. A bank of thirty-five television sets welcomed visitors, each proudly displaying a sexy, modish show reel of the concern’s hottest properties. That none of the screens were synchronized, and therefore none of the soundtracks were running in tandem, bothered no one but the luckless receptionists; the cacophony represented the cutting edge of the agency’s values, and Lorna welcomed the familiar din as she and Maria Grazia tried to surreptitiously frog-march Annabelle onto the premises.
They moved as calmly as possible across the open plan office, Lorna’s eyes taking in everything via peripheral vision, making sure she knew who was doing what where, and whether or not any of her colleagues had spotted her and her friends. Lorna steered Annabelle and Maria Grazia toward her modified cube; in an effort to reflect Lorna’s seniority in the agency, the powers-that-were had enclosed the space with semi-frosted glass. It was better than nothing, with “nothing” generally being the order of the day in a company in which those powers behaved as though their employees should be paying them for the privilege of working there.
God forbid they should actually come across with a proper office, Lorna thought bitterly, not for the first time. Proper office or not, Lorna prayed to make it in there unchallenged. She was positive that Annabelle was radiating insanity vibes and wanted her behind closed doors — well, door — now.
They cruised past Lorna’s assistant Zoe, an overly serious twenty-year-old sporting a severe crop of hair colored an improbable shade of red and heavy horn-rimmed glasses. She had opened her mouth to speak, but obeyed Lorna’s raised hand and shut her mouth again.
“No calls — none,” Lorna ordered, as Zoe quickly opened the door and leaped aside. “No tea, no coffee. We are not to be disturbed.”
As she and Maria Grazia led Annabelle into Lorna’s office, Zoe jumped into the doorway and blurted, “Vera Wang called and said that the shantung strapless was unavailable for the MOMA opening because someone from Revenge requested it.”
Lorna’s brows rose and knitted simultaneously. “We’ll see about that,” she muttered as she firmly ushered her assistant away.
Lorna sagged ever so slightly against the door, and watched as Maria Grazia sat Annabelle down on the miniature leather couch. She strode to her desk, a small but perfectly formed Phillipe Starck knock-off, and sat. She immediately clicked into her email, and proceeded to
winnow.
“I need a minute to go through these. Anna, can you put the oddness on hold?”
“I’m not odd.” Annabelle jumped off the couch and went to lean against the single window. “By the way, the feng shui of this entire floor is a disaster.”
Lorna looked at Maria Grazia. Maria Grazia looked at Lorna. Neither of them knew where to start. Annabelle sank onto the floor between the desk and the couch, her right hand in her right pocket. She seemed lost in thought, or as Maria Grazia thought, just lost. She started stroking her friend’s hair, both as a soothing gesture and a means of making her look less crazy.
“Hey, Belle? Take some of those deep breaths you’re always recommending, okay? So, what’s up?”
Lorna set aside her wireless mouse. “Now, Annabelle — ”
“Sorry about lunch.” Annabelle looked up at Lorna. “Sorry.”
“I got over it,” she replied lightly, and leaned forward in what she thought was a firm, yet non-confrontational manner.
Maria Grazia continued to stroke Annabelle’s hair. “Honey, I don’t think we really understood what … delayed you. You were pretty upset and we didn’t really make out what you were trying to tell us.”
Annabelle took a deep breath. “I mailed my manuscript off from the post office on Eighth. It’s got good vibes in there, and I feel like it’s safer, like it’ll get where it’s supposed to go.” Lorna rolled her eyes discreetly as Annabelle plowed on. “I started walking, and I saw this shop, a new age-y kind of place. I’d never seen it before, so I went in.” She took a sip of water, and said, almost dreamily, “Can I have some tea? She gave me tea.”
“She?” Maria Grazia prodded gently when Annabelle didn’t continue.
“The woman. Irish, I think, she sounded Irish, she gave me tea, and she had this deck of cards on a table, and there were like pictures of my life on them or something — ” Lorna’s eyes clashed with Maria Grazia’s, who made a shut up face at her. “Then we sat down and she started channeling or something and all the candles went out and there was this huge cloud of smoke from the incense and it felt like we were floating and, and, and then it was over and this … this nut hit me on the head.”
