by Bridie Clark
“It’s the least I can do,” Trip insisted. “I’m sorry that he upset you like that. He’s a moron—”
“Hey!” Wyatt shouted. “I’m standing right here.”
“But I promise he wasn’t trying to suggest anything sketchy.”
“You got the moron part right,” said Lucy Jo, but her expression softened. She accepted Trip’s umbrella with a thankful nod, and hurried off down the block.
7
please join parker lewis for a
holiday housewarming
86 laight street, sixth floor
tribeca
wednesday, december 2nd
10 PM
This is precisely why we need a driver,” Fernanda Fairchild, thirty-one and counting, whined to her mother. The two stared glumly out the front door of Nello. Nightmare! The rain had started during the endive salad. Now it was coming down in sheets.
“Always the nights I wear velvet,” clucked Martha Fairchild, running a protective hand down the sleeve of her Chanel jacket. Maximilian, Fernanda’s older brother, had gone out to hail a cab. He’d been at it without success for the better part of five minutes, and the ladies were beginning to panic.
“I knew it’d be a disaster tonight!” Fernanda exclaimed. She’d honed a special gift for predicting disasters. “Is Max, like, getting out there? You’ve got to be aggressive to get a taxi on a night like this. You’ve got to throw yourself in front and dare the cabbie not to run you over!”
“You know your brother,” Mrs. Fairchild said pessimistically.
For those who don’t: Max Fairchild was thirty-four, gorgeous, outdoorsy, athletic, blond, and gentle natured. The only thing he was missing was a backbone, which his many female admirers generously forgave. He wasn’t what you’d call brainy, either, but he did just fine at his uncle’s firm.
Fernanda, who took after their pale, beaky late father, pulled the ends of her jet-black hair in agony. “I knew we shouldn’t have tried to squeeze in dinner after the Townhouse party. I’ll be drenched and curly by the time I get to Parker’s!” Fernanda’s hair was her one vanity. Lovely and thick, it took a full hour to blow-dry during twice-weekly appointments at Garren. And that very afternoon—after a month on the waiting list, not to mention her entire week’s salary at Christie’s—she’d finally gotten her first cut-color-blowout appointment with the Lower East Side shut-in that Cornelia and all the girls raved about. The guy’s musty apartment made Fern’s skin crawl, but Cornelia insisted he was the best. She was totally right, of course. Cornelia was just lucky that her astronomical bills were handled—and never questioned—by one of her family’s accountants. Anyway, it was too infuriating; now all Fernanda’s effort would be for naught.
A very wet Max suddenly emerged from the street, his cherubic blond curls matted dark against his brow, his ravaged black umbrella looking like an origami swan. “It’s awful out—”
“Did you get one?” Fernanda demanded, peering out through the cloudy glass.
“I tried,” Max said. “I walked over to Park, too, and then up a few blocks—nothing!”
“So what do you suggest we do, Maximilian? Take the bus?” Mrs. Fairchild was only being sarcastic, of course, and was not pleased when Max fished out a yellow MetroCard from the pocket of his trench. “Stop being ridiculous! Go get us a taxi tout de suite!”
“Hey, there’s one!” Fernanda shouted, pushing her drenched brother back out the door and toward a barely visible on-duty light making its way up Madison.
“Someone’s got it already—” Max called over his shoulder, pointing toward a young woman who’d been desperately trying to hail a cab since he went outside. “That girl’s been waiting—”
“That girl is not wearing Carolina Herrera and python Manolos!” Fernanda shrieked. Nor, presumably, was that girl heading to the home of a man she’d been doggedly hunting for months. Fernanda couldn’t be late for Parker Lewis’s party. He was ideal husband material: forty-five, recently divorced, distinguished, social, wealthy. Not much to look at, but who cared? If Fernanda showed up late—well, she just knew that the circling hyenas would beat her to the kill. This was a pivotal night. She’d invested four grand in her outfit alone, and she needed to see a return.
“Just get it already, Max,” Mrs. Fairchild commanded, in a quieter but equally emphatic tone.
Max charged out the door and raced toward the taxi. The girl was closing in on it, too, and as she saw Max coming, a wave of disbelief—then disgust—transformed her face.
He gulped; this was not a proud moment. But what was the fleeting wrath of a stranger compared to the hours of verbal thrashing he’d get from his mother and sister? Max lunged, beating the girl to the door by less than a step. All those squash matches at the Racquet Club were good for something.
“What is wrong with you?” the girl yelled as Max threw open the door and dove into the backseat. She struggled to maneuver around him, but he played great defense.
“I’m really sorry,” he muttered. God, she was soaked. She clutched an umbrella, but it still looked like she’d been out in the rain for days. Max slammed the door as kindly as he could, under the circumstances, and the girl smacked her open palm against the window in protest.
“My sister and mother are right . . . up . . . there, under that awning,” Max told the driver, ashamed of what the man must think of him.
The girl—much to Max’s chagrin—followed the car right down the block, refusing to accept defeat.
“H-he just stole this taxi from me!” Max heard her appeal to Martha and Fernanda as they scurried out from the restaurant under borrowed umbrellas, opened the door, and dove in. “It was mine—”
“Sorry, dear,” the elder lady called out, shutting the door.
Once safely inside, Martha turned sharply to her pouting daughter. “Do you think I don’t know we need a driver, Fernanda? You think I choose to live like this?”
Fernanda let out a deep sigh. Max shifted uncomfortably in his seat, pretending to stare out the fogged-up window.
The Fairchilds possessed one of those painful family secrets that everybody knew. Henry Fairchild—Max and Fern’s father—had been a fourth-generation wastrel who’d squandered a shocking amount of his family’s once robust steel fortune. Unlike his savvy forefathers, Henry had a nose that pointed him toward get-poor-quick schemes and dot-com fiascoes. Then he’d had the gall to keel over at age fifty-three, leaving his family stranded in a classic eight on 82nd and Park.
They weren’t penniless. In truth, the Fairchilds spent more money in a year than most people could hope to see in a lifetime. None of them had ever scrubbed a toilet, hemmed a pair of pants, or walked their own dachshunds at an inconvenient time. They still had some of the influence and power conferred by their last name. So all had not been lost.
But the rich have their own sliding scale for what it means to be truly comfortable. And thanks to Henry’s ineptitude, the Fairchilds had slid. Max couldn’t be counted on to restore the family fortune to its onetime glory. Fernanda still lived at home, which galled her. Just the other day, she’d had to ask her boss for a raise. Because she’d needed one. That had not been an easy moment to bear. Being past thirty and single made it all the worse.
“Laight Street, between Hudson and Varick,” Max said to the taxi driver. His sister and mother sat in grim silence.
The long and short of it: Fernanda needed a husband immediately, if not sooner, but she’d already struck out with a stable of eligible men. Thank God for divorce, as mother and daughter agreed. The mere rumor of a marriage on the brink could buoy both their spirits. Thus they’d been downright thrilled to hear that Parker’s wife had left him for her Vedic astrologer and a “simple life” in Arizona. Bon riddance, Fernanda thought, with the thirst of a vulture stumbling across juicy roadkill.
Now she just had to get there first.
Watching the second stolen taxi of the evening speed off, Lucy Jo could no longer hold back her tears. She was exhaust
ed from trolling the lower 60s in the rain, the skin on her bare legs now rubbery-wet, her lips purple. Another cab pulled over to pick her up just minutes later, but the psychic damage had been done. As the red and yellow lights of the city melted down Lucy Jo’s rain-streaked window, she slumped in the backseat, the night’s events flashing through her mind like a torturous slide show. Her entire world had collapsed along with that runway. She’d been humiliated in front of a room full of her idols. She had been fired from a job she’d pretty much hated, but would now beg to have back. Then that rich bitch Cornelia What’s-her-face had shamelessly stolen her cab. She’d been insulted and propositioned by a stranger, before losing another cab to another heartless preppy.
She leaned her head against the gray pleather seat. It was slimy from a previous passenger, but she didn’t care. A dull backache had set in, along with a deep chill. And Lucy Jo felt a little dizzy, too—the way she had when she first moved to New York and the city made no sense at all.
“Nine dollars,” said the cabdriver when they’d reached the white stucco walk-up building she called home. She handed him eleven, cringing to see how few dollars she had left in her wallet.
As she reached into her pocket for her keys, Lucy’s hand grazed the business card Wyatt Hayes had given her. I’d have to be out of my mind, she thought, opening the door.
8
Marriage means commitment. Then again, so does insanity.
—Unknown
Turks and Caicos? Well, doesn’t that sound awfully romantic!” “It’s supposed to be beautiful,” said Eloise Carlton into the telephone, not sure how else to respond to her mother’s enthusiasm. She peered into her overstuffed closet, rising up on tiptoes to pull a suitcase off the top shelf. “Trip says we’re right on the beach—”
“So? Do you think this could be it?” Ruth Carlton, incurably hopeful, squealed into her daughter’s ear.
Eloise held the phone away. You’d think by now her mother would have clued in that sometimes a fabulous island getaway was just a fabulous island getaway, no rings attached.
“Mom,” she said in a warning tone, tossing a violet and indigo Allegra Hicks caftan into her suitcase.
Eloise Carlton had been dating Trip Peters for eight years, since she was twenty-eight, which was two years before he’d shown any hint of hedge-fund prowess. Back then he’d lived in his mother’s pied-à-terre, conveniently located close to Dorrian’s and Mimma’s Pizza. Now Trip owned a six-bedroom townhouse inches from Madison Avenue, complete with wine cellar and indoor movie theater. “Well, you said he planned the whole thing as a surprise. As ‘part’ of your Christmas present. So your father and I thought, maybe—”
“Now Daddy’s speculating on my love life, too?” Eloise blew her bangs, currently Titian red, off her forehead (she dyed her hair a new color every few weeks, during her rare nights at home). Focus. Trip had just sprung their pre-Christmas trip on her that afternoon, right in the middle of a chaotic and ill-conceived fashion shoot (“farmyard chic,” which essentially meant models dressed in designer overalls and Galliano plaid, riding tractors and wrestling pigs). Now she had less than an hour to pack before heading over to his place and collapsing in an exhausted heap onto his bed. After dozens upon dozens of spontaneous Trip-engineered getaways,Eloise was starting to loathe the sight of her Goyard overnight bag. Sometimes all she wanted was to stay put, to sink into the couch and not move for a week. She loved her cute two-bedroom apartment on tree-lined 73rd Street, the best investment of her life, but she got to enjoy it so little.
“Your father and I just want you to be happy,” said Ruth.
Pack, Eloise told herself. The trick to discussing her relationship with Trip with her mother—which lately was the only thing her mother wanted to discuss—was to multitask. SPF 30. Malo cashmere traveling mask and slippers. The turquoise Eres string bikini that Trip had drooled over during their last trip to Mykonos. Her favorite floppy straw hat. Vivier sunglasses.
“All your sisters are married,” her mother reminded her.
“Lucky them!” chirped Eloise. Passport. Oversize makeup case, even though she rarely wore more than a hint of mascara and lip gloss. More than that weighed down her porcelain complexion. Her Jennifer Aniston look for travel: Miu Miu gold leather sandals, comfy but well-fitted Superfine jeans, and two white tops with barely-there straps. An H&M dress that she could throw on for lunch. Two slubbed-silk sarongs, light as air. Her white Genetic jeans, plus a slinky bronze-colored top she’d scored at a thrift shop and strappy Choos. Next month’s Harper’s Bazaar, not available to the public for another two weeks. These were the perks of being a stylist: free magazines, unbeatable swag.
“And your friends, sweetie. How many times have you been a bridesmaid?”
“Um . . . fourteen, I think?” Eloise refused to sound anything but delighted by this fact.
“You’ve hosted four baby showers in the past year alone,” Ruth continued. “I hate to say it, sweetie, but it can be a bit harder to get pregnant at thirty-six—”
Eloise’s neck tightened. She rubbed it with one hand, tossing a bottle of Bulgari perfume into her suitcase with the other. Not that she felt any need to correct her mother, but she’d actually thrown six baby showers that year. Eloise could fill an Olympic pool with all the pink and blue buttercream icing she’d ordered from Magnolia. She loved doing it, was always quick to offer—but sometimes those little baby things made her heart ache.
“And don’t tell me you don’t care about getting married, I will not buy it.” Ruth Carlton could no longer keep the frustration out of her voice.
“I certainly don’t care as much as you do,” Eloise said quietly. “Trip and I aren’t like you and Daddy.”
Not being like her parents had been a selling point when she was thirty. She and Trip had lived for their benders at Marquee, their impulsive trips to Morocco or Ibiza or Tokyo or wherever Trip decided they had to fly next. They were constantly surrounded by friends—crowded into overflowing banquette tables, ordering one more bottle of Cristal just to keep the night going. Their nights ended at 4 AM and their mornings began with greasy egg-and-cheese sandwiches from the corner deli. They loved their life together. They always seemed to be on the same wavelength, best friends who happened to have great chemistry and identical taste in Turkish takeout. What could be better?
“Believe me, I know you’re not like us,” Ruth clucked. “I would’ve kicked Daddy out on his—”
“Mom, stop!” Eloise interrupted. “All I’m saying is that just because Trip planned a vacation doesn’t mean he’s going to propose.”
“You never know,” her mother insisted.
Jewelry! From her case Eloise pulled out a delicate gold necklace from Cartier and the pair of freshwater pearl earrings Trip had given her for her birthday last year.
“Can’t you just ask him what he’s thinking?” Ruth asked for the millionth time. “Just ask him when he sees himself getting married. Not an ultimatum, just a question.”
“I’ve been busy, Mom,” Eloise answered, evading the question. “Work’s been nonstop. Last week I had a shoot in Palm Springs and Telluride. I had a shoot today. The week after next I’m in Rome for Italian Vogue. I’m not sitting around obsessing about this.”
“I’m not suggesting that you obsess about it. All I’m saying is that it shouldn’t be this difficult. If he cared about your feelings, he wouldn’t drag things out like this.”
Eloise and Trip had met on a humid July evening in the backyard of a Bridgehampton house some mutual friends were renting. Trip was working the barbecue, but he dropped his tongs and zeroed in on Eloise the moment she arrived. Later, when one of their pals griped about his charred burger, Trip grinned sheepishly. “Blame whoever brought her,” he’d said, pointing his chin at Eloise. He wasn’t the best-looking guy in the world, or even in that Bridgehampton backyard. He was four inches shorter than she was when she wasn’t wearing heels; Eloise always had a pretty good view of the balding crow
n of his head. But there was just something about him. Or something about them that she couldn’t imagine finding with anyone else. They’d gone home together that summer night and hadn’t been apart since.
“I’ve got to hang up, Mom,” Eloise said briskly, glancing at her watch.
“So is Wyatt still dating your girlfriend?” Ruth asked. She prided herself on staying current on the latest couplings, and thanks to a new rash of socialite-focused blogs, she could track everything from Duxbury.
“I wouldn’t call Cornelia a friend. She’s just a girl I know socially,” said Eloise. “I’ve gotta go—”
“Well, I hope it works out. My friend Donna thought that if Trip ran out of single friends, settling down might strike him as the natural next step—”
“Mother!” Eloise had reached her limit. “Enough, okay? I’m going to be late.”
“Fine, sweetie. Have a wonderful time on your trip. Call us if anything interesting happens,” Ruth said in a singsongy voice.