Finding It (15 page)

“Ex.”

“Sorry?”

“Ex-boyfriend, almost fiancé.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I wish I weren’t. Luc broke up with me this morning.”

“Have you called him? Get him on the phone. I’ll explain everything.”

“I tried texting and calling him, but my calls went directly to voicemail.” I force a brave toothy grin. “Maybe I should change my Twitter handle to Perpetually Single.”

Poppy frowns. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Maybe you are right. Perpetually Single has too many characters.”

“No.” Poppy squints as she stares at my mouth. “What’s wrong with your teeth?”

“Why?” I lean forward. “What’s wrong with my teeth?”

“They’re pink!”

I have a flashback to the morning after my wild night in Cannes, when I woke up and discovered I had an ass tat and pink hair. The pink hair turned out to be a temporary dye job. Why would my teeth be pink? Then I remember my toothpaste.

“No worries.” I lean back, pull my knees up, rest my chin on them, and grin. “It’s just my toothpaste. It’s French.”

“French? But of course.” Poppy rolls her eyes. “What do the French know about toothpaste?”

“Says the British pot to the French kettle.”

We both laugh, but mine is hollow, slightly-forced. Mentioning Luc, seeing his name attached to mine on the society page, has poured salt on my oozing, wounded heart.

Poppy notices the tears in my eyes and reaches over to squeeze my hand. “Have you eaten anything?”

“Fish and chips this morning.”

Poppy wrinkles her nose. “That explains it.”

“Do I offend?”

“A little.” Poppy stands and claps her hands. “Let’s go, mate! Take a soak. Make yourself pretty again. We will eat dinner and hatch a scathingly brilliant plot to win your man back.”

I don’t know what I did to deserve this crazy-good Karma in the form of another generous take-charge friend in my life, but it couldn’t have arrived at a better time. Maybe the universe recognized Steven Schpiel’s column was like dropping a whopping heap of shit on top of me and sent Poppy as a shit pile counterbalance. Yin and yang.

I grab clean jammies and underthings from my suitcase and head to the bathroom, pausing at the door as a prickly thought needles me.

“Poppy?” I turn around, holding my flannel frog prince jammies to my chest like a shield protecting my vulnerable heart. “I get why I need you right now, but what’s your angle?”

“What do you mean?”

I clutch my jammies tighter. “Why are you being my friend? You’re rich, successful, well-connected, and incredibly pulled together. You must have a crazy long contacts list full of international bluebloods.”

“That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?”

“What? Saying you have loads of friends?”

“No.” Poppy shakes her head. “The implication that you are a sad charity case is harsh.”

“Well, I haven’t exactly put my best foot forward. In less than twenty-four hours, I have been arrested for stalking, gotten wicked pissed twice, and become an Internet laughingstock. That’s hardly an impressive pedigree.”

Poppy tilts her head and the long bangs of her sleek, angled bob fall over one eye. I wonder if the mannerism is a defensive action, like hugging flannel jammies?

“Trust me, being born with wealth and a title doesn’t make one morally superior or imminently more desirable friend material.”

I just don’t buy Poppy’s poor-little-rich-girl story. My journalist’s bullshit meter is pegging at Not the Whole Story.

“You’re friends with lingerie models, world famous actors, billionaire businessmen, and jet-setting heiresses. Why would you want to be friends with me, Burberry knock-off wearing Vivia Grant from Davis, California?”

I expect Poppy to make another bubblegum-cracking, wise girl retort—she’s very Lauren Bacall-esque or Katherine Hepburn when she played the witty privileged socialite in
The Philadelphia Story
—but she raises her gaze and lowers her voice.

“I want to be friends because you have something none of my other friends”—she raises her hands and makes air quotes with her fingers when she says friends—“have.”

“What’s that?”

“Sincerity.”

“Me? Sincere?” I snort. “I’m too busy holding this successful, confident, got-it-all-together, perpetually entertaining Vivia mask in front of my face to be sincere.”

“You see? You just proved my point.”

“I don’t see. I just admitted I am a big muffin-topped phony, too concerned with impressing my boyfriend, my boss, and the twits on the Twitosphere to keep it real. How did that prove your point?”

“An insincere person would never admit to wearing a façade.” Poppy’s eggshell fragile smiles appears for a second.

I recall my earlier impression of a lonely young woman.

“The people in my life wear masks without even knowing it and they don’t care a bloody damned whit about impressing others. They only care about themselves.”

The silver champagne bottle catches my eye. I don’t know how much the bubbly cost, but the shiny laser-engraved label hints at an eye-popping price tag. Who gives an expensive bottle of champagne as an apology gift to a virtual stranger? Several answers pop up. Rich. Generous. Lonely. Desperate. Serial killer. Maybe I can cross serial killer off the list of potential motivators. I doubt the bottle of champagne is all part of some complicated, nefarious plan to lure me into the bathtub so Poppy can jab a needle into my neck, shoot a potent, immobilizing sedative into my vein, and then surgically remove my organs. Miss Prada Poppy doesn’t strike me as an organ harvester.

“Are you lonely, Poppy?”

Poppy inhales until the silver buttons on her suit coat threaten to pop. Several deep seam-straining breaths. When she speaks, her single-word answer conveys an unspoken soliloquy of pain.

“Yes.”

Words fail me—me, the professional wordsmith, the tireless Tweeter, the perpetually verbose. Fortunately, Poppy finds her words.

“Have you ever had that feeling you were forgetting something important, but you just couldn’t remember what? You walk around your house looking in each room. You check your calendar and your messages. But you never figure out what it is.”

”Sure.”

“I feel like that all of the time.”

“Alzheimer’s doesn’t run in your family, does it?”

Poppy doesn’t speak and I curse myself for my stupid, inappropriate humor.

“I’m sorry.” I stop hugging my pajamas. “That was a thoughtless joke. I make those sometimes, when someone is suffering and I can’t find the words to make them feel better. Crap humor is my reflex.”

Poppy brushes my apology away with a flick of the wrist. “I don’t know what I am searching for, but…”

“But what?”

“Posh tea parties, Polo in the Park, winter holidays in Gstaad and St. Tropez, shopping in Paris, and socializing with the posh set isn’t it.”

“It doesn’t exactly sound unsatisfying, not when you consider most of the world spend their lives hustling to afford tea from Starbucks and winter vacays to Disneyworld.”

“I sound like one of those clichéd spoiled rich girls, don’t I?” Poppy doesn’t wait for me to respond, but hurries on in a whiny, self-mocking tone. “‘
Don’t judge me. My life is soooo hard. Toting a Louis Vuitton full of couture clothes from Heathrow to Charles de Gaulle is really hard
.’”

“You don’t sound that spoiled.”

Poppy arches a skeptical eyebrow.

“Okay, maybe only a trifle ungrateful.”

“I am grateful for my cosseted childhood, elite education, and familial connections. If it weren’t for nepotism—” She shrugs. “Somehow, my life just doesn’t feel enough.”

“Enough or satisfying?”

She tilts her head and wrinkles her nose as she considers my question. “Satisfying. You know what I mean?”

I shake my head. I don’t really understand. Poppy has all of the advantages youth, money, connections, intelligence, and beauty. She’s never had to hustle to make rent or been forced to subside on cheap Chinese take-out.

“Have you ever gone to a patisserie because you craved a chocolate éclair?”

“Seriously?” I tilt my head and grimace. “Have
I
ever gone to a patisserie for a chocolate éclair? Have you seen the pap snap of my muffin top? I didn’t get that from sipping kale smoothies, girlfriend.”

Poppy chuckles softly. “You don’t have a muffin top, Vivia.”

“White lie appreciated. Now finish your analogy.”

“It’s like when you really want a chocolate éclair, but the patisserie is out of éclairs so they suggest a mille-feuille instead. You don’t want to appear ungrateful, so you take the mille-feuille, smile, and say
merci
, but deep down you are still longing for the éclair.” Poppy’s smile wobbles on her face. “I feel like my life is the mille-feuille. I have no reason to complain, but I still feel unhappy and yearn for something…else.”

“I get you, Poppy.”

“Really? You do?”

“I do,” I say. “I should be happy that a man as wonderful as Luc wants to spend his life with me. Most women would be content, but I still yearn for something else.”

“Another man?”

I shake my head.

“What then?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I just know the idea of giving up my job and settling down in the South of France to be the wife of a university professor terrifies me.” I sigh. “But this is not about me right now; it’s about you. What’s your éclair, Poppy? What would make you stop yearning?”

“I don’t know, but I have a feeling you are going to get me sorted out.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

I chuckle self-consciously. “Why me?”

“You are brave and audacious.”

“Please, don’t hero-worship me, Poppy.” I hug my jammies again. “You’ll only be disappointed.”

“I am British. I don’t hero worship.” Poppy crosses her arms. “You are searching, just like me, but you search boldly, unapologetically. You might not always take the right path, but at least you take it. I am still plodding along the same track, too frightened to deviate.”

“I am not the trail blazer you imagine me to be,” I confess. “If my ex-fiancé hadn’t been a vindictive ass and used his family connections to get me fired from
San Francisco Magazine
, I probably wouldn’t have ever left California or lucked into the
GoGirl!
gig.”

“Luck, huh?”

“Serendipity.”

“If nothing else—you are refreshingly honest. I need honest friends, people who will tell me the truth, not bow and scrape because they’re in awe of the Worthington name. My grandfather used to say,
‘There are two kinds of friends: those who tell you what you want to hear and those who tell you what you need to hear. If you are fortunate enough to find a friend who tells you what you need to hear, keep that one, Pop.’
”

Sex in the Shitty

Submerged in a steaming tub of almond-scented bubbles, I worry the intense déjà vu I am experiencing is a sign of a deteriorating mental state.

I once interviewed a controversial psychologist who published a paper in which he suggested people who claim to experience déjà vu suffer from serious mental disorders. When I asked him about people who claimed to remember things from previous lives, he dismissed them as mentally ill and suffering from temporal lobe epileptic fits.

If Dr. Déjà vu could read my thoughts right now, he would put me in a hug-,me jacket and cram a few Lithium down my throat, because I definitely have the sensation of having experienced this moment before. A stupid lie. Public humiliation. Broken heart. Repeat.

At least one thing is different: the last time my life imploded—when Nathan dumped me for not being a virgin—I obsessively checked my phone for e-mails, tweets, texts, and Facebook posts from him. I looked for a slender thread of hope to grasp onto, a brief message promising me life would return to normal.

Not this time.

What’s the point? Luc is probably gone. Forever. Maybe we will cross paths one day—in the airport in Zurich or Athens. He will be walking toward me, his muscular arm thrown around the shoulders of some petite, chic French woman. I will freeze in place, bracing myself for the inevitable devastating moment when he looks up and notices me. He will look right through me before turning and pressing a kiss to his lover/wife’s forehead, a tender, fleeting gesture with an eternally devastating impact.

I slide down until my chin sinks beneath the bubbles and close my eyes. The future scene flickers in my brain like a sad romantic drama or a sappy music video. It’s a Taylor Swift video, which is apropos since we are never, ever, ever getting back together. Like ever.

My inability to maintain a stable long-term committed relationship should come as no surprise. I am Vivia Grant, daughter of a faithless theology professor.

Holy Shit! After a year of soul searching and horizon broadening experiences, I still have more baggage than a Louis Vuitton store.

Poppy is straight up cracked if she thinks I am brave.

I’m not brave. Not a bit.

I am terrified.

I am afraid to end up like my mom. I am afraid of pinning my hopes and dreams on a man, sacrificing my goals to help him achieve his, spending my days quietly, thanklessly building a life he will take for granted. Then, he will look at me from across the table one day and say, “When you’re finished passing the green beans, I’d like a divorce,
s’il vous plaît
.”

Who knew I had so many trust issues? I guess my parents’ divorce really did a number on me.

I emerge from the bathroom half an hour later, my pink, puckered, almond-scented skin scrubbed clean of Luc’s touch and the unpleasant aroma of fried haddock. The hotel’s luxurious lotion can’t mask the desperation emanating from my pores, though. My emotions are swinging like a pendulum from mildly-hopeful to extremely-despondent.

“There now,” Poppy says when she glances up from her iPhone and notices me standing in the doorway. “You look a billion pounds better, less knackered. Love the pajamas, by the way. Are those frogs?”

I nod like a toddler and the towel shifts, slipping over my right eye. “They’re frog prince pajamas.”

“The legendary frog prince.” Poppy chuckles wryly. “I’ve snogged a bloody pond full of frogs and still haven’t found my prince.”