Chapter 9 Victoria
Ace stood in the doorway of the closet, watching Victoria select an outfit to wear to brunch.
“You’re putting so much thought into this, if I didn’t know any better, I might suspect you’re going on a date,” he said.
“I am,” Victoria said. “A friend date. My very first friend date.”
“May wonders never cease,” Ace said, and whistled. Victoria held up a dress. “That’s nice,” Ace said. “But more importantly, where’s she from? What does she do? What’s she looking for? Something serious, or just a friend fling?”
Good question, Victoria thought. Did people actively seek out specific kinds of friends? What was Liz looking for?
“I’m kidding,” Ace assured her.
“I know—but we’re due at the same time, and she seemed equally out of her depth and possibly also suspicious of the parenting industrial complex pushing EWG-verified diapers.”
“What’s an EWG-verified diaper?”
“Exactly.”
Victoria pulled on a simple A-line dress. “Zip me?” she asked Ace.
Ace did, then circled around to plant a kiss on Victoria’s forehead. “Good luck. And let me know if you want me to text you halfway through and say the roof caved in so you have an out if it’s going badly.”
“The roof caved in? That’s like the dog-ate-my-homework of dating. Did you ever use that excuse?”
“No,” Ace said. “Should have. Would’ve saved me a lot of time and trouble. You can test-drive it!”
“Your faith in my ability to make a new friend is overwhelming.”
Victoria went over to her vanity to put on some makeup and Ace left to play golf.
She thought Ace had exercised remarkable restraint from poking more fun at her—a friend date?
At her age? Not to mention, Ace accumulated friends without even trying.
Then he nurtured these relationships, valuing new acquaintances and long-standing connections alike, so Ace’s circle only moved in one direction: expansion.
When they had first started dating, Victoria stopped short of declaring this a character flaw, but she certainly flagged Ace’s extensive social network as a glaring incompatibility between them.
Ace assured her that he wasn’t planning on dragging Victoria to any event she didn’t want to attend.
As long as Victoria didn’t mind if he grabbed lunch or played pickleball with his buddies from time to time, they’d be fine.
Their guest lists for the wedding had been comedically imbalanced, but so what?
Allison, their wedding planner, had suggested they avoid designating typical bride and groom sections for the ceremony, and Victoria agreed—no need to take a fluorescent highlighter to an already obvious fact.
Victoria had only a paltry handful of guests to invite to the wedding compared with Ace’s biblical scroll (he had been forced to edit down his list several times), but his friends were inclusive and laudatory in their toasts.
They had poked fun at Ace, the legendary bachelor no one ever thought would settle down.
But after the laughs, Ace’s closest friends also held up a glass to Victoria and Ace, declaring that they had never seen him look so happy; the couple’s love lit up a room.
Tears were shed. Not hers, but still. Victoria was so touched that after the wedding, she decided to take a stab at befriending Ace’s friends’ wives after all.
Victoria even agreed to a couples’ trip to Palm Springs.
Once they were in the desert, though, the men absconded to the golf course, leaving Victoria to report to the spa with the other ladies.
She soon realized that without the wedding to discuss, they had no common ground.
These women weren’t interested in dissecting the latest from Davos and hadn’t heard of Jessica Ann Levy’s podcast. Victoria was equally lost when it came to their topics of choice.
Victoria told herself—and Ace—I tried. Victoria didn’t need a coterie of friends to parse the details of her day with—she had Ace.
Between her career and her husband, she was more than fine…
until it had struck her at Mother’s Haven like a bolt of lightning in a graphic novel: I could really use a friend right now.
Twenty minutes later, Victoria pulled into the elegant apostrophe of a driveway in front of the Bel-Air and an army of uniform-clad valet attendants greeted her.
They took her car without giving her a ticket and Victoria strolled over the carpeted bridge, past the iconic swans, into the hotel.
She had suggested the Bel-Air because even though the prices were exorbitant, Victoria shamelessly loved the Old Hollywood vibe and how it felt like a luxurious oasis within the tree-lined bowels of Bel Air.
As the hostess led her over to one of her favorite tables on the patio, Victoria hoped this would be the perfect place to kick off what would evolve into a meaningful friendship.
But when Victoria clocked Liz walking in and getting her bearings, she realized she might have made a serious error in judgment.
Victoria saw Liz glancing down at her tunic and leggings like she was regretting not only her outfit but every decision she had ever made that had led her to this point.
As Liz reluctantly followed the hostess, who charted the course towards Victoria at their table, Liz cowered like she wanted to shrink into herself and disappear before she reached her destination.
As Liz reached the table, Victoria hopped up and outstretched her arms, trying to put her self-conscious friend date at ease.
“Liz, hi!”
Liz tentatively hugged her back. “Sorry I’m late.”
“You’re not at all. I’m glad we could find a day to do this.”
Liz sat down. What now? Victoria questioned whether she should address the awkward nature of this, or if that would only make things more uncomfortable.
Feeling a prickle of moisture on her brow, Victoria picked up the menu in a desperate attempt to land upon an easy topic to discuss. “Are you hungry?” she asked Liz.
“Starving,” Liz admitted. “Always.”
“Me too,” Victoria said.
“Really?”
“I want everything,” Victoria said. “Should we order a bunch of things and share?”
Victoria watched Liz’s eyes turn into saucers as she glimpsed the prices on the menu.
Victoria had thought it was mutually understood that she had invited Liz and would be paying, but now, looking at Liz, who appeared to be mentally cataloging what she could pawn to cover her share of the bill, Victoria stepped in to clarify.
“This is my treat, by the way.”
Liz’s head whipped up. She hesitated—her eyes darting around as if they were unsure where to land but certain that Victoria’s face was not a viable destination.
“I invited you as my guest. But there’s also a good chance I’m going to be texting you with a million questions because I’m not in Dawn’s baby group, so it’s the least I can do,” Victoria said.
“Okay…thanks.”
Victoria motioned the waiter over and ordered a pastry basket, pancakes, eggs Benedict, avocado toast, a fruit plate, and a side of truffle fries.
“I think I love you,” Liz told Victoria when the waiter walked away.
Victoria laughed. “My husband pretends he understands, but I don’t think anyone other than a pregnant woman can know how it feels when you need all the food in the world, but also something so specific, that very second, or you might snap.”
“Totally,” Liz agreed. Victoria waited for her to keep talking, riff on that—wasn’t that how conversation worked?
But Liz was busy sneaking glances at her surroundings again, which seemed to subdue her and reintroduce a reluctance to engage.
A trio of Chanel-clad octogenarians was sitting nearby, their perfectly shellacked helmets of hair offset by a collective thirty carats of diamonds.
Across the way, the star of a hit limited series on Apple settled into a booth with a squadron of agent and manager types.
“So…” Victoria started. It really was like a first date. “Where are you from?” Make that a blind date.
“All over, really,” Liz said. “We moved around a lot.”
“Your family?”
“Me and my mom. My dad’s been out of the picture since I was young.”
“I’m sorry,” Victoria said, for lack of a better response.
Liz shrugged. “Where are you from?” she asked, as if eager to punt the focus to Victoria.
“Fresno. The raisin capital of the world,” Victoria said, and saw Liz’s eyebrows rise a smidge in surprise. “I moved here right after college, though, so I’ve been here an eternity now.”
Liz smiled, but she didn’t say anything else. Victoria racked her brain for the next question. This was hard work.
“How did you meet your husband?”
Liz shifted uncomfortably. “No husband.”
“Sorry!” Victoria said. She felt her face growing hot. “Wife, partner—”
“Oh no,” Liz said, laughing a little. “I meant we aren’t married. Boyfriend—Preston.”
“Please excuse me, I’m ancient.”
“No, you’re not,” Liz said.
There was another awkward pause. Victoria scrambled to fill the dead air.
“How did you and your boyfriend-not-husband meet?” Victoria meant it to be irreverent, not flippant, and hoped it came off that way.
But Liz’s face reddened.
“Um…online,” she said.
“How everyone finds someone these days!” Victoria said.
“How did we even do it before the apps?” Victoria couldn’t think of anything worse than building a profile of factoids and manipulated photos in order to swipe at other people’s digital avatars, but this opinion didn’t seem germane at the moment.
“Did you meet your husband online?” Liz asked. It wasn’t an off-base assumption given Victoria’s glowing endorsement of the internet-hosted meat market a few seconds prior. Victoria had to stop herself from blurting Hell no.
“We met the old-fashioned way,” Victoria told Liz. “Woman rejects man at bar.”
“Rejecting a guy? In person? Impressive.” Liz smiled at Victoria, who was buoyed by the better tempo the conversation was taking.