The Debutante Divorcee

by Plum Sykes

  “Soooo cute.” said Tinsley. “More, please.”

  There was one thing Hunter did, a few months after I met him, that turned a madly in love girl into a deeply in love girl. My housekeeper in L.A. had a minor car accident. She had a couple of broken bones—nothing too serious—but she had no health insurance. I didn’t know how she was going to pay her medical bills, and I offered to help, but she told me someone had taken care of it all. A couple of months after she recovered and was back working at the apartment, I told her I was going to marry Hunter. At this news she wept, declaring that Hunter was the kindest man in all of America. What I learned that day was that Hunter had paid all her medical bills and had asked her not to tell me. He’d never said a thing about it. I call it his Mr. Darcy moment.

  That was very Hunter. There he was, a successful young producer—he’d had a big success on MTV with a rock show he’d produced, and he was being courted by all the major networks (hence the canceled honeymoon). He didn’t need to be nice to anyone, but he was, because he felt that’s how human beings should behave.

  “He sounds like a saint,” declared Tinsley. “A handsome saint. I bet you’ve forgiven him for the honeymoon disaster already. It doesn’t matter that much, does it?”

  I nodded, smiling. Tinsley was right. The non-honeymoon wasn’t the end of the world. However hard I tried to maintain my fury at Hunter, it just wouldn’t stick. He had been calling all the time, to check that I was OK, and, the fact was, whenever I thought of him, I melted. Deep down I knew the marriage was the important thing, not the honeymoon.

  “I’m trying to stay angry, but he’s so sweet,” I said. “It’s impossible. I just want to be a great wife to him.”

  “I hope you’ve got something else to focus on aside from being the Eternity wife. Look what happened to Jessica Simpson,” giggled Lauren.

  Luckily, I did have something else. Just before we’d run off and gotten married, Hunter had decided to move his company to New York. He loved it there, and since I’d grown up in the city I was thrilled to be going back. We’d lucked out and found a great apartment downtown. Now that he’d struck this latest deal to make a TV show set in Paris, it made even more sense, since he’d be traveling to Europe frequently. Meanwhile, my old friend Thackeray Johnston—who’d snuck off to Parsons when everyone else had gone to the East Coast colleges—had contacted me and asked if I wanted to run his fashion house. I’d been working for a big European designer in L.A., dressing actresses, and was ready for something more. Thackeray was making a name for himself as one of the cooler young designers in New York but couldn’t handle the business side as well as the designing. In return for crazily low pay, he’d offered me 5 percent of the company, which we hoped to sell one day. Now that I’d met Lauren and Tinsley I was looking forward to being back in New York even more.

  “My God, how fun. I’ve seen Thackeray’s stuff. It’s awesome. I think he’s really talented. I don’t think you’re life’s too bad, Sylvie. You may not have had a honeymoon,” said Tinsley, “but you’ve got the best consolation: a fabulous husband.”

  “Agreed. Although I,” declared Lauren wickedly, “would far rather end up with the honeymoon than the husband.”

  3

  Legendary Lovers

  “Can you believe John Currin and Rachel Feinstein have come…as themselves!” said Lauren the night of her birthday party. “They’re so existential, I feel like a retard.”

  We were now back in New York, and the first time I saw Lauren Blount after Careyes was at her thirty-second birthday party in her West Eleventh Street townhouse (it’s that crisp, double-width, white-and-brick Greek revival affair between West Fourth street and Waverly Place). Like all Lauren’s birthday parties, this one, in mid September, was a costume party. The theme was Legendary Lovers, and Lauren said it didn’t matter whether the couple you went as were still together or broken up, alive or dead, because she said no one could remember that sort of detail about those sort of people anyway. She liked her theme because guests could come as Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes if they wanted to make no effort at all, or Marilyn Manson and Dita Von Teese if they felt like going completely over the top.

  While Hunter was dropping off our coats, I headed upstairs, where Lauren was welcoming guests at the doorway to the first-floor drawing room. She was wearing minuscule hot pants of primrose yellow terry toweling and a candy-pink tee. On her head was a blonde wig tied in perky pigtails. Her feet were clad in glowing white bobby socks and brand-new white leather roller skates. To all intents and purposes she was Rollergirl; however, the one thing that made her very not Rollergirl was the diamond Cartier bracelet fastened to her left wrist. It glittered alluringly in the light cast from the temporary disco ball twirling in the center of the room.

  “It was the Duchess of Windsor’s,” said Lauren, twisting it around her wrist. “Isn’t it heaven? Uncle Freddie sent it down” (‘Uncle Freddie’ being the name Lauren used for the totally unrelated Fred Leighton, of Madison Avenue jewelry fame).

  “It’s so beautiful,” I remarked.

  “I was thinking of dressing as Bianca Jagger, and having Milton come as Mick tonight,” she said, regarding her outfit. “But then, I realized, I go out every night dressed as Bianca Jagger already. So I’m Rollergirl, which has nothing to do with anything except it guarantees me maximum attention. Does it look like a rollerrink in here?”

  “Not exactly,” I said.

  With its walls upholstered in antique pink satin, the Cedric Gibbons furniture inherited from one of Lauren’s movie starlet grandmothers, and the Rothkos and Rauschenbergs, Lauren’s drawing room feels like an avant-garde boudoir. It’s usually immaculate, but tonight the room was strewn with glam couples dressed in witty takes on the party’s theme. Two gorgeous teenage boys, leaning nonchalantly on the front balcony overlooking the street, were dressed as Jean Harlow and Marilyn Monroe, in platinum blonde wigs and crystal-studded gowns. Over by the fireplace, right underneath a huge Gilbert and George collage, stood two cool girls in gray suits and glasses, dressed as the artists. There were Bogie and Bacall couples lounging on black lacquer and gilt chairs, and a very convincing Jean Shrimpton and David Bailey duo were giggling by the bar. A Penelope Tree and Truman Capote pair sat cross-legged on the floor talking intensely, while a Halston and Warhol combo stepped coolly over them. On Lauren’s sofas, which had been recovered in old 1930s Japanese kimono fabric, three sets of Johns and Yokos sat gossiping as hard as though they really were John and Yoko. People seemed to be having fun, which, I have to say, was something of a surprise: the glamorous parties in New York full of gorgeous people usually resemble a death march.

  “Gingertini?” asked a waiter, offering us a tray of electric-orange drinks. Like all the other male staff that night, he was dressed as Donald Trump in a tuxedo, hairpiece, and fantasy tan. The waitresses were multiples of Melania, their hair teased into skyscraping brunette beehives, their bodies squeezed into wedding dresses so tight they threatened to suffocate them. The real Melania is a miracle of human survival. By this point in her marriage she should have suffered death by Dolce and Gabbana corset.

  “Don’t you adore my Donalds?” said Lauren, taking a gingertini from the tray. “He and Melania are the ultimate tabloid couple.”

  Just then, Hunter appeared. He kissed me on the cheek and then held out his hand to shake Lauren’s. Lauren took it, gasping, melodramatically, “Hunter! The disappearing, divine new husband. I am so thrilled to meet you.” She flung her arms around Hunter and gave him a huge hug. “God, you’re so handsome. I can’t stand it!”

  Hunter extricated himself. I could see he was amused.

  “The divine new friend, I assume,” he said, kissing Lauren on the cheek.

  “Oh, wow, you’re so charming I want to faint. God, Sylvie, you must be so, like thrilled with this…thing.”

  I smiled. Lauren seemed genuinely happy for us. She drew back as if to observe us.

  “Oooh. Frida and Diego. So ro
mantic.” she cooed. Having just been in Mexico, it hadn’t been hard to rustle up my scarlet Frida Kahlo flamenco dress. Meanwhile Hunter was in paint-spattered overalls that he’d created himself. “I, on the other hand, am enjoying my one night as a tacky coke addict. You must come downstairs and meet Milton, who I was telling you about in Careyes. My interior decorator. He’s going to die over both of you.”

  With that, Lauren wove her way through her guests, leading us through the crowd, blowing kisses as she went. When we reached the stairs, Lauren removed her roller skates and skipped down ahead of us. On the parlor floor, Lauren put her roller skates back on and then we headed toward the back of the house into Lauren’s “morning room. Well, that’s what Milton calls it. I call it the White Room. I mean, I’m not Marie Antoinette…yet. Milton’s so pretentious,” she moaned. “But I adore him all the same. I mean this floor he made me do,” she said, gesturing to the polished wood floor of the corridor. “Parquet de Versailles. It’s real. Can you imagine? Daylight robbery.”

  We arrived at two mirrored French doors, and Lauren pushed them open into the “shoes-off” white room. (All-white rooms are so in right now in New York that you’re barely able to keep your shoes on at night at all anymore. That night, though, everyone was allowed to keep their footwear on, thankfully.) Even though the room was packed, I could see six pairs of white-painted plaster palms along the back wall, separated by six sets of French windows that opened onto a formal planted garden that had been floodlit for the night. It was more like Venice than West Village. At one end of the room was a very rock ‘n’ roll white baby grand piano, watched over by a Tom Sachs “White” collage. The floor was pure white marble, and in case you don’t know much about marble snobbery, the plain white kind without veins is more pricey than the kind with veins. That’s very now, to pay more for less—or rather, to pay a lot more for a lot less.

  “There he is,” said Lauren, gesturing at a woman perched on the end of one of two deeply tufted white silk chaise longues.

  Milton Whitney Holmes (real name: Joe Straaba) was dressed as Iman, in an homage to a former owner of the house. The vintage Alaia dress and Afro wig he was wearing looked bizarre on him, since he’s rather petite and white, so he’d hung a name tag from the dress which read MRS. DAVID BOWIE, in case no one recognized him. (They didn’t.) Milton was chatting to a slight girl dressed in a prim-looking outfit consisting of a tweed skirt and Fair Isle sweater. Her main accessory was a tube of pale-pink lip gloss that she squirted at her mouth every five seconds. Her complexion was invalid-white, and her blonde hair was almost as pale.

  “Drat, Marci Klugerson’s got to him,” sighed Lauren as we approached. She turned and stopped us for a second. Then she lowered her voice and whispered, “Be nice to Marci. She seems perfectly innocent, but she’s a terrible gossip—she hears everything, and always gets it slightly wrong. Anyway, she seems really uptight because she thinks she has scoliosis, which she doesn’t, by the way. We all think she’s on her way to being a divorcée, but she doesn’t know it yet. She forgets she’s married all the time. I call her the careless wife.”

  “I think I went to college with Marci,” I said. I felt as though I recognized her name. “Was she at Brown?”

  “I think she was, yes,” said Lauren.

  Milton waved from the sofa. When we got over there, Lauren introduced everyone.

  “Where have you been?” said Marci Klugerson when she clapped eyes on Lauren. This is what Marci always says when she sees Lauren.

  “Oh, God, I don’t know,” replied Lauren nonchalantly. “Where have you been?” This is what Lauren always says to everyone when they ask her where she’s been.

  “Well, you must have been somewhere.” Marci seemed a little annoyed.

  “You’ll never get an answer,” said Milton solemnly.

  “I guess I was on my father’s ranch for a while. Then we were on the boat. You know,” said Lauren vaguely.

  “We?” asked Marci.

  “Oh, no one,” said Lauren mysteriously.

  With that, she skated off. Marci looked after her, rather forlornly.

  Lauren’s never been anywhere she can tell you about, she often says when she returns from one of her frequent disappearances. Then you read somewhere or other that she’s been at Mr. Revlon or whoever’s place in Barbuda and he’s been asking her what companies he should buy or what she thinks about hedge funds or distressed companies in Russia. Later you hear that while she was down there some rock star was staying with Mr. Revlon too. But the fact was, he was totally bored by Mr. Revlon and was only there for Lauren, who barely spoke to him and told him she’d never heard his music, which made him crazy for her.

  “Marci, I think maybe we were at Brown together,” I said.

  Marci looked at me curiously for a moment and then said,

  “Sylvie…Wentworth?”

  “Yes,” I told her, “Well, it’s Sylvie Mortimer, now I’m married to Hunter.”

  “Congratulations,” said Milton. “You make a cute couple.”

  “I hear you’re absolutely best friends with Lauren,” said Marci. Suddenly she looked troubled as she added, “Well, actually she says you’re her second best best friend. I’m her best best friend. Officially.”

  “Darling, I’m Lauren’s best friend,” declared Milton dramatically.

  “Well, I only just met Lauren, in Careyes,” I said, sensing an atmosphere. “I barely know her.”

  “I know. Lauren told me all about you. She says you’re the most wonderful influence on her,” said Marci, slightly grudgingly.

  Suddenly Marci seemed nervous. She scanned the room, tugging awkwardly at her tweed skirt.

  “I’m so unoriginal, aren’t I? The only thing I could be was Bridget Jones Two because I’m so enormous. And don’t tell me I’m thin because I know I look like a museum. But at least my husband looks like Mark Darcy—well, Mark Darcy with red hair. Ha ha ha!”

  “Darling, I’ve just spotted an old acquaintance over there,” said Hunter, “I’m just going to pop over and say hello, all right?”

  “Sure, sweetie,” I said, as Hunter headed over toward a group in the far corner.

  Milton patted the sofa next to him, and Marci and I sat down.

  “How’s married life?” asked Milton.

  “It’s so nice—” I started, but Marci interrupted me.

  “Being married has got to be the draggiest drag of all time,” she groaned. “My self-esteem will never get over it. I love and adore Christopher and everything, but marriage is totally hideous. The only girls I know getting any sex are divorced.”

  I must have looked surprised, because the next minute Milton was nodding his head and saying, “Absolutely true.”

  “Milton, is it true that Axel Vervoordt escorted the parquet in the corridor from Holland? Personally?” said Marci. “I heard Lauren’s converted the wine cellar into a fur vault. Apparently it’s colder than Alaska down there. Or is that just a rumor?”

  “I couldn’t possibly divulge my clients’ secrets,” said Milton, suddenly sphinx-like.

  There was an awkward pause and Marci went bright pink. “I didn’t mean to pry—”

  “Now, what’s happened to that fabulous husband of yours?” he interrupted, looking at me and changing the subject.

  “He’s—”

  I looked around. I couldn’t see Hunter anywhere. Then I spotted him standing over by the piano. He had his back to me and was chatting to two girls dressed as white-faced Harajuku twins. One of them was very plain, the other noticeably beautiful, with such extraordinary cheekbones it was hard not to stare. The ordinary one soon moved off, and I could see Hunter still chatting to the cheekbones. The girl’s face was framed by a gleaming wig of straight Japanese hair. She was wearing a white shirt, a black tie, and a mini-kilt. Her legs were of the insanely long, rangy variety indigenous to summertime Sardinia. On her feet were extremely high platform shoes and knee-high white socks. She looked weirdly chic actually, es
pecially with Lauren’s all-white room as a backdrop.

  “There he is,” I said, pointing Hunter out. “Let’s go over and get him.”

  We all got up. But the second Marci laid eyes on the Hara-juku girl, she stopped and stared.

  “Un-be-liev-able!” uttered Marci. She sounded incensed. “He’s with Sophie D’Arlan. Look at her! Touching his arm like that,” she whispered as we all crossed the room toward them. “She’s an outrageous flirt. I don’t like to gossip, at all, you know, I think it’s evil, but apparently Sophie is always having an affair with several people she shouldn’t be. You’d better watch out for her.”

  “Marci, we got married four weeks ago. I don’t think she’ll go after a newlywed,” I said, unconcerned.

  “Don’t think the fact that you’re married is going to stop Sophie. She only dates husbands.”

  “Stop scaring Sylvie,” retorted Milton, hobbling behind us on his high heels. “I’ll see you later. I’ve just spotted the real David Bowie.”

  With that, Milton wobbled off toward the garden. Meanwhile, when Marci and I reached Hunter, Marci hugged and kissed Sophie in a friendly way, despite what she had been saying a few seconds before.

  “Sophie, do you know Sylvie?” said Marci, turning toward me.

  “I don’t think I do. Hi. I’m Sophi-a D’Arlan,” she said, extending her hand. She spoke with a trace of a rather exotic French accent. “Marci, quit calling me ‘Sophie.’”

  “Sylvie’s married to Hunter,” added Marci, exaggerating the word married in an unnecessary way, I thought.

  At this news, Sophia seemed to visibly pale, despite her powder-white face. She put her hand out toward the piano, as though to steady herself.

  “You got…married? Hunter?” said Sophia, looking at him accusingly.

  “They’re wearing matching wedding rings, Sophie,” said Marci pointedly. “But I guess it’s too dark for you to notice, Sophie.”