by Bridie Clark
"To Nola? I don't think that's the best idea." A blushing understatement, considering she despises me and canned me a month ago. Why did her mother have to be so pushy? "Nola's a nail biter."
Rita gasped. Nail biting, to her, was an offense on par with book burning. Worse, actually. But she quickly recovered. "Well, the city must be full of potential investors. Maybe I should come stay with you and we can pound the pavement together. I'll cut you in for fifteen percent. Or maybe ten. What do you say, kid? Ten percent of a million dollar business is still . . . um, a lot of money."
Lucy bit her cheek. Just what she'd been afraid of--Rita barreling in and taking over the best opportunity she'd ever had. If she knew about Wyatt, she'd maul him. "I'll talk to some people," she said. That wasn't a lie. She just wouldn't talk about Rita's nails. "See what I can put together. Stay put for now." Much to her relief, her mother seemed to accept that. Now she just had to stay Rita-free for the next two and a half months until the Forum Ball. After that, she'd get her break working for a fabulous designer, start paying her own way again, and be able to give Rita more of a boost. It was just a matter of time.
Fernanda Fairchild's ankles began to wobble in her ugly brown rental skates the moment she shoved off from the wall. (She'd begged for some white ones to better match her ruched-sleeve parka and cashmere chapeau, but was told that brown was it.) "Parker!" she yelped, forgetting to act cool as her arms shot out and she struggled to catch her balance. Parker, sporty in a down puffer vest and earmuffs, flew to her rescue. "Hey, thanks," she said, once her equilibrium was restored. "You're pretty good on those things." As surprised as she'd been when Parker had suggested the Wollman skating rink, tourist trap, as the site of their third date, Fernanda was downright shocked to find that she was enjoying herself. Parker had packed a huge thermos of hot cocoa with plenty of marshmallows, and he was getting a kick out of seeing Fernanda out of her element.
"Do you think I would've asked you to go skating with me if I didn't have skills? Played hockey in high school," Parker said, not letting go of her arm. They moved smoothly around a corner, avoiding a close call with the eight-year-old show-off who cut in front of them. "Granted, that was three decades ago." When he laughed, his eyes crinkled at each corner. Fernanda would have been terrified to see such deep crow's-feet on her own face, but she found Parker's to be strangely endearing.
"The last time I went skating was when I was five years old," she found herself reminiscing. "Our old country house in Bedford had a pond in the backyard, and Dad let Max and me skate on it one weekend when Mom wasn't around. I loved it, actually. I didn't want to stop. My feet got so cold he had to carry me back up to the house."
"You had your very own rink?"
"Yeah, well, a lot of fun we had with it. Mom was very overprotective."
"Can't blame her," Parker said, giving her a squeeze as they rounded another corner. "But now you can make up for lost time. Live on the edge!" Parker released Fernanda's arm and skated around her in a little circle.
Then the same eight-year-old speed demon veered right into her path, sending her into another violent wobble. "Hey!" she shouted. Parker grabbed her arm again.
Fernanda had come to think of dates as work, the way an actress would think of auditions. But the afternoon with Parker hadn't felt like work. "Have dinner plans tonight?" he asked as they cruised the rink.
"With Mom"--normally she would have fabricated something more glamorous, but Parker made her feel honest--"but I can reschedule."
"Or the three of us could have dinner?"
Fernanda fought the urge to pinch herself. "Really? I'm sure she'd love that!"
"Great," Parker said, clapping his gloved hands together once in what seemed to be genuine enthusiasm. "How about my place? I'll cook."
"You cook, too?"
He smiled. "I studied at La Varenne for the year after college, before the high-stakes world of international finance lured me with its siren call."
She stopped skating. "Okay, Parker, what's the catch?"
"What do you mean?"
"No man is this perfect. Do you go to Hannah Montana concerts? Make sculptures with your toenail clippings?"
"The catch?" Parker stroked his chin as though deep in thought. "I don't know. Well, there is Mr. Fursnickety--"
Oh God.
"Sounds worse than it is. He's a ferret."
It's worse than it sounds, she thought. Fernanda disliked furry creatures. Unless they'd already been made into yummy fur coats, they weren't of much interest to her. She was only mildly fond of her own dachshunds, George and Barbara.
"Mr. Fursnickety belonged to my ex-wife, originally--she's responsible for the terrible name. But she left him behind. So I adopted him. He's actually a cute little guy, once you get used to him."
Fernanda nodded politely, but in her mind she'd already packed her step-ferret off to boarding school. No skinny rodent could mar her happiness. Parker was everything she'd been looking for. She could envision their lives together--two adorable children, an ample spread on Park Avenue, and a home in Hobe Sound so she no longer had to stay with her mother. She'd quit her job to focus full-time on perfecting her body, decorating their homes, getting the kiddies into the right schools. She was enjoying these reveries when the front edge of her skate caught on a thick groove; Fernanda's body pitched forward and then, overcompensating to find balance, wobbled backward. Mere nanoseconds before she connected with the ice, Parker caught her with both arms. If you were watching from the sidelines, it appeared that Fernanda Fairchild had swooned.
Eloise had no idea what to make of the attractive young woman sitting next to her in the backseat of the Mercedes. Trip had badgered her into spending "girl time" with Lucy Ellis, so now Raoul was driving the two of them to a rose-scented Fifth Avenue spa. Not that she would expect sympathy, but it wasn't the way Eloise would have chosen to spend her afternoon.
"You probably have a strange impression of me," Lucy said, breaking the silence. She played with the cuff of her buttery cashmere sweater and then smoothed her trousers, a dove gray. She seemed stiff and uncomfortable in her clothes, like a little girl in a starchy Christmas dress.
"What? Of course not! You seem, um, very nice." Eloise glanced out the window as Bergdorf Goodman flew past, not knowing what else to say. How could she not have doubts about the kind of girl who would submit to Wyatt's weird social experiment? Or skepticism about someone who would strive to be a socialite, lamest of all ambitions? Fashion styling wasn't exactly Doctors Without Borders, but Eloise took pride in her independence.
"Thank you again for letting me stay at your place," Lucy said as they said goodbye to Raoul and headed toward the spa's golden doors. "I still feel bad, kicking you out of your own--"
"Don't! Seriously, it was about time that Trip and I moved in together. It's been great." She smiled, hiding her irritation at Lucy's need for reassurance. Truthfully, she didn't love having a total stranger set up camp in her guest bedroom and bathe in her antique claw-foot tub. But since Lucy's arrival had finally pushed Trip into co-habitation, Eloise wasn't complaining. And Lucy would be there for only three months, anyway. After that, according to Trip, she'd be rereleased into the wild--and Eloise would probably put her apartment on the market.
"Well, thanks." Lucy seemed to sense that the subject should be dropped. "So Wyatt said you're a stylist?"
Eloise nodded. "Yup, I've been doing it since college. The travel can get exhausting, but I really love the work." They approached the stern-looking receptionist. "I think the reservation is under Peters. Facials and massages."
"Did Wyatt mention that I want to be a designer?" Lucy asked as the woman led them back into the luxe changing room, where two adjacent lockers bore their names.
Eloise couldn't help crooking an eyebrow. If there was one thing that irked her more than vapid socialites, it was vapid socialites who thought they could just throw out a shingle and be the next Diane von Furstenberg. Like it was a snap, or someth
ing. They didn't realize it took talent, vision, the capacity for endless hard work. "Good for you!" she said with false enthusiasm, hoping she wouldn't be asked to open up her Rolodex. Ugh.
"Well, we'll see. It's my crazy dream. I've been making clothes since I could walk, practically, and I've got a portfolio full of my more ambitious sketches--the couture stuff I've never been able to afford to make. I know I'm just a random girl from Minnesota and the odds of my 'making it' are next to nil, but I can't seem to give it up."
Eloise slipped into the fluffy white robe that had been hanging on the hook in her locker. She decided to speak her mind. "So Wyatt is supposed to be your golden ticket? It takes more than social status to make it in the fashion business."
Lucy blushed, but nodded vigorously. "You're right. But I couldn't seem to get beyond factory work with Nola Sinclair on my own."
"You worked for Nola?"
Lucy hesitated. "Yeah, actually . . . do you remember the cater-waiter who crashed through her runway last month?"
"Who could forget?"
"That was, um . . ." Lucy finished her sentence by pointing at herself.
Eloise's heart flew out to the girl. "That was you? You poor thing! I felt so bad after that happened--it looked like it really hurt. And I'm sure Nola wasn't easy on you--"
"She fired me. I felt stuck before it happened, and after, of course, I felt even more stuck. So I started to consider Wyatt's idea about becoming a socialite. When the experiment's over, I'm hoping I can get a job working for an emerging designer, you know, like Thakoon or Isabel Toledo--someone I can really learn from. It just seems like those jobs come more easily when you have social connections. My ultimate goal is to become a designer myself--someday."
Not totally illogical, Eloise had to admit. "If you want to be a designer, you need to know your stuff. You need the talent, the skill, the vision."
"I know," Lucy said. "It's overwhelming, but I want it so badly."
They were ushered into the facial salon, where the air was laced with eucalyptus and a waterfall trickled down a pebbled wall. Eloise found herself liking Lucy more than she'd expected to. They reclined on terry-cloth chaises for the facials. "Wanna play a game? Match the following fashion adage to the icon who first said it. 'I always wear my sweater back-to-front. It is much more flattering.' "
"Diana Vreeland. Next!" Lucy grinned.
" 'A woman who doesn't wear perfume has no future.' "
"Coco Chanel."
" 'In difficult times, fashion is always outrageous.' "
Lucy looked momentarily stumped. "Okay, I'm going to need a hint on this one."
"Italian, collaborated with Dali, mother of Marisa Berenson--"
"Elsa Schiaparelli, of course. I knew that--"
"Who's credited with inventing the miniskirt?"
"Um, Mary Quant? At least, she brought it mainstream from the streets of London."
Eloise was impressed. "So what's your style? As a designer, I mean?"
Lucy sighed as the facialist smeared her face with thick cream. "I guess it depends. I'm inspired to work in a new direction all the time. One day I'm trying a new take on the Herve Leger bandage dress, the next day I'm reenvisioning a Chanel vintage flapper dress. You know, unpredictable."
First wrong answer she's given me, Eloise thought, and the most important one by a long shot. She'd never known a successful designer who flitted between styles. There could be shifts, sometimes dramatic ones, but not a whole new set of rules. No, that wouldn't work. Lucy Ellis would either figure that out, or she'd fail. But Eloise held her tongue. She'd just met the girl, and she'd already given her a lot.
"He wasn't at the Townsends', either?" asked Cornelia, swerving her silver Jaguar to narrowly avoid hitting a woman crossing Worth Avenue with a Bugaboo stroller. She tucked her phone under her chin and leaned on her horn.
"No show," Fernanda reported. "Nobody's seen him for two weeks. It is the most bizarre thing. You're sure his mother said he was in New York?"
"Positive. She was practically crying about how he'd 'abandoned her for Christmas.' Not that anybody could blame him for not wanting to spend time with that old bag of bones."
Fernanda lowered her voice. She shared her office at Christie's with two assistants and couldn't talk loudly, which always annoyed Cornelia. "But Channing told me that her maid is friendly with some Sant Ambroeus busboy who has been delivering a lot of food to Wyatt's. Apparently he's been holed up a lot with Trip."
"Just the two of them?" Cornelia asked, bracing for the name of her temporary replacement. Not that it mattered, but she wanted all the facts.
"That's what I hear. Honestly, I don't know how Eloise deals. It's bad enough that Trip won't commit--"
"Poor thing," Cornelia said. But she had no real sympathy. Eloise and Fernanda were two peas in the same hand-wringing pod--they let men call the shots and then moped when they didn't like the shots called. Cornelia whipped around the corner and pulled into the Rockmans' driveway, jamming the stick shift into park. She, on the other hand, was a woman of action.
"At least she and Trip finally moved in together," Fernanda said. "She's spending all her time at his place now. Finally brought her whole winter wardrobe."
"Listen, sweetie, I should jump. I just pulled in--"
"Hang on!" Fernanda said frantically. "I've been dying to share something fun. You remember Parker?"
"Of course I remember Parker." Cornelia rolled her eyes as she slammed the car door and strode toward the house. Fernanda had only been sweating the guy for months. "Almost fifty, big schnoz, divorced. What about him?"
"Actually, he's forty-five," Fernanda corrected. There was an unmistakable note of pride in her voice. "We're going out tonight for dinner. Our fifth date already! Last night he took me to the opera--"
"The opera? God, he is old."
"No, it was fabulous. Candide. And Park has the best seats--"
"Did he bring his ferret?" Cornelia squealed. "Tamsin told me about that thing. I'm sorry, but that's gotta be the creepiest pet ever."
"You're telling me, but--"
"Did he keep the ferret under his seat? In a little cage?"
"Cornelia, please. He's a lovely man. He cooked dinner for Mom and me, how cute is that? She adores him, of course. I know it's early, but it's really working."
"That's great. No, seriously, that's great. You sound excited, which is what matters." Cornelia held the phone away from her mouth. "Hey, Pablo! I'll be with you in one minute--Fern, sorry, that's my new Pilates instructor. He's waiting for me--"
"Go, go! Just had to share. See you this weekend. I'll call you when Mom and I land."
But Cornelia had already hung up. As she entered her parents' house, the frigid air-conditioned air sent goose bumps straight up both arms. She grabbed the mail that had been set aside for her on a sterling silver tray, kicked off her shoes, and headed for the media room.
She pulled the latest installment of Townhouse from the stack of mail and felt a splash of disappointment that she was no longer gracing the cover. The weekly's current cover boy was a grinning Theo Galt, resting one buttock on the edge of his Dordoni desk, under the headline GALT GETS GOTHAM. Behind him in the photo, Cornelia could discern a large framed photo of Theo sandwiched between Jay-Z and Beyonce. She would have to call to congratulate him. And, of course, remind him that she was the next big thing to hit the music scene.
Flopping down in an armchair, she hungrily leafed through the glossy pages. There she was at the Philharmonic in that sexy Derek Lam dress that accentuated her skinny arm-to-C-cup ratio. And there was Wyatt next to her, at the Townhouse launch party--his tall-dark-and-handsome the perfect complement to her petite-blonde-and-beautiful. He had a bitter-lemon expression on his face and he wasn't looking at the camera, but one of his hands rested on her back. Staring at the candid photograph made her feel calmer. It reminded her of how perfect her life seemed to everyone who read the magazine--to the entire outside world.
And
it made her more determined than ever to win Wyatt back. Then Fernanda could run off into the sunset with her divorced and decrepit troll-man, for all Cornelia cared. She wouldn't be alone.
14
Dorothea Hayes invites you to
dinner at home
800 Park Avenue, PH A
Wednesday, January 13th
Cocktails starting at 7 PM
Dottie Hayes, wearing a crimson dress and diamond studs the size of grapes, had been enjoying the serenity of the six o'clock hour with a stiff vodka gimlet when she heard her son come crashing through her front door.
"Mother! Moooooother!"
She cringed but remained silent. Did he expect her to holler back, as if they were playing a game of Marco Polo? Dottie shut her eyes and took a medicinal sip of her drink.