Sex and Vanity

by Kwan, Kevin

  They swam around the grotto for a few minutes, and without warning, there was a sudden flash as the sunlight broke across the horizon, refracting against the deep underwater cavern and transforming the water around them into the most intense azure blue. It was as if Poseidon had flicked on a vast lamp at the bottom of the ocean, flooding the grotto with the purest light.

  Lucie gasped in disbelief. She had never seen waters so blue, so bright, so inexplicably beautiful. She felt as though she were suspended in the liquid center of a sparkling aquamarine, as though she were having an out-of-body experience. How was such a place possible? The towering walls of the grotto now glowed in shades of cerulean, and she realized that the cave they were in was far larger than she had imagined. She was overcome with gratitude that she had waited till now, and it was George who had finally brought her here. Tears flowed down her face, mingling with the salty sea as she gazed at everything around her like a newborn, wanting to remember every sight, wanting to remember everything about this moment.

  She lazed on her back, feeling absolutely weightless as the waters caressed her skin. She thought of Tiberius, of Caesar Augustus, of all the emperors who had swum these same waters, and she let her mind drift further back in time to commune with all the mythical gods that she knew had a hand in creating this paradise, hoping that they would inspire and heal her.

  After a while, she swam over to George as if in a trance. He looked to her like an otherworldly silver merman, and she noticed for the first time that both their bodies shimmered and glowed under the silvery surface of the water. Lucie simply stared into his eyes, too moved to say anything. George stared back at her in that unbearably alluring way of his, and then he broke into a grin, filled with an intense happiness at the sight of her joy. He took her in his arms, and they kissed passionately.

  “I love you,” Lucie declared, kissing him again and holding him even more tightly.

  “I love you too,” George replied, thinking, We’re going to do this again, and next time I’m bringing a ring.

  They kissed for a few more minutes, lingering against each other, and then Lucie let go of George. She drifted with the current for a few moments, and then she raised her arms, kicked against the water with her powerful legs, and began to swim out of the grotto, into the bright new day.

  Acknowledgments

  It should be obvious from the first chapter that this novel is inspired by my love for E. M. Forster’s A Room With A View and the film adaption by James Ivory and Ismail Merchant. I am indebted to their collective genius in inspiring this homage. Grazie mille as well to these wonderful souls, who in their uniquely magical ways were instrumental in helping me to create this book:

  Ettore Castelli

  Ryan Chan

  Judy Chicago

  Gianluca D’Esposito

  Todd Doughty

  David Elliott

  Ilana Fayon

  John Fontana

  Alicia Lubowski

  Gillian Longworth McGuire

  Aaron Goldberg

  Simone Gers

  Cornelia Guest

  Suzanne Herz

  Jenny Jackson

  Alexandra Machinist

  John Penotti

  August Railey

  Gemma Rose

  David Sangalli

  Holly Star

  Lief Anne Stiles

  Bill Thomas

  Chai Vasarhelyi

  Jimmy O. Yang

  Jacqueline Zirkman

  THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING

  Find us online and join the conversation

  Follow us on Twitter twitter.com/penguinukbooks

  Like us on Facebook facebook.com/penguinbooks

  Share the love on Instagram instagram.com/penguinukbooks

  Watch our authors on YouTube youtube.com/penguinbooks

  Pin Penguin books to your Pinterest pinterest.com/penguinukbooks

  Listen to audiobook clips at soundcloud.com/penguin-books

  Find out more about the author and discover

  your next read at penguin.co.uk

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Hutchinson

  20 Vauxhall Bridge Road

  London, SW1V 2SA

  Hutchinson is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

  Copyright © Tyersall Park Ltd 2020

  Jacket illustration by Clément Dezelus

  Kevin Kwan has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in the United Kingdom by Hutchinson in 2020

  First published in the United States by Doubleday in 2020

  www.penguin.co.uk

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9781473576889

  PROLOGUE

  1 Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, is considered one of the finest women’s liberal arts colleges in America, with notable alumnae like Gloria Steinem, Barbara Bush, and Julia Child. Not that this has stopped the nearby men’s fraternities from coining the saying “Smith to bed, Mount Holyoke to wed, and Amherst girls to talk to.”

  I. CAPRI

  CHAPTER ONE: ANACAPRI

  1 Charlotte, like many native New Yorkers, called Manhattan “the city,” since to them it’s the only city that matters. (Charlotte was born at Lenox Hill Hospital, which, for New Yorkers of her generation in the 10021 zip code, was really the only acceptable place to be born.)

  2 New York real estate speak for a prewar apartment that consists of seven rooms: a formal living room, a dining room, a separate kitchen, three full bedrooms, and a maid’s room. In 2018, the average median price for a classic seven was $4.6 million.

  3 Le Bal des Débutantes, held in Paris every November, is a ball introducing debutantes from around the world. Previous debutantes have included girls from European aristocracy, the children of celebrities, and girls whose parents simply have insane amounts of money.

  CHAPTER TWO: HOTEL BERTOLUCCI

  1 Pretentious Italian for “olive oil” and “balsamic vinegar,” which, by the way, only Americans use to dip their bread in. Italians would never be caught dead doing anything like that, preferring to eat their bread plain.

  2 Cantonese for “You go talk to them. They will listen to you.”

  CHAPTER THREE: POOLSIDE AT THE BERTOLUCCI

  1 Dropped out his junior year to go to shaman school in Peru.

  CHAPTER FOUR: THE GARDENS OF AUGUSTUS

  1 Gramercy Park is not the real downtown, but for Charlotte downtown meant going only as far south as Buvette on Grove Street or occasionally to Tribeca, back when Chanterelle was still around.

  2 Hawaiian for “half,” the word has come to mean a person of mixed Asian and other racial heritage. These days, “hapa” has generally become the most accepted word to use among hapas.

  3 Actually, she’s wrong about Bruce Lee’s mother being half German, but it was an oft-repeated myth. Bruce’s mother, Grace Ho Oi-yee, stated that her father was Chinese and her mother was English, and when Bruce himself was once asked if he thought of himself as Chinese or North American, he replied, “I think of myself as a human being, because under the sky, we are but one family, it just so happens that we look different.”

  CHAPTER FIVE: DA LUIGI BEACH CLUB

  1 Podarcis sicula coerulea, the famous blue lizard of the Faraglioni that scientists believe developed its distinct color to camouflage itself with the surrounding waters and bl
ue sky.

  2 Rhode Island School of Design, which, incidentally, is where three members of the Talking Heads—David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, and Chris Frantz—first met.

  3 Even though Emma Watson majored in English literature, Duncan Sheik studied semiotics, and JFK Jr. chose American studies, biology is tied with economics as the most popular major at Brown University.

  4 Don Johnson, to my knowledge, never wore a Speedo on television. Talitha is obviously confusing him with David Hasselhoff on Baywatch.

  CHAPTER SEVEN: ARCO NATURALE

  1 One of Capri’s most spectacular natural wonders, the arch is actually the remnant of a cave that collapsed millions of years ago during the Paleolithic age.

  2 Over the centuries, there have been many theories about the cave, which was most certainly a sacred space in ancient times, with some archaeologists believing that it was used in ancient Mithraic rituals (google that), while others think that it was a temple dedicated to Cybele, the goddess of wild nature and fertility. Whatever the truth might be, many teenage locals believe it’s the best place to get stoned, or laid, or preferably both. Wild nature and fertility indeed.

  3 Consistently ranked one of the best public schools in New York City, Stuyvesant excels in math and science and counts among its alumni Thelonius Monk, Tim Robbins, Ron Silver, Lucy Liu, and many world-renowned mathematicians and scientists you’ve never ever heard of.

  CHAPTER EIGHT: MARINA GRANDE

  1 “Ready for the queen!” in Malay.

  CHAPTER NINE: VILLA LACHOWSKI

  1 She’s lying, of course. She had a face-lift and neck-lift back in 2000.

  CHAPTER TEN: THE HIGH GARDEN AT VILLA LACHOWSKI

  1 His name was Michael Schoeffling, and after retiring from acting in 1991, he started a business producing handcrafted furniture (if you believe Wikipedia).

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: HOTEL BERTOLUCCI

  1 This line is just one example of the kind of bullshit Auden learned to write in his Deconstructing Art of the Postwar Era course at Amherst. If he hadn’t dropped out, he might have had a whole other career as a critic for Artforum.

  2 This architectural masterpiece by Le Corbusier was formally named the Chapelle Notre-Dame du Haut.

  CHAPTER TWELVE: CERTOSA DI SAN GIACOMO

  1 The annual Young Fellows Ball at the Frick Collection is one of the highlights of the New York social season, partly because it is one of the few charitable events that manages to draw a chic “under forty” crowd, or rather people who claim to be under forty.

  2 A 1988 Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé Musigny Cuvée Vieilles Vignes, to be exact, put away in the year of Dolfi’s birth precisely for this occasion.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: VILLA LYSIS

  1 Actually, Alexis wears a white spangled cocktail dress in the famous “Blake chokes Alexis” season finale, not the gold ruffled gown worn by Rosemary. Both dresses are fabulous, but nowhere near as fabulous as the pink taffeta ball gown Alexis wears to her daughter Amanda’s wedding to the Prince of Moldavia, where (spoiler alert!) rebels storm into the cathedral in a coup attempt, spraying bullets from uzis that manage to kill everyone at the wedding except the cast of Dynasty.

  2 Unfortunately this potential side effect does not appear anywhere on the warning label for Viagra.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: VILLA JOVIS

  1 The private yacht club in the Hamptons that Lucie’s family belongs to.

  2 After selling his business to Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy in 1988 and retiring in 1995, Hubert de Givenchy spent most of his time at Le Jonchet, his beautiful Renaissance castle from the early seventeenth century. #goals

  3 His full name was Baron Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen, the Swedish-French heir to a huge steel fortune. Interestingly, he was related to Axel von Fersen, rumored to be Marie Antoinette’s lover. (In the exquisite Sofia Coppola film Marie Antoinette, the character of Axel von Fersen is played by Jamie Dornan, aka Christian Grey.)

  4 That would be Eros Ramazzotti, who might have been unknown to Lucie but in Italy is pretty much as famous as one gets, having sold more than sixty million records in a career that’s spanned three decades.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: HOTEL BERTOLUCCI

  1 “Not Our Class, Darling.”

  II: NEW YORK

  CHAPTER ONE: THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

  1 A preschool in Odessa, Texas.

  2 Yes, that’s really what they call the body paint combination at Bentley. I personally prefer the “Silver Tempest over Damson,” but I figured no one would know what the hell that meant.

  3 That would be the late María del Rosario Cayetana Paloma Alfonsa Victoria Eugenia Fernanda Teresa Francisca de Paula Lourdes Antonia Josefa Fausta Rita Castor Dorotea Santa Esperanza Fitz-James Stuart, Silva, Falcó y Gurtubay, the Most Excellent Eighteenth Duchess of Alba. As the world’s most titled aristocrat, she was five times a duchess, eighteen times a marchioness, eighteen times a countess, fourteen times a Spanish grandee, once a viscountess, and the twenty-ninth Lady of Moguer. She also took part in a bullfight in Seville. Olé!

  CHAPTER TWO: 821 FIFTH AVENUE

  1 Billionaire + millennials = billennials

  2 She would be referring to Grange Hall, the much-missed restaurant at the corner of Bedford and Commerce Streets.

  CHAPTER THREE: THE SEVENTEENTH FLOOR

  1 Stéphane Boudin, one of the most influential interior designers of the twentieth century. As president of the Paris-based interior decorating firm Maison Jansen, he was the mastermind behind the restoration of the White House for Jacqueline Kennedy in 1961 and was also known for designing interiors for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, C. Z. Guest, the Agnellis, and the royal families of Belgium and Iran.

  CHAPTER FIVE: THE PREPPIE GURU LOUNGE

  1 “Grandmother” in Cantonese.

  CHAPTER SIX: OUTLOOK AVENUE

  1 “No need to be polite” in Cantonese.

  2 A brilliantly talented singer, songwriter, and actor who went from being a teen heartthrob to a pop icon in Asia, Leslie starred in Wong Kar-wei’s Days of Being Wild and Ashes of Time, winning best actor awards for both performances. He committed suicide in 2003.

  3 Actually, Takeshi Kanishiro appeared only in Wong’s Fallen Angels and Chungking Express.

  CHAPTER EIGHT: SAINT LUKE’S PLACE

  1 Prince Nikolai of Denmark has a Danish father and a mother who’s actually of English, Czech, Austrian, and Chinese ancestry. Mark-Paul Gosselaar, aka Zack Morris on Saved by the Bell, has a German father and a Dutch Indonesian mother. Phoebe Cates has a Jewish father of Russian ancestry and a Chinese Filipino and Jewish mother, and yes, she still looks twenty-five.

  2 That would be legendary party photographer Patrick McMullan, of course, who has chronicled New York’s nightlife for over four decades. If Patrick wasn’t snapping away at your party, it might as well not have happened.

  3 My favorite Bond girl from the Roger Moore era, Major Anya Amasova (aka Agent XXX) was a Russian KGB agent played by the incomparable Barbara Bach in The Spy Who Loved Me.

  CHAPTER NINE: DORSET YACHT CLUB

  1 Named after Enzo Ferrari’s late son, Alfredo “Dino,” the 2.0-liter, V-6-powered mid-engine open-top sports car was designed by the great Pininfarina, with original, unmolested specimens going for upward of $400,000.

  2 No baby Zalaa Jinst white goats were harmed in the making of this novel. Cecil’s sweater was actually made from adult goats that grow long, fine fibers in the winter to protect themselves, and herders hand comb the fibers from the goats since shearing them can be too stressful for the animals. An average-sized Zalaa Jinst cashmere sweater requires the wool from approximately four adult goats.

  CHAPTER TEN: CISSINGHURST

  1 Ermenegildo Zegna. Go ahead, see how fast you can say it.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: OUTLOOK AVENUE

  1 Donkey milk abounds with vitamin C, proteins, and fatty acids, confering a multitude of antiaging benefits for your skin. Cleopatra was known to bathe in donkey milk t
o maintain her renowned beauty and youthfulness, so if it’s good enough for the Queen of the Nile, isn’t it good enough for you?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: ROCKEFELLER CENTER

  1 Not to be confused with the accessories closet intern or the beauty closet intern.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: JACQUELINE KENNEDY ONASSIS RESERVOIR

  1 See the White Diamonds perfume commercials for the specific era of Elizabeth Taylor’s hair.

  2 A diner on Madison Avenue between Seventy-Fifth and Seventy-Sixth Streets, 3 Guys Restaurant has been called New York’s “Most Powerful Diner” because it’s a popular haunt for many of the city’s biggest business titans, like Michael Bloomberg, Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon, and, of course, Freddie Churchill.

  3 The Racquet and Tennis Club, a private social and athletic club on Park Avenue that boasts an exquisite cigar lounge and one of the handsomest locker rooms this side of the Atlantic. It is also one of the few private clubs in New York that has retained its men-only membership policy.