“Come with me, Cecelia,” she said quietly, with an odd sort of half smile, and I followed her, still stomping mad, through the house and up to her bathroom, where she closed the door and directed me to sit on a yellow silk-covered stool. “There’s only one way to survive as the wife of a Masters man.”
“But Hubert—”
“His mother was a Masters. And so is he,” she whispered. And I saw with alarm that she was really quite beautiful, and much younger, maybe forty, than she had appeared at first, surrounded by this grand house and faux servants, and I thought, What’s going to happen to me?
“Dolls,” she said, revealing the inside of the medicine cabinet, which contained such an array of prescription bottles I was sure it could rival that of any pharmacist. She removed a brown bottle and handed it to me. “Try these,” she said. “They’re completely harmless. Just like candy. Makes you feel sweet.”
“I don’t need pills,” I said. Which was really rather strange, since I was always a little bit on coke back then and, in fact, had a small vial in my bag which no one knew about and never would, and I said, “My marriage is going to be fine. It’s going to be great.”
“Oh Cecelia,” Lucinda said, handing me the bottle. “Don’t you understand? It isn’t, and it’s never going to be.”
But it wasn’t until the end of our holiday, when we went on that “fishing expedition” in Montana and I was dirty and my hair was frizzy and I was sleeping in a cabin with a scratchy army blanket and getting up at five in the morning and not having any decent place to take a shit, much less a shower, and Hubert and I had hardly anything to say to each other, that I opened the bottle of pills and shook one into my hand. It was small, white, and oval. I took one, then another.
I immediately felt better.
And I continued to feel good; even after we drove twenty miles in the rain to that honky-tonk bar Hubert had found in the guidebook and he danced with that waitress with the frizzy hair and saggy tits (she was only twenty-five) and I consumed six margaritas, I continued to maintain an aura of laissez-faire.
And Hubert was convinced he’d made the right decision in asking me to marry him.
Isn’t that what it’s all about?
“White or yellow?” Dianna asks, and I snap back and say, “What?” and we break out laughing because it seems we are on something like our tenth bellini.
“Xanax,” she says.
“Blue,” I say. “Yellow is for homosexuals.”
“I didn’t even know there was a blue,” she says, putting her hand over her face and laughing at me through her fingers. “Hey, guess what? I ate dog food too. I made Norman eat dog food. Come to think of it, I made Norman do a lot of things.”
“Don’t start crying again,” I say.
“Oh sweet Jesus. Norman. Norman,” she wails. “Why did you have to go and die and leave me a hundred and twenty-three million dollars?”
“Why Norman?” I ask.
Then we have to pee, so we stumble upstairs, and sure enough, Juliette “that little girl from Vermont” follows us into the bathroom. Dianna takes one look at herself and stumbles back, screaming, “I need makeup,” and Juliette slips in and whispers, “Hi,” and before anything else can happen, Dianna grabs Juliette’s Prada handbag and shakes it upside down, and sure enough, a pile of MAC cosmetics spills out, along with a junior Tampax, a brush containing a tangle of hair, and a condom.
“Oh Juliette,” I say. “Don’t you even use Ally cosmetics?”
“I use Ally cosmetics,” Dianna says, carelessly smearing lipstick all over her lips, “and look at me. I’ve gone from crack addict to society lady. And guess what? You can too.”
“Cecelia,” Juliette says meekly, “you’re coming to my wedding, aren’t you?”
“I wouldn’t miss it,” I say. “Even though I hardly know you.”
“But isn’t that the great thing about New York? It doesn’t matter,” Juliette says. “I mean, everyone is—”
“I’m gonna conquer this town. Just the way I conquered Los Angeles,” Dianna says.
“You’re coming too, aren’t you?” Juliette says to Dianna.
“Ask my publicist,” Dianna says.
“Oh. Well, I’ve got a publicist too,” Juliette says. “D.W.”
“So get your publicist to call my publicist. Let the publicists figure it out.” And with that, we leave Juliette in the bathroom, wiping her tube of lipstick with a tissue.
The phone is ringing when I walk through the door of the loft, and sure enough, it’s Dianna.
“Hi sugarpuss,” she says. “That’s what I used to call Norman. Sugarpuss.”
“Well, hi there,” I say. “Hello Norman.”
“Are you lonely, Cecelia? Because I sure am. I sure am lonely,” Dianna says.
“I guess I’m lonely. Yeah,” I say.
“Well, we won’t be lonely anymore. We’re going to be best friends.”
“That’s right,” I say, the champagne beginning to wear off.
“Hey. I was wondering if you wanted to hang out. Maybe we could go shopping tomorrow. I’ve still got the limo and the driver. Hell, I’ve always got the limo and the driver. Sometimes I forget, you know?”
My husband is having an affair. With Constance.
“Hey Dianna,” I say, looking out the window as a bus from the Midwest deposits a gaggle of tourists onto Prince Street. “Is it true what they say? That you killed your husband?”
There’s a pause, then Dianna gives a short, loud laugh. “Well, let me put it this way. If I didn’t, it’s the kind of thing I would do, isn’t it?”
“Is it?”
“Well . . . I’d know how to get it done. If that’s what you’re asking. And just remember. It’s a lot cheaper than divorce.”
She laughs and hangs up.
VI
I’m going away.
Sitting in Dr. Q.’s office, watching the dirty gauze curtains fluttering in the breeze coming off of Fifth Avenue, I think about yachts and movie stars in satin dresses and Louis Vuitton hatboxes like the one I just bought for the trip even though I don’t have a hat, and Dr. Q. interrupts this reverie with one word: “Well?”
“You can see in through those windows,” I say.
Dr. Q. puts down his yellow legal pad and looks out. “Is that a problem?” he asks. “You’ve been here for—what?—a year and a half now, Cecelia, and you’ve never mentioned it before.”
Like I never mentioned Hubert’s affair with Constance. Until a few days ago. Right after I told Hubert I was going to the Cannes Film Festival with Dianna.
“Maybe I’m getting paranoid,” I say, half attempting a joke.
“You are paranoid,” Dr.Q. says, looking down at his legal pad. “We all know that’s why you’re here.”
“‘We?’ Who’s ‘we’? What is this? Some kind of conspiracy?”
“Me, your husband, the press, or should I say ‘the media,’ and probably this D.W. character you’re talking about all the time . . . should I go on?” Dr. Q. says in kind of a bored voice, so I say no, and then add suddenly, “Maybe I use my paranoia as a sort of weapon. Did you ever think about that, Dr. Q.?”
“Do you?” he says. “Use your paranoia as a weapon?”
Shit. I don’t KNOW.
Dr. Q. sits staring at me, the way Hubert stared at me when I told him I was going away. Without him. But he couldn’t say anything about it, just as he couldn’t say anything about the four pieces of Louis Vuitton luggage I purchased after a boozy afternoon with Dianna, not to mention the several pairs of shoes, handbags, and dresses. “I need to get away,” I had said. “I have to think.”
“I need to get away,” I say to Dr. Q.
“What will,” he says, “going away do for you?”
“Nothing,” I say. “But it will get me away from my husband. Did I mention that I think he’s having an affair?”
“You mentioned that”—Dr. Q. flips through his legal pad—”months ago. Along with that te
ll-all book.”
“So?”
“So the point is . . . all of this is probably in your imagination.”
“I think I can distinguish between fantasy and reality.”
“Can you?” he says.
“I SAW him with her.”
“Were they . . .”
“WHAT? Doing it? No. But I could tell. By the way they acted.”
“What does he say?”
“Nothing,” I say, swinging my foot. “But he doesn’t deny it.”
“Why won’t you at least DENY it?” I had screamed. “Cecelia,” Hubert said coldly, “that kind of assertion doesn’t merit a response.”
He can be so cold, my husband. Underneath the beautiful manners is absolutely . . . nothing.
“He’s definitely having an affair,” Dianna said later. “Otherwise, he would have denied it.”
Well, we ALL know that, don’t we?
I can tell this session is going absolutely nowhere, so I say, pretty much out of the blue, “I have a new . . . friend,” suddenly realizing how PITIFUL this sounds, just like when I was four years old and I told everyone I had a friend, but it was only an imaginary friend named Winston. I’d tell everyone I was going to play with Winston, but in reality I was going to my favorite mud puddle where I tried to float bugs on matchstick covers.
“And this friend . . .”
“Is real,” I counter, realizing that this, too, sounds insane, so I quickly cover it up with, “I mean, I think we’re going to be friends. We’re friends now, but who knows how long it will last.”
“Do your friendships with women . . . usually end quickly?”
“I don’t know,” I say, exasperated. “Who knows? That’s not the point. Don’t you even want to know . . . who she is?”
“Is that important? Who she is?”
“The point is that I haven’t had a girlfriend in a long time. Okay?” I say, glaring at him.
“And why is that?”
“I don’t know. Because I’m married. You tell me.”
“So this girlfriend . . .”
“Dianna—”
Dr. Q. holds up his hand. “First names only.”
“What is this? Some kind of AA meeting?”
“It’s whatever you think it is, Cecelia. Now let’s see. Dianna,” Dr.Q. says, writing the name in block letters and underlining it.
“You know EXACTLY who she is,” I scream. “Jesus. It’s Dianna Moon. Don’t you read Page Six? They’ve been writing about us for two weeks. How we’re seen everywhere together.”
Dr. Q. sucks the end of his pen. “I don’t read Page Six,” he says thoughtfully.
“Goddammit, Dr. Q. Everyone reads Page Six,” I say, crossing my arms and swinging one foot, clad in a beige silk Manolo Blahnik shoe, four hundred and fifty dollars and completely impractical, which Dianna and I bought two days ago when we went on a “shopping spree.” I picked them out, and Dianna said that we should both buy a pair because we were “sisters,” and this was confirmed when it turned out that we wore the same size shoe: nine.
“I have good taste,” I say suddenly. And Dr. Q., probably relieved that I’m not going to go bat shit on him after all, says mildly, “Yes, you do. That’s one of the things you’re known for, isn’t it? Good taste. It’s probably one of the reasons why Hubert married you.”
He looks at me. I just stare at him, so he continues, floundering, “After all, that is one of the reasons why men like Hubert get married, isn’t it? They want the wife with good taste, who will wear the right things to . . . charity benefits. . . and decorate the house in the Hamptons . . . or no, aren’t the Hamptons over?. . . according to you people. . . .” And I lean back in the chair and close my eyes.
I think about what Dianna would do in this situation.
“You know what, Dr. Q.?” I ask.
“What,” he says.
“Fuck you,” I say, and walk out.
VII
This morning I wake up and say to Hubert, “Do you think Xanaxes are illegal?” while he’s in the bathroom, shaving, and he says, “Why?” and I say, “Because I don’t want to have any scandal. With customs. When I go to France,” just to rub it in. And he gets this sick look on his face, which he’s been pretty much sporting ever since I told him, two weeks ago, that I was going away, and he says, “I don’t think you have to worry about it. You know, if there’s any problem, you can always call my father.”
“Oh la,” I say gaily, for absolutely no reason. “I just love calling the castle.”
He brushes by me, lifting his chin to button his shirt and pull a tie under his collar, and I see that hurt look in his eyes, like the outer corners of his eyes are drooping downward, and for a minute I feel like a corkscrew’s been thrust in my stomach, but then I remember that he SHOULD feel bad.
He’s the one who’s having the affair.
Which, by the way, I don’t plan to mention again.
Actions speak louder than words.
I pick up Mr. Smith, who is still, naturally, sleeping on the bed, and I kiss the top of his head and say, “Do you think that Mr. Smith will miss me?” all sweet and girly.
“I think so,” he says neutrally. But he does not add the natural rejoinder: I’ll miss you too.
Oh GOD. What’s going to happen?
“Good-bye,” he says. “We’re shooting two shows today, so I’ll be home late.”
“Whatever,” I say.
He gives me the sick smile, and it suddenly hits me: He’s going to divorce me.
He’s going to get rid of me the same way he got rid of his first wife.
Anastasia.
I can’t even bear to say the name.
She was crazy too.
BUT, I remind myself, he didn’t actually divorce her. The marriage was annulled. They were both young, and everybody said she was horrible. A spoiled little spitfire from one of those aristocratic European families who probably went to the same Swiss finishing school as the S. sisters, and who still turns up regularly in the completely outdated gossip column “Suzy.” Where “former wife of Prince Hubert Luxenstein,” is always written after her name, even though this is not technically correct, because if their marriage was annulled, it’s supposed to be like they were NEVER MARRIED—right? And when I was first married to Hubert and this offensive name with its offensive moniker would appear, I would tremblingly point to it and say, “Can’t you DO anything about this?” And he would say, fearfully at first, and then after the seventh or eighth time with great annoyance, “I don’t even talk to her anymore. I haven’t had a conversation with her for six years.” But of course, that wasn’t good enough, and I would brood about that damn Anastasia for hours. And sure enough, today, having thought about her once, I have to torture myself by walking past Ralph Lauren on my way to meet D.W. at lunch.
Which is where I met Anastasia, probably seven years ago. Right there in Ralph Lauren on the third floor. I was, UGH, actually working there, a fact that I couldn’t believe myself, because I was so bad at waiting on people, but at the time I felt like I had no choice. My mother had taken up painting, and my father was busy being gay in Paris. Everyone had forgotten about me, as I had suspected that someday they would, and I had no other way to survive but to take a job as a shopgirl at Ralph Lauren. Where the pay was bad but they gave you 70 percent off on the clothes.
My job seemed to consist mostly of folding sweaters, a feat I could never master. The other girls, the girls who had already worked there for six months or a year, were always trying to give me tips on how to fold the sweaters so I wouldn’t get fired. As if I cared. And one afternoon, when I was wrestling with pink cashmere, Anastasia turned up. With a girlfriend. I recognized her immediately.
She was tiny and dark-haired, with huge brown eyes, and she was stunningly, heartbreakingly beautiful, and she knew it. She actually snapped her fingers and motioned to me.
“Can you help me PLEASE,” she said. It wasn’t a question, it was a command, give
n in a heavy Spanish accent and with an attitude that made it clear she didn’t enjoy dealing with peasants.
I walked over and said nothing.
“You work here? Yes?”
“Yes,” I said noncommitally.
“I want the latest.”
“The latest . . . what?” I said.
“Everything. Dresses, shoes, handbags . . .”
“But I don’t know what you like.”
She rolled her eyes and sighed like a soap opera queen. “Bring me the clothes in the ads, then.”
“Very well,” I said.
I returned with one pair of shoes. ONE. She was sitting in the dressing room with her friend. Discussing Hubert, even though by then their marriage had been annulled for six months. What was she still doing in New York? “. . .’s going to his aunt’s house this weekend,” she said to her friend, as if she were spilling state secrets. She suddenly looked up at me. I smiled and held up the shoes. Thinking, AHA. She’s trying to get him back by looking American. But it won’t work. It’s over. And I remember thinking very clearly that I was going to get him, but also wondering how she had managed to develop that aura of arrogant confidence—was she born with it?—and whether I could get it too.