‘The pictures aren’t the point!’ she yelled, more sharply than she’d intended. She paused for a minute. ‘Yes, it was hideous and painful and embarrassing, there’s no doubt. But it’s why those pictures exist that I find way more upsetting.’
When he didn’t respond, she said, ‘What the hell happened that night?’
‘Rook, I’ve told you: it was a stupid, one-time mistake, and I absolutely did not have sex with her. With anyone,’ he rushed to add.
‘So what did you do?’
‘I don’t know … It started out as a big group over dinner, and then a few people left, and then a few more, and I guess by later on in the night, she and I were the only ones left at the table.’
Just hearing Julian say ‘she and I’ about someone made Brooke feel queasy.
‘I don’t even know who she is, where’s she from—’
‘Don’t you worry about that,’ Brooke said sarcastically. ‘The entire country is happy to help you out there. Janelle Moser, twenty-four, from a small town in Michigan. She was in L.A. for a friend’s bachelorette party. How the hell they ended up at the Chateau is really the big mystery.’
‘I didn’t—’
‘And in case you were interested – although you could probably speak to this more authoritatively than Last Night – they are real.’
Julian exhaled a long sigh. ‘I drank way too much and she offered to walk me back to my room.’ He stopped, ran his fingers through his hair.
‘And then?’
‘We made out, and she took her clothes off. Just stood up and stripped, like no pretenses or anything. It snapped me back to reality. I told her to get dressed. Which she did, but she started crying, saying she was so embarrassed. So I tried to calm her down, and we had something to drink from the minibar, I honestly can’t remember what at this point, and the next thing I know, I woke up fully dressed and she was gone.’
‘She was gone? And you just passed out?’
‘Gone. No note, no nothing. And until you told me, I couldn’t remember her name.’
‘Do you know how hard that is to believe?’
‘She got undressed – I never did. And, Brooke, I don’t know how else to say it, or how else to convince you. I swear on your life and mine, and the lives of everyone we love, that that is exactly how it happened.’
‘Why did you do it? Why did you invite her in and kiss her?’ she asked, unable to meet his eye. ‘Why her?’
‘I don’t know, Brooke. Like I said before, too much drinking, bad judgment, feeling lonely.’ He stopped, rubbed his temples. ‘It’s been a rough year. Being so busy, me away so often, the two of us never getting any time together. It’s no excuse, Brooke, and I know I fucked up – trust me, I know it – but please believe me when I tell you I’ve never regretted anything more than that night’
She tucked her hands under her thighs to keep them from shaking. ‘Where do we go from here, Julian? Not just this, but all of it. The never seeing each other? The fact that we are leading entirely separate lives? How do we work through that?’
He scooted closer to her on the couch and tried to wrap his arms around her, but Brooke stiffened. ‘I guess it’s been hard for me, seeing how hard this has been on you, when I thought it was what we both wanted,’ he said.
‘It might be what we both wanted. And I am genuinely, honestly happy for you. But it isn’t my success. It isn’t my life. It’s not even our life. It is only your life.’
He opened his mouth to talk, but she held up her hand.
‘I had no idea what it was going to be like, couldn’t envision any of this when you were in the studio every day recording your album. It was a one-in-a-trillion shot, no matter how talented and lucky you are, but it happened! It happened to you!’
‘In my craziest, wildest fantasies or nightmares it never looked anything like this,’ he said.
She took another breath and forced herself to say what she’d been thinking for three days now. ‘I’m not sure I can do this.’
A long silence followed her words.
‘What are you saying?’ Julian said after what felt like an eternity. ‘Really, what are you saying?’
She started to cry. Not hysterical, gulping sobs but a slow, quiet weeping. ‘I don’t know that I can live like this. I’m not sure how I fit in, or if I even want to. It was hard enough before, and now when something like this happens … and I know it will keep happening, again and again.’
‘You’re the love of my life, Brooke. You’re my best friend. There’s no fitting in – you’re the whole deal.’
‘No.’ She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. ‘There’s no going back.’
He looked weary. ‘It won’t always be like this.’
‘Of course it will, Julian! When’s it going to stop? With the second album? The third? What about when they want you to start touring internationally? You’ll be gone for months on end. What are we going to do then?’
With this, an expression of understanding registered on his face. He looked like he was going to cry now, too.
‘It’s just an impossible situation.’ She smiled a little and wiped away a tear. ‘People like you don’t marry people like me.’
‘What does that mean?’ he asked, a look of total devastation on his face.
‘You know what it means, Julian. You’re a celebrity now. I’m an ordinary civilian.’
They sat there and looked at each other for ten seconds, then thirty seconds, and then a minute. There was nothing more to say.
When she heard the knock at the front door at ten A.M. on Saturday morning a week and a half later, Brooke assumed it was the super finally coming to snake her clogged shower drain. She looked down at her faded, stained Cornell sweatpants and her hole-ridden T-shirt and decided that Mr. Finley would have to live with it. She even attempted a perfunctory smile as she opened the door.
‘Good god,’ a horrified Nola exclaimed as she looked Brooke up and down. She sniffed in the general direction of the apartment and grimaced. ‘I think I’m going to throw up.’
Nola, as usual, looked fantastic in high-heeled boots over dark skinny jeans, a tight cashmere turtleneck sweater, and one of those expensive down coats that somehow managed to make her look thin and stylish instead of someone who’d merely wrapped herself in a high-performance sleeping bag. Her cheeks glowed from the cold outside and her wavy blonde hair looked wind-tousled and sexy.
‘Ugh, do you really have to show up here looking like that?’ Brooke asked, returning the head-to-toe examination. ‘How’d you even get in, by the way?’
Nola pushed past her, shucked her coat, and took a seat on the living room couch. She made a face while she pushed away a days-old cereal bowl with her fingertips. ‘I still have my key from when I watched Walter. Christ, this is even worse than I imagined.’
‘Nola, please, I don’t want to hear it.’ Brooke poured herself a glass of orange juice, downed it in one gulp, and didn’t offer any to her friend. ‘Maybe you should go.’
Nola snorted. ‘Trust me, I’d like that. But no can do. You and I are getting out of here today, and we’re doing it together.’
‘Like hell. I’m not leaving.’ Brooke pulled her greasy hair into a ponytail and sat in the small armchair opposite the couch. The one she and Julian had bought at a vintage market on the Lower East Side because Julian said the cranberry-colored velvet reminded him of Brooke’s hair.
‘Oh yes you are. Look, I didn’t realize things were this bad. I’ve got to run by the office for a couple hours’ – Nola looked at her watch – ‘but I’m coming back here at three and we’re going for lunch.’ Brooke opened her mouth to protest, but Nola cut her off. ‘First, clean this dump. Second, clean yourself. You’re starting to look straight out of central casting for the wretchedly depressed spurned lover.’
‘Thanks.’
Nola picked up an empty Häagen-Dazs container by her nails and held it toward Brooke with a withering look. ‘Get ahold of yourself,
okay? Handle all of this and I’ll see you in a few hours. If you even think of disobeying me, you’re not my friend anymore.’
‘Nola …’ It came out as a whine, but a defeated one.
Nola had already walked back to the front door. ‘I’ll be back. And I’m taking this key with me, so don’t think you can run or hide.’ And with that, she was gone.
After learning of her enforced time off from Huntley and surviving that hideous conversation with Julian, Brooke had crawled into bed and barely gotten out for a week. She did it all – the back issues of Cosmo, the pints of ice cream, the bottle of white wine per night, and the endless loop of seasons one through three of Private Practice on her laptop, and in a weird way she’d almost enjoyed it. Not since she’d gotten mono her first semester at Cornell and had to spend the entire five-week winter break in bed had she lounged and indulged so much. But Nola was right, and besides, she was starting to grow disgusted with herself. It was time to get up.
She resisted the urge to crawl back under the covers and pulled on her old fleece running tights and sneakers and went for a three-mile run along the Hudson. It was unseasonably warm for the first week of February, and all the gray slush from the previous week’s storm had melted away. Feeling invigorated and proud of her motivation, she took a long, hot shower. Afterward, she rewarded herself with twenty minutes of luxuriating under her covers, allowing her hair to air-dry as she read a couple chapters of her book, and then fixed herself a healthy snack: a bowl of sliced fruit, a quarter cup of cottage cheese, and a toasted whole wheat English muffin. Only then did she begin to feel strong enough to tackle the apartment.
The massive cleaning took three hours and did more for Brooke’s mental state than anything else she could have imagined. For the first time in months, she dusted, vacuumed, and scrubbed floors, countertops, and bathrooms. She refolded all the clothes in her dresser (but ignored Julian’s), weeded out old and unworn clothes from their shared closet, organized both the hallway coat closet and the drawers of the living room desk, and finally, after what felt like years of procrastination, changed the printer cartridge, called Verizon about a mistake on their bill, and made a note to herself to schedule an annual ob/gyn exam for herself, dentist appointments for both of them (no matter how upset she was, she still didn’t wish him cavities), and an appointment at the vet to get Walter Alter up to date on his shots.
Feeling like a goddess of efficiency and organization, she threw open the door when she heard a knock exactly at three and greeted Nola with a huge smile.
‘Wow, you look human again. Is that lipstick?’
Brooke nodded, pleased with the reaction. She watched as Nola inspected her apartment.
‘Impressive!’ She whistled. ‘I have to say, I wasn’t holding out a lot of hope for you, and I’m really glad I was wrong.’ She pulled a black peacoat from the hallway closet and handed it to Brooke. ‘Come on, we’re going to show you what the outside world looks like.’
Brooke followed her friend down to the street, into the back of a taxi, and, finally, into a banquette table at Cookshop, one of their favorite brunch places in West Chelsea. Nola ordered them each a coffee and a Bloody Mary and insisted Brooke take three sips of each before she’d let her say a word. ‘There,’ she said soothingly as Brooke obliged. ‘Doesn’t that feel better?’
‘Yeah,’ Brooke said, suddenly overcome with the urge to cry. She’d been crying intermittently for a week straight now, and anything – or nothing – could set it off. Now it was the sight of a couple about her age sharing an order of French toast. They were mock-fighting over every piece, each pretending to spear a bite before the other could get a fork on it. Then they’d laugh and exchange that look. The one that said, No one else in the world exists. The one that Julian now gave to strangers in hotel rooms.
And there it was again. The mental picture of Julian and Janelle, wrapped in a naked embrace, kissing passionately. Gently sucking on that girl’s lower lip, exactly the same way he would with—’
‘You okay?’ Nola asked, reaching across the table to put her hand over Brooke’s.
She tried to suppress the tears, but she couldn’t. Almost instantly, hot, fat droplets were coursing down her cheeks, and although she didn’t sob or gasp for breath or shake, Brooke felt like she might never be able to stop. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said miserably, wiping them away as subtly as she could manage with her napkin.
Nola nudged Brooke’s Bloody Mary closer. ‘Another sip. There you go. This is to be expected, sweetheart. Let it out.’
‘I’m sorry, It’s so humiliating,’ Brooke whispered. She glanced around and was relieved that no one seemed to be looking at her.
‘You’re upset. It’s only natural,’ Nola said, softer than Brooke could ever remember her speaking. ‘Have you talked to him recently?’
Brooke blew her nose as delicately as she could manage, immediately feeling guilty for doing so in the restaurant’s cloth napkin. ‘We spoke the night before last. He was in Orlando, doing something for Disney World, I think, and he’s getting ready to go to England for a week. A paid performance and some kind of huge music festival? I’m not sure.’
Nola’s mouth tightened.
‘I’m the one who told him we needed time, Nol. I asked him to leave that night and said we needed some space to figure things out. He’s only gone because I insisted,’ Brooke said, wondering why she was still defending Julian.
‘So when will you see each other next? Is he deigning to come home after England?’
Brooke ignored the implication. ‘He’s coming back to New York after England, yes, but he’s not coming home. I told him he needed to stay somewhere else until we figure out what’s going on with us.’
The waiter came over to take their order and thankfully didn’t pay them a moment’s notice. When he left again, Nola said, ‘So what did you guys talk about? Did you make any progress?’
Brooke popped a sugar cube into her mouth and savored the feeling of it melting on her tongue. ‘Did we make any progress? No, I wouldn’t say that. We had a fight about Trent’s wedding.’
‘What about it?’
‘He thinks we should cancel at the last minute out of respect for Trent and Fern. Thinks we’ll “overshadow” their big day with all of our drama. He just doesn’t want to deal with seeing his entire family and every person he grew up with. Which I understand in theory, but it is something he needs to get over. It’s his first cousin’s wedding.’
‘So what’s the outcome?’
Brooke sighed. ‘I know he called Trent and talked about it, but I don’t know the outcome. My guess is he won’t go.’
‘Well, at the very least it’s good news for you. I’m sure it’s the last thing on earth you want to do right now.’
‘Oh, I’m going. Alone, if I have to.’
‘Come on, Brooke. That’s ridiculous. Why put yourself through that?’
‘Because it’s the right thing to do, and I just don’t think you can cancel on your own family’s wedding the week before for no good reason. Julian and I wouldn’t even know each other today if it weren’t for Trent, so I think I need to suck it up.’
Nola stirred some milk into her refreshed coffee. ‘I don’t know whether that’s brave or admirable or just fucking stupid. All of the above, I suspect.’
The urge to cry struck again – this time prompted by the idea of attending Trent’s wedding alone – but she forced the thought from her mind. ‘Can we talk about something else? You, maybe? I could use some distraction.’
‘Hmm, let’s see.’ Nola grinned. Clearly she’d been waiting for an opening.
‘What?’ Brooke asked. ‘Or should I ask “who”?’
‘I’m going to Turks and Caicos next week for a long weekend.’
‘Turks and Caicos? Since when? Don’t tell me you’re going for work. My god, I am so in the wrong industry.’
‘Not for work. For fun. For sex. I’m going with Andrew.’
‘Oh, he’s
Andrew now? How grown-up. Does that mean it’s serious?’
‘No, Drew and I are finished. Andrew is the cab guy.’
‘Stop it.’
‘What? I’m serious.’
‘You’re dating the guy you screwed after meeting in the back of a cab?’
‘What’s so weird about that?’
‘Nothing’s so weird about it, it’s just incredible! You’re the only woman on the planet who could pull it off. Those guys don’t call the next day …’
Nola gave a sly smile. ‘I gave him good reason to call the next day. And the day after that. And the day after that, too.’
‘You like him, don’t you? Oh my god, you do. You’re blushing. I can’t believe you’re blushing over a boy. Be still, my heart.’
‘All right, all right, I like him. Big deal. I’m into it. For now. And I’m very into Turks and Caicos.’
They were interrupted again by the waiter, this time bearing their chopped Chinese chicken salads. Nola nose-dived at her food, but Brooke merely pushed hers around on the plate.
‘Okay, so tell me how this came about. Were you lying in bed one night and he said, “Let’s go away together?”’
‘Sort of. He actually owns a place there. A villa at the Aman. Takes his son there pretty regularly.’
‘Nola! You bitch! You didn’t tell me any of this!’
Nola feigned innocence. ‘Any of what?’
‘The fact that you have a boyfriend and he has a villa and a son?’
‘I don’t know that I’d call him my boyfriend …’
‘Nola!’
‘Look, it’s been fun. Very relaxed. I’m trying not to think about it too much, and you’ve had a lot going on lately …’
‘Start talking!’
‘Okay, his name is Andrew, you know that part. He has brown hair and he’s an excellent tennis player and his favorite food is guacamole.’
‘I’m giving you ten seconds.’
Nola clapped her hands together and did a little jump in her seat. ‘It’s too much fun torturing you.’
‘Nine, eight, sev—’
‘All right! He’s about five-ten, maybe five-eleven on a good day, and he’s got a six-pack, which I find more intimidating than attractive. I suspect that he has all his shirts and suits custom-made, but I don’t have confirmation of that. He was on the golf team in college and spent a few years bumming around Mexico teaching golf before he founded an Internet company, took it public, and retired at age twenty-nine, although he still seems to do a lot of consulting, whatever that means. He lives in a town house on the Upper West Side, to be near his son, who is six and lives with his ex-wife. He has a flat in London and the villa in Turks and Caicos. And he is absolutely, positively inexhaustible in bed.’
Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection: The Devil Wears Prada, Revenge Wears Prada, Everyone Worth Know Page 145