Free Trading Up by Candace Bushnell Page A

approbation, every door would be open to her . . .
    The only problem was that, at first, Janey wasn’t exactly sure how to go about winning Mimi’s friendship. It wasn’t simply that everyone wanted to be friends with Mimi, and that Mimi, like most popular New Yorkers, didn’t really need any new friends, but that Janey had never developed those easy skills that lead to instant friendships with other women. As a child, she’d been betrayed by a group of little girls who made fun of her and teased her mercilessly for having a crush on an older boy; as an adult, she’d done her share of getting even by stealing men out from under other women’s noses. As a result, her relationships with women were always uneasy: Janey didn’t trust them, and they (often rightly) didn’t trust her. But Janey’s instincts never betrayed her, and just the other night she had realized that seduction isn’t always about sex, and that she might pursue Mimi the same way she would pursue a man.
    The first step in her plan was to throw herself in Mimi’s path, hence the shang-haiing of her sister, Patty, to lunch. It must appear as if it were mere coincidence that she and Patty were eating at Nick & Toni’s, but more importantly, as with a man, Janey knew she couldn’t appear too eager. She wanted Mimi to come to her and not the other way around, and, with this in mind, she’d insisted on a table in front, near the door. Unless Mimi were blind, it would be almost impossible for her not to spot Janey, and then the dictates of social behavior would take their natural course, and Mimi would be forced to at least say hello.
    And so, appearing to concentrate on Patty while watching Mimi out of the corner of her eye, Janey arranged her face into its most sympathetic expression and asked, “What do you think you should do?”
    Patty, who was completely oblivious to Mimi’s arrival and to Janey’s hidden agenda, said desperately, “I don’t know . Sometimes I’m afraid I’ll turn into one of those crazy women who steal someone else’s baby . . .” And before Janey could respond, Mimi suddenly saw her and in a low, creamy voice, cooed, “Janey, darling. Is that you?”

    18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:22 PM Page 42
    42
    c a n d a c e b u s h n e l l
    Janey turned around, feigning surprise. Mimi had come straight from her riding lesson, and was dressed in a crisp white short-sleeved shirt, white jodhpurs, and tightly fitted custom-made riding boots; an Hermès Birkin bag was slung over her shoulder, out of which peeked the tail end of a small, braided leather whip. In general, it was considered déclassé to trip around East Hampton in your riding togs, a recent affectation of visiting showbiz people and the nouveaux riches. But as Mimi was so obviously old school, and, as Janey noted with a touch of envy, probably the only woman in the world who could still look devastatingly slim in a pair of white riding pants, she could get away with it.
    “Mimi,” Janey said, rising gracefully from her chair and holding out her hand.
    If Mimi kissed her, that would be a good sign, but as Mimi was older and more established, it was up to her to initiate this gesture. And indeed, after taking Janey’s hand, she leaned forward to allow Janey to brush each cheek with her lips in the customary manner.
    “This is such a coincidence,” Janey said. “I just called your house to thank you for the party.”
    “It was a good one, wasn’t it?” Mimi said. She must be at least forty, Janey thought, but she still had that boyish quality to her face that was so appealing.
    “Rupert was absolutely crazy about you, and George told me three times how beautiful he thought you were . . . I finally told him that maybe he should divorce me and marry you. And Selden seemed very interested. You two seemed to be having quite an intense talk at dinner.”
    This wasn’t, Janey thought, entirely accurate, as “disagreement” was probably a more appropriate word, but this