Читать книгу The Three of U.S.: A New Life in New York - Peter Godwin - Страница 26

I am running late to meet Meredith, a friend and investigative magazine reporter, in the Royalton bar. Despite the fact that according to all the pregnancy books, I should now be walking briskly twenty-five minutes a day, I can’t face ten sweaty blocks of midtown crowds, so I hail a cab, which takes me twice as long.

‘Darling, you’re late,’ she cries triumphantly as I finally spot her in the gloom squatting on a purple velvet pouffe. She pushes a clear cone of martini at me complete with bobbing khaki olive. It looks exquisite, a fringe of icy condensation slipping down the outside. I can’t resist and take a small sip before declaring somewhat unconvincingly that I shouldn’t really because I’m off alcohol at the moment. I haven’t told her I’m pregnant.

‘You, off alcohol? Don’t be ridiculous,’ Meredith scoffs and, grabbing a passing waiter, promptly orders two more martinis. ‘With some of those outrageously expensive chips,’ she yells after him, ‘and we’ll take a plate of aubergine caviar.’

I take another sip, planning to swap glasses when she goes to the loo, which she does a lot, not always, I suspect, for the actual purpose a bathroom is intended.

‘So, have you heard about Kelly?’ she says, leaning forward flashing her eyes in a way which signifies she has gossip. ‘She’s on Ritalin and she’s had a complete personality change!’

‘What?’ I demand, wondering crossly why Kelly hasn’t told me this herself.

‘Ritalin, you know that drug they give to kids with ADD – attention deficit disorder.’

‘But why? What for?’ I ask, doubly cross that a close friend hasn’t told me she’s suffering from New York’s most fashionable disorder.

‘Says it helps her focus,’ nods Meredith.

‘Focus on what?’

‘Everything! She says it’s so good that yesterday for the first time in ten years she went out without any Valium at all. I mean she deliberately left her pill tin at home and, even when she was caught in a mob at Barney’s sale, she didn’t panic once …’

Given that I am reluctant to take even aspirin, I’m always impressed at the way New Yorkers pop pills. Kelly and Jeff’s large bathroom cabinet, which I once secretly opened, resembles a RiteAid comfort station. Every shelf was crammed with brown glass bottles: Prozac, Zoloft, Valium and Lithium alongside the more mundane Tylenol ‘Extra’ and its rival Advil’s response, Advil Extra Strength. Though they talk openly about self-medicating, I have no idea how much they actually take of the stuff.

Meredith goes to the loo and I switch glasses just as the waiter arrives with our next drinks and a white napkin envelope of home-made crisps and a plate of pitta slices, cut in the shape of triangles and arranged points-out in the shape of a star, to mop up a stylized taupe blob of mashed aubergine.

‘Darling,’ shrills Meredith, eyes flashing and sniffing like a bloodhound, as she returns. ‘How are you?’ As if we have just met.