Overnight Socialite

by Bridie Clark

  “I’m ready if you are,” Lucy said, excitement in her voice.

  What if she never spoke to him again?

  “I’ll call you when I’m a block away,” he said, and clicked off.

  “Where’s Margaret?” said Trip. “I need her to tie this goddamn thing for me.”

  29

  Margaux Irving

  With Cornelia Rockman,

  Libet Vance, Anna Santiago

  and Mimi Rutherford-Shaw

  invite you to celebrate

  “Faunamania”

  The Fashion Forum Ball

  Saturday, March 14th

  7:30 PM

  The Museum of American Heritage

  1200 Fifth Avenue

  White Tie

  Lucy stared out the window of the limousine, clutching her minaudière. She’d spoken very little during the short ride to the museum, distracted by how handsome Wyatt looked and how close he sat next to her in the backseat. Her hand fluttered up to touch her hair, in which she’d pinned the gorgeous art deco diamond butterfly brooch that Wyatt had sent to the hotel that afternoon. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said. Its wings were spread, as though it’d been captured midflight, and it gleamed against her dark walnut hair.

  “It belonged to my great-great-grandmother,” he said, watching her. “I thought you might like to have it.”

  Lucy spun to face him in the backseat. “Have it? I just assumed it was on loan for the evening. No way, Wyatt, I can’t possibly accept such a valuable heirloom—”

  “It would mean a lot to me if you did. You deserve it. You’ve worked hard, Lucy, and this is your night. Besides, it suits you.”

  Wyatt sounded curiously earnest. Moved by his generosity, she leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I don’t know how to thank you, Wyatt,” she whispered, keeping her cheek close to his for a moment longer than necessary. “You’ve changed my entire life, just like you said you would.”

  But her gesture had the opposite of its intended effect. Wyatt kept his eyes rigidly trained forward, like a little boy wanting to keep distance between his lips and Aunt Edna’s. Lucy pulled back, mortified.

  “I can’t take credit. You’re the star,” he said quickly. “We’re here.” She forced herself to smile. “Look at all the press. They’re as perceptive as bird-watchers in Central Park, knowing exactly which arrivals merit the swing of their lenses. But in this case they’re more interested in the female of the species—rightly so, given the more distinctive, rich coloration of their attire.”

  Her knees had started to quake underneath her gown. “Could you hold off on the zoology for a minute? I’m petrified.”

  “Sorry.” Wyatt reached out and grasped her hand. “Don’t be nervous. This is your moment to shine. I’ll be waiting upstairs with champagne. You can do this, Lucy.”

  Before she knew it, the door of the limo was opened for her. As soon as her second Manolo hit the red carpet, Lucy could hear the paparazzi—there seemed to be hundreds—yelling her name, louder than the crowd at a Vikings home game. Overwhelming couldn’t begin to describe the feeling of taking her first steps in front of this battalion. The mad staccato of their flashing cameras created a blinding wall, making it impossible to tell who was screaming at her to Turn! Twirl! Smile! And how did they all learn her name? It took Lucy’s breath away—she’d walked several red carpets before, but this one marked a new level of pandemonium. One photographer reached out to grab her arm, only to be immediately bodychecked by a brawny security officer in black.

  “Thanks,” she said, feeling a bit like prey, and the officer nodded. Wow. Wyatt had prepped her, but she had to see the ferocity of the camera crews, scratching and elbowing to get their money shot, to believe it. All their lenses were pointed at her. Even better, at her gown.

  This is it, thought Lucy, the make-or-break moment. If my gown gets good reviews, I’m one huge hurdle closer to becoming a designer. If it doesn’t, I’ll be forever branded a fashion victim. She took a deep breath, tried to seem confident, and smiled coquettishly. A few steps closer, the riffraff pushed against black velvet ropes manned by PR girls and more security. Lucy stepped gingerly past this crowd, her eyes locked on the stately museum, which spanned five city blocks. It, too, was dressed magnificently for the occasion. Crimson carpet had been laid down the fifty front steps with military precision, and enormous white spotlights illuminated the iconic stone façade.

  “Lucy! Lucy!” called out a fresh-faced kid Lucy recognized from the pre-Academy Awards coverage on E! He leaned so far over the velvet rope that his upper body was nearly horizontal to the ground. “Who are you wearing tonight?” he yelled. His cameraman, whose assistant shoved a fuzzy mike near her head, zoomed in for the close-up.

  “My own design,” she answered, savoring each word. She’d rehearsed this moment for weeks, on top of dreaming about it for years.

  “Wait, did you say you made the dress you’re wearing tonight?” The boy reporter looked incredulous. He pointed at her. “That dress?”

  For once, her red-carpet smile was genuinely felt. “That’s right. I designed it, and then a wonderful friend and I produced it.” Props to Doreen. “Do you like it?” she asked, flirting a little.

  “You look hot! You definitely get my vote for Best Dressed!”

  The short exchange seemed to set off a frenzy among the reporters, as they began shouting their questions rapid-fire at Lucy. Over the roar, she couldn’t make out what anyone was saying, so she waved politely and started to move on down the carpet. Leave them wanting more, Wyatt had always coached her. She hoped he was right, but then he’d never steered her wrong. She took a few more steps, basking in the glow of the spotlight. This is my moment, she thought, the moment when I fully step into the life I was meant to have—

  “Luuuuuce! Lucy Jo! Over here, doll, over here!”

  Oh no, no, no, no, no.

  Rita’s voice—the same abrasive accent that Wyatt had spent days training out of Lucy—cut through the deafening noise to assault her daughter’s ear. At the sound, the air seemed to whoosh out of Lucy’s lungs. Before she could stop herself, her eyes found her mother on the other side of the rope. Rita, sausaged into a god-awful sequined dress, had elbowed her way through the phalanx of photographers and seemed to be having a heated debate with the towering PR girl standing guard.

  “She won’t let me in, even though I’ve got a ticket right here!” Reaching one hand into her front-and-center cleavage, Rita fished out the ball’s distinctive green and gold invitation. It looked terrifyingly similar to the one that had been delivered to Lucy herself, inside an extraordinary hand-stitched envelope made of thick leaves and gold thread. And there was the envelope in Rita’s other hand. Lucy heard herself groan.

  “I don’t know who you mugged to get this ticket,” sneered PR Girl, “but you’re not coming in.” She turned to Lucy, a mean little smile on her pretty little face. “I mean, I would get so Margauxed!” The famed editor had inspired her own verb, meaning to flay silently but thoroughly.

  Get this under control. Lucy desperately wished Wyatt was with her. He’d handle the situation and she could go back to smiling for the cameras. She prayed her mother wouldn’t blurt out that they were related, or something equally damning. Her mind raced for a solution that wouldn’t destroy her mother’s feelings.

  “Go ahead—tell her you know me, doll! Tell her you’re my—”

  “Rita!” Lucy shouted, catching both women by surprise. “Um, could I talk to you for a moment? Somewhere a bit more private?” She shot PR Girl a look she hoped would be interpreted as “my manicurist is clearly off her meds, but I’m such a good person that I’ll take time out of my very important night to make sure she’s okay.” PR Girl, puzzled, just shrugged and opened the velvet rope for her.

  Lucy pulled her mother out of earshot on the museum steps. She couldn’t risk the chance of the two of them being photographed together. Luckily Gisele and Tom Brady had just arrived and were tempor
arily diverting everyone’s attention.

  “Taa-daa! Betcha didn’t expect to see me tonight, did ya?” Rita’s hair had been teased into an elaborate nest of tendrils, and she wore a corsage—a corsage!—of carnations and baby’s breath on one wrist. Rita looked like a prom queen on Social Security. Completing the look was the clunky camera around her neck and a stack of glossy photographs under her arm. “Did you know George Clooney’s coming tonight?” Rita waved a photo of him. “I’m gonna have him sign it: ‘To Rita, one sexy mamasita!’ Cute, right? This event is the mother lode of celebrities!”

  “Rita, why are you here?” The air was colder once you stepped outside the fray, and Lucy shivered. Leave it to Rita to spoil her golden moment. To put her obsession with celebrity above her daughter’s hopes and dreams. This was the worst, most selfish thing her mother had ever done, which was saying a lot.

  “I wanted to be here for you.” Did Rita actually look proud of herself? Lucy bit back her scream. “I haven’t always been the best mother in the world, but I’m here for you now. To support you, doll.”

  “How did you get a ticket?” Her mother had managed to snag a ticket to an event that had closed its doors to several Fortune 100 CEOs?

  “I cannot reveal that information.” Rita, in a mock-serious voice, mimed zipping her lip and tossing away the key.

  “I’m sorry, Rita, but you can’t be here,” Lucy said bluntly.

  Rita looked hurt, but quickly recovered. “I thought you’d appreciate that I was, you know, here for you—here to support you—”

  I will not feel guilty about this. Lucy was too close now to have Rita blow her cover. “It’s going to be a madhouse. Why don’t you relax over at the Carlyle?” She struggled to keep her voice low, but the situation was getting increasingly desperate. “I already have a room there, and it’s only a few blocks away. You could order room service, take a nice hot bubble bath—”

  Rita shook her head and laughed. “And miss all the action? Not on your life!” But then her face fell for an instant as she seemed to catch Lucy’s drift. “Unless you really don’t want me here.”

  Lucy glanced over her shoulder. Libet and Anna had just arrived and were reveling in the press attention. Meanwhile, she was running out of patience. So she didn’t want her terminally tacky mother to spoil Wyatt’s bet, torpedo her soon-to-launch career, and ruin the biggest night of her life—did that make her an awful person? Why did Rita always have to be the child in their relationship? No wonder it had felt so good to be taken care of during the past three months. It was a first.

  “Well?” asked Rita petulantly.

  Lucy looked back at the red carpet, then at Rita. “Can’t you let me enjoy the spotlight for once?” she blurted out. “Does everything always have to be about you and what you want?”

  Her mother looked stunned. She began to blink her eyes quickly. She took a raspy breath. “Have your spotlight, then.” Her lower lip began to tremble. “You’ve changed, Lucy Jo. You used to be a good girl. You used to understand what it meant to be family. Now I don’t even know you. Maybe you look all fancy, but the old Lucy Jo was a helluva lot classier.” She gave her daughter a last accusatory glare, then pushed her way through the crowd toward the street.

  Lucy stood shocked into silence. For a moment, she thought about running after her mother. But instead she turned, slowly, back toward the red carpet, swallowing the lump in her throat. As she climbed the remaining stairs to the museum’s front entrance, she heard a photographer call her name and glanced over her shoulder with a carefully executed smile, striking the pose she’d practiced so often. Soon she was rewarded with a tidal wave of flashing cameras, the supernovas of fame. She turned slightly so the photographers could capture the floating layers of her gown in movement. She posed as though her future depended on it. Because it did.

  I’ll make it up to Rita later, Lucy reassured herself, slipping through the doors into the party of a lifetime. She tried to ignore how much her heart ached.

  30

  Great apes . . . make great fakers. Frans B. M. de Waal, a professor at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory University, said chimpanzees or orangutans in captivity sometimes tried to lure human strangers over to their enclosure by holding out a piece of straw while putting on their friendliest face. “People think, Oh, he likes me, and they approach,” Dr. de Waal said. “And before you know it, the ape has grabbed their ankle and is closing in for the bite. It’s a very dangerous situation.”

  —The New York Times, December 12, 2008

  Is that a chipmunk?” Lucy pointed at the birch branch, but before Parker Lewis could turn his head, the tiny little creature had scurried away. Of all the things Lucy had imagined she might see inside the social event of the year—the rustling of one-of-a-kind couture; jewelry worth more than most people’s houses; immaculately preserved society doyennes—she hadn’t figured on live fauna.

  “I should’ve brought my ferret, but he’s not trained. Apparently all the animals in attendance tonight had to finish more school than your average ophthalmologist.”

  Lucy giggled harder than Parker’s joke merited, thanks to her runaway nerves. His was the first familiar face she’d seen when she entered the vaunted marble hall of the Heritage Museum, and she’d latched on to him immediately. Wyatt hadn’t been kidding when he called the Fashion Forum Ball the Super Bowl of fashion, as well as being Lucy’s chance to rub shoulders with the crème de la crème of international society. He’d prepped her that this wasn’t a “pack a table with your friends for twenty grand” benefit, and that guests were chosen with greater care than vice presidential candidates. Margaux’s team of A-list arbiters made snubbing an art form. It made Rita’s ticket an even greater mystery.

  “Where’s Fernanda?” she asked, to be polite.

  “Oh, Cornelia dragged her off to the powder room.” He waved his hand. “I’m sure she’ll be back in a few hours.”

  The Natural History wing of the museum had been transformed into an enchanted forest, with hundreds of rare butterflies fluttering above the crowd and touching down on the branches of the live birch trees. Apparently they were surrounded by an entire ecosystem, from the chipmunks to the songbirds Lucy could hear lightly chirping in the background. How Rita would’ve loved it in here, Lucy couldn’t help thinking. Her mother had been born to exclaim over spectacles like this, and all the twinkling lights made it look like the room had been BeDazzled.

  “George Clooney, two o’clock,” whispered Parker.

  Another reminder of the disappointment in Rita’s eyes. The thought made Lucy’s conscience feel like lead. She distracted herself by once again scanning the crowd for Wyatt. When she finally found him, despite his brush-off in the limo, Lucy couldn’t unlock her eyes. As usual Wyatt cut an incredibly soigné figure; in his well-cut tails, he was a standout even among the highest ranks. Clooney didn’t hold a candle. Wyatt’s handsome face was animated by the story he was telling. She was so transfixed that it took Lucy a moment to notice that Wyatt was speaking to Margaux Irving.

  Lucy’s stomach lurched. Margaux was dressed to intimidate in a voluminous taupe gown with enormous mink shoulders and a matching train. It felt too soon in the night to face such a major challenge, but Lucy knew she had to go over—Margaux was in sky-high demand; it was unlikely Lucy would have two chances to meet her. Snagging a glass of champagne from a waiter with a tray, she told Parker she’d be right back. “Oh—and thank you,” she said to the waiter, almost forgetting.

  Wyatt beamed at her as she approached. “Lucy! I was hoping you’d find us. Margaux, this is Lucy Ellis. Her gown will be auctioned tonight.”

  “Of course,” Margaux said, extending her long, thin hand toward Lucy. Her voice was surprisingly—well, human. Even feminine. And up close, her skin looked bizarrely flawless and untouched by age—so much so, Lucy wondered if she might have a gnarled portrait aging in an attic somewhere. “Lucy’s photo has run in my magazine, Wyatt—I know very
well who she is.”

  Don’t blush. Don’t curtsy. Just look her square in the eye. Meeting Margaux required nearly as much protocol as an audience with Queen Elizabeth, and Wyatt had coached Lucy well. The key was to seem deferential but not obsequious. “I’m delighted to meet you,” Lucy said, shaking the proffered hand. She suppressed the urge to kiss the enormous pink diamond bauble on the older woman’s finger.

  Margaux gave Lucy a cool once-over—taking in her modern Grace Kelly updo, lingering for a moment, maybe two, to assess her dress, and ending with her delicate stilettos. Her face gave away nothing. “Who designed your dress? I don’t recognize it.”

  Lucy cleared her throat. Moment of truth. “I designed it myself,” she said, mustering all her confidence. Wyatt discreetly took her hand in his, which she so appreciated. Having him next to her always gave her extra oomph. Maybe because she sensed that he cared as much about Margaux’s approval and Lucy’s success as she did.

  “Yourself ?” Margaux arched a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Where did you study?”