no problem. Though, I have to say I feel a little silly getting all this attention. You’re going to know everything about me and we’ve never met. I will get to meet you, won’t I?
—cb
I thought for a moment about how active my imagination could be, how much trouble and heartache it had caused me over the years. And then gradually, imperceptibly, I found myself thinking about gingham tablecloths, jars of apple butter, and crickets at night. Dammit.
chapter 4
“Oh, Lena,” Tess said wearily as she took a glass of champagne from a circulating waiter.
We sat down on a red velvet banquette and surveyed the crowd—a quintessential Parker production, more commonly known as a press party.
I didn’t respond to Tess. I regretted having said anything to her at all about Colin and tried to look preoccupied with the scene around us, but that was almost futile. I had been to so many of these types of events, I was on a first-name basis with the waitstaff. It was always the same party with the same food—an assortment of tuna tartare on toast, mini quiches, and duck spring rolls. The cast of characters rarely changed—the usual mix of suit-wearing executives, a cluster of chain-smoking models, the stray B-list actor, and the odd club kid or two thrown in for the illusion of street cred.
“Hey, Lena, I’m sorry.” Tess touched my arm gently. “It’s just that I thought you were going to try to stop getting ahead of yourself. I don’t want to see you get hurt again, you know?” Why did the avoidance of “getting hurt” always involve some other type of pain? I wondered.
“Tess, don’t worry. I just think he’s intriguing. He’s a writer. He lives in the country. He has a golden retriever, for God’s sake,” I said. “He couldn’t be more different than Nick.”
“Well, that’s a good start,” she said.
“Besides, I haven’t even seen him. It’s fun just to daydream, you know?” I said lightly. In fact, I had not responded to Colin’s last e-mail immediately for this very reason. The sheer ambiguity of our exchange allowed me countless fantastical projections about just who Colin Bates was and how our obvious connection would evolve. Could he have soulful gray-green eyes and a talent for making homemade pasta? Why of course! These questions (and my imagination’s affirmative answers) could go on for days. I would sit at my desk happily sorting faxes or stapling Nadine’s “memos” fueled by the giddy daydreams of Colin reading to me from his new manuscript as we slurped down freshly made gnocchi. Sigh.
“Just promise me you’ll go slowly, okay?” Tess said, not giving up.
“Of course,” I said, but she eyed me suspiciously. “I swear, Tess!” I said, and looked away.
Circles of guests performing their festive obligations collided around us. I noticed a woman wearing men’s pinstripe pants and a tie wrapped around her chest like a bandeau top. A pencil-thin woman balanced a toddler on one hip and chatted on a cell phone—doing her best Jade Jagger-esque approximation of a bohemian parent. I spotted Parker expertly weaving her way through the crowd toward us, clipboard in hand, of course. She was in her element—a beautiful space, beautiful people and, most importantly, the position of authority to determine exactly who would be selected to enjoy it all. (I felt sure if Sleazy Cheese worked for Parker, he would be busy scrubbing floors in the back.)
“Thanks for coming, you guys—my agency friend flaked out on me again so we’re a little short on the model quotient, but you guys help fill the space,” she said brightly.
Tess and I shared a mental eye roll. It wasn’t personal— Parker was like a choreographer and press events were her ballet. To her, Tess and I were the klutzy understudies that always came through when the prima donna ballerinas got sick—or, in this case, got last-minute bookings for a Stuff magazine photo shoot. Parker adjusted her headset and perched herself on a windowsill cluttered with party detritus.
“I’m also glad you’re both here because I wanted to talk a little bit more about the dresses.”
And we were trapped. Tess flagged the waiter for another round and we girded ourselves, secretly praying for a heated coat-check incident to carry Parker and her premarital monologues away. As if a sign from God, Tess’s cell phone interrupted Parker’s intense dissection of the difference between periwinkle and robin’s-egg blue.
“Hey, Parker—I’m so sorry. I’ve really got to go,” Tess announced, snapping her cell phone shut. “I’m going to go meet Stanley for a nightcap at the Knickerbocker.” She gave me a heartfelt glance and with a kiss to each cheek she was gone.
“It’s almost impossible to sit the two of you down long enough to go over anything.” Parker looked annoyed.
“Actually, Parker, we haven’t seen very much of you since the engagement.”
“What?” She looked slightly offended. “I’ve been busy, Lena. Getting married is a full-time job. Brad and I have practically every weekend booked with appointments these days.” It must be so taxing to explain these things to a hopelessly single person….
“So, are things better now between you two?”
“Of course,” she said, without a hint of contemplation. Parker didn’t contemplate. “We argue, that’s all. It’s a sign of passion, Lena.” There were so many things she had to explain to me. Clearly my naiveté was exhausting her.
I wondered what it would be like to live inside Parker’s head—to love your job and not question its “meaning” constantly, to see your future in front of you, down to the color scheme of your first child’s (a boy—Bennett, or if it’s a girl— Bethany) nursery. What was it like to imagine your husband and see an actual face that you knew—not some vague collection of traits that seemed “ideal” but weren’t any more real than your childhood crush on Andy Gibb? Parker knew the rules and played the game. She knew what she wanted and she went after it with a zeal that sometimes scared me. She believed in the hierarchy of the world and comfortably, confidently, took her place within it. It was fun to make jokes about her new obsession with tulle and taffeta and her search for a good-looking reformed rabbi who wouldn’t dwarf Brad, but at least she was living a real life, planning real events that were meaningful, not snidely standing by on the sidelines waiting for something, anything to happen.
“So, I don’t know, Lena—I know it’s a lot to ask, but would you mind?”
“Uh…” I had no idea what she was talking about.
“It’s just that your color, as nice as it is, doesn’t quite complement the overall theme.” Parker raised her hands grandly and fluffed up the hair around my face, her eyes squinting critically.
“What color do you want it to be?” I asked.
“Brown with copper undertones.” She smiled brightly.
“My hair is brown, Parker.”
“Yes, but it has golden undertones.”
Yes, I thought, Parker’s world made sense to her. It did not, however, make sense to me.
“Parker!” One of her publicity plebes rushed to her side, his headset tangled in his overgelled hair. He blurted out some story about a nasty goody-bag tiff and Parker rose from her seat like a general
