by Bridie Clark
Rita nodded approvingly. “I saw that Wyatt guy. Quite the looker. Is he also your beau?”
“No! No beau! No.” Lucy could see Rita’s mind working. “It’s just a business proposition. That’s all.”
Now it was Rita who looked shocked. “Hold on, now! It’s one thing to dance—hell, I’d do that myself if I still had the body for it. But I didn’t raise my daughter to—”
“Rita! Wyatt and I are strictly platonic. We’re just working together, like, professionally.”
“What’s in it for him? You’ll get a leg up in the fashion business, but what’s the gravy on his potatoes?”
Lucy let out a frustrated sigh. “It’s a bet with one of his friends. These guys, Rita, they’re not like the guys we know back home. Wyatt’s got spare time on his hands.”
“And spare money, seems like. So he’s using you as a guinea pig—and bankrolling this new swanky lifestyle.”
Lucy hated feeling like a kept woman, and she could hear the kaching sounds going off in Rita’s head. “Well, more or less. I borrow a lot, too. That dress I wore in the Vogue photo was borrowed from an up-and-coming designer.”
“You know I have nothing against borrowing,” Rita declared magnanimously. “Share the wealth, I always say. Speaking of which, I spent my last dime coming out here. I had to get a New York wardrobe, once I saw how swanky you’re looking these days.” She unzipped her suitcase and pulled out several tiny little dresses, each in a different animal print. “I brought my nails, though, so once we find a few investors, I’ll be back in the black.”
The relative peace of Lucy’s warm bath seemed lifetimes ago. “I don’t have any money, Rita. I’m just as broke as I’ve always been.”
Rita didn’t look concerned. “Your friend Wyatt does, though, right?”
“I can’t ask him for money. He’s done too much for me already. But listen, in a few months, when I’ve got my career going full-steam, I can help you—”
“You’re selling yourself short.” Rita Ellis lowered her voice. “I’m sure you could find some way to convince this guy to part with some cash. Use your feminine wiles, darling—”
Lucy felt the anger rising in her chest. “In a few months, Rita, when it’s my money to give. You know I’ll be there for you. That’s the best I can do.”
Rita frowned hugely. She shook her head. “I come all the way out here, leave my whole life behind—”
“If you’d called, I would’ve told you to stay home!” Lucy snapped. As soon as the words left her mouth, she could feel them hit Rita hard. She’d never spoken so disrespectfully to her mother. Rita’s penciled eyebrows arched in hurt surprise, before forming an angry downward arrow.
“I didn’t realize!” Rita declared. She grabbed her suitcase and moved toward the door. “I won’t stay where I’m not wanted!” She waited a beat, giving Lucy the chance to stop her before charging out of the apartment.
Lucy let her go. She watched the door slam behind her mother.
Her hands trembled as she headed back into the bathroom and pulled the plug in the tub. She watched the iridescent bubbles swirl down the drain as though pulled by some invisible hand. She’s never exactly been Mother of the Year. Lucy pressed both hands over her face. She could ruin everything for me.
She walked to the apartment door, then changed her mind. No. Too much at stake. Lucy glanced in the entryway’s gilded mirror. She’d developed a habit of tucking invitations into its ornate edges. They were too beautiful—the hand-engraved calligraphy, the Mrs. John L. Strong card stock—to hide, or keep stacked on a tray. Now the mirror was starting to look overgrown, almost wild. Lucy could barely see her own reflection.
She threw on her snow boots and raced out the door after her mother.
Trip had cooked dinner, set a small table in front of the fireplace, and uncorked a bottle of wine they’d bought on their last trip to Tuscany. Eloise didn’t need her mother whispering in her ear to wonder if he was up to something. Ever since their blowup about the closet last week, he’d been quieter than usual. At the end of the meal, Trip dipped fresh biscotti into the vin santo and brought it to her lips.
“You make me so happy, El.” His voice was lower than usual. Eloise, watching him over the flickering candles, felt her heart start to pound. It’s happening. She realized just how badly she wanted it. “We were made for each other.” Trip reached across the table for her hand.
A moment of silence passed. Then another.
Reach into your pocket. Drop to one knee. Please!
As though she were controlling his thoughts, Trip moved one hand slowly toward the pocket of his sport coat, and extracted a small midnight blue box. She shut her eyes. Her joy was overwhelming. When she opened her eyes and then the small box, she saw before her not an engagement ring but a plain brass key.
“Happy Valentine’s Day. Since we’re officially living together,” he said, “I thought you might like your own key.” He smiled as though he were the sweetest, most thoughtful man on the planet. Eloise wanted to dive across the table and bite his face.
“But Trip, darling, I’ve had keys for the past four years,” she said carefully.
“Really? Well, right, but this is sort of a symbolic key. To show we’ve taken the next step in our relationship.”
She wished she could feel excited about that. “Unlocks the same door, right?”
“Well, yeah, but—c’mon, El, it’s a sign of our new commitment.” She could feel her heart harden against him. She was thirty-five years old. How could Trip really expect that sending his household manager to Ace Hardware constituted an adequate “sign of commitment”? She pushed her chair away from the table.
“Where are you going?”
“I think I need to spend the night at home. I mean, my home. By myself.” Her voice was croaky. She didn’t have much time before this became a bigger, more unpleasant moment than it already was. Eloise escaped as quickly as she could, grabbing her coat and pretending she didn’t hear Trip calling her name.
Ground rules. Lucy would simply explain to Rita that she wouldn’t be able to run roughshod over her entire life. There would be no borrowed earrings, credit cards, prom dates like old times. There would be boundaries. Lucy rested her full basket on the counter in front of the Duane Reade cashier. Rita had reluctantly agreed to set up camp in Lucy’s old Murray Hill studio (Wyatt had been paying her rent, presumably so she could move back in after the Forum—one of those thoughts she preferred to avoid). The place was just as Lucy had left it—inhospitably bare-bones—so she was stocking up. But that would be it. She would not be pulled into the cycle of providing for Rita’s every need.
By the time she’d hauled the heavy bags back to Eloise’s apartment, Lucy felt okay. Better than okay, really. Maybe it was time to give Rita another chance. She opened the door just as Rita unleashed a peal of laughter. And then—
“I should’ve told him where to shove that key!” Eloise. Fark. She must’ve come home and met Rita.
“I know I just met you, honey, but can I tell you what I think?” Rita asked. Lucy rounded the corner of the foyer to find her mother dispensing Kleenex and advice to a tear-streaked Eloise as they lounged on the sofa like sisters in a very peculiar sorority. She felt a rush of concern for her friend; Trip must have really stepped in it this time. “Get yourself knocked up. Call me old-fashioned, but he sounds like the kind of guy who’ll do the right thing.”
“Rita!”
“Not like this one’s old man,” Rita thumbed toward her daughter. “Saw the pregnancy test next to the sink and ran out so fast he left a jackass-shaped hole in the door.”
“Heartwarming,” Lucy remarked. She put down her bags. “El, what happened? Yesterday you seemed so happy—”
“Yesterday I thought I’d be engaged today!” She choked back sobs. “Rita’s been great, Luce. I told her she’s welcome to stay here”—she heaved for breath—“as long as she needs to.”
Rita, still patting Eloise�
�s platinum blonde spikes, looked up and smiled. “Lucy thinks I’ll embarrass her,” she said, playing the martyr to the fullest. “I know she’s trying to convince everyone she comes from a highfalutin’ family, but I won’t blow her cover. I know how to act classy. I’ve watched The Real Housewives. I know how to act like a rich bitch.”
“I’m sure you do,” Lucy said. She straightened her posture, summoning up the inner alpha that Wyatt had been helping her to find. “But you can’t blow this opportunity for me. I won’t let you. Either lay low in Murray Hill until the Fashion Forum Ball, or take the next bus back to Dayville.” She ignored the horror-stricken look on Eloise’s face. Her friend didn’t understand.
“Fine.” Rita pouted, but then turned to look at Eloise brightly. “Have I showed you my nails, doll?”
23
Wyatt’s Book Notes:
L. enters new situations with trepidation, and appears overly impressed with existing alphas. Missteps still abound. For example, upon spilling some red wine on the light-colored couch of a hostess, L. made a squawking display of cleaning it up, revealing her subordinate status. I told her afterward she should have apologized quickly and called for the maid—something I had witnessed C. do just months before.
In the Harvard Club’s wood-paneled grill room, Dr. Kipling crooked one bushy white eyebrow as he lavished butter on his popover. “Define ‘not so sure.’ ”
Wyatt folded his hands over his plate. “About the ending, I guess.”
“The ending? The subject goes to the ball, passes herself off as a socialite to the most discerning critics. It’s the final moment in her transformation to alpha female. You’re nervous, I understand. But I’ve read your research, Wyatt, and the first several chapters. Maybe you’re not so sure about this book, but I am.”
Wyatt frowned. He wished Kipling would stop referring to Lucy as “the subject.” How could he explain that the problem wasn’t his confidence, but his conscience? If he published the book with all the details of the past two months spelled out, fingers would instantly point to Lucy, even if he shortened or changed her name. She’d be exposed as a phony, and Wyatt knew that many of the people she’d come to think of as friends—the ones inviting her to dinner every night, asking her to join their committees—would drop her faster than they could say “not our kind, dear.” At the beginning he hadn’t given it much thought, but as the end of their experiment drew closer, the exposure was starting to feel a bit—
“Cold,” muttered Kipling. “Damn bisque is room temperature at best. This place is going downhill.”
Maybe he’d let Lucy read the manuscript herself. Let her decide if she could handle it. But then he cringed, thinking about how she’d react to certain observations in The Overnight Socialite. It wasn’t too great a mystery: she’d think he was a heartless snob. And could he blame her?
“This book is going to reinvigorate your career,” Kipling said, reaching for the second popover when it became clear that Wyatt didn’t have much of an appetite. “I knew I wasn’t wrong about your potential.”
“Trust me,” said Cornelia, pushing back the unsightly plastic goggles the perfume nerds had forced her to wear. “This is Socialite. It’s perfect. Can’t you smell the unmistakable aroma of old money?”
One of the nerds cleared his throat. “But our focus group—”
Cornelia was resolute. She threw off her goggles, stripped off the lab coat, and headed toward the door. “Screw your focus group,” she told them over her shoulder. “This is my perfume.”
“You heard the girl,” said Daphne, scuttling along behind her.
“I can’t believe how cool you’re being about this.” Lucy sat on the couch, flipping through one of the photo albums Wyatt had brought over for her to peruse, so she would better learn some of the names and faces that she’d supposedly known since birth.
“She’s your mother, Lucy.” He took a bite of his Boeuf à la Margaret. For the past two weeks, since their first homecooked meal together, they had fallen into the habit of having dinner at her place on Sunday nights, some downtime in which they could review how the campaign was going. “It sounds like you made it very clear what we’re doing, and that she’ll need to keep a low profile until the ball. But actually, I’m glad she’s in New York. You’ll want family around when this is all over.”
Lucy flipped a page of the album. She wasn’t looking forward to the end of the experiment as much as she would have predicted at the beginning, with the exception of her double sessions with Derrick, which she couldn’t wait to be done with. Even though she’d hopefully be in a better place all around—working for a great designer, living independently, not exhausting herself on the social circuit quite as much—she wondered if she’d miss hanging out with Wyatt every day. She suspected she would. “What was it like having such glamorous parents?” she asked, pausing over a black-and-white photograph of his parents in the drawing room of their Fifth Avenue apartment. It had to have been taken New Year’s Eve decades ago, judging by their sparkly party hats and noisemakers and the champagne on ice in front of them. Wyatt’s father’s arm rested on his mother’s shoulder; her head was tipped back, mid-laugh. They looked—besides elegant and dressed to the nines—genuinely happy, the kind of happy you can’t fake.
“I never thought of them that way,” Wyatt said, leaning in to see what she was looking at, and inadvertently replicating his father’s pose. “How’d your work go this week? Any inspiration?”
Lucy shook her head. She’d spent the afternoon flipping through her portfolio before concluding that none of her designs—not the metallic jumpsuit with a chain-link belt, or the mod minidress, or the bustier-based gown with a plunging back—were good enough for her debut as a designer in the pages of Townhouse. The shoot now loomed just a week away. “I wish. I’m dry.” Being out and about had honed Lucy’s sense for what the best-dressed desired in their clothing. It was as though her sketches had been transformed along with her, growing dowdier as she became more chic. Wyatt was right: they were all over the map, lacking a cohesive style that was unmistakably hers. She was proud of her ability to imitate Narciso Rodriguez’s structured, sensuous designs, but what could she bring to the table that was fresh and innovative?
“You’ll get there,” he told her.
Lucy wished she shared his confidence.
Wyatt was happily ladling more Boeuf à la Margaret onto his plate when the phone rang. The caller ID bleated out Theo Galt in robotic tones that echoed throughout the apartment. Wyatt looked surprised. “That guy’s still calling you? You’d think he’d take a hint by now.”
She glanced up from a photo of Wyatt’s mother smartly turned out for a luncheon. Lucy recognized the Colony Club in the background. “What do you mean?”
“Well, after he left you to die at his father’s party, I just assumed you’d negged him.”
She laughed. “I think you’re being a little melodramatic, don’t you? Anyway, we met for a quick drink last week before the Museum of the City of New York party.” She set aside the book and picked up her bowl of Helper from the coffee table. Frankly, after all the amazing meals she’d had recently, it tasted pretty revolting. But Wyatt couldn’t get enough of it.
“You never told me that.” He seemed hurt.
“Sorry, I should have,” she said quickly. “It was just a drink—to be honest, it slipped my mind. I’ve been so focused on the shoot, and the fact that I may be about to blow the biggest opportunity I’ve ever been given.”
The phone stopped ringing and the answering machine blared on: Lucy, babe, this is Theo. Loved seeing you last week. I’m back in town at the end of the month, and this time I’m insisting we spend as much time together as possible. Call me, babe.
“He’s insisting?” Wyatt exaggerated a shudder. “That guy makes my skin crawl.”
“He’s harmless.” Lucy liked Theo and found his interest flattering, but she hadn’t thought about him much since their last encounter. “Anyway, I don’
t think someone who dated Cornelia can really pass judgment. The more I know about her, the less I get it. I mean, obviously she’s beautiful—but you spent a lot of time with her.”
Wyatt swished his wine before taking a pensive sip. “Well, I like women with strong personalities, who aren’t afraid to express their opinions.”
“But come on. Cornelia’s strong like toxic fumes.”
Wyatt laughed. “She and your Theo would be a decent match for each other.”
“He’s not my Theo. Okay, so you like strong women. What else?” This was progress, thought Lucy. She was finally getting Wyatt to open up about something personal; usually he changed the subject. After spending so much time together, she’d developed a natural interest in what made him tick.
“I don’t know . . . intelligence is obviously important. Physical appeal, a sense of grace. Brunettes more than blondes, I don’t know why. Someone who’s not just a social butterfly but has a desire to do something with her life.”