Original Sin

by Tasmina Perry

  From that day on, they’d become unlikely friends, all the way through her time at Brown. He was completely different from her other friends at college – popular, wealthy New Yorkers and Bostonians, fresh from schools like Chapin, Nightingale–Bamford and Dana Hall – and that had been part of his curious appeal. Matt was from a small town in Illinois. He liked Guns ’n’ Roses, ice hockey and motorbikes, Black Russian cocktails, and John Fante novels. He worked shifts in a coffee shop to help pay his way through college and he always looked tired. He fixed her car. Took her drinking, introduced her to the excitement of live music in dingy bars, and always had a reassuring diagnosis for Brooke’s many imagined ailments (handbag elbow, stress headaches, broken heart). For a girl from the Upper East Side, it was all an unthreatening walk on the wild side for her carefree days at college. But now, back here in the cold New York winter, all those pleasant memories had melted away. This man had betrayed her – and for what? Some pathetic flash of fame in a tabloid?

  She crossed her arms and stared at him. ‘So, are you going to explain yourself?’

  He gave a slow half–smile. ‘Maybe if you take your sunglasses off. I’m not convinced anyone’s looking.’

  She pulled them off and placed them on the table between them.

  Matt took his beer from the waitress and took a long drink.

  ‘I don’t know what makes you think I tipped off the papers. I didn’t. I swear to you. For a start, I barely knew about you and Jeff Daniels. Didn’t all that happen after you left Brown?’

  She nodded begrudgingly. ‘So you swear you didn’t tip off the papers?’

  He looked angry at the suggestion. ‘I didn’t do it, Brooke. You were my friend. Besides, I wouldn’t stand on a cold street waiting for you for two hours if I was guilty.’

  ‘That means nothing, I can tell you.’

  ‘Cynic.’

  ‘Realist. So how did your name end up in Danny Krantz’s column?’

  ‘A journalist called me up a few weeks ago,’ he said, wiping his mouth. ‘Said they were doing a profile piece on you. Actually, I think they described it as a celebration of you.’

  Brooke raised her eyebrows.

  ‘I don’t know how they got my name but it all sounded kosher. I just said something really innocuous about you.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘They asked me how I’d describe you. I said kind, beautiful, and smart. Everyone loved you. And I never said I was your boyfriend, or ever was. I was mad as hell when I saw that “old flame” thing.’

  She put her head down to hide a little flutter of embarrassment.

  ‘So you didn’t say: “She’s gorgeous. Men just love her. Any man would go crazy for her”, or whatever it was?’

  Matthew put his beer down. ‘Have I ever been that sleazy?’

  Brooke finally allowed him a smile.

  ‘I’m sorry Brooke. I’m so sorry.’

  Brooke shrugged. She knew very well how the media would twist things, even fabricate them to make something salacious out of nothing. And, despite her anger and frustration over everything that had happened with the column, she did believe him. Out of all the people she knew, Matt was the least interested in fame and money. She just couldn’t see his motivation for doing it.

  ‘No, I’m sorry,’ she said slowly. ‘It’s good to see you again, Matt.’

  ‘Dr Palmer to you, Asgill.’

  She laughed. They’d always had that sort of relationship. He’d never seemed impressed by her rich, fashionable friends, never let her get away with any pomposity.

  ‘Sorry, Doc.’

  She took a sip of her water, wishing now that she had ordered the beer.

  ‘So how is it?’ he asked.

  ‘How’s what?’

  ‘Life as a real–life American Princess?’

  ‘Hey, come on … ’ she said, flushing.

  ‘Okay, future First Lady.’

  ‘David is a news reporter, not a politician.’

  ‘Give him time,’ said Matthew. ‘How old is he? Thirty–two, thirty–three? I read the papers, Brooke. People are already talking about him as a senator or governor. We both know David Billington was born to be president.’

  Brooke smiled. ‘He’ll probably run for Congress in the next few years, but president? Here’s an exclusive for your New York Oracle friends: he’s honestly never mentioned it.’

  ‘Well, I do know that Wendell Billington is one of the most ruthless, powerful men in the city. He’s like Joe Kennedy but with more class and even more money and, to give them their due, I think the Billingtons are positioning David brilliantly. They’ve recognized the power of the media and he’s already a big star. People trust him. I’m not a Republican by a long shot, but even I might be tempted to vote for him. Even though I bet I’m not his favourite person at the minute.’

  While he was talking, Brooke examined her old friend with detached curiosity. On the outside, Matthew looked virtually the same. A little rougher, a little older, but the same face, the same smile. It was funny how seven or eight years could change you inside. Now her rocking college boy was serious, grown up.

  ‘Since when have you been so interested in politics?’ she teased. ‘You would have struggled to tell me the name of the president in college.’

  ‘Politics is the new rock and roll, baby,’ he smiled, knocking back his beer and nodding to the waitress to bring him another.

  ‘So you know where life’s taken me. What about you? I take it you never made it as a rock star?’ She smiled in memory of his student band, Ded Squid.

  He shrugged playfully. ‘Coffee shop boy, Med student … something had to give. I’m refusing to believe it was lack of talent.’

  ‘So where do you work? Columbia–Presbyterian, wasn’t it?’

  He nodded. ‘Yeah, in ER. I guess I should have gone into cosmetic surgery, then I’d have been mixing in your social circles uptown.’

  ‘I’ll tell you a secret. You really wouldn’t want to.’

  She found herself glancing down to his left hand. His ring finger was bare.

  ‘What about any lovely ladies for you … ?’

  ‘I was married.’

  ‘Was?’ asked Brooke without thinking.

  ‘Elizabeth. A nutritionist.’

  ‘Are you divorced?’ she asked, surprised.

  ‘She died. It was a little over a year ago now.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. I had no idea. Me and my big mouth. How?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘It’s called Sudden Adult Death Syndrome. A congenital heart defect. You don’t stand a chance.’

  ‘How awful.’

  He nodded and stared down at his beer.

  ‘We were on holiday in France,’ he said finally. ‘We didn’t have a honeymoon, both too busy, so we were sort of taking it two years later. We went to bed one night in our hotel and when I woke up she was dead.’

  He paused and took a deep breath.

  ‘You know what drew me to ER?’ he asked. ‘It just seemed like the most pure form of medicine. In minutes, seconds, you can save a life. Every day you can help dozens of people from something frightening or life–threatening: gunshot wounds, heart attacks, whatever it is. Every day I did it, saved hundreds of lives, but I couldn’t do a thing to save the woman I loved.’

  He drained his glass and gave her a small smile. ‘We’d better go. Before someone sees you and the Billingtons make me disappear,’ he grinned.

  ‘They’re not that bad,’ smiled Brooke, getting out her purse and putting twenty dollars on the table.

  He got up to follow her.

  ‘I’d better leave alone,’ she said quickly. ‘Crazy I know.’

  Matthew reached into his pocket and gave her a card. It was small and grey with the words Matthew Palmer MD and a mobile number stamped in tiny black letters.

  ‘If you’re ever on the West Side…’

  For a second she thought about giving him her card, but really what was the point? It had been a re
lief to get the Danny Krantz gossip column business cleared up, and she’d enjoyed catching up, but that was all. There was a reason they had drifted apart since she had left Brown. Their lives had gone in completely different directions. And right now the last thing she needed was more complications.

  ‘Well, so long, Matt’ she said with an awkward wave. And she turned and walked out of the restaurant back into the street.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  It was an extraordinary night at Somerset Tower, the iconic new skyscraper at Columbus Circle. Outside, military–grade searchlights swung back and forth across the building, making the party visible anywhere in the city. At street level, paparazzi yelled and jostled, their flashlights popping like gunfire, as New York’s most beautiful people walked down the red carpet and through the lobby to the doors of the high–speed elevator. Already there was a queue forming of people clamouring to be whisked up to the Skin Plus launch on the sixtieth floor, though no one appeared to mind the wait as they were plied with Riedel flutes of Cristal and delicate canapés from drop–dead–gorgeous waiters. Liz Asgill swept through the centre of her creation towards the executive elevator, listening to the snippets of conversation as she passed by.

  ‘It’s sensational.’

  ‘Have you seen the light–therapy booths?’

  ‘Apparently they are booked up for the next three months already.’

  The words made Liz giddy with pride and excitement, although she didn’t need the congratulations of the three hundred guests to know she had created magic. As the lift doors opened onto the top floor, she could see the excitement crackling across the room like electricity. Skin Plus was a hit. In a city saturated with luxury spas, the Skin Plus Day Spa was the most cutting–edge, the most desirable, the most now. In every corner of the 25,000–square–foot space were technological advancements to make NASA blush: skin imaging banks that helped diagnose skin problems, light therapy pods that helped reverse the signs of ageing, and the patent–pending nervodermis machine, a contraption that used light pulses to stimulate the elasticity of skin, eliminating lines and wrinkles. Alongside the space–age gadgetry were rows of products, their boxes proud and pristine, lined up on the gleaming glass counters. The nutritional centre, home of the spa’s cuisine, would tonight also offer tastes of their tantalizing dietary supplements, which promised to keep a complexion’s brightness, and ‘Skinny Smoothies’, fruit drinks packed with properties to keep your skin looking good from the inside. New Yorkers were a breed that liked to look and feel young, and everything they needed to do that was here.

  The only thing missing from the scene, the one thing that would have made the night perfect for Liz was her father. Eight years ago, just a few weeks after her thirtieth birthday, Liz had floated the idea of a high–end cosmeceutical range to Howard Asgill over lunch at the Rainbow Rooms. The restaurant, on the sixty–four floor of the Rockefeller Center, was her favourite place to lunch in the city; a place where she felt in charge, successful, and almost literally on top of the world, and she’d felt buoyed further by her recent appointment to the post of Vice President of New Product Development. At the time, cosmeceuticals, a term coined for a combination of cosmetics and pharmaceutical expertise, meant sterile serums dispensed by doctors and dermatologists, or expensive creams created by the most up–market brands in the industry; brands that could afford to spend huge amounts on research and development into such scientific advances.

  Liz’s idea to enter the cosmeceutical sector was a bold departure for Asgill Cosmetics, who had until that point concentrated on mid– to low price points for their products. The profit margins on cosmeceuticals were lower than in other sectors of the beauty industry, due to the vast amount of research involved, but Howard Asgill recognized that cosmeceuticals were going to be one of the fastest–growing and most important sectors of the skincare market, one they could not afford to miss out on. So he had given Liz the go–ahead and approved her idea to launch the new Skin Plus range via a luxury spa. She knew this venture would succeed or fail on image alone; consumers had to believe that the Skin Plus range was absolutely the best available and they had to believe it worked. What better way to convince them than by showing them the products in action? And a huge dose of A–list exclusivity never did any harm either, especially in Manhattan.

  The Skin Plus range certainly had that, thought Liz, watching the faces of the party–goers, glowing with the knowledge that tonight they were at the very centre of things. If only Father could have been here to see it, to see me, thought Liz.

  Meredith swept to her daughter’s side looking imperial, flushed with a happiness Liz had not seen since Brooke’s engagement party.

  ‘This is just fabulous, darling. Absolutely everyone is here.’

  Liz smiled thinly at her mother’s enthusiasm. She had spent weeks arguing about the budget for the party with Meredith and William, who both thought a launch event costing a million dollars was excessive and unnecessary. William particularly had thought it better to take a select band of journalists to the Turks and Caicos to gently persuade them to give favourable and extensive coverage to the Skin Plus range in their publications. But that was cheap talk, thought Liz – quite the opposite of the Skin Plus ethos. Beauty editors were exhausted from trips and they would cover the Skin Plus range anyway because of the amount of advertising Asgill Cosmetics gave their magazines.

  ‘Not quite everyone,’ said Liz, craning her elegant neck. ‘I can’t see Brooke and David anywhere. Patrick McMullen is here and is desperate to get a photo of them.’ McMullen was the famous party photographer who sold his work into all the prestigious media outlets. If the golden couple did not appear, the chance of blanket coverage in the papers and magazines was not so assured.

  ‘It’s okay, Brooke has just arrived,’ said Tess Garrett, drawing up beside them. ‘It took us twenty minutes to get through the lobby downstairs. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many paparazzi.’

  Liz looked at Tess sharply. The meaning of her words had only just sunk in.

  ‘What do you mean Brooke has just arrived? Where is David?’

  Tess looked surprised. ‘I thought you knew. He’s out of town.’

  ‘Out of town?’ snapped Liz. She could barely believe the selfishness of her sister. For weeks Liz had been impressing upon her the importance of the photo opportunity.

  She saw Tess glance at her mother. Since when had those two been in such cahoots? Liz wondered. The Brit, however, did not look ruffled.

  ‘Don’t worry, Liz, the papers want pictures of gorgeous women on the front of their newspapers, not good–looking men, however important they are. And if the feeding frenzy downstairs is anything to go by, we don’t really need David. Brooke will be front page of the Post and the Daily News tomorrow without him.’

  How dare she? thought Liz, narrowing her eyes. The pushy hack has been here two minutes, didn’t even have anything to do with Asgill Cosmetics, and here she was giving her a lecture on PR and marketing strategy!

  ‘I think it’s for me and my corporate communications director to decide what we do and don’t need,’ she said coolly. Meredith touched her daughter gently on the arm.

  ‘Tess is only here to help, Elizabeth. We’re all on the same side.’

  Liz took a breath. She had been talking to Doctor Derkowitz, one of the Skin Plus dermatologist advisers only an hour ago. What was it he had said? Stress is one of the worst things for the skin.

  She forced a smile towards her mother. ‘You’d look very lovely this evening if you didn’t look so angry,’ smiled Meredith in return.

  Liz felt disarmed by the compliment. It was rare that her mother even seemed to notice her at all, let alone comment on her appearance. Her slate–grey silk Balenciaga cocktail dress, skimming her lithe body, and five–inch satin heels, had meant she had attracted almost as many compliments as her spa. Enrique had blow–dried her hair, collagen regeneration, road–tested at the therapy rooms, made her skin look plump, a
nd her custom–blended scent ensured she looked, smelt, and felt sensational. For as long as Liz could remember, Meredith’s parental joy and pride seemed to be only directed at William, Sean, and Brooke. It had stopped mattering to her many years ago, the second she realized her anger and sadness were simply futile. Instead, Liz had buried those unwanted emotions of rejection, of feeling overlooked and underappreciated. But perhaps tonight, finally, after all these years, she had done something right.

  ‘I’m not angry,’ said Liz, relaxing a little. ‘Just anxious.’

  ‘With such an adoring crowd around you?’

  They both looked around and smiled. It was incredible how many people had come. Madonna. Demi Moore, Olivia Palermo. She was glad the younger crowd had come too. And of course, they had the full complement of editors and beauty directors from all the publications that mattered. Knowing that an up–market beauty range from a company like Asgill’s might not be taken seriously, Liz had sent the important journalists’ invitations to the Skin Plus launch in a Globe–Trotter vanity case stuffed with products, together with a VIP black card allowing them a free treatment every month. And all the heavy–hitter management from Condé Nast, Time Inc., and Hearst publishing companies were here too. Good. Thought Liz. It was the least they could do, considering the hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising she had given them: ten double–page spread Skin Plus adverts in Vogue, Harper’s, and Town and Country alone. Liz’s marketing director had doubted the wisdom of this advertising blitz, especially as the stand–alone Skin Plus boutique would not open until September. That meant that Skin Plus products could only be bought through the spa, which could only accommodate a few dozen clients a day, but Liz understood the value and power of exclusivity. People wanted nothing more than something they couldn’t have.