She forced herself to look at him. “If that’s how it feels to you, Kirby, I am sorry. I never meant it that way,” she said. “I thought we were friends, and were just having fun.” Oh God, she thought, that really does sound like a man.
“Fun?” he said.
“Kirby,” she began again. “You’re wonderful, and you’re a young man. You have your whole life ahead of you. You don’t need me in it.” And now I sound like his mother, she thought. “This can’t really be that big a deal.”
“I don’t get it,” Kirby said, turning back to the window. “Maybe I’m missing something. You know, this town sucks.” And after a moment, he exclaimed, “Hey. Did you know that it’s snowing?”
* * *
WELL, NICO THOUGHT, PULLING on her gloves. I just gave a man $5,000 not to have sex with me.
The thought both mildly amused her and made her slightly sad at the same time.
“Home, Mrs. O’Neilly?” Dimitri asked from the driver’s seat, eyeing her in the rearview mirror.
“I’ve got to go back to the office for a minute,” she said, and after a moment, added, “I’m sorry, Dimitri. This is a long day for you. I’m sure you want to go home as well.”
“I like being in the city,” Dimitri said, carefully steering the car out of the driveway in front of Kirby’s building and onto Seventy-ninth Street. “And besides, you’ve gotta work. You gotta do what you gotta do in this town, right?”
“That’s true,” Nico said, feeling guilty again. She looked out the tinted window. Snow was coming down in tiny, glittery flakes, like a shower of diamonds. But it’s over, she corrected herself. She had ended it, and she wouldn’t ever do it again. So, the fact was, she really didn’t need to feel guilty anymore.
What a relief!
Now all she had to do was pray that Seymour would never discover that check she had written to Kirby. But he wouldn’t. She had written the check from her personal and private checking account, and Seymour would consider it beneath him to snoop. And with a tiny smile, she recalled the moment when she’d handed Kirby the check.
“How come nobody ever loves me,” Kirby was moaning, walking in a circle around his living room as he ran his hands over his bare chest. “I’m twenty-eight years old. I want to get married and have kids. Where’s my woman?”
“Oh, please, Kirby,” she finally said, standing up and picking up her bag. “There are hundreds of young women who, I’m sure, are dying to fall in love with you. And if you want to get married, you shouldn’t be wasting your time with women who are already married.”
“So it really is over?” Kirby asked.
“Yes, Kirby. I’m afraid it is.” And then she had taken a check out of her wallet. Naturally, Kirby had protested. “You don’t have to do that,” he said insistently. “I’m not something you can pay off.”
“Don’t be silly, darling,” she said. “It’s not a payment. It’s a present.” And despite his protests, he had taken the check anyway. And then he’d looked at it, his eyes widening at the amount. He folded it up and put it in his back pocket. “Are you sure you don’t want to . . . one more time,” he said, gesturing with his hand. “For old-times’ sake?”
“No, thank you, Kirby,” she said. “I really don’t think it would be a good idea.”
Then she’d walked briskly down the long narrow hallway to the elevator, thinking this was the last time she’d ever be making that journey. Phew.
She leaned her head back against the seat. And now, I will probably never have good sex again, she thought. Should she feel sorry for herself? Probably. And maybe she would, someday. But right now, she didn’t feel sorry. Sex . . . Oh, so what! she thought impatiently. Big fucking deal. She wasn’t a man, ruled by his dick. She was a woman, and she was free . . . Her phone jingled.
“with wendy. r-u at of-is?” read the text message from Victory.
Nico smiled. “in 2 min,” she texted back.
“hve bubbly. wll meet u in 20.”
* * *
WENDY’S MOVIE WAS A hit, they said. It was indisputable. You could always tell by the reaction of the audience, and premiere audiences in New York City were the most blasé in the world. But they had clapped and cheered at the end, all the way through the credits. And then, at the party afterward at the Maritime Hotel, everyone had been in a good mood, like they were actually happy to be there. And that was another sign that the movie was going to be a hit. If it was going to be a flop, people went to the party for ten minutes and then cleared out, Wendy said. She’d been in that situation enough times too.
They were all sitting in Nico’s office, giddy with excitement at Wendy’s big success. “It’s just about staying in the game,” Victory said. “They always want to push you out if they can.” She passed the bottle of Dom Perignon to Nico, who poured the champagne into three crystal tumblers. It was only the best for the CEOs of Splatch-Verner, she thought wryly. “They try, but they can’t,” she said.
“Damn right about that too,” Wendy said, holding up her glass.
“And Selden was so well-behaved. I loved the way he stood near you at the party, and got you drinks, and let you talk to everyone without being insecure and having to stick his snout in,” Victory said. She walked to a glass door and slid it open. “Oh Nico,” she exclaimed, breathlessly. “Your terrace.”
“I know,” Nico said. She felt a little embarrassed about the terrace—in fact, she felt a little embarrassed about her office in general. It was huge, with a built-in bar along one wall, a legacy from Mike, which she had decided to keep. And it had its own terrace. A little sliver of heaven on the thirty-second floor that overlooked Central Park and the fancy buildings on Fifth Avenue, and the sharp buildings that rose up out of midtown like a mighty woods. There were eight offices in the Splatch-Verner building with terraces, and she was the only woman who had one.
Victory stepped out, followed by Wendy. Nico paused at the door, and seeing her friends in a hazy halo of snow, suddenly realized she was happy. This happiness swooped over her like an exultant bird. It caught in her throat and broke free in a gasp of surprise.
Wendy raised her glass. “To us,” she said, and peering over the view into the midtown skyscrapers, added, “You know what they say. It’s a jungle out there.”
“No, girls,” Nico said, walking forward. She opened her arms, as if to encompass the city in her embrace. “It’s a Lipstick Jungle.”
Acknowledgments
My thanks to Bob Miller, Ellen Archer, Leslie Wells, Beth Dickey, Katie Wainwright, and the rest of the brilliant team at Hyperion; and, of course, Heather Schroder.
ALSO BY
CANDACE BUSHNELL
Sex and the City
4 Blondes
Trading Up
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 Candace Bushnell
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Hyperion e-books.
First eBook Edition: September 2005
ISBN 1-4013-8337-8
EPub Edition © 2010 ISBN: 9781401383367
Candace Bushnell, Lipstick Jungle
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