Not just cocktails and gossip

Cocktails For Three
By Madeleine Wickham
St. Martin’s Paperbacks
300 pages

No girlfriends are real girlfriends without their own brand of tradition, a reliable something that can serve as oasis, escape, fallback or mere sounding board when the womanly climb gets too tough. For some, it can be weekly nights of coffee and conversation. For others, it can be weekend jaunts in the most happening spots. For Maggie, Roxanne, and Candice, the three protagonists of Cocktails for Three, it as an evening of cocktails and gossip at London’s swankiest bar, the Manhattan Bar, every first of the month.

That the three ladies are, in fact, officemates at The Londoner, a glossy fashion magazine, is a study of female behavior: Despite the proximity, this group still absolutely needs to go out for catch-up chitchat. The gathering that unfolds in the novel, however, is not like any other because it marks some significant stages in the three friends’ lives: Maggie, the high-achieving editor, is ready to give birth; Roxanne, the freelance, jet-setting writer, is still enmeshed in a secret affair with a married man; and Candice, the kind-hearted writer, has just broken up with her officemate and boyfriend, Justin.

Furthermore, that particular night at the bar also ushered in equally significant changes in the three thirtysomethings’ lives: Maggie sets off for her maternal leave with secret plans of not returning to work; Roxanne is mum about her fading hope that her boyfriend will choose her over his family; and Candice recognizes the waitress as a girl from her old school whose father was victimized by Candice’s swindler dad and, that same night, urged by a guilt she has carried since childhood, Candice secretly decides to help this girl, Heather, to make up for the faults of her father, who has since died.

That the three friends keep these three major changes in their lives secret from each other is also a study of female behavior: Just because they talk all night doesn’t mean they’ve laid everything out in the open. It is this night at the Manhattan Bar that triggers a chain of events that quickly spins out of control, testing the three friends’ own brand of strength, self-knowledge and vulnerability plus their friendship, carrying them through the ups and downs of being a woman — and a survivor — in these close-to-hysterical times.

In this deliciously funny and witty book, author Madeleine Wickham crafts a story of friendship and survival that, though predictable at times, carries its own brand of flavor. The author’s strength is character development and dialogue, turning Cocktails for Three into an incredibly-tasting punch. – Althea Lauren Ricardo