Lauren Weisberger 5-Book Collection: The Devil Wears Prada, Revenge Wears Prada, Everyone Worth Know (104 page)

I hadn't heard from Sammy since our last conversation, the morning after the
Playboy
party, which had been three months, two weeks, and four days ago. Penelope had called minutes after I'd hung up with Sammy to tell me that she'd just spoken to Avery and ‘knew everything.' Avery had called her during the party to admit that he'd been really, really drunk and had ‘accidentally' kissed a random girl. That morning she was upset but still making excuses for him. Finally I'd worked up my nerve and told her the full story. When she confronted him, Avery admitted he'd been sleeping with Abby for some time, and that there'd been others as well.

Penelope had then very calmly instructed the housekeeper (who just so happened to be Avery's parents' engagement gift to the happy couple) to pack all of her possessions and ship everything back to New York. She booked two last-minute, first-class plane tickets on Avery's credit card, called for the largest and most luxurious stretch limo she could find, and proceeded to drink herself into champagne oblivion in the first-class cabin while stretched out across both seats. I'd met her at JFK and dragged her directly to the Black Door, where I joined her in getting blind drunk. For the first few weeks she stayed with her parents, who, to their credit, did not once tell her to forgive him or take him back, and when she couldn't take living at home anymore, she moved onto my couch.

Finally together, we had been miserable, heartbroken, and unemployed, and so were the perfect pair: we shared a bathroom, multiple bottles of wine, and the rent, and we watched a horrifying amount of exceptionally bad TV. Everything had been perfect until Penelope had gotten a job. She'd announced last week that she'd be reverse-commuting to a boutique hedge fund in Westchester, and that she would be moving to her own place in two weeks. I'd known our extended pajama party couldn't last forever, but I couldn't help feeling a teeny bit betrayed. She was doing so well that she even mentioned that the guy who'd interviewed her had been really, really cute. It was now stunningly obvious: Penelope was moving on, and I was destined to be a wretch forever.

‘How long do you think I have to wait before I can go check out the restaurant?' I asked for what must have been the thousandth time.

‘I've already told you, I'm happy to put on a disguise and sneak in there with you. Very discreet – he doesn't even know me! Healthy? Maybe not. But definitely a good time.'

‘Did you see the piece in
The Wall Street Journal
? They worship the place. It calls Sammy one of the best new chefs of the last five years.'

‘I know, honey, I know. That certainly seems to be the consensus, doesn't it? Aren't you happy for him?'

‘You have no idea,' I whispered.

‘What?'

‘Nothing, nothing. Yes, of course I'm happy for him. I just wish I was happy
with
him.'

Sammy had opened his restaurant – a charming little Middle Eastern fusion place that in no way resembled a franchise – two months earlier, to little fanfare. I wouldn't have even known if Will hadn't casually mentioned it at one of our Thursday-night dinners, but from that moment on, I tracked every new development. At first there hadn't been much information: a biography of the chef and some details on the quick opening. Apparently, the adorable twelve-table Italian joint on the Lower East Side had been the pet project of a prominent former investment banker who'd been targeted by Eliot Spitzer and ultimately sentenced to two to three years in a federal prison. The guy had to liquidate his assets to pay the massive fine to the SEC. Since the entire place had just been gutted and renovated and the entire kitchen fitted to perfection, Sammy could open for business almost immediately. At first there were some scattered customer reviews on various websites and a small mention of the restaurant in a piece about neighborhood gentrification. But then something happened: Sammy's restaurant went from Neighborhood Solid to Citywide Spectacular in a matter of weeks.

According to the most recent
WSJ
Lifestyle article, people in the neighborhood went early and often, and Sammy was able to keep the doors open while his menu came into its own. By the time Frank Bruni went to review it for
The New York Times,
Sammy had hit his stride. Bruni gave him three stars, virtually unheard of for an unknown chef and his very first venture. The other New York papers and magazines immediately followed with ecstatic reviews of their own.
New York
magazine published a typically understated article proclaiming Sevi ‘The Only Restaurant That Matters.' He'd gone from being a total unknown to New York's must-get-reservations-or-die-a-horrible-death-in-C-list-purgatory restaurant. The only catch with that was that Sammy didn't take reservations. For anyone. Under any circumstances. According to every interview I read of him – and trust me, I read them all – Sammy insisted that everyone was welcome, but no one was getting any sort of priority treatment. ‘I've spent so many years determining who's allowed in and who's not, and I'm just not interested anymore. If they want to eat here, whoever they are, they can come on down like everyone else,' he was quoted as saying. It was his one and only requirement.

‘But no one will go if they can't make a reservation!' I'd shrieked to Penelope when I'd first read about it.

‘What do you mean no one will go?' she'd asked.

‘You have to have some horribly bitchy reservationist who insists that there's nothing available for the next six months if they want to eat after five or before midnight.'

She laughed.

‘I'm serious! I know these people! The only way anyone will ever eat there is if he makes them believe they're not welcome. The fastest way to fill those tables is to tell anyone who calls that they're fully booked and then promptly raise all entrées by eight dollars and all drinks by four. Hire waiters who think they're above waiting tables and a hostess who looks all the guests up and down disapprovingly as they arrive, and he'll have a
chance
.' I was only half-kidding, but it didn't much matter: his policy clearly worked.

The review in
The Wall Street Journal
had gone on to describe how the New York restaurant scene had lately been dominated by a slew of high-profile restaurant openings and superstar chefs, how there were five such restaurants in the glittering new Time Warner Building alone. Somewhere along the way, people had grown weary of all the pomp and circumstance. They longed for a wonderful meal in a simple restaurant. And that was precisely what Sammy's place offered. I was so proud of him, I nearly cried every time I read a new write-up or heard someone mention it, which was pretty damn frequently. I was dying to see it for myself, but I couldn't deny that Sammy had most definitely
not
picked up the phone to invite me.

‘Here,' she said, handing me my folder of delivery menus. ‘Dinner's on me. Let's order something, and then maybe go get a drink.'

I stared at her as though she'd suggested spontaneously hopping a flight to Bangladesh. ‘A drink?
Outside?
You're joking.' I flipped through the menus disinterestedly. ‘There's nothing to eat.'

She snatched the folder out of my hands and pulled out a few menus at random. ‘Nothing to eat? There's Chinese, burgers, sushi, Thai, pizza, Indian, Vietnamese, deli, salad bar, Italian … that's just these. Pick something, Bette. Pick it now.'

‘Seriously, Pen, whatever's good for you works for me.'

I watched as she dialed someplace called Nawab and ordered two chicken tikka masalas with basmati rice and two baskets of chapati. She put the phone down and turned to me.

‘Bette, I'm only going to ask you one last time: What do you want to do this weekend?'

I sighed meaningfully and resumed my position on the couch. ‘Pen, I don't care. It's not a big birthday. I already have to do the book-club ritual, which is more than enough. I don't know why you're so insistent that we need to do something – I'd much rather just forget it's happening.'

She snorted. ‘Yeah, right. Everyone says they don't care, and everyone cares a lot. Why don't I put together a little dinner on Saturday night? You, me, Michael, maybe a few people from UBS? Some of the girls from your book club?'

‘That sounds nice, Pen, it really does, but Will said something about dinner on Saturday. We're going somewhere good, I can't remember where. Want to come?'

We chatted until the food came and I managed to haul my larger-by-the-minute butt off the couch to the little kitchen table for chow time. As we spooned the thick, spicy chicken chunks onto plates of rice, I thought about how I was going to miss Penelope. It was a great distraction having her around, and more to the point, things between us were finally back to normal. I watched her as she waved her fork around to punctuate a funny story she was telling, and then I stood up and hugged her.

‘What was that for?' she asked.

‘I'm just going to miss you, Pen. I'm going to miss you a whole lot.'

‘Thanks, everyone. You guys really are the best,' I said as I hugged each person standing in the circle around me. During our special birthday book-club sessions, we met to eat cake and do a couple of group shots. My birthday cake was white chocolate mousse, and the accompanying shot was an old-school lemon drop, complete with sugar packets and sliced lemons. I was slightly buzzed and feeling good after our mini-celebration, one that had concluded with the presentation of a hundred-dollar Barnes & Noble gift card.

‘Enjoy dinner tonight,' Vika called after me. ‘Give us a ring if you want to meet up after you leave your uncle's.'

I nodded and waved and made my way downstairs. I was thinking about how I'd have to start taking people up on offers to go out again. It was only one in the afternoon, and I didn't have to be at Will's until eight, so I settled in at a little table on the patio at the Astor Place Starbucks with a vanilla latte and a copy of the
Post.
Some habits die hard, so, as usual, I flipped to Page Six and was stunned by what I saw: a large piece on Abby, complete with a picture. It said that New York Scoop had just canceled her ‘Ellie Insider' column and dismissed her for falsifying her résumé. Details were sketchy, but according to an unnamed source, she'd listed herself as a graduate of Emory University when she was, in fact, three credits shy of graduation. She did not actually possess a B.A. I'd dialed Penelope before I'd finished reading the piece.

‘Ohmigod, have you read Page Six today? You must see it.
Now
.'

While I hadn't exactly forgotten about Abby, I hadn't made good on my vow to ruin her life, either. She hadn't written another word about me since the night of the
Playboy
party, but I didn't know if that was because my threats had her worried or because now that I no longer worked at Kelly & Company or dated Philip, I didn't warrant any mention at all. There was also the possibility that her affair with Avery had ended. Either way, I hadn't stopped praying for her demise.

‘Happy birthday, Bette!'

‘Huh? Oh, yeah, thanks. But listen, have you seen the
Post
yet?'

She laughed for a full minute, and I got the distinct feeling I was missing something. ‘My gift to you, Bette. Happy twenty-eighth!'

‘What are you saying? I don't understand what's going on. Did you have something to do with this?' I asked with such hopefulness it was almost humiliating.

‘You might say that,' she said coyly.

‘Pen! Tell me this instant what happened! This might just be the best day of my life. Explain!'

‘Okay, calm down. It was all very innocent, actually – it just sort of fell into my lap.'

‘What did?'

‘The information that our dear friend Abby is not a college graduate.'

‘And how, exactly, did that happen?'

‘Well, after my ex-fiancé told me he was screwing her—'

‘Correction, Pen. He told you he was screwing
someone
– I told you he was screwing
her
,' I added helpfully.

‘Right. So anyway, after I found out they were screwing, I had the inclination to write her a little letter and tell her what I thought.'

‘What does this have to do with her not graduating?' I was too eager for the dirt to endure the extraneous details.

‘Bette, I'm getting there! I didn't want to email her because there's always the potential that it'll get forwarded to a million people, but her address in New York is unlisted – she must think she's some kind of celebrity, and people would just beat down her door to catch a glimpse of the star herself. I called New York Scoop, but they wouldn't give it out. That's when it occurred to me to call Emory.'

‘Okay, I'm following so far.'

‘I figured that as a fellow graduate, I'd have no trouble getting her address from them. I called the alumni center and told them I was looking for a classmate, that we'd lost touch but I wanted to invite her to my wedding.'

‘Nice touch,' I said.

‘Thanks, I thought so. Anyway, they checked their records and told me they had no one under that name. I'll save you all the gory details, but basically a few more minutes of digging revealed that while darling Abby matriculated with us, she didn't manage to graduate with our class – or ever.'

‘Jesus. I think I see where this is going, and I could not be more proud right now.'

‘Well, it gets better. I was on the phone with a girl at the registrar's office. She swore me to secrecy and then told me that the reason Abby withdrew three credits short was because the dean of arts and sciences found out Abby was sleeping with her husband and suggested that she withdraw immediately. We never knew because Abby never told anyone; she just stuck around campus until the rest of us graduated.'