“I’m sorry, there’s no table for Shayla Sheridan.” I couldn’t read the tall hostess’s expression behind the ebony curtain of hair obscuring her face, but I can tell you this: she didn’t sound sorry.
Soaked from a surprise downpour, I stood dripping on the polished wood floor in the vestibule of Le Relais, a restaurant situated roughly 40 blocks hipper than I was used to. I peeled off my soggy Adirondack jacket and folded it over my arm, hoping to raise my profile a little. I so didn’t want to be there.
Before Maggie called, my Friday night plan was to grab a burrito from La Paloma and get my dark roots touched up and my hair straightened at the little walk-in hair salon around the corner from my apartment. Instead, I stood in the driving rain to catch a 20-dollar cab from midtown to Soho for the privilege of being ignored. I cleared my throat.
The hostess shot me a glance, annoyed that I was still standing there. Dragging her eyes down the length of me, she huffed out a small noise of disapproval. Understand this: I’m a native New Yorker. I know better than to show up at a place like this wearing a twinset and flats. But I’d come straight from the office and really, if I had stopped home to change, what did I have in my closet that was much of an upgrade? Even if I liked shopping, I don’t have the time. I work a 50-hour week at Haversmith, Peebles, and Chin Publishers, not to mention ghostwriting how-to books, and working on my own book.
My own book. My stomach plummeted. Brenda Sackler, my terrifying bulldog of an agent, had red-lighted it this very afternoon. Boom. She didn’t even invite me into the agency to talk about it. Just a no-go over the phone. Access denied. Dream dead on arrival. I wanted a vodka and soda more than I wanted to breathe air, and this clothes hanger on stilts was standing between me and sweet relief. Squaring my shoulders, I mustered a shred of strength from the depths of myself, ready to engage in battle. Who did she think she was, anyway? As if looking like an upmarket shampoo ad qualified her to be the gatekeeper of those precious bottles of Skyy lined up behind the bar.
I caught an unfortunate glimpse of myself in the side of a towering metallic vase, filled with sharp, pointy birds of paradise. Even handicapping for the fun-house distortion of the mirrored curve, I could see clearly what I looked like and it wasn’t good. Dark circles under my eyes, frizzy two-toned hair, and a gray cardigan. The top pearl button had fallen off at lunch, and I’d stuck it back on with a safety pin. By New York standards, I wasn’t even a 5. Disgusted, I shook my head at myself in my reflection. Why would I even think like that, ranking myself? Fucking Soho. So much for all those Women’s Studies classes I’d taken at Sarah Lawrence. I felt so exposed in the open-plan restaurant, with the vaulted ceilings. I just wanted to blend in and get my body behind a table. And, for the love of God, to have a drink.
I didn’t like to do it, but I had no choice. Leaning in, I whispered, “Can you try Shayla de Winter?”
“Mmm-mm, sorry” the hostess said automatically, shaking her head no. “Wait!” Her body went stiff. She flipped her hair over to one shoulder and squinted at me. “You mean, like, Hank de Winter?”
“Yes, he’s my father,” I mumbled.
“Bruno!” she shouted, still gazing at my face. An almond-eyed man-boy in a crisp white shirt appeared at her side. “Take Miss de Winter’s coat.” The stunning and obedient Bruno bowed his head and gently urged the formerly offensive canvas garment from me as if it were a Russian sable, disappearing as quickly as he’d shown up.
“Right this way,” she said, flashing her dazzling white teeth in a smile she now decided I deserved. In a fluid motion, she whisked menus from a discreet cubby in the hostess stand, turned sharply on her heel and Olympic-walked down a wide aisle, hips keeping time like a military metronome. She landed at a “good” table. Not too near the kitchen or powder rooms, and sufficiently in the middle of the room to facilitate seeing and being seen. I would have preferred something along a wall.
But the attention made me feel dirty. Of course, I’d grown up gliding along on Dad’s notoriety, but that hadn’t been my choice. Known equally for his investigative journalism and his novels of manners featuring thinly veiled members of high society and politics, he walked straight past velvet ropes and never paid a parking fine.
I began using my mother’s maiden name the summer before college, the summer I got a job to support myself by working at Austen and Friends Booksellers. To be fair, Dad did pay my tuition. Sarah Lawrence is only the most expensive liberal arts school in the country. But I paid for the rest, except maybe some books here and there and the summer abroad in Amsterdam. Since then, though, I haven’t taken a thing from him other than letting him pick up the checks at restaurants when we see each other, which is rare. And that’s because he always chooses stupid expensive places like this one.
Finally seated, with my shoes semi-hidden under the long, white tablecloth, I relaxed a little. There was a vodka and soda in my hand. Things were looking up. I checked my phone for the time. Maggie was 15 minutes late. Another 15 and I could walk out and claim that I figured she wasn’t coming. “C’mon, 15 minutes!” I silently willed, fantasizing about warm pajamas.
I plucked a fat green olive out of a dish of herb-infused oil and popped it in my mouth. Rolling the pit on my tongue, I scanned the table for a polite place to deposit it. The napkins were cloth, of course. I couldn’t just spit in on the table under the watchful eyes of the countless waiters and bussers. I tried to catch Bruno’s eye. I had an ally in Bruno. He’d bring me a demure pit dish. Or let me spit it discreetly into his waiting palm. The saliva was getting to me. I picked up my purse, and like a horse with a feedbag, rid myself of the offending seed. No more olives for me. I made a mental note to ask for some bread instead.
Surveying the bar off to my right, my gaze landed on a guy sitting alone. A neat whiskey sat at his elbow. He was wearing dark-wash jeans, polished lace-up shoes, and a dress shirt. He wore glasses. Like his outfit, there was nothing ironic about his demeanor.
“I’m so sorry I’m late!” Maggie came barreling into the vestibule and down the wide aisle in geisha-like steps. Even in her towering heels, she managed to overtake the hostess. Smoothing her long, curve-hugging skirt, she lowered herself into the chair opposite me, and gave a satisfied sigh. “There!”
“You look amazing,” I told her. And she did. Maggie may have grown up in the middle-class beach town of Spring Lake, New Jersey, AKA “The Irish Riviera,” but she’d adapted to Manhattan flawlessly. Her chic Bumble and Bumble haircut (done by a student stylist during her lunch break — I covered her desk at work) was none the worse for wear from the rain, and she had on the exact right shade of MAC lipstick (“buy drugstore mascara and powder, Shay, but drop real money on your lips”).
In the beginning, I represented something to Maggie. You could say that my parents belonged to the intelligentsia, but that word makes me uncomfortable. Money or no money, they traveled in circles with innovators, movers, and shakers. Maggie’s parents, and their parents before, worked with their hands and functioned in the practicality of the here and now. Whereas Maggie had lived in a dormer bungalow situated in a neighborhood filled with people who only drove into the city for the Rockefeller Center Christmas show or to consult with medical specialists, I’d grown up in a high-rise surrounded by writers, editors, and those who had the money to see that magazines, newspapers, and books got printed. Even my grandparents had been schoolteachers, professors, and artists. Maggie absorbed every story about being sent to camp at the artsy Usdan Center, and the noted personalities at the cocktail parties thrown at our Upper West Side apartment when I was a kid. Rough around the edges, Maggie tried to blend in with this kind of society. So it didn’t take long before she realized I’d been trying to blend in my whole life. We kept each other’s secrets. How much we needed each other went unspoken. Maggie was reared to be tough and hard, and I was reared to keep my failures under my hat. I loved her, temper and all, and she protected me.
“Thanks,” she said to the waiter as he handed her a linen napkin. She signaled to the waiter and whispered something in his ear. “Now then, I want to hear everything about your book deal. Start from the beginning, and don’t leave anything out.” She reached across the table and squeezed my hand.