“Almond, no!” Jen is saying as she opens the door, wearing one of those x-small enormous linen sack dresses that are the true test of thinness these days—can you wear a tarp the size of lower Manhattan and not look obese? Congratulations, you are thin. She’s restraining some sort of German shepherd–lab mix by the collar and her brown hair is longer than it was when I saw her last—extensions?
Cashew and Pecan, Jen’s Frenchie and dachshund, swirl my ankles as I make my way into her McCondo, the thermostat set so low you would think the furniture was perishable. It continues to surprise me that hippie Jen, who was born and raised in a grungy loft in Soho, lives in one of these glass and steel luxury high-rises that geyser Bowery. With its white lacquer cabinetry, on-site housecleaning service, and hookups for smart technology, the place has all the charm of an airport hotel, making its fanciful décor all the odder. There are colorful kilims on the synthetic wood floors and a gallery of woven baskets on a wall without crown molding. If you’re going to live in a space that didn’t exist before the Obama administration, go to Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams and buy silver Greek key pillows and an acrylic coffee table and really embrace it. Instead, it’s like she’s taken a Renaissance painting from the Met and hung it in a gallery at the MoMA. She doesn’t even really seem to like her dogs. Brett once said she adopts them for Instagram likes, which was very funny, sadly. I hate how infrequently I laugh now that Brett is no longer around.
Lauren is barefoot in the kitchen, pouring a glass of wine, which turns out to be for me. A year ago, I would have had a sip, then slunk off to the bathroom to dump it in the sink so that none of the women could give me any grief. A year ago, I was on sixty milligrams of Cymbalta.
“Welcome back from your book tour!” she greets me. “We have so much to tell you. Oh!” she says, looking down at my shoes. “I’m wearing the same Chanel espadrilles! Well. I was. Somebody”—she sticks her tongue out at Jen and I notice instantly that it’s white—“told me to leave them at the door.”
“Oh,” I say, looking to Jen. “I can do that if you want.” It’s a weak offer. I really don’t feel like unlacing the ankle straps.
“When you can stop yourself at two glasses of wine and I don’t have to worry about you stepping on my dogs, you can leave your shoes on too,” Jen ripostes, setting me at ease instantly. Still maintaining a healthy sense of deference, even after seeing Brett at the all-cast prod meeting. Around these parts, alliances have the life span of mayflies.
“I’ve had one glass of wine!” Lauren protests, reaching into her bra and extracting a small plastic baggie, the kind that contains an extra button for a new coat. She peels the seal apart and slips a finger inside, which explains the white tongue. “Coke math.”
I take my wine and slide into a cantilevered chair with brown leather thatching before Lauren can ask me if I want any and, when I demur like I always do, pout and say I’m no fun. I was nervous to come here—it’s like Animal House behind the scenes, and the other women have always ragged on me for my half-finished wine spritzers. I’m uptight, a control freak. I need to let loose, learn to hang, whatever that means. What they don’t understand is that addiction runs in my blood, and that I pay a steep price for partying. They get hangovers; I get suicidal.
“Is this a celebration?” I ask, bringing my glass of wine to my lips cautiously. How much of it I’ll drink depends on the answer.
“I think so,” Lauren says, joining me in the sitting area, mere steps from the kitchen. On House Hunters, everyone is hot for open concept. In New York, there is no other choice.
Lauren tucks into the fold of the green velvet couch, one elbow propped on the back to keep her glass of wine level with her lips at all times. She’s wearing red striped track pants and a white cashmere wife beater, a diamond “L” in one ear the length of a crayon. She looks absurd, and yet she is routinely lauded for her bold sense of style while the Internet makes fun of my anchorwoman clothes. Why does Stephanie Simmons always dress like Kate Middleton visiting a children’s cancer hospital? the New York magazine recapper memorably asked. I have spoken to my stylist about edging up my look this season, and I suppose it’s a positive sign Lauren and I are wearing the same pair of shoes.
Jen sets a cheeseboard on the coffee table, though calling it a cheeseboard is an offense to Brie. “Mushroom and olive paté,” Jen says, gesturing to a mealy brown lump surrounded by birdseed shards that I suppose are standing in for Carr’s. A few years ago, Jen kept a food diary for Vogue.com, chronicling a day in the life of her wackadoodle diet. It was all bee pollen shakes and plant dust lattes until 3:00 P.M., at which point she indulged in a handful of activated walnuts. The thing went mega-viral, and among the five hundred and seventy-nine comments the piece elicited is the first-ever sighting of Jen’s nickname, “the Green Menace.” Though it was Brett who made it stick.
“And we are celebrating, by the way,” Jen says, taking a seat without taking any food. “Because that little piggy will not be going to Morocco.” She smirks and twists the cap on her Brill juice. Jen names her juices and powders and potions for characteristics the customer is looking to enhance. A former Saluté assistant once told me—under promise of Prada—that she glimpsed a search on Urban Dictionary for the word “brill” on Jesse’s computer screen. Brill: British slang for brilliant, American equivalent of “cool.” In my opinion, Jesse has no business sporting a faux-hawk or those ghastly Stella McCartney creepers when she has to consult Urban Dictionary just to keep up with what the kids are talking about. You have no business treating the cast who made your show a hit like members of Menudo, putting us out to pasture at the ripe old age of thirty-four. That is decidedly un-brill.
Jen tips her head back and brings the juice to her lips. The sleeves of her dress gape open, like a wizard’s cape, a long oval through which one of her breasts is clearly visible. The bohemian of the Bowery has very definitely gotten a boob job. The thought comes before I can reason with it: I can’t wait to tell Brett about this. We used to drop nuggets of gossip about the other women at the other’s feet, like cats with rodent corpses. I feel a pang of sadness for what was, but it perishes almost immediately. “Tell me everything,” I nearly pant.
“Let’s start with the sister.” Lauren widens her eyes, blinks, and widens them once more.
“Have you met her before?” Jen wants to know.
“A few times,” I say, and decide to be generous. “But I don’t remember her being that bad.” One of the great things about where I currently sit is that I can be generous and still experience the cathartic release of disparaging my opponents, because everyone down below is willing to do it for me.
“Okay,” Lauren says, with a small, seated jump. “You know those Stuart Weitzman nudist shoes that everyone was wearing two years ago?”
“Except me,” Jen says with a self-congratulatory laugh. “I’m too much of a hippie to be able to walk in those things.”
Not too much of a hippie for implants.
“Well, the sister couldn’t walk in them either. It looked like the first time she was wearing heels. And I’m pretty sure they were the Steve Madden knockoffs,” Lauren says with a shudder. “In patent leather.”
“Don’t forget the off-the-shoulder top,” Jen says.
Lauren turns to me. “She’s first in line at Starbucks on pumpkin spice latte day, okay?”