man—other than Peter—since my twenties. And my twenties were a long time ago.
Tomorrow was the third anniversary of Peter leaving me, the third anniversary of me being alone, the third anniversary of the day that I began to realize that being successful and being desirable are evidently mutually exclusive.
It was becoming increasingly obvious that as long as I kept climbing the corporate ladder, I was destined to be alone.
Chapter Two
I t’s not you, it’s them,” said Meg at brunch the next morning—my Happy-Anniversary-of-Being-Undesirable Brunch, if you want to get specific—looking at me with thinly masked concern.
“You sound like a bad breakup line,” I mumbled, still wondering why we’d had to move our usual brunch time from 11 am up to 9. Who did brunch at 9 am on a Sunday? This
so
wasn’t brunch. This was breakfast. I felt like we were cheating.
Of course, my mood wasn’t helped by the fact that, due to lingering depression over celebrating the three-year marker of my apparently endless singledom, I had been at home alone, awake until 3 am, during which time I had polished off six Bacardi Limón and Sprites (okay, to be fair, six Bacardi Limóns on the rocks—with splashes of Sprite), had plunged headfirst into the tray of brownies my overly helpful secretary, Molly, had brought me at work on Friday, and had then proceeded to smoke an entire pack of cigarettes. And I didn’t even smoke. Well, not that often, anyhow. I smoked when I was drinking too much and wanted to feel sorry for myself. I was a Sulky Smoker.
And yes, I knew it was a disgusting, terribly unattractive habit and that I was slowly killing myself. I was well aware. But I had the situation under control. I’d made a deal with Fate. Whenever Fate wanted to send me a guy who wasn’t scared of me, I’d quit smoking—cold turkey. In the meantime, I didn’t see the harm in lopping years off my life. And besides, what goes better with Bacardi than a Marlboro Light?
Admittedly, I was grasping at straws.
“Were you up late drinking and smoking again?” Meg asked, as if reading my mind. Her wide, gentle brown eyes bored into mine. I shot her a guilty look.
“Maybe,” I said. “But in my defense, I also polished off half a tray of brownies.”
The three of them—Meg, Jill, and Emmie—just looked at me. Okay, for a lawyer, I wasn’t doing the best job of putting on a good defense.
“Fine, fine, so I ate the whole tray,” I said, throwing up my hands in mock surrender. “So shoot me.”
I had never been good at anniversaries. Even happy ones. I hated the pressure they put on me. With Peter, I had freaked out over what to get him for our first anniversary and had ended up lamely presenting him with season one of
Seinfeld
on DVD while he had bought me a beautiful leather-bound day planner, inscribed with harper roberts, esq. With Chris, the guy I’d dated before Peter, I had baked him a giant heart-shaped cookie that said i love you, chris in chocolate chips, but the edges had burned, the chocolate had melted and smeared, and I basically wound up giving him what looked like a charred Frisbee with unintelligible chocolate smears.
See, I was a disaster at anniversaries. But the bad anniversaries—like today—were especially dreadful. Thus, the overeating, overdrinking, and resumption of the gross habit of smoking.
“You’re never going to find a guy sitting on your terrace and drowning your sorrows, Harper,” Jill proclaimed a bit smugly, tossing her sleek blonde hair (touched up on a biweekly basis at Louis Licari’s salon on Fifth Avenue, in case you were wondering) over her shoulder. I didn’t even try to mask the fact that I was glaring at her. Since she had gotten married six months earlier, she had suddenly become very comfortable—
too
comfortable—dispensing advice, as if her status as a Married had made her a sudden expert in all things love-related. I had thus far restrained myself from reminding her of
Tomorrow was the third anniversary of Peter leaving me, the third anniversary of me being alone, the third anniversary of the day that I began to realize that being successful and being desirable are evidently mutually exclusive.
It was becoming increasingly obvious that as long as I kept climbing the corporate ladder, I was destined to be alone.
Chapter Two
I t’s not you, it’s them,” said Meg at brunch the next morning—my Happy-Anniversary-of-Being-Undesirable Brunch, if you want to get specific—looking at me with thinly masked concern.
“You sound like a bad breakup line,” I mumbled, still wondering why we’d had to move our usual brunch time from 11 am up to 9. Who did brunch at 9 am on a Sunday? This
so
wasn’t brunch. This was breakfast. I felt like we were cheating.
Of course, my mood wasn’t helped by the fact that, due to lingering depression over celebrating the three-year marker of my apparently endless singledom, I had been at home alone, awake until 3 am, during which time I had polished off six Bacardi Limón and Sprites (okay, to be fair, six Bacardi Limóns on the rocks—with splashes of Sprite), had plunged headfirst into the tray of brownies my overly helpful secretary, Molly, had brought me at work on Friday, and had then proceeded to smoke an entire pack of cigarettes. And I didn’t even smoke. Well, not that often, anyhow. I smoked when I was drinking too much and wanted to feel sorry for myself. I was a Sulky Smoker.
And yes, I knew it was a disgusting, terribly unattractive habit and that I was slowly killing myself. I was well aware. But I had the situation under control. I’d made a deal with Fate. Whenever Fate wanted to send me a guy who wasn’t scared of me, I’d quit smoking—cold turkey. In the meantime, I didn’t see the harm in lopping years off my life. And besides, what goes better with Bacardi than a Marlboro Light?
Admittedly, I was grasping at straws.
“Were you up late drinking and smoking again?” Meg asked, as if reading my mind. Her wide, gentle brown eyes bored into mine. I shot her a guilty look.
“Maybe,” I said. “But in my defense, I also polished off half a tray of brownies.”
The three of them—Meg, Jill, and Emmie—just looked at me. Okay, for a lawyer, I wasn’t doing the best job of putting on a good defense.
“Fine, fine, so I ate the whole tray,” I said, throwing up my hands in mock surrender. “So shoot me.”
I had never been good at anniversaries. Even happy ones. I hated the pressure they put on me. With Peter, I had freaked out over what to get him for our first anniversary and had ended up lamely presenting him with season one of
Seinfeld
on DVD while he had bought me a beautiful leather-bound day planner, inscribed with harper roberts, esq. With Chris, the guy I’d dated before Peter, I had baked him a giant heart-shaped cookie that said i love you, chris in chocolate chips, but the edges had burned, the chocolate had melted and smeared, and I basically wound up giving him what looked like a charred Frisbee with unintelligible chocolate smears.
See, I was a disaster at anniversaries. But the bad anniversaries—like today—were especially dreadful. Thus, the overeating, overdrinking, and resumption of the gross habit of smoking.
“You’re never going to find a guy sitting on your terrace and drowning your sorrows, Harper,” Jill proclaimed a bit smugly, tossing her sleek blonde hair (touched up on a biweekly basis at Louis Licari’s salon on Fifth Avenue, in case you were wondering) over her shoulder. I didn’t even try to mask the fact that I was glaring at her. Since she had gotten married six months earlier, she had suddenly become very comfortable—
too
comfortable—dispensing advice, as if her status as a Married had made her a sudden expert in all things love-related. I had thus far restrained myself from reminding her of
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