Will didn’t know what to say so he made a soft noise in the back of his throat. He hated the idea of anyone being mean to Alex—except for him. And that was always because she said something bitchy or called him dumb for getting married. But he would never put that into actual words. It would shift the dynamic between them irrevocably.
Luckily, Alex didn’t seem to notice that he hadn’t actually said anything. “It’s fine. All of this shit—race, gender, class—all of it is a social construct. We literally made it all up. Of course, it has significance in almost every aspect of our lives. But remembering that it’s all just a story that we tell ourselves about who we are is a good way to stay sane.”
“Then why do you care if every guy you’ve ever dated gets serious with someone else after they date you?” The Alex he knew would never have cared about why someone didn’t want to be in her life anymore. One of the many things he admired about her was her ability to just move on.
She looked at him, blinking a few times, as though she couldn’t believe he’d put together that many words about feelings. “Because it has significance, Will. It’s not important, but it also is.”
Will turned over that thought in his mind for a few moments. “I have no idea what that means.”
But just because he didn’t know what it meant, that didn’t mean he was going to let her confront all her exes. At least not alone.
NINE
How did you get all of this information so fast?” Jane had really come through with her research skills. Alex was now in possession of the addresses, home values, and current marital status—and a few criminal records—of every person she’d dated since her sophomore year in college. “I didn’t really need all this information. I’m only going to talk to, like, five of them.”
Jane shrugged. “I’m still dating the fuckboy, so my assistant had some time on their schedule this week.”
“You do realize that this is the stuff that exposés about bad bosses are made of, right?” Alex knew her friend was ride or die, but she didn’t want to read about how she’d had her assistants spying on her friends’ exes when they should be trying to develop their careers.
“If I get in trouble, you’ll get me out of it. I have faith in you.” That made Alex feel good about their friendship.
“You do realize that I can’t represent you in a civil suit.”
“My assistants don’t know that.” It was a real sign of Jane’s power that she had two assistants—like Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada. “Why do you think I can get away for lunch so often? And no one interrupts us? They just think you’re my lawyer and I need to meet with you once a week.”
“And the fact that you return to the office two martinis deep?”
“They think that you’re giving me bad news.”
Jane had gotten away from the office and her very detailed assistant today so that they could track down the first ex on the list. Jane had called her and told her which exes she was willing to visit with her based on neighborhood and traffic patterns. There was no way that Jane was going to get on the 405 to visit any exes who lived in Long Beach or Hermosa Beach, but she hadn’t gotten to drive her new car on the PCH. Brody lived in Malibu, so they’d decided to crank up the soundtrack to The O.C. and make it a beach day.
On the way, they were picking up Lana, who said that she wouldn’t miss this fucking disaster for the world—and had saved a very special edible for the occasion.
Jane pulled up to the Venice bungalow Lana shared with her husband and three kids. Truly a great house that Lana and Greg had painstakingly restored. It would be a real shame if they ever got divorced. Alex would have to take the house away from Greg—a genuinely nice guy. And Alex would lose the one-tenth of one percent of her that still believed in true love.
Lana walked out of her house, looking like she’d just left the set of a Nancy Meyers movie—sort of like a young Meryl Streep with giant tatas and a smile that only legal pot and a reliable nanny could put on a mother’s face.
“Your boobs look amazing.” Jane never said anything but the truth. “Like we need to get some pictures of them for your future Raya profile.”
“One hundred percent,” Alex agreed. “Your body is rocking.”
Lana got in the back seat of Jane’s Audi. Once she closed the door, she sighed. “You two are sure good for the ego of a woman who hasn’t gone to the bathroom alone in five years.”
Alex winced. Almost everything any person she respected said made parenthood seem mostly horrific. It would also require her making a long-term commitment to a partner. She definitely didn’t picture doing parenthood alone, like her mother had. Of course, her mother had had a village of sorts to help—namely, Lexi. But Alex couldn’t imagine doing the job of modern parenthood, which seemed to require a lot more than it had in, say, the seventies, all alone.
“We’re going to have so much fun today.” Jane ignored the comment about going to the bathroom alone. It had sometimes brought up some tension in their friendship that Jane had no interest in the existence of children. According to her, humans were a scourge on the planet, and we would all be better off if we stopped reproducing immediately. She tended to just lightly gloss over any mention of Lana’s children.
For the most part, Lana ignored it. But today, she couldn’t seem to pull it off. Perhaps it was the marked lack of a car seat or crumbs littering Jane’s back seat. “I really need to keep a hand vacuum in my car.”
“I like to keep it clean in case I need to get busy in the back seat.” Jane said. “I even have a little sex toy go-bag in the trunk.”
“I am definitely doing life wrong if I’m tracking down exes instead of improving my life with things like ‘sex toy go-bags.’ ” They were about to go see her ex who taught yoga for a living, and Alex was stressed-out by how many missed opportunities she’d had because she failed to carry a vibrator in her car. She’d probably be a whole lot less stressed-out with that go-bag. Speaking of which, Alex turned to Lana in the back seat. She might have had to pee in front of her children, but she appeared to be pretty calm now. “Do you have any more of that edible?”
Lana rolled her eyes and dug into the front pocket of her purse. She broke off a corner of a brownie and offered it to Alex.
“You remembered that I don’t like fruity pot candy. Thanks, Mom!”
Lana smiled a dreamy smile at her. “You know I always take care of my girlies.”
Forty minutes of PCH traffic later, Alex was glad that she’d eaten the edible. She couldn’t feel anything below her neck, and Jane swearing at all the “fucking idiots trying to get us killed” didn’t really bother her at all.