The end of Lipstick Jungle was the end of the Ashleys series. I had planned to write at least two more books, but my schedule did not end up allowing me to do so. I’m so sorry to keep you hanging.
So, at last, here are the answers to your questions about what happens to the Ashleys in THE END.
Ashley Alioto (“A.A.”) moves to Los Angeles with her mom but she and Tri have a long-distance relationship that they struggle to keep together. As the years go by, they keep making up and breaking up and then go to college and graduate and fall in love with other people and think back fondly on their first love. (Because, c’mon, you can’t end up with the person you fell in love with at TWELVE can you? Can you?) Surprisingly, the answer to this question is a YES. Tri and A.A. meet again in New York, where he is a lawyer and she is a sports agent. They have their wedding at the Tribeca Rooftop. The only Ashley at the reception is Ashley Spencer. She and A.A. are still friends, and they laugh that once upon a time, they had fought over Tri, whom most people now call Robert. A.A. and Tri move to Westchester and have three children.
Ashley Spencer gets shipped off to boarding school after Miss Gamble’s, where she goes through a bohemian phase, demands that everyone call her “India” and hooks up with lots of long-haired Phish fans. Cooper is no longer her boyfriend after he comes out of the closet in high school, but they remain the best of friends. Ashley goes off to Brown for college, and moves to New York, where she works for a succession of fashion magazines and is subsequently laid off not once but several times due to the ups and downs of the magazine industry. Finally tired of all the chaos, she starts her own blog, Daily Kisses, and after a few years sells it to Stalker Media for twenty million dollars. She’s thirty-six, still single, and has moved on to dating moguls.
Ashley Li (“Lili”) never does go back to the Ashleys after the big split at the end of the year. She’s still friendly with A.A. but the two lose touch after A.A. moves to Bel-Air. Instead, she hangs out with Max and his friends and transfers to the art school that he attends. They split up after a few months, and after high school she goes to RISD, where she majors in Painting. She never speaks to Ashley Spencer again, although later the two of them will reconnect on Facebook and meet up for drinks in the city and laugh about how silly they all were in seventh grade. After working for a famous photographer, she has a gallery show of her own and achieves a modest amount of fame. Max grows up to be a corporate banker, which she also finds out through Facebook. Ashley Li lives in Tribeca with her husband Garret, a musician, and their two dogs.
Lauren Page’s dad loses all his money in Great Recession, but Lauren and her mom amassed so many designer clothes and jewelry while they were rich that they’re able to float the family on e-Bay sales for many years. She and Christian break up but they remain friends and take each other to prom in high school (still as friends, with maybe a few benefits, but nothing serious.) Lauren goes to Harvard, becomes the head of the Lampoon and moves to Hollywood after college, and works on one television sitcom after another. She and Ashley Spencer remain friends, and whenever Ashley is in LA, Lauren meets up with her at the Beverly Hills Hotel where they order too many cocktails and Ashley flirts shamelessly with the model-waiters. After several failed relationships and one failed engagement, Lauren meets the man of her dreams, a fellow writer on her TV show and they get married in Santa Barbara. They have one child and two homes.
And that’s how it all ends up for our girls!
Hope you enjoyed it!
xoxo
Mel