THEN SHE BROKE

Ellen started in with the pressure. "'When are you going to meet my grandfather, she kept asking me. 'He really wants to meet you. "

"I wanted to meet her grandfather," Stephen said. "He was a huge deal. But I couldn't. When you meet someone's grandparents, it means the relationship is real."

To solve his problem, Stephen began pimping for Ellen, trying to fix her up with guys. They would talk about guys she could date. One night, Ellen went to a party where she was supposed to meet

one of Stephen's friends. But the guy wasn't interested in her and she got upset. She went to Stephen's place and they had sex.

A couple of weeks later, Stephen met a girl, a babe, late one night at a party in a grungy loft in TriBeCa. He introduced her to his parents almost immediately, even though he had none of the kinds of conversations with her that he had with Ellen. He continued to sleep with both girls, taking what he had learned from sex with Ellen and applying it to the new girl. Ellen wanted to hear all about it. What they did. What the new girl was like in bed, what she felt like, what they talked about.

Then she broke. She went to Stephen's apartment on a Sunday afternoon. They had a screaming fight. She was punching him, "literally raining down punches on me," Stephen said. She left but called two weeks later.

"We made up on the phone," Stephen said, "and I went to her house for the usual. But when we got to the crucial moment, she kicked me out of bed. I didn't get mad at her.

I was too angry with myself for that, but I respected her, too. I thought, Good for you."

Walden put a knee up against the bar. "About six months after I stopped seeing Libby, she got engaged. She called me and said she was getting married."

"I was in love with Ellen but I never told her," Stephen said.

"I was in love, too," Walden said. "In love in an utterly mundane way."

16. Clueless in Manhattan

There are worse things than being thirty-five, single, and female in New York. Like: Being twenty-five, single, and female in New York.

It's a rite of passage few women would want to repeat. It's about sleeping with the wrong men, wearing the wrong clothes, having the wrong roommate, saying the wrong thing, being ignored, getting fired, not being taken seriously, and generally being treated like shit. But it's necessary. So if you've ever wondered how thirty-five— year-old, single, New York women get to be, well, thirty-five-year— old, single, New York women, read on.

A couple of weeks ago, Carrie ran into Cici, a twenty-five-year— old assistant to a flower designer, at the Louis Vuitton party. Carrie was trying to say hello to five people at once when Cici materialized out of the semidarkness. "Hiiiiii," she said, and when Carrie glanced over at her, she said, "Hiiiii, ' again. Then she just stared.

Carrie had to turn away from a book editor she was talking to. "What, Cici?" she asked. "What is it?"

"I don't know. How are you?" "I'm

fine. Fabulous," Carrie said. "What

have you been up to?"

"The usual." The book editor was about to talk to someone else. "Cici, I. ."

"I haven't seen you for so long," Cici said. "I miss you. You know I'm your biggest fan. Other people say you're a bitch, but I say, 'No, she's one of my best friends and she's not hke that. I defend you."

"Thanks."

Cici just stood there, staring. "How are you?" Carrie asked.

"Great," Cici said. "Every night I get all dressed up and I go out and no one pays attention to me and I go home and cry."

"Oh, Cici," Carrie said. Then: "Don't worry about it. It's just a phase. Now listen, I have to. ."

"I know," Cici said. "You don't have time for me. It's okay. I'll talk to you later." And she walked away.

Cici York and her best friend, Carolyne Everhardt, are two twenty-five year olds who, like most now thirty-five year olds, came to New York to have careers.

Carolyne Everhardt is a nightlife writer for a downtown publication. Came here from Texas three years ago. She's one of those girls with a beautiful face, who is just a bit overweight but not concerned about it—at least not to the point that she'd ever let you think she was.

Cici is the opposite of Carolyne—blond, bone-thin, with one of those oddly elegant faces that most people don't notice because she isn't convinced that she is beautiful. Cici works as an assistant to Yorgi, the acclaimed yet reclusive flower designer.

Cici came to New York a year and a half ago from Philadelphia. "Back then, I was hke a httle Mary Tyler Moore," she says. "I actually had white gloves stashed in my purse. For the first six months, I didn't even go out. I was too scared about keeping my job."

And now? "We're not nice girls. Nice is not a word you would apply to us," Cici says, in an East Coast drawl that manages to be sexy and apathetic.

"We mortify people all the time," Carolyne says.

"Carolyne is known for her temper tantrums," Cici says.

"And Cici doesn't talk to people. She just gives them dirty looks."

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 1165