this city. Lest we forget, Ryan Reynolds was single now.
‘I feel responsible.’ Erin smiled at the waitress as our food arrived. Prompt and plenty of it. I loved this place. ‘He was at my party, after all. Let me hook you up with one of Thomas’s friends.’
Thomas was Erin’s husband, one of the few Wall Street traders I knew who hadn’t been totally stung in the recession. Not that my address book was teeming with Wall Street traders.
‘Maybe.’ I took a deep breath, readying myself for the inevitable reaction I would get to my next statement. ‘You know, I kinda thought maybe I might give Jeff a call.’
Their choruses of negativity were loud and indecipherable but the general theme seemed to be a no. I sighed and poked at my eggs, suddenly not so hungry any more.
‘Jenny, you know that’s a bad idea.’ The blonde began her practised argument.
‘I know but I need to do it, OK?’
To be fair, it wasn’t as though this wasn’t old ground. Jeff and I used to date, used to live together, but we’d broken up a couple of years earlier when I’d been dumb enough to confess a drunken one-night dalliance and he’d completely flipped. It wasn’t as if I wasn’t ready to take responsibility – yes, technically I’d cheated, but a) I was wasted and b) I’d told him about it right away. But apparently that didn’t help. He didn’t trust me any more and that was even more hurtful than if he’d stopped loving me. Because he hadn’t. And knowing that was the worst.
‘Jeff is the past, Jeff is bad times, Jeff is staggering around at four a.m. singing “Hopelessly Devoted” in every karaoke bar in the East Village.’ She shook her head. ‘Jeff isn’t happening.’
‘But if I just called him,’ I suggested weakly. I was playing to the wrong crowd. ‘Or send, like, a Facebook message?’
‘I wouldn’t,’ Angie said, sounding nervous. ‘Really, I wouldn’t get in touch at all.’
I bit my lip. ‘Is that girl still living there?’
It was hardly Angela’s fault, but her boyfriend had the misfortune to live in the same building as my ex. Which of course meant that Angela now lived in the same building as my ex. Awesome.
‘Uh, yep.’ She looked down at her burger and then at the ends of her shiny bob. ‘I need a trim. Shall we see if we can get a trim this afternoon?’
She was about as good at hiding something as Lindsay Lohan was at shoplifting, i.e. not very.
‘Spill.’
She gave me a pained expression before dropping her head to hide her blue eyes behind her hair. ‘They’re engaged. They got engaged.’
If driving into Manhattan had been like taking a breath of fresh air, this was like getting every breath kicked out of me. By a pissed off mule. Onto train tracks just as a train was pulling in. I did the only thing a girl could do with that kind of news. I sank my first bellini and made a pretty good attack on the second.
‘He proposed?’ I asked, twisting the knife that was suddenly wedged in my chest. ‘He got a ring?’
‘I assume so.’ She raised her shoulders up to her ears in a dramatic shrug. ‘Alex told me. He saw them in the lift yesterday and she was wearing a ring.’
‘Alex noticed a girl was wearing a new ring?’ Erin asked. ‘Damn, that guy’s a keeper. You need to lock that down, honey.’
‘One problem at a time,’ I responded, my voice becoming ever so slightly hysterical. ‘He’s definitely engaged? She’s not just some tacky ho who wears jewellery on her wedding finger?’
‘Definitely engaged.’ She held her hands up in front of her. ‘I don’t know any details; please don’t shoot the messenger. Or punch the messenger. Or anything the messenger. Please. I’m sorry.’
In Angie’s defence, my first thought was violence. I really, really wanted to hurt someone. It was a long time since I’d had to pull out a bitch-slap – but I wasn’t above it. What was I supposed to do in this situation? The love of my life had got engaged to someone else. The way I saw it I had three choices. Beg him to take me back, cry myself blind or kill them both. Now begging hadn’t worked in the past, and while I could totally beat that man-stealer down, killing her might be a little far-fetched. Besides, there was a teensy chance that Jeff would hold it against me instead of being won over by the romance of the whole murder thing. Which left crying myself blind. Hmm.
No, I was not going to bawl over brunch. It was not an appropriate sobbing meal. I’d find a quiet spot in Saks to weep over some twelve-hundred-dollar purses later. No, right now, I required a plan. That’s what friends were for. Might not have been in the lyrics to that song, but still, fact.
‘Ladies,’ I gave my friends an affirmative nod, ‘I can’t freak out over this. I’m going old-school Lopez on this shizz. What would Oprah do? I have a great network of people around me, I just need to put it into action, right?’
‘Very sensible of you,’ Angie replied. ‘What can we do?’
This was my forte. Getting over break-ups. Moving on. Having a plan. I could do this. Gut-wrenching, desperate urge to vomit because the man I loved was engaged. To someone else.
‘You,’ I pointed at her with my fork for emphasis, ‘can get me a date. Seriously, Angie, you’re living with some hot-ass guitar boy and you haven’t even once tried to set me up with any of his friends?’
‘All his friends are arses.’ She managed to make the ‘r’ in arses last for a lifetime. ‘Really, don’t make me do this.’
‘It’s done.’ There was no time for refusals. When I was on a mission, I was on a mission. ‘I want a date by Friday night. Which brings me to you,’ I smiled sweetly. ‘Give me a job. Any job. Seriously, you must have something? Anything.’
While Angela flicked through the contacts in her cell phone, pulling a face at each and every one, Erin looked to the heavens for an answer.
‘OK, there’s something.’ She was making pretty much the same face as Angela. ‘But it’s not styling. I mean, it’s fashion but it’s really events management.’
‘I can manage events.’ I slapped the table so hard, the lid popped off the ketchup pot. ‘For real, I’m awesome at events. I was a concierge, for Christ’s sake, what’s that if it’s not organizing? Tell me everything.’
‘I guess.’ She didn’t look quite convinced. ‘We’re working with this new design house, Boyd & Norrell, and they’ve managed to bag Sadie Nixon as their spokesperson.’
‘The model?’
‘The supermodel,’ Erin corrected. ‘The Victoria’s Secret model, the Maybelline spokeswoman and, if rumour has it right, the world’s biggest asshole.’
‘Nope, I went on a date with that guy last night,’ I reminded her. ‘So she’s a difficult model. They’re all difficult; that’s what happens when all you eat is one packet of Nutrasweet in seven years. What do you need me to do?’
‘I need someone to handle her for the
