Lauren Weisberger 3-Book Collection: Everyone Worth Knowing, Chasing Harry Winston, Last Night at Chateau Marmont. Lauren Weisberger

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       16

      I resumed my calling seven hours later, desperate to explain to Penelope that it wasn’t how it appeared, but no one was answering. Avery finally picked up the phone a little after noon, sounding groggy and slightly hung over.

      ‘Hey, Bette, what’s up?’

      ‘Hi, Avery. Is Penelope there, please?’ I had zero interest in exchanging any words with him past the required minimum.

      There was a rustle and something that sounded suspiciously like a whisper before Avery said, ‘Actually, she’s at her parents’ for brunch today. Can I leave her a message?’

      ‘Avery, please put her on. I know she’s there and I know she’s upset with me and I want to explain everything. It’s not really how it looked.’ I was pleading.

      His voice got lower and more conspiratorial; he was trying to talk so Penelope couldn’t hear. ‘Hey, Bette? Don’t worry about it. I would’ve rather been at Caleb’s party last night, too. Trust me – if there was any way I could’ve gotten out of that miserable dinner last night, I would’ve been right there with you. Pen’s just over-reacting.’

      Of course Avery would know about the party. I felt ill.

      ‘It wasn’t like that, Avery. I wouldn’t have rather been—’ I realized I was justifying my actions to the wrong person. ‘Can you just put her on?’

      There was some more rustling and a muffled call and then Penelope was saying hello as though she didn’t know I was the one on the other end.

      ‘Hey, Pen. It’s me. How are you?’

      ‘Oh, Bette. Hello. I’m fine, how are you?’

      The conversation felt distinctly like dozens I’d had with my overly polite but slightly senile great-grandmother. Clearly, Penelope was every bit as furious with me as I’d feared.

      ‘Pen, I know you don’t want to talk to me right now. I’m sorry if Avery tricked you into picking up the phone, but I really want to apologize. It didn’t go down last night the way it appeared.’

      Silence.

      ‘I got a call from work saying that some people from the BlackBerry account were in town unexpectedly and I had to go meet them. I’m in charge of their event this week, and there’s just no way I could’ve refused to stop in and say hello.’

      ‘Yes, that’s what you said.’ Her voice was ice-cold.

      ‘Well, that’s exactly what happened. I was planning to run over there for an hour and do my thing and then hopefully make it back before dessert. I was waiting for the car Elisa said she’d send when Philip showed up. Apparently Elisa sent him to get me instead of the car since the BlackBerry people wanted to meet him, too. I had no idea, Pen, seriously.’

      There was a pause and then she said, very quietly, ‘Avery said everyone saw you at some guy’s birthday party downtown. That doesn’t sound like work to me.’

      I was more than a little creeped out by the ‘everyone saw you’ comment but rushed on to explain what had actually transpired. ‘I know, Pen, I know. Philip told me that Elisa’d told him that we were going to meet Kelly there.’

      ‘Oh. Did the meeting go well?’ She sounded like she was thawing a bit, but this next part wasn’t going to do much to help it along.

      ‘No, I didn’t even get to meet them. Apparently, they got tired and headed back to their hotel after having a drink with Kelly. At that point, it was one A.M.! I couldn’t get back to you. I’m so sorry, Pen. I left your going-away dinner because I thought I had no choice, and it all ended up being for no reason whatsoever.’ It sucked, but at least it was true.

      ‘Why didn’t you come to the Black Door?’ she asked. But then her voice softened. ‘I knew you wouldn’t have left just to go to some party,’ she said. ‘Avery kept insisting that you’d invented that whole work story because this was going to be the most amazing birthday party ever, but I didn’t really think you’d do that. It just got harder to believe when I saw you ride off with Philip.’

      I wanted to strangle Avery with the phone cord, but I was finally making progress with Penelope and had to concentrate on that. ‘You know I’d never do that, Pen. There was nowhere else I wanted to be last night. And if it’s any comfort, it was a horror of an evening. Absolutely, positively, undeniably not fun.’

      ‘Well, I’m sure I’ll read about it online this week.’ She said it lightly and laughed, but I could tell she was still upset. ‘Speaking of which, did you see this morning’s edition?’

      My heart skipped a very small beat. ‘This morning? It’s Sunday! What are you talking about?’

      ‘Oh, it wasn’t nearly as bad as some of the others. Don’t worry,’ she rushed to say. I knew she intended to make me feel better, but her statement had the opposite effect. ‘Avery showed me a few minutes ago. It just has some snarky comment about how you were wearing a business suit to a costume party.’

      It was incredible! Relatively speaking, the installment was totally innocuous, but for some reason it was even more upsetting than all the lies and misrepresentations about my nighttime activities: if I couldn’t even make clothing choices without inviting public commentary, there was not a shred of privacy left.

      ‘Great. That’s just great’ was about all I could manage to say. ‘Well, as evidenced by the fact that I did indeed wear a suit to a costume party last night, you can see that I wasn’t planning on leaving your dinner.’

      ‘I know, Bette. We’re past that, okay?’

      We were about to hang up when I remembered that I hadn’t invited Penelope to the BlackBerry party.