by Plum Sykes
Just to make gross generalizations, which you know I love to do, the thing about fifteen-year-old men is that all they want to do is f♥♥♥, because they’re so young and virile and they don’t know what else to do. It all started when we were dancing. Henri was so tall, and he did this really weird thing where he would keep holding my hands up in the air, high above my head, and then finally I realized what was going on and I said, “Stop looking at my breasts! Stop it!” Then, I don’t know, I thought it was kind of adorable that he was so into my breasts like that—after all, he hasn’t really gotten to see any yet, and literally a second later he was on top of me on the deck. He came after five minutes, and then he blacked out. I took that as a compliment actually. I always used to black out at that age at Studio 54 when I was having the best time. Thanks for a great party. Four down!
“Oh, Jesus,” laughed Hunter. “What about her big love with Giles Monterey? Has she forgotten about him?”
“Listen to this,” I said. I read the end of the email:
You will be pleased to hear that Henri’s youthful butt has started to erase the haunting memory of Mr. Moscow’s beautiful blue eyes. If I don’t hear from Monterey soon there is real hope for me that I can completely forget about him. Here’s to moving on to number five.
“I think he’d better make a move on her soon,” said Hunter.
“He’s engaged, darling, you seem to keep forgetting that.”
“So he is. Now,” said Hunter, coming close to me, “I think we should go and make full use of that incredible bedroom we have in there.”
Later that evening we lounged lazily in front of the fireplace, chatting about the rest of our trip. It was perfect—cozy, sexy, everything. Camille was right. I should encourage Lauren to get married. There was no other way to get this feeling.
“Why don’t we open the gifts now?” I said, just before dinner. “I’m so excited about my pressie.”
“Oh, darling, my gift for you is very humble, I’m afraid. Don’t get all excited.”
It was sweet the way Hunter was pretending he hadn’t bothered at all. I couldn’t wait to see the necklace. While Hunter disappeared off into the guest bedroom, where he had been storing his gifts, I went to find mine from under the bed in our room. I had wrapped up two books and a photograph of Hunter and me in Paris that I’d had framed and engraved. I retrieved them and went back into the drawing room.
I put them in front of Hunter, who was sitting cross-legged on the rug by the fire. He had a small square box in front of him, wrapped in bright red paper with a silver bow. Ooh. It was definitely jewel-size.
“You open mine first,” I said, trying to act casual.
“How adorable, darling,” said Hunter, when he saw the photograph. He kissed me on the lips. “I’m very touched. Now why don’t you open this?”
He handed me the little package. He was looking edgy, I thought. That was a good thing. He must be nervous about whether I was going to like the jewelry. I picked up the little red box and started unwrapping it. The layers of red paper came off. Underneath was a black leather box.
“Oooh!” I said, looking up at Hunter.
He swallowed, worried. It was very endearing. I lifted the lid of the velvet box to see several layers of white tissue paper.
“I’m so thrilled, darling…” I said, as I lifted the layers of tissue. There was something glinting underneath. I took it out and looked at it. “A…silver napkin ring?” I exclaimed, trying to sound ecstatic.
“I thought you’d like the roses engraved on it,” said Hunter. He looked upset. Maybe he could tell I was disappointed. I didn’t want to hurt him, so, trying to sound happy, I said, “I love roses,” planting a kiss on his nose. “They look so…romantic…on a napkin ring.”
Where, oh, where was my necklace?
“Do not confront him. It’s not hard evidence of an affair,” said Lauren.
“Affair,” I repeated horrified. The word completely freaked me out.
“The only thing that counts as real proof of extramarital activity is finding thong underwear that’s not yours. And not getting a piece of jewelry you expected isn’t exactly…well, it wouldn’t stand up in court. Maybe he just forgot it.”
I’d met Lauren for lunch the next day on the terrace of L’Idéal. It was so sunny that the skiers stripped down to their T-shirts while they ate their plates of pela. It was however, not a good choice of venue for such a conversation: everyone in Megève came here for lunch, if they could get a table.
“Lauren! Shhhhh!” I hissed, looking around at the other diners anxiously. No one was taking the slightest notice of us. “What am I going to do—”
At that moment, call it coincidence, or just call it skiing—Sophia herself appeared on the far corner of the terrace. She was dressed in a cream ski outfit. As she bent over to loosen her boots, I noticed a red star on the butt of her pants. She had the same ski gear as Marci. She removed her jacket and tied it around her waist. She was wearing a thin pink T-shirt underneath, which showed off her tan beautifully. Just then a cry went up from a table of six Frenchmen two tables away from us. They all had George Hamilton tans, which, in Megève, are still very in.
“Sophia! Viens nous voir!” they called when they saw her. Sophia waved and made her way toward them.
“Oh, God, she’s coming this way,” I said.
“Be cool, say hello. In fact, let’s be over-friendly,” commanded Lauren. “Hello, Sophia!” she called out loudly, as Sophia made her way across the terrace.
Sophia turned and saw us. She smiled and walked across to our table. When she arrived she said,
“Lauren! Hi! Sylvie! Thank you so much for last night. Pierre loved the party…such a lovely place…I heard Eugenie did a striptease…in your hot tub….”
Something caught my eye. If I wasn’t mistaken, there, hanging just below the edge of Sophia’s tee was a pendant. Each time she made a little movement, I glimpsed it, swinging against her skin. The necklace consisted of a platinum chain, with a large, translucent mauve stone attached. Sure enough, the letter S snaked around it in diamonds. It was exquisite. It couldn’t be, I thought. I looked again, hoping I wasn’t being too obvious, but Sophia registered my gaze. She smiled right at me and said, “Have you seen my Christmas present, Sylvie?” As Sophia regaled us with details of Eugenie’s antics, she twirled the lovely jewel in her fingers, and then popped it in her mouth and chewed on it. Was she flaunting it in front of me?
Hoping to hide the distress in my eyes, I grabbed my new Hermès sunglasses off the table and put them on. Suddenly the necklace came into slightly sharper focus with the aid of the polarized lenses. As I feared, it was indeed identical to the S. J. Phillips sketch. Never, ever, had I regretted a pair of y650 ski glasses so much.
18
Valley of the Dolls, the Sequel
“My God, Sylvie, when did you last eat?” bellowed Tinsley. “You look like a prisoner of war.”
It couldn’t have mattered less to Tinsley that she was shrieking through a private movie screening at Soho House, but then, everyone does that in New York. It’s not considered particularly sophisticated to actually watch the movie at a private screening. All anyone cares about at those things is each other’s outfits, even though it’s too dark to see them.
“I’m just tired. Ssshhh,” I whispered, gesturing at the screen.
The truth was, I had barely slept since we’d gotten back from Megève. The last few days there had been a nightmare, with Hunter enjoying himself more and more, while I seethed behind those wretched sunglasses. I was so flabbergasted by what had occurred that day at L’Idéal, that I decided to wait until I got home to decide what to do next. The flights home were exhausting, and by the time I got back to New York I was so stressed out and fatigued that I looked grimmer than the Corpse Bride.
That night in early January Thack was hosting the screening of The Women. It was a comedy of divorcées, which was the last thing I felt like seeing. But I couldn’t
get out of it: it was a big night for Thack, and I hoped that by arriving at the last minute, when the lights were already down, no one would notice how weary I looked. Unfortunately, the only seat left was on one of the leather armchairs at the back of the room. I had Tinsley on one side, Marci on the other. Phoebe was a little farther down from me.
“Anxiety?” said Tinsley, loud enough for the entire audience to hear.
I nodded. Just then Phoebe leaned across Marci and said, “I always take a Xanax for that. You should try it.”
“Actually, Atavan is a better anti-anxiety medication,” declared Marci. “I mean, look at me. Things are horrible, but I feel amazing.”
“I pop an Ambien one night and a Valium the next,” said Tinsley. “That way you don’t get addicted to either of them.” She looked delighted, as though she’d unraveled the mystery of life.
Just then a red-headed girl in the row in front of us turned around and said, very matter of fact, “If you’re not sleeping, don’t take Ambien. It’s like an alarm clock. It wakes you up after four hours. I lick a Remeron tablet before bed. It’s the strongest anti-depressant on the market. One lick knocks you out for twelve hours.”
“Atavan just feels like you are wrapped in one big blanket of love,” said Marci. She laughed a lot when she said it, and her eyes lit up.
Was everyone in New York on pills, I wondered with horror. Was that how Phoebe always looked so perky? How else do you manage three kids and a lifestyle business? God, maybe Kate Spade’s on medication too, I thought. She always looks so bouncy, with her hair defying gravity like that. The fact is, all New York wives should look like the Corpse Bride. I was so tired my hair ached. Did everyone else’s too? Or did the medicine take care of that? I felt like I was living in a chapter of Valley of the Dolls.
When the movie was over, I snuck quickly to the cloakroom and hurriedly wrapped myself in my fur coat. It was bitter outside. Hopefully I could escape without anyone noticing.
“Sylvie? Is that you or the yeti?”
It was Marci. My heart sank.
“Me,” I sulked, walking past Marci toward the elevators. “I’ve got to go.”
“Wait,” she said. Then she looked at me with a sad expression. It was weird. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
“What?” I asked.
Marci glanced behind her surreptitiously. No one else had come out of the screening room yet.
“I hate to be the messenger…but…it’s Hunter. It’s him.”
“What are you talking about?” I said.
“Sophia’s ‘married man.’ It’s your husband. She says he’s madly in love with her, like when they were at Dalton.”
I looked at her with disbelief. What was she saying?
“How do you know?” I croaked. All I could utter was a broken whisper.
Marci cast her eyes downward, as though studying the giant daisies in the groovy Soho House carpet, and then back at me.
“I feel soooo ba-a-a-a-d. She was over at mine. I overheard her on the phone.”
“What did she say, exactly?” I dreaded Marci’s answer.
“It was something about having gotten some jewelry from him, and they were going away together.”
“Away? Where?” I gasped.
“I don’t know, but I’m furious with her…behaving like this. After I lent her, so generously, my Jet Set outfit with the red star. The only other person in the world who has that outfit is Athina Roussel. It makes your torso look like Giselle’s. And I sacrificed all that and loaned it to Sophia, and then she betrays me like this, stealing one of my best friend’s husbands, when I trusted her so much. Can you imagine?”
I looked at Marci with horror.
“I know. I was speechless too. To treat someone like that after they’ve lent you the holy grail of snow looks.”
“OK, well, I’m going home to…brood, I don’t know,” I sighed miserably. I started to leave.
“Just a second, I have something for you,” said Marci, grabbing my arm. “Don’t think I’m a drug dealer or anything, but this is for you.”
Marci pressed a folded white handkerchief into my palm. I unwrapped it. Inside was a single tablet. I snapped my hand shut.
“Marci!”
“It’s a Klonopin. Also known as the gay man’s valium. For emergencies.”
“Marci, I don’t take pills,” I insisted.
“Darling, don’t be embarrassed. Everyone’s drugged twenty-four-seven in New York,” whispered Marci, pulling me off into a dark corner. “It’s not Botox that’s smoothing their brows, it’s anti-anxiety medication.”
“Are you coming upstairs?” sang out Phoebe’s voice from behind us. “We’ve got the table by the window—”
Ignoring Phoebe, I fled through the fire exit and down the back stairs. Secretly, I was glad I had Marci’s Klonopin: in a crisis there’s nothing wrong with a chemically induced blanket of love.
“Can you believe Henri sent me a llama for Christmas? What am I supposed to do with a llama? It’s going to die of homesickness here. And then Juan keeps faxing pictures of this stallion to me. It’s in a field in Spain, waiting for me. I can’t stand it.” Lauren sighed, as if in frustration. “I suppose you do get better gifts as a divorcée. Five Orgasms sent me a mink-lined Yves Saint Laurent trench coat.” Lauren fingered the oversized pearl, gold, and turquoise choker that was flat around her neck, as if to check it was still there. The stones were so large and extraordinarily shaped that it reminded me of a Picasso sketch. “Tony Duquette. It’s my me-me gift celebrating Jailbait Make Out and Mogul Make Out. I had to really cheer myself up after Sanford. Do you like it?”
“Its incredible,” I replied, trying to sound enthusiastic.
“You don’t think I look like Elizabeth Taylor wearing it with this lace dress? Do you want to borrow it? Anytime, just ask.”
Lauren and I were sitting in one of the double booths at Rescue getting a pedicure the night after the Soho House screening. I’d recounted what Marci had told me the night before, and I suppose she was trying to cheer me up. I’d gone home last night, seen Hunter, and tried to pretend nothing was wrong. I needed time to figure out my next move. When Hunter had asked me why I looked so exhausted, I’d lied and told him it was the stress of organizing the outfits for Alixe’s Winter Ball, which was only a few days away. In the meantime I had tortured myself all night, brooding obsessively and dreading the inevitable confrontation with Hunter. Strangely, he’d seemed as affectionate as ever, which almost made it all the more painful. The fact was, I really loved him.
“I don’t understand why he’s being so attentive. When I got home last night, he saw I was cold and made me hot ginger tea. Why would he do that if he’s seeing Sophia? I love him. I really adore him,” I said hopelessly.
“Don’t be deceived,” said Lauren grimly. “Husbands are always most attentive and sweet when they’re up to something.”
“Maybe you could take me to see your divorce lawyer,” I said.
“Not right now. You shouldn’t be speaking to lawyers. You should be figuring things out with your husband,” said Lauren, changing tack.
“But—”
“—divorce isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Lauren interrupted me. “It’s over-rated. And who knows? Maybe Marci’s made a mistake.”
“But, Lauren, you seem so…well, you have fun. I’m miserable. I just want to have fun again.”
“Shouldn’t you hear Hunter’s side first? I think it’s time to confront him. Do it tonight,” replied Lauren. “Occasionally husbands admit the truth.”
I am going to ruin tonight, I thought guiltily when I got home after the pedicure. Hunter had made reservations to see Eartha Kitt at Café Carlyle weeks ago. When he’d suggested it, I thought it had sounded like a very romantic night out. I was due to meet him there at eight. As I got dressed, in a rather somber black velvet cocktail dress that matched my mood, I wondered whether I could delay telling him what Marci had told me: did I
really have to do it tonight, of all nights? Or would it be better to get it over with? I couldn’t keep pretending nothing was wrong just because there was this thing or that thing we were supposed to be doing. As I headed uptown in a taxi, I tried to steel myself for what was to come: tonight was going to be hell, but if I put it off, I would only be delaying the hell and making things even worse.
When I arrived at the Carlyle, Hunter was already at our table. There was a glass of champagne waiting for me, which I drank in three seconds flat. Gloomy as I felt, I couldn’t help but notice what a nice atmosphere there was in the place: it was glitzy but cozy, a welcome relief from the freezing January weather outside.
“Are you all right, darling?” said Hunter, immediately sensing my mood.
“Actually, I’m not…feeling too good,” I said, eyes lowered. Was I supposed to do this now, I wondered? Or should we order first? Oh God, oh God.
“I think I can cheer you up—”
“I don’t think so,” I said sadly. I drew in a long breath and started, “Hunter I—”
Just then, Hunter placed a small, purple suede box on my plate. The words S. J. Phillips were stamped across the top in gold. I just stared at it, baffled. What was this supposed to mean?
“Don’t you want to open it, darling?” said Hunter. He had a huge smile across his face.
I carefully lifted the lid of the box. There, sitting on a puffy bed of pale blue satin was the pendant from the sketch. It was spectacular: the amethyst glimmered magnificently, as though it was lit from inside, and the diamonds entwined around it twinkled like a galaxy of glittering stars. It was such a romantic gift. But…was this the same pendant I had seen on Sophia? It couldn’t be! But then, why hadn’t Hunter given it to me at Christmas? Should I say something to Hunter now, or not? Maybe Marci had made a mistake…or…oh, God. I didn’t know what to do.
