“I’m so glad you rang! Happy almost Christmas!” Posy sang through the phone. “Where are you?”
“Thornton Hall, where do you think I am?”
“Given that I didn’t know you were headed there until the wind was at your back, I’d say it’s anybody’s guess. Besides, I thought there was no cell reception there because of the beautification council and the mobile phone towers, etcetera, etcetera.”
“There isn’t. I’m on the landline in the laundry room. Rose sent me for a nap, but I needed to talk to you. I had to hear your voice. I’m a little lonely. My mother is, well, my mother, but it’s hard to be without family or my best friend right now. I didn’t think things could get worse, but guess what? They have.”
“Aww, that’s awful,” she said. “But I’m really glad you rang. Your timing is perfect! I’ve got sort of an emergency. You know how you told me you’d love to show me Woodstock someday?”
“Of course. Oooh, do you want to go back with me to The States after New Year’s?” I asked. “That would give me something to look forward to. I don’t want to go alone. We can talk about it right after Christmas.”
“No, it can’t wait. You see, Piers Conley-Weatherall had a deal to do his first ever cookbook, and word on the street is that the deal fell through.”
“So? What’s that have to do with Woodstock?”
“Hear me out. Piers hasn’t wanted to do a book before now because he got burned by a publishing house that wanted him to do a slick, cheesy, paper version of his television show, with trendy picks of the moment like cake pops and seafood spumas and exotic beverage syrups. He wanted to do an illustrated version of his family’s home cookbook, with heirloom recipes for simple foods, maybe with a few of his family’s photos thrown in. He didn’t want to include measurements…just a ‘pinch of this’ or ‘a handful of that’ or ‘add as much pepper as your family likes.’”
“And?”
“I’m friends with his publicist’s assistant, and he told me that Piers Conley-Weatherall is planning to fire his literary agent. I’ve done deals with this fab agent in The States called Pilar Steinberg. If she and I worked together, I know we could give him a book he’d be proud of. If I could just get to him for a word, I could convince him to do a deal with my publishing house. Can you see it? The first book of which I am sole editor of hitting the New York Times bestseller list?”
“That would be great, Posy. I hope it works out.” In fact, I kind of didn’t. I knew that was mean of me, though. I was feeling really jealous. Why does Posy always land butter-side up? And why does she have to steal my hero? She’d never even heard of him until I made her watch his show. I knew I was being childish, so I swallowed hard and pasted a smile on my face. Aunt Suze’s book says that if you smile on the phone, people on the other end will hear it through the receiver.
I needed to get her opinion about Edward. Should I track him down and let him have it or should I play it cool? “Listen, I have to ask you something…”
“Me first! You are not going to believe this! I have an unbelievable scoop that will help me pull this off. Piers Conley-Weatherall is doing a press junket and he’ll be in New York City tomorrow to cook on the America Today Show. My source tells me that his driver is taking him to your aunt’s house immediately after so he won’t have to be alone on Christmas.”
“My aunt’s? She didn’t tell me. Last week all she could talk about was some big blowout she’d had with my mother and how they’re not speaking. Mother’s not speaking to me right now, either. She called me a ‘hash-jockey’ and I hung up on her.” I wished I hadn’t.
“My publicist friend said Piers and Aunt Suze got really close with all the life coaching, and now they’re friends,” Posy charged on, not answering me. “When I spoke to her, she told me it’s true – they’re really tight.”
Did she just call my aunt Aunt Suze? I felt my mouth drying up. “You spoke to her?”
“I rang her and invited myself for Christmas! Can you believe the cheek? I hope you don’t mind, but I told her that you said to call.”
“I live for Piers Conley-Weatherall. Remember? I turned you onto him.”
“I know,” she said. “Isn’t it brilliant? And now I’m spending Christmas with him. I can tell you all about him. I’m working out the dates and flight arrangements now.”
I got an itchy feeling, like I was just another one of Posy’s networking contacts. The pain of feeling suspicious of my best friend was too much to bear on top of everything else. As Posy rambled on about what she’d be packing, and ground transportation from JFK to Woodstock, I remembered the day we met. The day Stephen left me.
Alone, feeling untethered to the earth, I ordered one expensive, foamy coffee after another as my last hurrah in the City of Lights. I was girding my loins to check into a hotel for a few nights while I searched for flights back to Kentucky. Even though no one in the café knew I’d been dumped, my cheeks were aflame. On some level, I’d felt like I deserved what I got, and that may be the worst feeling a person can have. Without warning, my nose started streaming blood and I was forced to staunch the flow with my white cloth napkin. It was bizarre, like someone turned on a faucet.
“I need something stronger than a coffee. You look like you do, too. D’you fancy a glass of wine? I say I never drink alone, but I’ve been breaking my own rule lately,” said a girl with a plummy English accent. I looked up to see Posy Wase-Bailey, nearly my twin, tall, with creamy skin and dark hair. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. She was wearing a blindingly day-glo Lilly Pulitzer dress, and a wide, lime-green headband, which I later found out to be ironic. I felt ugly and conspicuous in my now-stained t-shirt. Why didn’t you just find some McDonald’s to sit in? I chastised myself. I couldn’t really talk with a bloody cloth on my face, so I just nodded.
She gestured to a waiter and said, “Une bouteille de vin blanc, … Chanson, Vire Clesse.” Then she sat herself down at my table.
“Hey, we could be twins!” she said.
Does she not notice that I’m bleeding from my face?
In a way she was right. There was a resemblance, aside from the fact that she was super-chic and I looked homeless. We’re both really tall, and chesty, and not at all Paris-thin. The big difference is that my hair is a wild, unruly wig of chocolate-brown twists that cannot be tamed by clip nor spray, while hers is stick-straight and nearly jet-black, worn in a neat, Louise Brooks-style, chin-length bob with very short bangs. She says it’s her “brand”. We drank that bottle of wine, while she urged, interrogation-style, that I unburden myself of the tale of my mistreatment at Stephen’s hands. I was so nervy from the shock and coffee that I blurted it out in a continuous stream. She interrupted from time to time, crying out, “That bastard!” and “That absolute bastardy bastard!”
After more wine, I told her he’d been my first lover.
“No.” Pause. “Way.” She blinked. “There is no way that is true. You have got to be kidding me. Ever?”
“Yes.”
“That utter bastard,” she said darkly, her eyes narrowing to slits.
I took in Posy with some suspicion, and thought, What does she want from me? Could this pushy, boundary-less creature be a con artist or an intercontinental serial killer? Am I going to wind up as a story on 60 Minutes? But by the time the second bottle had been upended, I had a much more laissez-faire attitude about the threat she might pose. Turned out, despite Posy’s refined table manners, she was a sloppy drunk and talked more loudly than was strictly necessary. For some reason, this made me trust her.
“No more about me,” I finally managed. “Why were you crying?”
“Oh, it’s silly, really. I’ll be fine.” She suddenly looked small. I sat very still and waited, the way Mother always did with me. “Most people are afraid of silence,” she always said, “and will say anything to fill it.” It’s a shrink trick.
“Well,” she said, “I suppose it’s that I’m lonely.” She took a moment and clamped her lips together. “I’m feeling sorry for myself.” She tried to smile but her chin got quivery. “I said goodbye to a friend this morning.”
“A boyfriend?” I asked.
“Well … ” She signaled for the waiter, who wasn’t even on the floor. “I should order a meal, probably, but I don’t feel like eating.” She stared off into the distance for a minute. “And would you believe today’s my birthday?”
“Happy birthday,” I said.
“Not bloody likely. Not a soul remembered. I hate being in Paris alone. I’m so utterly, utterly alone. Wow,” she said, opening her eyes wide, “that sounded dramatic even to me.” She fiddled with her wine stem. “God, you must think me a mess.”
“My aunt – she’s well, kind of a life coach – told me that sometimes it’s OK if my mantra is ‘I’m doing the best that I can, and that’s good enough.’ She told me to go around practicing it…to say it at my job, to my teachers, when someone in the supermarket gets pissed because I’m pushing my cart too slow. You should give it a try.”
“I like it,” Posy said. “Sounds like it shuts people right the fuck up.”
“We’re a pair, aren’t we? What are we going to do?”
“We’ll just keep moving forward. “
“What if I feel sorry for myself?”
“My aunt would say that you should stage a reinvention.”
“Reinvention?” she said knowingly. “Is your aunt that life coach woman from The Eva! Show?”
“Yes,” I admitted.
“I’d kill to meet her. She may be the only one who can help me.”
“Cheer up, you could be me. I just got dumped and I’m homeless.”
“I’m a heartbroken and I don’t have any real friends.”
“I’m poor and I don’t have a father.”
“I’m lonely.”
“I’m lonely.”
She looked at me hard, and nodded her head. “Get your bags, you’ve pulled.”
“Pulled?”
“S’what we say when we’re taking someone home for the night. It was a joke. What I mean to say is, you’re moving in with me.”
“That’s crazy!” I told her. “You don’t know me…”
“I’ve always been a risk-taker.”
Suddenly, all I wanted was to be packed up and leaving Thornton Hall, on my way to my aunt’s for Christmas. With Posy. She was still talking about carry-on luggage this, and ski parka that. Does she even care that I’m heartbroken? How had I gone from toasting my engagement around the tree with my future in-laws, to slaving away for people who want to fire me while my best friend has dinner with my family?
“Jubes, are you still on the line?”
“I’m here.”
“Can you give me sizes for your aunt and her partner. Her name’s Ruth, right? I want to bring prezzies. Are they more the angora scarf or the softball glove type?”
“I don’t know,” I said. Deflated, I gave her height and weight guesses. “Hey, know what?” I said, taking a final stab at getting back on track. “I didn’t know if I was imagining the spark between me and Jasper Roth, we had this talk, and now his wife is breathing down my neck and…”
“Jubes, sorry to cut you short, but I have to ring off and book these tickets now so I don’t get shut out. Thanks for listening! Love you loads. I’ll give your best to Aunt Suze. Happy Christmas!”
Pushing out the back door, I ignored the cold and the snow falling on my head.
“Get back, Rex,” I said, pushing him backwards with my foot. He gave a high-pitched yelp and ran away from me, toward the kitchen, nails scrabbling on the stone floor of the mudroom. “Sorry, boy! I didn’t mean to be rough!” Ignoring me, he pushed his snout through the kitchen door. I may as well tattoo Friendless Orphan, Who Even Dogs Hate on my forehead. I could not believe my best friend was stealing my aunt and my idol.
I couldn’t stop imagining how Aunt Suze and Ruth would embrace the dynamic, career-driven Posy who was singing the hell out of her heartsong with no man to weigh her down. They’d sit around Aunt Suze’s Amish-carved harvest table, drinking wine and swapping stories of how their inner guides brought them to complete fulfillment while Piers Conley-Weatherall whipped up a family-style meal. They’d sit with their organic, agave-sweetened, fair-trade cocoa in front of the woodstove, and realize that Posy and I had been switched at birth, like in that Prince and the Pauper story.
“It’s too late to switch back, Posy, but know you’re one of us,” Aunt Suze would say meaningfully. “But as long as we have to keep Juliet, can you make sure she gets her degree and stops being dumped? It’s getting embarrassing.”
“Don’t be too hard on her. You can’t expect everyone to be as gorgeous, focused and popular as I am,” Posy would say. “Did you know I speak flawless French?”
Piers Conley-Weatherall would wipe a tear from his eye, and tell her, “I’ve got four children of my own, but I’d swap any one of them for you.”
Focus on your job, Juliet, and what you’re here for. Tomorrow will be another day. If nothing else, you’ve got your reputation to protect. At the very least, no one can accuse you of not being a good chef, so be a good chef. I dragged myself to Dove’s Nest, and barely managed to set my alarm clock before I fell into a hard, dreamless sleep.