Ten hours later, Imogen found herself sipping a double martini with a twist at the little French bistro tucked inside The Jane hotel. After the day she’d had, the drink tasted like magic. They’d dispensed with the requisite discussion of Imogen’s shitty job and moved swiftly on to Bridgett’s love life. ‘I’m dating a great guy,’ Bridgett informed Imogen matter-of-factly.
Imogen could picture him. From years of living together, Imogen knew her friend’s type as well as she knew her own. Bridgett went for older, distinguished, rich and successful. These days it seemed like everyone except Imogen was single and dating again. Most of her single friends and the single mommies at drop-off had been dipping their toes into online dating, where they all lied about their age – all of them except for Bridgett, who was incredibly honest about being in her forties and thought the ten-year-old photos or blurry shots on most of their friends’ profiles were nothing but false advertising. Another close girlfriend of theirs used a photograph clearly taken fifteen years earlier. When she met her date at the bar, he took one look at her, got up and left. Didn’t utter a single word.
Bridgett really didn’t look a day over thirty-five, so when they saw her in person men always complimented her on how young and fabulous she looked.
‘Why would I lie?’ she always cooed. ‘I’d much rather have someone show up on a first date and ooo and ahhhh and say, “Wow, you look so young!” I don’t want anyone to get buyer’s remorse.’
Men ate that right up. Her last boyfriend had been the number two at Sony Pictures. Despite the fact that he stood only five foot two, in Los Angeles he could bag just about any woman he wanted. He acted as a sponge for all of Bridgett’s neuroses and the crazier she became, the more he was devoted to her. That was until a much younger and apparently even more neurotic actress stole his affection on the set of a $100 million action movie being shot in Dubai. He at least had the courtesy of ending their relationship over Skype, rather than relegating the task to text message or email. ‘It was nice that he let me see his little face,’ Bridgett explained at the time.
‘Do I know the guy?’ Imogen now asked, knowing her friend wanted to draw out the telling of her news for as long as possible.
‘You do.’
‘Is it someone I dated?’ She had to ask.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Shall we play a guessing game or do you want to tell me?’
With that Bridgett opened up her cardigan to reveal a soft gray T-shirt with the word BLAST! across the front.
‘Oh, that’s cute. Did Rashid make that?’
‘He did.’ Bridgett said, her hazel eyes twinkling as she batted Imogen affectionately on the forearm.
‘It’s adorable. Next time you see him ask him to give me a couple for Annabel and Johnny. Those are cute. Are you guys meeting up to talk about your app soon?’
Bridgett looked at her like she was simple. ‘Imogen, I am dating Rashid.’
She hadn’t expected that.
‘But I thought he was …’
‘Gay.’
‘Yes, gay.’
Bridgett grinned and spooned a piece of creamy burrata flecked with dried olives into her mouth. ‘You of all people should know not to jump straight to conclusions. He’s just well-dressed and groomed and articulate. I know it’s a stretch, but there are still straight men out there with manners and class.’
Imogen estimated their age difference at about fifteen years and she felt doubly guilty that she felt a small bit of judgment about that. Pushing it down, she mustered all of her happiness for her friends. Rashid was amazing. He was brilliant and kind, and that was exactly the kind of man that Bridgett deserved. If Demi Moore, Heidi Klum and Madonna had taught them anything, it was that younger men were terribly attracted to strong, self-reliant older women.
Confident that she had given Imogen enough of a shock, Bridgett began rifling around in Imogen’s Birkin.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Do you mind if I go through your meds?’
‘My what?’
‘Just let me look at your medication?’
‘Here at the table?’
Bridgett glanced around the dim room. ‘No one interesting is here,’ she said as she pulled Imogen’s small cushioned bag from her purse and began looking at vitamins, supplements and four bottles of pills.
‘What are these? Neupogen?’
Imogen grabbed the bottle. ‘Cancer drug.’
‘What are these big ones?’
‘Vitamins.’
Bridgett popped one of the large cylinders into her mouth. ‘Ooooo, Zoloft. Excellent. I’ll take one of these.’
‘Bridgett!’ Now Imogen rolled her eyes and smiled. ‘You can’t just take one Zoloft. It isn’t like Xanax.’
Her friend waved her hand away.
‘Oh, please. I’ve been taking these since before you knew what a panic attack was. I am going to pick my new prescription up tomorrow. It’s fine. I just left my pills at the office … Besides, I am a little nervous about hanging out with you and my new man.’
As if they had conjured him just by speaking his name, Rashid appeared at the entrance to Cafe Gitane, resplendent in a red sweater with heather-gray pants. He leaned in to double kiss Imogen’s cheeks before brushing his lips seductively across Bridgett’s.
‘I hope I gave you enough time to let the cat out of the bag, otherwise that kiss is sure to make Imogen really uncomfortable.’ He settled into the chair next to a flushed Bridgett.
‘So Imogen, how is that idea for your app going?’
‘I’ve barely had time to breathe, much less invent a new company.’
Rashid laughed. ‘One of these days you will start thinking about ideas for new companies while you breathe. I can tell it’s in you, Imogen.’ He lowered his voice and gave it a mechanical monotone. ‘The force is strong with this one.’
The two women delivered blank stares.
‘Yoda?’ he said, giving them a questioning look. ‘Star Wars?’
Bridgett piped up. ‘I don’t think this is an age thing, is it?’
Rashid shook his head. ‘No, it’s a nerd thing.’
The word ‘nerd’ caught Imogen’s attention, since Eve loved throwing it out there as if ‘nerd’ were somehow synonymous with ‘tech.’ She said as much to Rashid, eliciting a grand sigh from him.
‘Eve is the opposite of nerd, isn’t she?’ Bridgett asked.
Imogen just shrugged.
‘I never try to pigeonhole exactly what Eve is. It changes every single day.’
Rashid wanted to explain. ‘There are so many smart women working in technology these days. Take Aerin Chang. She’s just so fucking brilliant it makes my brain hurt. Half of the coders we have at BLAST! are now women. That’s a big deal considering we had just two last year. I love women in tech. But I hate women like Eve in tech. Eve was very obviously the popular girl in college.’
Imogen nodded, indicating that he was not wrong.
‘You know what most of the guys in tech were doing in high school and college?’ Rashid continued. Both women shook their heads.
‘We played a lot of tabletop Dungeons and Dragons and we played with computers. Girls like Eve went to Beyoncé concerts and drank wine coolers while we learned code and we built code and we played games and made games, mostly because we didn’t have many friends in high school. We had acne. We were short. A lot of us smelled funny. Our parents’ suburban basements were our football stadiums. I figured I would always be the odd brown kid. We didn’t go into tech because it was cool. We went into tech because it was what we were good at. Now you have women like Eve sweeping in, hopping onto the next hot thing. She isn’t in it because she loves what we do. She’s there to make money.’
He paused. ‘Which I respect. I love money. But she’s condescending to those of us who’ve been doing this our whole lives.’
Imogen got that. Eve was as condescending to her, a person who had been in magazines her entire life, as she was to Rashid, a person who knew more about technology than she could ever hope to. Eve was simply condescending to everyone. It wasn’t the tech that made her a bitch. She was just a bitch.
Imogen’s phone peeped at her like a baby bird.
‘That’s a funny alert noise,’ Rashid commented.
Imogen blushed. ‘I am still trying to figure out how to make it make a proper sound.’ Rashid reached across the table and grabbed her phone. He made a few swipes and taps and then returned it to her.
‘Now all messages will come with a very dignified and solemn small bell.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, taking it back.
‘Oh, and it seems that your girl crush might just have a reciprocal girl crush on you?’
Imogen tilted her head in confusion.
‘If I am not mistaken, you just got an email from the one and only Aerin Chang.’ Imogen tried not to look too eager as she opened her mailbox. Sure enough, there was a message at the top from Aerin2006@gmail.com.
From: Aerin Chang (Aerin2006@gmail.com)
To: Imogen Tate (ITate@Glossy.com)
Subject: Fancy a coffee?
Hi Imogen!
I hope you don’t think this email is too forward. I’m a big fan of both you and Glossy. I’ve been having a real blast following your Instagram. I would love to chat with you about Glossy and about what we do over at Shoppit. Essentially I just love sitting down to coffee with smart women and I think we have a lot in common. Would you let me buy you a macchiato?
Cheers,
Aerin
She had her at ‘macchiato.’ Imogen must have had a goofy grin on her face, because Rashid and Bridgett were smirking at her.
‘She wants to have coffee,’ Imogen explained. ‘Did you tell her to email me?’
‘I didn’t,’ Rashid replied. ‘I meant to after we talked about her, but I haven’t had the chance yet. You go, girl. Go have coffee and then go take a job at Shoppit and stop working for that little witch,’ Rashid said.
‘Um, that isn’t at all what she wants to meet about. One, I have no place at all at a start-up. Two, she hardly knows me. Why would she want to hire me? Three, I like my job.’
‘I could refute all of those points,’ Bridgett said. ‘But I won’t. I do think you should meet up with her.’
‘Is it weird that we kind of became friends on Instagram first and now we are meeting up?’ Imogen asked.
Bridgett and Rashid shook their heads, practically in tandem.
‘That’s how everything works these days,’ Rashid said. ‘Everyone meets first online.’ He considered it further. ‘For a while people were only talking online, but now everyone seems to be jumping on the whole “in-person” thing, so online friends are becoming offline friends. Everyone wants to hang out IRL – in real life.’ Even though Bridgett continued to nod, Imogen doubted that her old friend understood any of this much better than she did. Bridgett was simply better at faking it.
‘Should I write back now or should I wait a bit?’
Bridgett laughed. ‘You’re not trying to sleep with her. Just write back and make a date. I don’t think you need to play coy here.’
‘You’re right. Obviously.’ Still, she slipped her phone into her purse, wanting to choose the right words to type back later when she was alone. She didn’t know why she wanted Aerin Chang to like her.
Imogen gave a long look at her old friend and her new friend. They were an odd couple indeed, but this was New York City and she had most certainly seen odder. What mattered was that they were both happier together than they’d been when they were apart.
‘I love you two.’
As she walked home, she composed an email to Aerin in her head.
From: Imogen Tate (ITate@Glossy.com)
To: Aerin Chang (Aerin2006@gmail.com)
Subject: Would love to meet up!
Dear Aerin,
Your email wasn’t too forward at all. I am just getting my bearings on Instagram, but I do adore everything that you post. I would love to grab a coffee or a drink. Do you want to let me know what works for you next week and we can go from there?
xo,
Imogen
The reply came in no time at all.
From: Aerin Chang (Aerin2006@gmail.com)
To: Imogen Tate (ITate@Glossy.com)
Subject: RE: Would love to meet up!
So excited! I actually have an opening tomorrow afternoon. It’s short notice and I’m sure you are busy as hell, but do you have any interest in coming by the Shoppit office for lunch? We can order in here. Super casual. Let me know!
xo
Aerin
Why not? Imogen asked herself. Lunch with Aerin Chang at the Shoppit office sounded delightful. Still, she had butterflies in her stomach, as if she were going on a first date.