by Lindsey Kelk
‘So why did I need to wear a suit?’ he asked, wrapping his arm around the waist of the black satin Reformation wrap dress Jenny had ‘borrowed’ for me from the sample cupboard at work.
‘Because I think you look really hot in a suit.’ I grabbed two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter and handed one to him with as big a smile as I could muster. ‘And I’m a monster.’
‘Tricking a man into wearing irresponsibly sexy clothing for your own benefit, Angela Clark, you are a monster,’ Alex murmured into my hair as he took the glass before clinking the rim against my own. ‘I hope you’re happy. What if these women can’t control themselves around me? What will you do then?’
For a split second, I panicked. What if anyone from The Mob was here? There really was a chance I’d be sleeping with the fishes if Perry saw the way he filled out a tux. But no, we were safe. Out on a Saturday night, all dressed up and, if I had my way, half an hour away from getting very tipsy and a couple of hours away from a bloody good seeing to.
‘Oh, shit, who is that stud?’
As usual, we heard Jenny before we saw her.
‘Aw, it’s only Reid, never mind,’ she said, flipping her curls over her shoulder. ‘How’s it going, Hopalong?’
‘Lopez,’ Alex leaned in for a kiss on the cheek and got an enormous, full-body hug in return before she released him and turned him over to her gigantic, bearded husband. ‘Mason.’
The men engaged a manly half-hug while Jenny fussed with my hair and took out her phone for a selfie.
From the top of her head to the tips of her toes, Jenny was a vision. In spite of the earlier summer downpour, she was wearing sky-high, black patent strappy sandals and a fitted black velvet mini dress that was so short, I really hoped she’d had a recent wax. The high neck and long sleeves balanced out her bare legs and a sequined snake ran all the way down from the neck to the hem, glinting gleefully in the low lights of the party.
‘So, Mason,’ I heard Alex say over my shoulder. ‘I see you’re not wearing a suit …’
‘Look up,’ Jenny ordered, wrapping her arm tightly around my shoulders. ‘Chin down, half-smile, there we go.’
She snapped a dozen or so pics before releasing me from her vice-like grip and turning her attention to FaceTune. ‘Good work, we’re cute.’
‘That dress is amazing, where’s it from?’ I asked as she expertly swiped and smoothed our photo. Clearly not quite cute enough.
‘Valentino,’ she replied, utterly preoccupied. It seemed like editing my dark circles was taking up most of her energy. ‘And can I just say, I’m so sorry about your bag. I know how much that ugly old thing meant to you.’
‘You helped me buy that ugly old thing,’ I said, contending with a fresh rush of grief.
‘Yeah, ten years ago. It was time for it to go. Now we can get you something new, maybe a Chanel.’ Jenny breathed in sharply at the very thought. ‘Hey, did you hear Cici got the food guy from Queer Eye to cater the party? My friend said something about him being her date.’
‘That poor man,’ I replied, immediately searching the crowd for the stars of my favourite show. ‘I know there’s a clue in the name but does she realize he’s gay?’
‘You think that would stop Cici Spencer from trying to get what she wants?’ Jenny clucked. ‘Erin told me she got Leonardo DiCaprio to escort her to their sweet sixteenth.’
I shook my head, watching all the beautiful people pass by. ‘That’s just a rumour, Delia told me. It was actually Jake Gyllenhaal.’
‘Goddamn, I wish I was that rich,’ she sighed. ‘I’d hire Ryan Gosling to come over and organize my closet.’
‘Is he known for his organizational skills?’ I asked.
Jenny flicked away a smudge of mascara from underneath my eye.
‘Who cares?’ she said, smiling at my corrected makeup. ‘I just want to lie on my bed and watch him touch my things.’
I couldn’t argue with a plan like that.
‘Angela!’
The worst thing about identical twins is that they’re identical. I gripped Jenny’s arm as a statuesque blonde wearing an absurdly beautiful beaded gown parted the crowds and moved towards us, her sparkling, silver dress shimmering with every step.
‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ she said, leaning in for hugs and kisses, immediately outing herself as Delia, the good twin and our hostess.
‘And I’m so glad you’re you and not your sister,’ I said. ‘Happy birthday.’
‘It must be amazing to go through life without getting that reaction,’ she replied, tucking a long loose wave behind her ear. ‘I can’t imagine what it’s like to live in a world where Satan isn’t walking around town, wearing your face.’
‘Cici couldn’t be Satan,’ Jenny said, taking two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter, handing one to the birthday girl. ‘Didn’t he start out as an angel? She’s been evil through and through since birth.’
Delia clinked her glass against Jenny’s in agreement.
‘I’ve been meaning to call you,’ Jenny said, nursing her drink as Delia threw hers back. ‘I am planning the most exciting trip ever and I really want you to come. We’re going to Hawaii next Thursday and I’ve got a seat saved just for you.’
‘Jenny, I wish I could. I haven’t been to Hawaii since I was a teenager,’ Delia said with a mournful sigh. ‘My godfather has an estate on Lanai and we would go every year. When we were kids, Cici and I would run around naked and practically live in the ocean. It’s heaven.’
‘Wait,’ Jenny said, shaking her head. ‘Is your god-father Bertie Bennett?’
Delia gave her a quizzical smile. ‘Uncle Al to me, but yes, how did you know?’
‘How did I not know this? That’s where we’re going!’ she shrieked. ‘We’re staying at Hala Lanai. Bertie is a client of EWPR and he’s friends with the brand owner and he said we could host there and, oh man, now you’ve gotta come.’
‘But I can’t,’ she replied, the regret evident all over her pretty face. Even though Delia was no stranger to a bit of Botox, unlike her sister she could still actually express emotions. ‘I’ve got so many big meetings coming up this month, there’s no way I could take off.’
‘Angela’s coming,’ Jenny bargained.
‘No, I’m not,’ I countered.
‘Angela, if you can, you must,’ Delia insisted, grabbing hold of my hand. ‘Truly, it is the most beautiful place on earth. And I heard Uncle Al was thinking of selling. I hate to think who might end up buying it. It’s such a special place.’
‘Couldn’t you buy it?’ I suggested as my FOMO began to raise its ugly head. ‘You’re loaded.’
‘Not private-estate-in-Lanai loaded. My mom told me Bill Gates tried to buy it from him once and Uncle Al said no.’
‘Maybe if you could convince Cici to run around naked on the beach again, the pair of you could pull in a few bucks,’ Jenny said. ‘There’s totally a market for it.’
Gross, but she wasn’t wrong.
‘I’m so insanely jealous,’ Delia said, finishing her champagne with a second sip. ‘Things are so crazy with the business and I haven’t had a vacation in forever. You’re going to have the most incredible time.’
‘Except I’m not going,’ I reminded them both, taking the tiniest sip of champagne. A sniff of the barmaid’s apron and I was anyone’s these days, which was great when I was safely tucked up on the sofa with all the Harry Potter movies and a glass of rosé but less impressive when I was at a very fancy party full of very fancy people. The last thing I needed was for Alex to be holding my hair back while I hung off the roof and chundered six floors above Park Avenue.
‘Angela, is it true?’
Before anyone could make me feel any worse, Erin stepped out from the crowd. I couldn’t help but give her a big sniff as she leaned in for a kiss. Erin was the closest thing our group had to a proper grown-up and she always smelled reassuringly expensive.
‘Is what true?’ I asked as the waiter sw
ung back around, refreshing Delia’s glass of champagne, handing a new flute to Erin and giving Jenny’s legs a thorough appraisal. I, apparently, was invisible.
‘That you’ve been invited to join The Mothers of Brooklyn?’ Erin demanded.
Jenny and Delia gasped.
‘Oh, shit, Angie, for real?’ Jenny’s eyes were so wide, I had to check over my shoulder to make sure Ryan Reynolds wasn’t standing behind me. ‘This is epic.’
‘Big if true,’ Delia confirmed. ‘I had a friend who applied to join but they turned her down because she didn’t meet their criteria. She cried about it for weeks. And however you feel about her dad, Ivanka has gone through an awful lot lately.’
‘I heard Michelle Williams tried to join,’ Erin added in hushed tones. ‘And they met with her but she failed their test and that’s why she moved upstate.’
‘I love The Greatest Showman,’ I replied. ‘Maybe Michelle wants to start her own group with me?’
‘Of course you do,’ Erin sniffed. ‘But that isn’t very Mothers of Brooklyn either so keep it to yourself. So, is it true? Did they really ask you to join?’
The three of them crowded around me, eyes wide, mouths slightly parted, vibrating with anticipation. Exactly the same way the waiter had looked at Jenny’s legs.
‘First, you’re all freaking me out,’ I said, taking a sip of my champagne for courage. ‘And second, how did you even hear about this? I thought the first rule of Fight Club was, we don’t talk about Fight Club?’
‘My friend Andrea is in it,’ Erin explained. ‘Perry Dickson sent an all-members email out asking about you and she recognized your name.’
Interesting. And terrifying. I still hadn’t replied to Perry’s voicemail and, every time I went home, I was half expecting them to be waiting on my doorstep in long red capes with the hoods up.
‘Angela, you have to join,’ Jenny said, putting down her champagne to take both of my hands in hers, just in case I didn’t realize how bizarrely desperate she was. ‘The Mothers of Brooklyn are one of the most powerful parenting groups in the city. They’ll get you into all the right parties, they’ll introduce you to all the right people and then you can take me to those parties and introduce me to those people.’
‘Shouldn’t it be more about Alice?’ I suggested, prising my hand away. When Jenny put down booze, I knew things were serious. ‘It’s a parenting group, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, sure,’ she said, flapping her hands around in the air. ‘Make it all about Alice, as usual. What about me, Angela, what about me?’
‘It would be so good for Alice. Perry’s sister-in-law is Lorraine Dickson,’ Erin interjected before I could give Jenny the slap she was so dearly asking for.
I gave her a blank look.
‘She’s one of the top preschool consultants in New York,’ she said, not bothering to hide her exasperation. ‘It cost me five hundred dollars just to get a meeting with her when we were trying to get Ariana into Horace Mann and then it was twenty-five hundred an hour for her to work on the application.’
‘Didn’t Ariana go to the West Village nursery?’ Delia asked.
Erin took a long sip of her champagne.
‘Yes.’ Erin’s voice was brittle. ‘We didn’t get into Horace Mann.’
‘So you’re telling me I should join this group of weirdos just because they’re related to someone who could potentially not get Alice into a preschool I couldn’t afford to send her to in the first place?’ I said. ‘Great. Good to know.’
She pressed her lips together, looking about ready to throttle me. ‘I’m saying you should join because they have power, Angela, they have reach. I would have happily left the West Village and moved to the back of beyond if I thought I would have been invited to join.’
Only a woman who had lived in Manhattan for her entire life would consider Brooklyn the back of beyond.
‘You know,’ Delia added, lowering her voice to a hushed whisper. ‘I happen to know Perry has very strong political connections.’
My glass hovered in front of my lips as I raised one eyebrow. Delia would know, the New York real estate billionaire club was very small.
‘My green card is totally legit,’ I informed her, trying to remember exactly when it needed to be renewed. ‘You can’t undo those. Can you?’
‘I don’t think you want to be on the wrong side of her, that’s all I would say,’ she said carefully. ‘I know some of the people they know and they’re not to be messed with.’
‘It’s just not for me. I went in thinking we would just have a lovely chat and instead they emptied my bag all over the table and—’
‘Angela, no!’ Erin cried, clamping her hand over my open mouth and almost breaking my front teeth with one of her diamond rings. ‘You’re not supposed to tell us anything that happens in a M.O.B. meeting!’
‘They’re a bunch of frustrated former CEOs, not the Illuminati!’ I argued, slapping her arm away from my face. ‘Besides, they don’t want me, they want Alex. As in, they literally want him. Perry Dickson was about to kick me out the door before I mentioned who I was married to and then she practically peeled off her knickers and threw them in my face.’
‘Ew,’ Jenny muttered. ‘Thanks for the visual.’
‘You would not have cared for it,’ I said, glancing over my shoulder at an oblivious Alex. ‘Someone needs to throw those women an Ann Summers party. There’s a fortune to be made.’
‘One, I don’t know what an Ann Summers party is, and two, you need to do whatever it takes to become part of that group,’ Erin warned, feeling around in her gold Fendi evening bag for her phone. In just a few flicks, she was three years deep into some woman’s Instagram and holding a group photo in my face. ‘Who do you see here?’
‘Alex’s number one fan, for starters,’ I said, pulling my head backwards as she shoved the screen right up against my nose. ‘And I think that’s Nia but I can’t tell because she doesn’t look like she’s fifteen minutes out of a lobotomy so—’
‘In the middle,’ Erin thundered, tapping the screen with her long but so tastefully painted acrylic nail. ‘In the middle of the photo.’
‘In the middle?’ I took the phone from her and held it at arm’s length, waiting for my eyes to refocus. ‘Oh. Is that Beyoncé?’
‘What the fuck?’ Jenny squealed, grabbing the phone out of my hand to look for herself. ‘Angie, you gotta get in with these people. Next you’ll be telling me they’ve had Oprah round for afternoon tea.’
‘She was at their Fourth of July party last year,’ Erin said, skimming through the feed and landing on a photo of the big O.
‘You’re joining,’ Jenny replied, my opinion irrelevant. ‘I want to meet Chrissy Teigen.’
‘Chrissy Teigen doesn’t live in Brooklyn,’ I replied. ‘Why would she be there?’
‘They obviously made an exception for her because this is Chrissy goddamn Teigen,’ Jenny said, waving Erin’s phone in my face. ‘Angela Clark, please. Please do this for me. I’m taking you to Hawaii, remember?’
‘No you’re not, remember?’ I said, turning my attention to Erin in a desperate attempt to change the subject. ‘So, I hear you’re moving to London and leaving me with this monster for an entire year? Why, Erin? Why?’
‘Because Thomas has been sleeping with a woman at work and he can’t afford to divorce me so we’re moving to another country to “try again”,’ she replied, making bunny ears with her fingers before taking a sip of champagne. ‘Would you rather chat about that?’
My jaw dropped. ‘Christ, Erin, I’m so sorry,’ I said, lowering my voice and taking a step closer to my friend. My first instinct was to wrap her up in a hug but the last thing I wanted was to upset her any more. Erin was not a public crier. That was one of my specialities. Well, mine and Jenny’s. And often both of us at once. ‘Are you OK?’
Of course she’s not OK, I told myself, what a stupid question to ask. I’d been cheated on, I knew how much it hurt. Once the trust was gone,
it was difficult even to look at the other person, let alone—
‘These things happen,’ Erin said, cutting in on my internal monologue. ‘Do you know if they’re serving food tonight? We didn’t eat before we came out and I’m starving.’
I looked at my friend, no idea what to say. Erin was one of the most fierce women I had ever met, in both the literal and America’s Next Top Model sense of the word. She was strong, capable and impossibly resilient but to so easily brush off something like this set off so many alarm bells in my head, it sounded like New Year’s Eve up in there.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ I asked quietly. ‘We could go somewhere if you like? I don’t have to stay.’
Erin smiled, the tiny smile lines she allowed her aesthetician to leave on her otherwise flawless face crinkling up at the corners of her eyes. That was what was wrong with Perry’s face, I realized, no smile lines. That and the fact she was completely out of touch with reality but there was no injection to fix that. As far as I knew.
‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ Erin said, only a shadow of sadness showing in her eyes. ‘I hate to say it but I wasn’t even really surprised. It’s not unheard of, is it? If anything, I’m more upset by the cliché of it all.’
I felt my un-Botoxed brow creasing with concern. How could she be justifying his behaviour? Didn’t he realize Erin was incredible?
‘New York men are used to getting everything they want,’ she said, looking away as she delicately scratched her nose with one slender finger. ‘There aren’t many who will turn it down when it’s offered to them on a plate. They’re all the same, Angela.’
Without even thinking, I turned around to look for Alex. He was exactly where I’d left him, laughing and joking with Mason, tie already loosened, top button of his shirt undone. I still couldn’t get over how handsome he was.
‘Is Cici wearing Givenchy?’ Jenny asked, handing Erin her phone and cutting in on our hushed conversation. ‘She is. She’s wearing ten thousand dollars’ worth of Givenchy to a house party for a non-major birthday.’
We turned to see my boss glide into the room.