She Regrets Nothing

by Andrea Dunlop

  As soon as they walked into the cool stone foyer of the building, past the faded tapestries, and through to the quiet gardens, all the city seemed to have faded away.

  “Ugh,” Reece said as they stepped out into the sunshine, “I feel like shit. I should have gone home when you did last night, Grandma; you look fresh as a daisy.”

  “Hey! I stayed out until midnight. I partied.”

  Reece laughed. “Did you have fun? It was a good night.”

  “I did have fun.” Reece thought she caught a secret smile float across her friend’s lips, but it was gone before she could ask about it.

  “Cameron is in good form. Seems pleased to be back from London,” Reece said.

  “He does, it seems like he’s happy to be home. So, listen, did you get a chance to chat with Laila at all last night?”

  Reece was startled by the abrupt subject change, though she sensed that for some reason her friend was very concerned about whether the two got along.

  “Only a little. To be honest, she seemed much more interested in my brother.”

  Liberty smiled. “Oh, she’s harmless.”

  “I don’t know about that. She was practically in his lap.” Reece might not have mentioned it if Liberty had not broached the subject of her cousin first, but she’d felt wary of the girl. There was something about her that didn’t sit well with Reece, though maybe it had only been her instinctive response to a woman going after her brother. Though she knew she had no reason to be protective of him, it didn’t stop her from feeling it.

  “Well, I’m sure Cameron can handle a pretty girl flirting with him.”

  “He’d never go for her,” Reece added. She was reassuring herself as much as anything.

  “Why do you say that? She’s beautiful, smart. Too young for him, but when has that ever mattered?”

  “Come on, Liberty, you know why.”

  Liberty looked at her friend expectantly. Rocket strained at his leash in the direction of a particularly massive crow that was hopping along, looking unconcerned about the dog’s interest, the two being approximately the same size.

  “He’s just picky,” Reece said. “He’s got taste, it’s one thing I can say for my brother.”

  “Cut her a break. Why do you dislike her?”

  “I don’t! And anyway, Liberty, it’s not on you. I guess I just find her a little . . . tacky.”

  “She’s brand new to the city. She’ll calm down. Not everyone grew up around all of this.”

  “Oh, not the speech,” Reece said with a smile.

  By this she meant Liberty’s somewhat frequent screeds about their privilege relative to nearly everyone else on the planet. Truthfully, Reece loved her friend’s sharp eye toward the real world; it kept her honest, and she treasured Liberty’s good heart, her sense of justice. Reece and Liberty had helped each other become who they were in the world. Reece gave Liberty courage; Liberty brought Reece down to earth. They shared a desire to create something tangible of their own, rather than to simply add some extra layers to the wealth they’d been born with—or worse, run in circles around it while contributing nothing at all. The Michaelses’ family fortune went back to the robber baron era, and there’d been too many in the family who’d been content to simply leech it away.

  “No speech.” Liberty adjusted her black peacoat and rearranged her red scarf to cover her collarbone, which had gooseflesh from the wind. “I suppose I just want you to like Laila. She’s important to me.”

  “Then I adore her,” Reece said, taking her friend’s arm in her own, “as long as she stays away from my brother.”

  Later, after they parted ways and Liberty went home to fetch a pile of manuscripts and hole up in the nearby café where she so often spent a portion of her Saturdays, she thought about her darling friend.

  Liberty often felt she’d only survived Spence because of Reece. The two had known each other since they were kids but only became friends in the middle school at Spence when Liberty had a run-in with one of the nastiest girls in their class. Olivia Fowler was one of those dreadful blue bloods whose relatives had been born into wealth so far back that there existed not even the memory of struggle in any living family member. And for reasons unknown to the latter, Olivia despised Liberty. At thirteen Liberty had all the makings of her coming beauty—even in her gawky adolescence, the resemblance to Petra was undeniable—but she was of no interest to the boys at Collegiate, their brother school, and she was far too studious and unsporty to be of interest to the girls in her class. Olivia, on the other hand, was not only the first in their class to develop spectacular breasts, but said rack did not at all hold back her career as a tennis champion. Between her money and background, and the ease with which cruelty came to her, she was a natural queen bee. What Liberty had done to attract her ire was simply not to care about her, not to try to curry her favor as every other girl in their class seemed beholden to do—every other girl but Reece, that is, but Reece was untouchable for her own reasons. For one thing, she was one of the best athletes in the school—one of the youngest on the varsity volleyball team and already its star—and then there was her family’s wealth, which went back far enough to have no trace of vulgarity or newness; and, of course, her gorgeous brother, whom everyone knew doted on her. It all added up to a preternatural confidence for a thirteen-year-old girl.

  But with Liberty, Olivia smelled blood. She made up a rumor, the variety of which only the lurid imagination of a devious teenager could come up with: that Liberty had promised and delivered blow jobs to the entire lacrosse team of Collegiate should they beat their rival, Trinity. The proliferation of this piece of gossip by Liberty’s classmates, though dubious even on a logistical level, had everything to do with the desire to keep Olivia’s malicious attentions running in any direction other than their own.

  School became a nightmare for Liberty, who had no one to ask for help. She was too ashamed to tell her parents, and the teachers at Spence seemed at least as terrified of Olivia as the students. The rumor had been circulating for a solid month—a lifetime—when Olivia piled on an additional rumor, this time that Liberty was having sex with the coach: a rotund, married man of forty.

  “I heard she’s going to let him put it in the back door if they win the championship this season,” Olivia said to her ladies-in-waiting one day as Liberty passed by them in the dining hall, using a stage whisper loud enough for all to hear. Liberty, who had remained mostly stoic in the face of her tormentor until that moment, felt hot tears rising. Then Reece’s voice cut through the whispers and tittering from a neighboring table.

  “Olivia, will you kindly shut the fuck up? You made this all up and you know it.”

  Liberty froze. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath; who had dared defend her? But of course it was Reece. Up until now, the rumor had not seemed to register on her radar, but her dislike of Olivia was well-known. If Olivia was the meanest—and conversely, most popular—girl in the class, Reece remained the most intimidating. For one thing, she was inches taller than everyone else in their grade and carried herself like an Amazon warrior goddess.

  “Girls,” Olivia said, regaining her composure, “did you hear that? I think it was the call of a lesbian Sasquatch.”

  With that Reece pushed her chair back and strode to where Olivia sat. The laughter of Olivia’s minions abruptly stopped, and a look of panic flashed across their faces. Reece stood calmly next to where Olivia sat, ignoring her for a long moment. A hush fell over the dining hall: Was she going to hit her?

  Olivia rolled her eyes. “What, Reece?”

  Reece smiled and crouched to whisper something in Olivia’s ear. The blood drained from the girl’s face, and she only recovered herself when Reece had returned to her seat, shrugging and smiling when her own cohort asked her what she’d said. Olivia struggled to regain her composure and rolled her eyes with forced indifference.

  “Liberty,” Olivia said now, all sweetness, “you know this was all just a joke, right?
”

  “I guess,” she said unsteadily. “I mean no, not really. I know it’s not true, but I don’t get why you think it’s funny.”

  Again, an eye roll. “Ugh, that’s the point. Because it’s so clearly not true. Like, it’s satire? Jesus, like, of course, you’re obviously a virgin.”

  At that moment a bread roll came flying from Reece’s direction and smacked into the side of Olivia’s head—leaving crumbs in her shiny dark hair. Now the crowd, having felt the subtle shift of power, laughed openly. Olivia shook out her hair and leveled a glare at Reece, who glared right back.

  “The point is, I made it up. It was just a joke. You forgive me, right, sweetie?”

  Not wanting to provoke any further drama, Liberty nodded. The next day, Reece had asked her to sit with her group at lunch, and the friendship had been cemented. Only later did she ask what Reece had whispered in her nemesis’s ear.

  “I just reminded her that my brother would do anything for me, and if she didn’t want rumors about her spread to every hot prep in town, she’d better can it.”

  “What can I get you, miss?” The waiter in his little half apron materialized at Liberty’s side.

  “Oh, just a cappuccino, please.”

  “Regular or soy milk?”

  “Just regular, please.”

  “Whole milk or skim?”

  “Whole, please.”

  “Any sugar? Splenda? Stevia?”

  All of the options he’d just offered to bring for her cappuccino were tucked in a tidy Lucite box in the middle of each of the little bistro tables in the coffee shop. It was at this point Liberty realized that the waiter knew who she was and was trying to draw out their interaction. She’d forget for whole stretches of time that her family was famous.

  “Nope,” she said with a patient smile. “Just plain, thanks so much.”

  “You got it,” he said. She couldn’t be annoyed when the interaction was obviously making his afternoon. As long as he didn’t start taking cell phone photos of her while she worked.

  “You look fabulous, by the way,” he said as he sallied off to the espresso machine.

  Her notoriety—for you couldn’t call something like that fame, could you?—was another thing she had uncomfortably inherited, another thing she and Reece shared. It wasn’t as though anyone knew who either of them was outside Manhattan, but here their families were covered in tabloids like Page Six and on gossip sites like Gawker and Guest of a Guest consistently. Her father’s three marriages and estranged family members had not helped matters, nor had her grandfather’s elderly playboy antics. Liberty tolerated the media interest insofar as it could be very helpful in getting coverage for her clients, a daunting task for all but her most well-known authors, but in general she found the whole thing tiresome. Reece was less ambivalent about it, in part because the press had a tendency to describe her using a bucket of adjectives that she knew to be euphemisms for fat: zaftig, statuesque (which she was), curvy (which she wasn’t, exactly). Fortunately Reece’s self-esteem was in no real danger; her parents had seen to that. She’d always been delightedly encouraged to be exactly who she was.

  Liberty had loved spending time with the Michaelses growing up. Reece’s mom, Elin, was a formidable and prominent socialite who seemed to forever be cracking the whip on the other ladies who lunched but perhaps didn’t take the causes as seriously.

  “If you’re going to do that kind of thing,” Reece would say, with the clear distinction that she had no intention of becoming a lady who luncheoned, “at least she does it right.” Her committed charity work didn’t leave Elin any less time for fretting and managing her kids’ lives, however; she even cooked dinner herself many nights. She drove Reece a little crazy, but Liberty was envious. Their father, Thatcher, whom Liberty found mortifyingly handsome, was tall and jocular in his Barbour jackets and seemed like he’d never had a bad day in his life. Liberty never turned down an invitation to Reece’s house, and it was only partly because her brother would be there on the rare occasions that he wasn’t out with a girl or his friends. He would say, “Hey, kiddo,” to Liberty and ruffle her hair, and she would feel the warmth radiating there for hours after.

  It wasn’t that Liberty’s own parents didn’t love her—but they were nothing like the Michaelses. Her father was a workaholic in the mold of his own father, forever reaching in vain for the untouchable bar that Frederick had set. And Petra, while utterly devoted to her family, was maternal in a rather unsmiling Russian way that seemed to revolve around giving instructions.

  It was Liberty’s grandfather who doted on her, who fussed over her, but he was too involved in his own affairs (both literal and figurative) to be a consistent presence. Rather, he would show up in a whirlwind of affection, adventures, and presents, and then be gone for months afterward. It was he who first stoked Liberty’s twin indulgences: vintage jewelry and rare books. When she’d turned eleven, he’d gifted her with her first piece from Fred Leighton—his preferred jeweler, though he also frequented Christie’s—a whimsical nineteenth-century charm bracelet featuring tiny animals with rubies and emeralds as eyes. It was an outrageous gift for a child but one she’d adored beyond reason and still frequently wore. Frederick had come from nothing; this was a fact he alternately felt righteous about and ashamed of. It was America—everyone was from somewhere else—but it was the East Coast, and people, especially Frederick’s contemporaries, still cared about lineage. He could not buy himself a different history, but he could acquire it through objects. Newness became anathema to him.

  Things began to change for Liberty the year she turned fourteen. That was the year she molted her chick feathers. Her cheekbones began to emerge from the roundness of her baby face, and her thin limbs acquired a coltish elegance. She suddenly noticed that people looked at her differently when she walked down the street. Sometimes when she was out to eat with Reece or with her parents, men in restaurants would blatantly adjust their chairs to get a better look at her.

  It wasn’t until she started modeling that the tabloids became interested in her—particularly because she was her mother’s daughter and doppelgänger. She was leaving the Lawrences’ penthouse to meet Reece for a movie one day after school when her mother was in the midst of a photo shoot for Elle Decor. The magazine was doing a story on each of the Lawrence homes: the penthouse and the East Hampton property, both of which had been masterfully appointed by the same up-and-coming decorator whom Petra, along with a dozen other women on the Upper East Side, claimed to have discovered. Liberty had gone to the sitting room to take a look at the shoot and give her mother a quick wave to let her know she was out the door. When she saw her daughter, Petra asked to take five.

  “Mom, it’s fine, I’m on my way out.”

  “Nonsense, darling.” She gestured to an assistant, who appeared at her side with a glass of Perrier.

  Petra asked what her plans were for the afternoon, and as Mother spoke with Daughter, the latter became aware of the subtle click of the photographer’s camera, which perhaps only registered to Petra as so much ambient noise after her many years in front of cameras. After a moment, Liberty turned to him with a questioning look, but he didn’t stop taking pictures. “Petra, your daughter is stunning,” he said, a disembodied voice from behind his lens. Petra straightened and looked Liberty over, as if only now realizing how beautiful her daughter had become. She smiled.

  Liberty blushed and made her excuses. But it was too late. The candid image of mother and daughter in a quotidian conversation revealed a well-preserved, fortyish Petra standing with a mirror image of her younger self. And Liberty’s fate was sealed.

  11

  * * *

  CAMERON DID not call Laila after the party at Soho House. As the following day went by, and she and Nora went about their weekend routine of brunch and shopping, Laila became increasingly aware of her phone: a silent and lifeless thing in her pocket. Perhaps he was playing it cool for a couple of days; men didn’t usually show such
restraint around her, but Cameron was a different species, a man who could have anything he wanted. She used brunch as an opportunity to grill Nora about him, via a subtler inroad of questions about Reece.

  “Oh, I love Reece,” Nora said, when she broached the subject. “Isn’t she the sweetest?”

  They were at a corner table of one of the busy West Village bistros they always went to for brunch. Laila’s head was swimming a little from drinking a mimosa on an empty stomach. She wished Nora would make up her mind and either get the brioche French toast she actually wanted or decide to be “good” and go with the egg-white omelet.

  Laila did not, in fact, find Reece to be the sweetest. She remembered the look on her face as they’d been introduced. Imperious. “I don’t think she likes me.”

  “Oh, no, I doubt that’s true,” Nora said. “Just a few more minutes,” she pleaded to the bored waitress who hovered next to their table. “Ugh, I just can’t decide!”

  “Just get the French toast.” Laila tried to hide her irritation as the waitress receded into the crowd. “I’ll have some.”

  “Okay!” Nora closed her menu at last, though who knew when the waitress would return now. Laila’s stomach growled. “Anyway, Reece just takes a minute to warm up.”