“The point is, all good things came from my being fired.”
“And all good things came from you two being in my life,” Dana said.
“Aw, stop,” Penelope said. “You’ll make me blush.”
“Back at you,” Lipstick said.
“You know girls, all this started back in January when Mercury went into retrograde,” Neal said.
“Well,” Penelope said insolently, “my life needed that kick in the ass.”
“Oh, good,” Neal said. “I’m glad you see it that way, because it’s going back in retrograde next month.”
“No!” Lipstick cried.
“I’m staying home sick,” Penelope said.
“For three weeks straight?” Dana asked.
“For as long as it takes, just to be sure.” Penelope laughed.
15
Over the next few weeks, the call girls of the famed Coffee Klatch—Olga, Bernadette, Randi, and Tania—were all questioned by the police and IRS. All of them, with the exception of Tania, the foot fetishist, were arrested—and promptly released after announcing they’d made a deal to testify against the mayor.
But the sudden fame was good for their careers. Olga ended up posing seminude with her finger to her lips on the cover of Maxim, Bernadette did a piece for AARP The Magazine on sex and the aging woman, Randi had a pictorial in Penthouse, and Tania appeared in Us Weekly on the arm of a well-known action star/foot devotee. All of them signed a deal with VH1 for a reality show called Celebu-Sex: Kinky Star Secrets, and collaborated on a book titled Hook Your Husband for Life: Keep the Man You Love from Straying with Sex Secrets from the Pros. They all vowed—mostly for legal reasons—that they’d all quit “the business” for good. •••
Mayor Ed Swallows, who’d built his reputation as a politician tough on crime and prostitution, didn’t fare as well. He stone-walled the press for a week, but once the girls started talking, more women came out of the woodwork to claim he’d paid them for their services. One even had a videotape of her servicing the mayor that was bought by one of the entertainment news shows and aired to huge ratings for more than a week.
Swallows, after consulting lawyers and his real estate magnate father, resigned in disgrace, finally understanding that the only thing people hate more than a criminal is a hypocritical criminal. Happily, his wife—who’d once told Dateline NBC that Hillary Clinton was a fool for standing by Bill Clinton after the president had so callously humiliated her by diddling an intern under Hillary’s own roof—stood by his side, having realized that while she no longer had the cachet of being the mayor’s wife, the ex-mayor was still worth $2.4 billion, which was a lot more than she’d get in a divorce, thanks to the airtight prenup she’d signed seventeen years earlier.
Neal and David moved in together.
As for the girls, well, they were all on a new track.
Penelope became a minicelebrity in New York for a month. The hullabaloo eventually died down, and she settled into becoming the entertainment reporter for NY Access, which, without having to dodge Trace’s clammy hands, was actually fun.
Marge still wouldn’t give up the idea of the “Call Girl Coffee Klatch”—so instead, Penelope hosted a once-a-week show called The Klatch, which was a sort of talk show featuring whatever dregs of society Marge could summon into the studio on a Tuesday night. Penelope’s only complaint was that the name of the show sounded like something she’d once caught from a one-night stand in college. But Thomas was producing it, so she was happy. And every Tuesday night they’d go back to Penelope’s place and intimately discuss whatever bedroom techniques they’d learned during the evening’s show.
Penelope’s parents, Susan and Jim, continued to live unhappily together, calling their daughter thrice weekly to complain that they couldn’t see her on air in Cincinnati.
Lipstick started an actual business with her Dauphin designs while dabbling in society journalism. As a contributor to Y, she was no longer on social patrol every night, but responsible for two to three articles every month. It was an arrangement that suited all involved. Jack was happy to tell everyone in town and the fashion community that he’d found her and encouraged her the whole time to become the brilliant new talent that she was. Her father, happy that Lipstick had started an actual business, seeded her new company with $150,000. Within a year she paid him back and, working out of her second bedroom, expanded the line from dresses into sportswear and ready-to-wear. Not a month went by when her creations weren’t featured or worn by models in Y, Vogue, Glamour, Elle, and other fashion magazines. Lipstick no longer had the time to look up Socialstatus.com and, in fact, even blocked it from her computer.
But the best part for her was the sense of self and confidence that came from working hard at what she loved—and reaping the rewards. The change in her was apparent to everyone, even if they couldn’t figure out exactly what was different. Was it that she now walked into a room with her back straight and shoulders held high? Was it that she made eye contact and never second-guessed herself? Or her refusal to be drawn into petty society gossip that had been the focus of her world from junior high on? Whatever it was, everyone agreed, Lipstick wore a permanent glow.
In an odd twist, she and Bitsy became friends, of sorts. Bitsy accepted the position of Dauphin’s “ambassador.” Lipstick threw Bitsy a free dress every month in exchange for Bitsy hosting cocktail parties/trunk shows for the socialites Lipstick no longer had regular contact with, but who paid full price for her clothes and then wore them to galas and got photographed in them.
And while she no longer lived at 198 Sullivan, Lipstick was over at least three times a week—for yoga with the girls and to see Zach, who was not only her strongest supporter, but blew Thad—and the rest of the men she’d ever dated—out of the water in every single way.
Old man Kornberg was disappointed that Dana withdrew her application for full partnership at Struck, Struck & Kornberg but said he understood. “Dana, you’re one of the firm’s best and brightest,” he told her. “When you’re ready, we’re here.” Within a week Dana’s hair started growing back.
Dana used her extra time to invest in a good psychotherapist who taught her how to deal with stress, forgive and forget Noah, and finally, to throw out her scale. She even allowed Lipstick and Penelope to drag her out to a social function at least once a week. Meanwhile, she and Gerard went on that date, which led to a second and third—and an actual relationship that wasn’t tinged with self-doubt, loathing, or trying to be someone she wasn’t.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to the following—without your help I would be a complete and utter mess: my family, the New York Post, Richard Johnson, Kate Lee, Elizabeth Spiers, Sloane Crosley, Raina Penchansky, Greer Hendricks, Judith Curr, Sarah Walsh, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, Chip Kidd, Hampton Carney, Jeff Klein, Marcy Engelman, and many others I am sure I forgot.
Mercury in Retrograde Page 24