I see now how I had subconsciously engineered the very thing I feared the most. But I couldn’t see it then. All I saw then was another social triumph for my archenemy, hand-delivered by me.
I had to take a bus home. I only had two singles left, which wasn’t enough for a cab. I took a chance boarding the bus because I didn’t have the exact change, but a kindly woman made change for me. I told her I was from out of town. The few passengers on the bus stared at me sitting there in all my finery, wondering, I’m sure, what I was doing on public transportation.
The bus bumped and wheezed up Third Avenue. I sat huddled up in the back, freezing, staring out the window, thinking about the evening, what a disaster it had been, how much I’d been counting on it, and how social life had gone on quite merrily without me. Oh, I knew that people were pleased to see me, but only in the context of a party where one’s personal misfortunes are a most untoward topic of conversation. I thought about Monique—how people disliked her but fawned over her because she was rich, how she was bent on destroying me even now that I had no real power left. I thought about Nate, that Draconian worm. He’d orchestrated the whole thing to get his hands on Lucius’s money. I was absolutely convinced of that. If it hadn’t been for him . . . But that was all water under the bridge now.
I was shivering so hard when I got home that I ran a hot bath to ward off the chill. As I was undressing for a long soak in the tub, undoing the endless hooks and snaps and zippers that are the hallmark of couture, I discovered that my right index finger was bleeding. Apparently, I’d gnawed it harder than I thought sitting on the bus. Staring at the bright smear of red on my skin, I thought: Blood is not a boring color.
Chapter 23
Brad Thompson now became something of a fixation for me. Not only was he rich, he was snappy and fun. He had an attractive edge. I liked the fact he was interested in the theater. So many businessmen had little or no time for the arts. Though I viewed him primarily as a pawn in my game with Monique, I felt he had real potential as a suitor. I somehow got it into my head that this billionaire-sportsman-theater buff would have fallen for me if only we’d spent a little more time together. Hadn’t he suggested we go to a show? Despite his hurry to get home to watch a television documentary, I was convinced I saw a twinkle in his eye when he looked at me.
I called Trish the next morning to thank her for “a lovely evening,” as I put it. I was too shy to come right out and ask her if Mr. Thompson had said anything about me so I brought up the egregious switching of the place cards as a way to ease into the topic without appearing too obvious. Monique’s rude behavior had apparently been forgiven in light of the dessert incident.
“I’m not crazy about her—although it was sweet of her to take five tables. But I have to admit she behaved like a queen,” Trish said, barely drawing breath. “Did you see her? No, that’s right. You were in the powder room. But she got up and she said to this poor little innocent busboy, who’d just spilled this raspberry guck all over her by accident and who was obviously terrified out of his wits, she said, ‘Gray is such a boring color.’ I happen to know that dress cost thirty thousand dollars because I almost ordered it from Balmain couture. You really do have to hand it to her.”
I wasn’t interested in handing another thing to Monique de Passy, thanks very much, or in hearing Trish’s character assessment of the “poor little innocent busboy.” I pressed on with Topic A.
“Well, I’m sorry I didn’t get much of a chance to sit next to Mr. Thompson. He seems quite charming,” I said.
“Did you like him? He thought you were neat.”
“Did he indeed?”
“Yes, I spoke to him this morning and he told me how funny you were. He said he was sorry he had to leave.”
“Tell him to call me then.”
“Now, Jo, you know how spoiled men are. You’ll have to call him. He’s a bit of a rough diamond, I have to say. But he loves New York. He says he’s thinking of moving here. He wants to get to know the right people. He’s quite conscious of who’s who and what’s what, if you know what I mean.”
“He and Monique seemed to be hitting it off quite successfully,” I said, fishing.
“No, no, no. She’s with that awful lawyer.”
“Nate.”
“Your old pal. That’s why I thought it was so ratty of her to switch the place cards. But I guess she’d trade up for a billionaire in a second. Anyway, Jo, it was so good to see you again. Everyone was saying how wonderful you looked and how much we all miss you. You know, Jo, you really ought to give yourself a coming-out party.”
I laughed. “What do you mean?”
“I’m serious. Give one of your elegant little dinners to announce you’re back in circulation. It’d be such fun. Invite Brad. He adores parties. Did I tell you he thought you were cute?”
Old Swahili proverb: “It’s better to live a short life as a lion than a long life as a chicken.”
I decided to take Trish’s advice and go down in a blaze of glory. I would give a party. This was a daring and desperate act, requiring the last of my funds, but I didn’t care. The planning of it would concentrate my mind, yoke it to a semicreative harness, and stop it from running wild through the fields of obsession. Plus, there was now a real reason: Mr. Brad Thompson. Hook him and I was back in action.
I saw parties as theater: Anyone with money could put on a show, but it took real talent to create a hit. For me, parties were ends in themselves, oases of good cheer in a careworn world. Was it so frivolous to want to give one’s friends a perfect evening? What is life in the end but a collection of memories? Can’t some of them just be charming for charming’s sake?
I found, through years of experience, that it was preferable to give a party for someone. That way, one didn’t have to include everyone, just those with a particular connection to the guest of honor. Feelings were less likely to be hurt.
I decided on my auction prince, Nicky Brubetskoi. Nicky was a personable man whose Romanov ancestry was reflected in his suave good looks and regal bearing. People liked him. He was easygoing, well mannered, and impeccably dressed. He had connections everywhere and a colorful history. Family lore had it that the Red Army invaded Nicky’s grandparents’ dacha during a dinner party in 1917 and they escaped with only the clothes on their backs. Fleeing to Paris, they set themselves up in style by selling the jewels sewn onto his grandmother’s evening gown and slippers and the sapphire studs and cufflinks belonging to his grandfather.
I was grateful to Nicky for all his help in unloading my possessions, and, in any case, he was a perfect guest of honor for an elegant occasion requiring some clout. But, I confess, my real reason for choosing Prince Nicky had to do more with Brad Thompson. June had mentioned to me that Brad was on the board of Chapel’s and Brad had told me his daughter was studying at the Hermitage. Was there a more perfect guest of honor than a Russian royal who worked for Chapel’s, I ask you?
I made up a guest list of fifty people, including my pals, select amis mondains, and Mr. Brad Thompson. Before I settled on the date, I called Brad Thompson’s office in Chicago, pretending to be my own secretary—thus breaking my rule of always calling to issue an invitation myself. I told his secretary that I was calling for Mrs. Jo Slater to invite Mr. Thompson to a party in New York in honor of Prince Nicholas Brubetskoi on such-and-such a date. I wanted to make sure that Brad Thompson could come to this party before I arranged it. Thompson’s secretary said she would get back to me. She called back that afternoon. This time I answered as myself. When she said that Mr. Thompson was out of town all that week, I told her that my secretary had made a mistake and said the party was actually the following week. She got back to me again the next day. Brad Thompson accepted the invitation with pleasure.
Naturally, I would have liked to have given the party at home, but rat holes are not conducive to conviviality. I settled instead on the private dining room upstairs at Le Poisson, which was large enough for the occasion. The hand-ca
lligraphied invitations read:
Jo Slater
requests the pleasure of the company of
[the invitee]
at a small dinner in honor of
Prince Nicholas Brubetskoi
on Saturday, December 20th
at eight o’clock
at Le Poisson
Black Tie
(Nicky preferred “Prince” to the more formal “His Royal Highness.”)
I hand-delivered all the invitations myself, hoping nobody would spot me as I went door to door. I didn’t bother to attach them to a Baccarat bud vase with a single white rose in it, as I often did in the old days. That was an extravagance way beyond my means now.
All my pals accepted immediately: the Kahns, the Watermans, the Bromires, Ethan. The amis mondains were not far behind because Miranda Somers was coming. The word was out. The only couple to refuse were the Lowrys. In the back of my mind, there lurked a tiny suspicion that Roger’s refusal was a harbinger of things to come. But I dismissed this as a slight case of hostess jitters.
Since all of my friends knew the upstairs space at Le Poisson so well—everyone gave lunches and dinners there when they didn’t want to be bothered entertaining at home—I hired Trebor Bellini to transform it into an eighteenth-century salon. If Brad Thompson liked theater, I’d give him a beautiful set.
Bellini, a former set designer and landscape gardener whose dark brooding looks and impish charm accelerated his rise to become New York’s best-known party designer, was a particular favorite of mine. Our collaborations were famous. Bellini concretized the atmospheres that merely shimmered like mirages in my mind. I would describe the mood I wanted in detail and Bellini, the alchemist of the visual, would transform my wishes into pure entertaining gold. We both shared a passion for La Quintinie, Louis the Fourteenth’s landscape artist of genius. Trebor and I sometimes spent long lazy afternoons at the Morgan Library and the Frick Collection researching historical interiors and gardens. We had once journeyed together to Paris to see seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Old Master drawings of French chateaus in the archives of the Louvre—a special showing just for us because I had given them a coveted Watteau painting I bought at auction in New York and returned to its native land.
For this party, as I explained to Trebor, I wanted my guests to feel as if they were walking into one of Marie Antoinette’s private apartments in Versailles for an intimate supper. He suggested we hide the walls with trompe l’oeil paintings of old boiserie, slipcover the dining chairs in a pretty hand-painted silk damask I’d bought in Lyons years ago and was saving for the right occasion, and import those luscious pastel-colored roses I loved from France, the ones that smelled so fragrant because they were from gardens, not hothouses. He told me to use some of my Marie Antoinette memorabilia for the occasion—fans, gloves, hatboxes, letters, keys, and porcelain.
“We’ll place things randomly on side tables and chairs as if they were just dropped there. A fan here, a hatbox there. A letter, a teacup . . . priceless little throwaways. We won’t draw attention to them in any way. We want to make it look like the Queen just passed through the room in a hurry on her way to an assignation,” said Trebor.
I loved the idea. There was only one drawback. I’d sold all my Marie Antoinette memorabilia to a private collector through Nicky; the silk from Lyons was packed up in a crate that was in storage; and I barely had funds enough for American roses, no less French ones.
Trebor, God bless him, understood perfectly.
“Anyone can create a great atmosphere on an unlimited budget,” he told me. “It takes genius to do it on a shoestring.”
And we both agreed he was a genius.
My next duty was to plan the meal with the restaurant’s talented twenty-four-year-old chef, Jean-Paul. Recently plucked from the obscurity of a Bordeaux bistro, Jean-Paul was the latest gastronomic sensation in New York. Together, we collaborated on a menu of eighteenth-century delicacies: truffled foie gras, Belon oysters with buttered bread, veal roast in pastry, meringues, fruit compotes, and, of course, Krug champagne—only I couldn’t afford Krug, so he suggested an acceptable substitute at a fourth of the price.
I hired a string quartet from Juilliard to play selections from Gluck, the Austrian composer Marie Antoinette championed against the Italian Piccinni.
Naturally, I planned to wear my famous necklace, this time with a different dress, in honor of Mr. Brad Thompson. I splurged and bought a bright red silk sheath for the occasion. Men love red.
I wanted this to be a truly memorable evening, an evening everyone would talk about. Most of all, I wanted Monique to hear about it. I wanted her to hear that Mr. Brad Thompson had fallen madly in love with me over the Belon oysters at my fabulous soiree.
This dinner was for the Countess, and she wasn’t even invited.
Chapter 24
One week before the dinner, I smelled trouble. Ethan Monk called me and said: “Jo, dear, just checking. What time exactly will we be sitting down for dinner?” Translation: “Can I be out of there by ten so I can get to another party?”
“Okay, Ethan, what’s up?”
“Nothing, darling.”
“Come on, Ethan. I know you. Who else is giving a party?”
“Jo, don’t be so paranoid.”
“Paranoids are the only ones who notice anything these days,” I said.
“It’s just that I’m thinking of driving out to the country afterward, that’s all.”
“You’re a rotten liar, Ethan.”
The Monk sighed. “I don’t know why I even try. You’re going to hear about it anyway.”
My heart beat faster. “What?”
“Your friend the Countess is giving a dinner dance for the Dents on Saturday night.”
I drew a breath. “I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true.”
“The Dents. Those ridiculous people.”
“What is it June always says? Social life.”
“And Saturday? This Saturday? Everyone’s coming to my dinner on Saturday. Are you sure?”
“I just got the invitation. Hand-delivered, tied to a Baccarat bud vase with a single rose in it. Sound familiar?”
“You’re kidding.”
“Imitation—sincerest form of flattery and all that? Except the rose isn’t white. It’s red. It’s sitting right here in front of me, a nice, plump, and juicy red rose.”
“Bought with blood money. How appropriate. Wait a minute. You just got it? Today?”
“Chauffeur-delivered an hour ago.”
“Well, our standards have certainly lowered. I take it we no longer care about being invited to things at the last minute,” I said, wanting to tweak him a little.
“They were all delivered today. I checked.”
“I see. You mean she’s organized a dinner dance in a week?” My brain started clicking. I thought out loud. “That’s why the Lowrys declined. You want to know what I bet happened? Monique invited the Dents and the Lowrys for dinner and when she found out about my dinner, she decided to give a dance. She waited until the last moment to invite everybody just to spite me.”
“That sounds about right.”
“Trust me, Ethan, that’s what happened. The woman has a thing about me.”
The truth is that I was obsessed with Monique. But as Clara Wilman always said: “Tell me what you criticize and I’ll tell you who you are.”
“If you go to her dance,” I told Ethan, “you can plan on never speaking to me again.”
There was a long pause at the other end of the line. I knew better than anyone that Ethan was a shameless party hound, often wedging six or seven events into a single evening. I once invented a torture for him where he would be invited to three really glamorous parties on the same night. It’s understood he can accept only one. The party he accepts is canceled at the last moment and there’s no room for him at either of the two other parties he’s turned down. Ethan spends a night of torment, all alone, knowing that two
fabulous festivities are going on without him. Even he thought this was amusing.
“Jo, seriously, I won’t go if you tell me not to.”
“You want to go, don’t you?”
“Not to see her, you know that. To see the apartment and the whole scene. You know me, Jo. I love social theater and I have no scruples.”
“Do what you want,” I said, knowing how useless it was to try to legislate the feelings of others.
“I’ll be your spy,” he said. “Give you a full report. You know you can rely on me to notice all the tacky details.”
“I can’t stop you.” I was hurt he wanted to go, but curious at the same time.
“I’m not going unless I have your permission.”
I thought for a moment.
“You can’t leave my dinner early.”
“I won’t.”
“Okay. You can go.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. And wear a video cam and tape recorder. I want all the poop.”
“Know thy enemy, Jo. New York’s version of Plato.”
A queasy feeling came over me as I hung up the phone. Monique was clever. The Dents were perfect guests of honor. Neil Dent had power—not the superfluous social power of some washed-up royal like Brubetskoi whose family saw its heyday shot to hell in a basement eighty years ago—but real power, modern power: the Ability to Make People Money.
I knew I could call Betty or June and find out exactly what was going on. Or I could ignore it and go on with my own party as if nothing were amiss, clearly the most elegant thing to do.
The hell with it. I called Betty.
“Did you get her invitation?” I said.
“At first, I thought it was from you with the fucking bud vase,” Betty said. “Can you believe it? I was about to call you.”
“Are you going?”
“Hell, no. But Neil Dent just bought a Matisse collage and a Monet ‘Haystack’ from Gil, so he may have to go.”
“You understand it’s the same night as my dinner?” I said.
Social Crimes Page 22