Willow

  "Celebrating a divorce? Why get married if you've failed four previous times?"

  "Another Palm Beach game.," he said. "What of it? We'll have fun."

  "But a yacht party? I don't know as I have anything to wear for that."

  "With a black dress and a rope of pearls, you can go anywhere according to Franklin Noyce, the resident fashion guru of the month. and I know you have the black dress."

  But not the pearls,"

  "Bunny has enough to string between here and Europe. She'll provide them." he said. "I'll let her know. Hey, don't look so worried. You're going to have a good time and meet enough of the A-list to get all the information you need to complete your work."

  "Okay," I said.

  I'll be fine in a day or two, I'll be able to tell him the truth and end this fictitious story, I hoped. Would he be angry or happy after that? Surely, he would understand. If he really cared for me, that is.

  He left. and I returned to working on my face and hair. It wasn't twenty minutes before Bunny burst into my room with ropes of pearls dangling around her neck.

  "It's the Fashion Firewoman!" she cried, "Here to put out the burning of beauty."

  I couldn't help but laugh.

  "It's not funny. I'm serious. Put on your dress," she ordered, "and we'll see what works the best."

  "I'm really not into jewelry," I said as I slipped into my new black dress.

  "Of course you are. Every woman is into jewelry, either in her fantasies because she can't afford it or in real life because she can. We've been created to wear the world's gems. What's a diamond without a setting to be worn on a woman's finger or in her earlobe or around her neck? Just some glittering raw stone greedy men will kill each other to possess. Precious stones are not meant to be in safety deposit boxes. They are meant to adorn our bodies, and that's that," she said as if she had the power to pronounce the final word on any subject and end any argument.

  I sighed and shook my head. She stood back and studied me a moment. "If you're going to wear your hair up like that, you need matching earrings," she decided. "I have the perfect pair for this necklace.' She lifted it off the pile around her neck. "It's from the Etoile collection. Cultured pearls. Do you know anything about pearls, dear?"

  "My mother had yards of them, but I never paid much attention to what she wore." I said honestly.

  "What a pity. I made sure my daughter had a proper education when it came to precious stones. Who wants to be made the fool and ooh and aah over imitation jewelry? There are plenty of sorry young women in this town who thought the ring they were given was a flawless diamond only to find out from a jeweler that it was either a VS1 or a WS2. When it comes to diamonds especially, you have to pay attention to the four C's, my dear."

  "The four C's?"

  "Clarity, color, cut, and carat. Don't be impressed by the women you see here wearing big diamond rings. Why, some of them don't even know they're wearing cubic zirconia, imitation diamonds. My eyes are trained well enough to tell.

  "Anyway, this necklace is sixteen inches long with a cultured Tahitian pearl clasp. The diamonds are set in platinum-- and look at their clarity."

  "It sounds expensive." I said.

  "Expensive?" She considered it. "I think it was fourteen thousand."

  "Bunny, you're not serious. You want me to borrow a fourteen-thousand-dollar necklace?"

  "And the earrings. I think they were six or seven"

  "I would be too nervous," I said, backing away from her and her pearls.

  "Oh, please." she said, her face pained. "It's all insured."

  "But fourteen thousand."

  She grimaced. "The only other one I would suggest," she said, lifting it off her neck. "is this, also cultured pearls...." She paused. "Do you know the difference between natural and cultured pearls?"

  "No," I said, "but something tells me I will soon."

  "You should know." she chastised with her eyes as well as her tongue. "Natural pearls are born quite by chance when the oyster can't get rid of some particle inside and coats it with layer upon layer of a smooth, hard substance called nacre. It takes years to make this tiny bead into a wonderful, lustrous pearl. To make a cultured pearl, the oyster's shell is opened with surgical precision, and the irritant, usually a mother-of-pearl bead, is placed inside, which causes the oyster to produce the nacre.

  These happen to be Japanese Akova." "And how much was that?"

  "This?" She stared at it a moment. "I think... yes. Asher got it at Tiffany's. He paid something like ten or eleven thousand."

  "Don't you have any costume jewelry?" I asked.

  "For what purpose? I don't understand these women who own beautiful things but get copies made to wear out in public. Why own the original? Stop worrying. You're not exactly going to walk on the streets of some city ghetto. You'll be quite safe, and the other women will envy you.

  "I think I'd rather have a woman's envy than a man's love." she said with a laugh.

  Two days ago, that remark might have shocked me, but at the moment, it seemed a perfectly natural thing for Bunny Eaton to tell me.

  In the end, I took the second choice, and she sent down the matching earrings. At precisely seventhirty, Thatcher came by.

  He wore a stylish tuxedo and looked positively debonair. He paused in the doorway and gazed in at me. He was silent so long I thought he was trying to decide how to get out of taking me. Maybe he thought I looked too plain to be at a party with these wealthy Palm Beach women.

  "Well?" I finally said.

  "My God. Willow, you're absolutely beautiful."

  He said it with such depth of sincerity and appreciation it took my breath away. For a moment. I couldn't speak. and I felt as light as air. I glanced at the floor to see if my feet had left it and if I was floating.

  "It's your mother's pearls," I said, and he laughed.

  "Hardly. This is one of those occasions when the woman bedecks the jewels and not vice versa."

  "Thatcher Eaton, where do you come up with these great lines?" I teased.

  He stopped smiling. "From my heart. Willow, from my heart," he said.

  The teasing grin flew off my face, and he kissed me softly.

  "Come on, let's blaze a trail through Palm Beach society," he urged.

  How could I not feel on top of the world here? I was with a very handsome, very successful man. I was wearing expensive jewelry. We were getting into a Rolls-Royce Corniche convertible and going to a yacht party on a wonderful warm night in Palm Beach. I was doing all this. me. Willow De Beers; not a pauper but, until a few days ago, just another college student expecting to attend the weekend beer bash at Allan's fraternity. I truly felt like a princess.

  "I'm a little nervous about this, Thatcher. I've never been to a yacht party," I admitted.

  "A party is a party. There's just more of everything here: more servants, perhaps, and more glitz. The Germans drink beer at their parties. The French drink wine at theirs. People in Palm Beach drink champagne, that's all. A student of human behavior such as you should understand that." he added with a wink.

  He could make all this seem as common and ordinary as he wanted. I thought, but the moment we drove up to the dock and heard the music and saw the lights, the women glittering like diamond statues, the parade of servants with silver frays, and the recognizable celebrity faces here and there, I threw his attitude out the window. My legs actually trembled as we walked up the gangplank to the deck, where a very pretty hostess stood ready to greet us and all the other arriving guests. She handed us glasses of champagne.

  "Good evening, Welcome," she said, and we stepped onto the deck.

  A six-piece combo was playing. I saw tables of roasts, lobster, platters of shrimp, freshly roasted turkeys. Cornish hens, pheasant under glass, almost anything anyone could think to have at a party, with bowls and bowls of salads, a fresh vegetable bar that looked as if it had been lifted from a farmer's market and brought here, and a table just for breads and rolls.

/>   "Let's find Hope Farris and then get something to eat," Thatcher said. "I'm starving."

  We were practically elbow to elbow with people. The yacht was the biggest I had ever seen, but, according to Thatcher, apparently everyone Hope invited had decided to attend.

  "She's probably disappointed." "Disappointed? Why?"

  "Everyone overbooks his or her parties. The worst thing is to throw a party and not have it well attended. It could take you down ten points on the Alist meter. My parents invited two hundred for the weekend."

  Two hundred! Your mother told me a hundred, a hundred and twenty-five," I said.

  "That's what she expects on such short notice, but you never know."

  We paused, and he smiled at someone, waved to another.

  'Good mix. I see dozens of trust-fund babies, some nouveau riche like Thomas Carter over there, owner of UX.com, and a number of the old ruling class. That's Mildred Callwell, one of the grande dames of Palm Beach society-- her husband owns Perk-Up Coffee, And that elderly lady in the wheelchair back there wearing the diamond tiara and clinging to the butterfly Judith Leiber purse like it contains her emergency heart medicine is Countess Von De Myer. She does have a legitimate title and actually lives in a castle in Belgium,

  "You see those two men." he said, nodding at two very elegant-looking gentlemen, identically slim, with identically tan, almost identical black mustaches and styled hair. They were standing back, smoking long, thin cigarillos, and smiling slyly at the beautiful young women who walked by them.

  "Yes."

  "They're what are known as walkers. They haven't got anything, even though they look rich and successful. In return for free meals and entertainment, they escort wealthy women to events like this. Some pretend to hold titles like duke or baron this or that, but everyone knows they are full of what makes the grass grow greener."

  "If everyone knows they're phony, why would any well-to-do woman want to be seen with them?"

  "You need to have someone on your arm, and it's nice to have someone who makes a good appearance. The party givers want there to be more men to ask the unescorted women to dance, make conversation, that sort of thing. It's like those men who are hired by cruises to dance with women.

  "Besides, there's always the possibility same people don't know they are all show and no substance," he said. "Illusion and reality, huh? Your topic. right?"

  "Right," I said nervously. He was always reminding me about my supposed purpose for being there. "Oh. I see the Carriage sisters." I groaned.

  "We'll try to steer clear of them, although that might be difficult on a yacht. Where is Hope?" he asked, stretching his neck to look between and above people.

  "You don't see her?"

  "Not yet. You know." he said, "I've heard of people throwing these parties and not showing up until nearly the end of the evening:'

  "Why"

  "Some hate them but do them because if they don't, they'll lose their place on the totem pole."

  "Is position, rank in society, so important?"

  "I think that's what makes everyone here fear death so much more. There's a good chance it's not important in the afterlife," he said with a grin.

  "Thatcher! I thought you weren't coming," we heard someone cry above the din. A tall, dark-haired woman with a svelte figure wearing a red silk column gown with an attached chiffon scarf stepped forward through the crowd and held out her hand, the fingers of which were so full of diamond rings I thought she would have trouble opening them. Her eyes were a beautiful jade color, but that looked to be the only natural thing left untouched on her cosmetically altered face with skin tucked tightly under her ears, nose surgically shaved, lips puffed with collagen. Only the small gathering of wrinkles at the base of her throat gave away her true age.

  "Hope, how could I not?" he replied.

  She laughed and leaned forward to give him a double air kiss, one next to each cheek.

  "I'd like you to meet Isabel Amou," he said. She is visiting from South Carolina."

  "Oh, yes," she said, giving me her hand. "I've already heard all about you."

  The Carriage sisters?" Thatcher asked.

  "Better than the CIA," Hope said. "Call me this week. I have something I need done with my property in Puerto Rico." she told him. "Please," she said to me. "enjoy. I have two of Tania Morgan's kinetic works of party art starboard behind the dessert bar. It seemed appropriate,," she added with a laugh, "For some reason, my male guests appreciate the work more. Oh, there's Donald," she cried, and moved away.

  "What is she talking about, kinetic works of party art?" I asked.

  Thatcher raised his eves and led me through the crowd toward the dessert bar, where we could see a thick gathering of people. When we came around. I saw two nude women completely coated with what looked like liquid silver, seated back to back, legs crossed, arms at their sides. Neither moved a muscle. Their eyelids must have been glued open. They looked like statues, human bookends. From what we heard around us, it seemed every ten minutes, they rose and switched sides, and that was what made them kinetic art.

  "It's like the changing of the guard at

  Buckingham Palace," a tall, thin gentleman with balding gray hair said. He had lips that looked as if they were made of rubber, "You don't want to miss it."

  "I think we'd rather get something to eat." Thatcher quipped, and directed me toward the buffet.

  We had just sat at a table when two older couples approached us.

  "Don't get up," the shorter of the two men said as Thatcher began to rise. "Thatcher, you remember Mitch Rosewater and his wife. Brownie, don't you?"

  "Yes, yes, of course," Thatcher said, rising nevertheless to shake the taller man's hand and greet his wife. "We met at the Pullmans' party, right?"

  "Yes. Rather sedate party compared to this, what?" he said. He was obviously English.

  'Td like you all to meet Isabel Amou, just visiting from South Carolina." Thatcher said. The line was already so connected to my name I thought I'd have to include it whenever I signed anything, "Isabel, may I present Tom and Melinda Dancer. Tom is, you should pardon the expression, also an attorney," Thatcher said with a wide grin.

  "Merely a paper pusher compared to Thatcher here," Tom Dancer said, extending his hand to me. His wife was studying me so hard I thought I had some of the pate on the end of my nose.

  "You're actually staying with Asher and Bunny Eaton at Joya del Mar, aren't you?" she asked.

  "Yes," I said "What happened? Did it get into the newspapers or something?"

  Everyone laughed.

  "No one burps in this town without the rest of us hearing it," Tom said.

  "Have you met Grace Nutcase and that son of hers yet?"

  Melinda asked me. 'Really. Thatcher," she continued, not really waiting for my response, "I don't know why your parents don't just buy the property out from under them and get them off the grounds. With a loony like Linden wandering about, I wouldn't feel safe. And who knows what Grace might do one of these days. She could set fire to the place or something.'

  "Oh, don't exaggerate, Melinda." Tom Dancer said. "I'm sure it's not quite that bad. Is it. Thatcher?"

  "No," he said. "They stay to themselves most of the time." He glanced at me. "As long as they remain that way, there is no problem."

  "I would still have trouble sleeping at night," Melinda insisted, "She's not a dangerous woman," I said sharply. "Far from it."

  "Oh, then you have met her?" She pounced.

  "Yes."

  "Well, don't just sit there. Tell us about her. No one has seen her for years. What does she look like? Is it true she walks around barefoot in ripped old garments and has lost her teeth and has sand flies in her hair?"

  "Absolutely not," I said finally. "She is, in fact, one of the most attractive women I've seen here. A naturally beautiful woman, with no need for cosmetic surgery or makeup," I said pointedly.

  It wasn't hard to see that both she and Brownie had contributed considerabl
y to some cosmetic surgeon's pension plan.

  "Really?" She and Brownie Rosewater exchanged expressions of some disappointment. "And does she speak intelligibly or babble mad things?"

  She spoke to me, and she was very informative and pleasant to be with," I said a bit more calmly, realizing my face had turned crimson.

  "Really," she said again, her skepticism and bitterness drooling at the corners of her mouth.

  "Yes, really. I have yet to have a conversation with anyone here in Palm Beach that was as pleasant. You're missing a lot by not inviting her to your events," I added.

  The women looked at each other and then laughed.

  "I guess you have a lot to teach this young lady about Palm Beach, Thatcher." Melinda said.

  He shifted his eyes to me and then looked at her. "She's learning. I've been here all my life, and I'm still learning." he added, and they all laughed,

  "Hey, enjoy," Tom Dancer said. "I'll call you this week on that matter of the Crosby Mall."

  "Right. Nice meeting you," Thatcher said to the Rosewaters.

  The moment they stepped away, they all burst into hysterical laughter at something Melinda had said.

  "People here are very cruel to each other, aren't they?" I asked Thatcher.

  "Maybe maybe not any more than they are anywhere else. At least they don't go around shooting each other."

  "Not with guns, but they do a pretty good job with words." I said.

  "You came to the Montgomery's' defense rather vehemently for someone who has just met them. Willow. That surprised me almost as much as it did them. You're sure you're not getting too involved with Linden?" he asked again.

  I pushed my plate away and looked out at the crowd of mega-millionaires, their jewelry competing, their designer clothes flashing before me. If they could walk about with price tags dangling, they would. I thought,

  The sound of applause by the dessert bar indicated the liquid silver women had changed position again. The band got louder. Laughter whipped through the air around us. I felt my head spinning.