Arm Candy

by Jill Kargman

  “It’s okay,” Eden said, looking for Allison. “I just need a serious drink. Or five.”

  “I’m right there with you, honey.”

  Otto put his arm around her and led her into the grand ballroom. It felt slightly strange and poseury for them to enter as their same old arm-in-arm unit, the art world Cover Story duo, but Eden felt almost proud that she could play the role Otto had cast her in so well. Oh, look, they are such grown-ups, such an amicable breakup. They walked the walk and greeted high-profile socialites and fauxcialites through the cocktail hour, then made their way to the ballroom. It was there, at the table next to theirs, that Eden noticed Chase and his two brothers. Their eyes locked briefly as they tried to remember how they knew each other, and soon their realizations synced as one mini epiphany of shared cones and a magical moment of light breezes and fluttering petals.

  Staring at Chase during a long welcoming speech by the CEO of some investment bank, Eden put up her hand in a blank stationary wave, the gesture everyone learned as kids as the way Indians greeted one another, saying “How.” It was a pure child-of-the-eighties reference. By the time Chase was born, the term was Native Americans, and sitting cross-legged was only ever called “crisscross applesauce.” But he held up his hand back to her, How-style, and smiled.

  As the speech about early gonad scans droned on, Eden shocked the polite Chase by picking up a knife from her table setting and miming it slashing across her neck while sticking her tongue out, as if to say, “Kill me now, please.” Chase was surprised and almost snorted laughing, as while he may have echoed the sentiment, sitting through long speeches was commonplace for him. As he stifled his laugh, a coiffed Liesel turned to him, wondering what the distraction was. She had been listening intently, hands crossed on her lap.

  “What’s so funny, darling?” she asked, patting his shoulder.

  “Nothing, sorry.” He composed himself.

  Eden looked to Chase’s side, noticing Liesel, her swan neck delicately covered in a big bold string of Mikimoto pearls, her buttery blond hair coiled into a chic chignon. Eden’s long, wild, shiny brown hair, meanwhile, hung loose down her back, and while Liesel wore a prim Oscar floor-length gown, Eden was rocking a sexy, übershort Zac Posen strapless garnet-hued frock. Liesel sat quietly by Chase’s side, appropriate, ever composed, pale-pink manicured fingers interlocking and still. With her Hermès scarves, diamond studs, Tory Burch flats, and Burberry trench, she was always the height of sophistication and Upper East Side poise.

  Eden had dark bloodred nails, which flashed as she ran her hands through her hair, broke off bites of dinner roll, fidgeted with stemware. Chase looked at Eden’s table of arty types; everyone wore black and oddly asymmetrical fashions. Instead of penguin tuxes were black Hollywood-y red carpet attire, plus one guy sleeved in tattoos, wearing a black leather vest. One woman had a platinum blond bob and was talking loudly to Eden across Otto. Liesel looked at Chase with an arched brow as she sipped her wine, wondering what the table of colorful people (read: weirdos) to their right was doing there. Suddenly, though, Chase’s gaze fell on Otto Clyde. He knew instantly who the celebrated painter was, then immediately that his muse, Eden Clyde, was the icon with whom he shared that ice cream.

  Aha. Of course. His grandmother had walked through Clyde’s famed blockbuster retrospective at MoMA beside him, a memory he cherished. She had loved his work, and Chase had often stared at those paintings in the catalogue she bought him at the gift store. Amazing. No wonder Eden had been familiar and somehow larger than life. She was, quite literally, on countless canvases he had seen all over.

  Intrigued, Chase could not keep his eyes off them the rest of the night. Their table was a bit raucous, clinking glasses en masse several times, chortling loudly over some naughty joke, and asking for more and more wine.

  “I love Danny LeMieux’s new show at Deitch,” yelled Allison. “He is so sexy! I’d shag him rotten if I weren’t in love with Andrew.”

  “Allison, you idiot,” laughed Eden. “You OBVIOUSLY did not get the memo: LeMieux is so gay, he sweats glitter.”

  Allison pouted like a little kid, though it was all for show, as she was a happily hitched mom of three, crossing her arms as the whole table burst out laughing. Otto rolled his eyes, then scanned the crowd for beautiful people.

  At the Lydons’ table the conversation was more subdued, veering to politics or the editorial in that day’s Times. While Liesel stuck to her Atkinsy rhythms of a few bites of her filet mignon, leaving a pile of grilled rosemary potatoes untouched, Chase spied how Eden not only cleared her plate but was also spearing extra potatoes off Otto’s with her fork.

  The two tables, like their two worlds, contrasted on every front. Of course, the art world’s Venn diagram intersected with the upper crust in that rich people were collectors. But if those two worlds were marked by blue and yellow circles, that sliver of green in the middle was only the color of the money that bound them to each other. Otherwise, there would be nothing connecting these people, who were practically different species.

  And yet across the cacophony of the ballroom, Chase was in a muted tunnel, silent but for the sound that emanated from Eden’s tanned throat as she threw her head back in laughter. The room, bursting with shimmering silks and satins, seemed dim but for the glow around Eden.

  21

  The first forty years of life give us the text, the next thirty supply the commentary on it.

  —Arthur Schopenhauer

  It was in the interminable line at the coat check that Chase gathered the courage to approach Eden.

  “This line is ridiculous!” trumpeted Allison, hand on hip. “They are moving like molasses! I’ve seen escargot faster than this.”

  Brooke Lydon was also in a tizzy over the wait. “This is unacceptable!” she huffed. “These moronic people are moving at a pace that is positively glacial.” But Chase had never been happier to wait. He watched Eden shiver, rubbing her hands over her bare goose bump-covered arms.

  “Not in the mood for ice cream now, are you? It’s freezing in here,” Chase remarked, approaching her.

  “Tell me about it! I’m blue.”

  Without a thought, Chase took off his jacket and draped it on Eden’s chilled shoulders.

  “Wow, thanks, that’s okay, really—”

  “No, it’s my pleasure. It looks like it could be a while until you get your coat.”

  “Thanks.” Eden beamed. “So how horrendous was that cheesy wedding band?” she said, rolling her eyes. “Talk about lousy.”

  “I guess,” Chase said, sort of confused. He had seen the same in-demand band a hundred times at every charity ball or party his family had ever thrown. He knew they probably weren’t cool per se, but only when Eden commented did he suddenly realize how lame they actually were.

  “I mean, ugh! Why is everyone so anti-deejay? Bands are sooo cringe-inducing,” Eden said while shivering. “It’s always twenty white guys playing that horrible song, ‘Ah-eeee-ah say that you remember! Ah-ee-ah, Dancing in December!’”

  “Now that you mention it, that is true.” Chase smiled.

  “At least they didn’t do that nightmare one that I really hate: ‘A little bit of Sheila on my mind, a little bit of Jessica, from behind . . .,’ ” Eden sang.

  “Really, is that how it goes?” Chase asked scratching his head, not quite sure.

  Eden’s hawklike peripheral vision kicked in, as she sensed Otto approaching them.

  “Honey, who’s this?” Otto interrupted, looking Chase over skeptically. The artist’s face was so intensely serious, it was as if he were Derek Zoolander doing Blue Steel.

  “Hello, sir—Chase Lydon. I’m a big, big fan.”

  Otto offered a tight smile accompanied by a squint. Eden thought he looked like he was either an X-Men mutant scanning Chase’s organs or just a dude taking a dump.

  Next the patrician princess joined the fray.

  “Chasie, were did you go, I was looking for you!” Liesel fl
uttered in a worried, birdlike chirp. She darted up behind Chase, putting her arm around his as she smiled at Eden and extended her hand. “Hello, I’m Liesel van Delft.”

  The unlikely foursome greeted each other perfectly politely but with the warmth that might be found in an igloo. Liesel and Otto were clearly on the outside of the bizarre duo connected by Chase’s Ralph Lauren tuxedo jacket resting on Eden’s warming shoulders.

  “Here, Eden, take my jacket,” said Otto, removing Chase’s from her bony back. “I insist.”

  Chase looked at him and took it, as Liesel batted her long lashes, confused why this . . . person in the way too short dress was sporting her boyfriend’s jacket. She smiled sweetly to bid them adieu and squired her boyfriend off to the line on the other side of the coat check window.

  “Did you know that woman?” Liesel asked, curling her fingers with Chase’s.

  “Oh yeah, I met her once before.”

  “She poses naked. That’s Otto Clyde’s muse, Eden. Apparently he’s with someone else now, though. I saw in the blind items on Page Six that he totally cheated forever. Marriage of convenience, I guess.”

  “Mm-hmm,” said Chase, watching the Clydes claim their jackets. “I don’t think they were ever married.”

  “Typical. These artsy folks, you know . . . not the real world!” she drifted. “So, darling, are you going to play golf at Piping this weekend? Because I have to go to Lily Hearst’s bridal shower.”

  “Okay, I’ll play golf, then,” he said, still looking across the room at Eden.

  “I wonder if she’ll take her husband’s name. I mean, her mother sure didn’t—her biodad’s last name is Smith, you know. And all the kids took the mother’s name, wonder why!” Liesel mused. “I hear she and Skipper are having five hundred and seventy-five guests at the Library. Glorious Food is catering. Ron Wendt is doing the flowers. Supposedly, Oscar is . . .”

  As Charlie Brown’s teacher once famously said, wah, wha wah wha wah wah whaa. As her glossed lips moved, Liesel’s breath whirled in a tornado of frothy descriptions; up in the cyclone were swirling words—“hydrangeas,” “emerald-cut diamond,” “embroidered, monogrammed linens.” Chase, totally tuned out, heard only a peppering of noise, about steak and the band, the honeymoon at some Aman, but it all faded to a muted, unintelligible blather.

  He loved Liesel, sure, but she got so caught up in the fineries of their milieu. Her grandmother’s ornate emerald bracelet and her bubbly enthusiasm for her friend’s Stephen Russell diamond and sapphire ring was in such stark contrast to Eden’s pared-down, bling-less beauty—she hadn’t wanted or needed jewels and feminine rosettes or ribboned details on her clothes; she had style all her own and didn’t need the sugar sweet female trappings of rings or necklaces. Her body was all the accessories she needed. She was now quietly waiting for Allison, standing in a firm stance, thighs shiny with body oil, her hand on her impatient hip, which jutted out provocatively. Her body language could not be more different from proper Liesel’s, who stood feet together in patent kitten heels, while Eden shifted her weight to her other foot, to a spike stiletto that looked like it was designed by a dominatrix. Chase could not take his eyes off her. As she moved some hair from her face, he spied a quick glimpse of tattooed ink on her back. “Tattoos are like letting the devil doodle on your body!” Liesel had once exclaimed. “Filthy, filthy, filthy.”

  Liesel, meanwhile, was prattling on about some masked ball and asked Chase if he had his costume yet.

  “Huh, uh, what’s this for?” he answered, distracted by his mesmerizing people watching. “The Venetian thing at the Plaza?”

  “No, silly! Not the Save Venice masquerade that’s next month! It’s the MASK ball: Motivate Abandoned Street Kids.”

  Without acknowledging the difference, Chase stared as Eden, Otto, and their boisterous friends made their way out to the street. And just under the red exit sign, with Otto’s and Allison’s arms around her waist, Eden looked back over her shoulder and briefly locked eyes with Chase. He looked down bashfully, then back up, where his brown eyes met her piercing green ones. And just before she turned to face forward again, she gave him a little wink, stealing a beat of his blue-blood-pumping heart.

  Are They or Aren’t They?

  It seems one-time Art World IT Couple Otto and Eden Clyde like to keep us guessing. The on-again, off-again duo turned heads at the EndTesCan gala by pawing each other with some public PDA. Maybe it was for the paparazzi, but it certainly made several coiffed heads in the Waldorf-Astoria turn and whisper. While one source in their circle attests, “They are not back together,” others intimate that the team needs to keep up appearances to keep collectors on their toes. “They want to stay relevant,” sneers a sharp-tongued onlooker. “And they can only do that if they’re together.” “Not so,” says our source. “Eden is living uptown now and loving it.” Let’s just hope that despite the seventy-block spread, the pair still paint and pose together—their rabid fans wouldn’t have it any other way.

  22

  The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits.

  —Hervey Allen

  Eden and Allison were lunching in the jam-packed Three Guys Restaurant on Seventy-fifth Street, the Mother Ship (tied with Yura on Ninety-second) for the mommy set. Allison loved it thanks to her custom grilled chicken and avocado salad (Stavros the waiter was used to high-maintenance orders) but had just been complaining that everyone on the Bugaboo-wielding mom scene was there at that moment. Most took a break from their salads to stare at Eden and whisper.

  “Allison Rubens!!! Hiiii!” exclaimed a ’rexi yummy mummy in sprayed-on skinny jeans, Lanvin flats, and Tory tunic. “Ça va?”

  “Hi, Jess. This is my friend Eden Clyde. Eden, Jessica Shapiro.”

  “I know who you are,” said Jessica, beaming. “So funny, I always run into people I know here: Saul and I call it Three Jews!”

  “How are Madison and Jameson?” asked Allison as Eden carried on eating her grilled cheese and French fries.

  “The twins are great!” Jessica smiled. “How are your two little ones?”

  “Sam and Sasha are great, thanks . . . they worship their big sister,” Allison replied, trying to end the convo.

  “Last time I saw you was at that Wizard of Oz birthday party at the Sites’ new town house, remember?”

  “How could I forget?” Allison laughed, nudging Eden. “They painted a mural through all six floors of their town house, where the steps were the yellow brick road,” she said to Eden. “And they hired twenty midgets to serve the hors d’oeuvres.”

  “NO!” exclaimed Eden between mouthfuls of shoestring fries.

  “Yes,” said Jessica, shaking her head. “It was awful. My kids were crying, Why do those kids have grown-up heads?!”

  “Yeah, also it was awful ’cause Liza Sites used human beings as props for her three-year-old’s party,” Allison added.

  “So how is Kate?” Jessica asked of Allison’s oldest. “Are we gearing up for kindergarten application hell, or what? This process is literally going to be Hades! But the twins both got ninety-nines on their ERBs, so hopefully we’re all set.”

  “Great,” said Allison halfheartedly. “Yeah, everyone gets ninety-nines, haven’t you heard?”

  “Oh, well, okay . . . ,” Jessica stammered, unsure of what that meant, exactly. “They miss Kate so much from Baby Beethovens! How is she? Are you applying for all-girls or co-ed?

  “Both, you know, keeping options open. Plus, Eden and I are from the boonies. School for us was all metal lockers and linoleum floors, so I don’t really care all that much.”

  “Uh-huh,” Jess said, trying to relate (she couldn’t). “Well, I’ll see you on the open house circuit, then! And give a squeeze to that cute little Sasha! She is such a bruiser!”

  Jessica spied her food arriving a few tables away.
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  “Oh no!” she whined with utter dismay. “I said egg whites only!”

  “Barf,” said Allison, rolling her eyes, as Jessica sprinted off with a distraught urgency usually reserved for buildings on fire. “What does bruiser mean, anyway? That she causes bruises?”

  “It means she’s fat,” said Eden with a shrug.

  “Real nice. She’s your godchild.”

  “Alli, she’s two. She’s supposed to be a chunky muffin. What do you want, a waifish two-year-old? Don’t listen to that crazy woman.”

  “You must be thrilled that Cole is eighteen and you’re out of the mommy loop. It’s such a pressure cooker now.”

  “Who is that woman, anyway?” asked Eden. “She stresses me out.”

  “Her husband’s some big private equity guy. I bet they have one of Otto’s paintings—all those guys want these days is a marquee artist on their wall as a badge of honor to show they still got juice.”

  “Intense. How is Kate, anyway? Please do not tell me you are seriously going to stress about schools?” asked Eden, who sent Cole to Friends downtown. “You have nothing to worry about!”

  “Please. I love my kid, but instead of Sanders, her middle name should be Trouble. She does stripteases! Seriously, I’m like, where’s the pole? She wears those clear Cinderella heels you gave her and looks like a tranny!” she said, shaking her head. “She’s four-going-on-whore.”