“Yes, fine,” I answered. She sent a mysterious hand signal toward the bar. It gave me a chance to clock her dramatic change in appearance since the last collection of self-portraits she had posted on her blog. Lately, her entries had become irregular. I could see right away that The Connaught had become her home base much to the detriment of her complexion. With each visit she may have walked into a time machine and punched in the year 1930, shuttling herself back to watch the riotous cosmos of Evelyn Waugh’s Bright Young Things rattle its way across the cobblestones from her designated window seat. But all of those liquid dinners had the reverse effect, too—they were speeding time forward at a breakneck pace. It looked like she had aged a handful of years in a handful of months. A new, very dramatic haircut wasn’t helping. She’d chopped her messy bun into a razor-sharp bob that threatened to take out a bystander’s eye if she swung her head too quickly in the wrong direction. Her eyes had turned a shade darker and she had passed some unfortunate tipping point that meant her thinness only managed to make her look older. I looked across the table to her and all I could see was a collage of angles and shadows and unhappiness.
With great effort, an octogenerian wheeled a varnished bar trolley alongside our table and began an elaborate ritual that must have had something to do with the cocktail order Belle had flagged to the bartender.
“The lemons are imported from Positano, of course,” the aged man rasped. He fumbled around with the imported lemons and a collection of silver bar implements, showing no sign of letting up.
“Oh for Pete’s sake, can’t people just order a beer anymore?” I asked, throwing my hands up in the air. Belle grimaced at me then leaned toward the old man in an effort to appease him, though all of the angles and shadows meant it had a less captivating effect than it used to.
“Renaldo, mi dispiace. Leave your masterpiece with me. And bring a beer for l’americano maleducato, per favore.”
Renaldo shuffled away with his trolley, muttering and returning to plunk a Birra Moretti and chilled glass down in front of me along with an undisguised side of and to hell with you, too. With Renaldo gone, an uncomfortable silence hung in the air between us. I held back, wanting to leave the opening gambit to Belle to see what she’d come out with. I knew the trick of the pregnant pause had never worked on her, but still, she didn’t disappoint.
“You know they say it was like the A deck on the Titanic in this bar when that big investment bank collapsed in 2008,” she said, dryly, taking a sip of what looked like her even drier martini. Something caught her eye back outside on Carlos Place causing her to do a double take toward the window. Maybe it was a black cab roaring by at too fast a clip, or an impossible vision of herself, five years younger, scampering and dizzy from cobblestone twirling with Jeremy. “Who would you choose to be with?” she asked me, dreamily, her eyes still searching out the window. Her martini glass was drained and she reached for the stiff concoction Renaldo had labored to create for me before my outburst.
“Be with for what?”
“If this were the Titanic. The end of the world. Who would you want to be with you—by your side, I mean?” She tilted her head so that one pointed tip of her bob brushed against her neck. The tip looked so sharp that it should have pierced her pale skin, yielding a droplet or two of fresh blood.
“I know who I’d want to be with. But I have a more important question for you, Belle,” I countered. “It’s why I needed to see you. And actually, it has everything to do with which person you chose to be with.”
“Well, go ahead, then,” she said, tilting her head upright again.
“Were you already back together with Chase when I saw you two outside the ‘21’ Club back in January? Right before I moved to London?”
Her face—actually, her entire essence—compressed when I asked it.
“Yes,” was the miserable lone syllable of her reply.
“Why, Belle? Why did you do that to him? Why did you do everything that you did to him?”
I couldn’t bring myself to utter Jeremy’s name. It felt like my whole heart would crack open on our table like an omelette-bound egg if I did. As I awaited her answer she looked so unbelievably tired sitting across the table from me that I considered whether she had lost the energy to take center stage anymore. With Chase, she could take an easy and blasé backseat, disappearing into the curve of a shadow in his bawdy but beautiful life and letting him run the whole damn show. He had an uncanny knack of opening doors and gaining access to sophisticated crannies in any city he descended onto, in no place more than London. If she followed him, she could be engulfed by one of the nooks and simply disappear.
“I suddenly realized I was on a losing team and needed to jump,” she explained, taking another fortifying sip. “You of all people should understand that, M.” I blushed with profound embarrassment. “I thought I picked the wrong horse. I thought Jeremy was the wrong horse.”
“He isn’t the wrong horse. He wasn’t losing. He isn’t a loser,” I snapped back. But that was beside the point—whatever he had become, she had done it to him. If their relationship was a proverbial hit-and-run, she had been the one cackling at the wheel, wreaking hundred-mile-an-hour havoc then flying off into the night in a racing green roadster that wasn’t even her own.
“Of course I know that. But still, it all got too complicated. The night he flung that storm of IOUs at me and made that terrible comment about having to buy me a ring, I realized how profoundly unhappy I was making him. How profoundly unhappy I would always make him. Nothing good can come from that kind of unhappiness.” I knew how responsible Jeremy felt for her forehead crease, for the unstoppable effects time and gravity had on her. If a single wrinkle had caused him so much distress—convincing him of all the inadequacies she saw in him—what would an entire body of lined and sagging skin ultimately do to him? “I wasn’t unfaithful to him for our first year, you must believe me about that,” she entreated. “I wish I would have overlooked so many things. But I couldn’t. I was a coward. I had it set in my mind that no matter how wonderful he was and how valiantly he tried, he would never be able to break the cycle. That he wouldn’t be able to stop me from disappointing him, from making him miserable. And when we were at the Five-Year Reunion and I read that hideous op-ed and saw Chase steamrolling onto the stage with his enormous check, it was all so clear to me. I knew what I had to do.”
“But what you had together could have been enough. Together you could have broken the cycle.”
“I think about all of this more than you know,” she said, easing herself into a well-worn reverie. “About Jeremy finding me at the Bender and everything clicking into place—almost like it was some kind of magic. How he walked onto the terrace and on his very first try lit my cigarette in the rain. How we danced and he was so funny and I laughed on his shoulder and smelled the side of his neck for the first time—you know, the part of the neck right by the collar?—and I thought it was the cleanest, loveliest thing I’d ever smelled in my life. I thought: no soap in the world could make a person smell like that. I might have kissed him on that dance floor for some of the wrong reasons but that doesn’t mean what we had wasn’t real. It was very real. He nearly saved my life.” Her arm was sticking forward limply, barely upholding her glass. She looked physically brushed with sorrow. “But he didn’t quite manage to do it.”
“That was your decision. You made a conscious decision not to let him save you. You made a conscious decision not to save yourself. You made it so much more complicated than you ever needed to.”
I was startled to see her warm into an affectionate smile.
“M., have I ever told you that’s exactly what I’ve always loved about you? You stand for everything that is straightforward and honest and good. There has always been a simplicity about you and it’s gorgeous. You aren’t living for the sake of praise or documentation—to cater to a group of followers that in the end will drop you like an old, unfashionable hat. I let myself get so muddled. Thin
gs got to a point with me that if I didn’t create content, if I didn’t choreograph my life as something people wanted, I would have died. What I created, La Belle Vie and everything that comes with it, would have just gone away. But you … your life is your own. You aren’t putting on a show. I know what that means and it’s exhausting. I’ve always envied you for that.…” My mouth must have been hanging open by that point. “Stop gaping at me like that, you fool—it’s true. At moments I had myself convinced that Jeremy would pick up and run away with you. I often wondered why on Earth he didn’t. So I suppose it was easier for me to pick up and run away first.”
“The funny thing is I used to envy you, too,” I admitted. “It took me a long time to face up to it. I spent so much of my time alone and you always had people around you, in your corner, insisting that you hung the moon. But then I figured out your trick. You never stayed with anyone long enough for them to grow bored with you. For you to lose your dazzle in their eyes. But that’s not real life, Belle. That’s not real love. So I’m telling you to stop running away. Stop putting on a show. Just stop. Be yourself. Live your real life. It’s as simple as that.”
She drew a sharp breath and looked around her in search of something.
“I’m sorry, M., but I feel so fragile that I might faint if I don’t consume a rare steak. Could we continue this next door?”
I trailed her from Coburg Bar to Espelette, the hotel’s restaurant sweeping out over Mount Street like the far edge of an outwardly spilling constellation. As we passed through the lobby, a rackety crowd of early-twenty-somethings toppled inside behind us, a topsy-turvy mess of pink-rag suits and mile-long pearls and gold hats and silk cravats and capsizing gin fizzes. A year before, Belle would have been their dew-cheeked, white-gloved ringleader. She glanced back.
“If one more imbecile throws a Gatsby Party I honestly think I’ll vomit.”
A waiter guided us away from the rampaging youngsters to another window table where Belle ordered us two rare Black Angus fillets.
“I mean it was fine when everyone went back to monogramming everything within an inch of their lives and sipping hooch out of their granny’s tea set and flinging themselves around to ragtime jazz,” she remarked, bitterly. “But it’s all gone off the deep end. It’s like everyone’s trying to get in on the game. Everything feels so contrived.”
“What do you mean—contrived?” Of course I knew what she meant but wanted to hear her say it.
“I can’t walk half a block without crashing into a younger, perkier version of myself, breezing out of college and embracing polka dots and bamboo bar carts and basket-clad bicycles and winter whites and God knows what else.” She paused to give me a knowing look. “I have much more self-awareness than you’ve ever acknowledged, M. It’s just that beautiful nostalgia was my thing. Now everyone has tossed their letterpress calling card into the ring. These girls are coming out of the woodwork, honestly they are—in New York and Paris and Barcelona and Rome—and no one cares about pinpointing let alone sticking with the old lady who kick-started the trend in the first place.”
Our steaks arrived and I couldn’t help but stare at the sharp protrusions of Belle’s wrist bones as she mechanically sawed through her fillet, describing the digital world that had coldly and callously rendered her unremarkable.
“You know who started it,” I said. “So do the people who love you. That’s what matters in the end—who cares about the faceless masses?”
The phrase the people who love you plucked some intimate chord deep in her narrow chest. Her core seemed to reverberate delicately and she set down her fork and steak knife.
“One feels so differently about a city if one falls in love there, don’t you think?” she wavered, rhetorically. “Sweetened by it, indebted to it. Eternally attached to it for being the stage set of one’s happiness. I just don’t feel that way about London.”
“I haven’t found a deep connection with this town either,” I agreed. “Though being here has given me the chance to take a step back and figure out some important things.” I squared my shoulders in readiness for my own confession. “I’m going to be leaving London soon, Belle. You can’t say anything to Chase yet but I’ll be leaving The Brothers, too, and heading back to New York.” I might as well have reached across the table, picked up her steak, and slapped her across the face with it. Her stare widened then retracted. “I’m submitting my resignation when Piggelo comes to the London office next week,” I continued. “And I couldn’t be happier about it. A firm that invests in responsible companies is pulling together an offer for me.” I didn’t hold my breath for a congratulations.
“Back to New York,” she murmured, faintly. “Lucky girl.”
“It’s not about luck.” I put a hand to my left ear to adjust my invisible Bluetooth earpiece in silent homage to Vitus Ostrauskaite. “It’s about conviction.”
I saw a ripple of recognition somewhere very far back in her forest-colored eyes.
“You’re right. But isn’t it funny where life can take you when you manage to convince yourself of the totally wrong things? Coming to London, being in London, being far away was such a nice idea in my head. I had the same idea about marrying Chase. Often I think I like the idea of things so much more than the things themselves, which is why I always feel so disappointed.”
“What idea did you have about your life here with Chase?” I set down my cutlery, steadying myself for her answer.
“Oh, I had lots of nice ideas about all of it—picnics and Pimm’s and alarming-looking fascinators on the inner circle at Royal Ascot … minibreaks in the Cotswolds and roaring down country lanes in a clunky old Land Rover Defender with a curly-coated retriever I’d name Ajax … nipping to Paris on the Eurostar just for a Saturday champagne brunch … all of that sounded perfect but the reality … the reality has been very different.…” She trailed off, with a pinched expression that conveyed just how far her actualities fell short of the imagined marks. “I don’t make it to the country much … it turns out I’m allergic to horses so I’m a bit of a nuisance to the Breckenridge hunting lot. When I’ve gone to Paris, I’ve been alone … and there’s only so much time you can spend by yourself wandering the Left Bank and people-watching at Café de Flore before you start to feel ridiculous. At moments I’d think: What the hell am I doing here? I’m not even sure Chase notices if I’m here, there, or God knows where. Did you know he wears his wedding ring stacked on top of his pinky signet ring? Because of course he needs to keep the family crest closer to his heart.… And I’m sure you’re aware he’s still a human magnet for any girl who’s under twenty-five … these days he seems to have a penchant for ones with names reminiscent of botanicals … Jasmine, Flora, Lily, Laurel, Daisy, Poppy, Fleur … oh, he’s a boob.”
“You think he’s more than that, Belle. It’s never been a straight line with you two. There’s obviously something between you or else you wouldn’t keep running back to each other.” I paused. “You wouldn’t have moved here. You wouldn’t have picked him.”
“I did pick him,” she conceded. “We’ve known each other forever. We were young—properly young—when we met in College. That’s a powerful thing.” I nodded, understanding it was the same sentimental cornerstone that had managed to link Belle and me over the years. “But there’s more to it than that. The sad fact is … I piddled it all away, M.,” she rushed out, wearily. “All the money I inherited when my parents died. The astronomical rent on my Bleecker Street apartment, all of that furniture I didn’t need, all of the extravagant trips and Michelin dinners I really couldn’t afford—they were the props I used for La Belle Vie. Swanning around town like I was rich as an Argentine. Sure, designers sent me crate-loads of free clothes to promote but that’s about it. For a while I tried to be more commercial with my merchandise push and those dreadful television appearances—but I wasn’t disciplined about it. None of it was enough. I couldn’t make La Belle Vie profitable. All my credit cards were maxed. I was backed i
nto a corner. I was damn scared. I didn’t know how much longer I’d be able to keep up the show.” Her neck drooped another number of inches.
“Why didn’t you say anything? I could have helped you.” It was a silly thought but I pictured Belle turning up one weekend at my apartment door, an oversized hatbox swinging from one hand and a set of monogrammed traveling trunks stacked high on the hallway carpet in front of her, saying she hoped we could at long last be the roommates we were supposed to be—but never were—during our senior year.
“To say I was embarrassed is an understatement. I didn’t have to explain any of that to Chase. He wouldn’t have cared. He’d never think to ask me about it. In his own way he’s remarkable, you know. He never changes—it’s like somebody hacked him out of a wall of New Hampshire granite. Whenever I’ve been confused in my life, that sturdiness, that familiarity always managed to draw me back. What you see is what you get with him. When I made my decision I knew everything that I would be getting—the Breckenridge life and all the first-class trimmings. I forced myself to ignore all of the things I knew I wouldn’t be getting. I barely see the man. I’m fantastically bored. I have everything but I have nothing, if you see what I mean. And I can’t help but keep thinking…”
“What?” I asked, half-hypnotized by that stage.
“How much I wanted my babies to look like him.” In her traumatized state she had blown her parents’ legacy on showy nonsense so I could guess at her reasoning. It was the assurance of good-looking children and the uplifting cushion of never-ending trust funds—good genes backed by good finances—that Belle had sought with Chase all along. “I wanted my babies to look exactly like Jeremy,” she clarified, rendering me speechless. “Part of the reason I never did the whole career thing,” she continued, with a sweep of her thin arm indicating the conventional career she had left behind, “was because I wanted to have a family, a big family, above all things. I never had that growing up. And I know how much having siblings would have helped me once my parents were gone.”
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