Everyone Worth Knowing by Lauren Weisberger Page B

dependable,
    entertaining, and most of all, they depicted love affairs that I could
     
    not deny—no matter how much feminism or political correctness
    or women's empowerment my parents could throw at me—I desperately
    wanted more than anything in the world. I was conditioned
    to compare every single date in my life to The Ideal. I
    couldn't help it. I wanted the fairy tale. Which, needless to say,
    does not describe Cameron, or most New York liaisons between
    men and women. But I wouldn't stop hoping—not yet.
    Was I about to explain this to Simon? Clearly not. Which is why
    I laughed and made some self-deprecating remark like "I just can't
    handle the real stuff" whenever someone asked why I read the
    books.
    "Oh, whatever." I laughed lightly, not making eye contact with
    Will or Simon. "It's a silly little thing 1 got into as a kid and haven't
    quite given up yet."
    Will found this understatement particularly hysterical. "Silly little
    thing? Bette, darling, you belong to a book club whose sole
    mission is to examine and more deeply appreciate your selected
    genre?" he howled.
    This much was true. Until the book group, no one in my life
    had understood. Not my parents, my uncle, my friends in high
    school or college. Penelope merely shook her head every time she
    spotted one in my apartment (which, by the way, wasn't hard, considering
    I had over four hundred of them stashed in boxes, closets,
    under-bed bins, and occasionally—when the cover wasn't too embarrassing—
    on shelves). I knew the facts said that whole armies of
    women read them, but it was only two years ago that I'd met
    Courtney at a midtown Barnes & Noble. I'd just left work and was
    reaching for a romance from the circular wire rack when I heard a
    girl's voice behind me.
    "You're not alone, you know," it said.
    I'd turned around to see a pretty girl about my age with a
    heart-shaped face and naturally pink lips. She looked like a china
    doll with ringlets reminiscent of Nelly's from Little House on the
    Prairie, and her other features were so delicate they looked like
    they might crack at any moment.
    "Excuse me? Are you talking to me?" I asked, quickly covering
     
    my copy of Every Woman's Fantasy with an oversized English-
    Greek dictionary that resided nearby.
    She nodded and moved in closer to whisper, "I'm just saying,
    you don't have to be embarrassed any longer. There are others."
    "Who said I'm embarrassed?" I asked.
    She peered down at my now-shielded book and raised an eyebrow.
    "Look, my name's Courtney and I'm hooked on them, too.
    I've got a college degree and a real job and I'm not afraid to admit
    that I love these goddamn books. There's a whole group of us, you
    know. We meet once or twice a month to talk about them, have a
    few drinks, convince each other that it's okay to do what we do.
    It's part book club and part therapy session." She rooted through
    her Tod's shoulder bag and found a crumpled receipt. She uncapped
    a Montblanc pen with her teeth and scrawled an address in
    SoHo and an email address.
    "Our next meeting is this Monday night. Come. I've included
    my email address if you have any questions, but there's not much
    to know. We're reading this"—she discreetly flashed a copy of
    Who Wants to Marry a Heartthrob? —"and we'd love to have you."
    Perhaps it's a sign of true addiction that I actually showed up at
    a stranger's apartment a week later. I soon learned that Courtney
    had been right. Each of the other girls was smart and cool and interesting
    in her own way, and each loved romances. Except for
    one set of twin sisters, none of the women were friends or colleagues
    from the outside; all had stumbled upon the group in
    much the same way I had. I was surprised and somewhat delighted
    to see that I was the only one who was out about my habit:
    not one of the other girls had yet revealed to husbands or girlfriends
    or parents the real content of their book club. In the two
    years since I'd joined, only one had