Rachel Weiss's Group Chat

by Lauren Appelbaum

Genres: Friendship; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

Opposites attract in this hilariously cheeky, laugh-out-loud romantic comedy about feeling stuck, the importance of friendship, and learning to open your heart.

The year is already off to a bad start. It’s not enough that Rachel Weiss is stuck in a job she despises and has an unfortunate attraction to men who disappoint her. It’s the Year of Turning Thirty . . . and now her mother won’t stop trying to set up Rachel with the millionaire buying the house next door.

Luckily Rachel has amazing friends and their juicy group chat to keep her going. But between work-mandated therapy, her thirteen gray hairs, and biking in the buff, she can’t help wondering why she isn’t moving forward like everyone else.

As Rachel’s life—and circle of friends—begins to fall apart, she confides in the last person she expects. The uptight, irritating—yet surprisingly funny and thoughtful—tech bro next door may be the one person who sees Rachel for the woman she wants to be. After random DMs turn into confessing letters, she begins to realize perhaps it was she who had him wrong all along.

Release date: September 24, 2024

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 320

Sample

“THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR finally sold!”

My mother was in a tizzy. No, tizzy was her normal state. She was in a state most mothers could achieve only by some combination of a Nordstrom liquidation sale and cocaine.

Head pounding, I squinted at my phone. My eyes were too bleary to make out the time, but I was pretty sure it started with a seven. Only my mother would think it appropriate to call at this hour on New Year’s Day. Answering the phone: my first mistake of the new year. I blamed my hangover. A muffled groan of protest emanated from the man in my bed. And that man’s name was…

It would come back to me.

I turned down my phone’s volume and slipped quietly out of bed, planting my feet in my leopard-print slippers.

“Mom,” I whispered as I tiptoed to the bathroom. “It’s only seven—” But she was barreling on. Mom needed no back-and-forth in conversation; she simply needed a listener with a pulse.

“—thought surely they had priced it too high, but it was finally bought for three-point-five million dollars! By a young man!”

Good Lord, her voice was shrill. Was it normal to be so invested in neighborhood gossip? Somehow I thought not. And yet “normal” had never been a guiding factor in my mother’s behavior.

I put the phone on the counter, not bothering to put her on speakerphone as I peed, flushed, and brushed my teeth. I splashed water on my face and rubbed at the black makeup smudged under my eyes. For half a second I considered putting on fresh makeup so I’d look a little more like I had last night when I’d brought home… what’s-his-name. I really thought it would come back to me. But, on the whole, I couldn’t be bothered.

Mom was still in full swing when I picked up the phone again.

“Mom, I have to go,” I interrupted. “Sorry, but I was in the middle of something, and I—”

“Come over; we need to discuss this.”

“Discuss… what?”

“The house! Next door!”

“You already told me. It sold.” I paused, then added, “Yay?”

“There’s more,” she whispered, in what was clearly meant to be a compelling and mysterious voice.

“Um…” I had been looking forward to a day of rest. You know, a day when I ordered Mexican food, watched trash TV, and only left my couch for bathroom breaks.

“I’ll make sandwiches.”

“Done.” So what? As an adult, I’d learned never to say no to food prepared by somebody other than myself.

After hanging up, I crawled back into bed next to the snoring hottie and checked the group chat. All was quiet. Amy, Eva, and Sumira were probably still asleep like normal people with normal mothers. We’d gone hard at our college friend Davis’s party the night before. But hey, it was the last New Year of our twenties. We were turning thirty this year. We deserved to go big.

There was no chance of me falling back asleep now, so I opened my Notes app to write some New Year’s resolutions. Ten minutes later, I read through my list:

• Smoke one bowl a day or less.

• Ditto coffee: one cup a day.

• Dress for my age. Show less cleavage and midriff. Not saying I need to don linen slacks and sweater sets—what is a sweater set?—but I can class it up a little.

• Learn what a sweater set is.

• Try new forms of exercise.

• Be nicer to Mom.

• Be nicer to the nerds at work.

• Finally try Jdate. (Break it to Mom gently so she doesn’t expire of happiness on the spot.)

• Comport myself with dignity befitting a woman of my age. For example, starting a conga line while wearing Davis’s assless chaps over my jeans with my bra as a hat WILL NOT happen again after last night.

• Oh yeah, DRINK LESS.

It was a good list. Admirable, really. I read through it once more, and then, with a quick flick of my thumb, deleted it. Who was I to try to fix what was already perfect?

The man was now snoring, so I hopped out of bed and began to get dressed. I didn’t exactly slam my dresser drawers, but I also didn’t try too hard to be quiet—rather hoping he would wake up. I pulled a chunky sweater over my head and watched him for any sign of wakefulness, but he was out cold.

Should I poke him?

I felt bad about the whole not-knowing-his-name thing on top of my desire for him to leave my apartment as soon as possible. Maybe breakfast in bed would soften the blow.

I rummaged around in my fridge and the tiny cabinet that served as my pantry. A trip to Trader Joe’s was overdue, to put it mildly. There was nothing here that I could possibly serve to a guest, let alone an attractive half-naked man. Bread: stale. Eggs: nonexistent. Yogurt: mold city. I gagged slightly as I shoved it back in my fridge to deal with later. I really needed to stop buying the family-size tub of yogurt.

Well, at least I had coffee.

A few minutes later, I’d scrounged together something resembling breakfast on a tray.

“Good morning,” I said sweetly as I crept back into my room.

He propped himself up on one elbow and gave me a lopsided grin. He had tousled, curly hair and brown skin smattered with freckles. I mentally patted Last Night Rachel on the back. Nice one.

“You made breakfast?” His voice was croaky, and slightly awed.

“I did.” I slid the tray onto his lap with the coffee facing him. It was the most respectable part of the spread, with a little bowl of sugar and cup of cream next to the steaming mug. His eyes roved over this while he wore a look of amused pleasure on his face. And then he took in the rest of it.

“Is that… ice cream?”

“Yes.” I began pointing to the other dishes. “And string cheese. And a pickle!”

He made a face that I couldn’t decipher one way or the other and then dug the spoon into the ice cream and took a bite.

I perched on the side of the bed.

“Listen…,” I began. He raised an eyebrow.

“Sam,” he added, his tone flat.

“Sam,” I repeated, a beat too late. Smooth, Rachel. I should have made him waffles, poor guy. “I have to head out soon. It was really fun hanging out with you.”

“Oh, okay.” He looked like he wanted to linger over the coffee, so I busied myself tossing things in my purse.

Ten minutes later, I shouted a cheerful goodbye down the hall of my apartment complex as Sam departed. Note to self: stop letting the guy sleep over. The next morning was always so awkward.

Around lunchtime, I arrived at my parents’ house and eagerly searched the kitchen for the promised sandwiches. They were in the fridge, piled on a plate wrapped tightly with plastic wrap. I selected a cream cheese and lox one and munched on it as I observed the present state of chaos in the house. My twin sisters were wailing like sixteen-year-old toddlers, Dad was darting about with our older sister on speakerphone trying to calm them, and Mom was nowhere to be found. Apparently the twins had been under the impression that Dad would take them to get their driver’s licenses today—the concept of national holidays having never crossed their self-obsessed minds. They believed that since they had been promised their licenses this year, they’d be able to waltz into the licensing office on January first. Jane tried her best eldest-sister peacekeeping over the phone but had the good sense to stay snug in her condo with her cat.

After enduring a good fifteen minutes of screeching, I found Mom tucked up in bed, happy as a clam, with her phone pressed to her ear. She talked for so long and in so much detail about people I’d never heard of, I thought I was losing it and perhaps Mom had a secret family. Finally she put the phone down and pulled the blanket up to her chin. “That was Pamela.”

“Who?” Perhaps it came out a touch aggressive.

“The Realtor, darling, the Realtor.”

“What Realtor? You’re not selling—?”

“No, no, of course not.” She patted her curls, which were piled decadently atop her head, and plucked a silver-backed mirror from her nightstand to examine them. “Pamela sold the house next door, silly. We were just discussing the Butkuses.”

“The who?” I was sure there was some elaborate joke being played on me. Butkus, I ask you.

“The couple moving in! Oh, come here.” Mom patted the bed beside her and held out the edge of her chenille coverlet. With a fair amount of grumbling, I climbed into bed and sat back against the Mount Rainier of throw pillows. “Speak up, speak up, don’t grumble.”

“The Butkuses?”

“Yes. Ooh.” She fluttered her eyelids with relish, as though she had a steaming vat of gossip tea, as the twins would phrase it. I think. I can never quite grasp their teen talk. “Ooh, wait till you hear.”

“Go ahead, then.”

She took a deep breath, then held up one finger and rummaged in her nightstand drawer, from which she extracted a long box of Fran’s Chocolates. She was like Mary Poppins—always pulling things out of that bottomless nightstand. She handed me a sea salt caramel and popped one in her own mouth, then continued.

“The Butkuses are a lovely couple about our age. Teachers nearing retirement.”

“Teachers?” Confused, I glanced through the curtains, where the edge of the house next door was just visible. It was a sort of nautical, white-brick, Cape Cod house with forest-green shutters and about four thousand square feet—and again, $3.5 million. Sure, back in the 1980s a man like my dad could buy a house in Madison Park on one salary. But oh, how times had changed. Now a couple of hardworking teachers could barely afford a house out in Bothell, let alone this neighborhood.

Mom’s eyes positively gleamed. She clasped her hands under her chin. “Their son, Christopher Butkus, thirty-two, bought it for them. And darling…” She was practically weeping with joy. “He’s single.”

“Ah.” I made a play for time and reached for another caramel. “And what exactly does Christopher Butkus, thirty-two, do for a living that enables him to buy three-point-five-million-dollar houses for his parents?”

I knew what she was going to say. I knew it. You knew it. Davis’s assless chaps knew it.

“Some sort of tech start-up. It’s been rather successful.” Of course.

“Hmm.”

“They move in on Monday, darling. I’ll invite them all over for a dinner party. You know what you should wear, that green wrap dress from Nordstrom. It sets off your figure, shows a bit of leg. You hear people say, choose whether to show leg or cleavage, but I can’t understand why. What’s the point of keeping your cards hidden if you’ve got a winning hand? When I first met your father, I was wearing—”

“Mom!”

She giggled. “Well, anyway, I know you’ll look gorgeous. So we should do a Google for Christopher Butkus and see what comes up. I wonder if he’s tall.”

“Mom,” I sputtered through a mouthful of caramel. I considered my words carefully. Telling my mother she was getting ahead of herself was a sure way to get her to speed ahead like a curly-haired bowling ball. I opted for a change of subject. “Do you want to hear my New Year’s resolution?”

Clearly I would say anything to shut her up. I took a deep, excited breath and looked her in the eyes. “I’m going to try Jdate.”

She let out a bloodcurdling wail—you see where the twins learned it—and flung the box of caramels against the wall. I stared, slack-jawed and glassy-eyed. This did not seem like a cry of delight. Surely this was the same woman who had begged me for the last two and a half years to try something, anything, to find a nice Jewish boy? Had I entered an alternate reality? I pinched myself, then pinched Mom. She screamed louder.

“I thought you’d be happy!”

She shook her head frantically, fluttering her hands in distress as she cried. Finally she raised a trembling finger in the direction of the window. “B-B-B-Butkus!”

“What?” I jumped out of bed. “You want me to give up meeting new people in the hopes that I’ll end up with this rich nerd?”

She stopped crying at once, a glowing smile on her face as she nodded.

“No!” I shrieked. “I don’t like tech bros, especially ones like him. You know I have to put up with them at work. All they care about is money and algorithms. It’s so dull. I can’t stand to talk to one for more than thirty seconds. They’re all greedy capitalists who couldn’t flirt their way out of a North Face jacket. They want robots to take over the world while they relocate their rich-boy club to outer space, where there’s plenty of virgin territory for them to pillage and destroy! Meanwhile us mere mortals try to save the dying planet that they ruined with their—”

“Shut up, SHUT UP!” Mom sank back and smashed a pillow against her face. “You’re so pretty, Rachel; why can’t you be more like Jane? Polite and quiet. Jane is going to end up married while you’re scaring men off with your politics. Not everything in this world is an apocalyptic corporate conspiracy!”

I pouted for a moment. “I don’t want to meet Christopher Butkus.”

“Well, I don’t want to talk to you anymore. Send your father up.”

I turned to leave, hesitated, then scooped up the sea salt caramels from the carpet and put them in my pocket.

I found Dad cowering in the kitchen pantry. He pretended to be searching for something when I opened the door, but I caught him hurriedly stuffing a bookmark into the novel he’d been reading.

“How are the twins?” I asked.

“Fine, fine. I told them I’d take them to Sephora, so.”

I cringed. “Did you give them a spending limit?”

“No… I didn’t think that would be wise…” He gazed through smudged glasses at the back corner of the pantry, no doubt reliving the trauma of the last hour. I chose not to warn him that he would soon be parted from three or four hundred dollars.

“Mom wants to see you. I’m off.”

He nodded, gave me a peck on the head, and left me in the pantry. I saw the appeal at once: it was dark and quiet and smelled like food. I sat on the floor with my back against some cereal boxes, ate my pocket caramels, and plotted out my Jdate profile in my head.

I spent the rest of the day at Jane’s, complaining to her while Owen cooked us dinner. I hoped Mom was right about Jane marrying Owen soon. And I did wish I were more like Jane: successful, calm, loved. Probably never worn a bra as a hat in her life.

I shrugged off that train of thought. I learned long ago not to compare myself with my older sister—we’re so different. Anyway, I had it all figured out now: I just needed to find a boyfriend immediately so Mom would leave me alone about Christopher Butkus.

JANUARY IS LIKE THE Monday of the year. Time stretches ahead of you with few holidays in sight, only dreary weather as far as the eye can see. Today was one of those Mondays that make you wonder: Is this it? Is this adulthood? My coworkers were all in a postholiday slump, so there was no good gossip to be had. All I had to occupy my brain was actual work—gag.

Working in technical support, you learn quickly that every customer thinks their problem is the most important problem in the world. And there was no shortage of problems today; it was like they’d been hoarding their issues over the holidays. The number of people who’d forgotten their passwords… I slurped my iced coffee and grumbled to myself as I typed off answers to customer tickets.

Eva and Amy were lucky they didn’t have to deal with moronic customers. Eva spent her days taking graduate classes at UW for her library science degree. And Amy taught math to gifted students. Although, come to think of it, Eva also worked at a coffee shop to pay the bills. And on second thought, sophomore algebra students couldn’t be much fun to teach, based on the way I behaved at fifteen. Sumira, poor thing, was required to take clients out to all kinds of dinners and happy hours. At least my customers were all virtual. Imagine having to watch across the table as a middle-aged client picks his teeth and flicks his eyes across the waitress’s bottom. Sumira took it all in stride, though—nothing fazed her.

My phone buzzed. Speak of the gorgeous devil.

Sumira Khan 10:27 AM: Does anyone want to come to my office postholiday party? It’s Friday night. Dress up, get free food and drinks. Should be fun.

Eva Galvez 10:28 AM: I have a date on Friday. That girl Jennifer from class.

Amy McDonald 10:30 AM: I’m plotting a date with Ryan.

Eva Galvez 10:31 AM: Plotting?

Amy McDonald 10:31 AM: Don’t ask.

Sumira Khan 10:32 AM: Rachel?

Rachel Weiss 10:38 AM: Yes! I love holiday parties after the holidays are over. Let the merriment continue!

With a party for me to look forward to, my mood had considerably improved by the time the day’s creepy corporate question popped up on my screen. “How often does your daily work embody the phrase: ‘live large, learn lots’?” Honestly, who came up with these? You had to answer the daily questions, otherwise it got marked in your file that you didn’t participate in company culture. But the answers were all anonymous, so I made it fun for my own entertainment. Today I typed, “N/A. Prefer to live small and learn as little as possible.”

Having accomplished a reasonable day’s work before lunch, I rewarded myself by scrolling through predictions for that night’s episode of The Bachelor. Jane and the girls were coming over to collectively swoon over Jeremy Coltrain, the hottest bachelor in history. I’d learned early in my career never to put in too much effort at work, so my employer’s expectations would never get too high. It had served me well so far. I’d never been classified as an overachiever, and I always managed to scrape enough money together to pay my bills. Most of the time, anyway.

By the time Friday rolled around, I was so ready for Sumira’s party. The great thing about Sumira being a fancy account executive was all the beautiful people she worked with. It was clearly a company requirement to be drop-dead gorgeous—that couldn’t be legal, could it? Anyway, this party was step one in Operation Never Butkus, and I was prepared. So far I had shaved everything, exfoliated everything, done a moisturizing sheet mask, painted my nails, and whitened my teeth. I just needed to get my eyebrows waxed before the party.

I FaceTimed the girls. “Do my nails look okay?”

“What did you do?” Eva appeared to be hunched over the desk in her bedroom.

“It was just a bit tricky holding the nail polish brush steady. I had about six coffees today.”

“Six?!”

“I was nervous about the party.”

“And I’m sure twelve hundred milligrams of caffeine helped calm you down.”

“I feel fine.”

“Rachel, what about Jdate?” Amy stirred something in a Le Creuset pot. “I thought that was your plan.”

“Yes, it is.” I adjusted my fishnets. “But I have to take every opportunity I get, don’t I? Life doesn’t just throw eligible men in one’s path. This is my year of yes. Yes to Jdate, yes to parties, yes to beautiful men knocking down my door.”

“I see.”

“Who knows, I might even be joining you in Married Town before too long.”

Amy snorted bitterly.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. I’ll tell you later. Ryan just got home.”

“I have to go too.” Sumira’s heels were clacking in an echoey parking garage. “I’ll pick you up at seven thirty, Rach.”

“Perf. Time to get my eyebrows waxed. There’s a new place around the corner from my apartment with good prices.”

“Have fun tonight,” Eva said. “I’m taking Jennifer to the Comedy Underground.”

“Good luck! Hope it goes well.”

At seven thirty, I examined myself in the mirror one last time. I’d chosen my green wrap dress. Mom had pointed out that it was quite flattering on me, and she was right. Excellent cleavage. If I was trying to meet men that night, there really was no point in hiding the girls away. I turned to examine my derriere in the mirror.

It was also VERY short.

I’d put on some black fishnets to make it a little more modest. Bonus: the fishnets looked excellent with my black velvet block heels.

My eyebrows were still a bit red, but they would be fine shortly.

They were not fine. THEY WERE NOT FINE. Sumira took one look at me and marched me back upstairs to my apartment.

“Ice them.” She touched my brow bone gingerly.

“It burns!” I moaned while she taped an ice pack to my head.

“Just give it a second.”

“My brain is frozen. My eyebrow makeup is running into my eyes.”

Sumira gave me a look and then noticed my nail polish.

“Come here.” Ten minutes later she had fixed my manicure and my makeup. “You look great.” She looked in the mirror over my shoulder. Not only were my eyebrows still inflamed, but my entire head was now red from the ice pack. Still, the outfit was working for me. Operation Never Butkus was back on track.

When we arrived, the party was in full flow. It was at the Seattle Art Museum, so there were these very sophisticated—I think—sculptures hanging from the ceiling and very artistic (read: flattering) lighting. There was a DJ on one side and a huge table of food and an open bar on the other.

We went straight for the bar, because duh, and on the way I grabbed a plate and filled it with oysters—only ten; I didn’t want to seem gluttonous by taking a full dozen—because free oysters. After I slurped them down, Sumira handed me the signature holiday cocktail—some sort of bubbly cranberry concoction—and we made the rounds.

Sumira looked breathtaking. She wore a shimmery, drapey black dress and thigh-high stiletto boots. Heads kept turning when she walked by; I felt like I was with a celebrity. The whole thing was dreamy. It was like a movie montage of a glamorous party, drinks and laughter flowing freely. If my eyebrows were still red, I didn’t notice. I felt so confident.

Sumira introduced me to her boss, an absolutely charming man who offered me a job on the spot while speaking directly to my breasts. Glancing over his shoulder, I saw that someone was staring at me. Agog, I accidentally stared back for several seconds because I didn’t know whether to believe my eyes: this had to be the most beautiful man in Seattle. Chiseled jaw, big, liquid eyes under thick black brows, dark wavy hair cut short at the s. . .