"Who?" I asked sleepily.

"Sanford, of course."

"No!"

"I know. It's way too late for a married man to be at a divorced girl's house. Especially a cute divorced girl. I had to virtually call his own security to get rid of him. Do you like that new gardenia oil everyone's suddenly wearing? It makes you smell like Hawaii."

"What?" I said.

"Do you notice how I constantly A.D.D. from one subject to the next?"

"What did Sanford want?" I switched on the light and sat up a little in bed.

"Oh, you know, that...Of course, I didn't do a thing, which made him crazy. I don't do married men, I think it's un-chic. G.o.d, I'm sorry it's taken me so long to call you back. It's totally my fault. I've been really sick actually, couldn't do a thing. Anyway, what do you think of this whole gardenia oil thing?"

"I love it, but I don't know where you get it," I said.

"Bond No. 9. You can have mine. I really can't stand that everyone's gone all gardenia crazy downtown. Milton says I have to wear a gardenia in my hair the next time I throw one of my dinners, and that I should go barefoot. You should come to the next one."

"I'd love to-"

"-sorry," she interrupted. "Can you hold on a second?"

Lauren broke off. In the background I could hear another phone ringing. Lauren picked it up.

"Yes, darling...I miss you too," I could hear her saying. "Oh, Noopy-Noo, no...can I call you back? What time is it there?...OK? Later."

She came back to the telephone.

"Oh! Drama-erama." She sighed.

"Who was that?"

"Why don't we have lunch tomorrow?" said Lauren, ignoring my question.

"Sure," I said. I could ask her about Alixe Carter then. "Where?"

"Let's decide in the morning. Can I call you at eleven?"

Lauren called me absolutely on the dot of eleven the next morning at the studio. Frankly, I found her punctuality surprising and somewhat encouraging. Maybe Lauren wasn't as terrible as she claimed, after all.

"G.o.d, I'm not late, am I?" she said when I picked up. "No. It's literally one minute before eleven," I answered.

"You're going to think I'm absolutely the flakiest girl ever, but I have to cancel our lunch. I'm so gutted."

So was I. What was I going to do about Thackeray's dress project?

"Is everything OK?" I asked.

"Oh, G.o.d, it's totally fine, but, well, it's complicated. Lunch just isn't even vaguely possible."

"I was wondering if you could help me with a work thing? Do you want to go for tea instead?" I suggested hopefully.

"Oh, that would be so nice. But I can't. I'm stuck in Spain."

Lauren was in Madrid. Of course she was. Lauren, I soon came to realize, found staying in any one place longer than a heartbeat physically and emotionally impossible. Still, it was certainly ingenious to be in New York in the middle of the night and in Madrid the next morning. How had she gotten there?

"Prive," she said in a low voice. "It wasn't Sanford's plane or anything. It's this friend of mine. He booked a plane to go to Madrid last night and kept bugging me to go, and I guess at like 3 A.M. I thought it might be nice to spend the weekend in the mountains here. They've got the most fabulous horses, and I was desperate to ride, but now I'm here I wish I was having lunch with you. I'm sorry. Do you hate me?"

"No, don't be crazy. What are you doing there?"

"Put it this way. Phase one of the Make Out Challenge is accomplished. One down! I had a Make Out with a Matador. I'm totally over him already."

Lauren was as giddy as a schoolgirl. This was certainly rapid progress. Then she sighed and said, "The thing is, Mr. Madrid, who really is a part-time bull-fighter, looked divine over the kedgeree on the plane last night, but now I'm in his weird house in the hills with him, and the plants are giving me total claustrophobia. There're so many palm trees in the courtyard it's like The Day of the Triffids. But in the pursuit of my goal I must suffer it." Lauren now sounded as solemn as a nun who has just taken a vow of celibacy. "He's the first Make Out of my plan."

"What was he like?" I asked her.

"Put it this way. Matador Make Out really took it out of me. Kissing a Spaniard is icky. They literally suck your tongue, like they want to swallow it. Ugh! I'd have an American who did that arrested. Needless to say, the shaved sable from Revillon, you know, the little pea coat with the antique b.u.t.tons, is en route from Paris. I'm hoping it'll be back in New York before me. I must mark each Make Out with a huge surprise for myself, n'est ce pas? After all, kissing a strange man is agony. The foreign saliva and everything...it's like lukewarm oatmeal."

"Ugh!" I laughed. "You definitely deserve a major fur."

"G.o.d, I have to get out of here," declared Lauren, "I'll call you the second I'm back in town. Sending you a big kiss."

I don't usually mind about a girl being flaky, or canceling lunch, but Lauren took the Flaky New York Girl thing to the edge of acceptability. Let me explain. A certain amount of flakiness, last-minute canceling, letting-down, and general uselessness in the friendship department is the norm in New York among a certain set. The fact is that very pretty, well-to-do girls are allowed to let everyone else down more than their less attractive, less liquid counterparts. Lauren had taken the art of flakiness to another level. She constantly let people down, but with such charm that her flakiness was not only widely accepted but considered rather alluring. Still, what wasn't at all charming were the next two days I spent at the studio, with Thackeray constantly asking if I had gotten hold of Alixe Carter yet.

The next thing I heard from Lauren, a few days after Milton had come over, was via messenger. That Thursday I was working from home and keeping an eye on Milton's army of workers (who, I must say, had done wonders in only a few days) when a package arrived with a lilliputian envelope on top. It was of the palest pink, and inside was a matching postage-stamp-size note on which was written, in hot pink ink, Sorry! Lunch 1 pm Blue Ribbon? x.x.xx L There is nothing like composing an apology to leave a New York girl feeling slightly unhinged. This surely explains the current vogue for monogrammed note cards of dimensions so diminutive (2" by 3" is the smallest currently available) that they are barely able to contain more than four words. Divine dinner darling! Cecile x is about the most you can get on a card, and that's if you use both sides. Some unkind people have started to say that Manhattan girls favor minuscule writing cards with no room to say anything because they have nothing to say.

The thing about Lauren's flakiness is that it's all-encompa.s.sing. It's not just about canceling. It also includes making brand-new arrangements that are as last-minute as last-minute cancellations. When a flake springs "plans" there is no recourse, because they are probably plans you are extremely interested in having.

For a moment, while reading Lauren's chic little card, I felt like telling Lauren that I already had plans. Meanwhile, I grumpily unwrapped the little package. Inside was a heavy gla.s.s bottle of the Bond No. 9 gardenia oil perfume-named, incidentally, New York Fling. There was also an old-fashioned atomizer, very chic, covered in orange calfskin with a bright green squirter on top. I couldn't help being thrilled by such a decadent item. I decanted the perfume into the atomizer and sprayed a little on my wrist. It smelled delicious. Maybe I didn't have plans after all.

I called Thackeray and warned him that I might be gone the whole afternoon. He thought it was worth it if we could get Alixe into a fitting in the studio. G.o.d, I thought, as I dressed for lunch later that morning, I hardly knew Lauren, and now I was going to have to ask her to help me out of an embarra.s.sing situation involving her very close friend. I threw on a new pair of chocolate brown velvet Hudson jeans and a white cashmere car coat. If my emotional state was anxious, I hoped my outfit disguised it.

Much to my surprise, Lauren was already at Blue Ribbon, on the corner of Downing and Bedford, when I arrived. She was sitting at a round table by the window of the cute little restaurant. She was draped in a ruffled mocha-colored chiffon dress. Despite the autumnal chill in the air, her legs were bare, and she had pastel pink Jimmy Choo alligator mules on her feet. A soft green fox fur stole was thrown casually over her seat back. She looked remarkably rested for someone who had flown across the Atlantic twice in as many days. As I walked over to her, I scanned the restaurant. There were at least four girls in white car coats, I noted, disappointed in myself. In New York the fashion cycle is always on fast forward. In any other American city it takes at least a season for something to be "over." Here, it takes just one lunchtime.

"You look like Jackie O," said Lauren when I reached her. She got up, hugged me, and kissed me on both cheeks. "I love that coat."

"It's hideous. You look amazing," I replied, kissing her back.

"Ugh! I look horrible," said Lauren, pulling at her dress. "I feel like a hog."

Although both of us looked fine, it is compulsory for lunching girls, wherever they are in America, to swap compliments on the other's incredible fashion sense. They must then swap remarks of a self-loathing nature about their own style. You learn the script in high school, right after the pledge of allegiance. The main point is never to ad-lib and mistakenly accept a compliment.

When that was out of the way we sighed simultaneously and sat down. A waiter came up and took our order-two c.o.kes, steak frites, no salad.

"I'm starving." said Lauren. "Let's get right down to it. What can I help you with?"

"Well, it's about your friend, Alixe, the one who invited me to the shower."

"That's so weird. I was going to ask you something about Alixe," said Lauren, looking surprised.

"What?" I said, suddenly intrigued.

"No, you ask first," said Lauren, smiling.

I just came out with it and told Lauren the whole sorry story, from start to finish.

With that, Lauren picked up her cell phone, dialed Alixe Carter, and ordered her to wear Thackeray Johnston to her ball in January. From what I could gather from the conversation, Alixe Carter did whatever Lauren told her.

"Done. Alixe will be at the studio for a fitting this Monday, September 20th, at 2 P.M. I'll wear Thack to her ball too if it helps," she promised, snapping her phone shut. "Oh, G.o.d, delicious, thank you," said Lauren as a waiter appeared with two c.o.kes. Lauren drained hers in two seconds flat, as though she hadn't drunk in month. "Isn't c.o.ke the most delicious thing in the world? I've tried giving it up a thousand times, but I absolutely can't. It's easier quitting smoking, which I also can't do."

A few minutes later, the waiter brought our food and set it on the table. Lauren looked at hers and said, "Can I just get a radish salad?" and handed it straight back to the waiter. Then she said, "I was going to ask you a huge favor, to help me out with something-"

"Of course," I said. "You've just done me the biggest favor ever."

"I want you to be my maid of honor," said Lauren with a sweet smile.

"You're marrying Matador Make Out?"

"No. For my divorce shower."

"I'd love to," I said. It sounded hilarious.

It soon became clear that Lauren's main directive for the maid of honor was for her to ensure that no husbands were brought to the event. Each guest must bring one eligible man, as specified on the invitation, but a "good one," as opposed to one of a handful of known walkers who reappeared year after year on the party circuit, mainly because they were unmarriageable. A "good one" was defined as a man in possession of an interesting, high-paying career, although the higher paid the career, the less interesting it needed to be. Computer work was OK, for example, if you were Mr. Skype. Other requirements included a full head of hair, real estate ("No renters," Lauren decreed), and, if possible, an inheritance.

"Not that I'm looking for a husband," said Lauren coyly. "I'm only looking for Make Out Number Two. The main point is that the divorce shower is a smoocherama where the divorcee finds herself in a room of married women and single men. Zero compet.i.tion. Oh, except I might have a select few of the Debutante Divorcees there...Salome, and Tinsley...they're so fun. G.o.d, I hope you don't mind organizing this at the last minute. I can give you a list of guys. I hope I'm not being too...flaky," she said.

"It's not flaky at all," I said, thinking, How could anyone be flakier?

6.

Husband-hunting.

Was there something slightly dangerous, I asked myself later that Friday night, when I'd got home after my impromptu lunch with Lauren, about a new wife like me organizing a husband-free party that was celebrating a divorce? Something was bothering me. It wasn't that I felt guilty exactly, but I did have some sense that it wasn't quite appropriate for a newlywed to be involved-or to be quite so thrilled with her role. The truth was, I secretly found other newlyweds insufferable. The divorce shower, I thought, would be a marvelous antidote to the bourgeois fixations of newly married couples, who seem unable to discuss anything other than the Waterworks tiling in their new kitchens or their attempts to "try" for a baby. Episiotomies and ovulation cycles should be banned as conversation topics after 7 P.M. in mixed company. It makes everyone feel queasy.

Early that evening I called Hunter-it must have been eleven o'clock his time-to tell him about the divorce shower. As long as my husband knew what I was up to, I was doing nothing wrong. And if he said he didn't want me involved, I'd quit as maid of honor.

"Darling, can I call you back later? I'm still at dinner," he said when I got through on his cell.

I could hear lots of jollity in the background, and several American and British accents. It sounded as though Hunter was having fun.

"Yes, of course. Miss you, honey," I said, putting down the phone.

I wasn't going out that night, so I decided to eat dinner in bed, watch an episode of Entourage I'd missed, and wait for Hunter to call back. This felt deliciously decadent. Hunter absolutely forbids eating in bed-he thinks it's indecent or something-but I think it's unbelievably civilized. It felt amazing to be bed-bound, eating Chinese food in a vintage silk nightdress, with no one to worry about. Before Hunter could call back, I had fallen asleep. He must have known not to disturb me, because when I woke up that Sat.u.r.day morning, he still hadn't called.

As soon as I had roused myself I called Hunter at his hotel. He was living-in some style, I imagined-at the Hotel Bristol when he was in Paris. It's one of the nicer old hotels there.

"Monsieur Mortimer is not 'ere," said a rather curt Frenchman at the other end of the line. "'E not 'ere all day."

I wondered what he had been doing. Wistfully strolling the streets of Paris thinking of me, I hoped. Maybe he was buying me unbelievable handmade lace camisoles at Sabbia Rosa. Except I hadn't told him about Sabbia Rosa, and we all know that husbands have to be told exactly what to surprise their wives with. I made a note to myself to mention it, extremely casually, the next time I spoke to him.

"Can you give Monsieur Mortimer a message when he gets back?" I said.

The reception desk put me through to a voicemail, where I left an overly long, lovey-dovey, missing-you type message involving sending many smooches over the line to Hunter.

"Kiss-kiss-kiss darling."

Next I called Hunter on his cell. It rang a few times, and then there were three beeps and a voice said, "Please. Try. Later." I called back a few times, but the phone obviously wasn't working. Maybe the French made it impossible for U.S. cell phones to function there, just like they did everything else American. Oh well, I'll email him, I thought. I sat in my dressing gown at the desk Milton had provided for Hunter in the library and typed the following: Dearest darling husband, Your wife misses you very much. She has been sucked into a terrible Debutante Divorcee plan involving non-husbands and hopes you don't object. By the way, if you are in the Rue Des Saintes Peres and are uncontrollably drawn toward a store called Sabbia Rosa, do follow your instincts and go in, as your wife loves Sabbia Rosatype surprises. Call me, baby!

x.x.xx S Having come clean about the divorce shower, I went to bed dreaming of Sabbia Rosa satin. On Sunday morning, Hunter still hadn't called, so I rang the Bristol again. The hotel operator took a little while trying to find Hunter's room, and then announced, "There is no Monsieur Mortimer staying here. He must have checked out."

"No, he's definitely there," I insisted. Where else would he be?

"I check again..." there was a pause and I could hear the operator tapping at computer keys. "No. It says here he checked out on Friday. 2 P.M. Au revoir."

The line went dead. I slowly hung up. My stomach suddenly felt like a cement mixer. Hunter had checked out? Where was he? That Sunday, for the first time in my brief marriage, I started to seriously wonder about Hunter. I adored him, but did I really know him after six months? Hunter had only been gone a week or so, but could I trust him? I felt myself sinking into a ghastly Sunday-ish depression as the day went on. Even a chirpy call from Milton saying he'd found the most beautiful antique chandelier at Les Puces didn't cheer me up. Who cared about lighting your house with Venetian crystal when there was no husband to be lit by it?

"Have you seen Hunter?" I asked.

"Er..." Milton stuttered.

"What? What is it?"

"Haven't even caught a glimpse of him. The chandelier is wonderful-"

"-if you see him can you, maybe, the thing is..."

Completely unexpectedly, I burst into tears.

"Sylvie, what is it?" said Milton, concerned.

"I just need to speak to him. I can't find him, and it's all suddenly really stressful, this whole...being married thing."

"Well, I know we're seeing him tomorrow."

"We?"

"Sophia's arranged it."

Sophia. The Harajuku-slash-almost-queen-of-France girl, with legs.

"Why has Sophia 'arranged it'?" I asked, slightly peeved.