Fourth Comings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [49]
“It’s Libby Lu meets Dylan’s Candy Bar meets Alice’s Tea Cup,” my sister gushed. “You know that cute place on the Upper West Side?”
The MILFs cooed appreciatively.
“Genius!”
“Just what this city needs!”
(And, of course…)
“OTB!”
“Well, go out of your way to tell your husband to tell my husband,” Bethany said pointedly. “Because he won’t listen to me.”
That Bethany doesn’t see any difference between DONUT HO’ and the Be You Tea Shoppe is totally beyond my comprehension. I might have even said this if the MILFs hadn’t suddenly turned their attentions on me. I knew what was coming next.
“So, Jessie,” asked Dierdre, “what’s new and exciting in your life?”
I played it coy. “Oh, nothing much.”
“Oh, stop it!” Meredith insisted.
“We’re boring mommies who live vicariously through you!” Liesl insisted.
“How’s that hot bad-boy boyfriend of yours?” Dierdre asked.
“Oh, didn’t you hear? He’s reformed,” Bethany piped in. “He’s a Princeton man now….”
“Oh, la-di-da,” Liesl trilled. “Your sister says your Princeton man is quite the swordsman….”
I shot my sister a horrified look.
“Jessie! I never said anything like that. Liesl, you tell her the truth.”
“No, she never said that,” she confessed. “No, I believe her actual words were ‘quite the cocksman.’”
“Liesl!” My sister jerked with irritation and spilled her Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay on the slate patio.
I knew Liesl was lying. My sister would never use either term.
“Just tell us one of your stories,” Meredith implored. “We all love your stories.”
I am twenty-two years old. Single. No kids. These women have totally fetishized me.
“Okay,” I said, relenting. “A few weeks ago I was hit on by a drag queen named Royalle G. Biv….”
The MILFs clapped and whooped in anticipation.
Yes, ladies, gather round. It’s time for the boffo single-girl-in-the-city spectacular you’ve all been waiting for, The Jessica Darling Show, starring none other than that fabulous, funny twentysomething herself, Jessica Darling!
thirty-one
“I’m friendly with someone sort of famous….”
“Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace!” My sister had heard this story already, but was up for it again.
“Cinthia Wallace?” asked Meredith. “The party-girl-turned-writer-turned-philanthropist?”
“The same,” I said.
“The one who just got a huge inheritance from her father?” asked Liesl.
“The same.”
“You know her?” asked Dierdre skeptically.
“Yes,” I said with a sigh.
“How?”
“Look, do you want me to tell the story or not?”
“Yes!!!”
“Anyway, she asked me to join her at this event called Shit Lit that’s held once a week in this cabaret slash club on the Lower East Side.”
“What club?” Meredith asked.
“Why do you care?” Dierdre snapped.
“You won’t know it,” Liesl added.
“I might,” Meredith said.
“You haven’t been out clubbing since 1998,” Dierdre replied.
“It’s called Come,” I said.
Meredith pretended to contemplate whether she was familiar with this club. The others mouthed “I told you so” to one another.
I pressed on. “So at Shit Lit, performance artists and actors and writers read from the worst books ever written.”
“Like what?” Meredith asked.
“Always with the questions, Dorothy,” cracked Dierdre.
“Someone read from Leif Garrett’s autobiography, I Wasn’t Made for Dancin’: The Ups and Downs and Ins and Outs of the Ultimate ’70s Pinup. And every Shit Lit includes a segment known as ‘Thirty Seconds of Pat Jamison,’ which is a dramatic reading of the worst paragraph in the latest bestseller from Pat Jamison’s hacktory.”
“I kinda like his books,” my sister said. “They’re quick reads.” She looked at the others for support. Liesl seemed with her, Dierdre and Meredith against. I doubt my sister will read another Pat Jamison paperback.
“So Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace wrote a book when she was seventeen, all about going undercover at a suburban New Jersey high school.”
“I remember that book! Came out