Love the one youre with

Ginny-one of Margot's best traits-but would occasionally drop a casual remark about Ginny's narrow-mindedness, how she had no desire to vacation any place other than Sea Island, or that she never reads the newspaper, or how 'funny' it was that Ginny has never held a single job in her life. (And when I say never, I mean never. Not a lifeguarding job in high school nor a brief office job before getting married and instantly having-what else?-a boy, and then, two years later, a girl. She has never collected a single paycheck. And incidentally, to me, someone who has worked consistently since I was fifteen, this fact was beyond funny. It was more akin to knowing conjoined twins or a circus acrobat. Bizarre in the extreme and a bit sad, too.)

But since our arrival in Atlanta, Margot seems to no longer notice these things about Ginny and instead just embraces her as a trusty hometown sidekick making a best friend comeback. And although well-adjusted adults (as I like to consider myself) don't really do the straight-rank best friend thing, I still can't help feeling agitated by my blond former nemesis now that I'm catapulted into her stylized, homogenized Buckhead world.

So, when Margot's next words are, 'Oh, by the way, I invited Ginny and Craig over tonight, too. Hope that's okay?' I smile a big, fake smile and say, 'Sounds peachy.'

A fitting adjective for my new Georgian life.

That night, I manage to run late getting ready for dinner, a curious phenomenon of having nothing pressing to do all day. As I wring out my wet hair and slather moisturizer onto my cheeks, I hear Andy run up the steps and call my name in an all's-right-in-the-world tone, and then add, 'Honey! I'm home!'

I think of that purported excerpt from a 1950s home economics textbook that routinely makes its way around the Internet, giving women dos and don'ts on being a good wife and specifically how we should greet our husbands after a hard day at the office. Make the evening his… Put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh looking… Offer to take off his shoes… Talk in a soothing voice.

I give Andy a kiss on the lips and then say primly, sarcastically, 'Good news, dear. Ginny and Craig will be joining us this evening.'

'Oh, come on,' he says, smiling. 'Be nice. They're not so bad.'

'Are too,' I say.

'Be nice,' he says again, as I try to recall if that was in the article. Always be nice at the expense of the truth.

'Okay,' I say. 'I'll be nice until the fifth time she calls something 'super cute.' After that, I get to be myself. Deal?'

Andy laughs as I continue, mimicking Ginny, 'This dress is super cute. That crib is super cute. Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey were soo super cute together. I know it's a shame about the Middle East turmoil and all, but that breakup is still, like, the saddest thing ever.'

Andy laughs again as I turn back toward my huge, walk-in closet, only about a third filled, and select a pair of jeans, leather flip-flops, and a vintage Orange Crush T-shirt.

'You think this is okay for dinner?' I say, slipping the shirt over my head and almost hoping that Andy will criticize my choice.

Instead, he kisses my nose and says, 'Sure. You look super cute.'

True to form, Ginny is dressed smartly in a crisp shift dress, strappy sandals, and pearls, and Margot is wearing an adorable pale blue maternity frock, also with pearls. (Granted Margot's are the whimsical, oversized costume variety tied in the back with a white grosgrain ribbon rather than the good strand her grandmother bequeathed her, but pearls they are.)

I shoot Andy a look that he misses as he bends down to pat Ginny's hairless Chinese crested puppy named Delores without whom she never leaves home (and, even worse, to whom she habitually applies sunscreen). I swear she prefers Delores to her children-or at least her son, who has such a raging case of ADD that Ginny brags about strategically giving him Benadryl before long car trips or dinners out.

'I feel so underdressed,' I say, handing Margot a bottle of wine that I grabbed from our wine cellar on our way out the door. I run my hands over my denim-clad hips and add, 'I thought you said casual?'

Ginny looks somewhat jubilant, oblivious to the fact that I secretly feel appropriate, even smug, in my jeans and T-shirt-and that I think she's the one who is overdressed. As she leans in to give me a demure collar bone-to- collar bone hug, Margot thanks me for the wine and says, 'I did. You look great.' Then, as she pours margaritas into oversized hand-blown glasses, she adds, 'God, I wish I had your height… Especially these days. Ginny, wouldn't you just kill for those legs?'

Ginny, who never made a postpartum comeback despite a personal trainer and a tummy tuck she doesn't know that I know she had, glances wistfully at my legs before murmuring noncommittally. Clearly, she prefers that her compliments to me be of the backhanded variety-such as the recent gem she doled out while we were selecting invitations for Margot's baby shower (an event I'm shamefully dreading) at Paces Papers. After laboring over our wording and the selection of pale pink, deckle-edged paper, charcoal ink, and an old-fashioned pram motif, I thought our task was finished. I picked up my purse, relieved to go, when Ginny touched my wrist, smiled condescendingly, and said, 'Font, hon. We have to choose a font.'

'Oh, right,' I said, thinking of my old workroom in New York and how much I learned about typefaces from Oscar. Way more than Ginny could have picked up from planning her wedding and a few showers and charity balls. But I still amused myself by throwing out, 'So I guess Times New Roman won't do this time?'

At which point Ginny did her best to convey horror to the cute redheaded girl helping us and then declared, 'Oh, Ellen. I so admire how laidback you are about these details… I try to be more that way, but just can't.'

Bless my heart.

So anyway, here I sit in Margot's family room in my Orange Crush T-shirt, the only bright color in a sea of preppy chic, summery pastels. And the only one who hasn't heard the summer's breaking news-that Cass Phillips discovered her husband, Morley, had purchased a three-thousand-dollar harp for his twenty-one-year-old lover who happens to be her best friend's goddaughter. Which, as you can imagine, has caused quite the stir at Cherokee, the country club to which all pertinent parties belong.

'A harp?' I say. 'Whatever happened to your standard negligee?'

Ginny shoots me a look as if I've totally missed the point of the story, and says, 'Oh, Ellen. She's a harpist.'

'Right,' I say, mumbling that I figured as much, but who the heck decides to pick up the harp, anyway?

Andy winks at me and says, 'Elizabeth Smart.'

As I recall the 'missing' posters of Elizabeth playing the harp, I smile at my husband's ability to conjure examples for just about anything, while Ginny ignores our exchange and informs me that she and Craig had a harpist at their rehearsal dinner, along with a string quartet.

'Elizabeth who?' Craig says, turning to Andy, as if trying to place the name in his tight little Buckhead context.

'You know,' I say. 'The Mormon girl who was kidnapped and then found a year later walking around Salt Lake City in a robe with her bearded captor.'

'Oh yeah. Her,' Craig says dismissively. As I watch him slice a big wedge of Brie and sandwich it between two crackers, it occurs to me that while he is like Webb in some ways-they are both ruddy, joke-telling, sports guys-he has none of Webb's affability or ability to put others at ease. Come to think of it, he never really acknowledges me much at all or even looks my way. He brushes a few crumbs from his seersucker shorts and says, 'I did hear the harpist was smokin' hot…'

'Craig!' Ginny whines her husband's name and looks aghast, as if she just caught him jerking off to a Penthouse magazine.

'Sorry, babe,' Craig says, kissing her in such a way that would suggest they've only just begun to date, when in fact, they've been together since virtually the first day of college.

Webb looks amused as he asks how Morley was busted.

Ginny explains that Cass found the charge on Morley's corporate Amex. 'She thought it looked suspicious and called the store… Then she put it together with his sudden interest in the symphony,' she says, her eyes bright with the scandalous details.