The answering screams are deafening. Applause thunders. The audience leaps to its feet.
And I stand laughing on the stage, soaking in the adulation of over two thousand women, thinking there’s no way life gets any better than this.
Well, if Mr. Forty Seconds of Fury had turned out to be Mr. Four Hours of Foreplay, it would’ve been better, but because men are men, we women can’t always get everything we want, despite the claim of the empowering graphic projected on the wall.
Which is precisely why I own so many vibrators.
* * *
Seven hours later, after the seminar is finished, all the questions have been answered, all the books have been signed, and the last of the audience has finally filtered out the ballroom doors to wreak havoc on the men in their lives with their new, enthusiastically embraced titles of capital-B Bitches—and they have the lapel pins, mugs, and bumper stickers to prove it—I’m exhausted.
Unfortunately, I committed to dinner with Darcy tonight at Xengu, the new hot spot in Tribeca, and there’s no way she’ll let me off the hook, no matter how tired I am. Calling her a foodie would be like calling Jesus a rabbi: accurate, but completely missing the point. Darcy has turned dining out into an art form, and a highly lucrative business. She’s one of the most successful food bloggers in the States.
She’s also the only woman I’ve ever met who can make a grown man soil his pants in fear at the mere sight of her. If a restaurant gets a thumbs-down review from her, its owner might as well close the doors and start over. She’s utterly, unapologetically ruthless.
And brilliant. And loud. And hilarious. If there’s anyone in my life I’d use the L-word for, it would be her.
I’m back in the lobby of my high-rise, awaiting the private elevator that will take me to the penthouse level, when my cell rings. My assistant, Tabby, is carrying it, along with my Hermès bag, my laptop bag, and my rolling travel bag.
Rule #1: Bitches don’t carry their own luggage.
I don’t have to ask Tabby to answer the phone. She fishes it from her pocket, blows her fire-engine red bangs off her forehead, eyes the readout, and holds the cell out to me.
“It’s Darcy.”
I take the phone and say cheerfully into it, “Yo, girlfriend!”
In response, I hear a sigh. “I take it by your lame attempt to sound gangsta you’re running behind schedule?”
“I could be gangsta!” I say defensively.
Beside me, Tabby raises her brows.
Darcy, who is 5’10”, African-American, and weighs somewhere in the vicinity of two hundred fifty pounds, says sweetly, “Sure you could. And I could be Taylor Swift. Now if we’re done living in a fictional universe, can we please talk about how late you’re running? Because I’m not walking into Xengu late. They won’t hold the reservation, even for me.”
The elevator doors slide open. Tabby and I step inside, and the doors close behind us.
“They wouldn’t dare give away your reservation! Don’t they know who you are?”
“Right?” agrees Darcy, reveling in her bulldozer reputation. Her voice turns sour. “But apparently the owner isn’t fond of food critics, because I was told in no uncertain terms that if I were more than ten minutes late, my reservation would be given away, no matter who I am. This place is totallo en fuego, girl! They can afford a few bruised egos.”
When speaking to me, Darcy enjoys peppering her speech with trendy little Spanish phrases, most of them botched. My mother is El Salvadorian, and my father was from Mexico City, and they both spoke Spanish to me when I was growing up, so I speak the language as well…and Darcy thinks she does too. Her Spanglish is atrocious. It’s also highly amusing.
“FYI, Gloria, if you mean ‘completely,’ you just say, ‘total.’”
I call her Gloria when she butchers the language, after Sofia Vergara’s character in Modern Family. Though Gloria’s butchering English, so it’s not really the same, only it is because I said so.
Rule #2: Bitches are never wrong.
“Tch! You ‘totallo’ know what I mean, V! Don’t hate! And don’t change the subject. When are you getting there?”
The elevator doors open again to reveal the elegant marble-and-glass foyer of my penthouse. Tabby and I walk inside. She leaves my handbag on the mirrored console against the wall. The rolling luggage bag she takes into my home office, where she’ll spend the next several hours going through mail, answering emails, scheduling meetings, and generally making my life easier. I pay her an ungodly sum of money, but she’s worth every cent. I couldn’t do what I do without her efficient support. More importantly, she’s proven her loyalty time and again, guarding all my secrets, exercising total discretion in the running of my affairs. She’s one of only two people on earth I can trust.
The ironclad nondisclosure contract she signed when she came to work for me doesn’t hurt.
Still with my phone to my ear, I unbutton my jacket, toss it to the back of a white leather chair in the living room, and head to the master bedroom and my favorite thing in this six-thousand-square-foot ultramodern space I call home: the Jacuzzi bathtub.
“Give me half an hour. If you get there before me, order me a—”