Wolves in Chic Clothing

by Carrie Karasyov

  At first Hope was happy to have her husband stop talking to Polly so he could get in with John but then she realized John’s attentions weren’t just focused on her anymore. Wait. What was she thinking? She loved Charlie! She was happily married and plus, this guy wasn’t into her! She stood up to go to the ladies’ room and John got up to go as well.

  “I have to go myself, I’ll walk you.”

  As they meandered through the red sea of wine obssessors they smiled at each other and finally made it to the hallway.

  “So this client roped you in and wouldn’t even let you bring a date?” Hope asked.

  “Naw, they offered but, hey, the best ones are all taken,” he said with a flirty wink. That wink was a hot pink arrow and Hope was pierced.

  “Plus,” he added, “I have to wait for you to leave your husband. Maybe next year.” He smiled, rendering the comment a joke, adding, “See you back in there,” before hitting the men’s room. Hope felt herself swoon.

  Back in the ballroom, eleven wines and twenty-nine speakers later, not to be outdone, the auction wine queen herself rose to the panel podium.

  “This wine was actually looted by the Nazis from the cherished cellars of the elite Rossini famiglia, and it was stored by the SS in an underground cave for many many years by the estate where there was also a trove of gasoline. Now if you all just humor me, close your eyes.”

  Hope closed her eyes. But she didn’t picture dark red liquid, she pictured John.

  “Now taste the Burgundy on your tongue, let it slide back and forth. See if you all do not detect an ever so faint lace of petrol.” The crowd ooh’d and aaah’d, amazed. Aghast. Why, yes! There was gas in this wine, how divine! As the crowd waxed rhapsodic at the discovery, Charlie yanked Hope and said they had to bolt.

  “Why?”

  “Sweetheart, it’s midnight. I have work tomorrow.”

  “Fine.”

  “Thanks so much, Poll and Hen,” said Hope, as she rose and grabbed her pashmina. Hope looked around. John had gone over to chat with another table and was totally out of sight. She didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye, but Charlie was giving her the impatient eye roll.

  “Tell John we said goodbye,” said Hope.

  “Sure,” nodded Polly, totally absorbed in her reverie of Nazi Germany and wine pilgrimage.

  Hope and Charlie politely excused themselves and waded out through the jammed limos and Benz-fest to their own golden chariot home: a hailed New York taxicab.

  chapter 23

  “Okay, I think I just broke my arm carrying your mail, your highness,” said Douglas, dropping a thick stack of invitations on Julia’s bed with a thud.

  Julia, still sleepy, lifted an eyebrow to see what Douglas was talking about.

  “Judging from some of those return addresses, you’re either being confused with a Rockefeller, or there’s a Julia Pearce somewhere out there who is looking for all of her charity ball invitations.”

  Julia sat up in bed and sifted through the pile. There were letters from the Fight Obesity Ball, the GROG (Get Rid of Gangrene) Women’s network, the American Ballet Company, the St. Petersburg Ballet Company, the Miami Ballet Company, and the Ladies Against Female Circumcision luncheon. Were they kidding? There were personal dinner party invitations from couples whom Julia had barely heard of: Franny and Monty Corcoran? Brooke and Stone Lutz? Rupert and Amanda Wingate? Who were these people?

  “Darling, you’ve gotten very fancy,” said Douglas, ripping through the invitations with Julia.

  “Oh please, I just have a fancy job.”

  “I don’t think so! Oh my God!”

  “What?”

  Douglas put his hand to his heart dramatically. “You’re fucking on this invitation. You’re on the junior committee!”

  “What? Let me see that,” said Julia, grabbing it out of Douglas’s hand. And sure enough, there she was. Between Lydia Parth and Rosemary Peniston was her name, Julia Pearce. She was asking people to come to the Fight Xenops Extinction Ball.

  “No one told me!”

  “Oh my God, you are so major! Major!”

  Julia was at first annoyed that they’d put her name on without asking, but then flattered. Wow. She was on a committee? She was getting noticed! That was pretty major!

  “Just don’t let it go to your head, sweetie.”

  “I won’t. Obviously, it’s no biggie.”

  But when Julia was taking a shower, she indulged herself a little and did let it go to her head. Things were happening. This was major. She was hanging out with some of the most elite and powerful girls in town, she was getting designer clothes thrown at her, she was now on charity committees. What was next? She could definitely get used to this life. The fun was about to begin. And let it. Why shouldn’t she take advantage? All of the girls seemed totally genuine, nice. She’d of course watch her back, but why not jump in?

  chapter 24

  There are few relationships more complicated and delicate than that of mothers and daughters, and Lell’s strained and competitive relationship with her mother, Emily, was no exception. Lell considered herself a daddy’s girl from day one, whereas Emily deemed her daughter an opponent for her husband’s attention from the minute she came out of the womb and refused to latch onto her breast. (Thank God, really, because Emily had no interest in breast-feeding whatsoever. Too bohemian, too California.) Throughout the years Lell and her mother had engaged in a constant but unacknowledged array of battles, which resembled such toddler-level games as emotional tug-of-war, capture the flag, and dodgeball, and where the prize was always dear Papa. As they both got older, Lell grew more powerful and beautiful and her mother grew more bitter and became marginalized, making the stakes higher and the risks more reckless.

  Regardless of familial hostilities, Lell still had dinner with her parents every Sunday evening at Elio’s, rain or shine. Lell’s mother usually spent weekends at the house in Connecticut, with or without her husband, getting her knees deep in dirt in the garden or spending hours training her award-winning Airedales. Because of her intense dislike for Connecticut, landlocked country houses, and dogs (especially the very ones she suspected her mother of loving more than her), Lell rarely ventured to Connecticut. Instead, she spent her weekends in the city or with friends at “the beach,” where the stiletto-balanced beauties teetered down main street with shopping bags and never actually saw sand. Despite their having very different weekdays, Lell and her mother’s reunion on Sunday was not met with lighthearted catch-up banter. In fact, they had very little to discuss. Therefore Lell turned her attention to her father, and Emily to her daughter’s attractive husband.

  “Mom and Dad were just appalled. You can imagine,” said Will to his mother-in-law, between bites of veal parmigiana.

  “I can imagine,” said Emily dramatically.

  “Just chock full of low-class characters who look like extras from The Sopranos. So there they are, standing in the entrance of this club—and this club was not really a club. You just need a few hundred grand to join, money talks, and then anyone’s in, I mean, anyone.”

  “Shouldn’t even be called a club. More like a meeting place.”

  “Exactly. And they don’t see anyone, I mean, anyone. My mother is giving my father daggers, because she does not see why the hell he brought her there—”

  “You said these were business associates of his?”

  “Well, sort of. The guy who was having the party just gave like five million to the Philadelphia hospital, and since Dad’s head of the board, he felt he should go to their cocktail party. In and out. That’s what Mom agreed to anyway.”

  “Louise is such a trooper.”

  “I know. So they’re looking around this tacky ballroom, looked like Donald Trump’s casino designer did it, just so gross—Mom said it was like a disco nightmare—and they are thinking, How quickly can we get out of here?” Will sipped his scotch and ran a hand through his hair as he painted the unsavory scene. “They thought they
’d see at least one person they knew, but it was totally used-car dealers, dressed in like, brown suits. And then finally they see a guy in a tux, who looks kind of normal, so they go up to him and introduce themselves, you know, ‘Hi, I’m Carlton Banks and this is my wife, Louise.’ And the guy says, ‘Nice to meet you, can I get you something to drink?’ Turns out he’s a waiter. The only normal-looking guy there was a goddamned waiter!”

  Emily shuddered. “How terrible for your parents,” she sympathized while putting a hand on Will’s wrist.

  It reminded her of the first time her parents had met Gene’s family. Main Line meets New Money had not gone down well. Now Willoughby was exactly the type of guy her parents would have adored. Smart, charismatic, and from a good family. They had a special connection.

  On the other side of the table Lell was engaged in a serious discussion with her father about whether or not to introduce a new specialty flatware line by Crimson Matisse at Pelham’s. It was often this way at dinner, where Will and Emily would immediately break off into a separate conversation where they made snobby remarks about everyone they knew, and Lell and her father would talk about business. Then either Lell or her mother would turn on the other and accuse her of something or reprimand her for something.

  “Lell, before I forget, Kitty Hancock called to see if you received her wedding gift,” said Emily sternly.

  “Of course I did. It was these hideous cachepots with birds all over them.”

  “Well, why haven’t you written her a thank-you note yet?”

  “I have a year. I literally just got back from my honeymoon.”

  “You’ve been back for weeks. People spend a lot of money; they want their gift to be acknowledged.”

  “I think it’s so tacky and annoying when they call and say, ‘Just wondering if you got the gift.’ It’s so lame. Like, give us a break, we’ll write you a thank-you note when we get to it.”

  “Well, don’t you have a team of assistants now at work? I’m sure one of those young ladies has good penmanship. Have her write it and send it ASAP.”

  Lell took a deep breath and rolled her eyes. Then she had an idea.

  “Actually, I could ask Julia, my deputy.”

  Will looked up from his green beans. “Isn’t that sort of beneath her?”

  “Why? She works for me.”

  “Is that the blonde young lady?” asked Gene, knowing damn well that it was.

  “Yes, the really pretty one who brought me the necklace at the wedding. You met her, Mom.”

  “I don’t remember,” said Emily, taking a sip of her wine.

  “Which reminds me, Dad,” Lell said, watching her mother. “I should bring Julia to our lunch tomorrow. Just to get her up to speed on things.”

  Lell was not unaware of her father’s roving eye, and rather than try to avoid it, she had actually tried to insert herself into the situation on various occasions. It was a way of getting back at her mother and controlling her father. Paging Dr. Freud.

  “If you think that’s a good idea, sure, sweetie,” said Gene, feeling a pang. He remembered Julia and how nicely she filled out her tight sweaters.

  Emily could already see her husband’s mind racing. She coldly inhaled and turned her attention back to her son-in-law.

  “So, Will, tell me all about your meeting at the Racquet Club. How did it go?”

  The following day, as promised, Lell brought Julia to lunch at 21 with her father. Once a week father and daughter broke bread at the renowned former speakeasy, in order to catch up on business and to see and be seen.

  Julia was a little nervous at the last-minute invitation, but had been put at ease immediately. Mr. Pelham was really nice and jovial, and he seemed very impressed with all of her ideas.

  “Oh, and tell him about the stationery idea,” prompted Lell.

  “Oh, okay. Well, I just thought since Tiffany’s does it, there’s no reason why Pelham’s shouldn’t—”

  “I mean, why should everyone order Mrs. John L. Strong? We should try to corner that market,” interjected Lell.

  Gene nodded. “You’re right.”

  “Julia has a whole proposal drawn up. It’s all about letterpress these days.”

  Gene looked impressed. “Why don’t you bring it by my office?” he suggested.

  “Sure. It’s only in the preliminary stages . . .”

  Julia had actually spent a lot of time on the stationery proposal, enlisting Douglas and his amazing artistic abilities to help her come up with something both classic and unique. She had worked hours on it and was thrilled that she’d have a chance to present it to the Big Boss.

  Lell excused herself to go to the bathroom.

  “So, Julia, how do you like working at Pelham’s?” asked Gene, taking a bite of his 21 burger.

  “I love it. Lell is so great to work for.”

  “She’s a great worker. Such an asset to the company. She sees great things in you as well.”

  “Well she’s been really supportive.”

  “I think you’re perfect for Pelham’s,” said Gene, sliding his hand on Julia’s knee. Julia almost choked on her water.

  “Thank you,” she said, staring at her boss with alarmed eyes. Holy fucking shit, he’s coming on to me.

  “And if you need anything, just let me know,” said Gene, rubbing her thigh carefully.

  “Thanks.”

  Lell returned to find her father grinning like a cat and Julia sitting up rock-straight, looking very glad to see her. Good, thought Lell. Daddy never lets me down. Fuck Mom.

  chapter 25

  Hope was so nauseous she swore she had vomit mid-esophagus. Not because she had eaten too much Chinese food or had watched a gory movie. It was because she had to go to her sister-in-law’s Sip ’n’ See for baby number five. Jeez, she thought, who had five kids these days? I mean, it was 2005 for chrissake—isn’t the planet, like, bursting with humans? Between the four (now five) cousins’ birthdays plus Christmas plus friends’ babies’ parties and showers, Hope’s monthly stipend was out the door on gifts alone. First there were weddings, which meant bridal showers and dresses (mostly awful looking) and bachelorette parties and wedding registries. Now it was babies: showers, birth presents, and then, the newest me-me-me phenom: the Sip ’n’ See, an afternoon gathering to sip tea and see the tot. Oh, and take in more gifts. Not that Diana Matthews Rockenwagner needed it—aside from having free-flowing tidal waves o’ greenbacks, she also received countless generous gifts from other trust-funded femmes. Many wealthy climbers lavished goodies upon Diana so that they could get in with her charity set, which ran the social circuit for the thirty-fivish group—sort of like an older version of Lell and her party photo-op gang.

  But Hope was tired of it all—playing catch-up, not only with her friends but also with her family. She remembered how, the year before, she and Charlie and the boys had flown down one brisk weekend on Jet Blue to West Palm Beach to check in on Hope’s Aunt Edna. Diana and her clan were all on South Ocean Boulevard and “couldn’t place” quite where Edna’s condo was when Hope described it. But Hope knew what her sister-in-law was thinking—that her aunt was in some sad cheezoid condo.

  So it was with heaps of anxiety that Hope buttoned her jacket and headed to Park Avenue for Diana’s latest self-celebration. She swallowed hard as the crisply uniformed doorman rang up, and her heart beat through her suit as she slowly ascended the floors. A blue balloon was on the door, marking the fête from the other apartment on the landing, but anyone could already hear the din of well-wishers and baby worshippers.

  “Oooooh! Ford is so cute!” gushed one of Diana’s friends.

  “Are you guys going to call him Ford?” asked another.

  “Yes,” said the mom proudly, while patting his powder-blue cashmere fitted cap. “Rutherford just sounds so formal, you know? Oh! Look, it’s my sister-in-law, you all know Hope Matthews.”

  “Hi,” Hope half waved, shyly. She entered the room and immediately Diana’s butler
offered her a selection of teas. After helping herself to jasmine, she sat on a nearby settee on the outskirts of the pearl-wearing primped ladies-who-liquid-lunch as they faux-nibbled crustless quartered sandwiches.

  “Hope and my brother have two kids,” Diana said to the group, who then began the Spanish Inquisition.

  How old were they? Where did Gavin go to preschool? What classes would Gavin go to? What percentile was Chip’s weight? Height? Head circumference? What were Chip’s first choices for kindergarten?

  “Well, thankfully, kindergarten is three years away,” laughed Hope, unable to believe the competitive vultures feasting on her insecurities. She hated moms! These vipers had all this displaced anger because they didn’t have work environments in which to rise through the ranks anymore, so they used each other as flesh-and-bone steps to make themselves feel higher.

  “Oh, it’s never too early to start networking!” said one. “Tonny, my son Weatherington, goes to Buckley and we’re just so happy there. Such nice families.”

  Hope knew this woman had once been a big shot at Skadden Arps and saw that she was a perfect example of the kind of ambitious Newtonian energy that did not cease to exist when someone quit their job: it simply got rechanneled, funneled into the fetus. This was the horrifying breed of Type-A Momzilla that Hope abhorred. And their carnivorous species was the dominant life-form at the party.

  Diana, on the other hand, had zero ambition—she had arrived, as they say, the day she wed into the Rockenwagner family at age twenty-four. Though part of this American aristocracy, she seemingly always returned to money, which, as Hope mused to Charlie, was decidedly unclassy.

  “Oh, the Andersons, such shameless press-whores!” Diana laughed, while partaking in her daily ritual of schadenfreude voodoo after a group discussion of the New York Post’s gossip round-up. Hope always found it interesting that the only analysis these well-educated women ever did was over whom the blind items on Page Six were about. “You know,” continued Diana in a fake whisper designed to make what she was about to say less disgusting, “They don’t have a dime! They went to that special big donors dinner at Daniel for the new wing at the hospital, and they totally invited themselves and then sent in a few hundred lousy bucks!”