LITMIR.BIZ

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brioche, halfheartedly fending off a sandy-haired, somewhat beefy-looking guy I’ve seen many times before. He’s at all of Elspeth’s parties and I think he must be one of her junior lawyers, but I can never remember his name. Miranda has a permanent tan from growing up in Trinidad, and her mother, like my dad, is half-Indian.

      “Fascinating,” the sandy-haired guy was saying. “I had no idea such a unique mixture of beauty was actually possible. Your father’s Chinese?”

      Miranda smiled oddly and pulled me toward her.

      “Meet my cousin Nancy,” she told him. “This is…um…Christopher. I’ll be back!” she added, pulling me in yet another direction. “Let’s get Nancy a drink.”

      “Well, I guess Matt can keep him busy,” I said. “How’s everything?”

      “Oh, fine, now that you’re here! All these men keep hitting on me!” she complained. “I thought you’d never arrive. And that…Christopher. He keeps talking about how exotic I am. You know, I feel like an object,” she said in a low bitter voice.

      The terrible twenties! She really believes she doesn’t want all this attention. Even though she’s wearing a cropped cashmere sweater and the tightest Dolce & Gabbana pants I’ve seen in weeks.

      “Your outfit’s kind of sexy,” I pointed out, as she steered me toward the champagne. “And your belly-button ring is a definite draw.”

      “Not that kind of object!” she said. “He keeps harping on how exotic I look just because—just because I’m half-Chinese.” And she still has that trace of a Trinidad accent, which suburban New Yorkers like Christopher don’t expect a Chinese-looking girl to have. I don’t have that accent, because I left at the age of two.

      “He meant it as a compliment,” I said. “Be nice to him, he’s trying to be poetic and charming. And don’t take it so personally! To him, you are exotic.”

      “Well, I’m sick of everyone asking me where I’m from,” she told me. “Especially men.”

      “Then go back to Trinidad where everybody will know exactly where you’re from. And you won’t be exotic anymore. But you’d hate having to deal with Trinidadian men. Can you imagine?”

      In this, we’re viscerally united. Neither of us has ever had a boyfriend from the islands. Though she still has the accent, she really can’t go back. Miranda clinked her champagne glass against mine and gave me a rueful smile.

      “I suppose that’s right. Look, here he comes. Mr. Exotic himself.”

      “You just resent him because he’s not wearing one of those strange little goatees. He’s a nice guy! Let him take you out to dinner sometime.”

      “Oh, he’s not my type,” she sighed, rolling her eyes at me as if I were one of our great-aunts. Except that she would never actually roll her eyes in that way at any of our great-aunts. It would have to be done on the sly.

      Christopher and Matt were heading toward us, led by Elspeth, who was dressed in party Manolos, black satin capris, and a transparent silk T-shirt. Elspeth is one of those A-cup gals who can maintain her respectability in a see-through blouse. Her short auburn hair topped off a smooth, pretty line that ended at her pointy toes. An audible “Nancy!” startled a few guests. That brittle voice takes some getting used to—it doesn’t really go with her pixielike features. “Miranda!” Much air-kissing. “Being engaged to my little brother really agrees with her!” she exclaimed. “You look different tonight. Isn’t she radiant!” she said to Matt and Miranda. “I swear to god, you’re glowing, Nancy.”

      That’s because, while rushing Etienne through his session, I felt obliged to throw in a real orgasm. A man won’t think of you as a pleasure-pinching hooker if you take a little time out for an orgasm. If, just minutes ago, he felt the tremors of your clitoris against his tongue, it’s a cinch to get him off, then send him out early, feeling pleased with himself.

      I glanced around at all the high-heeled guests and felt a twinge of ambivalence. Should I have worn sluttish stilts instead of flats? Nobody would guess that less than one hour ago I was lying in bed with my thighs wrapped around the face of a gray-haired man, conjuring up degrading fantasies (with Matt in the lead role) so I could get my orgasm over with, already. Not with all these women gliding around on their party stilts while I stand here in my shiny good-girl flats. Deep cover.

      “Men are dogs,” Elspeth was saying. “Jason promised to be here no later than six! To help! Yeah, right. He’s stuck in a meeting and he totally forgot. Did you get my e-mail?” she asked. “About the fabric dyes?”

      “I haven’t had a chance to log on all day,” I explained. “I was, um, trying to get this project finished and I got sort of caught up—overwhelmed by it.”

      “And listen, there’s this website that—don’t knock it till you try it—helps you organize your wedding. I wish this had been around five years ago, when I got married. Take it from me, the Day will go more smoothly if you break it down into components. They have a private chat list for anxious brides. Lucy, my colorist, says they discuss everything.” She cast a meaningful glance at Matt, to indicate the Girls Only quality of the list.

      “Really? Like, first-night jitters?” Matt said, with a mischievous smirk.

      “No.” Elspeth pretended to be annoyed. “Lingerie and bouquets. So, Nancy: this project that keeps you so busy. What’s the latest? Are you almost done?”

      Miranda turned away from Christopher and leaned in to hear more. I felt a quiver of insecurity in my solar plexus, which I tried to quell with champagne, then managed to make a few non-remarks about my fake job. Matt, Elspeth, my family, his family—they all think of me as a part-time slacker who does copyediting for extra money. Miranda is so clearly a girl with an allowance that any relative of hers can be tarred with the same brush, so Matt assumes that my work supplements a modest income from my parents.

      Fortunately, most people think the doings of a copy editor are pretty boring. It’s easy to get them distracted from my supposed job: Just talk about it! The subject usually changes, quite rapidly, when I explain that my current “project” is a massive treatise on Eastern medicine that the author hopes to translate into German. It’s important to mention a language that is totally unsexy.

      “How did you meet this guy?” Elspeth asked. “This—what is he, an acupuncturist? And a chiropractor? From where?” She wasn’t letting go of the subject as easily as I had hoped.

      “Oh, ah, he’s a family friend of the translator,” I explained. “She’s going to translate the whole thing when I’m finished, and we’re having this terrible problem because a file got corrupted and he only made one backup.”

      Christopher was trying to look interested and Matt was examining the wine bottles as Elspeth went on.

      “And where did he train?” she said, looking directly at me.

      I was stumped. Where did this fictional chiropractor learn how to be an acupuncturist? She was waiting for an answer.

      “Uh, you mean his computer training or his medical training?” I did my best to appear confused. “His computer skills are negligible,” I added.

      Elspeth glanced at Matt and began to say something. Then she stopped. I turned to the bar for another glass of champagne, horrified by my questionable performance. When I came back, Elspeth was having a rather quiet tête-à-tête with her brother. Matt looked up and came closer, to put his arm around my waist while Elspeth gave us both a long, thoughtful stare.

      “So, what’s the publication date?” Elspeth demanded, in a cheery yet ominous voice.

      “Well, I…” Leaning into Matt’s light embrace, I cleared my throat pensively. “The thing is, I made an agreement. I’ve signed a contract not to discuss—I’m not

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