A Special Place for Women

by Laura Hankin

  “The New York Standard?” he said now, beaming. “That’s incredible!”

  “It is!” I said, then continued with forced cheer, “It’s about that extremely exclusive social club that Margot belongs to. So all I need to do is get myself invited in, which should be a piece of cake because I’m very cool and have everything going for me right now.”

  “Um,” Raf said.

  “Yeah. At this party, can you please back me up on the stories I tell about myself? It’ll be bullshit, but bullshit that they probably can’t disprove.”

  “I don’t like lying,” he said. “I’m terrible at it.”

  “Well, you’ve gotta get some practice, or you’re never going to survive in New York City, baby,” I joked. He didn’t laugh. “So, okay, don’t think of it as lying. Think of it as helping your friend expose a potentially fucked-up system. And also helping her have the career she’s always wanted so that she’s not tempted to bash her head in with a rock.”

  “Hold on, you’re not actually tempted to do that, are you?” he asked, concerned.

  “No, of course not,” I said. “Well, only sometimes.”

  He hesitated, then chewed on his knuckle. “What kind of bullshit are you going to tell them, then?”

  I smiled. Good old Raf. “They can’t know that I’m still a journalist. So, here’s the plan.” I stood up and faced him like I’d done so many times in our childhood, offering up the contents of my brain for him to praise. “I’m going to tell them that I’d been getting disillusioned by the state of journalism anyway. Quill shutting down was just the final nail in the coffin—”

  “Wait, what—”

  “Oh, right, Quill totally combusted. Anyway, this whole time, I’ve been working on the Next Great American Novel. You know, The Great Gatsby meets John Steinbeck, but from a woman’s point of view.” I paced back and forth, the words tumbling out of me and taking shape in the air. “The manuscript’s not done yet, but it’s close. All the agents I’ve met with are salivating over it, convinced that six months from now, publishing houses will be bending over backwards to bid on it. And then, when the book comes out, I pledge to donate half of its profits to Planned Parenthood.” He was staring at me, his face reserved instead of open with his usual support. “This is the kind of performative feminism they eat up.”

  “Are you okay?” Raf asked. “This is all a little intense.”

  I sat back down next to him. “I know it seems that way, but let me reiterate, we’re talking about the New York Standard here.”

  “I’m only saying this because I care about you, so don’t get mad at me, but you’re coming off as a little . . . manic right now.”

  Manic? How dare he? His ambition ran as deep as mine did, even if he wasn’t as obvious about it. I prepared to angrily list off a million ways he was wrong, then realized that might prove his point. I took a calming breath. “Look, I get why you think that. But . . .” I scooted closer to him. “When you were trying to prove that you were worthy of your own restaurant, how many nights did you stay up until dawn, working on a recipe?”

  “Um,” he said. “A lot.”

  “Some people might’ve called that a little manic. It worked, though, so now you get to be all cool and bashful about it. But if you hadn’t succeeded, you would be burning up inside, wouldn’t you?” He nodded almost imperceptibly. “This is my chance to have the restaurant.” I took his free hand, the one that wasn’t holding a donut, and squeezed it, so that he’d look at me. “Please, Raf. You said if I ever needed anything . . . I need this.”

  He shoved the rest of his donut in his mouth and chewed it slowly. Then he nodded. “Okay. Just—we’ve got to practice or something. Drill me on this. I’m not a good improviser.”

  “Thank you! I will drill you all night long if you want!” I said, then paused. “Sorry, that came out way dirtier than I’d intended.” He reached for another donut, but I grabbed the box and held it out of his reach. “Speaking of, there is another part to the plan. One more thing that I think would really clinch it all.”

  “What?”

  I bit my lip. “I need you to pretend we’re dating.”

  Now it was his turn to jump up from the couch, as if I’d goosed him. “Very funny.”

  “I’m serious, unfortunately.”

  “No. I don’t get how that’s supposed to help anything.”

  “Because you’re getting famous now, whether you like it or not, so whatever girl you deem worthy of your homemade meals will be an object of curiosity. Especially if she’s just sort of regular-looking and not some gorgeous supermodel,” I said, pointing to myself, “she must be interesting. Worth getting to know.”

  He fiddled with the cardboard cozy from his coffee cup, rolling it up, ripping away little shreds of it. “I’m not that big of a deal.”

  “Okay, Mr. Vanity Fair.”

  “Really—”

  “‘Much like Picasso,’” I began to quote, “‘Mr. Morales proves that he can both respect the sanctity of classic forms and then rearrange them into thrillingly uncharted territory—’”

  “Maybe I’m a little bit of a big deal,” he said, blushing.

  “I know this sounds like something out of a Hallmark movie, and that it might cramp your style right as you’ve got all these women throwing themselves at you. You can tell them that we’re nonmonogamous, like all the trendiest people. I promise that it won’t be for long. A few weeks maybe, a month at most. And after this, I will set you up with all of my hottest friends—”

  “Your hottest friends are already married and having babies,” Raf said. (Fair point. I’d never had a huge group of female friends, and somehow the ones I did have had proceeded with the typical life milestones at a steady clip, as if they were normal or something. They’d fallen off the face of the Earth, dealing with newborns when I’d needed them most, and I had trouble forgiving them for that.)

  “I’ll make some new hot friends and tell them that you’re the greatest guy in the world.”

  “I’m gonna screw this up for you somehow. I can’t do it.”

  “Sure you can.” I winked at him. “Just imagine the plate of lasagna.”

  He put his hands over his face and groaned. Back in middle school, the drama teacher had put on an evening of Shakespeare scenes. I was cast as Juliet, because I was loud. Raf was cast as Romeo, because he was tall. We’d spent a week rehearsing the balcony scene, where Raf stared at the floor when he was supposed to be confessing his love.

  “Speak up! Use your diaphragm,” our drama teacher, Mrs. Fritz, had shouted at him over and over. “Look her in the eyes, she’s not Medusa!”

  Finally, Mrs. Fritz tried a different tactic. “Rafael. Honey,” she’d said, sighing. “What’s your favorite food?”

  “Um,” Raf said. “Lasagna?”

  “Great. I need you to look at Jillian like she’s a big, steaming plate of lasagna.” Nothing helps an eighth-grade girl’s confidence like knowing that a boy has to imagine she’s food in order to feign attraction to her. I’d squirmed and blushed as Raf looked up and finally met my eyes. “Got it? Now try it again.”

  Raf had ended up performing remarkably well. I should’ve known then that he was destined to be a chef, if he could get that passionate about food. Neither one of us went on to become theater stars. But there was something nice in the idea that if I were going to be playing a role in this whole shebang, he’d be in it with me, playing one too.

  Raf grimaced. Then he flopped back down onto the couch. “Dammit, Jillian,” he said. “This is going to be so weird.”

  “Raf!” I shouted, throwing my arms around him. “Thank you. Thank you!”

  “You promise that it won’t be for long,” he said.

  “Not a minute longer than necessary,” I said. “Now, here, take that donut.”

  FIVE

  So two night
s later, at ten p.m., Raf and I met up a block away from the party. He crossed the street toward me, a little red-faced from the heat of the kitchen. But he had made an effort, combing his hair, no baseball cap in sight. “Oh,” he said when he saw me. “You look different.”

  “Good different or bad different?”

  “Good, I guess? Nice. Just not you.”

  “Perfect,” I said, my heart thumping, trying to fight off an encroaching light-headedness.

  I’d expended so much energy trying on outfits for Margot’s party that I’d had to take a nap afterward. All the current trends seemed to have been designed exclusively for—surprise!—women with zero percent body fat, whose frail frames managed to look even frailer in their wide-legged pants, whose stomachs were perfectly flat underneath their crop tops. But finally, I’d found a peasant-chic dress at a thrift store. Among at least some groups of rich people, it was cool to look like you’d found your clothes on the street, thank God. (Or thank Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.) Most important, the dress was cheap. My old bosses at the bar had agreed to take me back, but still, I needed to scrimp as much as possible. I didn’t know how I was going to pay the Nevertheless dues if they were as high as they’d been rumored to be. One thing at a time.

  I’d practiced my spiel over and over, staring into the mirror and contorting my face into different expressions. Friendly! I was so friendly! But not desperate! I’d made all my social media private and deleted my LinkedIn. I’d lain awake in my childhood bedroom for hours each night, thinking of all the ways things could go wrong.

  I hugged my jacket closer and flashed Raf my best Julia Roberts, the biggest megawatt grin I could muster. “How’s my smile? Effortlessly confident and appealing?”

  “A little much. Like a shark?”

  “Noted. I’ll tone it down.”

  We reviewed our cover stories one more time as we scanned the street numbers and my anxiety gathered steam. Finally, halfway down the block, we found the door, painted black, with only one label on the buzzer: in the stars. It wasn’t a restaurant or Margot’s apartment. It was the office for her astrology app.

  “We grew up together,” I said. “And were always good friends.”

  “Yeah, and then one day we stopped and looked at each other.” Raf stopped and looked at me. “And we just . . . knew.”

  “Exactly. Here, hold my hand,” I said as I pressed the buzzer. “So we look like a Couple in Love.”

  “Ugh,” he said as he took it. “Your palm is really sweaty.”

  “Can’t imagine why.”

  A low chiming noise emanated from a speaker. I turned the door handle.

  “Couple in Love,” I said. Together, we walked into the party.

  SIX

  The walls of the In the Stars office were salmon pink, but the ceiling was black and studded with gold like the night sky. I stared at it for a second before realizing: it was the night sky, a video of it stretched across the entire ceiling, the stars winking and planets burning bright above our heads. A few desks and long tables were scattered around the open room, along with some couches. What must have been Margot’s office, at the far end of the space, was separated from everything else only by a wall of glass.

  Twelve paintings hung along one wall, each one depicting a different zodiac sign. At least, I assumed that’s what they were—I’d never gotten much into astrology myself, beyond some sleepovers when my friends and I would giggle over whether or not Tyson from math class was a “love match” with our signs. I knew I was a Cancer, but the assigned personality traits didn’t describe me at all. I was supposed to be “watery,” ruled by my emotions? Right.

  The recent, meteoric rise of this pseudoscience among intelligent women confused me. Margot had built a fortune on giving people detailed astrological reports every day, right at the tips of their fingers. Maybe she believed it all herself. Or maybe she was just an excellent businesswoman.

  There were about thirty party guests, drinking from champagne flutes and tumblers with dimpled bases. A bartender poured out various concoctions at a counter in the corner, and a couple of handsome young men handed them around to the guests.

  “Intimate gathering, huh?” Raf said to me under his breath, and I snorted.

  The guests were about half men and half women, in their twenties and thirties. I scanned the crowd to see if I recognized any of the women, trying to figure out who besides Margot might be a member of Nevertheless, so I could target them with my well-practiced charm offensive.

  There, a few feet away from us, speaking so intensely to a group of listeners that it looked like she was delivering a TED Talk, was Caroline Thompson. Bingo. I’d had a hunch she might be here, and had looked her up just in case, reading a Vogue article about her recent wedding extravaganza overlooking a cliff in Positano, where the bride wore Oscar de la Renta and kept her own name. Her husband, whom she’d met the day after she turned thirty, had registered as blandly handsome, running a charitable organization that his wealthy family had started. Caroline put the real power in power couple, thirty-two years old, barely five feet tall, running fast on some internal generator. Her mother’s family had been New York royalty for generations. Her father came from a long line of real estate tycoons. Caroline could have coasted on their money, but she was not the kind of woman to coast. She was the kind of woman to fund-raise her ass off for a worthy political cause, to go to Yale undergrad and Harvard Law School. After the 2016 election, she’d founded Women Who Lead. The article had hinted that she’d probably run for office herself someday. She looked ready at this very moment, in her high-waisted skirt and matching blazer, with her long red hair impeccably sleek.

  Women Who Lead had been the first organization to back Nicole Woo-Martin during her mayoral run. They had encouraged her, groomed her, even. Caroline would’ve had a lot of access to Nicole. I squinted. Yes, Caroline had been at the inauguration in the section reserved for VIPs, beaming in the winter chill.

  Caroline’s uptightness made a peculiar match with Margot’s free-spirited energy. What did a type A wonk have in common with someone who lived her life by the dictates of the stars? They weren’t the kinds of women who seemed likely to be friends. But, linked by a common ambition and a common status, they were the kinds of women to unite behind closed doors to rule the world.

  As I stared at Caroline, Margot appeared in front of us. “Raf, you made it!” she said, more luminous than ever, copper and gold strands glinting in her dark wild mane, her feet bare. Margot had the kind of feet that men on the Internet probably developed fetishes over. She kissed Raf on the cheek, then turned to me. “And, oh . . .”

  “Jillian,” I said.

  “Of course.” She leaned in and kissed me too, her lips barely brushing my skin. I caught a whiff of her jasmine scent. “Please, make yourselves at home.”

  “Thanks,” Raf said.

  “We’re glad to be here,” I said. “This office is beautiful.”

  “That’s so sweet. I put a lot of thought into it.” As Margot turned away from us to appraise her kingdom, I nestled into Raf. His body was stiff against mine. God, he was so awkward. I poked him in the ribs, and he glared at me, then put his arm around my shoulders right as Margot turned back. She registered our body language but didn’t stop talking for a moment in her steady, hypnotic way. “I really wanted it to have the right kind of energy, you know? Welcoming, but also inspiring and productive.”

  “Mission accomplished. Too bad I didn’t bring my laptop. I feel ready to post up on one of these couches and edit my novel,” I said. I looked at Raf, trying to communicate that now would be an excellent time for him to rave about my impending success, but he was nervous himself. Shit. He wasn’t exactly a smooth talker. Maybe I had asked too much of him. A bubble of silence hung in the air, expanding and expanding.

  Margot smiled at me serenely and popped the bubble. “What sign are you, Jillia
n?”

  “A Cancer.”

  “Oh, good. I thought for a moment that you might be a Gemini, and our energies do not mesh.” She studied me. “Cancer? Interesting. I wouldn’t have guessed. What’s your rising sign?”

  “I . . . do not know what that means.”

  She widened her eyes as if concerned for me, ready to help lift me out of my ignorance. “For some people, it’s the rising sign that really matters. You should sign up for the app! We can do a whole star chart for you. People find it really helpful.”

  “Yeah, that could be great.” I grasped for a segue, any segue. “It would be nice to have less uncertainty in my life, particularly as a novelist—”

  “Oh,” Margot said, catching sight of someone across the room. “Raf, I have to introduce you to this food critic friend of mine.” She grabbed his arm to lead him off. “Excuse us for a moment, Jillian. And please, get yourself a drink!”

  As Margot pulled Raf into the crowd, he caught my eye and mouthed, Sorry. I clenched and unclenched my hands. Okay, I’d find Caroline and introduce myself. I caught sight of her in the corner by the bar, handling some work emergency on her phone. “You have to tell her that we need her statement by the morning,” she said, then turned to the bartender: “No, with an orange peel, not a lemon slice.”

  Not an excellent moment to introduce myself, then. I took a champagne flute from one of the handsome men and stood around like I’d been sent back to a middle school formal, scanning the room for other girls who also hadn’t been asked to slow-dance. (I shuddered at the memory of my own middle school formals, which weren’t exactly fun events for a teenager mercilessly mocked by the popular girls for being too gawky, for being unwanted by her father, with a mother too concerned about saving money to pay for new clothes.)

  Another woman stood a few feet away, holding still and observing the room. She was tall and intensely pale, almost translucent, with white-blond hair cropped short. It was a pixie cut, technically, but she had nothing of a pixie’s mischief about her. She looked more like she prowled snowy Norwegian woods until she came upon a reindeer and ripped out its heart, her face never changing from its unreadable expression. I knew her somehow, and then I placed her to all the articles I’d read about her this time last year.