Bergdorf Blondes

by Plum Sykes

“Why am I here?”

  “Your fiancé callously dropped you after having sex with you and—”

  “Eew!” yelled Lara. “You don’t have to give her all the intimate sexual details.”

  Even Xanax doesn’t erase details like that. Every ghastly moment was branded on my brain. I was sick with shock and horror. Now I know exactly what that poor girl in The Exorcist must have felt like.

  “Darling, you need to eat,” said Lara. “We’ll order from room service. What do you want?”

  “Just a silver fruit knife,” I said.

  “What?” said Jolene.

  “A silver fruit knife,” I repeated. “So I can slit my wrists with style.”

  “She’s totally clinical,” whispered Jolene to Lara.

  Oh good, I thought, it would only be a matter of time before I was shipped off to We Care Spa, this lovely therapy center in California. Publicists in New York are regularly clinical because it means they can take vacations there almost once a month and catch up on their A-list networking. Apparently you can get the latest Japanese hot stone massages there.

  The tragic thing about Xanax is that eventually someone like Julie says you can’t have any more of it. When it wore off a few hours later, fear sidled through the French windows and snuck under Julie’s 473-thread-count sheets. Loneliness snaked around my body like the fumes from one of her Diptyque candles. I started to sweat, my face damp, my body boiling as I came to the icky realization that a broken heart is a broken heart no matter who designed the guest bedroom you are having it in. I must warn Julie that unfortunately Frette linens are absolutely no safeguard against personal romantic tragedy. I called for Julie and she came tiptoeing in.

  “Please let me call Zach,” I croaked. “I need to sort everything out.”

  Julie hadn’t let me near a phone since I’d arrived the night before.

  “Engagements and divorces are the only things that really make people happy,” she said. “You’re lucky to be out of it. Don’t call him and make things worse.”

  “But I love him,” I whispered weakly.

  “You’re not in love with him. You’re in longing for him. How could you love someone you hardly saw? My analyst says you are infatuated with a romantic ideal. It’s the idea of him not the reality that you want. The reality is that he’s a total monster.”

  There is nothing I hate more than a professional opinion I haven’t asked for. Julie’s shrink had no idea about my One and Only.

  “Why did he send me all those gifts, and tell me I was the wittiest girl in Manhattan, and ask me to marry him? It doesn’t make sense,” I pleaded.

  “You know what? It does. For a guy like Zach with a bit of money and style, sweeping a girl off her feet is easy. It’s much harder to really be with someone and make them part of your life. He prefers the chase,” said Julie, as if she were Oprah or something.

  “Please let me call—”

  “Just rest,” she said sweetly.

  She left the room. She also left her cell phone on the bed. I dialed Zach. After the usual set of negotiations with the assistant, he finally came on the line.

  “Yeah,” he said, just like normal. Maybe nothing had happened.

  “Should we meet, and you know…discuss—”

  “I’m too busy,” Zach interrupted.

  “But this is serious. We should talk about it,” I said.

  “I’m leaving town. I’ll call you.” He hung up.

  I felt desperate. Even though I knew Zach had behaved appallingly, I guess I still loved him. There is nothing as painful as being madly in love with someone who isn’t madly in love with you anymore. How did we get from it’s so cute you can’t cook to this, I wondered as I lay in Julie’s guest bedroom. I felt like I was in one of those majorly depressing Meryl Streep movies where everyone lives in the suburbs and wears bad clothes and can’t understand what happened to their relationship.

  “I’ll never get him back now,” I wailed to Julie when she put her head around the bedroom door later that day. “I feel so sad. I called him and he said he’s leaving town.”

  “I don’t understand why you keep going back for more,” said Julie, exasperated. “I told you, he’s a monster and now he’s proven it.”

  I knew Julie was right, but that didn’t make it any easier. There’s an irrational behavioral pattern shared by many New York girls where the worse a man is to them, the more they want him back. If they do get him back, he’s viler than ever. Then they end it because he’s being vile, like he was all along, and they look sane and rational and together. The main point of the exercise is to become the reject-or instead of the reject-ee. I would have thought Julie would really understand, bearing in mind that she’s probably the most irrational girl in town.

  She tried everything to cheer me up. But mostly anything she or anyone else said made me feel worse. Like when she said to me, “He doesn’t deserve someone as great and pretty as you anyway,” I felt beyond depressed. After all, that’s exactly the kind of thing I say to girls who aren’t particularly great or pretty to try and make them feel better after boyfriends have dumped them.

  I didn’t leave Julie’s guest bedroom for three days. Zach never called. I developed a severe case of breakuprexia, which is this illness all girls in NY and LA get after a breakup where you get beyond ana and can fit into a size two. I couldn’t eat a thing—even my favorite vanilla cupcakes that Julie specially ordered in for me from Magnolia Bakery downtown. My flesh turned to bone. Lara kept trying to cheer me up about my appearance by saying she wished she had breakuprexia too then she wouldn’t have to spend so much on nutritionists and personal trainers. The truth was, I looked like a chopstick and felt as raw as a piece of Nobu’s yellowtail. Only, it would have been better being the yellowtail because at least everyone wants yellowtail, and no one wanted me. You know you’ve checked into Heartbreak Hotel for real when you feel less desirable than uncooked fish.

  There were other signs that something was very, very wrong with me. Like the only music I could bear to listen to was Mariah Carey, which, when I look back on it, was almost more worrying than the breakuprexia. When Julie offered to get in Xenia, the Polish manicurist who goes on all the W magazine shoots and buffs absolutely anyone who is anyone’s nails, I whimpered, “No thanks.” I must have been beyond clinical to turn down Xenia, I mean, I am such a New York grooming addict that my nails actually hurt if they don’t have NARS Candy Darling pink varnish on them. But you know what? Aching nails were nothing compared to the pain I was in now.

  On the fourth day Julie announced she was taking me out. The Vandonbilt twins were throwing a lunch in aid of their charity, a Guatemalan girls’ school. The twins made Julie feel très awkward about being Julie because even though they were far richer than Julie, they acted totally broke-slash-cool all the time and were always helping other people. “And, you know, they tilt their heads to one side as though they are really listening to you and speak real quiet as though they are perfect. But then, you know, in a moment of weakness they go to Barneys and spend a gajillion dollars on makeup and think no one’s got any idea,” said Julie.

  “I don’t want to go. I’m too ashamed to ever leave the house ever again,” I said.

  “Listen, I don’t wanna go either, sweetie, but those Vandy girls are my cousins and I need to show them I can be just as benevolent as them. Why they live in that medium apartment and wear those medium clothes when they could have the best that Dolce & Gabbana has to offer I will never understand.” Then she added softly, “You can’t stay here forever. You’ve gotta go out at some point.”

  I struggled out of bed and somehow got dressed. I was freaked out when I looked in the mirror: my hair was stringy, my face blotchy. My pants hung depressingly from my frame and my T-shirt sagged forlornly from my chest. I looked like one of those really sad Marc Jacobs groupies who hang around the Marc stores on Bleecker Street on Saturdays. The only difference was they spent a fortune trying to look this undernourished.
Julie, who was in an upbeat pink sundress, loved my despondent appearance.

  “You look totally heroin chic,” she said. “The Vandys are gonna kill themselves when they see you.” Well, at least something positive may come from the visit, I thought.

  Julie wanted to stop at Pastis, down in the meatpacking district, for a bowl of decaf latte before we hit the Vandy lunch. “I gotta get in the downtown mood,” she said. I was terrified: Pastis is like the trendiest place in New York. What if there were people there who could detect that I was recently disengaged?

  “Don’t worry,” said Julie, seeing my troubled expression. “We won’t bump into anyone we know down there. No one gets up in the West Village before twelve.”

  As we were chauffeured downtown I started to feel better. It felt good to be out of bed at last, and it was fun being in Julie’s new car, an SUV luxuriously upholstered in caramel leather. I wasn’t crying hysterically anymore. I could actually chat as we headed down Fifth Avenue.

  “You wanna come to the beach this weekend? You can have the guest house all to yourself. Daddy would love to see you,” said Julie.

  “Sure!” I said brightly.

  “Hey, good girl!” said Julie. “You’re going to be good again so soon you don’t even know it.”

  But here’s the thing about a broken heart: just when you feel a teensy bit less hysterical about it, it bites you in the heel and you’re more hysterical than you ever were the first time you got hysterical. As we sped across Fifty-seventh Street I glimpsed a huge billboard with a giant picture of a ring set with three diamonds. Underneath the photograph were the words THREE WAYS TO TELL HER YOU LOVE HER. My first crying attack of the day started immediately. Why were the people at De Beers trying to make me feel so bad about myself? Didn’t they know that advertising engagement rings was extremely traumatic for the disengaged population?

  “Oh my god!” said Julie. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s that ad for an engagement ring, it’s reminding me.”

  “But sweetie, you never had an engagement ring, so it’s not really relevant.”

  “I kno-ooo-w!” I sniveled. “Imagine if I had h-h-had an engag-g-g-gement ring h-hiccup h-how much more upset I’d be. Oh god, I can’t bear it.”

  “Here, darling, have a Versace tissue, they always make me feel so much better.”

  I wiped my nose and tried to concentrate on something bland like the inside of the car. I pulled New York magazine from the pouch in front of me. MANHATTAN’s 25 MOST ROMANTIC PROPOSALS read the headline in pastel pink text. Whoever the editor of New York magazine was, they were totally sick to do this. It reminded me of work: I’d totally forgotten to reschedule the Palm Beach story. I couldn’t deal. I snapped my eyes shut and kept them like that until we arrived at Pastis.

  As Julie had predicted, the brasserie was empty. We sat at a corner banquette sipping coffee. I felt much better again: it was a great place and our waiter was totally hot. Julie read Us magazine and I managed to swallow a mouthful of eggs benedict.

  “Julie, do you think it’s really true what’s happened to me?” I said.

  “Well, it’s in Us magazine and once something’s been in Us magazine it’s official,” said Julie, holding up the Hot Stuff Extra! section.

  I gasped. As you know, when it comes to gossip I am a believer. Now that I was Manhattan magazine gossip, everything must be real. This was truly hideous.

  “O-o-h, no, I can’t even keep it a secret now. I’m so embarrassed,” I cried.

  “Look at it this way, at least you won’t have to go through the hell of actually telling anybody the wedding’s off, since they’ll all read about it. It’s better this way, honestly,” replied Julie. “Free negative publicity has advantages.”

  “Hey!” A chirpy voice interrupted us. It belonged to a girl who was way too pretty for me to deal with right now, Crystal Field. She was tan and carrying a mini basket out of which peeped an adorable Teacup Pomeranian wearing a red bow in its hair. Teacup puppies are very in (because you can take them as hand luggage on the plane to Paris) and so are mini baskets from Chinatown to carry them in. Crystal is very in. In fact, Crystal is perfect. It was très tragic to have Crystal appear at a moment like this in my life. She was depressingly glowing. A few seconds later Billy, her boyfriend, joined us. Billy is very gorgeous and very in, too. They held hands. They were openly “in love.” This did not concern me: Crystal and Billy were simply too in to have a real relationship. It wouldn’t last.

  “You’re both so tan,” said Julie.

  “The honeymoon,” smiled Billy. “We just got back.”

  Why did thrilled couples feel some unfair need to go around brutalizing uncoupled people like me? It was beyond selfish. Then Crystal asked me, “When’s your wedding?”

  I stared at her for a few moments. This was a moment more humiliating than I had ever faced in my life. I was actually going to have to tell someone, in public, that I was fiancé-less. It took some time before I answered, so long in fact that Crystal and Billy started looking nervous and the dog started yapping. Finally I just said, “It’s off.”

  Silence. No one knew what to say when faced with such a tragedy at midday in Pastis, a place where the clientele knows only pleasure.

  “Eew,” said Crystal. Her mouth stuck in the shape of a large O.

  “Yeah, eew,” said Billy. Even supposedly straight men in New York have started saying eew to keep in with their girlfriends. They made excuses and left abruptly.

  No one wanted to be near a romantic failure like moi in case I was infectious. Love was everywhere in New York but I couldn’t get any of it. It felt a lot like that time Gucci brought out that Jackie bag. It was sold out in about nine minutes and everyone had one except me. I put myself down on the wait list, hoping something would change, but the fact was I was never going to get a Jackie because there just weren’t enough to go around, like there isn’t enough love.

  By the time we arrived chez Vandy I felt about as self-confident as Chelsea Clinton before she found out about straightening irons. Julie assured me no one at the Vandys’ would have cute husbands in tow. The twins lived in a converted sweatshop way down on Mulberry Street. Everyone was lounging on giant floor pillows from Moss and drinking antioxidant tea. Veronica and Violet Vandonbilt were both wearing custom jackets printed with the words IT’S OUR WORLD YOU’RE JUST LIVING IN IT on the back. When they saw us they tilted their heads massively and said, “Oooh. We’re sooo sooorry for you. We got our acupuncturist in especially when we heard. Group hug!”

  Suddenly everyone started asking Julie why the Vandys were so sorry for me and before I knew it the whole party was giving me group hugs. Julie led me off to a secluded pillow.

  “Do not go near the twins’ acupuncturist,” she said. “God, why do they have to be so nice? It totally creeps me out that they don’t even know you and they are offering you needles. And have you seen how much they flick their hair? It’s so tacky.”

  The Vandys came and sat with us. Julie was all smiles, asking them what they were up to.

  “Actually, I’m opening a thirty-thousand-square-foot spa on the Bowery,” said Veronica.

  “And I’m buying a jewelry store on Elizabeth Street,” said Violet.

  “How wonderful!” smiled Julie. “How generous of Daddy Vandy.”

  “LVMH is backing us,” they said in unison.

  “I love your bracelet,” said Julie, rapidly changing the subject and grabbing Veronica’s wrist. “What is that?”

  Veronica was wearing a gold ID bracelet engraved with the number 622.

  “Oh, John has one, too,” cooed Veronica, tilting her head. “That’s the number of our honeymoon suite at Cipriani Venice. Mmmm.”

  Even highly sensitive nice people like the Vandys had to remind me that I hadn’t had a honeymoon and probably never would. I wiped a stray tear from my cheek. “Oh, noooo! Group hug,” burst out the twins. This was too much to bear. Suddenly my whole body started to hurt, even
my nails, which felt like they were bleeding or something. Thank god for Julie. She made a quick excuse and rushed me out to the car and we sped back to the safety of her apartment. This was getting serious, I realized. I needed a replacement fiancé or life in Manhattan would be so intolerable I would have to move somewhere foreign like Brooklyn.

  The next day I went back to my own apartment. There was one message on my voice mail. It was from Mom: “We’ve all heard. Are you sure you’re cancelling? It’s very embarrassing for me in the village having to cancel the castle again so maybe you could do it this time. Okay. Be in touch.”

  The place seemed very empty. The phone didn’t ring. No invitations at all arrived by messenger. As I’d suspected, absolutely no free clothes came randomly from fashion designers now that I was disengaged. I drifted around the apartment in my nightdress (actually rather a gorgeous vintage one) worrying how I was ever going to meet my deadline. The office wanted their Palm Beach story, but the only thing I could effectively achieve was sitting in my study, despairing. It seemed so quiet that I actually started to relate to the sad girls who owned DVD players.

  I decided to go buy one and watch movies for the rest of my life since I was never going to be invited anywhere ever again. I got dressed and left the apartment. On the way to The Wiz I stopped off at Magnolia Bakery on Bleecker Street for an iced vanilla cupcake. I ate it in the taxi on the way to The Wiz. Those cakes are so sweet, I swear you can self-medicate with them. It lifted my mood, if only for a few minutes.

  A trip to The Wiz on Union Square is enough to make your nails ache like mad even at the best of times. My god, I thought, as I wandered past a million cell phones towards the TVs, the champagne bubble about town has lost her fizz. It was a depressing moment. I picked out a machine and got on line. Then my cell rang. It was Julie, asking where I was. I told her. She freaked.

  “The fucking Wiz? Buying a DVD player? You’re having a nervous breakdown.”

  “I am not having a nervous breakdown,” I said, breaking into hysterical sobs. “I’m one hundred percent absolutely totally great.”