Page 6 of Sunny Side Up

I sat down at my desk and woke up my computer.

The first email at the top of my inbox was a reminder to myself: “Buy these.” Four links to four boring swimsuits from a fairly dependable online plus-size retailer.

I’d scoured the internet the night before.

These were the least offensive, although they were sure to start falling apart after five washes, easy.

My credit card info was already saved. Checkout.

Standard shipping. Confirm billing zip. Boom, done.

The next email was from Brooke inviting Noor and me to edit a packing list spreadsheet she’d made for our vacation.

I clicked on it, knowing there was no way I’d have any additional contributions to make.

My packing routine was a chaotic, last-minute stuffing of clothes into a suitcase that probably still contained a souvenir hat from the last trip.

Brooke had thought of everything, and she’d color-coded all of it.

Because she didn’t trust weather predictions this far in advance, and even though the Bahamas was pretty much guaranteed to be paradise, she’d made lists of potential weather-related outfit modifications tailored to a variety of given activities, not to mention an entire Duane Reade–worth of OTC pharmaceuticals for everything from common travel ailments to things I hadn’t even realized I needed to worry about: hemorrhoids, twisted ankles, swollen feet.

Noor appeared to have already made one helpful addition: “Weed gummies. I’m checking my bag. I’ll hide them in a jar of peanut butter. Works every time.”

These were my people. The three of us had met at a somewhat random dinner party that my neighbors, Robert and Carlisle, had thrown.

Twenty years older than me, they wanted to get back to “the salons and supper clubs of old New York.” Either our gracious hosts were intentional, clever, and very brave for seating three raw divorcées together at a dinner where the drinks kept magically refilling, or the universe was to thank.

Either way, Brooke, Noor, and I fell in love at that dinner table, laughing so hard at stories no one else that night seemed to find as funny.

Brooke worked in fashion, too, and we realized we had a ton of overlapping connections.

She’d been on a hiatus for a few years to care for her kids, styling the occasional odd job here and there, but since her messy divorce from a cheating, unreliable asshole, she’d re-signed with her former agent and had been reviving her client list. She’d built an impressive portfolio as a freelance stylist over the years, with jobs that ran the gamut from global ad campaigns for corporate retailers to styling A-list actors for their press appearances and magazine covers.

Now she was considering leaning into the private client side of things; she’d already been approached by a couple of fabulously wealthy women who traveled constantly and didn’t want to think about which outfits to pack, who attended enough black-tie galas that they required ongoing rotations of gowns at all times, and who needed the climate-specific wardrobes in each of their different homes to be refreshed each season.

Noor was a classically trained chef who did her “undergrad” work at Le Cordon Bleu.

She got her “masters” working for the best of the best restaurants, first in Paris, then in Napa, then in New York City.

By the time she’d turned thirty-nine, Noor had won two James Beard Awards, opened three restaurants of her own, been a guest judge on Top Chef , and become a recurring fixture on The Kelly Clarkson Show with her fan-favorite cooking segment.

She’d sold her restaurants and officially left the grueling head-chef grind about two years ago when the TV opportunities started ramping up.

Her various social media accounts, in which she made Michelin-star recipes accessible to the home cook and shared her love of authentic Indian home cooking, had become especially lucrative.

Her second cookbook was coming out this spring.

I had yet to eat at a restaurant with Noor without someone coming up to her to tell her how much they loved her.

As for her divorce, it was a million times more amicable than Brooke’s or mine but substantially more complicated: Her husband had come out as gay, left her, and though they remained close, was now sort of obsessed (maybe out of guilt?) with trying to make Noor and his new partner, Paul, into Best Friends 4 Life.

That first night, I’d confided in them about my divorce from Zack: that I should have seen it coming, and I knew I was better off for it, but nevertheless, it still stung.

I couldn’t deny that there’d been a growing rift between us even before we’d gotten engaged.

It seemed temporary at first, a small road bump while Zack’s career was beginning to thrive.

Then the temporary became permanent as his website turned into a podcast and his side hustle turned into a legitimate sports commentary career.

Zack started gaining a real fan base after an interview he did with a newly signed Knicks player on his recent dating history.

The player’s outrageous answers about his very active love life—combined with Zack’s roasty, casual, we’re-just-two-guys-hanging-out style—went viral and nearly broke the internet.

Zack’s subscriber count skyrocketed. I was thrilled for him.

I thought we were ascending together. Turns out he’d been leaving me in the dust long before I realized it.

Brooke, Noor, and I started a group text that night; our friendship blossomed from there.

I wasn’t used to that, by the way. Making new, real friends as an adult had become increasingly hard.

Everyone was busy chasing the next phases of their careers, getting married, having kids or trying to, and clinging to the friendships they already had—especially as people started moving out of the city and into the suburbs.

As someone who’d sworn my undying loyalty to New York from the moment I arrived, I was warned about the inevitable attrition rate that plagued friend groups in their late twenties to early thirties.

“Not my friends,” I remember thinking. In fact, one night, all of us fairly new to the city, fresh off successive twenty-third birthdays, and drunk on suspiciously cheap frozen margaritas from Blockheads, my original group of NYC friends swore we’d all become those hearty senior citizens you see wheeling around collapsible grocery carriages no matter the weather.

It was a lovely sentiment that faded over the years as my closest friends in the group moved back to their hometowns in search of houses for their growing families.

The ones who stuck around were friends I’d still call if I was in the mood to “go out,” sure, but I wasn’t doing much of that lately.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I’d been so wrapped up in Zack’s world that I hadn’t really realized just how few close friends I had left in the city.

It wasn’t until we officially began the divorce process and none of my most trusted people were around for therapy walks that I started feeling really…

alone. Just about everyone on my In Case of Emergency list now lived at least an hour away.

And of course, the friends I’d met through Zack ditched me almost immediately after we separated.

It felt like I’d manifested Brooke and Noor.

Especially when my Please Be My Best Friend feelings for them were reciprocated.

Maybe it’s because of the shared state we were all in—brokenhearted and furious, yet determined not to let that anger ruin us; dedicated to moving toward fulfilling new lives that had nothing to do with them .

Whatever it was, we clicked. And then a few weeks later, we decided we needed a trip to take our friendship to the next level.

I was just about to start checking actual work emails when Avery, my new assistant, knocked on the doorframe.

I welcomed her in, showed her where to put her stuff down, broke the ice, the usual. Offered her a scotch and a cigarette. Just kidding. But I was absolutely trying to exude “cool boss” from every ounce of my being.

Avery had just graduated from The New School as a dual fashion and business major with a lifelong interest in the industry.

Her light-pink hair was styled into a tousled lob—the kind you see on a celebrity, think you can pull off yourself, then realize you made a terrible mistake.

Only Avery’s was not a mistake. It was perfect, and it stopped an inch short of the collar of her mint-green jumpsuit, which my brain immediately clocked as a size four, if that.

My stomach sucked in against my will, and I felt a flush of insecurity rise.

But the smile on her face was so eager, so genuine, it reminded me of the enthusiasm I’d first felt as a Midwest transplant ready to make something of myself in Manhattan.

Eventually, Avery was the one to get us started on actual work. “I’m so excited to be here. Ready to dig in, whatever you need.”

“Okay!” I clapped my hands together like a kindergarten teacher signaling the day. Not sure why. “Where should we start? Everywhere?”

Avery laughed. Points for Avery!

As I dove into the current projects, Avery whipped out a sky-blue pebbled leather notebook and started taking notes.

I couldn’t remember the last time I saw someone write on actual paper.

It was so professional! It said, “I’m eager, I’m paying attention, there’s zero way I’m simultaneously texting with friends on my laptop. ”

She looked up as I paused for a moment to consider what I might have forgotten.

“Can I just say… well, I read your profile in Entrepreneur , and it’s an honor to work for you.”

“Oh! Thank you!” I said, caught off guard.

“But the real reason I wanted to work for you, why I can’t wait to begin, is Sunny Side Up . Is that weird to say?”

“My newsletter ?!”

“My friends and I read it religiously.”

The flashback hit me like a pillow fight.

After a few years of living in New York City, I’d started documenting my outfits, dates, the occasional celebrity run-in—like the time I crashed headfirst into Kiefer Sutherland in the West Village and gave him a fist bump?

!—plus only-in-New-York interactions, all in a newsletter I’d titled Sunny Side Up .

I shared city recommendations as I began to find my favorite spots and linked a running wish list of everything I wanted to buy.

It had somehow amassed a cultlike following of nearly twenty thousand subscribers.

I couldn’t believe Avery had been one of those loyal readers.

It felt like a lifetime ago, writing in my public diary, at first to entertain myself—and then, suddenly, to entertain, commiserate, and bond with this incredible group of women, none of whom I’d actually met in real life.

I stopped writing it because of Zack. He said it was embarrassing.

“Why is it your problem that strangers on the internet don’t know where to find jeans that fit them?” he’d asked. “And even if it were your problem, do you really have to post pictures of yourselves in the jeans that don’t fit, with your gut all hanging out? Gross.”

Gross is the fact that I’d let his shitty remarks shut down something I loved doing, something that I found so fulfilling. Now that I was single again, I was reclaiming the things that brought me joy.

“You just made my whole week,” I said. I meant it, and it was only Monday.

“It helped me get through a really tough time, honestly,” said Avery. She was looking down at Blanche, who was forcing her head into Avery’s hand like she’d never been pet in her whole life.

“Well, you have arrived just in time for a really weird time in my life,” I told her, trying to cut the tension. “So, welcome.”

Avery laughed; then the phone rang.

She looked at me with excitement. “Want me to answer it?”

I gave her two thumbs up. Cool boss!

“Sunny Greene’s office, Avery speaking,” she sang out in perfect assistant key, before whispering to me. “It’s a delivery team from Jonathan Adler. They said your couch is on the way and will be there in thirty minutes.”

Shit.

That couch wasn’t supposed to come until later in the week. I went into logistics mode.

“I’m so sorry. I’ve gotta get home to meet the delivery. I haven’t set you up with email or anything! Let me go get someone to help you log on… the person who usually helps everyone onboard is on vacation this week…”

I stood up and reached for my faux (very good faux, but still!) leopard coat. “Will you tell the delivery team I’ll be there ASAP?”

She wrapped up the call while I clipped on my dogs’ leashes.

“Okay, Avery, I’m going to grab Michelle, who you can shadow for the rest of the morning—”

But Avery had already started putting her coat back on, too.

“Why don’t I come with you? I’ll bring my laptop and we can work on the go.”

Blanche looked up at her, offended because the petting had stopped. “Plus, I can watch your dogs while we deal with the delivery. My dog always gets a little anxious when big boxes are brought inside. It can be a lot for their senses. I heard a podcast about it once.”

A girl after my own dog-loving heart. And a Sunny Side Up fan. Maybe when one marriage door closes, a whole flood of windows open to let good people into your life.