Bergdorf Blondes

by Plum Sykes

I absolutely refused to believe it. I really needed a trip to Rio that night, you know. That’s a total secret by the way.

  “I know him, he’s a classic cheater. I’m sorry,” said Todd.

  “Shut up!” I said. I tried to push him away from the door.

  “‘ Il n’y a rien comme le désir pour empêcher les choses qu’on dit d’avoir acune ressemblance avec ce qu’on a dans la pensée.’ Did he say that to you?”

  How did Todd know this stuff? This was weird.

  “Know what it means?” said Todd.

  “It’s Proust.”

  “So what does it mean?”

  I didn’t answer. I’d never asked Eduardo what it actually meant. It just sounded great.

  “Let me translate,” said Todd. “There is nothing like desire for preventing the things one says from bearing any resemblance to what one has in one’s mind.’ He’s been using that line forever.”

  I was stunned. Todd read Proust? And there I was thinking he was just a regular illiterate rich kid. I take it all back, I really do. I couldn’t even look at him. I grabbed my purse and speedily exited the restaurant through the back kitchen.

  Fool, I thought as I escaped. If only I really had learned perfect fluent French, this would never have happened.

  * * *

  Front Row Girls—the 101

  1. Spiritual Home: New York fashion shows. Always in front row at Oscar, Michael, Carolina, and Bill (that’s de la Renta, Kors, Herrera, and Blass).

  2. Age: twenties, or very early thirties at absolute oldest. One well-known FRG has been twenty-three for over eight-and-a-half years now.

  3. Breeding: grandfather started major merchant bank/cosmetics brand/aerospace empire. Slightly WASPy ancestry a plus. Dressing WASPy a minus.

  4. Dress size: sample—i.e. 0, or 2 at largest. If you get onto the front row and you’re not thin, you need a lot of personality to make up for it.

  5. Vacation: grandmother’s house in Palm Beach; best friend’s private island; staying home in apartment (such a treat when you never do).

  6. Classic fashion tip: honey-colored alligator stilettos. They disappear to the naked eye and elongate legs.

  7. Shopping philosophy: always buy retail. FRGs never borrow.

  8. Best friends: other Front Row Girls. FRGs don’t converse with Second Row Girls—it’s very bad for their necks to twist back like that.

  * * *

  8

  Usually the moment I vow not to contact an ex-boyfriend, like all brokenhearted girls, I telephone them immediately. Eduardo sent me endless handwritten notes and Fauchon chocolates but I didn’t contact him, even though I was so strung out about the whole affair I can’t recall ever being that strung out. I mean, Zach was bad enough, what with no ring and no Brazil, but Eduardo had been so deceitful. Who’d think you’d be unlucky enough to get two men like that in a lifetime? Still, I wasn’t overly traumatized. You see, Dr. F. really had done something miraculous with my self-esteem, which was a lot less dented than you’d expect. I agreed with Julie when she declared, “There’s only one Prince worth knowing and that’s The Artist Formerly Known As.”

  I decided to put my failed affairs behind me. It was very clear that the PH was a very prospective thing indeed. My new resolution, or rather my old resolution, which I decided to revive, was to focus on my work. Everyone was talking about this Front Row Girl named Jazz Conassey—the Conassey lumber heiress from Wisconsin—recently arrived in New York. She was decked out beyond belief at all times in very, very petite skirts, tiny vintage couture coats, and sunglasses like a millennial Twiggy. She must have studied fashion in Paris because you do not get to be that good at fashion sitting in a forest in Wisconsin. Anyway, that lovely editor who had so kindly let me off my career when I had all those unmentionable Advil problems wanted a story about her. I agreed immediately. Not only did I want a check to run out and splurge with, I also wanted to examine Jazz’s closet, which was rumored to be stocked with a piece of Pucci from every collection.

  Jazz lives in a grand apartment block—47 East Seventieth. It’s the ideal address for a fashion addict because the lobby is literally opposite the side entrance to the Prada store on Madison. I’d heard that Jazz was a talented multitasker: she was known to shop Prada while she was simultaneously on the line to her personal shopper at Barneys. I called her right away.

  “Hey, it’s Jazzy!” It was her voice mail. “If you need to reach me, from the twentieth to the twenty-third I’m at the Four Seasons Milan at 011 39 2 77 0 88. From the twenty-third to the twenty-eighth I’ll be at my mother’s in Madrid at 011 37 24 38 38 77. After that you can reach me at the Delano, Miami. Or try my cell phone, which is 917 555 3457. Or my European cell is 44 7768 935 476. Love you miss you mean it later.”

  How Jazz had time to collect Pucci with such a fierce vacationing schedule I know not. I elected not to leave a message—after all, it wouldn’t be picked up for a week. I tried the Madrid number. Mrs. Conassey picked up. I asked if I could speak with her daughter.

  “I would like to talk to my daughter. If you find her, could you please tell her to call her mother?” she said and hung up.

  I tried the European cell. Voice mail came on. “Hey, this is Jazzy. If I don’t pick up please call me on my US cell 917 555 3457.”

  I called the 917 number. That voice mail directed me back to the New York apartment. Front Row Girls are as notoriously unavailable as supermodels. I dialed the New York number again. Someone picked up. I could hardly believe my luck. I snapped to attention.

  “Jazz?” I said.

  “This is housekeeper,” said a distinctly Filipino voice.

  “Is Jazz in?” I asked.

  “Yea.”

  “Can I speak to her?”

  “She a-sleepin’.”

  It was lunchtime. I was shocked. Until now I was under the impression that I was the only person I knew in New York who isn’t up before 10:30 AM. I said, “When she gets up can you ask her to call me back please? Can you tell her we want to write a fabulous story on her for the magazine?”

  “Yea. You number?”

  I gave it to her. At least Jazz was here, which made things easier.

  It didn’t surprise me that Jazz didn’t call me back that day. Front Row Girls never call anyone back. They don’t need to. Everyone calls them, endlessly. They’re the society equivalent of the most popular girl in high school. I telephoned the apartment the next day—after lunch. The maid picked up again. I asked to speak to Jazz.

  “Not here,” said the housekeeper.

  “Where is she?” I asked.

  “She go Mustique yesterday.”

  My heart sank. Mustique is one of those godforsaken Caribbean islands where you cannot get a cell phone signal anywhere.

  “When’s she returning?” I asked. My deadline was in a few days.

  “Don’ know! Never know when Miss Jazzy here or no,” replied the housekeeper.

  “Do you have a number for her?”

  “Sure!” said the housekeeper, repeating Jazz’s impotent cell number.

  New York society girls are beyond elusive. They have access to so many impossible-to-reach-without-your-own-jet vacation hideaways that even the CIA would have difficulty tracking them down. I doubted if a GPS system could find Jazz now.

  “You must come, I’m throwing a meeting for Save Venice,” Muffy had said. “Unless someone does something, that town is going to do a disappearing act. We don’t want Venice to be the David Blaine of historical cities.”

  That was how I found myself at her house a few days later. Muffy pretends she’s saving Venice for charitable reasons but between you and me, it’s because Muffy is literally addicted to the scene at the Hotel Cipriani there. She’d die if she couldn’t go there for a month every summer. She’s the only person I know who “throws” meetings. If she donated all the money she spends on catering her meetings to the Save Venice trust, she’d raise three times as much money as she does, without having to throw
a single benefit.

  The idea at this particular meeting was that everyone there should sign “reminder” notes to the Save Venice Ball. Apparently handwritten signatures make people more likely to buy tickets and show up than printed ones.

  “Start signing,” said Muffy when I arrived midafternoon, pressing a wedge of invitations into my hands. “Go sit in the library and I’ll come join you. Champagne? Or would you like a lychee and mango macaroon? I had the dough flown in from Paris specially. They melt on your tongue.”

  I popped one in my mouth. It was sinful, it really was. The cost of that macaroon would probably have paid for at least six new bricks in St. Mark’s. I went into Muffy’s library, which is painted Bordeaux red, like everyone else’s libraries on the Upper East Side, and sat with a group of girls. They had stacks of invitations in front of them. No one signed a thing or licked an envelope. There was too much to discuss.

  “Oh,” sighed Cynthia Kirk. “All this sitting on boards and philanthropic work!”

  Cynthia is a wealthy young committee princess. Her goal in life is to become queen of the Manhattan benefit scene.

  “I know! It’s constant. Absolutely,” said Gwendolyn Baines, her direct competition for this particular role.

  “You’re only as good as the last money you brought in. Charity is brutal. Worse than hedge funds,” said Cynthia.

  “And when you’ve got someone doing construction on your fireplace as well! It doesn’t bear thinking about,” complained Gwendolyn.

  “Fund-raising! I barely have time to shop for clothes anymore.”

  “Likewise. But I’ve realized under pressure, I can live my life on bags, shoes, and jewelry. It’s all about the accessories. The rest is just whatever.”

  “My trick, because I am under terrible stress with the museum, is Michael Kors shifts for summer. You just zip’n’go! You zip, and zoom! you’re out of the house in three minutes.”

  The atmosphere was more tense than a scene from a Chekhov play. Any minute now one of the girls was going to faint or die just for the attention.

  “Oh, there you are!” said Muffy, poufing down beside me on the sofa. She was even more breathlessly exhausted than the fund-raisers sitting around me. She patted her immaculate forehead with a laundered linen handkerchief. “If I’d known saving Venice was this tiring I might have chosen another city that isn’t drowning, like Rome, which is just collapsing,” she sighed. “Now dear, this Eduardo character. What a brute! In my day if you were married, you told your girlfriend. That was the marvelous thing about Studio 54, the openness. Everyone knew where they stood. Are you all right?”

  “Muffy, I’m fine. I’m just going to get a full bio next time,” I said. If there’s one thing I’d learned from the Eduardo episode it was this: no more men without full background checks.

  “I know someone who has the résumés of some of the most eligible men in the city,” said Muffy.

  “You do?” said Cynthia.

  “Yes, but this is not about you, Cynthia, you’re married. This is about you,” said Muffy, looking straight at me.

  “Actually, Muffy, that’s really sweet of you,” I said. “But I don’t want an ‘eligible man.’ I’m taking a break from all that. I’ve decided to focus on my career.”

  “Oh dear, no! You do not want to be working so hard or you’ll need Botox by the time you’re thirty,” Muffy replied, her face falling dramatically. “Look at the lines on Hillary Clinton’s face. Too much career going on there.”

  Muffy is aesthetically opposed to serious career girls. She thinks working destroys your skin cells. Sometimes Muffy is so old-fashioned I think they should install her as an exhibit at the Met.

  “You must meet my friend Donald Shenfeld. Divorce lawyer to anyone who’s anyone who needs a divorce.”

  “Muffy, Eduardo isn’t getting a divorce any time soon,” I said.

  “It’s not for him, it’s for you,” Muffy replied.

  Maybe Muffy had early-onset Alzheimer’s. I hardly needed a divorce since I’d never even managed a wedding. She went on, “Donald’s fabulous. He’s arranged a lot of fabulous divorces and a lot of fabulous relationships in this city. He divorced me at the same time as he was divorcing poor Henry. He realized we were the perfect couple, he introduced us, and look at me now! I’ve got the most wonderful homes! Donald Shenfeld knows who’s coming, who’s going, and here’s the really criminal part, who’s about to be coming.”

  “I would love to meet with him,” said Gwendolyn.

  “Gwen, you’re taken,” snapped Muffy.

  “I know, but why not be aware of who’s on the market? Just in case.”

  I wondered if Gwendolyn’s and Cynthia’s husbands were as busy searching for second wives as their wives were searching for second husbands.

  “See,” said Muffy, turning to me earnestly, “you have got to be ahead in this town. An eligible divorcé comes onto the market and boom! Gone quicker than you can say ‘Did you sign a pre-nup?’ It’s a huge advantage to have someone like Donald looking out for you, in advance.”

  “Don’t you think a man who’s about to get a divorce isn’t exactly a prime candidate for a relationship?” I said.

  “That’s where you girls get it so wrong. You’re looking in all the wrong places. The divine thing about a divorcé is that you know they’re the marrying kind. You can’t say that for a single man, can you?”

  Muffy has very logical thought processes that make no sense at all sometimes.

  “Donald has someone fabulous for you.”

  “Muffy! Stop,” I cried.

  I didn’t want to know. Of course she totally ignored me, saying, “Patrick Saxton. Forty-one. Still has hair. As good as divorced. Film business, you know, he runs some huge movie studio. Bicoastal. Private jets absolutely everywhere, which warms my heart because you know I hate to think of you flying commercial even if you are a working girl and that’s what all the others do. He’s dying to meet you.”

  Blind dates are for sad NY girls with no nice clothes. There was no way I was going on one.

  “I’ve heard he’s phenomenally rich,” said Cynthia, eyes widening.

  “I don’t want a rich guy,” I said.

  I meant it. Everyone I know with a rich boyfriend or husband is always complaining about money. They never complain about the shopping opportunities though.

  “He’s not that rich,” said Muffy. “He’s not make-you-miserable, my-own-yacht rich. He’s four houses rich, which I think is just rich enough.”

  Some New York girls would date Patrick purely for the extra closet space. But “as good as divorced” sounded a lot like “married.” This one was totally off my list before he’d even got on it.

  Voice mail is the modern American equivalent of Chinese water torture. Jazz’s was running 24/7, on every land line and cell phone. The next day I left several messages again, hoping she might call back. I didn’t want this story to go the same way as the Palm Beach heiress. There was nothing to do but sit and wait by the phone. Instead of brooding on my fiancé-free, date-free life, I decided to be positive and plan my Save Venice outfit—the party was in two days’ time.

  Just as I was calling Carolina Herrera’s office to see if they’d lend me a gown, the other line rang. I snapped off my Carolina fashion call and picked it up. A sweet, girlish voice with a Marilyn Monroe edge came on the line.

  “Hi, this is Jazz Conassey. I’d love love love to do the story.”

  “Jazz!” I said. “I’ve been trying to contact you. Where are you?”

  “Ooo-hh,” she yawned langorously. “On a boat somewhere, I don’t know where, but it’s so fun, you should come down here.”

  Girls like Jazz always invite everyone everywhere, even people they’ve never met, and even when they have no idea where they are.

  “When are you back in New York?” I asked.

  “I don’t know! Don’t ask me questions like that! Maybe tomorrow? I was thinking of going to this Save Venice part
y. Daddy’s virtually saved Venice single-handed, so I’m under a lot of pressure to be there.”

  “I have to go, too. Why don’t we meet there and we can do the story the next morning?”

  “But those things are dull. So dull. And I’m on the boat and everything. It’s so nice down here. And you know, I don’t really want to be in a magazine much anyway.”

  Talking society girls into doing what you want is like playing chess. You have to be at least three moves ahead. All you need to know is, ask for what you don’t want and you’ll get what you want. Ask for what you want and you’ll get what you don’t want. I said calmly, “You shouldn’t do the story then. Definitely not. Have a great time on the boat and—”

  “No, wait, maybe I could manage it. I could meet you at the party?”

  “Are you sure?” I said. “I don’t want to interrupt your vacation.”

  “Hey, I’m always on vacation. I need a break from vacations actually. They get so dull.”

  I said, “How will I find you at the party?”

  With a giggle she replied, “I’ll be the girl in the shortest skirt with the best tan.”

  How one dresses as a doge of Venice in a miniskirt I know not but if I had legs like Jazz’s I would rewrite fashion history, too.

  “God, it’s very S.P.D.V tonight,” said Julie with a sigh, scanning the Save Venice crowd, which was gathered in the grand ballroom of the St. Regis Hotel.

  We were hanging at the bar drinking strawberry cocktails. Julie was dressed in a long, narrow column of gold lamé—vintage Halston, which is so in right now it’s insane. She refused to dress for a theme after the Ali MacGraw scenario had sent her into a fashion depression. I didn’t exactly look Venetian either, but I was living for the draped navy evening gown Carolina had sent over for me. It would be a tragedy to have to return it.

  “S.P.D.V?” I said. Sometimes Julie’s lingo is way too abbreviated for me.

  “Same People Different Venue,” she explained, looking supremely bored.

  Julie was right. The Save Venice party was a jungle of the same socialites, dresses, and jewels you see at every benefit in New York. I roved the party looking for a beauty in a mini but all I saw were girls in apartment-sized ball gowns. That much net in one dress can be majorly traumatic sometimes. The congestion in the restroom when two girls wanted to pass by each other was worse than the New Jersey Turnpike at rush hour.