The Botox Diaries by Janice Kaplan, Lynn Schnurnberger Read Free Book Online

these people? I’ll never guess who Mr. Semi-Famous is, and when I eventually get Lucy to tell me, I still won’t know who the heck he is anyway. Oh, forget it. This is all beside the point.
    I stand up. “Lucy, what are you thinking? And why in god’s name would you do this?”
    She turns to me with a look I can only describe as teenage angst. That glassy-eyed gaze of having found the person, the only person in the world who makes you feel tingly, alive, and whole—and who you also know is going to cause you endless, delicious pain. And it’s more than a little disconcerting to see this look on the face of my friend. My married friend. Who, in my opinion, should grow up and let her own teens have the angst.
    “I don’t know. I don’t know,” Lucy babbles. “It’s all just kind of happened. I mean ‘it’ hasn’t happened. Not yet. But we started with a few dinners out in L.A. and there were some good-night kisses. And then one time I couldn’t sleep so he came to my hotel room and we shared a cognac and we talked until five in the morning.”
    Maybe I should suggest pay-per-view. That’s what puts me to sleep when I’m in a strange hotel room.
    Lucy looks up at me, pleadingly. “I really like him, Jess. He’s all I can think about lately. Is that so awful?”
    It’s too soon for a position paper here. On the one hand I’m appalled. On the other hand, she’s my best friend. I want to understand. My practical side kicks in. “When are you going to see him again?” I ask.
    “I’m supposed to be in L.A. again next week. And it gets even worse. He’s hosting my next show. The pilot I’m doing. We’re going to be thrown together all the time. What am I going to do?”
    “You seem to have decided. Unless you’re buying this lingerie to try to rekindle things at home?” I ask hopefully.
    The color drains from Lucy’s face and I can tell I’ve made her feelawful. She stands upright as the padded hanger drops to the floor with a thud. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. I want to go home and catch the last half of Lily’s soccer game.”
    For once, Lucy’s going back to the suburbs and I have a reason to stay in the city. We say a quick good-bye and I head over to Fifth Avenue, making sure that I’m holding my head up high, despite my cheap lingerie. I walk briskly north to Ninety-second Street and when I get there, I’m slightly sweaty and breathless. Damn. Lucy would never arrive for a business meeting this way. The building is one of those old, elegant Fifth Avenue addresses that requires you to be certified by five old-monied WASPs and the right interior decorator before you’re granted the privilege of plunking down a cool three million bucks to nab an apartment.
    It requires the skill of three doormen to get me inside—one guy opens the door and asks who I’m visiting, the next one announces me via intercom to my hosts, and yet another leads me to the elevator and discreetly whispers my floor to the white-gloved elevator operator. This is an up-to-date, fully automated elevator. So after the attendant pushes the button marked “14” he doesn’t have anything else to do. I figure his job now must be to stand ready to meet my every need. But I’ll be damned if I can figure out what to ask for on our twenty-second ride.
    The elevator door opens into a gracious foyer, complete with a Chinese rug and a white lacquered Parsons table, which boasts a tastefully huge, but not too huge, bowl of fresh-cut peonies. Thick mahogany doors at either end lead to the only two apartments on the floor. They’re unmarked.
    “Fourteen-A is to the
left
,” the elevator attendant says, smirking. So this is why he was put on earth. He waits while I ring the bell and is still standing there when a maid in a gray-and-white uniform opens the door.
    “Okay?” he asks her, as if his bringing me up to the apartment may be a greater intrusion than she could really bear.
    “Yes, fine. Mrs. Beasley-Smith is