* * *
• • •
Alex was delighted to find that Jane had been planning on taking her out to lunch all along. And, as a bonus, Jane surprised Alex with their friend Lana—Jane’s college roommate and an utter delight.
When they arrived at Verdura—the newest vegan hot spot in the city—Alex made a beeline for Lana and hugged the stuffing out of her. Since her friend had decided to leave her psychology practice after having her third kid, it had been difficult to get an audience with her.
After they hugged and squealed, Lana pointed a finger at Jane. “They had better serve alcohol here. I took an Uber, and I have a babysitter for the rest of the day.”
Lana looked a bit wild-eyed, and Alex’s first guess was that stay-at-home motherhood wasn’t totally agreeing with her. Her normal blond, easy-California-girl aura was kind of muddy. Alex had clearly been hanging out with Lexi too much if she was thinking about muddy auras.
It was disconcerting to see the mentally healthiest person she knew off-kilter. While Jane was always a wild card, Lana had always seemed so steady. Alex had always looked at Lana’s relationship with Greg and thought she could sign up for something like that if she met someone like Lana’s husband—a calm, steady, responsible accountant with an apparently kinky streak in bed.
“I guess I’ll tell my clients that their little careers are just going to have to wait.” Jane had minions who could handle her clients for the afternoon. She was at the top of the food chain at her agency. The walls shook when she was unhappy. She embodied hashtag boss-babe goals without the hashtag. She just had the sort of presence that dared people to question her. Since Alex knew her so well through their professional relationship, she also knew how much compassion Jane had. She might be responsible for building empires and legacies for her clients, but when her friends were in crisis, empires could wait.
Jane held the philosophy that she was who she was, and that anyone who didn’t like it could choke on it. Alex actually shared that philosophy with her friend. Jane would also do anything for her true friends. Alex agreed, so it was good that they’d found each other.
Alex laughed and shook her head. “I guess I’m not going back to the office this afternoon.” It was a good thing she didn’t have any court appearances and wasn’t going to miss any filing deadlines. She sent a quick text to her assistant saying that she’d be out for the rest of the afternoon.
“So, what’s up?” Even though Jane would clear her schedule for her friends, she always got straight to the point.
“I just miss you guys,” Lana said. “I’m so tired and bored only having people under the age of five to talk to all day.”
Alex shuddered. Lana’s kids were cute, but they were also mildly terrifying. “I can barely sustain interest in a conversation with an adult man. I would totally flounder with children.”
Lana scoffed. “I think you would be great in a relationship, but that would require actually trying.”
“That’s easy for you to say; you actually won the lottery with Greg.” Lana and Greg’s relationship was truly the only one that Alex could even imagine aspiring to.
“Not so,” Lana said. “Remember when Greg wanted an open relationship?”
Alex nodded. “As I recall, you had a three-month-old.”
Lana scrunched her forehead. “And I was so tired I cried at the concept of finally getting my kids to bed and then trolling for tail on Tinder.”
“I told you that Tinder was over, and I would set you up on Raya.” Jane was always there with the hookup.
“So I could troll for D-list tail?” Lana cringed. “No, thank you.”
“You only have to find one.” Jane must have found her fuckboy on Raya. He was probably an Australian DJ. “Listen, it is a truth universally acknowledged that the female partner in a heterosexual open marriage is the more desired partner. Most straight women don’t want a secondhand dude on layaway from his marriage.
“So, all you had to do is find one guy while he was trying to slide into the DMs of some woman he’s never going to get. You’d go out looking fine and let some guy take you out and buy you lobster. Let him eat your clam guilt-free if you want, and when you get home Greg is going to be singing a different tune.”
All three women stopped talking when the server approached the table and took their order. Jane ordered a vegan cheese plate for the table and a round of martinis.
“But that’s not what I wanted, and it’s not really what Greg wanted, either.” Lana shook her head. “And it’s not the point.”
“What is your point?” Alex asked, frustrated with Lana’s therapist-speak.
Lana pursed her lips, and Alex imagined that was how she looked when dealing with a particularly recalcitrant analysand. “My point was that Greg isn’t perfect, and neither am I.” She laughed. “He actually thought he was helping. Turns out that his sleep-deprived brain thought I was ignoring him because I wasn’t in love with him anymore, and he thought the only way to keep me was to open up our relationship.”
“Shit, that’s almost romantic,” said Jane.
Alex looked at both her friends as though they were crazy. “Or it’s proof that men are impossible to understand, and even the best ones are more trouble than they are worth.”
Jane shrugged. “Some of them are okay . . . in small doses.”
“The fuckboy is that good?” Come to think of it, Alex had never seen Jane looking so relaxed.
“He’s serving his purpose.” Jane squinted at Alex. “Now we should talk about what I walked in on in your office.”
Jane hadn’t forgotten. Of course she hadn’t.
“It’s nothing—”
At the same time, Jane said, “She was making a list of every person she’s fucked.”
The restaurant had experienced a little lull in sound at that exact moment, and Alex wanted to crawl under the table and maybe die. It was such an immature thing to do. She might not be apologetic about who she was, where she came from, or what she looked like, but she was definitely embarrassed by this behavior.
And then Lana put her therapist face on. “Oh?”
“I saw Jason on Say Yes to the Dress with his new fiancée last night.” Now that people were looking at them, Alex figured that it was time to rip off the Band-Aid.
“He’s hot, but who’s dumb enough to marry that bargain-basement Michael B. Jordan when the real one is just wandering around?” Jane sneered. She’d never liked Jason, and her assessment of him was correct. “Does he even have a job?”