I Heart Forever

by Lindsey Kelk

  ‘Yep,’ I replied. It was strange and wonderful and terrifying to hear someone else say it. Now it was real. ‘It feels like waiting for Christmas when you’re seven. I know it’s coming and I really want my presents but first I’ve got to stare at said presents for nine whole months before I can open them.’

  ‘And carry them around with you all the time,’ she added.

  ‘And then keep the presents alive forever,’ I said slowly.

  I couldn’t get the plate any closer and so we both picked up a handful of chips and stuffed our faces.

  ‘Whatever, Aunt Jenny is beyond happy about this,’ she said, pinging the strap of her sports bra as her sweatshirt slipped off her shoulder. ‘I’m gonna buy it candy and take it to movies you don’t want it to see. Oh, Angie, we’re going to be so happy.’

  I felt an expression forming on my face that I’d only ever seen on my own mother. Slightly disapproving, slightly threatening, entirely maternal. Was this a thing that happened when you got pregnant? Did you open up an entirely new collection of mannerisms? Was I suddenly about to start telling people I wasn’t angry, just disappointed and spitting on tissues to wipe their faces?

  ‘What did Alex say?’ Jenny asked as the waitress brought over her glass of wine and refilled my water. ‘Is he coming home?’

  ‘I haven’t actually told him yet,’ I admitted, dipping a chip in an enormous splodge of tomato sauce. ‘He’s on some beach in the middle of nowhere with no reception, no internet. I can’t get hold of him and it’s killing me.’

  ‘I know before Alex?’ She pumped her fist through the air, almost colliding with a passing pensioner. ‘Yes! Screw you, Alex Reid, I found out first. It’s my baby now.’

  Smiling, I held a hand over my face to cover my extremely full mouth.

  ‘And you’re not mad?’ I asked. ‘What with the wedding coming up and everything? Obviously, I didn’t plan it, but surprise, it’s happening.’

  ‘Angie, honey,’ she saw her opportunity and nabbed two more chips, ‘the only thing I’m mad about is that you didn’t drop the B-bomb on Sadie last night and shut her yap.’

  It was a fair point.

  ‘Forget about Sadie,’ I instructed. ‘What are the chances of her actually marrying this dude? They’ve known each other for about ten minutes. It isn’t real life, it’s celebrity life, I write about it every day in Gloss. They’re Kim and Kris; even if they make it down the aisle, it’ll all be over in three months, tops.’

  ‘I want her to be happy,’ Jenny said, wiping her fingers to signal that she was done with her dinner. All the more for me. ‘But it’s a drag. I know my wedding will be perfect but it’s still going to suck, seeing your super-mega-hot model friend try on hundreds of thousands of dollars of wedding dresses in a ten-page spread for Brides magazine when you’re waiting in line in the snow at 6 a.m. for the Kleinman’s sample sale to open.’

  ‘Jennifer LaToya Lopez, we both know there’s no way you’re getting your wedding dress from the Kleinman’s sample sale,’ I replied, putting my stern face on. I was not going to entertain this ‘woe is me’ fantasy for a moment longer than necessary. ‘Do you want to marry Teddy Myers, teen heartthrob werewolf? Or any man you have known for approximately four minutes?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And do you want your wedding plans plastered all over the tabloids?’

  She looked as though she was considering it.

  ‘You don’t,’ I informed her. ‘I work in magazine publishing and trust me, you really don’t.’

  ‘She’s going to get so much free stuff,’ Jenny moaned. ‘I want free stuff.’

  ‘Says the girl who works in PR,’ I said. ‘Shush, Lopez. You’re being ridiculous.’

  ‘Wow, you’re already totally in mom mode.’ Jenny leaned back against the booth and exhaled happily. ‘You’re having a baby and I’m getting married? This is all so insane. Is this The Matrix or are we, like, grown-ups now?’

  ‘Let’s not get carried away,’ I warned. ‘I stayed up all night watching Disney films because I really had convinced myself a psychopathic builder was going to let himself into my house in the middle of the night.’

  I glanced around the restaurant. What if he was watching me right now?

  ‘Oh! Brainwave!’ She clapped loudly and the man at the next table, who had been subtly checking out her cleavage, jumped out of his skin. ‘You can move in with me! Until Alex gets back, I mean. Sadie is gone, so your old room is empty, and I can look after you and we can plan the wedding together. You don’t even need to go back to Brooklyn tonight, you can borrow my stuff tomorrow and we’ll get you a toothbrush from Duane Reade. Come on, Angie, it’ll be like old times.’

  It was a tempting offer. Not only could I walk to work from our old apartment, meaning longer lie-ins, but she was in such a good mood I could probably borrow her Louboutins for my meeting with Joe and get grilled cheese sandwiches and everything bagels with tuna salad delivered from Scotty’s Diner across the street. And also, all those nice friend-type things she had said. But mostly the shoes, the bagels and the grilled cheese sandwiches.

  ‘Did Sadie take her bed with her?’ I asked.

  ‘We’ll get a mattress protector from Bed Bath and Beyond on the way home,’ Jenny replied, reading my mind. ‘Besides, you already caught babies, you can’t get that twice.’

  ‘It’s not babies I’m afraid of catching,’ I said with a shiver. ‘But really, are you sure? I have to get up to wee about seventeen times a night and I can’t drink or eat sushi while I’m pregnant. I’m not even sure who I am any more.’

  ‘Angela Clark,’ Jenny reached across the table and laid her hand on top of mine, ‘we may not have sushi but we’ll always have pizza.’

  My best friend was so clever.

  ‘And you know what?’ she said, throwing back her glass of wine. ‘Maybe I’ll give up alcohol with you, like, in solidarity. And also, to help lose the five pounds I’ve decided I need to lose.’

  ‘You don’t need to lose five pounds.’ I clinked my glass of water against her glass of wine in a toast. ‘But I would love to be your roomie again.’

  ‘To old times,’ she said with a smile. ‘And new beginnings.’

  ‘Old times and new beginnings,’ I replied. ‘And to definitely getting that mattress protector on the way home.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘What do you mean, you’re going to Thanksgiving?’ Mum asked. I pulled a blue Sandro shift dress over my head, considered my reflection in the bedroom mirror then yanked it off and chucked it back on the bed. ‘How do you go to Thanksgiving? You can’t go to Christmas.’

  ‘Thanksgiving dinner,’ I clarified to my phone as I slid on a little black Nanette Lepore dress. It was sleeveless, so I wouldn’t get too hot, but the white lace collar seemed too dressy. ‘We’re all going to Erin’s house for Thanksgiving dinner.’

  ‘I don’t get it,’ she replied. ‘Why did they have to go and make up their own Christmas? And without the presents! It’s bonkers, if you ask me.’

  ‘No one asked you,’ I said quietly, considering my limited wardrobe choices. I’d only been able to bring so much over to Jenny’s and, inevitably, everything I now wanted was still back in Park Slope.

  ‘And I don’t know why you’re going,’ Mum sniffed. ‘I know you’re married to one, but you’re not American.’

  ‘It’s not a religious thing, Mum,’ I replied, plumping for a pretty printed smock dress from Maje. Cute, smart, but with plenty of room for a Thanksgiving food baby. And, now I thought about it, a real baby as well. I’d been maternity shopping without knowing it for the last six months. ‘You just eat a big turkey dinner with your friends and family and give thanks for all the good things in your life.’

  ‘Sounds a bit happy-clappy to me,’ she said. ‘I don’t want you joining a cult like Tom Cruise.’

  Only my mother would confuse Thanksgiving with Scientology.

  ‘Is Dad having fun yet?’ I asked, searching for an a
ppropriate pair of shoes. ‘He’s been very quiet online.’

  ‘He’s been very quiet in general,’ she said with a sigh. ‘He’s taken to sitting at the side of the pool in his jogging bottoms and a jumper, reading books about serial killers. People are starting to talk, Angela. I’m certain that’s the reason we haven’t been asked back to the captain’s table.’

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ I said as Jenny poked her head around the bedroom door. ‘But I’m sure he’ll cheer up soon.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘They had Steak Diane on at dinner last night and he barely touched his. I’m starting to worry.’

  ‘Is that you, Mrs C?’ Jenny asked, giving my Acne ankle boots a thumbs-up. ‘Happy Thanksgiving!’

  ‘Happy Thanksgiving to you,’ Mum shouted sweetly. ‘I’m thankful that Angela has a friend like you, Jenny.’

  My mother was such a suck-up sometimes, it was unbelievable.

  ‘Aww, Mrs C, that’s too cute.’ Jenny smiled across the room while I faux gagged. ‘We have to go now, but do you think you’ll be coming to visit soon? We miss you here in NYC.’

  I shook my head, slicing my arms through the air in front of me. Why would Jenny even joke about something like that?

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Jenny,’ Mum replied. ‘We’ve still got a long while left on the cruise. Maybe next year.’

  ‘Maybe next year,’ Jenny said, back to her, dodging the pair of balled-up socks I lobbed at her head. ‘Say hi to Mr C for me.’

  ‘Will do,’ Mum sang down the line. ‘Bye, girls, have fun at Thanksgiving.’

  ‘We will, Mum,’ I said as I pressed the red button to end the call. ‘You test me sometimes, Lopez.’

  ‘That’s my job,’ she replied, running her hands over her skintight purple sheath dress. ‘Does this look good?’

  ‘It looks snug,’ I said, ever the diplomat. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t rather wear something a bit roomier for dinner?’

  She held her arms up above her head and shimmied her hips.

  ‘Nope,’ she replied. ‘I’m on my wedding diet, this will stop me pigging out.’

  ‘So, it’s a tactical frock.’ I flipped out the hem of my smock. ‘Mine too, just the other way around. You do realize you don’t need to lose weight, though? You’re practically miniature. If you get any littler in the waist, we’re not going to be friends any more.’

  ‘It’s not my waist I’m worried about,’ she frowned, patting her backside. ‘It’s the junk in the trunk that’s the issue. Most wedding dresses don’t leave a lot of extra ass room.’

  ‘They do if you go for a ballgown,’ I replied. ‘Nothing but extra ass room.’

  Jenny shot me the filthiest look I’d ever seen.

  ‘OK, no ballgown,’ I replied quickly. ‘Well, don’t think of it as junk in your trunk, think of it as fantastically practical things that you need in case of an emergency. Like a torch and a first-aid kit.’

  She pouted and gazed at her gorgeous figure long enough for me to be certain we weren’t seeing the same thing reflected back in the mirror.

  ‘It’s not a wedding dress body,’ she said. ‘Sadie has a wedding dress body, all tall and willowy. This is a Hervé Léger, drop it like it’s hot bod. It has no business wearing Vera Wang.’

  ‘Oh good, you’ve lost your mind.’ I grabbed my parka from the bed and shooed her out of the room. ‘You’re going to be a beautiful bride, Sadie is going to be a different kind of beautiful bride, and more importantly, right this second, we are going to be late.’

  ‘Next time your mom calls, I’m going to tell her you’re pregnant,’ she threatened, flouncing out of the front door. ‘Think about that, Clark.’

  ‘Sometimes you are stone-cold,’ I said, locking the door behind us as she laughed.

  Jenny Lopez, the dirtiest player in the game.

  If Sadie’s champagne shampoo had caused any permanent damage to Erin’s carpet, I certainly couldn’t tell. The sitting room of her West Village townhouse was impeccable, as it probably should be for someone who employed a full-time housekeeper. Even though it was dull and grey outside, the house was beautifully lit with low lamps and strategically placed candles, highlighting all of Erin and Thomas’s beautiful collection of things. This was the kind of place I wanted to own one day. Maybe if Alex wrote two really successful albums and I became the editor of Belle? And we won the lottery?

  ‘Ladies …’ Thomas strolled into the sitting room as we handed out coats to our hostess. ‘So glad you could join us, Happy Thanksgiving.’

  ‘Happy Thanksgiving,’ I replied, grazing his cheek with mine in a downtown air kiss.

  Thomas was a nice man, as far as I could tell, but other than his wife we had nothing in common. He didn’t watch TV, he only listened to jazz, and he used the word ‘summer’ as a verb. I knew he did something on Wall Street and had somehow survived the financial crisis unscathed, but even if someone held a gun to my head, I couldn’t tell you exactly what he did for a living. I’d always regarded money men with great suspicion, especially someone with as much money as Thomas, but if Erin said he was OK and he was prepared to feed me on a national holiday, who was I to judge?

  ‘Dinner smells amazing,’ I said, staring at a painting on the wall where the TV should be. Maybe it flipped over to reveal a dead fancy flatscreen? ‘You must be happy to have the day off.’

  ‘I worked this morning,’ he replied as Erin disappeared to open the door again. ‘Thanksgiving is a tricky one – the rest of the world doesn’t stop so we can eat too much turkey.’

  Mmm, too much turkey.

  ‘I suppose not,’ I agreed. ‘Where are the kids?’

  ‘Upstairs.’ He nodded backwards and took a deep breath. ‘Arianna is having one of her days. Four going on fourteen.’

  ‘Imagine what she’ll be like when she really is a teenager,’ I replied, laughing.

  Thomas looked at me, silent and stony-faced.

  ‘Or, you know, don’t,’ I said, looking off over my shoulder. ‘Mason!’

  Jenny’s fiancé appeared in the doorway with Erin behind him. I noticed she was wearing a beautiful white apron over her fancy silver dress even though there was no way on god’s green earth that she’d even stepped foot in the kitchen. Jenny had already told me they’d had the entire meal delivered from Jean-Georges. It was half the reason I was there.

  ‘Hey!’ We exchanged cheek kisses with actual human contact before Jenny pounced on him, sliding her arm through his and resting her head on his arm. They really were a gorgeous couple, she was mad if she thought they would look anything other than stunning in their wedding photos.

  ‘Dinner is served,’ Erin announced, giving a gracious sweep of her arms to usher us through the sitting room and into the formal dining room.

  Her house was like the TARDIS. Most New York homes were the opposite, they looked pretty big from the outside but when you went through the front door, it was just a rabbit warren of tiny studio apartments. Most of my friends didn’t even have proper kitchens, and one of the girls at work had a shower squeezed in next to her stove. Erin and Thomas had managed to achieve the opposite. From the outside, it looked like any other bazillion-dollar West Village home, narrow, tall, and in close proximity to Sarah Jessica Parker. But once you were inside, the whole place blossomed, the sitting room led to the drawing room, the drawing room led to the family room, and the family room led to the kitchen. Upstairs was Erin and Thomas’s bedroom, a home office, and a guest bedroom; and on the third floor, if you could be arsed to make it up that far, the two kids’ rooms, a shared playroom, and the nanny’s room. Because of course there was a nanny. I wasn’t including all the bathrooms because if I did, it made me sad. I’d never quite got to grips with America’s obsession with a toilet per person, possibly because the thought of cleaning that many lavs made me want a nap. Erin must go through so much Toilet Duck, I mused as we passed one of the downstairs powder rooms.

  ‘You didn’t tell me your new boss was Jo
e Herman,’ Erin said, taking a seat at the head of the table, peeking at me over an enormous flower arrangement in the shape of a turkey. ‘Wow.’

  ‘You know him?’ I asked, moving left and right, trying to make eye contact.

  Erin growled, grabbed the floral turkey and dumped it on a side table behind her. Thomas raised an eyebrow.

  ‘What?’ she challenged.

  ‘My mother sent that,’ he replied.

  ‘I would think it’s quite clear to everyone here that I didn’t choose it,’ she said smoothly, retaking her seat and ignoring Thomas’s tightly clenched jaw. ‘And yes, I do know him. Of him, at least.’

  Mason cleared his throat and began talking to Thomas, ignoring the tension at the table.

  ‘Don’t worry about him,’ Erin instructed, picking up her fork with her right hand. The pumpkin-stuffed agnolotti I’d read about on Eater.com was already on the table. ‘He’s tired. TJ was up all night and I made him deal with it. Now he’s sulking like the baby that he is.’

  ‘Good to know,’ I replied, sucking in my stomach.

  ‘Joe Herman used to be head of digital at Hearst,’ she said as she dug into her dinner happily. ‘He revolutionized their online platforms. I was kind of surprised to hear he’d gone into print publishing at all, but it made more sense when I heard it was at Spencer.’

  ‘Massive fan of Belle?’ I theorized.

  ‘Massive fan of your assistant,’ she corrected. ‘They used to date.’

  Oh, fan-bloody-tastic.

  ‘As I understand it, Delia, Cici and Joe all went to the same college and he dated Cici on and off for a while although from what I hear, she saw it as more off than on. He’s been pining after her ever since she broke his heart and cheated on him.’

  ‘I want to be surprised but I’m not,’ Jenny said, pushing her pasta around her plate without actually eating a bite. ‘But it’s a worry, no one with a decent head on their shoulders could be in love with Cici Spencer.’

  ‘Anyone with a penis in their underpants could be in love with Cici Spencer,’ I replied. Mason and Thomas both looked up at the same time. I held up a hand in apology. ‘It doesn’t matter, he told me he has an English girlfriend so even if he was crushing on the evil Spencer twin, he must have got over it by now.’