Elle, Serena, and Margot went upstairs to Elle’s room, which only a few hours before had been filled with bridal expectations. The room’s cotton-candy-pink walls were almost covered by photos of smiling blonde Delta Gammas at sorority yacht trips and black-tie formals. Tonight, however, the girls looked nothing like their upbeat, glamorous counterparts in the photos.
“Everything was normal, at first,” Elle began after Margot served them her famous pink Margotitas with a pink crazy straw. “We were at the Ivy and the mood was perfect. The Cristal had just been poured when Warner basically told me: ‘Elle, when I start law school, I think we should stop seeing each other.’ Boom! Moving off to Stanford Law School, and he told me he needs to find someone more ‘serious.’”
“‘More serious!’” Margot huffed with her pouty MAC Glaze lips. “What’s that supposed to mean? Serious about what?” she asked.
“I don’t know what it means!” Elle said angrily. “That’s what he told me. He said, ‘Elle, I’m ready for someone more serious.’ Just like that. I think maybe he’s grown out of this”—she motioned around the room—“this scene…and out of me!” Elle wiped a stray tear as Margot poured more pink slush from the blender.
“Who the hell does he think he is?” Margot demanded. “There is no better girl, no better Delta Gamma, no better wife for Warner Huntington III.”
“Right!” agreed Serena. “When did he decide that he was too good for Miss June?” Serena mocked. “You were certainly fine for him at his all-important Sigma Chi rat-frat parties.”
Elle had been Miss June on the USC calendar for three consecutive years. She was president of Delta Gamma and of the Intersorority Council. She had practically invented her major in sociopolitical jewelry design by merging technical classes at the architecture school with sociological research on tribal ornamentation and feminist critiques of beauty myths.
She remembered Warner’s pride when she won homecoming queen last October. She was driven around the stadium in her own BMW convertible, the white car glittering with freshly painted USC war stripes, draped in crimson and gold as Elle and homecoming king Warner Huntington waved from the car.
“There are way better guys around here than Warner, Elle,” Serena said. “You know how Javier is dying to date you.” Serena’s ex-boyfriend Javier was moneyed through his family’s investment firm, which had wisely bought California’s largest cement manufacturer and celebrated enthusiastically after every earthquake.
Thinking about Serena’s sloppy seconds made Elle cry harder. Her perfectly tanned shoulders shook with every sob. “I was just positive Warner was going to propose to me tonight! I feel so humiliated!” She looked sadly at her left hand. “I thought the Huntington Rock of Gibraltar was mine for sure. You remember the Rock? The family six-carat?” Margot and Serena nodded solemnly. “Why would he tell me about that ring if he wasn’t going to marry me?”
“Elle, he’s such an operator,” Serena said. “I don’t mean to say I told you so, but he doesn’t care about anything other than himself and his résumé.” Warner was president of the student senate and had been a first boat rower in prep school and a pitcher on USC’s baseball team, which had played in the College World Series the previous spring. Warner often joked about how impressive his college résumé would sound when he ran for president, but he was only half joking.
In fact, Elle remembered, when she wanted to bring Warner down a peg, she would gently mock his political ambitions. “Oh, Warner,” she would coo, “you have the makings of a great vice president.” This would infuriate him. The second son in his family, he had come west primarily because he didn’t want to follow his older brother to Harvard. He was tired of running second.
“Wasn’t his grandfather a senator or something?” Margot asked.
Elle nodded, sipping her drink. “Mmm-hmm, from Connecticut. For like fifty years or something.” Warner had often told Elle that family tradition would lead him into politics and that public service was a Huntington family legacy. His Grandmummy Huntington was DAR Newport, Rhode Island, a grande dame with tremendous influence over her family since the death of Warner’s grandfather three decades earlier. She never let Warner forget that his blood ran blue.
“I should have seen it coming when Grandmummy Huntington came to L.A. for Warner’s birthday last month,” Elle conceded. “Warner hasn’t been the same since. Grandmummy ignored me through the entire dinner and then, as she was leaving, told me that I reminded her of Pamela Anderson!”
“Ewww! Pamela Anderson!” Serena and Margot said in unison. That was the ultimate insult.
Underdog hopped up on the couch, and Elle tugged his soft ears and stared into his devoted deep brown eyes. “You still love me, Underdog,” she cooed to him as she fixed the pink satin bow attached to his rhinestone collar.