Where the Grass Is Green and the Girls Are Pretty

by Lauren Weisberger

  Only afterward, he didn’t call. Skye began to obsess. What on earth was she thinking, sleeping with a guy she’d only just met? Surprise! It actually felt pretty lousy to have a one-night stand, despite the fact that every so-called empowered friend and tattered waiting-room copy of Cosmo swore that no-strings-attached sex was nothing but fun, fun, fun. Graduation followed a couple weeks later, and except for awkward nods in their final few classes together—and a group presentation that could only be described as downright uncomfortable for everyone involved—they went their separate ways: she back to Pennsylvania, where she’d live with Marcia until she saved enough to move out on her own, and Gabe back to Melbourne, where he’d spend the summer before applying to graduate school.

  “Mommy! Daddy! Help!” Aurora’s panicked wail instantly broke Skye out of her memory. Gabe wrenched away from Skye and sprinted toward Aurora. Blood poured from her nose.

  “Ohmigod, baby, are you okay?” Skye said, dropping to her knees beside her daughter.

  “My boot kicked my nose!” Aurora sobbed.

  “Here, love,” Gabe crooned, using his own scarf to mop up the blood. “It’s starting to slow already. You’re going to be just fine.”

  Gabe took her by the hand and began to walk, trying to distract her with a ghost story.

  Skye looked after them. Absolutely not one thing in her and Gabe’s history would have predicted they would have ended up here, like this, together. She hadn’t even planned to attend her ten-year reunion, but naturally, he was the very first person Skye spotted when she walked into the tent on the Main Quad, and in spite of herself, a strange sensation shot from her stomach to her throat. Gabe at thirty-two looked even better than Gabe at twenty-two. His reddish hair was still long but the ponytail was gone, replaced by a man bun. And so help her god, despite every critical word she’d uttered on the subjects of man buns and the kind of men who chose them, Gabe somehow made it look hot. He wore tight gray jeans and a white T-shirt; his rumpled blazer with rolled-up sleeves gave him that intellectual-hipster look that Skye found irresistible.

  He saw her right away, and his face broke into a huge smile as he covered the distance between them in quick, confident steps. “Skye,” he breathed, his cheek kiss coming precariously close to the corner of her mouth, his accent even more pronounced. “It’s so good to see you.”

  She knew immediately she would sleep with him that night. Why wouldn’t she? She was single and he was gorgeous and, really, what could be better than a one-night stand that didn’t count as one? A freebie! He wouldn’t add to her number of sexual partners, a statistic she knew was utterly meaningless in this age of liberated women, but one that, regardless, she carefully tracked.

  They drank. They danced to nineties hits. She told him she’d gone for her master’s at Columbia’s Teachers College and had spent three years afterward working for an educational nonprofit in Uganda. She was currently teaching fourth grade at a charter school in Harlem, where she lived in a small but charming garden apartment and was trying to get back to Africa. He told her he’d surfed and waited tables for a few years back home in Australia before going back for his master’s in architecture at NYU. He was also living in the city, in Brooklyn, although his own apartment featured neither charm nor a garden; he’d been grinding it out as a freelance architect for years, but his student debt and general life of genteel poverty was making him think about accepting a position with a firm.

  He told her he was married.

  Unhappily, of course. Basically estranged. All the details one might expect from a seemingly decent guy who was about to cheat: his wife was anxious, unhappy, dissatisfied. They had married too young, too soon after meeting, and they’d both changed so much. They didn’t have sex anymore. They had an understanding. He suspected she wanted out of the marriage, too.

  And Skye believed him.

  When she asked, because she couldn’t help herself, Gabe told her that the first year of his marriage was the hardest of his life. But then other details emerged, small asides that were even more telling. They had a beagle together named Walter. They’d ended up in Brooklyn because she’d gotten a job there. He called her Nicki even though everyone else called her Nicole. She’d graduated from MIT, and he said this with pride. Later, when she was back home in Harlem, Skye found a picture of the wife online. Nicole was leaning against a railing, in front of a cemetery or ruins of some kind, and looking directly at the camera. Her expression was inscrutable. The sunglasses perched on her head glinted in the light. Skye realized Gabe had likely taken the picture, that he and Nicole had been sightseeing somewhere, right before they’d gone back to their hotel and probably made love, just as she and Gabe had.

  Remembering that time, a deep, involuntary shiver shook her, made her suddenly angry to be standing alone in the dark park. “Aurora! Gabe! Let’s go!” she shouted as loudly as she could manage.

  There was no response. She called Gabe on his phone. “Can you guys come back? It’s really dark here.”

  “Sorry, sweetheart. Aurora found a nightcrawler and we got distracted. We’re on our way.”

  They’d begun to email after the reunion, which had progressed to long, meandering phone conversations late into the night. Skye wondered where Nicole was when they spoke for two, three, sometimes four hours at a time, but she never asked. When, six months later, Gabe appeared, unannounced, at Skye’s Harlem apartment, she thought her heart would burst with excitement. He’d found her! He wanted her! He felt it, too! She was floating, euphoric, more in love with him than she’d ever been with anyone. But the moment he announced that his divorce had just been finalized, Skye had felt a thunderous roar deep inside her head. Wait—you left your wife? For me? But we barely know each other! As the days turned into weeks, these worries were followed by other ones. Had Skye just ruined another woman’s life? Did the fact that Gabe cheated with her make it more likely that he’d cheat on her? Could a relationship ever succeed if it began in such a dishonest way? Was she dooming herself to repeat her parents’ relationship, where her father had left her mother with no warning at all?

  But Gabe constantly reassured her. He was excited, filled with plans. He kept insisting they trust their instincts, that they were older now and knew their own minds, that they knew when things were right. They would settle down somewhere lovely; she could teach and he could find a steady position at a great firm. They would raise a family. His happiness was exhilarating, and it all happened so quickly. Within a few months they’d moved in together, and soon he’d proposed in front of her family, and any worries about how they’d met had gotten swept away in a flurry of planning.

  Eight years ago. How was that possible? Things were calm now, familiar. Solidly good. Weren’t they? All Skye had to do was look at the little girl holding his hand and those old feelings came rushing back—anticipation, excitement, and love all wrapped into one person. Her daughter. From the moment the phone rang and the adoption agency had announced, “You matched with a baby girl,” all of Skye’s doubts had vanished. Aurora was more perfect than Skye could have ever imagined, and parenthood had turned out to be the biggest surprise of her life, with its richness and complexity and, yes, fear and exhaustion, too. She wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world, although just for a while—with the plans for the residence—she’d wondered if she could have professional fulfilment, too. The thought of it gave her a pang of intense anxiety.

  Sensing something, Gabe took Skye’s hand in his left and reached for Aurora’s with his right. Together, the three of them trekked back to the tent hand in hand. They built a fire and made hot cocoa, topped Aurora’s with marshmallows and theirs with Baileys they’d packed in a stainless steel water bottle.

  “You know this is the anniversary of the week we got the call from the agency,” Skye said, after Aurora fell asleep, sprawled between them.

  “Is it really?”

 
“My god, that was the best call we’ve ever gotten.”

  “It certainly was,” Gabe agreed, stroking Aurora’s cheek.

  Skye opened her mouth to ask if he really, truly didn’t sometimes think about another child, but she stopped herself. The night had been perfect. She adored that despite both of them becoming actual adults with actual adult responsibilities, Gabe made sure that they took the time to honor what sometimes felt like their previous lives. When they both had endless time and loved the outdoors. When everything was simpler. Instead of bringing up a subject that might disrupt the mood, she snuggled next to her daughter and reached across to take Gabe’s hand. “I love you,” she said.

  Gabe gave her one of his lopsided grins that she adored and pressed his head against Aurora’s shoulder. “I love you, too.”

  19

  Close Your Fucking Mouth

  “Where are you right now?” Nisha asked. “What’s that noise?”

  Peyton glanced to her right, to the overweight man who’d crammed himself into the seat next to her and whose headphones were blaring music. “I’m on the train to the city,” she whispered. “There are a few things I need to take care of.”

  “So, I did some research,” Nisha continued, as if Peyton hadn’t said anything. “A colleague of mine recommended a charity auction in Paradise next week. I made a few calls and you’re going to be the guest of honor. How’s your tennis?”

  “My tennis?”

  “It’s at a local country club. Very posh. Whites required; I’ll email you all the information. But it will be high-profile people, local media, and best of all, all the money raised will benefit underprivileged, first-generation college students. It’s exactly the right cause and message. Peyton, are you there?”

  “I’m here,” she whispered, her hand over her mouth. “When we agreed to rehabilitate my reputation, I thought you were going to suggest…I don’t know…an interview or something. I’d give a tour of our New York apartment, a real at-home-with-Peyton-Marcus type of—”

  “It’s next Friday evening. I’ll send you the details. You are going to project quiet confidence and authenticity. Also, remind me to talk to you about your social media.”

  “What about it?”

  “I want you to humanize your Instagram and Facebook. Keep Twitter to newsy stories like it is, but put a softer face on your other accounts.”

  “Softer face?”

  “Right now it’s all entirely professional: you at the anchor desk, in your office at work, interviewing people on location or traveling for a story. In normal times that’s exactly what we’d want. But now I want you including some more personal bits—pictures with Max, with your family and friends, vacations, that sort of thing. Even Isaac. Don’t focus on him but also don’t shy away, either.”

  “Really?”

  “Listen, I’ve got to run, but keep it in mind and we’ll talk more about it soon.”

  Before Peyton could say another word, she heard a click.

  Peyton stared out of the window as the suburbs rushed past. There was no claiming that a haircut or some Botox was going to fix her problems, but she needed to take some sort of action. She was planning to call Sean and see if he’d meet her for a quick coffee outside the office, and after that, she hoped to swing by Kenneth’s office and check in with him in person. For the morning, she’d made the appointments. All the appointments. It was going to cost a fortune, something that added another line of stress to her forehead, and that she had rarely considered when her paychecks were regularly being deposited, but it had to be a priority. First she’d fix her face and then her life, and you couldn’t put a price on that.

  From Grand Central, she walked to the Oscar Blandi salon, where Marco, her colorist, made no effort to hide his horror.

  “It looks like dishwater,” he said, holding up a section of Peyton’s hair and grimacing like he’d detected a bad smell.

  “I know, it’s been a—”

  “No, I take it back. It actually looks like sewage.” His two assistants nodded. “Have you been…swimming?”

  Peyton looked at him through the mirror her chair faced. “Yes, a couple times. I know it’s a little dry and the gray really needs—”

  “Gray roots I can fix. This is the color of algae.”

  Peyton held her right hand across her heart. “No more pools, I promise,” she vowed. Did these people not realize her entire life was falling apart? That her problems ran much deeper than hair?

  Three hours later and looking like a new person, Peyton picked up a salad on the way to her nutritionist’s office. After settling into the pale pink waiting-room couch, Peyton opened the takeout container, carefully poured only the faintest drizzle of balsamic onto her salad, replaced the lid, and shook it vigorously. When Neve materialized, the first thing Peyton noticed was the way the twenty-five-year-old’s collarbones jutted through her silk shell like miniature unicorn horns.

  “Peyton,” she murmured, either too cool or too hungry to smile.

  “Neve! It’s been forever. Thanks for fitting me in today. I’ve really started to let everything go, and I hope to be back on air shortly, so…” Peyton followed Neve into her office and waited for her to settle on her yoga ball chair before taking the smallest, most delicate bite of her salad. A nibble, really. Perhaps not even more than a single piece of lettuce.

  Neve scrunched her nose and stared like Peyton had just lowered her entire face into a banana cream pie. “What’s that?”

  Peyton swallowed and dabbed her lips with a paper napkin. “Sorry, I thought you said this was a working lunch?”

  Neve shook her head. “No. I meant we’d be meeting during my lunch hour. Eating is probably not the most efficient use of our time, considering we’re here to talk about your diet.”

  “Right. Of course.” Peyton felt her face redden as she tried to fit the lid back on her bowl. A few pieces of dressed lettuce ended up on her linen dress.

  “Oh my,” Neve murmured again, not moving a single inch to offer assistance.

  “Sorry about that! Here, let me tuck this back in the bag and…there. Where were we?” Peyton clasped her hands together and tried to appear repentant. The diameter of Neve’s upper arms was just so distracting.

  “Have you been journaling your food?” Neve touched a fingertip to her sunken cheek. “Let’s go through this worksheet together on which foods to avoid.” Peyton promptly tuned out. What could Neve possibly tell her that she didn’t already know? Limit carbs. Increase vegetables. Protein at every meal. Fruit sparingly. Sweets not at all. It was ridiculous already. Everyone knew what to do—the problem was doing it. Or really, not doing it. Neve typically had one and only one piece of advice for her clients, which boiled down to close your fucking mouth, but since she couldn’t say that, they were instead forced to negotiate endlessly the issue of whether corn and beans were considered proteins or carbs.

  Back in the cab and now in a full, anxious sweat, Peyton texted Sean to ask if she could swing by the Starbucks in the ANN lobby. His response was immediate: Would love to see you, but today is chaos. Next week? She couldn’t remember the last time her work husband had said no to a quick coffee, but then again, she also couldn’t remember the last time she wasn’t at work. Finishing her salad in the backseat, Peyton tried to mentally prepare herself for her next appointment. Even though Dr. Lydia Bittman was an actual MD—both Yale-trained and board-certified—her office looked and felt more like an Aman spa. The front desk, where Peyton was greeted by an Asian woman in an elegant print blouse and coordinating skirt, gave no clues to its purpose: no obvious computers, no phones, no papers. Nor did the waiting room give the slightest hint that it was a prelude to actual medical care. Tufted upholstered chaises, half a dozen in all, took the place of regular chairs, and each was separated by a gauzy linen curtain and lit warmly by a softly glowing Himalayan salt lamp—
the real kind, not the cheap Chinese versions from Amazon. Hardcover art and photography books, mostly Rizzoli, replaced the usual tattered magazines. There was no automated coffee machine in sight, only a handblown glass tea set and an assortment of exotically named leaves in delicate pouches. Invisible speakers played soothing spa music. Beautiful, uniform flames blazed from a wall-mounted gas fireplace despite the outside temperature of 85 degrees. The only other patient, a pregnant woman in her thirties, lay in a chaise with closed eyes while an attendant in a starched white uniform massaged her feet.

  Peyton could already feel the kneading pressure of the woman’s strong hands on her own sore legs. A cup of iced tea sounded heavenly, too. She’d almost forgotten how tough the city could be on a late July day when the temperatures reached the high eighties and the cement was emanating heat. She would call Kenneth to check in, and then her assistant, to hear what was happening at ANN.

  “I’m early,” Peyton announced to the beautiful receptionist. “But I’m very happy to wait.”

  “Well, you’re in luck. The doctor had a rare cancellation,” the woman said with a curt smile, one that seemed to say Don’t even think of trying to give me an insurance card, because that’s about as useful around here as a food stamp. “She can see you right now.”

  Peyton was whisked back to an exam room, which looked like a luxury hotel suite, and within seconds Dr. Bittman swept in wearing a tailored pantsuit with a leather belt whose bright orange “H” buckle could be seen from a distance of three city blocks. The heels were Louboutin, their telltale red soles and S&M-inspired studs leaving no question as to their provenance. An oversized Rolex watch and a thick gold Cartier bangle completed her look. Peyton was strangely accustomed to the fact that her doctor now bore a striking resemblance to Michael Jackson. It used to worry her that Bittman’s nose looked like it was melting into her face, and that her lips resembled small sausages, but Peyton—like every other patient in the practice—soon came to realize that none of this mattered. Bittman could look like a character from Game of Thrones, so long as she made you look good.