Overnight Socialite

by Bridie Clark

  Lucy sat up, paying closer attention. Maybe she was giving herself too much credit, but it kind of sounded like he was describing—

  “Someone who doesn’t take herself too seriously,” he continued. “But has serious goals.”

  Is he talking about me? At a party the week before, she’d caught him watching her across the room, and for a fleeting moment she’d thought she’d seen something rise in his eyes. Was Wyatt falling for her?

  “Not too wrapped up in her looks. Vanity is the kiss of death,” he continued.

  Lucy glanced down at her outfit: Levi’s and a Vikings T-shirt. Vintage Lucy Jo. She could feel her heart pick up its pace. Would he try to kiss her? Did she want him to? Without thinking, she pulled the pencil out of her bun, letting her hair fall in waves to her shoulders. “What else?” she prompted, feeling an unexpected exhilaration. When Wyatt took a long sip of his wine and looked deep into her eyes, she actually shivered.

  “Well, it helps to come from the same kind of background,” he said after giving it some more thought. “Cornelia’s grandparents lived next door to mine in Maine. There was that sense of shared history.”

  Lucy bit her cheek. Hmm. “But that’s not, like, the most important thing.”

  “Maybe not, but relationships are easier when you’ve been raised with similar expectations and standards.” He said it casually, oblivious to her flushed cheeks. “But anyway, enough about me. You’re the one who’s got quite a collection going. Max Fairchild. Theo Galt. Top socialite and femme fatale rolled into one. I just hope you won’t let it distract you from the purpose of what we’re doing.”

  “Do I seem at all distracted?” Lucy couldn’t keep the snap out of her voice. For a moment, she’d felt an involuntary excitement at the thought that their charade of a relationship might become something real. Now she wanted to slap the smug off his face. Her instincts had been right the first time they met: Wyatt Hayes was nothing but an arrogant snob. How dare he give her butterflies?

  “Well, I’d keep your distance with those guys. Remember, they think you’re some socialite with a huge trust fund and blue-blood lineage.” Wyatt chuckled, which fanned Lucy’s irritation.

  “So they’re just gold diggers? Social climbers?” Lucy could feel her heart begin to pound again, this time with real anger. She stood up, hands around elbows. “No way would they be interested in the real me.”

  Wyatt put down his glass and looked up at her with amusement. “It’s just well known that Max’s family has fallen on hard times and that the Fairchilds need to marry well, and that Theo’s hungry to make inroads into certain circles. So it might not be a total coincidence that they both zeroed in on you right away.”

  “And it’s impossible that they might have liked me?” she retorted. “Found me attractive? That’s inconceivable to you, I guess.”

  “What?” He looked taken aback by her reaction. “No, that’s not what I meant—”

  “I know exactly what you meant,” she said, eyes blazing. She stood up. “You know what, Wyatt? You should leave.”

  He made a face. “I’m just trying to look out for you.”

  “Well, don’t. Max and Theo might not be up to your so-called standards, but at least they treat me like an equal!”

  Now Wyatt stood. “And you’re implying that I don’t? I’ve been very fair—”

  “When you look at me, you see someone you want to pass off as an equal to your hoity-toity crowd. You see the difference?”

  “You’re right. I should go.” Wyatt grabbed his coat and scarf from the closet. “Thanks for dinner. Oh, and the character assassination. We should do this again.”

  After he slammed the door, Lucy grabbed the nearly empty wine bottle and plopped down on the thick shag carpet. She felt shaky from yelling, from allowing her emotions to go haywire. She had to nip this Mr. Darcy love-hate thing in the bud. For many reasons—the top one being that it was pathetically one-sided. And it would never work between them, she reminded herself, pouring the dregs of the wine. She wanted a guy who’d love her in couture or comfy sweatpants. A guy who drank beer, regular old beer, and didn’t insist on some ridiculously overpriced imported lager every time. A guy who cared more about the Rangers game than the Asian-art auction at Sotheby’s. Wyatt was completely right, now that she was thinking about it with a clearer head—coming from a similar background did make things easier.

  Besides, better that life remain uncomplicated by romance right now. She had work to do. She couldn’t fail. She’d been planning to give herself the night off, but now that Wyatt was gone—she had to get back to the work that remained her passport to freedom and success. It was why she had spent the past two months pretending to be someone she wasn’t.

  Stooping to pick up the albums he’d left behind, Lucy paused mid-bend to look again at the photo of his parents. She stared and stared.

  You never know when inspiration will hit you smack between the eyes. She rushed over to her sketch pad with the album in hand. Grabbing her pencil, all thoughts of Wyatt flew out of her mind as Lucy began to put her vision on the page.

  24

  Contrary to general belief, humans imitate apes more often than the reverse.

  —Primatologist Frans de Waal

  Inside the luxe trailer parked on Fifth Avenue in preparation for the Townhouse photo shoot, Mallory Keeler snatched Lucy’s green velvet cocktail dress off the rack and examined it with a furrowed brow. “You seriously made this?” she asked, flipping the hanger to examine the back.

  “Yes, but I—I brought other options—” Panicked, Lucy pawed blindly through the other outfits she’d made. Damn. She must have forgotten the red dress, her favorite, with hand-sewn rosettes framing the dramatic back, in her bleary-eyed rush to get to the shoot on time. Doreen had spent days following her pattern. She still had the fuchsia slubbed-silk dress with teardrop-shaped cutouts at the neckline—a loose adaptation of a dress Mrs. Hayes had worn in one of the album photos—and the high-waisted twill trousers with a bateau blouse. She’d pulled two consecutive all-nighters and enlisted Rita’s help in order to finish on time. They’d even had a rare mother-daughter outing, the two of them scouring the Garment District in search of materials: luminous silk, rich herringbone tweed, creamy chiffon so diaphanous it danced even when the elevator door closed. She’d thought her mother would be freaked out by the frenzy of the Garment District, as she herself had once been, but Rita seemed to roll with all of it.

  “Forget the other options,” Mallory declared. “I want you in this one.” Mallory turned to her assistant, Emiku, who sported a Britney-style headset and a no-nonsense expression. “Give her the diamond earrings on loan from H. Stern.” She turned back to Lucy, her eyes unblinking behind her horn-rims. “What were you thinking for shoes? Emiku, show Lucy what we’ve pulled.”

  Lucy felt the relief deep in her bones. Mallory’s approval meant she’d cleared another hurdle. She had found her vision: thoroughly modern classics, inspired by the vintage photographs in Wyatt’s album but streamlined and sexy and practical enough for the girl in Dayville. Her pencil had pirouetted over the page. She’d closed her eyes and seen an impossibly chic woman strolling down Fifth Avenue in a pea-green belted suit with a velvet collar. She had smelled the gardenia tucked into a socialite’s twist of hair as she floated around the dance floor wearing a white-and-gold silk organza gown.

  “What do you think about these peep-toes?” Emiku asked, holding out a pair of fabulous Louboutins.

  “I think I’m in love,” Lucy said.

  She’d barely slept the night before, thanks to a combination of nerves and last-minute finishing touches. In truth, even if she hadn’t been overwhelmed with work, she knew she wouldn’t have slept much that week. Wyatt had kept his distance since their fight, which had thrown her off. For professional reasons, Lucy longed to have a man around the house. More times than she could count, she itched for his opinion, but her fingers refused to dial his number.

  “Why
don’t you get dressed?” said Emiku, as efficient as her boss. “Might as well get started without the other girls, since who knows when they’ll show up.”

  Of the four socialites being photographed for Townhouse, Lucy was the only one who’d shown up on time to prep for the shoot, in which they’d mingle with the polar bears and lemurs at the Central Park Zoo. Lucy bet it never crossed the other girls’ minds that Townhouse had a budget to keep; every hour the hairstylists, makeup artists, photographer, and photographer’s assistants waited was on the books. No wonder poor Mallory was inhaling coffee like a trucker with eight hundred miles to go.

  Ducking behind the makeshift privacy curtain, Lucy slid the green dress over her head, careful not to smudge the siren-red lips the makeup artist had so artfully drawn. She looked closely at the woman in the full-length mirror that had been propped up against the wall. If she passed this woman on the street, Lucy might look twice—in appreciation of her beauty, and because there was something vaguely familiar in her face—but she would never presume to say hello. Her hair was thick, glossy, and perfectly styled in loose curls. Her pore-less complexion seemed bathed in candlelight. She’d slimmed down, although her body still had some healthy curves. Perhaps it was vain, but for the first time in her life, Lucy fully appreciated her own beauty.

  She heard the door slam, and a moment later, Libet Vance’s nasal voice echoed through the trailer. “She made these? Shut up!”

  Lucy poked her head out from behind the curtain to discover the leggy blonde “artist” thumbing through the clothes she’d brought. Bond-girl contender Anna Santiago, Libet’s plump-lipped best friend ever since they’d debuted together at Le Bal Crillon, was perched at her shoulder checking out Lucy’s clothes with equal enthusiasm. Anna’s daddy, a Venezuelan oilman, loved to spoil her in any way she could dream up. Jewelry, cars, the $250,000 Hamptons rental—so far, Anna had proved herself very imaginative. Lucy encountered them both regularly out on the circuit, but they’d exchanged only the most cursory small talk.

  “You like?” Lucy tried to sound confident, but it was intimidating to watch firsthand the reaction of two of the most stylish girls she’d ever met.

  “Of course! I had no idea you had talent!” Anna slid into the chair to have her makeup done, folding her slender legs underneath her. She lit up a cigarette while the makeup artist tested foundations to see which one best matched her golden skin tone. “You have to make me something! That fuchsia silk dress would be perfect for my friend’s wedding in Bogotá next month.”

  “I’m loving these pants,” Libet added, holding up a charcoal gray, high-waisted, wide-legged pair with gold stitching along the seams. She was wearing what appeared to be a shoelace tied around her forehead. “They remind me of a killer pair my mom wore in the Seventies. Would you ever make me some?”

  “Absolutely!” Lucy tingled with joy. These girls were gorgeous, famously chic, and photographed wherever they went. If they wore her clothes—and dropped her name as the designer whenever reporters asked—it would be exactly the kind of exposure she needed to start her own label. The day couldn’t be going any better. She couldn’t wait to tell Wyatt.

  “Lucy, what do you say we get a shot of you surrounded by penguins?” suggested the photographer, Giles, whose French accent seemed to fade in and out like the signal on a cheap radio. “A take on that famous Marilyn Monroe moment in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.”

  She was just about to follow him outside when the door slammed open and Cornelia, breathless, blocked the entrance.

  She wore a plush pelt—a questionable choice for a day at the zoo—and sunglasses that overwhelmed her petite face. With her lackey Fernanda two steps behind her, Cornelia coolly scanned the room, as though she had arrived at her family’s estate to discover squatters in the foyer. When her eyes landed on Lucy, her icy expression suddenly broke into fury. “What the hell is she doing in that dress?” she demanded, her sharp voice carrying over the suddenly still trailer. “Everyone knows that green is my color!”

  Is this chick for real? Lucy stifled a nervous giggle. The place was otherwise silent.

  “We can shoot you both in green,” Mallory said. “Lucy made this gorgeous dress, and I’m going to insist that she wear it.”

  “Wait, you made a green dress for yourself?” Cornelia, her upper lip curled in a sneer, crossed the space in two steps until she was right under Lucy’s nose. Lucy’s nervous giggle grew too big to contain; it broke forth from her pursed lips and seemed to smack Cornelia in the face. “It’s so not funny,” Cornelia said, shaking her head without breaking her glare.

  “You don’t own the color, Cornelia.” Lucy refused to be bullied. “Grass is green, so is money—”

  “I see,” Cornelia said. The temperature lowered another ten degrees. Libet and Anna exchanged wide-eyed looks in the makeup mirror. “I’m sorry, Mallory, but I refuse to be part of this shoot if she’s in it, too.”

  “You’re not serious,” Mallory said. She white-knuckled the back of a makeup stool. “I understand there’s some tension, but you can’t back out now—”

  “I can and I will,” Cornelia declared, turning her killing stare on Mallory. “So you either choose me, or this random newcomer whom nobody ever heard of two months ago.”

  Lucy sucked in a breath. All her hard work, all the late nights spent hunched over the sewing machine—and now Cornelia was robbing her of her big opportunity to show her stuff.

  “Sorry, Cornelia. But if you force me to choose, I choose Lucy.” If Mallory had struggled to reach her conclusion, she didn’t show it.

  And just like that, Manhattan’s reigning socialite was dethroned. Cornelia didn’t move right away. She stood in the doorway, almost panting from the shock of Mallory’s decision. “Fine, I’ll stay in the shoot. But I’m not standing next to her.” She huffed over to the makeup station. Instead of feeling victorious, Lucy couldn’t help feeling a little frightened.

  “Cue the penguins!” Giles shouted.

  Lucy took her position while a keeper from the zoo ushered in the funny birds, their tiny wings flapping, to waddle around her. She tried her best to look natural despite the oddity of the situation—the professionals staring at her from every angle, the silver reflectors washing away the shadows from her face, the hyper-daylight glare of the lights towering around her, and of course, the strange tuxedoed penguins at her feet. One of Giles’s assistants scrambled to adjust her hair, while another buzzed around her head with a light meter. “Relax your face, Lucy,” Giles commanded.

  “Like this?” She tipped her chin up slightly and angled her hips toward the camera, just the way Angelique had taught her.

  “Perfect. You’re a natural. Just like that.” Giles clicked away madly while Lucy held her pose. “Now let’s try—”

  “Excuse me!” Cornelia, on deck for her shoot after Lucy, stomped her foot. “Why does Lucy get to be photographed with those adorable penguins, while I have to cozy up to a disgusting two-toed sloth? Is it even safe? I mean, that thing has three-inch claws!”

  “Maybe she’d prefer the poison frogs,” the zookeeper behind her muttered.

  “You’ll be fine,” Mallory said wearily. “Now, will you keep it down?”

  “Lu-u-uce!”

  Lucy froze at the unmistakable sound of her mother’s voice. Running through the gates of the zoo enclosure, Rita waved the red dress like a matador. “Your beautiful dress! You left it—”

  Before she even knew what she was doing, Lucy pushed through the crowd of penguins to intercept her mother. “Thank you, Rita, but you didn’t have to bring it all the way here—”

  “Nonsense, doll, it’s your favorite.” Rita looked brightly at the group, clearly hoping to be introduced. Lucy didn’t say anything. “Well, I should be going. Don’t want to hold up the works! Good luck, Luce, I’ll see you later.”

  But Cornelia stepped forward before she could go. “Are you her PA?” She scrutinized Rita’s face. Lucy felt herself squirming.
>
  “Am I her what?” Rita repeated. Then she chuckled. “No, I’m her MA—”

  “She’s my, um, manicurist.” Lucy couldn’t look at her mother as she said it. She’d never felt so low in her life. When Giles barked at her that they needed to get started again, she gave her stricken mother an apologetic shrug and slunk away, disgusted with herself. She’d make it up to Rita later. Once she was a success, she’d set her mother up for life. But the thought didn’t ease the knot in her stomach.

  “Wait up!” Cornelia finally caught up with the mysterious russet-haired woman walking furiously fast down a path in Central Park, her arms wrapped around herself in the cold, her chin against her chest. Something about Lucy’s reaction had piqued Cornelia’s curiosity. “Rita, wait!”

  The woman froze as though she’d been caught. She turned around. “What can I do for you?” she asked. Her face was worn, and her makeup was distressingly evident.