I nod: Say no more. “And what, was the Big Chill wearing a seven-hundred-dollar tracksuit?” I ask. Not long after “the Green Menace” entered the Digger lexicon, a Jen supporter on Twitter (who we all agree was Jen in handle disguise) clapped back with a nickname of Miltonian perfection for Brett: “the Big Chill,” referring to both her avaricious figure and her seemingly endless capacity for chill. Brett loves to brag that she’s too lazy for fashion. That she has loftier things on her mind than fashion. That she is too broke for fashion. Such statements may have been true at one time. But I was twenty-three with a forehead free of injectibles once too, and you don’t see me going around and shoving that expired bio into people’s faces.
“Brett.” Jen says her name with a scoff. “Brett was forty minutes late—”
“Oh, come on,” Lauren chides. “Like twenty.”
“It was ten-oh-six when she walked in!” Jen guffaws.
“She’s such a hypocrite,” I say, remembering how Brett could never let it go that I was late twice during season one, and only because the snotty makeup artist didn’t stock a foundation darker than Honey in his dopp kit and I had to redo my face myself. Everyone thinks I’m so high maintenance because I’ve hired my own glam squad, but I’d like to see how they’d respond to production teaming them with a car mechanic for hair and makeup. That’s how ill equipped their guy was to deal with a brown woman’s face.
“In all fairness, she did have some kind of issue with her booking system,” Lauren says. Pecan jumps onto the couch next to her and Lauren leans down to pet her, but before she can, Jen punts her off the couch with the heel of her hand.
“No jumping. On the. Minotti couch!” Jen booms. Suddenly there is a spray bottle in her hand, and she’s vaporizing the dog into the kitchen. Lauren raises her eyebrows at me in silent consternation while Jen fights to affix a baby gate between the wall and the island, imprisoning a yapping Pecan. Cashew has retreated beneath the coffee table and folded herself into a small, trembling nub, but she is guilty by association. Jen digs her out from underneath the table by her elbows and tosses her over the gate with Pecan. She lands on her back with a yelp. Almond barks in solidarity.
“Shut up, Almond!” Jen squirts him in the face, effectively silencing him, so she squirts him a few more times for good measure.
“The booking system crashing was such an obvious sham,” Jen says, resuming the conversation as though she didn’t just skip a beat to actively terrorize three defenseless rescues. “She only said that to make everyone think SPOKE is so in demand.”
Lauren and I are speechless a moment. I check over my shoulder to make sure Cashew is still breathing. Lauren clears her throat. “Well,” she says. “She was in her spandex still.”
“Why is she always in spandex?” Jen groans. “It’s probably why her sister is so skinny. How could you eat looking at all that dimply flesh?” She blanches.
“Whoa.” I laugh, though I’m thrilled to have Jen around to say it. I’m tired of having to pretend like Brett is some sort of war hero for having thighs that touch. Like she’s a better feminist than the rest of us just because she’s willing to expose the most unsightly parts of her body in a crop top. Though I suppose that’s my contest to lose. Don’t ever call me a feminist.
“Her sister is a smoke.” Lauren holds another white finger to her nostril and sniffs. “In that trashy, Barstool Sports kind of way.”
I’ve heard enough about Brett’s hot, trashy sister. “How did the conversation about Morocco go?”
Jen and Lauren exchange toothsome smiles.
“God, I wish you could have been there,” Jen says. “She was insufferable, bragging about her investors and how they were going to expense the entire trip.”
“Jen was like”—Lauren makes moon eyes and her voice turns buttery—“it sounds like Morocco will be a really powerful moment, Brett. I wish I could be there for it.” She cackles. “Brett’s face when she realized she was no longer the darling one. It really was priceless.”
“Did Lisa say anything to either of you afterward?” I ask.
Jen and Lauren look at each other, then at me to shake their heads no.
“Why?” Jen asks.
I swirl the wine in my glass, surprised to realize there is not much left to swirl. “When I met with Lisa and told her why I couldn’t make Morocco work, she straight-out asked me if we had made a pact not to film with Brett.”
“Did she not buy your reason or something?” Jen picks at a cuticle. Why do women affect fascination with their nails when they are trying to appear as though they are not bothered by something that bothers them?
The space between my vertebrae elongates, ever so slightly. “Why wouldn’t she buy my reason?”
“I mean . . .” Jen glances at Lauren, then back at me. “Are you really trying to get pregnant?”
I don’t like this suggestion that it’s not believable that Vince and I would want a baby. I know who my husband is, but I work hard to make sure no one else does. “I don’t know how I’ll feel in a few years.”
“So you’re not actually trying . . .” Jen trails off. This is an awkward conversation to have with someone who’s not really my friend.
“Soon,” I fib, which is what I’ve been promising Vince for the last year too.
The seam of Jen’s nail reddens, and she sticks her finger in her mouth, sucking. Interesting. I had always assumed that Jen, like Brett and me, felt no stirring for motherhood. It’s clear Lauren does, but that she has chosen the show over assembling the traditional family unit for now. At least Lauren has that goofy way about her. I could see her enjoying the mindless task of entertaining a cranially challenged being. But Jen is so aloof, so easily agitated, what part of having a child even appeals to her?
I can tell you what does not appeal to me. The very idea of motherhood feels like a hangman’s noose around my neck. Just another set of hands, tugging at my hemline, a tinier voice hawing, But what about me? A baby is an emotional burden and I am emotionally burdened enough. I spent my childhood in service of my mother’s anxiety, of pretending like it was unremarkable to be one of three black students in my graduating class. I’ve spent my marriage emotionally and financially supporting my husband’s lazy ambitions to become the next Ryan Gosling. I’ve spent my life overprepared, overdressed, mostly sober, and voluntarily undersexed, because one phone call from an overzealous member of the neighborhood watch and I’m being dragged away in handcuffs from a bimmer that couldn’t possibly be mine.
“Did Lisa talk to you about the SADIE party?” Lauren asks, pivoting the conversation for Jen’s sake. Such a good hire, that Lauren.
I nod. At the start of every season, we need an event that brings all the Diggers together. Lauren has rented out the penthouse at the Greenwich Hotel to celebrate the launch of SADIEq, a version of her dating app that translates the experience for the queer community. The theme is slumber-party sexy. Oh boy, do Diggers love a theme.
“I think it’s smart,” I say.
“It is smart.” Lauren grins wider. “I spent an arm and a leg on research that shows that in relationships between women, there isn’t always one clear aggressor in the initial courting stages. Women are much more egalitarian in their approach to dating, and so the thing that sets SADIEq apart from SADIE is that we get everyone to meet offline.”
I nod, pretending like that’s what I meant, that her new initiative is the thing that is smart. “That is really smart. It’s also smart that the first group event is your event. If it were my event or Jen’s event and Brett wasn’t invited, everyone would call us petty. But because it’s you, our Switzerland, it sends a very clear message that the issue is Brett, not us.”