Southern Charm

by Tinsley Mortimer

  Her initial reaction was hard to read. She pursed her lips, then scrunched them to the side. Then she turned her head and her eyes narrowed into tiny little slits. But I knew the coast was clear when she started nodding. It was a subtle nod at first, almost as if she was trying to keep herself from nodding too enthusiastically. But then she was smiling and clapping her hands. She stood up, ran over, and made me twirl around a million times in order to catch every angle.

  She turned to Geny.

  “There will be a few alterations of course,” she said. “Minty’s wedding dress needs to be one-of-a-kind.”

  Geny jotted down some notes. “Of course, Mrs. Davenport,” she said. “Of course.”

  As Geny walked away, I felt the initial rush of wearing the dress peak and plummet. What was I doing, standing in the middle of Oscar de la Renta in a wedding gown when just a few hours before I was questioning whether or not I wanted to go through with the wedding in the first place? A lump formed in my throat and within seconds I was crying.

  “Sweetheart,” my mother said, rushing to my side. “The dress is breathtaking, I know, but there’s no use crying about it.”

  “Mother, give me a break,” I gulped through the tears.

  She cupped my face in her hands. “All I’m saying is, let’s not jump to too many conclusions.”

  “I’m just feeling so unsure right now,” I said, pulling away. “I don’t even know where to begin to make this better.”

  “Well, I’m not sure if this makes you feel any better,” she said, “but Tripp called me crying last night. He said he couldn’t live without you, that he was worried he’d screwed it all up. I would have had to have a heart of stone not to listen to him.”

  I gulped. “And what did you say?”

  “I told him to be honest with you. He said you wouldn’t believe him. So I told him he should sit you down, face-to-face, once everyone had cooled down a bit and discuss it. I had no idea that floozy was off on a boat somewhere trying to draw attention to herself.”

  “Mommy, let’s at least try to be civil,” I said.

  “‘Floozy’ is the civil option compared to everything else I want to call her. So, were you able to talk to him as well?” she asked.

  I frowned. “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “I’m not sure I believe him. Actually, I think he’s lying.”

  “I see,” Mother said.

  Geny returned. She consulted with my mother about the dress for a few minutes as I pulled myself together in the dressing room and changed back into my clothes. When I came out, my mother was standing there looking very focused, with just a touch of concern. As suffocating as she could be, I knew that she wanted nothing more than the best for her daughters. I trusted her opinion more than anyone’s.

  “Well,” she began, “look at it this way. Tripp is off to London. You have yourself some time to think. Take a few days, breathe a little. And when he’s back, hopefully y’all will figure this out.”

  I nodded. “Okay.” I picked up Belly and stroked her head.

  As we walked out of Oscar de la Renta, Geny was putting the dress back on display.

  I glanced at my mother.

  “I told her we have a little more shopping around to do,” she said.

  Keep Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer

  May scored an invite to the Marc Jacobs show and after-party and she was nice enough to invite me. It was one of the final shows of Fashion Week, on Sunday night. I spent the entire weekend preparing. From what I’d heard, it was nearly impossible to get an invite to Marc unless you were a top fashion editor or a celebrity, so the fact that May had been able to convince her friend in the PR department to give me a seat was a huge deal. Even Emily was impressed.

  “I reminded her about the Kevin Park story in WWD and she realized you’d be an asset to the front row,” May said.

  “Wow,” I said. “Thank you!”

  When I arrived at the Armory on Lexington Avenue, I was horrified to see Ruth standing at the front of the house overseeing the check-in. A long line had already started to snake around the front of the building.

  “Minty!”

  I turned around and saw May making her way toward me. She was waving dramatically, drawing a lot of attention to herself. She towered over the crowd in amazing Marc Jacobs platform heels.

  “Minty, what are you doing on that line?” She grabbed me by the arm. “You shouldn’t be standing on a line.”

  She ushered me toward the front—past the bewildered-looking girls from RVPR—without getting so much as a second glance from Ruth. The word “no” was not in May’s vocabulary, probably because she had never heard it. May lived in her own world, and that world was filled with last-minute trips to Paris on private jets, multimillion-dollar real estate, a wardrobe of couture, and never having to wash your own hair.

  “Excuse me, Ms. Abernathy,” one of the RVPR girls said, running after us as we made our way toward the entrance of the show. “We’re actually not ready yet. We’re going to start letting in VIP guests in the next five minutes or so if you don’t mind waiting?”

  May shot the girl a withering look and kept walking.

  “Oh, it’s okay, honey,” she said over her shoulder, waving a willowy hand in the air. “Marc won’t mind.” She burst through the doors, dragging me behind her.

  We stood at the end of the runway, where packs of photographers had already set up shop. There was still a long piece of black fabric covering the runway. Girls in black T-shirts were placing gift bags on the first- and second-row seats.

  “Every season it’s like, blah, blah, blah, we’re not ready yet. Well, I’m ready.” She turned to me. “Do you know what I mean?”

  I didn’t really know what she meant. “These shows always start so late, it’s annoying!”

  “Not Marc,” May said, making her way toward our assigned seats, which were thankfully next to each other. “Not anymore. There was a ton of drama one year about how Marc was almost an hour late. Anna got up and left, she was so annoyed,” she said, referring to Anna Wintour, the editor in chief of Vogue, “and God knows you don’t piss Anna off. Anyway, he starts on time now and that’s that. But really . . .” She trailed off, glancing around the cavernous space. “OMG, where is the after-party again? I’m pretty sure it’s at the Jane. We’ll have to ask Judy from PR backstage. Remind me.”

  “Okay,” I said, trying to process everything she’d just rattled off. “Do you know when Emily is getting here?”

  Emily had mentioned she was going to try to catch the show as well.

  “Oh,” May said, “you didn’t get her text? She’s meeting us at the after-party. Something with her boss. She works like a dog, that one.”

  I laughed. To May, any job seemed unfathomable, inhumane. We sat down and she placed her gift bag under her seat without so much as glancing inside. It was uncouth to glance inside a gift bag in public. Some people just left the gift bag behind as if they couldn’t even be bothered!

  People started filing in. The crowd already included every chic and important person on the island of Manhattan. And then the celebrities started to descend. The flash of the cameras growing more frequent was a sure sign that someone famous was entering the room. And, sure enough, there were Kanye, Beyoncé, and J.Lo.

  There was a hush in the crowd and everyone started taking their seats. Then the entire room went black. I looked at May, who had already moved into the next topic of conversation and was texting away on her BlackBerry.

  “The after-party’s at the Jane,” she whispered. “Ugh, so fucking far west. And the car situation outside is going to be a nightmare. I’ll have Billy pull up right on Twenty-fifth as soon as the show is—”

  May was cut off by the sound of thumping techno music. A single spotlight shone on the start of the runway and a model stood still there, wearing a sculptural dress, her hair teased and piled high on her head. The music switched to a less jarring song and she started walkin
g with a completely blank expression on her face. Of the handful of other shows I’d attended that week I couldn’t recall one smiling model.

  I tried to keep my eyes on the clothes, but Jennifer Lopez was sitting directly across from me, and if Jennifer Lopez is within a hundred feet it’s hard to focus on anything else. She was wearing huge Dior sunglasses and her hair was so long, wavy, and thick it was almost otherworldly.

  “No one does ‘cool girl’ better than Marc,” May said as a model strutted by in an ankle-length skirt and a structured jacket.

  I nodded. I thought the clothes were cute. But there were so many amazing things going on, it was hard to even begin to process what the models were wearing. This was theater and the clothes were the stars. The celebrities, socialites, and various glitterati were part of the production, adding a glamorous backdrop to the stage. Because of the brevity of the show—seven, maybe nine minutes tops—you couldn’t help but be distracted by the reactions of the front row.

  Was that a raised eyebrow from Anna? Did Liv Tyler just point out that leather skirt to her stylist, Rachel Zoe? Could Gerard Butler wipe that silly grin off his face?

  And then, the grand finale. The girls came out for their last walk, one after another, so close together they were like a giant centipede of chic, snaking down the runway and turning, circling back to where they came from. Marc stood at the end of the runway and did a quick wave.

  “Wow,” I said.

  May nodded. “I know. I know. Major, right?” She uncrossed her legs and turned to me. “Shall we, honey?”

  Everyone stood up. More camera flashes were going off. I’d always loved fashion. I’d always loved to shop the latest trends, discover new designers, and put together a cute outfit. But this is what it was about. Because every single person in the Armory that night, from the students and interns standing on their tippy-toes at the top of the bleachers to the celebrities and editors lining the front row, was passionate about being there. That was it—there was an amazing energy, an enthusiasm that I’d never felt anywhere else. It was a natural high. And all I could think was, This is what I need to do.

  As I daydreamed about a future Minty Davenport show, May and I began to weave our way through the crowd. I noticed Alexis Barnaby standing off to the side. We made eye contact, briefly, and then Richard Fitzsimmons asked May and me if he could take our picture.

  “Of course, handsome,” May said, winking jokingly at Richard.

  Richard’s flash went off several times, and then it was over.

  “Minty!”

  A man in jeans and New Balance sneakers came running up as May wandered off to the other side of the runway and said hello to someone in Beyoncé’s entourage.

  “Minty, Ken Dawson from Gawker,” he said. He looked flushed for a minute, nervous even. “I’ve, uh, written about you a few times . . . ?”

  “Oh, really?” I asked.

  From what I knew about the website Gawker.com, whatever he’d “written” about me was probably pretty snarky and also just a little bit rude.

  He shrugged. “Yeah,” he said. “All in good fun.”

  I shrugged back. “Sure,” I said.

  “So, uh, do you have any comment on the news?”

  I looked back at him blankly. “I’m sorry?”

  “Social Roster,” he said. “The news that Ruth Vine has been behind SocialRoster.com all along?”

  My jaw hit the floor.

  “Rumor has it she’s going to be on the cover of New York magazine next week. A huge exposé on the downfall of one of the city’s top publicists,” he said, rolling his eyes. He leaned in, lowering his voice. “Supposedly her clients have already started dropping like flies.”

  I gulped.

  “So. Any comment?”

  “N-no,” I stammered.

  “What about you and Tripp?” he continued as I started backing away. “Why did you decide to get married in city hall when you’re already planning a big wedding?”

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  “Are you going to comment or not?”

  “No!” I shouted.

  I pushed through a crowd of people (which is something I normally wouldn’t do) to get to May, who was standing a head taller than most people.

  “Minty! Are you okay?”

  “Excuse me,” I announced to Beyoncé’s entourage. “I’m sorry.” I grabbed May’s arm. “I have to get out of here.”

  May escorted me in the opposite direction of the crowd, through the little entrance to the backstage area. Behind the black curtain, Marc was calmly answering a few questions from interviewers while the hair and makeup teams closed up shop. As we passed by, May blew a kiss in his direction and he blew one right back, barely skipping a beat in the “deconstructed glamour” sound bite he was giving the reporter from the Style Network. May pointed to a door on the opposite side of the room that was slightly ajar.

  “Through there,” she said.

  When we stepped onto Twenty-fifth Street, the cold air hit me like a jolt of caffeine. I felt like the last five minutes had happened in a terrible nightmare.

  “Minty!”

  Alexis Barnaby had followed us outside and was standing there in the freezing cold, alone, with no jacket. I stared at her.

  “May, hi,” she said. “I’m so sorry to bother you both, I just wanted to explain.”

  “What’s wrong, honey?” I asked. She looked like she was about to cry.

  “It’s just,” she began, “I want you to know I had nothing to do with any of the negative press. Ruth was really angry when you left. I was interning a few days a week and she suddenly started inviting me to parties instead of asking me to work them. She was letting me borrow clothes from the closet. She called me her little ‘project’ and, honestly, I just thought it was fun. And then these stories started appearing out of nowhere, linking me to you and saying you’d tripped me on the runway and all of these things that weren’t true.” She gulped, her eyes filling with tears. She was clearly overwhelmed. “I didn’t know where they were coming from. At first I just thought someone random was making them up, but then I realized it was her! She was using me to get back at you! And honestly, Minty, I had no idea. If anything, I would have loved to be your friend and now we’re supposedly enemies.”

  “Please,” I said, attempting to look like I knew all along that Ruth was behind those stories. “I know how Ruth can be.” I smiled at her. It seemed like she was telling the truth. “And what is this thing about Social Roster?”

  “Ugh,” Alexis groaned. “She started it as a joke. But then it became this big thing and I don’t think she realized what she was getting herself into.”

  I shook my head. May frowned, becoming increasingly impatient with the long-winded story.

  “Sweetie,” May said in a patronizing tone, “tell me: if Ruth was behind that website, why would she put Minty and me as the top girls and you all the way down on the bottom?”

  Alexis stared up at May. “I don’t know,” she said in a shaky voice. “She had some plan about having me climb the ranks. By the time I found out, it was pretty late in the game. I’m terrified of her.”

  I glanced around the block, which was quiet save for a few passing cars and neighborhood people walking their dogs. I hadn’t felt so bullied, so singled out, since junior high school when Amber Macintosh told my whole gym class that I still wore Strawberry Shortcake underwear. But at the same time, at least I had one less enemy than I thought. I guess Alexis wasn’t so bad after all.

  “Anyway,” Alexis said. “I’m freezing and I’m sure you have to get going. I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for everything.” She turned around and walked back into the Armory.

  May craned her neck down the block and waved her hand in the air as our car approached.

  “Oh my God, May, Ruth is evil!”

  May just shrugged. “Oh, honey,” she said, “aren’t you sweet to act all shocked and surprised.”

  If It Walks Like a Duck, It’s
Probably a Duck

  Tripp was right. The media was having a field day with the news that Tabitha had “almost drowned” in the Caribbean.

  Thankfully, only one or two articles mentioned that Tabitha and Tripp had dated in the past. One piece in New York magazine suggested that Tabitha and I were not the best of friends, but that was the extent of it. Perhaps I was being spared some drama this time around.

  I called Tripp in London twice over the course of two days to check in, but I kept getting voice mail. He finally called back to say he’d lost his cell phone and that I should just leave a message with the concierge if I needed to reach him. I shook my head. It was classic Tripp to lose his cell phone. He was always forgetting it somewhere.

  But after leaving several messages with the concierge, I was starting to get angry. I was sure he was busy with work but what on earth was keeping him from calling me back? Especially in the midst of the Tabitha media frenzy. He was my husband! And he was skating on extremely thin ice. I didn’t think checking in once a day was too much to ask.

  Emily not only agreed, she was aghast.

  “You’re kidding me, right?” she said when I called to fill her in on the situation.

  “Am I overreacting?” I knew I wasn’t, but for some reason I needed a second opinion. I needed her second opinion.

  “Minty, don’t make me come over there and drop-kick some sense into you,” she said, fuming. “It would be one thing if you guys parted on completely normal, healthy relationship terms, but this is unacceptable. He should be sending you diamonds and filling every room of your apartment with roses right now, not ignoring your calls.”

  I was silent. She was right, of course.

  “Will you let me know the second you hear back from him, please? I’m really curious to hear what he has to say for himself.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  On top of it, Ryerson—of all people—reappeared. I was rushing out of the door for work when my phone started ringing. I hadn’t seen his name pop up on my phone in, well, two years. And there it was: Ryerson Bigelow. I nearly dropped the phone on the ground I was so shocked. But I couldn’t bring myself to answer the call, especially when I was so wrapped up in the situation with Tripp. I was pretty sure the last thing I was prepared to handle was a heart-to-heart with my ex-boyfriend.