“Anyway, we’d best be going. Good to see you, Cat. Pasha?” The supermodel minced after him, following two steps behind.
“So, you were together, yes?” Stephan asked when Brick had left.
“How did you know?”
“Oh, easy enough,” he said dismissively.
“We were engaged for eight years,” I admitted. “But that was a long time ago.” Actually, only four months, and then I was discarded like last year’s Prada mules, but who was counting? “Who can compete with the Tits from Transylvania?” I asked.
“They are stupendous,” he agreed, and my confidence faltered at that.
“So why don’t you play polo, darling?” I asked coyly. “I thought you grew up in Argentina.”
“Yes, I did,” he said heartily. “In Buenos Aires. A beautiful city. Have you ever been?”
“No, but I’ve always wanted to,” I replied, hinting broadly.
“Shame. It’s a little bit of Paris in South America. Stupendous.”
Hmmpf.
“But in answer to your question, I used to play polo, but not since this,” he said, motioning to his eye patch.
“Can I ask how—?”
“Sailing accident.”
“Wow.”
“Yes, unfortunately I’m not much of a sailor either.”
Interesting! Self-deprecating and handsome. We talked a little more, and I attempted to steer the conversation toward Westonia. “It’s a little principality, like, um, Monaco,” he explained. “Although not as many tourists.”
“Is there gambling?” I asked. If so, my mother probably knew it well, I told him.
“No, not really. Not like Monte Carlo. Mostly just a bunch of peasants and their livestock. It’s very barren, very rocky. A dreadful place.”
“Do you wish you weren’t kicked out?” I sighed dreamily.
“Kicked out?”
“Of the country. By the military junta,” I said, remembering the information from the website.
“That was a long time ago,” he said soberly. “I had not even been born yet. You know, I find this American obsession with titles really quite appalling.”
“Oh?”
“Because it’s all so meaningless. Why should it make a difference who my great-great-great-grandfather was? It doesn’t. Titles are so worthless,” he said carelessly.
“For you, maybe,” I protested. “But then again, you have one.”
He shrugged, and I was suitably impressed by his casual indifference to such a genetic stroke of luck. If I had a title, you could be certain I would have had all of Manhattan bowing so deeply everyone’s foreheads would bear footprints.
“So what brought you to New York?” I asked.
Oh, ah…I was… transferred.”
“By your bank?” I asked, picturing a large investment bank on Wallstreet.
“Yes, yes. Right. I’m with Civilian Financial Citation Holdings, but enough about me—my life is boring. What about you?”
“What do you want to know?”
“Whatever you want to tell me,” he said, giving me a crooked smile. So I told him. Everything. All about my parents, and Hollywood, and Japan—and he even said he thought he had recognized me, which was a lie but a nice one. I realized I was actually enjoying his company rather than merely pretending to, which was a nouveau experience. Usually I found that most successful men tended to bore you with the details of their business, investments, or current fascination with maneuvering their twin-hulled, dual-finned America’s Cup catamaran around the globe. Surprisingly, Stephan seemed to be more interested in learning about me than telling me about himself. I made a mental note to tell India that small talk was surprisingly easy—all I had to do was talk about myself. “I don’t think I mentioned it the last time we spoke,” I said, “but I’m adopting a Chinese baby.”
His eyes widened. “Really. I didn’t think you were so… serious about your commitment to the cause.” I knew it! Floored.
“Well—you know, I mean, it’s just that it’s all well and good to throw parties for them and drink champagne on their behalf, but I thought I would make a personal contribution instead,” I said modestly.
“I agree. So, when are you going to China?”
Oh, I’m not,” I protested. “I’ve sent my au pair.”
He laughed again—a deep and resonant laugh that was warm and generous, so that I didn’t think he was really laughing at me. I started laughing as well, because come to think of it, the situation was absurd. I had sent my au pair to China to pick up a baby! What was I thinking? He seemed to like it though.
“Darling, I’m not joking,” I said, when our laughter had subsided.
“Oh, I never doubted it.”
If he was going to be a handbag, I decided, Stephan would definitely be an Hermès. They kept you on the waiting list forever, but once it’s yours, it’s irreplaceable. Brick would be more like something you chucked after the trend had passed for small, embroidered shoulder bags in the shape of French pastry that were never big enough to hold all your essentials.
“Stephan! Stephan!” This time we were interrupted by Cece Phipps-Langley, the socialite who had told me all about him in the first place. She sped toward our table like a heat-seeking missile in duchesse satin and antique Victorian jewelry. “Oh, hi, Cat,” she said in a less-than-enthusiastic tone. “Did you see Brick and Pasha? Such a doll, isn’t she just?”
“Just,” I replied, curling my lip.
“Stephan, darling, you can’t sit all by yourself here in the dark. There are people I want you to meet,” she said, grasping his arm protectively. “You don’t mind, do you, Cat?” she asked.
“No, of course not.”
“Excuse me,” Stephan said reluctantly. “It’s good to see you again. Good luck with the baby.”
“Baby!” Cece exclaimed with a contemptuous snort. “Cat doesn’t even have a boyfriend!” She gave Stephan a look. “Teeny’s over there and she wanted to know where you had wandered off to,” she chided, pulling his arm like an impatient helmet-headed Chihuahua.
“It was great to see you again,” he said graciously before leaving. “You know,” he added, looking thoughtful, “I know somebody who is very much interested in adopting a Chinese baby as well. Would you mind if I—”
“Not at all,” I said smoothly, reaching into my vintage Whiting & Davis bag and handing him my card. “I’d be happy to tell them everything I know.”
Cece watched with narrowed eyes as he pocketed it.
When they left, I found India by the bar. “This suckths,” she said, slurring her words.
“Why, what’s wrong?”
India waved her empty flute toward the dance floor, where I spotted her generous patron, the wealthy trannie chaser who provided her with a Fifth Avenue aerie and kept her in collagen treatments and floor-length chinchilla. He was deep in conversation with Venus de Milosevic, India’s biggest rival in the transsexual stakes. Venus was a fierce Serbian drag queen, whose popular cabaret act involved taking no prisoners.
“Why I oughta …” India said, lunging drunkenly in their direction.
It took all of my power to restrain her from confronting them.
“Darling, let it go. She’s nothing. He’s only paying attention to her because lately you’ve been ignoring him in favor of your nineteen-year-old go-go dancer. He’ll come around eventually.”
“And the bah’s run hout of chumpagne, can you believe it?” She hiccuped.
“Darling, listen to me. I’ve got great news. Stephan’s asked for my number.”
India raised her eyebrows. “You don’t (hic) say?”
“Well, actually he said it was for a friend. Someone interested in adopting a Chinese baby,” I confessed. “I gave him my card. Do you think he’ll call?”
“Why (hic) wouldn’t he?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it really was for a friend,” I said morosely, looking wistfully to where Teeny, Cece, and Stephan were sharing a laugh with
Brick and Pasha. Teeny was touching Stephan’s arm lightly as she giggled at something he said.
“Nonthense,” India declared. “Sthe’s thill (hic) married to that Austhrian ballet danther.”
“That’s never stopped her before,” I reminded India. “Do you know, I swear there’s something different about him tonight.”
India shrugged. “I didn’t nothithe.”
“I did. Is it the hair? Does he seem taller, maybe?”
“Maybe,” India conceded. “Or maybe you’re juth theeing things (hic). Oh, wait, there is thomething …”
Just then the bartender miraculously found an unopened bottle of bubbly and India forgot her train of thought in her determination to score herself a glass.
* * *
I returned home to find a message on the machine from the hotel in San Marco. Apparently I had just missed my mother by a few days. Sigh. There would be no emergency funds coming my way, so it: looked like I’d have to face the music—or more specifically, my accountant.
7.
life beyond cashmere
Mr. Bartleby-Smythe was a nice fellow of florid complexion and meticulous handwriting. He had known me since I was a baby, and could probably say he’d pinched my inner thighs. As Daddy’s most trusted adviser and the executor of the will, he had been responsible for my financial well-being ever since I was ten years old. In college, it was he who convinced my father that I would actually use the money to pay for tuition instead of endless shopping sprees. Daddy had been quite sore over the Tokyo debacle—he couldn’t understand how an underage model could accumulate so many debts.
Sarah Lawrence was open-minded enough to consider a few years at prep school, several with a Hollywood acting coach, and my stint in Tokyo’s school of hard knocks equivalent to a GED and accepted me.
What I learned in college: abnormal behavior, method acting, how to seduce your roommate’s boyfriend.
If Hollywood was all about the size of your entourage and Tokyo the quality of your look book, college was all about discovering the social activist within. I threw myself completely into an aristobohemian lifestyle. Like most of my friends, my room smelled of patchouli and I hardly bathed. I ate couscous and organic veggies, took back the night, wrote angry, affected poetry referring cleverly to my genitalia, and attempted to grow dreadlocks. I hosted communist tea parties, organized financial aid sit-ins, staged Columbus Day protests, renounced all material possessions, and debated Wittgenstein’s theories while conducting numerous affairs with bearded professors decked out in full haute tenure (suede-patch sport coats, scuffed Nubucks).
Except for my inability to keep awake during class, I was the perfect student. Plus, I was special—the only one in school who had a trust fund and received financial aid. See, even though I received an exorbitant allowance that should have been more than enough to keep me in J. Crew pea coats in every color, I spent it faster than the bank could deposit it. Thus, the amount was hardly enough to sustain all of my activities. Radical chic didn’t come cheap, mind you. Someone had to pay for all those placards and megaphones. By the end of the semester I was banned from opening a checking account at the local bank, and evicted from a series of luxury apartments. Through Mr. Bartleby-Smythe, Daddy would always send another check—he was relieved that I was actually still in school. He was so proud when I graduated Phi Beta Kappa, especially since Sarah Lawrence didn’t bother with such things as grades.
“Ah, Cat, come in,” Mr. Bartleby-Smythe said jovially, ushering me into his mahogany-paneled office. “I haven’t seen you in a while. I was starting to wonder if you’d forgotten about us.”
“Oh, Mr. B.S.” I laughed.
“So,” Mr. Bartleby-Smythe said, easing into his club chair. He smiled affably, peering at me over half-moon glasses. “I’m glad you decided to come by. We’ve been trying to get a hold of you, you know.”
“Really?” I asked innocently.
“Yes, but every time we call, someone answers the phone in Spanish. I wasn’t sure if we had your correct phone number.”
“Mmmm … how strange.”
“Now, you must have noticed we haven’t sent you a check in a while.”
I shrugged as if it hadn’t been the cause for my chronic insomnia. Timidly I asked, “Is there some sort of problem?”
“Well, there seems to be some trouble with your Citibank accounts.”
“Oh, that. Yes, I know. They call me every day. They even wake me up in the morning,” I complained. “They want to know why my accounts are overdrawn. Now, I told them I’d talk to you about it. I thought you were taking care of things,” I accused him petulantly.
“We are taking care of things, my dear. However …” Mr. Bartleby-Smythe turned around and opened a file cabinet. He flipped through several folders until he found what he was looking for. “Aha,” he said in a satisfied tone. He laid my bank account statements on his desk, several from Citibank and others bearing Cayman Islands or Swiss deposit identification numbers.
“We’ve been redirecting funds to try to cover your expenses.
But…”
“But?”
Mr. Bartleby-Smythe sighed heavily. “Cat, I don’t know how to tell you this.”
“Just give it to me straight,” I said, holding my breath.
“All right, then. You’re broke. There is absolutely nothing left.”
“Excuse me?” A sharp intake of breath. Water! I needed water!
He took a red pen and began circling several large figures—ones with many zeroes after them. “Here is what your twenty-fifth birthday party cost you this year.”
“But I thought we had a corporate sponsor.” I was bewildered.
“For the privilege of attaching their good name to your own—or should I say, Samantha Boardman’s and Aerin Lauder’s.” He looked at me sternly. “You know I don’t approve of that sort of misrepresentation. Harrrummph. In any case, Mercedes-Benz paid for transportation to and from the party for the VIP guests. You covered everything else. The cost of flying in ’N Sync from their European tour and back. Rental of the space, the construction of a makeshift concert stage—the liquor bill alone was enough to set you back several months. Then there was the pyrotechnic display, and some kind of special designer candles.”
I gagged, remembering I hadn’t even been able to blow out the candles myself!
“This is how much your publicist’s retainer is costing.”
Ouch. That Swiss bitch sure didn’t come cheap.
“This is the household payroll.” He circled another extravagant sum.
“And this was the amount you spent on clothing and entertainment last week.” It was the most colossal number yet. Mr. Bartleby-Smythe grimaced. “Twenty thousand dollars for a ticket to a charity ball? You’re certainly not in a position to be a philanthropist right now.”
I cringed, looking over his notes hurriedly, none of it making any sense. Positively abhorred math. It’s not that I couldn’t add (except when I couldn’t), but math made me irritable and pimply. And my dermatologist was rigorous about my skin. So I never risked a breakout by bothering with such things as bank statements, credit card bills, or the latest on Catherine Zeta-Jones’s love life. Such things simply made me ill. And I hated being sick more than I hated math. In fact, I forbade myself to get sick, except when it was absolutely necessary, of course. One should always make allocations for such emergencies. I was nothing if not a woman who believed crises must be placated and seduced away with mud baths, aromatherapy, and Asprey & Garrard. If all that failed, simply throw more money into it and maybe it will go away. Believing myself to be ill when something didn’t suit me was another expensive habit. For instance, I never took the subway due to a small, medically prescribed claustrophobic condition—I really had to fight for that one. It behooved me to stay on the cutting edge of all new medical trends—I’d already been diagnosed as passive-aggressive, manic-depressive, anorexic, bulimic, alcoholic, and an overeater suffering from affective sea
sonal disorder, social anxiety disorder, and low self-esteem.
“I don’t care! Listen, there’s got to be some money left somewhere, correct? I just can’t be broke! I need money for something incredibly important!” I raged. Bannerjee had called the other day from Shanghai with horrifying news. Apparently illegal Chinese baby brokers didn’t take Amex. I was incensed, as Heidi and I had already planned a “Welcome Home Mei-Mei” party at the “21” Club to properly welcome my new Chinese child to New York. Heidi’s office had been working on the guest list for days, celebrities who were sure to be sympathetic to the plight of Chinese orphans. Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins. Richard Gere. Irina Pantaeva. Everyone on the Chinese Orphans Benefit Committee. Even Stephan was sure to attend. I promised Bannerjee I’d come up with the money somehow.
“I’ll arrange it immediately,” I told her. “But remember, once you have the baby, make sure she doesn’t eat any more of that greasy Chinese food! I want her on organic milk!”
Mr. Bartleby-Smythe had never let me down before. “There has just got to be a way,” I wheedled.
“Well, Citibank is willing to settle your accounts, and you have just enough in your last Swiss bank account to cover it. It’s a desperate measure, but there’s nothing that can be done. I suggest you begin to make some changes in your life.”
“How could Daddy do this to me?” I moaned. “I thought he said he would make sure I would be taken care of for the rest of my life.”
“Your father left you quite a legacy. And your broker invests well, but you’ve displayed an uncanny ability to spend any profits made before the market closes.”
“So that’s it? I’m poor?” I could not believe the words coming out of my mouth: I’m and poor did not an acceptable sentence make.
“Upper class and sinking fast,” this nasty little man responded.
This was a sobering situation indeed. I had to keep myself afloat long enough to stay in Stephan’s social circle, otherwise how would I ever position myself as his betrothed? But the thought of living less than large was less than appealing. Would I have to eat government cheese? Would I have to learn a “skill”? Was I going to be just another statistic in the welfare roll?