what?”
“Having an affair with Professor Sobel. I’ve decided that I can handle it.”
“Well, I don’t know what to—I’m coming, Quinn, I’m coming. It’s a friend of mine, she needs my help, too. Okay! Hold on a sec. Cassandra. Are we talking about the same man who
knocked up
Penelope Entenmann?”
“Oh, whatever, Sylvie! I’m on the pill.”
“That’s not the point. The point is—”
“And anyway, she’s the heiress to the coffee cake fortune! She could afford to keep the baby.”
“You couldn’t, Cassandra! You couldn’t afford to keep a baby if you got knocked up and neither could I.”
“Enough about Penelope Entenmann, I beg of you! Are you actually comparing me to a girl who used to give Reiki to butterflies? I’ve been sitting here drinking coffee and figuring it all out. What with me having Edward in Philadelphia—”
“That isn’t a plus, Cassandra. That’s a complication. And anyway—that’s terrible! You love Edward. Why would you want to cheat on him?”
“You’re being so uptight about this, Sylvie!”
“You know what, Cassandra? I don’t think you
do
love Edward. And another thing! I don’t think he really loves
you.
You two don’t know each other; you’re not even close! All you ever do is have a ton of sex and dress up and go to black-tie events!
That’s
one hell of a basis for a relationship.”
Cassandra, to whom it seemed a most excellent basis for a relationship, hung up the phone feeling pissed and thought for the first time in her life that Sylvie was jealous of her. It was so sad, Sylvie not having a boyfriend right now. But why? Sylvie was so pretty. Sylvie was beautiful! Cassandra recalled the sight of her arriving back home in Cambridge in a little black dress and white lace tights, shaking snowflakes from her cap of dark hair…
Later that afternoon, Sylvie got home from work to find Cassandra sitting at the kitchen table in a pale blue baby-doll nightie, her plumpish white legs bare and blond hair rather naughtily tousled. Had she spent the whole day like this? Sylvie wondered.
“Oh my God, I’m so hungry,” she said. “Quinn made me come into the bathroom and wipe him today. He’s
four.
”
Cassandra shuddered. It wasn’t the talk of bodily functions that upset her. It was the talk of children. Children! How she hoped that Edward wouldn’t want them.
Sylvie went into the bathroom, where she was overwhelmed by the baroque splendor of Cassandra’s lingerie going
drip, drop, drip
into the famous claw-foot bathtub. And at the foot of the bathtub was a white French champagne bucket, which the girls had been so delighted to find for a steal at Marshalls, and which they took turns using to handwash their underthings. But the bucket, tonight, was full to the brim with an indeterminate garment of pink-and-apricot lace and rich with the scent of hyacinth soapsuds. So no way Sylvie would be using it anytime soon, even though she was running low on clean underwear.
Then she discovered that they were out of toilet paper. That figured, the way the day was going. She’d have to remember to steal some. In Sylvie’s opinion, only suckers ever bought something you could steal so easily in a restaurant or a train station or even from other people’s houses. She was forever cramming rolls into her tote bags and nobody ever noticed. Keeping the apartment in paper towels, which had given her so much grief, was harder because you couldn’t steal them quite so easily as you could toilet paper. You usually had no choice but to pay for them, damn it.
“Cassandra,” she called from the bathroom, “the next time you go out, remember to steal us some toilet paper, if you happen to think of it.”
“Oh yeah, I keep meaning to. But I just don’t feel comfortable stealing from local businesses and you know how I pretty much never go to chains.” Cassandra was still, at heart, a sweet, diligent, well-trained Cambridge girl who said things like that.
But
“Having an affair with Professor Sobel. I’ve decided that I can handle it.”
“Well, I don’t know what to—I’m coming, Quinn, I’m coming. It’s a friend of mine, she needs my help, too. Okay! Hold on a sec. Cassandra. Are we talking about the same man who
knocked up
Penelope Entenmann?”
“Oh, whatever, Sylvie! I’m on the pill.”
“That’s not the point. The point is—”
“And anyway, she’s the heiress to the coffee cake fortune! She could afford to keep the baby.”
“You couldn’t, Cassandra! You couldn’t afford to keep a baby if you got knocked up and neither could I.”
“Enough about Penelope Entenmann, I beg of you! Are you actually comparing me to a girl who used to give Reiki to butterflies? I’ve been sitting here drinking coffee and figuring it all out. What with me having Edward in Philadelphia—”
“That isn’t a plus, Cassandra. That’s a complication. And anyway—that’s terrible! You love Edward. Why would you want to cheat on him?”
“You’re being so uptight about this, Sylvie!”
“You know what, Cassandra? I don’t think you
do
love Edward. And another thing! I don’t think he really loves
you.
You two don’t know each other; you’re not even close! All you ever do is have a ton of sex and dress up and go to black-tie events!
That’s
one hell of a basis for a relationship.”
Cassandra, to whom it seemed a most excellent basis for a relationship, hung up the phone feeling pissed and thought for the first time in her life that Sylvie was jealous of her. It was so sad, Sylvie not having a boyfriend right now. But why? Sylvie was so pretty. Sylvie was beautiful! Cassandra recalled the sight of her arriving back home in Cambridge in a little black dress and white lace tights, shaking snowflakes from her cap of dark hair…
Later that afternoon, Sylvie got home from work to find Cassandra sitting at the kitchen table in a pale blue baby-doll nightie, her plumpish white legs bare and blond hair rather naughtily tousled. Had she spent the whole day like this? Sylvie wondered.
“Oh my God, I’m so hungry,” she said. “Quinn made me come into the bathroom and wipe him today. He’s
four.
”
Cassandra shuddered. It wasn’t the talk of bodily functions that upset her. It was the talk of children. Children! How she hoped that Edward wouldn’t want them.
Sylvie went into the bathroom, where she was overwhelmed by the baroque splendor of Cassandra’s lingerie going
drip, drop, drip
into the famous claw-foot bathtub. And at the foot of the bathtub was a white French champagne bucket, which the girls had been so delighted to find for a steal at Marshalls, and which they took turns using to handwash their underthings. But the bucket, tonight, was full to the brim with an indeterminate garment of pink-and-apricot lace and rich with the scent of hyacinth soapsuds. So no way Sylvie would be using it anytime soon, even though she was running low on clean underwear.
Then she discovered that they were out of toilet paper. That figured, the way the day was going. She’d have to remember to steal some. In Sylvie’s opinion, only suckers ever bought something you could steal so easily in a restaurant or a train station or even from other people’s houses. She was forever cramming rolls into her tote bags and nobody ever noticed. Keeping the apartment in paper towels, which had given her so much grief, was harder because you couldn’t steal them quite so easily as you could toilet paper. You usually had no choice but to pay for them, damn it.
“Cassandra,” she called from the bathroom, “the next time you go out, remember to steal us some toilet paper, if you happen to think of it.”
“Oh yeah, I keep meaning to. But I just don’t feel comfortable stealing from local businesses and you know how I pretty much never go to chains.” Cassandra was still, at heart, a sweet, diligent, well-trained Cambridge girl who said things like that.
But
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