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“I was sorry to hear about your grandmother, Lizzie,” Marisol says.
“Yes,” Sylvia says. “I’m very sorry too.”
I blink at them for a moment, then realize… they don’t think I’m a slut at all! They weren’t being weird before. They just didn’t know what to say because I’ve just come back from my grandmother’s funeral.
God! I’m such an idiot!
“Oh,” I say, smiling. “Thank you so much. She… she had a good, long life.”
I’m feeling much better about things—less disoriented, and actually caught up on the things I’ve missed, including phone messages, of which there weren’t too many, due to the holiday weekend—an hour later when Tiffany walks through the front door, takes one look at me, and goes, “Oh my God. You had sex this morning.”
I nearly choke on the Diet Coke—my second of the day—I’m sipping.
“Wh-what?” I cry, trying not to spill all over the appointment book I have open in front of me. “What are you talking about? No, I didn’t.”
“Oh, don’t even try,” Tiffany says in disgust as she sashays into the shop in her four-inch lace-up stilettos. “You think I can’t tell by now when you’ve had morning sex? And whoever it was, he did you good. Who was it? It couldn’t have been Luke. I’ve never seen you glowing like that before. It’s kind of revolting.” She halts midway across the shop and stares at me owl-eyed. “Oh my God, Lizzie. Did you and Chaz—”
“NO!” I leap up from the reception desk and begin to wave my arms at her like a madwoman. “No, of course not!”
“Holy shit.” A slow smile begins to spread across her face. “You screwed your fiancé’s best friend. You slut.”
“I didn’t,” I cry. “I swear I didn’t!”
“And now you’re lying about it.” Still smiling, Tiffany reaches into her Marc Jacobs bag and pulls out her Sidekick. “Monique needs to hear about this. So does Raoul. In fact, I can’t think of one person I know who doesn’t need to hear about this. This is sick. Little Miss Prudy Pants got her rocks off this weekend with her fiancé’s best friend. Oh shit, her best friend’s ex!” Tiffany laughs to herself as she types into her Sidekick. “Even better! Man, you are going to burn in hell for true!”
I reach up and lay a hand over her keyboard. “Tiffany,” I say earnestly. “Please. Look at me.”
Tiffany looks down from her towering six feet two inches (with the heels) and blinks her heavily mascaraed eyes. “What?” she asks. She’s still gri
“It’s not what you think,” I say. There’s a knot in my stomach. All the yummy eggs and toast and things I put into it an hour ago feel as if they’re about to come back up. “The thing is… ”
“Oh, what?” Tiffany demands sarcastically. “You looooooove him?”
“Yes,” I say tightly. I am so close to vomiting I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to throw up all over Tiffany’s pretty Laundry sundress, but I’m not sure how much longer I can hold it in. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
Tiffany lowers her Sidekick, leans down until her face is level with mine, and says, enunciating very clearly, “Duh.”
Then she straightens back up, yanks her keypad out of my grasp, and, prattling on as she keeps her gaze on what her fingers are doing, says, “Jesus, Lizzie, do you think we don’t know that? Frankly I think the only person in all of the tristate area who didn’t know you were in love with Charles Pendergast the Third is you. It was so fucking obvious you like him and he likes you that it was just a matter of time until you guys did something about it. And you know what? I’m glad, because I am so fucking over Luke. He was getting on my last nerve. What is this spending the summer in France thing? Good riddance, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t care if he is a prince. There’re more important things than being royal, you know. Like, did he go to your grandmother’s funeral? No? But Chaz did, right? Did he? Is that how this all happened?”
When I nod, dumbly, still stu
I stare up at her. My urge to vomit has passed. I’m seized by a new urge… to hug her.
I know better than to act on this urge, however. Instead, I hug myself, and say in a soft voice, “Thanks, Tiffany. I… it’s been kind of… weird.”
“I can imagine,” Tiffany says, sauntering the rest of the way across the room to her chair and collapsing into it. “I mean, for you. You’re not used to being a bad girl. But the thing is”—she reaches into her enormous bag and pulls out a chocolate croissant, then gestures for me to make her a cappuccino, which I do—“you’re not really even being that bad. You know? I mean, it’s not like you and Luke are married. You’re engaged. And, like, barely. You haven’t even set a date. On the Bad Girl Scale, ten being really bad, and zero being barely bad, you’re like a one.”
I hand her the cappuccino I’ve whipped up, having already turned on the machine when I got in. “What are you?”
“Me?” Tiffany bites into her croissant and chews thoughtfully. “Well, let’s see. Raoul’s married, but his wife left him for her personal trainer. The only reason they aren’t divorced is because he doesn’t have his green card yet. As soon as he gets it—which should be any day now—he’s going to divorce her and marry me. But we are living together. So, on the Bad Girl Scale, I’m like a four.”
I’ve never heard of the Bad Girl Scale—never having done anything before to put me on it. I’m genuinely interested.
“What’s Ava?” I want to know.
“Ava? Oh, let’s see. She’s sleeping with this DJ Tippycat guy, and he’s married. But, according to the tabloids, his wife came after him in an Outback Steakhouse parking lot with a chain saw, so he’s got a restraining order out on her. That only puts her at about a five on the Bad Girl Scale.”
“That’s higher than you,” I say, impressed.
“True,” Tiffany says. “Tip’s got a rap sheet. He tried to take an ounce of marijuana on a plane once. It was in one of his kid’s stuffed animals. But still. Oh my God. I have to remember to tell Ava about you and Chaz. She’s go
“Please,” I say, raising a hand. Ava’s a bit of a sensitive subject, since she still hasn’t spoken to me since that morning we woke up to find the paparazzi swarming outside the shop. “Can we just keep it on the D.L. for now? There are people who don’t know that I’m trying to figure out how—or if—I’m going to tell. Like Luke.”
Tiffany blinks at me. “What do you mean, if? Of course you’re go
I look down at the ring I’m still wearing on my left hand and don’t say anything.
“You are going to break up with Luke, right, Lizzie?” Tiffany demands. “Right, Lizzie? Because, oh my God, if you don’t, do you know what number you go to on the Bad Girl Scale? Like, directly to ten. You ca
“I know,” I say with a groan. “But it’s just going to hurt Luke so much. Not the part about me, but the part about Chaz. I mean, he’s his best friend… ”
“That’s Chaz’s problem,” Tiffany says. “Not yours. Come on, Lizzie. You can’t have them both. Well, I mean, I could. But you can’t. You wouldn’t be able to handle it. Just look at you. You’re falling apart as it is, and one of them isn’t even on the same continent, and there’s no chance of you getting caught. You’re going to have to decide. And, yes, one of them is going to get hurt. But you should have thought of that before you decided to become a Bad Girl.”