The doors opened and Julia walked out, leaving Lell astonished in her wake. Lell wasn’t surprised about her father, and she knew from that moment on, she’d better zip it or she could get slammed with a suit that would cost the family millions. Or worse, have their good name dragged through the mud.
Julia checked her bags to Toronto and walked through the long airport hallway. She was off to Doug and Lewis’s wedding and would be spending a full week doing prep work with Doug, plus a full spa day and another on a shopping spree. He said she would have been a bridesmaid, but they weren’t having attendants at the small, outdoor wedding. Instead, he had sent her a Pablo Neruda poem that they wanted her to read at the ceremony. She had a bit of time to kill before her flight and realized she hadn’t even looked over the words she was meant to read. She took out her organizer, pulled out the small piece of paper, opened it, and took a deep breath as she read the second stanza, which particularly moved her:
But this, in which there is no I or you.
So intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand.
So intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.
Julia closed her eyes. The last weeks had been exhausting and they were finally over. As she held the poem in her hand, she thought about her own next chapter and what the new moons ahead would bring. Would she ever be this intimate? Would love come and find her ever again?
“Julia?”
A familiar voice was coming from above, as Julia looked up. Oscar Curtis was standing there.
“Oscar, hi! How are you?”
“Fine, fine, where are you going? Did they run you out of town?”
Julia looked at him carefully. Was he being a jerk or was he just blunt? “Um . . .”
“Sorry, that came out wrong. I just meant, I heard what happened. Don’t worry about those girls, they’re all lame.”
“Yeah, I know.”
There was an awkward silence.
“So, where are you going?”
“I’m going to Toronto for a wedding.”
“Oh.”
Oscar looked at Julia questioningly. She was always a little disconcerted when he did that.
“Yeah, I love weddings. I mean, people bash them so much and bitch about having to go, but I can’t get enough,” said Julia.
“I guess it depends what kind it is. Showcase or the real deal,” he gave her a knowing look.
“Exactly. This’ll luckily be the real thing. True love. Very Princess Bride. Although,” she smiled. “It’s actually two princes.”
“Oh yeah? How long will you be up in Toronto?”
“Just a week. And you?”
“I’m just coming home from a conference in San Jose. It was a few long ugly days. San Jose’s a bummer town. I was slaving the whole time.”
“I see. Well at least you have work. I’m jobless at the moment.”
“What do you think you’ll do next?”
“I’m not sure. My friend Douglas—one of the grooms—and I have talked about starting a jewelry company.”
“Oh yeah? I bet you would be a huge success.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I don’t know. Your style. Your whole . . . way. People would love to buy a little piece of that.”
“That’s so sweet,” Julia said, touched.
“It’s not sweet,” he corrected with a smile. “It’s fact. In fact, I’d bet on it.”
“Oh yeah? Do I smell an investor?”
“Maybe,” he teased. The loudspeaker announced the boarding call for Toronto. Oscar stood up. “I guess that’s you,” he said.
Julia was bummed to say goodbye, since his was the first calming face she’d seen in a while. After ripping on “nice” in her own head, Mr. Nice was suddenly a real comfort to behold.
Oscar, meanwhile, ever nervous in her midst, after a lonely week of misery, decided to combat another dark day of working by just being balls out.
“Julia,” he said, almost regretting it as soon as the beautiful word came out.
“Yes,” she answered, warmed by the sound of her name coming from his ever-nervous lips.
“Have dinner with me next week.”
“I’d love that,” she said, looking up at him with a smile that melted away all his fears.
“Okay then, that’ll be great. I’ll call you. Uh, bon voyage.”
He waved awkwardly and turned to leave. Julia watched him shuffle away and suddenly felt a pang. For Oscar. All the supposed excitement and electricity with Will left her miserable and wounded. And here was the guy who all along was always kind and soothing, a calm, healing fire instead of a sparking explosion.
“Oscar?” she yelled after him.
He stopped and turned around. “Yeah?”
“Any desire to come to Canada for a few days?”
epilogue
One Year Later
Hope was returning home from the greatest, most romantic vacation of her life. Surprised by Charlie only hours before their departure, she’d been supplied with tickets, packed bags, a chauffeured car, and a flight to the One and Only Palmilla Resort in Mexico. She didn’t know if it was the poolside massages, the delicious food, the oceanfront private cottage, or the sun warming their skin, but she had never experienced better chemistry with her husband, not even when they were dating. It was the recharging of a marriage that was never down, but certainly had reached a natural plateau. And now the passion was spiking again. Little did Hope know, as she unpacked not only her suitcases, but also the boxes from their move to a terrific new apartment, that she brought back something more from Mexico than painted maracas for her boys—who she’d missed terribly. She was pregnant, with a little girl.
After a jury found Henny guilty of purchasing kiddie porn off the Internet, Polly promptly filed for divorce. She took Quint and left town for a while, stopping in Massachusetts to stay with Vanessa Leigh, her old housemother from boarding school. There she reconnected with Vanessa’s son, Elliot, her high school “fac brat” classmate who was strangely quiet back then, but now had become an outspoken lawyer. After cathartic talks, long dinners, and nightly strolls through the nearby woods, he one evening revealed that the reason he was so mute back in school was because he was too smitten to speak. Polly kissed him and they hadn’t been apart since.
Lell and Will remained married. Part of the arrangement they made the fateful night Lell told him never to see Julia again (when she made it clear he’d be history—no money, no social status, no friends) was that they would try to remain loyal. Alas, Lell already had her eye on a new Italian designer of Pelham’s new small leather goods line, and poor, chained Will could do nothing; he believed her threats and didn’t want to lose his fund and be not only an outcast, but a poor outcast. So they appeared at functions together nightly, always arm in arm, and continued to get snapped and written up as society’s most perfect couple.
And then, there was Julia. How quickly people forget. The girl who was once slaughtered by the gossips and the gossip columnists was now about to be a boldface name again—not as an infamous husband-chaser, but as a successful jewelry designer, with Douglas, for D&J design, a burgeoning start-up company that had already locked up deals with all the Bs: Barney’s, Bergdorf’s, Bendel’s, and Bloomie’s, already making their sole investor, Lewis, double his money. Plus, she was also about to see her name in print in an entirely different way. In the wedding section, as a bride.
Three months earlier, Oscar Curtis had taken her by the hand, after a whirlwind courtship, and asked her, under a canopy of trees in Central Park, to be his wife. She accepted happily and began planning a low-key wedding in the city that loved her, spat her out, and loved her again—a city with no memory, where scars heal, and the pot keeps stirring its magic stew of faces and places. The city she’d yearned for her entire life and that she could now enjoy by the side of the most wonderful, loving, brilliant, loyal man she had ever met.
As the doors from the small Greenwich
Village ivy-covered church burst open, guests threw blush petals at Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Curtis. Their hands were clasped tightly and their smiles could not have shone any brighter. And there were no flashbulbs, no fanfare. It wasn’t for the press or the masses or even their extended group of friends. It was for them and the few they cherished, the ones who’d love them if Oscar’s company had never gone public or if Julia remained a social pariah.
But there was one guest from the past in attendance. Sort of. As Julia and Oscar took their elated first steps as a married couple from the arched church doorway down the stone steps to the carriage awaiting them, two eyes were upon them from across the street. The onlooker to their over-the-stars joy was not throwing petals, but perched in a white Porsche spying their bliss with a leaden heart. And after the couple embraced with a big, euphoric kiss as the small crowd cheered, Willoughby Banks turned the ignition and drove back uptown.
Acknowledgments
Carrie and Jill thank . . .
Stacy Creamer, editor extraordinaire, thank you so majorly much for all your sage advice, great guidance, and killer jacket copy. You are the best fixer-upper, enhancer, and F-word expunger we could ever dream of. Megathanks to our überagents from heaven, Jennifer Joel and the legendary Binky Urban, who rule, as well to our trusted lawyer of half a decade, Steven Beer. A quote unquote shoutout to the west coast ICM posse as well: Stacey Rosenfelt. Also, we could not get the extremely important and world-altering message of this book out to the four corners of the earth without the help of the amazing Joanna Pinsker, who is a goddess. For the people who hosted bashes for The Right Address, Mallory and Diana Walker, Chris Boskin, Bob and Marjie Kargman, Arlette Thebault and the Chanel posse, the Club Monaco gals, and of course, our parents: muchas gracias. Lastly, special mercis to: Jennifer Smith, Whitney Riter, Tracy Zupancis, Allison Dickens, and Richard Sinnott, who is a constant source of inspiration.
Carrie thanks . . .
Thank you so much to the friends and family who helped make The Right Address such a success. We really appreciate your support, especially those of you who schlepped to readings and book parties—including the huge Boston relative contingent, as well as the gangs in San Francisco, D.C., L.A., N.Y.C., Santa Barbara, and East Hampton—it didn’t go unnoticed. I want to thank my Mom, Kathy Doyle, and Dick, Liz and Alex, Laura and Zayd, Finn and Liam for their love and family-ness. Merci to my Aunt “Christmas” Anne Doyle for helping me with those dreaded summer reading lists, which obviously contributed to my fantastic writing ability. Muchas gracias to Lesbia Huitz and her special family, Emilio, Bryan, Jairo, and Emily, who have become such a part of my family, and without whom this book would still be a paragraph (at least on my part). Okay, maybe even just a sentence. Thanks to Billy D. up in heaven for reminding me that he’s still out there by playing that song every time I need to hear it. And lastly, to my boys: my handsome hubby Vas and my two little bunny rabbits, Junior Senior (James) and Junior Junior (Peter). You are the best.
Jill thanks . . .
In a world, city, and neighb where so many people have frenemies, I am so blessed to have real, true, call-at-three a.m. friends. To the gang, you are my big family, like the Amish. Except different. Vanessa Eastman, Jean Stern, Dana Wallach, Lisa Pasquariello, Lauren Duff, and Trip Cullman, I love you so much, and you are my speed-dial core for sage advice, sponty carbs, and infinite cackles. More 2-D hugs, kisses, and heartfelt thanks go out to cheerleaders like: Frances Stein, Teresa Heinz Kerry, Ruth Kopelman, Herzl Franco, Tara Lipton, and Jacqueline Davy. To the fam, Mom, Dad and Will, merci mille fois for making for making me laugh harder than any humans; if one trillionth of your hilarity can come through in this book, I’m elated; you are the greatest pawents and broddow anyone could ever have. And to Harry, thank you my loving L.C. for being the best sounding board, consigliere, and cubsband ever. And thanks to the love nugget Sadie; the only job title better than writer is mom and I thank you for giving me the best promotion of my life.
Also by Carrie Karasyov and Jill Kargman
The Right Address
WOLVES IN CHIC CLOTHING. Copyright © 2005 by Carrie Karasyov and Jill Kargman. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information, address Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Karasyov, Carrie, 1972–
Wolves in chic clothing : a novel / Carrie Karasyov and Jill Kargman.
p. cm.
1. Inheritance and succession—Fiction. 2. Impostors and imposture— Fiction. 3. Women sales personnel—Fiction. 4. Department stores— Fiction. 5. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. 6. Socialites—Fiction. I. Kargman, Jill, 1974– II. Title.
PS3611.A7775W65 2004
813'.6—dc22
2004057927
eISBN: 978-0-7679-2025-4
v3.0
Wolves in Chic Clothing Page 22
