I knew what was going through Jade’s mind. She was thinking about the fact that I had suddenly pledged my heart and soul, staked my entire self-worth, on a career that up until a few weeks ago, I couldn’t care less about. But she was wrong. She didn’t know that during the Derrick Years, my role at Bridal Best had taken on epic proportions. It had become my whole raison d’être. No one knew—besides Derrick, of course. Derrick, who had always admired the fact that I was one of the lucky few who had actually gotten a day job writing, while he had done everything from waiting tables to walking dogs in order to make a few bucks while practicing his “art.” Derrick, who admired me so much, he hadn’t even called yet to let me know he’d settled into his life without me.
When I tuned in again, I heard Alyssa calmly laying out the reasons why I was eminently more qualified for the senior features editor position than Rebecca was. Good ol’ Alyssa. I could always count on her to stand by me while I harbored my illusions. Jade, on the other hand, was a bit trickier.
“Okay, okay,” Jade was saying now. “I see your point.” The waiter came back, carefully placing a cosmopolitan before her while she took in his forearm, his hands. Then she glanced up at us with a look that said, “Look who’s coming for dinner.” Once the waiter had safely escaped her perusal for the moment, she lifted her glass. “So if we’re going to get behind this promotion thing, let’s do it right.” When we had lifted our glasses, too, she said, “To Emma’s next incarnation—as Leader of the Stepford Editors.”
We froze, glasses in midair. Alyssa cracked an exasperated smile. “Jade!”
“Okay, okay. Forget it. Let’s move on to a toast I can really get behind,” she said, sending a last cutting glance in my direction. “To our waiter. For being just luscious enough to keep alive that lingering hope that I will have sex again.”
We clinked, Alyssa laughing and me relieved that we had moved on to topics that didn’t have anything to do with my sudden touchiness over my next career move. Though Jade wouldn’t allow me to delude myself, she knew when to back off.
“So what’s going on with you?” Alyssa said to Jade. “Emma told me you met a great guy. Ted, was it?”
“Ted.” Jade sighed. Then, sipping her drink, she shrugged. “I guess Emma didn’t get to the part where Ted disappeared off the face of the earth.”
“What happened?” Alyssa asked.
“What else? He didn’t call.” She stamped out her cigarette, then gave another shrug.
Though she carefully tried to mask it, I saw something in Jade’s eyes which made me think this particular failure somehow got her where she lived. I wondered why. Then figured it was probably because Ted had been the first guy she’d ever dated who had disappeared into that giant vacuum of Men Who Never Call. It was the kind of void that left a woman aching not with heartbreak, but a resounding why? which tended to turn against her rather than him, with responses like “Maybe I’m too fat too boring too broke too confident too insecure too aggressive too passive too happy too depressed….” But this thought was followed by the realization that this was not Jade’s normal line of thinking but mine. Still, even the strongest could waver in the face of the silent-but-deadly blow-off. Perhaps she needed another reminder that Ted Terrific was not so terrific anyway.
“I read somewhere once that muscle size is directly disproportionate to brain size,” I began. “Didn’t you mention that Ted was pretty thick in the muscle department?”
Jade gave a half smile. “All right, all right. I know what you’re trying to do. And no, I said that Ted was lean. Like a surfer. But that’s not the point.”
“What is the point?” Alyssa asked, and I could see she, too, was aware of some simmering unease in Jade.
“The point is, I thought we really had some kind of connection. I mean, we liked the same music. He was into the same clubs. And he even liked Simply Red. And you know how I feel about Simply Red.”
“Well, it was only one date,” said Alyssa, ever the logical one.
“One amazing date,” Jade argued. “And that doesn’t happen too often.”
Jade had a point. If there was one thing I knew, it was that in a city this large, where any sort of interaction with the opposite sex is swallowed up by the rush of time or traffic or whatever it is that keeps people from their mating rituals, one meaningful evening with a man constituted a serious beginning to something. Which was why losing Derrick, after two years of sharing everything from soulful conversation to toothbrushes, was something just short of disaster.
“They’re all heartless bastards,” I chimed in.
“Yeah, well, if I ever hope to have sex again, I have to figure out how to keep one of those heartless bastards around long enough.”
“Maybe you’re focusing too hard on the end result, Jade,” Alyssa said. “Maybe you should take a more Zen-like approach to this whole dating thing.”
“Easy for you to say when you have a live-in boy toy,” Jade said, though it was hard to envision Richard as a boy toy in his dark suits and tasseled loafers. Don’t get me wrong—with his chiseled good looks and tall, athletic build he was quite delectable. But Richard was the kind of man women fantasized about marching down the aisle with, not swinging from a rope in the Tarzan room of the Fantasy Land Motel. Then again, Jade did like to say I lacked vision when it came to men.
“The grass is always greener,” Alyssa said, dropping her gaze.
“Oh?” Jade countered, warming to the subject. “Let’s see about that. It’s been six weeks and four days since I last had sex—and I’m not counting Carl, because I’m talking penetration here. When was the last time you and Richard did it? And if you say last night, I will be forced to be envious.”
Still regarding her glass, Alyssa replied, “Three months ago.”
“What?” Jade and I said in unison.
Alyssa looked up at us and sighed. “Well, that’s not exactly true. We did have sex about three weeks ago, but it was the kind of effort that’s better left unmentioned. All mechanics, no emotions. As if we’re just blowing off some steam after a hard day at work.”
“What’s going on with you guys?” Jade asked.
“I don’t know. Everything has just been…different between us the past few months. As if we’re only going through the motions of a relationship.”
“Maybe you’re just in a rut,” I said, desperate to find any reason why things had suddenly gone astray for the last two people in the world I was sure were Meant-to-Be. “I mean, isn’t Richard trying to make partner? He’s got to be under enormous pressure at work. And you’ve been working on that class action suit for quite some time….”
“Maybe.” Alyssa sighed. “But it’s like we don’t really even see each other anymore. I feel more like a roommate. The girl he shares the laundry hamper with.”
“You just gotta shake things up,” Jade said. “Do something to remind him that he’s living with a beautiful, intelligent woman who any guy would snatch up.” Then she arched her brows as sudden inspiration hit. “What you need is some serious competition to suddenly show up, give old Richard a run for his money.”
Alyssa immediately glanced at me with a guilty smile, and I couldn’t help but smile back, thinking of her vet and imagining how a man who probably spent a good deal of his day dodging dog feces was going to give Richard, a successful corporate lawyer who could probably eat him for lunch, a run for his money.
“What’s going on?” Jade asked, suspicious.
I looked at Alyssa, leaving the confession to her.
“Well…the