A Special Place for Women, Laura Hankin [brene brown rising strong .txt] 📗

“Of course. We miss you around the office,” he replied. “I can’t wait for you to come back to writing full-time and blow everyone away.” Suddenly I had a hard time meeting his eyes. Dammit, I was developing a very inconvenient crush. I turned back to watch Nicole, and Miles turned too. As he brought his hands up to clap for her, his ring flashed in the light.

Yes, in addition to being so kind and so dreamy, Miles was also so married.

•   •   •

Now, at Raf’s opening, Margot took in my worn black tights, then my frizzy hair, then the delicate silver chain I wore around my neck. Something shifted in her face at the sight of it. “Oh, your necklace. It’s so beautiful. May I?” She didn’t wait for an answer, simply leaned forward and lifted it up to look at it. The audacity of her, to touch a stranger’s neck! She was probably the kind of person who thought it was no big deal to use her roommate’s toothbrush, except that Margot Wilding had never needed to live with a roommate in her life.

“I’ve been looking for a piece like this. Something antique-chic,” Margot said. She examined the necklace’s pendant—a small art deco flower in silver and green—as another well-wisher pressed up against Raf, monologuing about plantains. “Where did you get it? Is it Prada?”

“No,” I said, suppressing a snort at the thought that I could afford something like that. “It was my mom’s. Or, actually, my grandma’s, and then she gave it to my mom, and now it’s mine.”

“Sweet of your mother to give it to you.”

“Well, she was dying, so she didn’t have much use for it,” I said, the words coming out like a joke, spiky and flippant.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Margot said, letting go of the necklace. She kept her hand where it was, though, and in a soft, quick movement brushed one of her warm fingers against my cheek. “I also lost a mother too young. It’s a shit club to be in, isn’t it?”

“It really is.” For a moment, we truly looked at each other. She seemed on the verge of saying something more, but then one of her hangers-on approached, whispering into her ear. As Margot turned her head to listen, I caught a glimpse of a tattoo behind her other ear, a dark bird in flight. A raven, maybe? Margot nodded, then put her hand on Raf’s shoulder. The other person who’d been talking to him ceded the floor immediately.

“I have to go to another event,” Margot said, “but I’m glad I got to see what all the hype was about.”

“All the hype?” Raf said, and flushed, tugging on his cap again. “Oh man. I hope we lived up to it.”

“Adorable,” Margot said. “You’re totally a Virgo, aren’t you?”

“Um, I think so?”

“Well, you more than lived up to it. I’ll be eating here all the time, if I can get a reservation.” She smiled, then widened her eyes as if the most wonderful idea had just occurred to her. “I’m having a party Thursday night. Just an intimate gathering. You must come. I’m sure my friends would love to hear about the restaurant and support you in any way they can. Let me give you the address.” She dug in her bag for a pen. “I don’t have any paper . . .” She looked around, then grasped Raf’s forearm and scribbled an address in Soho onto his bare skin, marking him, writing the street name in looping cursive. No apartment number. Was she having it at a restaurant, or did she simply live in the entire building?

Maybe the address that Margot was scrawling on Raf’s arm was that of the Nevertheless clubhouse. No, they wouldn’t have a party with men allowed in there. Their clubhouse was reserved for more secretive things. Worshipping one another’s menstrual blood or sitting around feeling smug about their successes while professing to feel concerned about the world.

“Come by any time after nine,” Margot said. Power move to have a party on a weeknight, declaring that the benefit of being around you was worth the hangover at work the next day. “It was nice to meet you, Rafael.”

“Oh, you can just call me Raf, everyone does,” he said.

She smiled. “I’ll see you at the party, Raf.” As she turned to go, she glanced my way. “You should come too, Julia.”

She waved, then swept out the way she’d come, people’s heads turning to follow her. Raf looked after her, somewhat flummoxed. “Okay, so she’s famous?” he asked, and I nodded. He looked down at the address on his arm. “I’m going to sweat this off in about five minutes.”

“You must go,” I said, rolling my eyes, as I pulled out my phone and took a picture of the number for him. “God, I bet all the Nevertheless crew will be there. Maybe if you get really lucky, they’ll make you their male sacrifice.”

“What are you talking about?” Raf asked. “What is Nevertheless?”

“Oh, Raf, you pure and beautiful boy,” I said. “It’s a secret club of elitists who’ve crawled so far up one another’s assholes that they’ve bought themselves pieds-à-terre up there.” Raf knitted his eyebrows together in confusion, so I went on. “A bunch of rich women who like to feel influential. Though I guess some of them really are. Like Margot, who, if she tweets about your restaurant, will create a line down the block. So you should go to her party.”

“Well, then,” he said, shooting me a sly look. “You should come with me, Julia.”

“Right.” I snorted and took one more gulp of my drink, the mint at the bottom flooding into my mouth. I picked it out, less than gracefully. “And go hang out with all of Margot’s friends and feel terrible about myself? No thanks. Besides, it’ll leave you free to get yourself some very important ass. I think she thought you and I were dating, and I think she was disappointed.” A crowd