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Jane Gregg, assistant editor at a respected publishing house in New York City. I was Jane Gregg, brainy loser at Forest Hills High.
    Robby Evers’s sixteen-year-old face and his tall, gawky body flashed before my eyes. My heart squeezed with sympathy for the lovesick teenager I’d been. The heart-sick teenager, thanks to the Gnat. How I’d hated her.
    I glanced over at where she stood laughing with the Tanned Men. How was it possible that she’d never looked more gorgeous? She was ten years older than when she’d had everyone at Forest Hills High wrapped around her pinky. But now, she had the beauty, body and mystery of a woman. And a truly beautiful woman, at that.
    Actually, the Gnat looked a lot like Nicole Kidman. Down to the red Botticelli ringlets, the slightly upturned nose, the beauty and the height. All she was missing was Tom Cruise as an ex. Though if rumor had it right, The Actor Natasha had had the affair with was hot stuff himself.
    Natasha Nutley had that celebrity je ne sais quoi. Whenever I saw famous people in New York, it was as though they traveled with their own soft lighting. They didn’t look like ordinary people. And the Gnat was anything but ordinary. Ordinary people didn’t get romantically involved with television actors who made People magazine’s Sexiest Men Alive list. Ordinary people didn’t become famous by not only sleeping with men who made the list, but actually having a relationship with them. According to Natasha’s outline for the tell-all, she’d been his one and only for seven weeks.
    On their first date, which had been in his bed (slut!), he’d made her (and every woman he got involved with, apparently) sign The Document. Which basically said that if Natasha discussed him or their relationship in any medium, or even with friends, The Actor could sue her for everything she had and everything she’d earn in the future. Including royalties of the tell-all. So why did she sign such a stupid, insulting document? Why did she even sleep with a man who’d handed her a legal document while taking off her bra? Every spotlight-seeking answer was explained in the outline she’d written for her memoir.
    Ugh. It was all so personal! Usually I didn’t feel squeamish about knowing the intimate details of a person’s life—after all, nothing was too personal for the Flirt Night Roundtable, and I’d worked on a lot of tell-all memoirs. But Natasha Nutley? She was supposed to remain at arm’s length. I wasn’t supposed to know anything about her other than what I assumed and judged. And that was the way I wanted it. That her existence on this earth had been full of larger-than-life disappointments should have made me feel triumphant, but it didn’t. It made me feel weird. And I wasn’t sure why.
    â€œSorry about that!” Natasha sing-songed, sliding intoher seat with a toss of her red ringlets. The collection of silver bangles on her wrist jingled. “My agent’s such a doll. He’s delighted we’re having lunch. He promises to come say hi before he leaves.”
    I smiled and sipped my tap water. “Great,” I said, trying not to stare at her. How had ordinary Mr. and Mrs. Nutley, who lived right around the corner from the apartment building I’d grown up in, managed to create such a stunning human being? Judith Nutley was five foot three, tops, though she did have the curly pale red hair. Mr. Nutley, whose first name I forget, was tall and thin and had the Gnat’s green eyes. But neither parent was a looker. Not like Marvin and Virginia Gregg.
    â€œSo, um, Natasha, why don’t we get started on discussing my ideas for streamlining the first chapter, per your outline. As you know, Posh is thrilled that we’ll be excerpting the first chapter in Marie Claire, and we’ll need—”
    â€œAll business!” Natasha stated in a mock scold, her whiter-than-white