The next evening, Jenna attempted to mask her misery at the New York Academy of Art Tribeca Ball, one of the chicest charity affairs of the spring season. Tonight’s theme was “Believe in Luck,” and whoever had designed the space had taken this literally. The entire room seemed to have been French-kissed by Tinkerbelle. The ceiling and walls were shot through with a million flickering, tiny white lights. Everything was beige, cream, or ivory, and sprinkled with a fine spray of shimmer—from the waiter’s gloves to the satin tablecloths on the dining tables along the perimeter of the room. The guests were a cross-section of New York luminaries. Robert de Niro, Anna Wintour, Zac Posen, Puffy, SJP, and Alec Baldwin mingled with supermodels, fashion editors, brand name socialites, and Wall Street tycoons.
The tickets were upwards of a thousand dollars, but Jenna was invited by Ralph Lauren’s PR team. Elodie was invited by one of her clients. When Jenna had received her over-the-top, duchesse satin-wrapped invite, she’d wanted to RSVP no—which she told her best friend the night before.
“Those scene-y, New York-y, fancy-schmancy balls are designed to make civilians feel like shit. The ones I went to with Brian were fun. But if you have your seat paid for through a work connection, you feel like somebody’s poor cousin, and then you spend the entire night trying not to get red wine on your borrowed Marchesa gown while being mortified that John Hamm’s girlfriend had her publicist tell you to stop staring at him.”
“Come again?” Elodie asked.
“It wasn’t my finest hour,” said Jenna. “Are you bringing anyone?”
“No, I recently saw this psychic who told me to stop with the online dates. According to her, my soulmate is just around the corner. And even weirder? She said he’s coming from a sunny state. Do you think she means a sunny state of mind, or literally a state that has a lot of sun?”
“Either way, you’re winning,” said Jenna. “Nothing wrong with a happy man, or a man with real estate in Malibu. Wait, do you even believe in soulmates?”
“No. But cares? I don’t believe in fillers, but I just shot up my laugh lines with Botox.”
“Why? You’re perfect. The last thing you need is Botox.”
“And the last thing you need is to stay in tonight,” said Elodie.
“You and Eric just had a tiff.”
“It was more than a tiff.”
“Jenna, go to the ball. I know you’ve been sulking at home all day in your trashy cutoffs, eating Nutter Butters and marathoning Girlfriends.”
“Purple Rain.”
“You need to get out,” said Elodie. “It’ll be fun. So many couples we know will be there.”
Jenna sipped her champagne, remembering this conversation. So many couples we know will be there. Indeed. The room was lousy with couples. Stunning, glamorous women on the arm of rakish, debonair men with grey-flecked temples and fully paid for summer homes in the Hamptons. Married couples with full, rich lives—families, children, college tuitions and robust life insurance plans. If and when the men had affairs, they were respectful. The women allowed their Pilates instructors to give them head, but wasn’t that what they were there for? The gala might’ve been called the Esteemed Married Couples of Manhattan Ball, because that’s exactly who was there.
She adjusted the delicate floral garland in her hair and smoothed her hands over her bias cut, forest green, capped-sleeved Rodarte gown (“Effortlessly Sexy Wood Nymph in Mourning”). She eyed a gorgeous, A-list Asian dermatologist on the dance floor with her stunning Hungarian husband. Deciding she looked unnecessarily smug, Jenna took another sip of champagne and glared daggers at her. Your guy’s foxy, but mine’s delicious, and we’re not even close to sealing the deal because he was just Prom King, like yesterday. And this fact makes me want to rip those perfect auburn lowlights out of your head, Dr. Jennie. I might look single, but I’m not, I’m taken-taken-taken, just not the way you are, it’ll never be the way you are, we’ll never be parents like you and that Eastern Bloc bozo and it crushes me, and I feel like you know it, and I hate you, him, and your daughter who’s a junior at Sacred Heart and had an emo song on the Billboard charts last month. Fuck the entire Ko-Stanislov family.
Glowering, Jenna finished off her glass of champagne. She was in hell. She’d texted Eric, called him, sent carrier pigeons—and nothing. She was hardly surprised. He was hurt and stubborn.
Plus, he was right about May’s party. Without being conscious of it, she’d wanted to see if Eric measured up—and she’d come off as trying to stage-manage his personality. Alone, in their secret love bubble, they were perfectly in sync! But around other people, their differences were magnified. She’d felt like his mother. And he’d seemed ten years younger than he already was.
The reason why Madonna, J. Lo and Demi Moore can date guys decades younger is because they’ve already had their children. I hate them, too.
It was an hour into the gala, and she hadn’t yet found Elodie in the crowd of hundreds. So she’d been grouchily making the rounds, getting swept into conversations with old colleagues, fashion contacts, designers; people she hadn’t seen in the almost-year she’d been back in New York. And she kept having the similar versions of the same conversations.
“Jenna, is it 2003 or 2013?” Markie Masters had asked her, about five minutes ago. She was a gawky, but chic blonde American who was the head fashion buyer for Nicoletta’s, a luxury department store in Milan. “Your complexion is just fantastic. What are your skincare secrets?”
“Well, I don’t go to Dr. Jennie.”
“And who are you here with? Anyone new? I have to say, the kid in your wildly flattering New York article was one hot piece of ass.”
“You don’t know the half,” muttered Jenna. “Nope, not seeing anyone. Not since Brian.”
“I’m so sorry about you two,” said Markie, who’d often hosted the two at her villa during Milan Fashion Week. “Lily L’Amour. I swear, one day she’ll OD on Tory Burch. Well, I hope you get back on the wagon soon. You’re such a catch.” Katie Couric winked at Markie from two social clusters over, and the redhead waved at the superstar anchor. “Schmoozing calls, but I predict you’ll be engaged by the end of the year. Ciao!”
Jenna laughed at this and blew her a kiss. Yeah right. Like my hot piece of ass will be proposing to me anytime before 2020.
She plucked another flask of champagne from a roving waiter and relocated to the end of the bar, by the wildly extravagant band. Who paid for this collection of yahoos? The guitarist’s butt cleavage was showing and the keyboardist’s tux was fifteen sizes too big. Plus, the lead singer’s rug was slipping off the side of his head, and he were singing a cabaret-style rendition of “It’s Getting Hot in Here,” which was awkward, considering that song’s superstar producer, Pharell Williams, was twenty feet away.
Suddenly, Jenna noticed a man approaching her from the crowd.
“Hello,” said Jenna. “Are you Jenna Jones?”
He stuck out his hand; she automatically shook it. But she couldn’t hear a thing he said over the relentlessly loud band. “What?”
“Are you Jenna Jones?”
“I’m sorry?”
“JENNA JONES?”
“YES!” screamed Jenna. “I’m sorry, I guess standing right by this band is not the place to meet someone. You are?”
“I’m…” he started to speak in a normal voice, and then raised it up ten decibels. “I’m James Diaz! The director of the Fashion Theory program at Fordham! Jay Lane told me all about you!”
He nodded. He was about six feet tall, with an incredible head of wavy salt-and-pepper hair. He was ruggedly athletic-looking, as if he were a person who might enjoy climbing volcanic mountains or, perhaps herding massive flocks of sheep in his spare time.
“Let’s move down there so we don’t have to yell!” shouted Jenna.
The two wove through the crowd until they got to a relatively quiet spot at the other end of the bar. Jenna put down her flask of champagne.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said, shaking his hand.
“I’ve been meaning to email you, I’ve just been so swamped setting up these new courses. I know all about you, I’ve been following your career. I have to say, when Jay told me you’d been teaching, my first thought was that we had to have you.”
“Well, you know I’m at StyleZine now,” she started, trying to figure out a way to play this. “And I love it, but God, I miss teaching. I’d love to talk to you about what you have in mind.”
“Obviously, this gala is not the place,” he said, smiling.
“If you don’t mind my asking, are you from Montana? Wisconsin? You sort of look like a cowboy, which begs the question—what’s a cowboy doing in fashion?”
“To answer your first question, South Dakota. The Sunshine State.”
The Sunshine State?
“And to answer your second, my mom was the most successful seamstress in our town.” He shrugged. “I loved what she did. The fabrics intrigued me. The design, the construction. At Parsons, I discovered that I was fascinated by the social history of fashion. And it stuck.”
“Yes, it’s hard to shake fashion-love,” she said, scanning the room for Elodie, James’ future wife.
“Impossible,” he said. “So yes, let’s continue this conversation.
You have my information, correct?”
“Correct.” Jenna stuck out her hand. “Good to meet you Mr. Diaz.”
“James. Until we speak again.”
He walked away and Jenna began nibbling on a nail. This might be the thing. James Diaz would be her out. She would leave StyleZine and maybe everything else with Eric would fall into place. Her eight-month contract was almost up, and she’d more than exceeded Darcy’s expectations. When Billie first brought him up, it was too early for her to leave her new job with any kind of grace. But now, she’d put in enough time.
She had to tell Eric. Jenna leaned against the mirrored surface of the bar and pulled her phone out of her clutch.
Jenna Jones
iMessages
April 25, 2013, 9:30 PM
Jenna: Call me. Please. Just call me.
She held her phone to her heart, willing him to call her. But, when he didn’t after five minutes, she lost hope. So she dropped the phone back in her bag. In an attempt to rid herself of the persistent nausea she’d had since Eric walked away from her on that pier, she searched around in there for her roll of Tums.
That’s when a hand reached from behind Jenna and slipped something down on the bar in front of her. Astonished, she dropped the Tums to the floor. Jenna knew who was behind her; she’d recognize that hand anywhere. It was what he placed on the bar that shook her to her core.
As of October 12, 1991, Brian Benjamin Stein wants: To be a great architect. Better than Frank Lloyd Wright.
To be a millionaire before I’m thirty.
To have homes in three countries.
To build my mom a townhouse on Park Avenue.
To have a wife and kids.
You. I want you.
The napkin from that night at The Tombs had yellowed and was frayed on one side. The original ink had faded, too, but there was new ink. The bottom two bullets were circled in bright red. Speechless, Jenna picked up the napkin and turned around. There was Brian, in a gorgeous tux, his face flushed, naked with more emotion than she ever remembered seeing from him.
“Brian?”
“She’s dead.”
“Lily?”
“No, my mother. Anna. She just died.” He grabbed her hand.
“Come with me.”
As Brian hurriedly led Jenna through the party, the gossipy social set shimmered with delight at this very public display of Grand Gesturedom—they’d always wondered what went wrong with that couple, anyway. Elodie, who was flirting with a mysterious cowboy named James Diaz, almost fell into her martini.
Jenna was too shattered by the news to pull away. Or to protest. Or to hear her phone ringing from inside her clutch.
Far across the room, the usually eagle-eyed Darcy Vale had missed the scene with Brian and Jenna. She was busy. With pitch-perfect sadness, she was revealing to Les James, the editor-in-chief of New York, that Andrea Granger—the reporter who’d betrayed and diminished her with that StyleZine article—was selling valuable insider tips and story ideas to Vanity Fair. Of course, she’d already wrangled a VF writer to corroborate the story. On Monday morning, Andrea would be fired in complete disgrace.
Just then, Suki Delgado stumbled over to her. She threw an arm over Darcy’s shoulder.
“’Member me?” the model slurred in her ear. Darcy glanced up.
“Of course, I know who you are,” she said, offering up her cheek to the bombed bombshell. “Surely you want to discuss The Perfect Find. Sorry, I’m a fan, but we’re careful not to shoot too many models. It’s more about fashionable real girls, personalities.”
“Oh I already talked to Eric about that, and he turned me down. No ‘member me? I took your son to my senior prom.”
“Eric went to the prom?”
“So sad,” continued Suki, who was too sloshed to pick up on social cues, “that I missed out on being your daughter-in-law. But whatevs. I respect Jenna Jones so much I don’t care that she won.”
“What did Jenna win?”
“Eric! I saw them out ages ago, and…”
The terrifying look on Darcy’s face made Suki clamp her mouth shut. The two editors in mid-conversation with her picked up on the tension, too. Suddenly finding themselves needing to socialize elsewhere, they disappeared into the crowd.
“You know,” started Suki, slowly backing away, “I th-think I see Usher over there by Julianne Moore, and he’s on my bucket list, sooo…”
The tiny woman—glamorous as ever in a black-and-white striped Elie Saab column gown—grabbed the supermodel’s arm, digging her fuschia nails into her skin.
“Suki. Follow. Me. Now.”