Last Night at Chateau Marmont Read Free

every single day. The scariest part of the whole thing was what Nola had so brutally spelled out: the chances of Julian ever making good on all that time and money—even with the Sony name behind him—were almost nil.
    “I just hope he knows how lucky he is to have a wife like you,” Nola said, more softly now. “I can tell you, I sure wouldn’t be so supportive. Which is probably why I’m destined to be single forever . . .”
    Thankfully their pasta dishes arrived and the conversation shifted to safer topics: how fattening was the meat sauce, whether or not Nola should ask for a raise at work, how much Brooke disliked her in-laws. When Brooke motioned for the check without ordering the tiramisu or even a coffee, Nola looked concerned.
    “You’re not upset with me, are you?” she asked, putting her credit card in the leather folder.
    “No,” Brooke lied. “I’ve just had a long day.”
    “Where are you headed now? No après-dinner drink?”
    “Julian’s actually got a . . . he’s performing,” Brooke said, changing her mind at the last second. She’d rather not have mentioned his gig at all, but it felt strange lying to Nola.
    “Oh, fun!” Nola said brightly, draining the last of her wine. “Want company?”
    They both knew she didn’t really want to go, which was okay, because Brooke didn’t really want her to go. Her friend and her husband got along just fine, and that was good enough. She appreciated Nola’sprotectiveness and knew it came from a good place, but it was hard thinking your best friend was constantly judging your husband—and he was always coming up short.
    “Trent’s in town actually,” Brooke said. “He’s here on a rotation of some sort, so I’m meeting him there.”
    “Ah, good old Trent. How’s he liking med school?”
    “He’s done actually; he’s an intern now. Julian says he loves L.A., which is surprising—born-and-bred New Yorkers
never
like L.A.”
    Nola stood up and put her suit jacket back on. “Is he dating anyone? If I remember correctly, he’s boring as hell but perfectly cute. . . .”
    “He just got engaged, actually. To a fellow gastro intern, a girl named Fern. Intern Fern, the gastro specialist. I’d rather not imagine what their conversation entails.”
    Nola scrunched up her face in disgust. “Thanks for that visual. And to think, he could’ve been all yours. . . .”
    “Mmmm.”
    “I just want to make sure I still get proper credit for introducing you to your husband. If you hadn’t gone out with the Trent man that night, you’d still just be another Julian groupie.”
    Brooke laughed and kissed her friend on the cheek. She fished two twenties out of her wallet and handed them to Nola. “I’ve got to run. If I don’t get on the train in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to be late. Talk tomorrow?” She grabbed her coat and clutch, offered a quick wave to Luca on the way out, and bolted through the door.

    Even after all these years, Brooke shuddered when she thought how close she and Julian came to missing each other. It was June 2001, a mere month after she’d graduated from college, and Brooke was finding it almost impossible to acclimate to her new sixty-hour workweek, split almost evenly between her nutrition grad coursework, logging internship hours, and a make-ends-meet barista stint at a neighborhood coffee joint. While she’d had no illusions about thedifficulty of working twelve hours a day for $22,000—or so she’d thought—she hadn’t been able to predict the sum strain of long workdays, insufficient salary, too little sleep, and the logistics of sharing a seven-hundred-square-foot Murray Hill one-bedroom with Nola and another of their friends. Which is why, when Nola implored Brooke to join her for live music on a Sunday night, she’d flatly refused.
    “Come on, Brookie, you need to get out of the apartment,” Nola had argued while pulling on a tight black tank top. “There’s some jazz quartet performing and