Mercury in Retrograde (24 page)

“Well, you put up with her for long enough—and even hung out with her and her friends,” Penelope said.

“Darling, society is different,” Neal cut in. “Even if you don't like someone, you still have to be friends with them.”

“And still. She may be useful,” Lipstick said.

“What?” Dana asked.

“Did you just say she ‘may be useful'?” Penelope yelled.

“Oh, my ears,” David said, snuggling up to Neal. “This is just like a Marge meeting.”

“I have an idea,” Lipstick said. “About my dress line. And Bitsy.”

“Do tell,” Neal said.

“I'm going to lay down the bridge of détente and ask her to be the ambassador for Dauphin. I'll give her clothes in exchange for publicity.”

“Why the fuck would you want to do that?” Penel
ope asked. “I want to kill her, and I'm not the one she was stalking.”

“It's like Anna and Jack at the Met Gala,” Lipstick explained. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Besides, all the socials look to her for what to wear and do. And she loves the limelight. Our making peace would get her ink in all the Upper East Side magazines. Besides, now that I won't be able to go out as much—and I'm never looking at Socialstatus.com again—she would be the perfect person to display my clothes on. Socialites are sheep. They'll do whatever she does.”

“Ah yes,” Neal sighed. “The Park Avenue march of the ovines continues apace.”

“I underestimated you,” Dana said. “That's an amazing plan.”

“Besides,” Lipstick said. “I feel…bad for her. She's just living up to the role her parents and everyone set for her. Just like I was. And no one should have to be involved with a creep like Thad. He embarrassed her too, you know.”

“I'm so proud of you, darling,” Neal said, blowing Lipstick a kiss. “I don't know when I've ever heard you sound so grown up. Not Carcrash-like at all, really.”

“That is pretty big of you,” Penelope agreed, chewing on her thumbnail. “So you're gonna make dresses full-time?”

“No,” Lipstick said. “I'm keeping my job at
Y.
Kind of. I'm going to be a contributor, which will give me some free time to do my dresses.”

“That's great,” Dana said. “But you're going to be able to run a business from your apartment?”

“Weeell…” Lipstick said.

“Yes?” Dana prompted her, as everyone stopped drinking and looked at Lipstick.

“My parents kind of showed up at work today.”

“What?” Penelope said. “And I thought my day was fucked
up!” “I hadn't talked to them since I moved out, and I think they wanted to make sure I was still alive and breathing.”

“What happened?” Neal asked.

“This is getting good,” David said.

Lipstick filled them in on her parents' subsequent offer.

“What're you gonna do, Lips?” Penelope asked.

“Darling, please tell me you did not turn down the apartment. Please,” Neal begged.

“I told them no on the credit cards, but yes on the apartment. And I'm meeting with my father to discuss funding for my new company on Monday. I may be standing on my own two feet, but I'm not stupid!”

“We'll miss you,” Dana said softly.

“Why?” Lipstick asked, topping off her glass of Dom. “I'm only ten blocks away, and we're still doing yoga on Saturdays and Wednesdays, right?”

“Right!” Dana said.

“You bet!” Penelope agreed.

“Wow,” Lipstick said. “If you'd told me a year ago that I would have been kicked out of my apartment, by my own parents, no less, and cut off—
and
that it was the best thing that ever happened to me, I'd have thought you were crazy.”

“Yeah,” Penelope said. “Same here. I couldn't even imagine a life beyond the
Telegraph
. And now, here I am, the entertainment reporter for New York Access. And I'm banging my hot producer.”

“Penelope, my love, must you be so crass?” Neal sighed.

“The point is, all good things came from my being fired.”

“And all good things came from you two being in my life,” Dana said.

“Aw, stop,” Penelope said. “You'll make me blush.”

“Back at you,” Lipstick said.

“You know girls, all this started back in January when Mercury went into retrograde,” Neal said.

“Well,” Penelope said insolently, “my life needed that kick in the ass.”

“Oh, good,” Neal said. “I'm glad you see it that way, because it's going back in retrograde next month.”

“No!” Lipstick cried.

“I'm staying home sick,” Penelope said.

“For three weeks straight?” Dana asked.

“For as long as it takes, just to be sure.” Penelope laughed.

Over the next few weeks, the call girls of the famed Coffee Klatch—Olga, Bernadette, Randi, and Tania—were all questioned by the police and IRS. All of them, with the exception of Tania, the foot fetishist, were arrested—and promptly released after announcing they'd made a deal to testify against the mayor.

But the sudden fame was good for their careers. Olga ended up posing seminude with her finger to her lips on the cover of
Maxim,
Bernadette did a piece for
AARP The Magazine
on sex and the aging woman, Randi had a pictorial in
Penthouse,
and Tania appeared in
Us Weekly
on the arm of a well-known action star/foot devotee. All of them signed a deal with VH1 for a reality show called
Celebu-Sex: Kinky Star Secrets,
and collaborated on a book titled
Hook Your Husband for Life: Keep the Man You Love from Straying with Sex Secrets from the Pros.
They all vowed—mostly for legal reasons—that they'd all quit “the business” for good. •••

 

Mayor Ed Swallows, who'd built his reputation as a politician tough on crime and prostitution, didn't fare as well. He stone-walled the press for a week, but once the girls started talking, more women came out of the woodwork to claim he'd paid
them for their services. One even had a videotape of her servicing the mayor that was bought by one of the entertainment news shows and aired to huge ratings for more than a week.

Swallows, after consulting lawyers and his real estate magnate father, resigned in disgrace, finally understanding that the only thing people hate more than a criminal is a hypocritical criminal. Happily, his wife—who'd once told
Dateline NBC
that Hillary Clinton was a fool for standing by Bill Clinton after the president had so callously humiliated her by diddling an intern under Hillary's own roof—stood by his side, having realized that while she no longer had the cachet of being the mayor's wife, the ex-mayor was still worth $2.4 billion, which was a lot more than she'd get in a divorce, thanks to the airtight prenup she'd signed seventeen years earlier.

 

Neal and David moved in together.

 

As for the girls, well, they were all on a new track.

Penelope became a minicelebrity in New York for a month. The hullabaloo eventually died down, and she settled into becoming the entertainment reporter for NY Access, which, without having to dodge Trace's clammy hands, was actually fun.

Marge still wouldn't give up the idea of the “Call Girl Coffee Klatch”—so instead, Penelope hosted a once-a-week show called
The Klatch,
which was a sort of talk show featuring whatever dregs of society Marge could summon into the studio on a Tuesday night. Penelope's only complaint was that the name of the show sounded like something she'd once caught from a one-night stand in college. But Thomas was producing it, so she was happy. And every Tuesday night they'd go back to Penelope's place and intimately discuss whatever bedroom techniques they'd learned during the evening's show.

Penelope's parents, Susan and Jim, continued to live unhap
pily together, calling their daughter thrice weekly to complain that they couldn't see her on air in Cincinnati.

Lipstick started an actual business with her Dauphin designs while dabbling in society journalism. As a contributor to
Y,
she was no longer on social patrol every night, but responsible for two to three articles every month. It was an arrangement that suited all involved. Jack was happy to tell everyone in town and the fashion community that he'd found her and encouraged her the whole time to become the brilliant new talent that she was. Her father, happy that Lipstick had started an actual business, seeded her new company with $150,000. Within a year she paid him back and, working out of her second bedroom, expanded the line from dresses into sportswear and ready-to-wear. Not a month went by when her creations weren't featured or worn by models in
Y, Vogue, Glamour, Elle,
and other fashion magazines. Lipstick no longer had the time to look up Socialstatus.com and, in fact, even blocked it from her computer.

But the best part for her was the sense of self and confidence that came from working hard at what she loved—and reaping the rewards. The change in her was apparent to everyone, even if they couldn't figure out exactly what was different. Was it that she now walked into a room with her back straight and shoulders held high? Was it that she made eye contact and never second-guessed herself? Or her refusal to be drawn into petty society gossip that had been the focus of her world from junior high on? Whatever it was, everyone agreed, Lipstick wore a permanent glow.

In an odd twist, she and Bitsy became friends, of sorts. Bitsy
accepted the position of Dauphin's “ambassador.” Lipstick threw Bitsy a free dress every month in exchange for Bitsy hosting cocktail parties/trunk shows for the socialites Lipstick no longer had regular contact with, but who paid full price for her clothes and then wore them to galas and got photographed in them.

And while she no longer lived at 198 Sullivan, Lipstick was over at least three times a week—for yoga with the girls and to see Zach, who was not only her strongest supporter, but blew Thad—and the rest of the men she'd ever dated—out of the water in every single way.

Old man Kornberg was disappointed that Dana withdrew her application for full partnership at Struck, Struck & Kornberg but said he understood. “Dana, you're one of the firm's best and brightest,” he told her. “When you're ready, we're here.” Within a week Dana's hair started growing back.

Dana used her extra time to invest in a good psychotherapist who taught her how to deal with stress, forgive and forget Noah, and finally, to throw out her scale. She even allowed Lipstick and Penelope to drag her out to a social function at least once a week. Meanwhile, she and Gerard went on that date, which led to a second and third—and an actual relationship that wasn't tinged with self-doubt, loathing, or trying to be someone she wasn't.