Overnight Socialite

by Bridie Clark

Fernanda lowered her voice. She shared her office at Christie’s with two assistants and couldn’t talk loudly, which always annoyed Cornelia. “But Channing told me that her maid is friendly with some Sant Ambroeus busboy who has been delivering a lot of food to Wyatt’s. Apparently he’s been holed up a lot with Trip.”

  “Just the two of them?” Cornelia asked, bracing for the name of her temporary replacement. Not that it mattered, but she wanted all the facts.

  “That’s what I hear. Honestly, I don’t know how Eloise deals. It’s bad enough that Trip won’t commit—”

  “Poor thing,” Cornelia said. But she had no real sympathy. Eloise and Fernanda were two peas in the same hand-wringing pod—they let men call the shots and then moped when they didn’t like the shots called. Cornelia whipped around the corner and pulled into the Rockmans’ driveway, jamming the stick shift into park. She, on the other hand, was a woman of action.

  “At least she and Trip finally moved in together,” Fernanda said. “She’s spending all her time at his place now. Finally brought her whole winter wardrobe.”

  “Listen, sweetie, I should jump. I just pulled in—”

  “Hang on!” Fernanda said frantically. “I’ve been dying to share something fun. You remember Parker?”

  “Of course I remember Parker.” Cornelia rolled her eyes as she slammed the car door and strode toward the house. Fernanda had only been sweating the guy for months. “Almost fifty, big schnoz, divorced. What about him?”

  “Actually, he’s forty-five,” Fernanda corrected. There was an unmistakable note of pride in her voice. “We’re going out tonight for dinner. Our fifth date already! Last night he took me to the opera—”

  “The opera? God, he is old.”

  “No, it was fabulous. Candide. And Park has the best seats—”

  “Did he bring his ferret?” Cornelia squealed. “Tamsin told me about that thing. I’m sorry, but that’s gotta be the creepiest pet ever.”

  “You’re telling me, but—”

  “Did he keep the ferret under his seat? In a little cage?”

  “Cornelia, please. He’s a lovely man. He cooked dinner for Mom and me, how cute is that? She adores him, of course. I know it’s early, but it’s really working.”

  “That’s great. No, seriously, that’s great. You sound excited, which is what matters.” Cornelia held the phone away from her mouth. “Hey, Pablo! I’ll be with you in one minute—Fern, sorry, that’s my new Pilates instructor. He’s waiting for me—”

  “Go, go! Just had to share. See you this weekend. I’ll call you when Mom and I land.”

  But Cornelia had already hung up. As she entered her parents’ house, the frigid air-conditioned air sent goose bumps straight up both arms. She grabbed the mail that had been set aside for her on a sterling silver tray, kicked off her shoes, and headed for the media room.

  She pulled the latest installment of Townhouse from the stack of mail and felt a splash of disappointment that she was no longer gracing the cover. The weekly’s current cover boy was a grinning Theo Galt, resting one buttock on the edge of his Dordoni desk, under the headline GALT GETS GOTHAM. Behind him in the photo, Cornelia could discern a large framed photo of Theo sandwiched between Jay-Z and Beyoncé. She would have to call to congratulate him. And, of course, remind him that she was the next big thing to hit the music scene.

  Flopping down in an armchair, she hungrily leafed through the glossy pages. There she was at the Philharmonic in that sexy Derek Lam dress that accentuated her skinny arm-to-C-cup ratio. And there was Wyatt next to her, at the Townhouse launch party—his tall-dark-and-handsome the perfect complement to her petite-blonde-and-beautiful. He had a bitter-lemon expression on his face and he wasn’t looking at the camera, but one of his hands rested on her back. Staring at the candid photograph made her feel calmer. It reminded her of how perfect her life seemed to everyone who read the magazine—to the entire outside world.

  And it made her more determined than ever to win Wyatt back. Then Fernanda could run off into the sunset with her divorced and decrepit troll-man, for all Cornelia cared. She wouldn’t be alone.

  14

  Dorothea Hayes invites you to

  dinner at home

  800 Park Avenue, PH A

  Wednesday, January 13th

  Cocktails starting at 7 PM

  Dottie Hayes, wearing a crimson dress and diamond studs the size of grapes, had been enjoying the serenity of the six o’clock hour with a stiff vodka gimlet when she heard her son come crashing through her front door.

  “Mother! Moooooother!”

  She cringed but remained silent. Did he expect her to holler back, as if they were playing a game of Marco Polo? Dottie shut her eyes and took a medicinal sip of her drink.

  “I believe she’s in the library, sir,” Dottie heard Graciela confess.

  “There you are!” Wyatt yelled, rushing in and immediately sucking all the tranquillity out. “This place always had too many goddamn rooms.” His cheeks were flushed from the wintry evening, and as often, Dottie was taken aback by how much he looked like her late husband. They had the same thick shock of dark hair, the same tall, athletic build, and the same penetrating blue-gray eyes. But appearance was where the similarity ended. For as much as she loved her son, Dottie hadn’t been lying to Cornelia about her assessment of Wyatt’s shortcomings. Her son had been lost for years now, squandering his considerable talents by chasing the next good time, running through girlfriends. If she thought about it too much, it gave Dottie a deep ache. And so she forced herself not to think about it. She made herself accept that her son—her bright, handsome, brimming-with-potential only son—was more or less a flash in the pan. Maybe she’d failed Wyatt as a mother. In any case, it was too late. He was now close to forty and set in his ways.

  “You’ve found me,” Dottie sighed. “You’re early. Scotch?”

  “I’ll help myself in a minute. I want to talk to you.”

  “That’s nice,” Dottie said. “Your absence at Christmas might have suggested otherwise.” She’d been hurt that he hadn’t made it down to Florida, even when she offered to fly him down private. Wyatt was all the family she had, if you didn’t count her needle-nosed sister Lydia, a joyless woman who’d devoted her life to raising English springer spaniels and who refused to travel. “Well, it’s good that you’re here. Maybe I can convince you to behave yourself this evening. I’m not in the mood to be embarrassed.”

  “What makes you think I’ll embarrass you?”

  “Thirty-seven years of experience. You know your manners are atrocious, and it’s a reflection on the woman who raised you.”

  “It can’t be Margaret’s fault entirely.”

  Dottie just rolled her eyes.

  He sat down on the couch and rested his hand-sewn John Lobb shoes on the coffee table. “So I’ve got news. Big news. Harvard University Press is going to publish my first book. Alfred Kipling’s going to edit it himself. I just signed the contracts.”

  Dottie gasped. “Wyatt, dear, that’s wonderful!” Could it be true? Dottie hoped he was serious this time, that he’d found some purpose. It made her Christmas dinner for one seem like a worthwhile sacrifice. “Well, tell me, what’s the topic?”

  “It’s an anthropological experiment, one that studies the influence of nature and nurture on social status. I’m chronicling the development of a new alpha female. It’s been occupying my every waking thought. And if my experiment works, it should make for a groundbreaking book.”

  “Are you studying chimps again? Apes?”

  “Humans. You know I’ve long been intrigued by how closely our behavior mirrors that of our closest primate relatives. Anyway, you’ll get to meet her in a few minutes,” Wyatt answered. “She’s coming with Trip and Eloise.”

  “Her?” Now Dottie’s interest turned to concern. “And she’s coming to my dinner party? I’ll have to tell Graciela right away.”

  “I’ll tell her. I think you’ll like Lucy. She’s wasn�
�t born with a silver spoon in her mouth, but she’s learned pretty fast which silver fork to use. She has a certain . . . spirit.”

  Spirit, coming from her son, could mean a wide range of dinner party-disruptive things. “This is so typical of you, Wyatt. Please tell me she wasn’t raised by wolves.”

  “No, no. By a single mother, blue collar, in Minnesota. You have nothing to worry about. I’ve been grooming the girl for weeks, and it seems to be sticking. Of course, we can’t know for sure whether she’s adapted to her new role until she’s thrown into a social gathering.”

  Dottie felt one of her headaches coming on. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I do know that you’ve picked the worst night possible. An anthropological experiment at my dinner party—honestly, Wyatt! For starters, where will I put her?”

  “Next to me,” Wyatt suggested. “That way I can keep an eye on her. Make sure she doesn’t drink from the finger bowl or try to clear her own plate.”

  Dottie ran through the new arrangement quickly in her head. She had a gift for seating tables that bordered on mathematical genius. “Fine, then. What’s her name?” she asked.

  “Lucy Ellis. It won’t be bad, I promise. I’ve taught her the social graces—”

  “How can a man without social graces possibly teach them? You, who recently told my friend Millicent she resembled her French pug?”

  Wyatt just laughed. “I’ll admit that wasn’t my finest moment, but there’ve been studies showing that after a period of sustained proximity, humans and their pets—”

  A maid in a blue uniform appeared in the doorway. “Guests, Mrs. Hayes.”

  “Thank you, Graciela. Will you ask Pammy to write out a place card for Lucy Ellis? She’s to sit on Wyatt’s right. Move Mimi Rutherford-Shaw between Bancroft Stevens and Roger Rosenthal. Thank God we happened to have a spare man at the table.”

  Wyatt rose with his mother. “Lucy doesn’t know about the book, yet. And it’s essential that nobody know the truth about her. My career hangs in the balance.”

  “Of course I won’t say anything about your strange experiment. The poor girl. You think I need to be told not to embarrass one of my guests?”

  “I appreciate your support, Mother.”

  “I’m not sure you have it, darling.” Dottie let out a loud sigh. She had never been able to say no to her son, which explained a great deal.

  “Martha, hello!” Wyatt said, leaning in to her cloud of Amarige to give the dour dowager a kiss. Martha Fairchild looked momentarily surprised to see him—he rarely made appearances at his mother’s dinners—but quickly reset her expression to its customary jaded disinterest. Behind her stood Max and Fernanda, who struck Wyatt as being more overgrown children than adults. Max was exhibit A for the argument that generations of blue-blood inbreeding deoxygenated the bloodstream. And seeing the dark and shifty-eyed Fernanda, Wyatt was instantly on his guard. Fernanda, he knew, was enthralled by Cornelia, who had the cash and pizzazz that Fernanda furiously longed for. If he wasn’t careful, she would report back to Cornelia every detail of the evening, including news of the tall, striking, and unfamiliar woman sitting at Wyatt’s side. Wyatt wanted no publicity from tonight. It was best to keep Lucy’s debut low-key, the way you took a new sailboat around the harbor before you raced her.

  “So you’re back from . . . where were you, again?” Fernanda asked.

  “I was here.” He knew she was fishing for information, so gave little.

  “Well, we missed you at the Red Cross Ball. It was epic this year.”

  “I’m sure,” Wyatt said. He glanced over Fernanda’s bony shoulder to see if Trip, Eloise, and Lucy had arrived yet. Now that the high priests and priestesses of the social set had filled his mother’s drawing room, Wyatt couldn’t help but feel a little nervous about whether his protégée would sink or swim in these perilous waters. She was still so damned unpredictable.

  With most of New York society away for the holidays, he’d risked taking her out to restaurants, where they’d dined unseen. Two nights ago they’d gone to Amaranth with Trip and Eloise. Wyatt had looked across the table at the refined, lovely young woman opposite him, holding her own in a conversation about an exhibition of Rembrandt drawings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which they had toured earlier in the day. Hours of walking with a Social Register on top of her head had cured Lucy of her heavy stride; she now moved as if she weren’t ashamed of her height, and she didn’t bend into an osteoporotic crouch to converse with Trip, who came up to her chin. The endless, grating phonetics lessons had rid her speech of thoughtless um’s and that wide a that had made Wyatt resolve never to set foot on the Minnesota tundra.

  Thanks to her daily double workouts, she’d slimmed down almost immediately, revealing a firm but womanly body. She would never be the willowy waif, but now she was slender and athletic, looking as though she’d spent Saturdays playing field hockey at Wellesley. She had a waist now, and when Wyatt recently had popped his head in on one of her workout sessions, he had no choice but to admire the long, lean line of her thighs. Thanks to her healthy eating, her exercise regimen, and weekly facials, her skin had a new glow. She knew what to talk about at a dinner party, which was essentially nothing, and she knew how to talk about it, which was with a demure disinterest. Equally important, she knew where she was supposed to come from: they’d rehearsed the details of her background so thoroughly that she’d started to take a certain pride in her family’s imaginary timber fortune.

  Still, the girl was a wild card. Just when he’d start to relax—poof !—ol’ Lucy Jo would be back, butchering one of the French phrases he’d taught her to pepper into conversation, blowing her nose at the table, bringing up how much things cost. She still smiled too much and too indiscriminately for his liking, wore yoga pants and sneakers when she had no intention of working out, and used words like “classy” and “fancy.” That same night at Amaranth, when he’d caught her checking her teeth in the reflection of a butter knife, Wyatt had seen the prospect of book publication go egg-shaped before his eyes. Without a triumphant ending, Wyatt knew the book would fall flat. Not to mention, he’d lose his bet with Trip—his watch and his pride. Tonight, he knew, could be the first victory in his Lucy experiment, or it could be a decisive failure.

  “Wyatt?” Fernanda asked, looking a little peeved. “I asked if you were going to Tamsin and Henry’s wedding?”

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’m a little distracted.”

  Fernanda laid a sympathetic hand on his arm. “No, I completely understand. You’re nervous about seeing Cornelia for the first time since—”

  The loud hum of chitchat all around them seemed to fall silent. “What are you talking about?” Wyatt sputtered, causing Fernanda to fall back on her heels. “Cornelia’s not coming tonight!”

  “What, didn’t your mother tell you?”

  “Will you excuse me for a moment?” Wyatt fixed his mother with a death glare. She well knew the two of them had split; she’d even approved of the breakup. What could she possibly have been thinking? Cornelia’s presence tonight was more than a nuisance; it was a potential disaster. Lucy wasn’t ready for sniper fire yet. Wyatt stepped back from Fernanda so fast he ground his heel into Max’s loafer, and then charged across the drawing room, pulling his mother out of a conversation with the Dutch ceramics collector Lars van Sever and his wife.

  “How could you invite Cornelia into your home without telling me?” he hissed. “I thought we were on the same page about her.”

  “We were. We are. The girl is a social juggernaut. Martha Fairchild called to see if she could come, and wouldn’t give up even when I told her the table was already too full. Martha even offered to stay home herself so Cornelia could be here! Last time I invite the Fairchilds—live and learn. But I couldn’t think of a graceful way to say no.”

  “Next time, how about no?”

  Dottie laid her hand on Wyatt’s arm and looked at her son with maternal concern. “I’ve never seen you t
his nervous. Do you care for this Lucy girl?”

  Wyatt looked up to see Trip and Eloise in the doorway, with Lucy behind them, her dark hair gleaming against the oak woodwork. “She just walked in!” he exclaimed, feeling a fresh surge of panic. “Too late. I’ll just have to keep them separated as much as I can.” He took an urgent sip of his scotch. “And to answer your question, I care for my book. A premature encounter with Cornelia could jeopardize everything Lucy and I are working toward.”

  Dottie Hayes followed her son’s gaze. Two steps behind Trip and Eloise, a statuesque young woman scanned the room with large, dark eyes. She wore a deep aubergine dress, belted at the waist to create a feminine silhouette. Her dark brown hair was smooth as a sheet of silk, and a saltwater pearl dropped off each earlobe. Complemented by a fabulous pair of Roger Vivier shoes, her legs looked about a mile long.

  She was one of the most beautiful young women Dottie Hayes had ever seen.