“What trip?”
“The fabulous trip that we’re going to take to get you over this whole ordeal,” she says. “The trip where you’ll have sex on a moonlit beach with a tall, dark, handsome stranger and regain your mojo.How Hannah Got Her Groove Back!”
I laugh, as Lainey stares at me, stone-faced. “You think I’m kidding?” she asks.
“Oh, I know you’re not,” I say. “But sex with a stranger isn’t going to fix this.”
“It might not fix it…. But it’ll be a damn good start,” she says, then smiles. “And it’s way more fun than musical chairs.”
—
That night as we get settled into bed, I try to distract myself from my heartbreak by asking Lainey about her life.
“There’s not much to tell,” she says, punching her pillow and turning on her side to face me. She is wearing one of my T-shirts as a nightgown, since her bag didn’t make the flight and has yet to be delivered.
“Stop it. You have the most exciting life of anyone I know.”
“People always think that. But it’s like anything else. It’s just work.”
“Any new A-list interactions?”
“Um, let’s see…. Does Debra Messing count?”
“Definitely. I love her.”
“Same. She’s a badass.”
“Did you work with her?”
“No, she was at a party. At Donny Deutsch’s townhouse. Oh—and I also met Matthew McConaughey at Soho House. He was with his wife, Camila. They were so cute together.”
“You do realize that regular people don’t just forget to tell their friends they met Matthew McConaughey?”
“I thought I told you.”
“No, ma’am, you did not.”
She shrugs and says, “At the end of the day, they’re just people.”
“What about your love life?” I say. “Are you still seeing your neighbor?”
“Seeing is a stretch. But yeah, we’re still hooking up,” she says with a laugh. “Though he is kind of old.”
“How old?”
“In his fifties. Oh! Get this. He told me this crazy story about getting his ex pregnant with twins who were then adopted by another guy. They’re, like, twenty now.”
“So he doesn’t see them?”
She shakes her head.
I nod and say, “When’s the last time you really liked someone?”
“I really like Neighbor Guy.”
“No, you don’t. You’d call him by his real name if you did,” I say.
“Well, then I really like Marcus,” she says with a shrug.
Lainey’s use of nicknames started as a joke—a takeoff on the “Ugly Naked Guy” Friends episode. But she took it to another level, largely skipping names altogether. There had been Pilates Guy, Chess Guy, Unicycle Guy, Mafia Guy, Hockey Guy. Occasionally, she had to assign Roman numerals—as in: Firefighter Guy I and II.
In the past, I always felt a little sorry for her, believing that no matter how much fun she was having, she had to be a little lonely. Now she seems like the lucky one. No strings. No worries.
“Tell me more about Matthew McConaughey,” I say, forcing a smile.
“He has the best bod,” she says. “Arms. Chest. Ass. Holy. Shit.”
I smile again, this time for real.
“If he weren’t married…” Her voice trails off.
“You’ve never been with a married man?”
“No. Never. After watching my mother live her life as the other woman? No chance.”
I nod, feeling a wave of guilt that I’ve only been thinking of myself, and that I haven’t once thought of the parallels to Lainey’s mother’s affair. “Have you had any contact with your father?”
“Nope. Not since he didn’t show up for my mom’s funeral,” she says.
