Sex and Vanity

by Kevin Kwan

  “Really? On which side?” Cecil asked in astonishment.

  “The Pike side, of course. My family had a camp up in the Adirondacks too, on Upper Saranac.”

  “I’m sorry, my grandfather to my knowledge was never in the Adirondacks.”

  “He wasn’t? Aren’t you Cecil Pike IV?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Where did your family summer?”

  “Usually in Europe. For a few summers my parents rented a villa in the South of—”

  Harry cut him off. “You’re not one of the Pikes who married into the Livingstons?”

  “No,” Cecil said, reddening a little.

  “Ah. Well then.” Harry turned away abruptly and reached out to a passing lady, grabbing her by the shoulder. “Helen! I haven’t seen you since Michael Korda’s talk at the Century! Where’s Frank tonight?”

  Recovering himself, Cecil realized that Consuelo was still standing there, eyeing him like a hawk. Before he could say anything, she turned to the assembled crowd, picked up a flute of champagne, and began knocking the glass with her Elie Top intaglio ring.

  “Everyone…quiet! I’m going to make a toast.” Consuelo turned to Lucie with a smile and began. “Now, when I first set eyes on Lucie a week after she was born, she was in her crib, and I must confess, with her peachy-white cheeks and delicate black eyelashes, I thought she looked like the most adorable, exquisite little china doll! So ever since, she has been my little china doll. She would never, ever cry, she was so quiet and well mannered, and I would dress her up in the finest silk costumes from the Orient, sent to me by my dear friend Han Suyin, and I would take her to lunch at La Grenouille, where everyone would fuss over her, or to tea at Madame Chiang Kai-shek’s. Funnily enough, Madame Chiang always argued with me and told me that my little china doll didn’t look Chinese enough! ‘Look at those freckles,’ she would say. ‘That’s no Chinese baby!’ ‘Well, she’s half Churchill,’ I would reply, ‘but thank God she didn’t inherit the Churchill nose!’ Oh, how we had so many laughs back then, and how I wish those days would last forever. But babies do grow up, and Lucie became a scholar, graduating magna cum laude in biology from Brown, which was only to be expected since she clearly gets all her brains from her mother’s side. And now she’s so quickly made a name for herself in the art world as one of New York’s top contemporary advisers. She continues to surprise us all, and I know her father would be so proud if he could see her today. Now Lucie has met her match in Cecil, who I’m told was proclaimed one of the most eligible bachelors in the country and hails from such an impressive family, one that has become so synonymous with diversity and the philanthropic spirit of this country. Why, every museum I go to these days, I see Mrs. Pike’s name carved into the wall! Cecil, I’ve only just met you, but I can tell you possess the refinement of a Rothschild, and I trust you will know exactly how to treat my precious, precious china doll. To Lucie and Cecil—I wish you both a lifetime of joy and happiness.”

  Everyone in the room raised their glasses as Freddie cheered, “Here! Here!” Renée beamed proudly at her son, thinking, My boy did good. Those fuckers at Saint James School in Houston wouldn’t accept him, but look at him now—marrying into the elite of the elite, the kind of people who have never even heard of Saint James!

  Lucie blinked back a few tears, though no one in the room—with perhaps the exception of her mother—would have ever suspected the real reason. After making a few rounds of the drawing room, Cecil and Lucie managed to duck out to the building’s roof garden for a little fresh air.

  Cecil gave Lucie a dead-eyed stare. “Fucking hell. I have half a mind to get out my cell phone and call for a helicopter evac right now.”

  Lucie burst out laughing. “I did warn you…”

  “Baby, I don’t think you prepared me adequately. I thought Charlotte was bad enough, but I’ve never in my life met such dreadful people. So stultifyingly boring, so shabbily costumed, they might as well be wax figures. How could you possibly be related to them? I just don’t see it! You are the swan in a field of squawking geese, the rare lotus growing in a swamp…”

  “Oh, you’re too sweet. I’m the weird-looking one in my family, you know. Cacky’s considered the beautiful one. She was a Ford model back in her Wellesley years.”

  “Cacky? She sure looks like a Ford, and I’m talking about a Bronco! Thank God for your mother or you’d have the same unfortunate, inbred features!”

  “You’re too funny. You sound like my Tang grandparents, my mom’s folks. Whenever they saw me, they would always praise my ‘features.’ To them, Freddie and I were the most beautiful creatures in the world, and they were always so proud to show me off to their friends that it made me a little embarrassed. But to some of the people downstairs, it was the polar opposite. It was always, ‘Hmm, what can we do to fix Lucie?’ ”

  Cecil shook his head in disgust. “Well, in my opinion you’re the only person downstairs who doesn’t need fixing! That Annafred, there’s no excuse for her name—did she escape from an order of lesbian Mennonites? Fess up, Annafred and Teddy are really brother and sister, aren’t they? They can’t possibly be married to each other.”

  Lucie was doubled over in laughter. “I always thought Teddy and Annafred look exactly alike, but you’re the first person to ever say it! She’s actually Annafred the Ninth. Her family goes all the way back to the landing at Plymouth Rock.”

  “Oh dear God, Pilgrims! You’re related to Pilgrims! No wonder you needed me to rescue you from this pathetic lot.”

  “You have no idea. Freddie can do no wrong in their eyes, but I’ve always felt like I’m on probation—I’m only part of the family if I don’t embarrass them.”

  “Ha! I think you’ve got it mixed up—you should be embarrassed of them!”

  Lucie grinned, delighting in Cecil’s dissection of her kin. It was as if she had found a kindred spirit at last, like they were the two outsiders at the back of the classroom making snide remarks about the popular kids.

  “And that friend of your grandmother’s—Ambassador Harry Stuyvesant Fish—what century is he from? Did anyone inform him that we won the War of Independence?”

  “Oh, Harry’s the worst. When I was at Brown, he could never stop making disparaging remarks about it. He called it ‘a repository for ne’er-do-wells and the dregs of deposed European royalty.’ ”

  “I don’t understand how this man is going to be an ambassador. He wouldn’t know what diplomacy was if it hit him on his fat head. At first he snubbed me when he realized I wasn’t descended from some posh Pikes he knew, but then when he was introduced to my mother and realized I was that Pike, you should have seen how quickly he did a one-eighty and began to grovel in her presence! He reminded me of a truffle hog, especially with that red face and that distended belly. That is one man who should never go near a pair of suspenders, and yet there he was in his Brooks Brothers braces. He looked like…What was the name of the guy who used to do those ghastly Quaker Oats commercials when we were little kids? Wilfred Ross?”

  “Wilford Brimley!” Lucie cackled. Cecil could really be so funny sometimes, especially when he was feeling affronted.

  “Harry was going on and on in that pretentious accent about how he was due to begin his posting in Oslo and still didn’t have tenants for his estate in East Hampton because he couldn’t find ‘the right sort of people.’ It seems the ones who are rich enough to afford the place don’t meet his standards—no private equity, oil, or tech money; no one from New Jersey, Southern California, or southern anywhere; and ‘no Latins because they like to dance.’ He said this in front of my mother, mind you. He said they would ruin the eighteenth-century mahogany floors of his Cissinghurst, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. Who is he kidding? I’ve seen the place, and it looks like a Victorian bordello on mushrooms. All those turrets and Tiffany glass windows? It’s
an abomination! He should put it on Craigslist and rent it out by the hour. More importantly, how dare he name it Cissinghurst? It’s an insult to Vita and Harold.”

  “It was his mother’s house—Cissie van Degan Fish. She was apparently the mother from hell. Hmm…perhaps Harry would take the Ortiz sisters. They just emailed me asking if I knew of a good house to rent in the Hamptons,” Lucie wondered.

  “Who are the Ortiz sisters? Are they anything like the Borromeo sisters, the Miller sisters, the Bograd sisters, or the Yeoh sisters? Should I know them?”

  “You might enjoy them. I got to know them at Isabel De Vecchi’s wedding.”

  “Ah yes, they were part of that strange crew you met in Capri, before destiny caused our paths to cross in Rome.”

  “They were these rather proper but very charming sisters, Paloma and Mercedes. And they weren’t the strange ones,” Lucie said, suddenly getting a faraway look in her face.

  “Don’t Filipinos like to dance? I doubt the honorable ambassador would approve of these party animals.”

  “They’re in their seventies, Cecil. And they come from one of the oldest and most revered families in the Philippines.”

  “Well then, don’t let me stop you from fulfilling Harry Stuyvesant Fish’s social wet dreams. In the meantime, can’t I please call in a helicopter and let’s head straight to Daniel?”

  “I would love nothing more than to leave this miserable party, but I don’t think there’s enough landing room among these azaleas, and we need to make at least one more round and rescue your mother! Besides, I really think my great-aunt Cushing has taken a fancy to you.”

  “I swear I saw Great-Aunt Cushing squirrel some of those mini quiches from William Poll into that big wicker tote bag of hers. I think she’s begun stocking up for winter.”

  “Oh dear. She’s always the first to attack the leftovers after dinner. Last year, I heard she brought a huge nylon fold-out bag to the Casita Maria Fiesta Gala to take home as many of the centerpieces as she could fit.”

  “Of course she did. Baby, pleeeease don’t make me go back down there. Everyone’s so wretched! Now that we’ve done this, do we need to invite any of them to the wedding? Would any of them even want to go to Abu Dhabi? The only one who’s fabulous is your grandmother. She’s absolutely magnificent, and the apartment exceeded all my expectations. Tell me, who do you think she’s going to leave the Magritte to?”

  “Don’t go getting any ideas, Cecil, I can assure you it won’t be me. Cacky’s my grandmother’s favorite because she looks like a young Charlotte Rampling and lets her win at bridge.”

  “Cacky was another one who was so far up my mother’s ass. She was name-dropping a mile a minute—Mandela, Macron, Marie-Josée.”

  Lucie shook her head in amused disgust. “I’m glad you see Cacky for who she is. All my life, I’ve felt like I’ve had to try to live up to her goddess-like perfection.”

  Cecil scrunched his face up like a bad smell had wafted past. “What would ever possess you to think that Cacky was worth competing against?”

  “I’m not even sure anymore…I guess, growing up, we were like the wretched orphans, especially after Dad died and Mom got sick. I felt responsible for keeping our family together, and that meant always striving to be perfect in Granny’s eyes.”

  “You are perfect exactly the way you are, baby,” Cecil said, stroking her cheek affectionately. “You were the most exquisite thing in that room tonight, and even if your grandmother has poor judgment, at least she made a marvelous toast. Anyone who can mention Han Suyin, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, and the Rothschilds in the same toast deserves a prize. Didn’t you think it was fabulous?”

  “It was,” Lucie said softly. She didn’t have the heart to tell him how she truly felt. Every word of her grandmother’s toast carried a veiled insult. It was an insult to her mother, it was an insult to Cecil and Renée, and it was a dagger in her heart. To Granny, no matter how graciously she behaved, no matter what she accomplished, she would always only ever be the poor little china doll. But, thankfully, none of that mattered anymore. Commiserating with Cecil on the roof garden above her grandmother’s apartment, she was more convinced than ever that she had made the right decision in choosing him as her spouse. Yes, he had his eccentricities, but she was well prepared to handle them. Despite everything that had just happened at the party, she knew that tonight, she was sending a subtle, elegant message to everyone downstairs who had ever pitied her, judged her, or underestimated her: I’m going to be Mrs. Cecil Pike, and I don’t give a damn what you think anymore.

  * Stéphane Boudin, one of the most influential interior designers of the twentieth century. As president of the Paris-based interior decorating firm Maison Jansen, he was the mastermind behind the restoration of the White House for Jacqueline Kennedy in 1961 and was also known for designing interiors for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, C. Z. Guest, the Agnellis, and the royal families of Belgium and Iran.

  IV

  Outlook Avenue

  EAST HAMPTON, NY

  Auden moved a few paces back, scrutinizing the canvas from afar. “It’s astonishing, Lucie. Simply astonishing. Why aren’t you showing your work to gallerists and curators?”

  “I don’t want to muddy the waters. People in the industry have begun to know me as a trusted adviser. I don’t want them to get confused by trying to show them my own work. It wouldn’t be appropriate,” Lucie replied, standing in the back corner of the barn that she used as her painting studio.

  “So you’re content to just let these masterpieces sit here and collect dust?”

  “You are much too generous, Auden. These aren’t masterpieces. I’d call them experiments. I’m happy to show these to friends and give them away, so please choose the one you want.”

  “They’re all so good, I’m stumped. I’d be happy to have any of them. May I come back after lunch to contemplate these paintings a bit more?”

  “Of course, I’ll leave them out. And yes, let’s get to lunch before my mother sends a search party out.”

  They walked out of the barn and took the garden path that led up to the rambling Cape Cod–style house with a wraparound porch that looked out onto Sedge Island and Gardiners Bay beyond. Auden stopped for a moment on the porch and stared out at the placid waters reflecting the crisp blue sky. “You know, everyone loves the ocean view, but I’ve always thought the bay view more special. This, to me, is the best view in all of East Hampton.”

  “I agree,” Lucie said with a little sigh. “I wish I could spend the whole summer here like I used to. Now I’m just another one of those grunts who tries to squeeze in forty-eight hours of detoxing from the city before having to head back again to repeat the vicious cycle.”

  “Well, at least you have this piece of heaven to detox in. I find it’s one of the few houses left that retains its original charm and hasn’t been decorated to within an inch of its life.”

  “My great-grandfather bought it as his little escape from the big house in Southampton, and my parents didn’t change a thing. Cecil isn’t crazy about it, though. He keeps trying to talk me into buying a house on Georgica Pond or, at the very least, redecorating this place.”

  “He wants to unleash Kelly Wearstler on the place, I suppose.”

  “Not quite. There’s this Belgian architect he’s currently obsessed with who does this wabi-sabi thing and only decorates in shades of mud. Like every wall should look like a rainy day in Antwerp. Cecil wants to fill the house up with antiques that look at least a thousand years old, and we’ll have to walk around wearing wooden clogs and burlap sacks as if we have seasonal affective disorder. He thinks that’s a cool look for a country house.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “I think it’s an interesting visual exercise, but I would probably want to murder him after a week. Anyway, it’s all moot, because the house isn’t ou
rs. It’s Freddie’s, don’t you know? This house has been passed down through the Churchill men for four generations.”

  “How very…typical.” Auden sighed.

  “Well, the good thing is Freddie loves it exactly the way it is, and he won’t change a thing either.”

  “Until his wife gets a hold of it.”

  “You know, I can’t imagine Freddie ever getting married, but I suppose it will happen one day. Hopefully she’ll appreciate the same things about it as he does: the creaky old floors, the sun-bleached wicker, Dad’s seashell collection.”

  They arrived at the terrace overlooking the pool, where they found Marian and Freddie seated at an old French enamel-top fold-out table.

  “There you are! I thought you had completely forgotten about lunch. I know how you two can go on and on about art,” Marian said.

  “Apologies. I was blown away by Lucie’s latest series and completely lost track of time,” Auden said.

  Freddie was already half finished with his lobster roll. “Sorry, I couldn’t wait. I was starrrrrrving. I just came from a full morning of tennis.”

  “Is this all from Circle Pond Farm?” Auden said, admiring the spread in front of him. There were platters of fresh lobster rolls, macaroni salad, curry chicken, chopped kale salad, chocolate fudge brownies, and ice-cold bottles of freshly squeezed raspberry lemonade.

  “Circle Pond Farm? Oh, you mean High Tits,” Freddie said.

  “High Tits?” Auden asked, curious.

  “Yes, it’s our nickname for the place,” Lucie said.

  “My bad. I started calling it that years ago when Reggie first brought me out to East Hampton and I noticed that all the pretty girls working there wore tight T-shirts that really showed off their double Ds.” Marian laughed.

  “It’s still the same girls, so it’s long overdue to be renamed ‘Low Tits,’ ” Freddie said.

  Everyone at the table laughed.