Lauren Weisberger 3-Book Collection: Everyone Worth Knowing, Chasing Harry Winston, Last Night at Chateau Marmont

‘Really! How interesting. Do you currently cook anywhere in the city?’ my father asked.

Sammy smiled shyly, looked down, and said, ‘Actually, I started doing Sunday brunch at Gramercy Tavern a few months ago. It’s a serious crowd. It’s been a really good experience.’

I felt a jolt go through me. Who was this guy?

‘Well, in that case, come with me. Can you do anything interesting with zucchini?’ my mother asked, linking her arm with his once he hoisted himself up from the floor cushions.

Within minutes Sammy was at the stove, while my mother sat quietly at the table, staring at him in wonderment, unable to disguise her delight.

‘What are you making?’ I asked as he drained a pot of noodles before adding a splash of olive oil. He wiped his hands on the apron my mother had provided (which read IN ACCEPTANCE, THERE IS PEACE) and surveyed his progress.

‘Well, I thought we’d start with a pasta salad with roasted carrots, cucumbers, and pine nuts, and maybe some zucchini antipasto. Your mom said she wanted something casual for the entrée, so I was thinking of trying curried chickpea sandwiches on focaccia and a side of stuffed red peppers with rice and escarole. How does everyone feel about baked apples with freshly whipped cream and this sorbet here for dessert? I have to say, Mrs Robinson, you picked some fantastic ingredients.’

‘Gee, Mom, what were you planning on making?’ I asked, loving the expressions on both their faces.

‘Casserole,’ she said, never taking her eyes off Sammy. ‘Just throw it all together and bake it for a few minutes, I guess.’

‘Well, that sounds great, too,’ Sammy was quick to say. ‘I’d be happy to do that if you’d prefer.’

‘No!’ my father and I shouted simultaneously. ‘Please continue, Sammy. This is going to be a real treat for us,’ Dad said, slapping him on the back and taking a taste of the chickpea mixture with his fingers.

Dinner was amazing, of course, so good I didn’t make a single nasty comment about the lack of meat or the abundance of organic food, but that was mostly because I didn’t even notice. All my concerns about the potential awkwardness of Sammy sharing the table with my parents had evaporated by the time we finished our pasta salad. Sammy glowed from the constant praise everyone lavished on him, and he became chatty and happy in a way I’d never seen. Before I knew what had happened, I was clearing the table alone and my parents had sequestered Sammy back in the greenhouse and were showing him the much-dreaded naked-in-the-bathtub baby pictures and all the things I’d supposedly accomplished in my life that no one besides the people who’d given birth to you could conceivably care about. It was almost midnight when my parents finally announced they were going to bed.

‘You two are more than welcome to stay and visit, but your father and I need to get to sleep,’ my mother announced, while stamping out the last stub of her clove cigarette, a treat they shared when they were in a festive mood. ‘Big day tomorrow.’ She extended her hand to my father, which he took with a smile. ‘So nice to meet you, Sammy. We just love meeting Bette’s friends.’

Sammy leapt to his feet. ‘Nice to meet you both as well. Thanks for having me. And good luck with the party tomorrow. It sounds great.’

‘Yes, well, it’s a tradition, and we hope to see you there. Nighty-night,’ my father said cheerily, following my mother into the house, but not before he leaned in and whispered a fervent thank-you to Sammy for allowing him one edible meal.

‘They’re great,’ Sammy said quietly when the door had closed. ‘After the way you described them, I was honestly expecting circus freaks. But they couldn’t be more normal.’

‘Yeah, well, it depends on your definition of normal, I guess. You ready?’

‘Uh, sure. If you are.’ He sounded hesitant.

‘Well, I figured you’d want to get home, but I’m totally up for hanging out if you are,’ I said, holding my breath the entire time.

He appeared to think about this for a minute and then said, ‘How do you feel about hitting the Starlight?’

It was official: he was perfect.

I exhaled. ‘Great call. It’s only the best diner on earth. Do you love it as much as I do?’

‘More. I used to go there by myself in high school, if you can even believe how humiliating that is. I’d just sit there with a book or a magazine and a cup of coffee. It broke my heart when the original wart lady left.’

The Starlight had been the epicenter of our high school social life, the place I’d spent the better part of my teenage years, hanging out with my friends who, like me, weren’t quite pretty or cool enough to be considered popular, but who could still confidently claim superiority over the dorks and losers (mostly the horrifyingly antisocial math and computer types) who unwillingly occupied the rungs beneath us. The social hierarchy was strictly maintained: the cool kids monopolized the smoking section, the severely socially challenged played video games at the two booths all the way in the back, and my crowd (assorted hippies, alternative punk kids, and the socially striving who hadn’t quite made the big leagues yet) held the half-dozen tables and the entire counter space in between. The guys would sit in one booth, smoking and discussing – quite suavely, and with the strong suggestion of expertise – whether they’d sacrifice blow jobs or sex if forced to decide at gunpoint, as we, their loyal girlfriends (who weren’t doing much more than kissing any of them), gulped coffee and analyzed in great detail which of the girls at school had the best clothes, chest, and boyfriend. Starlight was the Poughkeepsie version of Central Perk, only slightly stickier and with fluorescent lights, brown vinyl booths, and a waitstaff where each employee, incredibly, possessed either a sprouting facial wart or a missing finger. I loved the way some people remain devoted to their childhood bedrooms or summer-vacation spots, and I returned, like a homing pigeon, every time I went back to town. The idea of Sammy there alone made me sad and nostalgic.

We settled into the least sticky booth we could find and pretended to examine the plastic menus, which hadn’t changed in decades. Even though I was stuffed, I debated between cinnamon toast and fries and then decided that carb-loading was acceptable outside the Manhattan city limits and got both. Sammy ordered a cup of regular coffee. One of my favorite waitresses, the woman with the longest hair of all growing from the wart near her lip, had snorted when he’d asked for skim milk instead of cream, and the two were now involved in some sort of glaring contest across the room.

We sipped coffee and chatted and picked at the food.

‘You never mentioned you were doing brunch at Gramercy Tavern. I’d love to come by.’

‘Yeah, well, you never mentioned that you were salutatorian of your class. Or that you won the Martin Luther King Award for cross-cultural community service.’

I laughed. ‘Boy, they didn’t miss a thing, did they? I thought it was lucky you graduated three years before me so you wouldn’t remember any of that stuff, but I should’ve known better.’

The waitress refilled Sammy’s mug and let a little of the coffee splash for good measure.

‘They’re proud of you, Bette. I think that’s so nice.’

‘They were proud of me. It’s different now. I don’t think my newfound ability to draw celebs to Bungalow 8 and get written about in gossip columns was exactly what they had in mind for me.’

He smiled sadly. ‘Everyone makes compromises, you know? Doesn’t mean you’re any different from the person you were back then.’

The way he said it made me want to believe it. ‘Can we get out of here?’ I asked, motioning for the check, which, regardless of how many people were in the party or what was ordered, always amounted to exactly three dollars per person. ‘I think I need to conserve my energy for tomorrow’s festivities, which I’m hoping to convince you to attend. …’

He left a twenty-dollar bill on the table (‘To make up for all the nights I left really shitty tips after sitting here for hours’) and put his hand on my back to direct me out. We detoured long enough for him to win me a small stuffed pig from the claw game in the foyer – the one that sat just past the rotating pie display. I hugged it to me and he told me it was the best two bucks in quarters he’d ever spent. The ten-mile drive to his house was quiet, and I realized that in all the years I lived in Poughkeepsie, I’d never been to this part of town. We were both contemplative, with none of the chitchat or joking or confiding that we’d shared during the past nine hours we’d spent together – nine hours that felt like five minutes. I pulled into the short, unpaved driveway of a small, tidy Colonial-style home and put the car in park.