Social Crimes

by Jane Stanton Hitchcock

  “Business, sweetie. Obviously, if Gil goes, he’ll go afterward.”

  “I wish he wouldn’t go at all.”

  “Don’t sweat it, Jo, it’s just a party.”

  “Betty, you know as well as I do: Nothing is just a party in New York.”

  The morning of my dinner, I received two cancellations from people who said they were down with the flu. Apparently, it was an epidemic because throughout the day I received numerous calls from other guests who bowed out of the evening. Twenty-nine out of my fifty guests pleaded illness. I figured it was either the plague or Monique, which in my view were pretty much the same thing.

  Every time the phone rang, I prayed it wouldn’t be a call from Brad Thompson. He had become the focal point of the whole exercise. If he came, at least the evening wouldn’t be a total loss.

  I rushed to the restaurant early to redo the seating. I had little time to dress properly. Standing in front of the mirror on the inside of my bedroom closet door, I put on my Marie Antoinette necklace with sober ceremony.

  “Protect me from the slings and arrows of social life,” I whispered aloud to the necklace as if it were a magic charm.

  More cancellations greeted me when I arrived at Le Poisson.

  Harried waiters busily reset the tables. My original fifty guests had dwindled down to seventeen. Three of the five round tables set for ten had to be dismantled and carted away. Only two tables remained, dwarfed by a roomful of overblown period decorations.

  I surveyed the wreckage. What the hell was I going to do with seventeen people?

  I tried putting ten people at one table and seven at another. But that made the table of seven look sparse. Then I tried putting eight at one table and nine at another, but that made both tables look sparse. I consulted the maître d’, whose practical suggestion was to scrap the remaining two round tables and bring in one long table where everyone could sit together. That meant giving up the delicate ropes of rosebuds mingling with the hand-painted flowers of the silk tablecloths for plain white restaurant nappery and some restaurant lamps with pink shades.

  “It’s an interesting idea, Charles, but let’s try and make do with what we have,” is what I said. What I thought ran more along the lines of: If you think I paid six thousand dollars for these goddamn table decorations so no one will see them, you’re even dumber than you look, Chuck. Donnez-moi un break.

  After endless tinkering with the place cards, I finished the seating. The numerous cancellations had screwed up my carefully planned even numbers of men and women. The women now outnumbered the men, and women were seated next to one another at both tables, which was too bad. Well, it couldn’t be helped. I seated myself next to Brad at the table of eight. I put Nicky, my guest of honor, at the table of nine. I figured that way none of my guests would feel slighted.

  I drew back to survey the fruits of my labors.

  Good-bye, Versailles. Hello, funeral home.

  The two remaining silk-draped, flower-laden tables reminded me of shrouded biers. Some coming-out party. This was a wake.

  As I waited for the guests to arrive, I kept telling myself that, after all, it was only a party, instead of the only party I could ever again afford to give. I hoovered down two flutes of champagne to steady my nerves. Nicky arrived a little before eight—nice, polite, punctual guest of honor that he was. We stood together near the room’s entrance waiting for the other guests to arrive. I pasted on my hostess smile and said to Nicky: “You can’t believe the last-minute cancellations. Apparently, everyone has the flu. I hope the party won’t be ruined.”

  Nicky, ever gallant, kissed my hand and said: “My dear Jo, the party is wherever you are.”

  The Kahns and the Watermans were among the first guests to arrive. Betty Waterman took one look around the room and said in a voice laced with sarcasm, “My, isn’t this festive?” I nudged her to shut up.

  Gradually, others arrived. Miranda Somers popped in for a drink then left. She’d already told me she couldn’t stay, so I didn’t mind. Miranda often attended five functions in one night. Social life was a real job for her, unlike the unpaid labor it was for the rest of us. The Bromires, Ethan, and others dribbled in, but no Brad Thompson. People milled around, admiring the flowers, talking in hushed tones. The overdecorated room dwarfed the small crowd. Everyone seemed to know about the cancellations, which contributed to the general air of oppression.

  I took Ethan aside and said: “Look what she’s done to my party. I had six more cancellations at seven o’clock. Seven P.M. the night of an eight o’clock dinner. What would your pal Ward McAllister say about that?”

  “Poor old Ward’s been dervishing away in his grave since the eighties,” he said, moving on to chat with Nicky.

  Brad Thompson was the last to arrive. Seeing him walk through the door, I felt relieved. He looked as dashing as I’d remembered him. Things were looking up. I strolled over to greet him, slipping my arm into his and walking him into the room.

  “Hello, Brad. How nice to see you again. I’m so pleased you could come.”

  He beamed down at me. “Trish says you’re the hostess with the mostest in New York. That’s praise from Caesar as far as I’m concerned.”

  It wasn’t as far as I was concerned, but I was grateful to Trish for the buildup.

  “Let me introduce you to my guest of honor, Nicky Brubetskoi,” I said, guiding him in Nicky’s direction.

  “Sure, I met Nick the other day. I just went on the board of Chapel’s.”

  “Oh, really? Congratulations,” I said, feigning ignorance. “Then it’s doubly nice you’re here for a party in Nicky’s honor.”

  The two men seemed pleased to see each other again. Brad immediately started talking about his daughter who was working at the Hermitage. As I stood by, listening to the conversation, I studied Brad. He was confident, polished, very personable. I couldn’t imagine what Trish had meant when she referred to him as a “rough diamond.” Dressed in an immaculate tuxedo, his auburn hair slicked back neatly over his handsome head, conversing with an animated, interested expression on his face, he looked like a D-flawless to me.

  As I stood there admiring him, out of the corner of my eye I happened to catch sight of a voluptuous blond woman entering the room. I heard the maître d’ telling her this was a private party. I figured she must have been heading for the ladies’ room and gotten lost. But she wasn’t going away. She and the maître d’ seemed to be having a bit of a tiff. Nicky and Brad were deep in conversation so I excused myself to go see what was happening.

  “Charles,” I said to the maître d’, “is there a problem?”

  “This lady says she is dining here, but all your guests are present, Mrs. Slater.”

  Her blondness broke into a beauty-queen smile. “Are you Jo Slater?”

  “Yes,” I said warily.

  She stuck out her hand to me. “My name is Taffy Fischer. Brad Thompson told me to meet him here? I just hope he remembered to tell you,” she said with disarming candor and a hint of a southern accent.

  I blanched and took a closer look at her, trying not to betray any sign of annoyance. She looked to be in her late thirties, early forties. She had a pretty, round face and a creamy complexion. Her deep cleavage was shown to maximum advantage in a low-cut, tight-fitting, black chiffon dress. Her diamond jewelry was real and expensive. Though she seemed friendly and on the ball, there was a slight toughness about her.

  “He didn’t tell you, did he?” she went on. “That boy is so naughty. Listen, if there’s no room for me, I certainly understand. I’m a hostess myself, so trust me, I know what it means when someone shows up uninvited to a seated dinner, and I apologize. I really do.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m delighted to have you. Actually, we had a few cancellations today so space isn’t a problem.” My jaw was tight and my voice sounded to me like I was speaking under water.

  “You’re a doll,” she said. “We have to go to this big dance later on and I reall
y didn’t feel like going back to the hotel and waiting on Brad, so I thank you so very, very much.”

  By this point, I was too exhausted to react, but I guessed what dance she was referring to. I escorted Ms. Taffy Fischer over to Mr. Brad Thompson, thinking, Oh, the hell with it. He immediately put his arm around her waist, ostentatiously snuggling her close.

  “Brad, honey, you forgot to tell our hostess I was coming, you bad boy,” she said, scolding him in a singsong voice.

  He mumbled some excuse about his secretary calling. I nodded politely because at that point I really didn’t give a shit. One more plan down the drain. June danced up to me as I was getting another drink. She made her usual effort to be upbeat.

  “Jo, dear, the room looks absolutely divine.”

  “Fuck the room, June.”

  I had an extra place set for Ms. Fischer beside Brad because he asked if it was okay if they sat together. They held hands most of the evening.

  At dinner, I got the kind of headache basketball players must sometimes get when they try to keep the ball in play against formidable foes. Even my earlobes ached. Our table had somehow veered off into a detailed discussion of great maritime disasters—conversational hell. Brad seemed enthralled, but as I listened to one particularly calamitous account, I knew that ancient ship wasn’t the only thing going down in flames. The party had beat it to the bottom.

  I drank one glass of wine after another, hoping to obliterate as much of the evening as possible. I felt like one of those puppets with fixed macabre smiles whose heads endlessly bob up and down.

  Brad and Taffy were the first ones to leave. In fact, they left during dessert. Brad said he had a business engagement. I, of course, knew better. Miss Gator Bowl had inadvertently spilled the beans.

  Betty informed me that Brad Thompson rarely made it all the way through a dinner party in any case.

  “Listen, sweetie, he’s been known to have his plane standing by to take him to a party in another city,” Betty said, trying to cheer me up. “These big tycoons have the attention span of a gnat. They’re only interested in business and sex.”

  All the guests left early. I sat down at one of the tables and polished off the dregs of three separate wine glasses. “All’s hell that ends like hell,” I thought, looking around the room, the ambience of which felt to me like the last act of Götterdämmerung. I got up to leave, shook hands with all the waiters, thanked the maître d’, signed the bill, leaving an overly generous tip, polished off two more glasses of wine, and left. I remember hailing a taxi on the corner of Madison Avenue, getting in, and giving the driver an address. But I must have been very drunk because I gave him my old address.

  I found myself in front of my former apartment building where literally dozens of limousines were parked outside. Before I really noticed where I was, I was being helped out of the cab by good old Pat, the doorman, who knew me from the time I’d lived there and who acted pleased to see me. He held open the lobby door for me, obviously assuming I’d been invited to Monique’s party. I walked to the elevator in the back, and before I knew it, I was floating up to the fifteenth floor.

  When I stepped into the apartment, I had no idea where I was. My precious eighteenth-century enclave had been swept away by modernity. In its place was a sleek mausoleum with no warmth, no charm.

  Après moi, le déluge.

  All my beautiful crown moldings had been stripped away along with the seventeenth-century boiserie. The furniture was massive and angular and looked like it was covered in wrinkled bedsheets.

  My stippled pomegranate-colored dining room with its hand-painted chinoiserie figures and animals was now gray. Flat, dull, depressing gray. Didn’t this woman know that dining rooms must always be painted a warm color, flattering to a woman’s complexion, because when women feel beautiful they make better conversation? Didn’t she know that? Bedrooms and dining rooms must never be gray. If they are, say adieu to good conversation or good sex.

  My beloved Fragonard oil paintings, those exquisite views of aristocratic eighteenth-century French country life that I’d purchased from Fautre, the most famous antiques dealer in Paris, in their original carved and gilded wood frames, were hanging side by side on the gray walls in thin black metal frames, like they were posters. I was appalled.

  All the furniture had been cleared out of the living room. People were dancing to the music of a smooth Latin band playing “La Vie en Rose” with a salsa beat.

  I grabbed a glass of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter and wandered through the buzzing crowd. A few people seemed perplexed by my presence. “What’s she doing here?” they said with their eyes.

  The Lowrys were there, plus the Dents and all the people who had accepted my dinner then canceled at the last minute, miraculously cured of their sudden illnesses. Everyone who had come to my dinner was there, too, except Betty Waterman and June Kahn. Gil was there, though. Charlie was there. Even my erstwhile guest of honor, Prince Brubetskoi. Miranda Somers was chatting with Ethan Monk. When Ethan saw me, he looked a little shocked and ran to my side.

  “Jo, my God, what are you doing here?”

  “Isn’t it amazing, Ethan? Look who’s here. Everyone. She’s done in two years what it took me twenty to achieve. And she’s done it on my nickel.”

  Monique learned quickly. She was one of those women who transform the art of social climbing into a contact sport, hurling herself on top of the heap without any pretense of an ascent. One day she was there, proud and glistening, like a snow-capped peak on Everest. It was too much for me to bear.

  The moment when I spotted Nate Nathaniel and Monique welded together on the dance floor something in me snapped. Watching them slithering around to the Latin rhythm, gazing deep into each other’s eyes, I thought: I am like Marie Antoinette coming back after my execution and seeing Robespierre and Charlotte Corday playing kissy-face in my parlor at Versailles.

  Monique and I locked eyes as she was dancing. A flash of triumph flickered on her face. Flinging me a saucy little smile, she broke away from Nate and cut through the crowd to greet me. I stared, transfixed, as this vision of evil incarnate, this chattel of Satan in red satin and diamonds, slithered toward me with her arms outstretched like some sort of gorgeous gorgon.

  “Jo, dear,” she said, taking my free hand in hers. “I’m delighted to see you. It’s wonderful that you could come. Look, everyone,” she announced to the room. “It’s our darling Jo.”

  I just stood there, vaguely aware that the music had stopped playing and people were standing, staring at the two ladies in red. Their ogling faces hung like big white moons all around me. I had an urge to denounce Monique in front of this crowd as a lying, scheming murderess. But the words wouldn’t come. Her vile graciousness had disarmed me. Instead, I threw the glass of champagne in her face and walked out.

  I don’t remember anything after that except waking up the next morning with a nuclear headache. I noticed a blossoming bruise on my right arm. I had no idea how it had gotten there.

  Throughout the morning, fragments of the evening’s events bombarded me like sharpnel, each piece sinking in deeper than the last. By the afternoon, I’d recalled the entire debacle. My phone was ominously silent. That evening, June called to see how I was. She’d heard at least ten differing accounts of the story, the worst one being that I had pummeled Monique on the dance floor and it took three men to restrain me. She told me not to worry.

  “People in New York have short memories,” she assured me. “It’s all just Social Life.” This mantra from a woman who once described the fall of the Soviet Union as “that scandal in Russia.”

  Betty also called to commiserate that evening. A romantic at heart, she told me Gil reported to her that Brad Thompson left Monique’s with another woman—not Ms. Fischer, if that was any consolation.

  It wasn’t.

  Ethan called, too. I was anxious to know what he thought because he was the only one of my friends who had been there to see what actua
lly happened.

  “What on earth possessed you?” he asked.

  “I made a spectacle of myself, didn’t I?”

  “Worse. You made a martyr of her.”

  I hung up the phone with the most sickening feeling. Nothing is more mortifying than one’s own bad behavior. And, justified or not, I had acted abominably toward Monique. My own party had cost me a fortune, in more ways than one.

  Two days later, I received a warm letter from Nicky accompanied by an expensive coffee-table book on Imperial Russia to which he had written the foreword. That afternoon a huge flower arrangement was delivered to my apartment as well. I recognized the diaphanous bluish white tissue covering the blooms. It was from Celeste, a “floral designer,” as she liked to call herself, who catered only to private clients and whom I, actually, had discovered many years ago. After I started sending Celeste’s original flower arrangements to people, others took her up. She became all the rage in New York for a time, but eventually derailed by gossiping about her clients. Many people dropped her. Those who still used her were willing to overlook her indiscretion because she was so very talented.

  Tearing away the paper, I found a profusion of all-white flowers, including peonies, which were out of season, set like an enormous globe in an antique blue and white cachepot—an exquisite arrangement that could easily have cost twice my current monthly rent. I fully expected to find another note from Nicky thanking me for that spectacularly costly evening in his honor. Instead, there was a small calling card. The embossed name on the card had been crossed out with a line of black ink. The message in neat handwriting read: “Dear Jo, a memorable evening.” It was signed “Monique de Passy.”

  Chapter 25

  I spent a bleak Christmas and a joyless New Year all by myself. At one point I picked up the phone and heard the words “Hello, Deadbeat.” With creditors circling, the time had come for me to think the unthinkable: I would have to part with the possession I loved most in the world—my necklace. The thought of selling it was anathema to me. It was like selling a beloved pet. Not only was the piece my trademark, it was the last link to my former existence. Even in my worst nightmares, I never thought it would come to this. Giving up the necklace was like giving up all hope of ever returning to the world I had known and loved. I’d much rather have donated it to the Municipal Museum to put on display in the Slater Gallery. But I desperately needed the money. I could no longer afford to be Lady Bountiful.