The Dark Glamour (666 Park Avenue 2)

was showing me some of her past menus and I couldn’t believe it. So then we spent all day prepping for this huge birthday thing on Wednesday, and I was watching her work and it was incredible! I guess the birthday girl has a house in Bali, and so her sister wanted a “tropical theme”, so I’m sitting there doing my little pineapple custards like it’s 2002, and Kate’s like, “Okay, now I’m going to brine this suckling pig.” In Manhattan; seriously.’
    There was more – a lot more – but Jane tried to tune it out with her chewing. She was happy that Dee was happy, really. And Kate the Caterer sounded awesome. And, she reminded herself, Dee had had to leave her job, her apartment, and her life thanks to Jane in the first place. She had helped Jane when Jane had needed help, and she had paid a heavy price for it.
But do I have to hear every single detail of how the woman rolls her own noodles at this hour of the morning?
    Jane chewed the inside of her bottom lip between bites of breakfast.
I’m jealous again,
she realized with a pang. It was certainly true that Dee had lost a lot because she had helped Jane, but Jane had lost a lot, too. And, unlike Dee, Jane still had a ton of difficult and dangerous work to do before she could hope to return to any kind of normalcy.
Meanwhile she’s got a cute boyfriend and an awesome new boss, and I’m drinking half the day and sleeping with a completely unsuitable guy I’m trying to use for access to my mortal enemy’s fortress.
It wasn’t Dee’s fault, she knew, but it wasn’t fair, either.
    ‘So, um, do you want an ice pack or anything?’
    Realizing that Dee had apparently finished the rundown of how great her own life was, Jane glanced up.
My arm,
she realized.
Good thing she can’t see my hip. After we broke that vase . . .
‘I’m fine,’ she said out loud, grateful for the change of topic, at least. ‘I met a guy.’
    Dee, ignoring her refusal, wrapped a bag of frozen peas in a dishtowel and pressed it against Jane’s arm. It stung, then ached. ‘An enemy?’ Dee guessed sympathetically.
    ‘A means to an end,’ Jane replied grimly, and told her everything she had learned about the Dorans and the Dalcaşcus. She sketched her plan to manipulate both families through André, drawing patterns in her maple syrup with her fork in order to avoid eye contact. She had made real progress, surely, but instead of confident, she mostly felt uncomfortable.
    Dee looked concerned, but she refrained from commenting on Jane’s recent redefinition of ‘unsafe sex’. ‘Well, you have a plan,’ she mused delicately, although her distaste showed in the tension of her full mouth. ‘Two, actually, because befriending Laura could still totally work.’ Jane twisted her own mouth into a noncommittal shape. ‘Okay, but as long as you’re . . . involved . . . with this André guy, I guess we’d better get the most out of it. I mean, he must be newsworthy in his own right, right?’
    Jane frowned. ‘I’d never heard of him.’
    ‘You’d never heard of the Dorans, either,’ Dee pointed out patiently, ‘but that doesn’t mean that the tabloids hadn’t. And if Lynne is dealing with André and his sister, then they must have something she wants but can’t just throw her weight around and take. So they must be on her level somehow, which means there’s a good chance that Page Six will be interested in what they’re up to, where they’re going, and who they’re . . . dating.’
    Jane winced at the euphemism but mostly had to agree. ‘You think gossip columnists would be interested in me if they think there’s an “us”?’ She felt a tingling in her biceps that spelled the beginning of numbness, and she set the bag of peas on the edge of the table. A fat brown sparrow settled on the windowsill above the sink, tapped the brick with its beak a few times, and then took off again.
    ‘I think they’d be interested in you anyway,
Baroness,
but they’ve never heard of you before, since you didn’t exist before. And if you had a debutante ball for yourself or whatever and tried to publicize it, they’d probably have a lot of questions about your background that we can’t answer. But if you’re just
with
someone who’s already tabloid-ready on his own, you’re in the story without being the story. And it might even make the Dorans curious to meet you, which I’m sure André will be happy to help them out with.’
    Jane steepled her fingers together