by Bridie Clark
“I’m absolutely desperate for a good manicurist. May I get your card? I’d love to make an appointment.”
“Oh, I—Lucy’s very possessive. She doesn’t like for me to take on other clients.”
Lucy has her own private manicurist? And Wyatt called me high maintenance. “I certainly won’t tell her. Name your price.”
Open Sesame. Rita unfurled a smile. “Here’s my number, doll,” she said, pulling a Bic out of her oversize tote bag, taking Cornelia’s hand, and scribbling the digits across her palm.
25
“I am ready,” said Emma, “whenever I am wanted.” “Whom are you going to dance with?” asked Mr. Knightley. She hesitated a moment, and then replied, “With you, if you will ask me.”
—Jane Austen, Emma
Let’s not discuss Eloise and Trip anymore,” Wyatt said. “We only argue. She’s a big girl, Lucy. If she wants to wait around for him, that’s her call.” Wyatt clinched his navy blue blazer together with one hand and raised his shoulders toward his ears against the chilly February air. “Where’s Mark with our car? Dinner starts in fifteen minutes and it’s all the way in SoHo.”
“I just don’t get it,” Lucy said, unable to keep the irritation out of her voice. Ever since Wyatt had unknowingly jilted her, her annoyance with him had stayed on a low simmer. She was exhausted from the Townhouse shoot that morning—less because of the shoot than her troubled conscience over how she had treated her mother—and yearned to chase down Rita and make things right. But Wyatt had refused to let her cancel their plans. “Trip says he’s in love with Eloise. So how can he live with making her so unhappy?” she asked. The wind slapped at her bare legs, goose-bumping her skin.
“‘Men marry because they’re tired,’” Wyatt quoted. “Maybe Trip’s not tired yet. I put Dorian Gray on your reading list, right?”
“I read it in high school. Come on, I know you’re not that cynical. You were raised by lovebirds. I’m not even that cynical, and my mother was always fuzzy about the identity of my dad. The best she could offer was a short list of candidates, two of whose last names she’d never known.”
“I guess life in Dayville was more fun than you make it out to be,” he said teasingly. “Anyway, you can’t seriously think it’s wise for Trip to propose if his heart isn’t in it.”
Lucy exhaled in frustration, her breath creating a brief cloud. “Let’s just take the subway. The President’s in town—traffic will be horrible.”
“The subway?” Wyatt looked pained.
“The subway. Or can’t you stand such proximity to the great unwashed?” She began walking toward Lexington. “Maybe you’d rather wait for Mark, who’s probably stuck in traffic, and then inch your way down to Prince Street. I’m sure Mimi won’t mind if you’re an hour late to Jack’s surprise dinner.”
“You’re in some mood tonight.” Wyatt followed her, shaking his head. “Is your mom all set up at your old place?”
“Yeah. She went kicking and screaming, but she went.” She hadn’t told Wyatt about Rita’s nearly disastrous appearance at the shoot. No doubt he’d panic about the risk she posed to their experiment. Lucy didn’t want to think about that.
“Would she be more comfortable somewhere else? I could put her up at the St. Regis or something.”
Lucy, softening, slowed down so that they were walking in sync again. “That’s very generous of you, Wyatt, but my old apartment is perfectly fine. Rita’s already made it look like home. Besides, I don’t want to add the St. Reg to my tab.”
“Don’t worry about the cost. You said she was a big help with the dresses for Townhouse, right?”
Wyatt had Rita’s back? She looked at him. Lately, he’d been saying the opposite of what she expected more and more. “Come on,” she said, taking his arm. “There’s a Number Six train with your name on it.”
“Thanks for seeing me on such short notice,” said Cornelia, stretching her fingers flat on the makeshift manicure table like a cat fanning its paws. “I raced here straight from the shoot.” Rita’s “salon,” a grubby Murray Hill studio draped in cheetah-print fabric, heightened her suspicions that Rita was more than a mere manicurist to Lucy Ellis. Then again, Cornelia had given that creepy hair guy on the Lower East Side steady business until she found mouse skeletons under his bathroom sink. “My nails are a mess. I haven’t had a decent paint job in days.”
Rita inspected Cornelia’s fingers, holding them so close to her face that Cornelia could feel her breath. Ew. This had better be worth it.
“Have you considered acrylics?” Rita asked.
“Acrylic nails? Um, no. Can’t say that I have.”
“You should.” Rita whipped out a black plastic box from underneath her table. In glittery letters across the top were the words RITA’S ARTISTIC ACRYLICS. “I’ve got a whole line of ’em. You might like the set with the Hollywood sign?” She held up the long green nails. “No? How about the many loves of Jack Nicholson? I just silk-screened that skinny Lara Flynn Boyle girl on the pinky.”
“How about a regular manicure? Do you have Sheer Bliss?”
“Sheer Boredom, you mean?” Rita pantomimed a yawn. “C’mon. At least let me give you the Anjelica Huston thumbnail.”
“Gimme all ten. I wouldn’t dream of breaking up a collection.” If she wanted to get the dish on Lucy, Cornelia knew she’d have to commit. Besides, Lucy’s nails always looked fine. If she trusted this lady—
“Good choice!” Rita clapped her hands like a cheerleader. “Excellent choice.”
Cornelia settled back in her chair. Time to get down to business. “So how’d you and Lucy meet in the first place?”
Rita looked perplexed. “Lucy and me? Why, I guess I’ve just known her forever.”
Cornelia frowned. Answering the question seemed to make Rita a bit emotional. Interesting. Worth probing. “So you must know Wyatt really well, too.”
“Oh, of course. Sweetheart of a fella, that Wyatt.”
Now I know she’s lying. “Yeah? Think there’s something between them? I adore Lucy, but you know how tight-lipped she can be.”
Rita peered at Cornelia’s thumb. “I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me that sort of thing, either.” Was it Cornelia’s imagination, or did Rita seem a little sniffly over her lack of insider info? “Lucy Jo is very private.”
“Lucy Jo?” That was a new one.
“I mean Lucy.” Rita looked flustered. “I have another client named Lucy Jo. I swap their names up all the time. Sweet girl, Lucy Jo.”
Cornelia didn’t know exactly what she was after from this woman, but she knew she wasn’t getting it. “How long have you been in New York, Rita?”
“Not long, but I love it. Finally a city that can keep up with me!” She grabbed Cornelia’s hand and pulled it closer again, filing the top of her nail to prep it for the acrylic. “How about you?”
“Oh, born and bred. But back to—”
“I guess your parents gave you everything your heart desired, didn’t they?” Rita paused, almost wistful, before applying the first coat of toxic-waste glue to Cornelia’s nail. Then she pressed it with the nail, which featured a garish portrait of Michelle Phillips. “You all real close?”
“Me and my parents? I see them twice a year. The whole family congregates for an annual meeting each spring. And every November, my mother throws herself a lavish birthday party and expects me to show up, even though she practically ignores me.”
Rita nodded, lost in her own thoughts. “Maybe she doesn’t know how to make things right. Maybe she wishes she could start over.”
Cornelia hated when barely literate beauticians went Dr. Phil on her. “Yeah, well, too late. She was a miserable mother. Three years in a row, she made the orthodontist rip out my braces in time for her birthday party, and then screw them back on the following week. God forbid I wasn’t perfect.”
Rita looked appalled. “I never did anything that bad! And so expensive.”
“So you have kids?”
/>
“Oh—just the one. A daughter.”
Cornelia stared at the hideous acrylics Rita was gluing onto her fingernails, praying they’d be less painful to remove than her braces. She had to move the conversation back to Lucy. “Lucy’s gotten very chummy with Jack, you know. Nicholson.” Who cared if it was true or not? “They chat all the time. She was his date for his last premiere.”
Rita looked up, stared at her, and shoved her chair back from the table. “Are you serious? Jack Nicholson? Her date? But she knows he’s my all-time favorite leading man! She knows that! How could she keep something like that from me, her own moth—” she stopped herself mid-screech—“her own manicurist!?” And just as quickly as she’d lost her composure, Rita’s face seemed to melt. She slumped back in her chair. Rita was crying. Sobbing, really.
“Rita,” said Cornelia, patting the older woman’s curly head. Delight flooded every cell of her size-two body. She’d hoped to get a little dirt on her nemesis, but now she sensed there was a landfill overflowing with it. “I can see you’re in pain. You need someone to talk to. Why don’t we go out for a drink?”
At first, Wyatt thought that the twenty-something girls across the fluorescent-lit subway car were staring at him. Then he realized that Lucy was the object of their infatuation. Of course she was. She was enviably chic, in a well-cut Libertine blazer and skinny jeans. They probably recognized her from the pages of last month’s Vogue.
“Forgot to tell you,” she said offhandedly. She hadn’t noticed the girls. “Margaux Irving’s office called. They’d like me to auction off the gown I’m going to wear to the Forum Ball. You know, the gown I’ve been working on with Doreen and Eloise. All proceeds go to the museum. Of course, I told them I’d be honored.”
Wyatt felt his spirits lift. The one salve for his conscience was witnessing her growing success as a designer. “That’s terrific. Just think, you’ll be up there, onstage, in front of the fashion world, in the gown you made—”
“Alongside gowns by Ralph Rucci, Vera Wang, Ralph Lauren—” Lucy gulped, looking into his eyes with sudden panic. “Wyatt, it’ll be like a battle of the peacocks up there! What the hell was I thinking?”
26
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Status: URGENT
Subject: will be 20 minutes late xoooxxxoo
Cornelia had spent an hour pulling together the sexy secret agent look. Stepping out of her Town Car into the dank morning rush-hour air of Midtown Manhattan, she turned up the collar on her trench coat and tucked the incriminating manila envelope into her Louis Vuitton tote. Inside it was more ammo on Lucy Ellis than she’d ever dreamed of having in her arsenal.
Just two days earlier, after convincing a woebegone Rita to join her for drinks at a dive bar around the corner from her “salon,” she’d gotten Lucy’s mother—Lucy’s mother! It still seemed too delicious to be true—to spill everything. Dayville, Nola Sinclair, Wyatt’s insane attempt to create the perfect socialite—it finally all made sense, Lucy’s sudden emergence on the scene and Wyatt’s unwillingness to take Cornelia back. I was too much woman for him, she realized now. Wyatt apparently preferred a girl who’d take his orders, say his lines, play her part, and in Lucy he’d found a flesh-and-blood blowup doll. Cornelia had assured Rita endlessly that Lucy’s secrets would be kept in the vault. But the morning after the drunken girl talk, a Sunday, Cornelia’s PA had done some online digging to find an incriminating photo of an unnamed cater-waiter crashing through Nola’s runway—now the contents of her manila envelope. Cornelia had always had a sneaking feeling that Lucy looked familiar, and now she knew why. You had to look at the photo under a magnifying glass to identify the girl, but Cornelia had a feeling the readers of Townhouse would do just that.
She slid into the ripped pleather booth of Midway Diner, wrinkling her $50,000 nose at the thick smell of ketchup and fried eggs.
“I’m on a deadline,” said Mallory Keeler as soon as Cornelia sat down.
“Didn’t you get my text, sweetie?” Cornelia asked. “Terrible traffic from uptown.”
“I came from uptown, sweetie.”
“Did you? Well, I’m sorry,” Cornelia said. She smiled, hoping to move the conversation back onto friendlier terrain. She still hated Mallory for humiliating her by choosing the Interloper over her at Saturday’s Townhouse shoot. It had taken a great deal of pride-swallowing just to pick up the phone and dial Mallory’s office. But this was worth it. “You look pretty, Mal. Loving that choker.” The choker actually looked like something you’d buy on Canal Street for five bucks, Cornelia thought, but then, what did this dowdy editor know about style? It was still bizarre to her that Mallory was tight with Theo Galt.
“You excited about the perfume launch, Cornelia? I hear your face will be spread across a billboard in Times Square, impossible to miss.”
“I know. Can you believe it? And we’re giving away a bottle in all the Fashion Forum’s swag bags.”
“I heard, I heard. And you’re thinking about doing a reality show?”
Cornelia nodded her head. “It’s so crazy. I don’t know how all this happened, you know? One minute Patrick’s snapping my photo at some parties, the next thing I know I’m, like, a brand.”
“Ask Daphne, your publicist,” Mallory deadpanned. “She probably has some idea how it happened.”
The ’tude! It was such a drag when wallflower types couldn’t get over their jealousy issues, but that was the story of Cornelia’s life.
A waitress with a distressing number of facial piercings materialized next to their table, pad in hand. “More coffee?” she asked, and Mallory nodded. “And what’ll you have?”
“Do you have espresso?”
“This look like a Starbucks?” asked the waitress, lisping around the enormous stake she’d paid to have driven through her tongue.
“I’ll have half a grapefruit.” It peeved Cornelia that the waitress gave no sign that she recognized her, but that would change soon. For a split second, as she pulled her own silver out of her Vuitton tote and handed the bewildered waitress her porcelain bowl (she’d never eaten in such a dive before, and wouldn’t dream of trusting the dishwashers’ standards of cleanliness), Cornelia wondered why being famous mattered to her as much as it did. But the thought evaporated quickly, as it had before, leaving her to the task at hand. She gave Mallory a cunning little smile and rested her elbows on the flecked linoleum table.
“So what’s up?” Mallory crossed both arms. “Why did you invite me here? This doesn’t seem like your type of breakfast boîte.”
“I didn’t want to be seen,” Cornelia whispered. “I really, really shouldn’t be getting involved.” She whipped off her oversize sunglasses. “But I want to bury the hatchet. You didn’t know what you were doing at the shoot this weekend. Lucy Ellis conned you along with everyone else. So . . . I forgive you.”
“Very big of you,” Mallory muttered.
Cornelia chose to ignore the sarcasm. “When I heard that you were writing an exposé about the fraud Lucy has perpetrated, I thought I owed you a sit-down.”
“The fraud? What fraud?”
“Sorry, were you hoping to keep your exposé top secret? I’m afraid the word is out.”
Mallory sighed. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
“But it’s the talk of the town!” Cornelia lowered her voice, as if the diner’s seedy patrons were undercover for Town & Country. “Mallory Keeler’s riveting tell-all—it’s all anybody could talk about last night.”
“Come on, Cornelia, enough. I’m not planning any tell-all, and I’m not enjoying your little game. Some of us have jobs that require actual working, you know.”
The audacity. Cornelia could barely speak. But then she envisioned the cover of Townhouse bearing Lucy’s humiliating runway photo, and found her voice. “If you’re not already planning to write the article, you should.”
Mallory just sh
ook her head. “You’ve made it clear that you don’t like Lucy.” Cornelia bristled, but said nothing. “But that doesn’t mean you can make up vengeful stories—”
“Make up stories?” Cornelia was unable to keep her fury under lock and key any longer. “You know what, Mallory? Your dinky magazine doesn’t deserve an article this big. Keep writing your little fluff pieces. I’ll bring this to the Times.” She stood up quickly and grabbed her bag. Why had she expected this pasty little nobody to grasp the injustice Lucy had committed? “I thought you were a serious journalist. Clearly I was wrong.”
Mallory studied her face. Then she gestured for Cornelia to sit down again. “Okay, I’m listening. What’ve you got?”
