by Bridie Clark
Just two days earlier, after convincing a woebegone Rita to join her for drinks at a dive bar around the corner from her "salon," she'd gotten Lucy's mother--Lucy's mother! It still seemed too delicious to be true--to spill everything. Dayville, Nola Sinclair, Wyatt's insane attempt to create the perfect socialite--it finally all made sense, Lucy's sudden emergence on the scene and Wyatt's unwillingness to take Cornelia back. I was too much woman for him, she realized now. Wyatt apparently preferred a girl who'd take his orders, say his lines, play her part, and in Lucy he'd found a flesh-and-blood blowup doll. Cornelia had assured Rita endlessly that Lucy's secrets would be kept in the vault. But the morning after the drunken girl talk, a Sunday, Cornelia's PA had done some online digging to find an incriminating photo of an unnamed cater-waiter crashing through Nola's runway--now the contents of her manila envelope. Cornelia had always had a sneaking feeling that Lucy looked familiar, and now she knew why. You had to look at the photo under a magnifying glass to identify the girl, but Cornelia had a feeling the readers of Townhouse would do just that.
She slid into the ripped pleather booth of Midway Diner, wrinkling her $50,000 nose at the thick smell of ketchup and fried eggs.
"I'm on a deadline," said Mallory Keeler as soon as Cornelia sat down.
"Didn't you get my text, sweetie?" Cornelia asked. "Terrible traffic from uptown."
"I came from uptown, sweetie."
"Did you? Well, I'm sorry," Cornelia said. She smiled, hoping to move the conversation back onto friendlier terrain. She still hated Mallory for humiliating her by choosing the Interloper over her at Saturday's Townhouse shoot. It had taken a great deal of pride-swallowing just to pick up the phone and dial Mallory's office. But this was worth it. "You look pretty, Mal. Loving that choker." The choker actually looked like something you'd buy on Canal Street for five bucks, Cornelia thought, but then, what did this dowdy editor know about style? It was still bizarre to her that Mallory was tight with Theo Galt.
"You excited about the perfume launch, Cornelia? I hear your face will be spread across a billboard in Times Square, impossible to miss."
"I know. Can you believe it? And we're giving away a bottle in all the Fashion Forum's swag bags."
"I heard, I heard. And you're thinking about doing a reality show?"
Cornelia nodded her head. "It's so crazy. I don't know how all this happened, you know? One minute Patrick's snapping my photo at some parties, the next thing I know I'm, like, a brand."
"Ask Daphne, your publicist," Mallory deadpanned. "She probably has some idea how it happened."
The 'tude! It was such a drag when wallflower types couldn't get over their jealousy issues, but that was the story of Cornelia's life.
A waitress with a distressing number of facial piercings materialized next to their table, pad in hand. "More coffee?" she asked, and Mallory nodded. "And what'll you have?"
"Do you have espresso?"
"This look like a Starbucks?" asked the waitress, lisping around the enormous stake she'd paid to have driven through her tongue.
"I'll have half a grapefruit." It peeved Cornelia that the waitress gave no sign that she recognized her, but that would change soon. For a split second, as she pulled her own silver out of her Vuitton tote and handed the bewildered waitress her porcelain bowl (she'd never eaten in such a dive before, and wouldn't dream of trusting the dishwashers' standards of cleanliness), Cornelia wondered why being famous mattered to her as much as it did. But the thought evaporated quickly, as it had before, leaving her to the task at hand. She gave Mallory a cunning little smile and rested her elbows on the flecked linoleum table.
"So what's up?" Mallory crossed both arms. "Why did you invite me here? This doesn't seem like your type of breakfast boite."
"I didn't want to be seen," Cornelia whispered. "I really, really shouldn't be getting involved." She whipped off her oversize sunglasses. "But I want to bury the hatchet. You didn't know what you were doing at the shoot this weekend. Lucy Ellis conned you along with everyone else. So . . . I forgive you."
"Very big of you," Mallory muttered.
Cornelia chose to ignore the sarcasm. "When I heard that you were writing an expose about the fraud Lucy has perpetrated, I thought I owed you a sit-down."
"The fraud? What fraud?"
"Sorry, were you hoping to keep your expose top secret? I'm afraid the word is out."
Mallory sighed. "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."
"But it's the talk of the town!" Cornelia lowered her voice, as if the diner's seedy patrons were undercover for Town & Country. "Mallory Keeler's riveting tell-all--it's all anybody could talk about last night."
"Come on, Cornelia, enough. I'm not planning any tell-all, and I'm not enjoying your little game. Some of us have jobs that require actual working, you know."
The audacity. Cornelia could barely speak. But then she envisioned the cover of Townhouse bearing Lucy's humiliating runway photo, and found her voice. "If you're not already planning to write the article, you should."
Mallory just shook her head. "You've made it clear that you don't like Lucy." Cornelia bristled, but said nothing. "But that doesn't mean you can make up vengeful stories--"
"Make up stories?" Cornelia was unable to keep her fury under lock and key any longer. "You know what, Mallory? Your dinky magazine doesn't deserve an article this big. Keep writing your little fluff pieces. I'll bring this to the Times." She stood up quickly and grabbed her bag. Why had she expected this pasty little nobody to grasp the injustice Lucy had committed? "I thought you were a serious journalist. Clearly I was wrong."
Mallory studied her face. Then she gestured for Cornelia to sit down again. "Okay, I'm listening. What've you got?"
That's more like it. Cornelia settled back onto the bench, relieved. With a Cheshire cat smile, she slid the manila envelope across the table.
Thirty blocks downtown, in Parker Lewis's tranquil cream and charcoal gray master bedroom, Fernanda cracked open one eye and nearly purred with contentment. She took a moment to drink in the gentle light seeping around the edges of his window shades, the deliciousness of their entangled limbs and Parker's warm breath on the back of her neck. Her hair was in sex knots and her face was fright-eningly devoid of makeup, but for once, Fernanda didn't care.
She was engaged. Well, no, but as good as engaged. Parker, last night over dinner in front of the roaring fire, had told her that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. Her relief had bordered on ecstasy. She didn't even shout out her ring preferences (a cushion-cut bordered by two sapphires, no skimping on the carats) right away.
"I'm holding you hostage," he murmured, stirring behind her. "I'm thinking homemade blueberry pancakes, maybe a snowy walk with Mr. Fursnickety, and then we light a big fire and spend the rest of the day curled up right here."
"I have no say in the matter?" she teased, but it was music to her ears. She dreaded calling in sick again, especially since her boss at Christie's had just come through with that raise, but there was no real debate inside Fernanda's head.
"If you want," said Parker, "you can have banana pancakes. But otherwise, no, you have no say."
Fernanda rolled over to kiss his neck. "What about work for you? You don't need to go in?"
"Work can wait for a day," he said, sitting up. "Work's not what's really important, is it?" He kissed her forehead, and then swung his legs over the side of the bed. "Now, stay right there. Breakfast is coming to you this morning."
Just one more thing to love about Parker, thought Fernanda, cozying back down under the covers. He was so senior--not to mention successful--at the bank that he no longer had to put in face time or deal with a boss breathing down his neck. He could afford to be laissez-faire. Not like the junior investment banker she'd dated who was one step away from wearing diapers on the job to avoid time-wasting bathroom breaks. Parker seemed to have a grip on the whole life-work balance thing.
That he was twenty years older se
emed only a selling point to Fernanda, as was the fact that he wasn't what you'd call "conventionally handsome." Although she found him adorable, to the rest of the world Parker was undeniably squatty, hairy, and bow-legged. His face had character, as her mother put it, but the character was comic: slightly bulbous nose, toothy grin, eyes set a bit too close together. Fernanda was the looker of the pair, which worked just fine for her. It meant she wasn't as painfully aware of the lines and creases that her dermatologist couldn't erase. Parker managed to make her feel hot and young.
"You're spoiling me, Park," she called after him, propping herself up on her elbows. "What did I do to deserve the royal treatment?"
"Like you really have to ask?" he yelled back from the kitchen.
She felt such a rush of joy that her chest almost ached. Sternly, Fernanda reminded herself not to get carried away. She wasn't married yet. There could be complications. After all, traces of the ex-wife were everywhere. She'd found an old tube of mascara in the bathroom cabinet, and even a few stray tampons in one of the drawers. The ex's name was still on half the mail Parker received.
It was hard not to get a teensy bit excited, though. She'd met his friends, and they seemed to like her. He'd charmed her mother, which hadn't been difficult, and made an effort to get to know Max. She'd helped him make his cozy new Tribeca pad feel like a home (while secretly plotting their triumphant return to uptown life, where they really belonged).
Even before last night's conversation, the temptation to call St. James's--anonymously, of course--to check if they had any Saturdays available for weddings next fall had proved too strong. She'd held herself back from trying on bridal dresses at Vera Wang, but only just. If he proposed, she could have all the details of their wedding planned in under a week, right down to the Fernanda & Parker typeface on the matchboxes. She pulled herself out of bed, traipsing naked across the room to retrieve her BlackBerry from her bag. The only thing separating her from a perfect day was this phone call to her boss, so it was better to get it done with early--preferably while she could still leave her feeble excuse on a voice mail.
Five missed calls. Four from Cornelia--her friend had a habit of calling incessantly until Fernanda answered--and one from her mother. But first, her boss. Thankfully, she got his voice mail. "Martin, this is Fernanda. I'm afraid I'm not feeling well again, and I don't think I can make it to work." Her voice was still gravelly with sleep, which conveniently made her sound ravaged by bad sinuses. "I'll be checking e-mail, you know, between naps and a doctor's appointment. See you tomorrow."
"Breakfast is served," Parker said, appearing in the doorway with a rattan tray loaded with food. Pancakes, a small pitcher of OJ, and steaming hot coffee--Fernanda's mouth watered. No wonder she'd gained five pounds since they'd met. Normally she'd throw herself on the Jill Pettijohn cleanse immediately, but Parker said he liked her better with some meat on her bones--and Fernanda actually believed him.
"Smells delicious," she said, jumping back in bed and pulling the sheets loosely around her. She looked up at Parker and smiled seductively.
"Let's let it cool," he said, nearly throwing down the tray on the nightstand and diving on top of her.
Over her squeals, Fernanda could hear her BlackBerry buzzing. She tried to block it out, but involuntarily tensed--what if it was her boss? "Hold that thought," she said, wiggling out from under Parker and reaching for the phone.
But it was Cornelia's number flashing on her screen. "Her fifth call this morning. I wonder if something's wrong."
"With Cornelia? Trust me, plenty's wrong." Parker sighed. "But go ahead, pick up. We have all day together."
Fernanda smiled gratefully, then said, "Hey! How are you, C?"
"You sound happy," accused Cornelia. "Do you know how many times I've called you?"
"I'm sorry. What's up?"
When Cornelia spoke, her voice was so cold that Fernanda shivered. "I finally nailed her, Fern. She's been passing herself off as an heiress, when she's really to the trailer born."
"You mean Lucy? What did you do?" Fernanda felt the cold current pass over her again. Cornelia's vindictive streak could cross the line into downright frightening territory. She'd once ratted out a "disloyal" college friend, a girl working for Glamour and struggling to make ends meet, for selling a few leftover beauty products on eBay. The girl had been banned from Conde Nast for life. And Cornelia had started those nasty rumors about Mimi Rutherford-Shaw getting lipo every month, and about Anna Santiago and her stepbrother. She kept Page Six on speed dial. Cornelia had done something really bad this time, Fernanda could feel it.
"It'll be such thorough public humiliation that she'll be flipping burgers in her sleepy little hometown before she can blink." Cornelia cackled--or maybe it was just a bad connection. "With straw between her teeth and her tail between her legs."
"Is that really necessary?" Fernanda looked at Parker and suddenly felt ashamed of how evil her best friend sounded. "I mean, so she's self-made. So she took a few liberties with the truth--"
"Self-made? She's a work of fiction! Wait till you see the photos from the Nola show." There was that bad connection again. "I mean, it's just too good. The little gold digger is about to get all the attention she craves. It just won't be the kind of attention she craves."
Fernanda was starting to feel ill. Parker watched her intently. "Don't do it, Cornelia," she said quietly, aware that she was lighting a short fuse.
"What did you say?"
"Don't do it. It's--I don't know, it's just really mean."
"Mean? Tell me you're joking. The girl stole everything that mattered to me--"
Fernanda took a deep breath and tried to be brave. "She didn't really steal Wyatt. And anyway, it's time to move on. There's amazing stuff happening in your life right now, but you're consumed by the negative."
"Have you lost your mind?" There were shards of ice in Cornelia's voice. "Believe me, she deserves everything that's coming her way. It's all coming out in Townhouse."
"So you got Mallory Keeler to write a nasty piece about her--"
"You can call it nasty. I call it true," Cornelia said with chilling intensity. "And speaking of the truth? You might want to run some due diligence on that guy you're dating. A friend on his old co-op board told me that he's practically broke. The ex took most of his money; his investments and restricted stock are tanking; he's probably getting fired, and he's leveraged up the wazoo. Has Prince Charming mentioned any of that?"
"You don't know what you're talking about," Fernanda retorted, wanting to reach through the phone and slap Cornelia. Hard. Her chest felt constricted. The room was wobbling. Maybe she was having a heart attack.
"Just ask him," Cornelia snorted. "It figures. Didn't Freud have some theory about girls being drawn to men who remind them of their fathers? So it'd make sense you'd fall for a failure."
Fernanda felt her insides deflate. She ended the call without another word.
"Are you okay? What the hell was that all about?" asked Parker.
"You don't want to know." Fernanda plopped on the edge of the bed. She couldn't look at him.
"What do you mean, you haven't told her?" Dottie, who'd been examining one of the fabric swatches her decorator had left for the new draperies in her living room, looked up at her son. He was visiting her at home again--since when did Wyatt do that?--and he looked slightly unkempt, like he'd barely bothered to shower before wandering over. "Isn't the Ball the Saturday after next?"
"But the book won't be out for months after that. It still needs editing, and of course, an ending. I have plenty of time before . . . she needs to find out."
Dottie drew her petite spine up to its greatest height. This had gone on long enough. Her son may have been brilliant in his way, but apparently he needed the basics spelled out for him. "You need to do the right thing. For her sake, and your own. I see how you look at her when she's in the room with you. She's a special girl, Wyatt. Who cares if she's not"--she lowered her voice--"pedigree
d. I don't, and you shouldn't. I want you to be happy. Frankly, Lucy seems to share our values more than any of the fly-by-night party girls you've dated."
Wyatt looked at her like she'd announced a move to Vegas to join Cirque du Soleil. "I've grown very fond of Lucy, of course, but that doesn't mean--"
Dottie sighed. "You're only fooling yourself, darling."
27
Wyatt's Book Notes:
Because male bowerbirds of New Guinea aren't much to look at, they compensate by constructing elaborate houselike bowers to lure potential mates. They feather their nests with colorful objets d'art--ornate crests, fans, plumes, and tail streamers dropped by their neighbor, the bird of paradise. Impressive real estate can be more effective than a great matchmaker. Men in New York society don't need to be told.