"It's just a dress I was borrowing from Gina," she lied. "She loaned it to me last night, for the occasion."
It wasn't entirely unrealistic — Gina, in her corporate days used to hunt for knockoff designer labels, and Emmy had borrowed a few pieces before — and Natalie was too busy checking out who else was there to make a big deal of it.
"Seriously, though, you look like you belong to that crowd, Emmy. You'd better be careful or you'll get used to it."
"I'll make sure I remember your good advice when I start craving an opera fix, Nat. Now if you don't mind, I'd like to get back to work. And I'd love a cappuccino, when you get the machine started."
There were enough clients trickling in through the morning to keep any further conversation about the evening at bay. On Emmy's phone, on the other hand, it was open season. She'd given up a while ago and replied to Eric, sparking a conversation with undertones of flirtatiousness which, if she was honest, had made her sleep-deprived day that much nicer.
I'm not quite the disciplinarian you seem to imagine, she'd sent back earlier.
Alas. Is this another example of degraded moral standards in our generation?
No doubt. Apparently our work ethic is vulnerable to temptation — that last one made her giggle as she pressed send.
It would take a saint to resist the kind of temptation you provide, dearest Emmy.
And, just as she'd been pondering the directness of that last one, a message had come in from Gina — the soul of brevity:
Spill.
So far, Emmy had managed to avoid replying, largely by being gainfully employed selling books to customers, but she knew it was only a matter of time before Gina sent another volley. Still, she hadn't expected her to call on the office phone.
"It's me," Gina said when Emmy picked up. "I know you're at work, probably busy, can't talk, yada yada. All I'm saying is — I'm meeting you at Jesse's bar at seven tonight, no excuses. And if you haven't slept with him, I will be very disappointed."
"I don't know if I can..."
"Em, don't make me threaten you."
Which was how, after wasting more time exchanging messages with Eric — the result of which was that she was having dinner at his place the next evening — Emmy found herself getting the third degree in her neighborhood bar a few hours later. She was ensconced with Gina in a booth with cracked vinyl seats, they were nursing matching beers, and the vintage jukebox was playing some Johnny Cash.
"You looked pretty swell in that dress, it has to be said. Shame about the rich asshole that came with it," was how Gina opened the conversation, and it had gone downhill since then.
“Hello to you too, Gi. How was your day, when you weren't googling the society pages to stalk me?"
"Oh please, you were so shifty about the whole thing the other day, did you really expect me not to find out who you were seeing?"
"A girl can hope," Emmy said with a grimace, which elicited a pursed-lip snort from her friend, something Gina, with her wide mouth and elegantly arched eyebrows, did better than most. Emmy suspected Gina's mom had given her lessons in the crib. Certainly Emmy hadn't been able to replicate them half as well, and she'd been trying ever since they became best friends in their first year at Columbia.
"At least I can understand why you didn't want to divulge his identity. Because as it happens, I do know a fair amount about Mr. Oswell, and it's not all pretty."
Emmy's heart sank.
"Oh come on, Gina — I mean, I know he's rich and all, but is he really that bad?"
Gina gave her the evil eye.
"He's a money-grabbing asshole, like all these real estate developers are. I can assure you he's done his fair share of damage — expelling community organizations to turn a quick buck re-developing old buildings, getting rid of tenants at short notice, that kind of stuff. He does everything above board but he can afford the best lawyers and he has no scruples about screwing nonprofits. He's a motherfucker in court.”
"You've taken him to court?" This was getting worse.
"Twice. Well, his company, obviously. They won once, but we got them the last time, and got them good. They had to back off this community garden space they wanted to concrete over. I enjoyed that one.”