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we should go shopping for lingerie. I know a great little place on Madison. Are you free on Monday morning?”
    “Shopping, sure,” I say. “But why lingerie?”
    “Because lingerie always makes you feel better,” Lucy says preachily, sounding as if she’s quoting from the Bible. The Very New Testament. “I need a lift. You need a lift. My mother used to say you can’t hold your head up high in an old bra.”
    I never heard of a bra holding up your head, but I’m in. “Monday,” I agree.
    Lucy’s Madison Avenue lingerie store looks intimidating even from the outside. A delicate lemony camisole is floating in the window next to a midnight blue lace garter belt. At least I think it’s a garter belt. Hard to tell. It’s hung so artfully from a thin wire, it might be part of a Calder mobile rather than something to wear. On an awning above a feng-shui red lacquered door, the pseudo-French name of the store is inscribed in intricate curlicues.
    “This place is expensive,” Lucy admits as we get out of the cab, “but worth it. It’s even French.”
    “La Lovelette,” I say, reading the name on the awning. “Not really French, I don’t think. Just meant to sound foreign and impress you. Sort of like Häagen-Dazs—made up to sound Danish and sell more ice cream.”
    “Like Ben and Jerry’s,” Lucy says distractedly, as she heads toward the store.
    “Not at all like Ben and Jerry,” I insist, following her. “Ben and Jerry are real guys who live in Vermont, while Häagen-Dazs is …”
    Lucy stops and looks me straight in the eye. “Jess, I don’t really care about ice cream right now, okay? I want to focus on lingerie.”
    Got it. I pull myself together to enter this temple of temptation.
    The store is all polished surfaces—a brilliantly buffed wood floor, gleaming chrome fixtures, and smooth-as-glass marble walls. It’s not immediately clear to me that anything’s for sale since it feels more like a museum with just a few choice items on display, lit like Picassos. Finally, past the Mies van der Rohe chairs, I notice some high racks where bits of lingerie are hanging on heavily padded hangers, each a foot apart from the next.
    “Not very much merchandise,” I whisper to Lucy. Whispering seems the way to go in here.
    “That’s because each piece is spectacular,” she says. “All one-of-a-kind.”
    I walk over to examine a one-piece peach silk garment that’s floating in the air, backlit by hidden spotlights, and just as I’m fiddling around, trying to find the price tag, a saleswoman approaches. She’s one of those women of indeterminate age who looks like she was born on Madison Avenue. Her blond hair is pulled back in a sleek knot, her makeup is impeccable—that almost impossible to achieve not too matte, not too shiny look that
Vogue
’s declared essential—and her St. John knit suit has to cost a lot more than she makes in a week, even here.
    “Beautiful piece, isn’t it?” she asks in an excessively cultured voice. “Perfect for any occasion, but if you’re getting married, it’s what I call a must-have.”
    “Not getting married yet,” I say. “I’m just looking.” When she smiles slightly, I add quickly, “Just looking at the—um, lingerie, I mean.”
    Her smile turns to ice as she notices me hunting for the price tag, and once I hit on it, I almost faint. This little number would have to be a wedding gift from the Sultan of Brunei before I could slip into it. Am I buying underwear here or does it come with a house in the Hamptons?
    “Anything that’s less ‘dear’?” I ask her, rising to the occasion.
    “That’s hand-rolled silk and the pearls were cultivated from a new breed of oysters in the China seas and individually applied with thousands of gold-thread stitches,” she says with just a
trace
of condescension.
    Frankly, my Fruit of the Looms seem to be working just fine. And just how comfortable do pearls feel in your crotch, anyway? I guess that’s not