The Darlings by Cristina Alger Read Free Book Online Page A

anyone. She had money, she had connections, she had beauty and style and a house in the Hamptons. Therefore, she would inevitably be on the losing end of any friendship. Lily found it difficult to find people to spend time with as a result.
    Lily didn’t altogether disagree with Ines’s assessment of Daria. Daria was a shrew. But she was lively and fun and Lily enjoyed her company. Unlike most of Lily’s Spence friends, Daria actually had a job: She ran Investor Relations at a large private equity fund, a job that suited her looks and her Type-A personality and her unwavering commitment to surrounding herself with highly liquid men. Daria knew everyone in New York. It was her job to. And her boundless energy was infectious: It was nearly impossible to feel listless around her.
Bored on a Tuesday?
Daria had an extra ticket to an art opening and would pick you up in an hour.
Single?
Daria knew a gorgeous hedge fund manager who had just broken up with his girlfriend.
Marital trouble?
Daria would escort you to the New Yorkers for Animals benefit and buy you Bellinis beforehand.
    Only, of course, if you were the kind of person who invited her to your house in East Hampton every August and could introduce her to a managing director at Goldman Sachs. Fortuitously, Lily had done both.
    When Adrian had called to say he would meet her at the party, Lily’s first thought was to call Daria. They met for a quick drink first at the Library of the Regency Hotel, a snug bar that was exactly equidistant between their apartments on Park Avenue. The clientele was mostly neighborhood types: older women with shellacked hair and suspended eyebrows, bankers who needed a scotch before going home to the kids. It was a place where two women in formal attire would not be incongruous.
    â€œAll right,” Daria said when Lily arrived, “What’s going on with Adrian?” She had staked out a corner nook with leather couches, ideally located for watching people and people watching her. Daria loved being watched. She cut a sharp figure in a strapless, plum column of a dress (plum was the color of the season, and it looked decadent against Daria’s perpetually tan skin). A fox fur bolero was wrapped neatly around her shoulders. She had tucked a black feather in her chignon, something Lily felt looked sensational on Daria but that she herself could never pull off. Daria’s arms draped languidly across the back of the couch, and she yawned lightly, as if she were so accustomed to wearing a ball gown that it might be just another Tuesday.
    After kissing Daria hello, Lily perched gingerly on the edge of the opposing couch, trying not to wrinkle herself.
    â€œOh, it’s nothing,” she replied, looking away. As she said it, she realized this was true. “He’s just stuck at work, that’s all.”
    â€œIs he not coming?” Daria probed, trying to assess the problem. Though she looked stunning—Lily always looked stunning—she seemed not herself. She had sounded sensitive on the phone. This had been the case a lot lately, and Daria wasn’t sure what could be done about it.
    â€œOh no, he’ll be there. Just a little late. I didn’t want to walk in alone.”
    With a pinched brow, Daria signaled for the waiter. Lily felt her eyes misting over with tears. She could sense that Daria was growing mildly irritated with her or, at least, tiring of her. And why not: Lily was tiring of herself. She couldn’t explain why, but the inarticulable sensation that something was wrong had been following her everywhere, like a shadow. It lay heavy on her lids in the morning when she woke; it sat with her in the afternoons, gnawing away at her insides as she went about checking her e-mail, having lunch, running on the treadmill. She was becoming a bore.
    â€œI’m being silly,” she said.
    â€œOf course you’re not. He adores you. You know that, don’t you?”
    The waiter