by Jill Kargman
“I hear ya. All those fucking critics . . .”
“Otto always said critics were the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. They never create; they just tear down.”
“Please. I never read a bad review of an Otto Clyde show in my life.”
“Yeah, well . . . he’s their darling. Tamed those wild horses, I guess.”
“Listen to me: I know he’s your friend, but fuck Otto,” instructed Allison between sips from her green Starbucks straw. “This is the dawn of the era of Eden. You have to live for you now. You lived for Otto and for Cole and now you have to live for you, for your moment.”
“I realize that. It’s just that I still work with him, you know. We have a huge show coming up soon. We’re a team, and he’s always taken care of me.”
“As he should! You made him!”
“Or he made me, depending on how you look at it,” Eden said, rolling up the purple sleeve of her cowl-neck sweater to see her watch. “Oh shit, I have to bolt and get down to the studio.”
On the number 6 train, Eden swayed from side to side as the underground engine powered the rocking cars. The occasional hipster with messenger bag or uptown lady heading to Soho to shop each saw her and knew immediately it was Eden Clyde. But the giddy inamorata was too adrift in her own world of post-Chase high to realize they were staring. Everything at that moment was dazzling. Even the rainbow-covered ads for Dr. Z, curer of anal fissures, didn’t gross her out. Spanish ads for lawyers, night school posters, dating Web sites—all seemed colorful and made her smile. Eden breathed in the air of a new lover, a feeling she had known previously but hadn’t felt in eons.
She barely knew Chase at all, really, but there was something so familiar about him. Something comforting. She put her arms around herself as a chill traced its way up her back. She smiled, knowing she would see him again soon. She breathed deeply as the subway car bustled south along the track. Meanwhile, the mental train in her head skidded off the tracks she’d known for so long, headed off into a strange, exciting new direction.
34
What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy.
—Voltaire
The Lydons ate dinner together every Sunday night come hell, high water, or Sopranos series finale. Nothing—not even pneumonia (from which Pierce once suffered after surfing in Costa Rica for a month)—would relieve these aristocrats from Brooke’s Chippendale table. Luigi and Clemenza, the couple the Lydons employed, who resided in a one bedroom in the same building (back elevator), served each family member as napkins were put on laps. Luigi poured wine from a Saint-Émilion vineyard owned by the DuPrees. Chase had shared many a bottle with his grandmother Ruth, sitting on the front porch of the family summer home. There had been many late nights during which he had nursed his one glass while Ruth slammed back several. Vinyl Billie Holiday records played, and Ruth’s jokes got dirtier as the hours passed and more wine was decanted. But now the family sipped the same wine without revelry, the sound of awkwardly clanking dinner silver their only soundtrack. Price pounded the fine vintage as if it were Colt 45, not a care in the world about the rare grapes and their pressing, bottling, and aging. It was booze, dude.
Chase took a deep breath. “So I have some news,” he said as The Family looked at him. “Liesel and I have parted ways.”
“NO! Oh no. NO!” Brooke screamed in a tone normally reserved for Hiroshima-level news. “I simply cannot BELIEVE you did this,” Brooke seethed. “This is all your fault. It is because you did not step up to the plate! I knew this would happen!”
Chase hadn’t wanted to tell his mother about Liesel and Wills—it would only send her into orbits of rage, vilifying Liesel when he was also to blame.
“Mother, it simply wasn’t meant to be. I’m sorry if I’ve upset you, but—”
“THREE YEARS! There was good stuff there, my God! Three years, for Christ sakes! I mean, really Chase. It’s time to be a grown-up.”
Chase inhaled deeply, trying not to exude the anger he felt boiling inside.
“Mother. With all due respect, I am a grown-up. If anything . . . I believe I’m too grown up. Grandma even said on her deathbed that I should loosen up and live for once.”
“Please. What garbage. Ruth was a perpetual Peter Pan,” fumed Brooke. “Of course she told you to loosen up, she was OLD! She was on her way out. You’re in a different place.”
A different place indeed. Despite his mother’s ferocious rantings, Chase was in heaven. Cloud nine. As his mother droned on about facing Liesel’s parents at so-and-so’s annual party or at the River Club, his mind wandered back to Eden; just the memory of her was intoxicating. He replayed their thunderous night in a stop-and-rewind delirium. It was close to torture, then, to be trapped in the austere surroundings of his family home—prim, proper, and pulled to perfection, but held together with sharp pins.
“I’m simply mortified to see the Van Delfts. They’ll be at the opera gala; they always take a table. Always.” Brooke steamed.
“Too bad it’s not like that Save Venice ball with those masks,” Pierce said with a laugh.
“Yeah, you could wear one of those huge headdress things and totally avoid them!” chimed Price.
“I’M SERIOUS!” Brooke said, shaking her head.
“I wouldn’t worry, dear, these things happen,” Grant said calmly. The patriarch was just like his youngest son, ever calm, rarely riled. He sipped his whiskey on the rocks from a monogrammed tumbler. “The Van Delfts won’t blame you for Chase’s wrongdoings.”
Chase wanted to pull the rip cord and get the hell out of there.
“Should I call them, you think? This is really going to be so awkward. I cannot believe you put me in this position, Chase! What on earth do I say when I see them at the event?”
Chase inhaled sharply, not wanting to cause a rift. He wanted to get up and storm out, rebel, finally, but of course, he couldn’t. Chase was the good son, reliable and stable. But the burden of the so-called righteous path was getting to be simply too much to shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Mother. That’s all I can say. Father, I’m going to work early tomorrow and should go. Clemenza, delicious dinner, thank you.”
The truth was, Chase would rather be alone than with these people. In that moment, Chase could not relate to his family at all. In fact, he almost loathed them.
On his walk home, while he may have donned a suit and tie and dutifully marched with steady pace up Fifth Avenue, his heart was doing the moonwalk backward. His libido was doing mental back handsprings Béla Károlyi would freak for. And when he passed the rowdy crowd in front of the Plaza cheering the ol’ school break-dancers, rigid, wooden Chase Lydon wished he could join them in a rollicking sidewalk spin. He wanted to get down on the ground, feel the beat box that echoed in his bursting cocoon, and twirl until his body was as dizzy as his thoughts.
Social Swans Bid Adieu
The Upper East Side’s Ken and Barbie have sailed off into the sunset—in two separate yachts. Rumor has it the oft-snapped boldfacers of the Junior Committee set, Chase DuPree Lydon and Liesel van Delft, have called it quits, and all the clubs—from the Colony to the Knick—are abuzz with shocked whispers. No word whether the comely twosome, who courted for three years, parted ways amicably or who was to blame. But sources in Camp Van Delft say the leggy Liesel had long been eagerly awaiting a rock. And now, friends of the family, whose vast fortune hails from the paper clip patent, say they are ready to throw stones. “He took so much time from her!” one socialite wailed, hoping for a big wedding. “Don’t worry about Liesel,” quipped a second. “She’ll be on her feet in no time.” One wonders who will land each of these former lovers—both the ultimate catches for the pedigreed pearls and poodles set.
35
To be 70 years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be 40 years old.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
“Mod, have you met someone?” Otto asked as he studied Ede
n’s blushing cheeks. He knew her face so well. After two decades of capturing her every expression, each gleam and twinkle, the famed artist instantly decoded the distinct glint that was now present in Eden’s green eyes. Someone had had her last night.
“What?” asked Eden, alarmed and suddenly feeling naked, though in the series Otto had just started, she was wearing a long, billowy white dress.
Otto left his easel and walked slowly toward her, paintbrush in hand. As he moved closer to her, he never broke eye contact.
“There’s no what. The question is who? Who is he?” His tone was teasing, as if he didn’t care, but naturally he did. Deeply, in fact. “I knew there would be someone in the picture soon enough. How long have you ever gone without a man doting on you? You couldn’t survive long out there unattached, right? The attention is like a lung, no?”
“No one, okay?”
“Whatever you say.”
Otto walked back to the easel as Eden reclined on an antique chaise. As her ex returned to his canvas, Eden became lost in her thoughts of Chase. At one point, feeling the warmth in her chest, recalling how Chase kissed her clavicle and breast, she accidentally smirked. Shit.
“Aha!” quipped Otto, as if uncovering a forensic clue that cracked his case. “I knew it. Who is he?”
“Otto. I don’t want to talk about this.”
“You don’t want to talk about this. That’s an admission; now it’s out there! You see, I got you. I knew it.” Otto was the type of person whose affectations caused him to pronounce the word “knew” like nyoo.
“I just knew it.” He was very satisfied with himself. “It’s some big collector, right? I know! Henry Kincaid Sanderson. He’s lusted after you forever! He has two private jets. A staff. Homes all over the world. You’ll be living the high life, no?”
“No, Otto.”
“Hmmm,” Otto said, staring at her, walking around the chaise slowly, inhaling a joint, which he then handed to Eden. “Ah, I know. Lucas McGillicuddy. And he’s what, sixty-nine, right? Well, you’d be earning every penny with that one. And really, who wants to be wife number four?”
“I’m not playing this game,” responded Eden.
“So it is him.”
“No.”
“I’ll find out at some point. I really don’t care, to be honest, so you might as well be open about it. I know you too well, don’t you see that, honey? I’m your closest friend; you can’t get anything past me.”
The truth was, he was right. She hated that he was right. And she didn’t have many friends at all. The camaraderie of the busy studio was a built-in circle, and instant party, a gang. The rapports had been so strong that she never felt the need to cultivate relationships outside the studio other than with Allison. But now that she was on the other side, Eden knew that all those people—the other models, hangers-on, assistants, publicists, gallerinas, everyone—was on Team Otto since the split. After all, he was the one paying their bills.
“You can’t be ‘best friends’ with someone you’re paying,” Eden explained.
“Why the hell not, that’s so ridiculous!” Otto had fumed.
“Because then it’s what I call an Agenting Friendship—they are profiting ten percent from the friendship. Look at Jennifer Aniston and her hairdresser! Clearly he needs her more than she needs him, so there’s an imbalance. There’s no cold, hard truth.”
“Well, I sure know you never bit your tongue,” he scoffed. It was true. Despite all his controlling and manipulations, Otto had been Eden’s truest confidant apart from Allison. She wondered how long she could keep something like this from him. And she hoped that there would be a “something” to speak of.
As she sat perfectly still, eyes out the window, she dipped into that sweet vat of memory. A chill shivered her gut where Chase’s arms had once encircled her. There was something special about this guy, about Eden when she was with him. Something different. Something nyoo.
36
At middle age the soul should be opening up like a rose, not closing up like a cabbage.
—John Andrew Holmes
Over plates of pasta with grilled eggplant and a plum tomato sauce, above the flickering glow of eight mercury glass votives, Chase watched Eden relish the food she’d labored over. They sat on two sides of an enormous antique Vuitton trunk Eden and Otto had happened to discover at Clignancourt flea market in Paris, hand-stenciled with the initials EC. They lounged on big pillows on the floor beside it as Eden’s impromptu table setting was covered with diagonal-swirled goblets, small bud vases filled with blush pink ranunculus, and plates of hot, delicious food.
“It’s so good,” Chase complimented. “I’m so impressed. My mother never cooked a thing, so I am always blown away when people can make meals like this at home. I’m a big reheater,” he confessed.
“My mom never cooked, either. But I’m guessing in your situation it’s because you had a four-star chef,” she said sarcastically. “My mother could sure boil a mean hot water, though!”
“I’ve never met anyone like you,” Chase said, his eyes on the angel hair spinning in his spoon. Eden felt a small rush, a warmth in her chest. She wanted to take care of him. She got up and walked around the trunk and plopped down next to him. She put her hand on his cheek and slid it down his neck, just looking at him. She leaned in to kiss him. His fork fell as he reached for her. He had been dreaming about this moment since he had left her side and as they tumbled on her Moroccan rug, he realized he had never been this taken with any girl. After they made love, they meandered to the bed, where they lay for hours, talking about their lives, their recent breakups, all while Chase held Eden’s hand and traced each finger over the top, as if outlining her dainty skeleton within.
“It’s funny, I traveled a lot of the world with Liesel, we stayed in every four-star hotel, dined in every Michelin restaurant, and I’m happier with you just lying here and doing nothing.” Chase laughed. His arms and legs were intertwined with Eden’s, her long shiny hair draped across the pillows as Chase stroked it away from her forehead.
Eden curled up closer to Chase. “Otto and I were the same. Always jetting around to this or that fabulous event, having a party full of people over. If we had even one night with no plans, he would say, ‘Who should we ring for dinner’! It was like he needed to have a crowd around him to make him feel as though he existed—he had to be the center. I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I guess you know you’re happy when you don’t need any outside stimulation.”
She got up to get a bottle of red wine off the trunk, walking stark naked through the bedroom without a care in the world. Chase realized that in three years with Liesel he never once saw her walk around like that. The closest she came was self-consciously darting to the bathroom, naked except for her pearls around her neck.
She plopped back in bed, poured the Bordeaux, and handed Chase a glass. He looked at her with wonder.
“What, you never drank red wine in bed, either?” she asked him, brow arched.
“No,” he smiled bashfully. “Not once.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. It could spill and stain the sheets.”
Eden looked at him with a cat-that-ate-the-canary look. She took a long sip, drinking most of her glass except for one little sip, which she then splashed on him.
“What are you doing?” he asked, astonished, with burgundy droplets covering his face and chest.
She threw her head back and laughed.
“Here, I’ll mop it up for you.” She climbed on top of him and kissed him.
His body collapsed in her embrace as she pinned him down, kissing him as she slid him inside her. She moved on top of him as their mounting breaths grew in hyperventilated sync. He looked up at her, wet with wine from his chest. With the sweet smell of the grapes emulsifying their tangled limbs as they rolled on her sheets, Chase felt his head pounding. “You know, I’ve got news for you,” she said, sitting up and crawling back onto him, getting right in his
face, her lips a millimeter from his. “You are the oldest twenty-eight-year-old on the fucking planet.”
Chase looked down. It was true.
“Well, you’re the youngest . . . thirtysomething—,” he stammered.
“Thirty-nine. What do you think of that? That’s almost forty, you know.”
“Thanks. You know I learned all my numbers by my twenty-fifth birthday,” Chase teased.
She certainly seemed generations younger than Liesel, not just in her spirit but in the way she carried herself. But beneath the saucy exterior was a girl who was worried that her youth—and all the attention her looks brought her—was officially over.
“So you don’t care? That I’m old?”
Chase smiled and shook his bed head.
“You’re not old. Your age never crossed my mind.”
“How is that possible? I mean, they say age doesn’t matter but . . . it kind of does. I think about my age on a daily basis. No, hourly.”
“I don’t. I never think about it.” Chase shrugged. “Or yours.”
“That’s ’cause you’re a man. You keep getting riper while we wither on the vine.”
“Come here, you rotting fruit,” he jested, grabbing her.
She let out a ticklish laugh. “I’m serious! We’re practically Harold and Maude,” she semi-joked.
“Who are they?”
Holy shit, he hadn’t even heard of one of the great movies of all time. Damn, he was young.
“Never mind.”
As she lay down beside him again, holding his hand, she looked at a growing crack in the ceiling.
“I should get that repainted,” she mused casually. “This place seems so quaint and cute, but if you look closely, it’s kind of falling apart.”
“I don’t see that,” Chase said. “It’s perfect as it is.”