Lilly almost snorts her coffee. “I’m sorry, come again?”
“You heard me.” Charlotte wiggles her fingers for more rosemary.
“I did,” Lilly admits, pulling a fragrant handful from the bucket on the bar and passing it over. “I’m just wondering if he was also carrying a lunch box, or the place you guys went to was, like, the latest food and beverage offering from celebrity chef Charles Entertainment Cheese—”
“It wasn’tBarneythe Dinosaur,” Charlotte protests. “It was, like, a cool dinosaur.”
Lilly nods seriously. “So, like, a velociraptor.”
Charlotte rolls her eyes. “Like, a Keith Haring dinosaur!”
“Would you call that a cool dinosaur, though?”
“Can you stop?” Charlotte laughs, tossing a purple flower in Lilly’s direction. “I’m trying to talk myself into him, clearly.”
“I can see that,” Lilly agrees, tucking the bloom into her hair for safekeeping. “Did he have, like, an amazing personality or washboard abs or a gajillion dollars to invest in exciting new culinary ventures?”
“He—” Charlotte sighs, sitting down hard in one of the vintage bentwood chairs. “No, not really.”
“So then what’s the point?”
“You know what the point is!”
“I mean, sure,” Lilly says, although the truth is she doesn’t,not entirely. Charlotte has been preternaturally boy crazy since they were teenagers; she’s on about a dozen apps, her phone buzzing with potential matches like a coin-operated bed at all hours of the day and night. Frankly Lilly would rather spend the rest of her life rattling around Pemberly Grove, listening to her mother perseverate on her skin tags, than subject herself to an endless parade of men who come recommended mainly by the fact that their opening salvo was anything other than a picture of their own crooked genitalia.
Charlotte sighs loudly, standing up and plucking the flowers from their vases before starting again. “I saw Junie and Charlie Bingley on the Sinclair,” she announces.
Lilly lifts an eyebrow at the sudden change of subject. “Since when do you read the Sinclair?”
“I don’t,” Charlotte says immediately. “I mean, I do, clearly, I started looking at it when all that stuff was happening with Jamie Hartley going to jail and now I can’t stop, but. I don’t.” She turns back to the flowers. “And speaking of romantic encounters that people in your family had at Rebecca Barnes’s house that I had to read about on a morally gray gossip website: let’s talk about Will Darcy.”
“I hate Will Darcy,” Lilly says immediately.
“Well, my darling,” Charlotte tells her, “in that case, you’re really going to hate that I invited him and Charlie Bingley to dinner tonight.”
“Are you kidding me?” Lilly snaps to attention. “When did you evenmeethim and Charlie Bingley?”
“My parents are at a silent retreat in San Luis Obispo and their dog walker has bursitis,” Charlotte explains with the exaggerated casualness of a person who has purposely buried the lede. “I cameover to take him for a stroll, Will and Charlie were out for a run, et cetera.” She grins. “You know how Arthur is with handsome men.”
“I do,” Lilly says grimly. Arthur is the Lucases’ cranky old schnauzer, who’s deaf in both ears and always smells like tempura batter. Most days Charlotte’s mother can barely drag him out the door for a shuffle around the neighborhood, but last summer he slipped his collar and took off at a dead sprint upon spotting Channing Tatum at the Hollywood Bowl.
“Anyway,” Charlotte continues, “I told you Charlie used to come in for brunch sometimes, back when he was still getting cast as like, Shirtless Bro in the direct-to-streaming production ofCock and Balls 2.”
“So weird how they haven’t added that one to the Criterion Collection.”
“Well, it just wasn’t as good as the originalCock and Balls,” Charlotte deadpans. “Sequels never are. Anyway, he recognized me from here, so he stopped to say hi. It felt rude not to invite him.”
“Oh, right,” Lilly says, looking at her pointedly. “You were just minding your manners.”
Charlotte ignores her. “Your pal Will runs shirtless, PS,” she announces, fussing daintily with a handful of flowering thyme. “He’s got that kind of happy trail, you know, when the hair goes from his belly button right down into his—”
“I know what a happy trail is, Charlotte, Jesus.” She knows about Will’s, too, remembers the feeling of her knuckles rasping against it in the hedge maze at Rebecca Barnes’s ridiculous faux Edwardian estate. Remembers the hard press of his body, the surprising wiriness of him. The heat of his hands through her dress.
Also, she remembers the way the ground momentarily tilted underneath her when she overheard him talking about her to his snotty, elitist friends.
“I’m just saying,” Charlotte tells her now, “if you wanted to wear something extra cute tonight, this is your advance notice.”
“It’s Halloween,” Lilly reminds her. “I’m going to come in costume.”
