Love on Lexington Avenue(9)

Both her friends gave her a curious look at her expertise, and Claire shrugged. “I took an Uber out to a Jersey hardware store when I first started thinking about the renovation.”

“Jersey,” Audrey mused, as though it were a foreign country and not just a few miles to the west.

“Real talk,” Naomi said, looking at Audrey. “When was the last time you left Manhattan?”

“Last month,” Audrey retorted, clearly proud to shake up Naomi’s assumption that the Upper East Side princess never left her own neighborhood.

“Really?” Claire glanced over in surprise.

Not that Claire herself could claim to be any more adventurous most days. She’d been born and raised in the Connecticut suburbs, but the city had gotten under her skin in a permanent kind of way almost immediately. She couldn’t imagine calling anywhere other than Manhattan home.

But Audrey Tate didn’t just live in Manhattan, she was Manhattan. A society princess through and through. Not only that, she’d literally made a career out of it. Audrey was an “influencer,” which Claire fully admitted to never having heard of before meeting Audrey. For that matter, she still wasn’t entirely sure she got it, but as far as she could tell, companies paid the gorgeous, charismatic Audrey to feature their handbags, shoes, beauty products, sports bras, anything, on her blog and Instagram.

“I did, too, leave Manhattan,” Audrey insisted, her tone smug. “I was in the Hamptons for two weeks last month.”

Naomi snorted. “Doesn’t count.”

“It does, too!” Audrey protested. “Claire?”

“No, dear.” Claire patted her arm, then she put the swatches in her bag. “Not really.”

Audrey frowned stubbornly. “Naomi asked if I’d left Manhattan. I have.”

“Fine, we’ll give you that one on a technicality,” Naomi said, scooping up the assortment of metal bits and bobs in two hands. “Who wants to help me put these back in their right spots?”

Audrey squinted at the assortment of stuff. “I couldn’t tell you what a single one of those things is.”

Claire just shrugged. She’d learned her way around the home improvement store in recent months, but her expertise was mostly limited to tile samples and paint swatches.

“All right, Plan B,” Naomi said, scanning the store until she found who she was looking for. Fixing a bright smile on her face, Naomi strode purposefully toward an employee. Claire recognized the fifty-something guy. He was crusty, irritable, and condescending, especially to women.

But not all women, apparently.

Claire watched in bemusement as Naomi not only coaxed a smile from the man, but a full-on laugh. Claire felt an unexpected jolt of envy at how effortlessly dynamic her friend was. She bet Naomi didn’t get generic birthday cards. She bet Naomi didn’t default to beige everything.

Claire watched as the Home Depot guy blushed. Blushed!

“How does she do that?” Claire mused.

Audrey glanced up from her phone. “How does who do what?”

Claire nodded toward Naomi. “I’ve been in this store at least a dozen times, and I haven’t so much as gotten a civil word from that man. He’s known Naomi all of thirty seconds and is practically eating out of her hand, even though she’s just handed him an hour’s worth of work in putting all that crap away.”

“She’s got a gift,” Audrey said distractedly.

“Yes, but what is the gift?” Claire pressed.

Her friend finally registered that Claire was actually asking, and it wasn’t just a rhetorical question. “Well.” Audrey glanced over at Naomi and then back. “It’s her confidence, I suppose. That’s like, eighty percent of the art of flirting.”

“Flirting,” Claire repeated, testing the word out. She hadn’t voiced or given much thought to the concept of flirting in . . . years. And not just because she’d been a married woman, but because come to think of it, Claire wasn’t sure she’d ever really mastered flirting.

“Yes, flirting,” Audrey said with a little laugh. “You know, eye contact, lingering smiles, banter.”

“But she’s with Oliver.”

Audrey smiled kindly. “Sure, but flirting’s not always about romancing someone.”

“Then what’s it about? How does one decide with whom to flirt?”

“With whom—what—” Audrey broke off when she saw Naomi approaching, “Oh thank God. Backup.”

“On what?” Naomi demanded.

“Trying to explain to Claire the nature of flirting.”

Naomi shook her head. “Pointless endeavor. Flirting’s not an explainable thing. It’s more of an art than a science. It just happens.”

That wasn’t a good enough answer for Claire. There had to be a reason why men smiled and laughed with Naomi—and Audrey, for that matter—whereas Claire generally only warranted bland smiles or polite indifference.

Yes, her friends were gorgeous. Naomi was the sort of woman people looked twice at, and not just because of her bright blue eyes, dark red hair, and toned runner’s body. But it was her energy that drew people in. The way she seemed to own every room she walked into and dared people to ignore her.

And Audrey was beautiful in her own right with long shiny brown hair and wide Bambi brown eyes, but that wasn’t why people flocked to her. It was her sweetness. Not saccharine sweetness, but a genuine goodness that people wanted to be around.