Bergdorf Blondes (7 page)

“Cool. I’ll set you up at my engagement party,” I said.

“I thought this
was
your engagement party.”

“This is my Los Angeles engagement party. But my friend Muffy’s throwing one for me in New York. Everyone’s so nice to you when you get engaged, it’s completely impossible! Would I have seen any of your movies?”

“I doubt it,” he said. “They’re an acquired taste.”

“Are they art house?” I asked.

“No, comedies!” he exclaimed. “The trouble is, I think they’re funny but no one else does. Most people find my work depressing, but I say there’s no comedy without tragedy. Unfortunately, the studio heads don’t agree with me. Now, would you like to see the straw trick again?”

I was pretty happy driving home after the party. Seriously, after Daphne had rescued me, I’d laughed all night. Everything was going to be okay with Zach again soon, I was sure of it. I tried to talk to him as we drove along Sunset toward the Chateau. It was
only eleven o’clock and I guess I wanted to smooth the way for some Latin American activity when we got back.

“Darling, even though I’m radiantly happy, I’m…
très, très
depressed,” I said quietly.

Oh god, that came out all wrong. I hadn’t meant to say that at all.

“Are you gonna hassle me about sex
again
?” said Zach, without taking his eyes off the road. “You’re obsessed. It’s so fuckin’ weird.”

Finally, Zach was talking to me. It was a breakthrough of sorts after the last few days. Did he have to be so gruesome though? Sometimes New Yorkers can be a little too direct for a demure girl like me, even one who’s realized she’s probably more sluttish than demure-ish.

“Sweetpea, I wish you wouldn’t say that. It’s not very romantic,” I replied, half-joking and half-trying not to weep, which was all I really felt like doing.

“You are so fuckin’ superficial. You think a relationship is all about sex. And it’s fuckin’ not, it’s a lot fuckin’ deeper than that.”

Zach was really upsetting me now. Still, I tried to keep it together and be sweet: I didn’t want this to become an issue.

“But darling, we’re not best friends. I mean, most people make love with their fiancé—”

“I’m not ‘most people.’ That’s why you’re with me.
I’m a
photographer
. I don’t live by other people’s rules. I am what I am. You’re so selfish. You need to get a decent value system.”

Zach jammed on the brakes and stared into the blackness of Stone Canyon. He looked furious. What had I done?

“It’s all you you you and whether or not you’re get-tin’ laid. Stop goin’ on about the same fuckin’ thing.”

Zach was freaking me out even more than Patrick Bateman in
American Psycho
, and I found that book so freaky that I only read the first twelve pages, so I don’t even know the half of it. I guess I was so shocked by what he’d said that I couldn’t say a thing in reply. Finally he started the car again, and we drove back to the Chateau in silence. Hopefully everything would be okay again when we got back to New York, once the Luca Luca shoot was out of the way in a couple of weeks’ time. And, I reminded myself, no one’s perfect all the time, especially me, so I couldn’t really complain. Even if Zach had been cool toward me tonight, I was still nuts about him. I then started wondering what,
in theory
, it would be like being engaged to someone warmer but less handsome, like that funny movie director. Of course, I put the thought out of my mind almost immediately, so I think of it as a thought that doesn’t really count.

“Eeew! A movie director? Are you kidding me? Way, way too creative.”

Julie’s reaction when I told her I wanted to set her up with Charlie was exactly as expected. We were at Bergdorf’s a week or so later for a painted highlight, which is the in highlight now that foiling is over, according to Ariette, who can be completely trusted regarding serious hair-related issues. The reason everyone is obsessed with the Bergdorf salon, which covers the entire ninth floor of the store, is because it’s so relaxing in there you can totally forget icky things, like the fact that your fiancé has barely conversed with you for the last week. The place is just bliss actually. The floor has been divided up into three airy salons—a huge reception area, which always has the most incredible vase of cherry blossoms on the table, a cutting room, and a color room, which is where Julie and I were hanging out. There are mirrors, makeup tables, and manicure and pedicure stations everywhere you look. Assistants dressed in matching lilac blouses bustle back and forth bringing you iced lattes and apple sorbets, and there’s even a whole person—Cherylee—devoted to eyebrow shaping, which has actually become a profession in itself. The entire place is painted pale violet and from the windows that wrap around the floor you can see all the way down Fifth Avenue in one direction and right across Central Park in the other. Who wouldn’t for
get they hadn’t had sex in three weeks at the Bergdorf salon? That place
is
sex.

“Julie, it’s only a suggestion, but maybe you should think about more diverse possibilities. I mean you could be missing out on some really wonderful men,” I said. “And this guy I want you to meet is funny and sweet. I mean, if I wasn’t with my PH I might want him as a PH.”

This wasn’t true at all, of course—I was mad about Zach despite everything. But I was trying to reform Julie’s narrow horizons.

“If you like this guy Charlie, you gotta finish it with Zach.”

“I don’t ‘like’ like him Julie, I just like him, but what I am saying is if I weren’t engaged—which I
very
much am—he’s the kind of man I might ‘like.’ And he’s just so funny and adorable. I’m going to seat you next to him at the party.”

“Is he cute?”

“Daphne says he’s unbelievably cute.”

“Well what do
you
think?

“I don’t know,” I said.

Honestly, I had no idea whether Charlie was cute or not now. The only man I could think about with any clarity was Zach. All the others were just a blur.

“So, tell me everything,” said Julie, as Ariette painted the dye onto her locks. “You sounded terrible when you called me from Daphne’s. What happened after the party?”

“Oh, nothing,” I said, casually flipping through the new
Vogue
. (They always have next month’s
Vogue
in the salon way before it’s come out.)

“Yeah, right,” said Julie sarcastically.

Julie knows me too well for me to hide anything from her. I told her about the hideous conversation in the car, selectively skimming over some of the details.

“Eew! How could he
say
those things?! What a total See You Next Tuesday. You can’t marry this guy, honey. A marriage without sex would be very disappointing. You’re in complete denial,” said Julie.

I had no idea what she was talking about.

“That’s the problem with people who are in denial,” continued Julie. “If they’re in it, they have no idea they’re in it.”

Sometimes Julie makes zero sense.

“But I love him,” I said. Even just thinking about Zach made me feel like I was going to drop six pounds then and there.

“The only person you’re in love with is Jude Law. You’re in love with the idea of being in love,” said Julie. “You’re a hopeless romantic.”

I thought this was a bit much coming from the original hopeless romantic herself. I mean, Julie admits she’s totally in love with Jude Law too, so I would have thought she’d really understand. And Julie didn’t know a thing about relationships anyway. I mean, she’s had tons and none of them has ever worked out.

“But maybe Zach’s right, maybe I am really superficial,” I said.

“You are
not
superficial, you just seem like you are sometimes because of your Chloé jeans obsession. He’s the superficial one, turning all the problems into your fault. Now, do you think it’s chicer to be a single-process blonde or a double-process blonde?” said Julie, tipping her head back into the sink to have the color rinsed out of her hair.

“Single. Do you think if I gave up Chloé jeans he’d sleep with me?”

“I’ve got one word for you. Postpone.”

Julie was absolutely, completely, and utterly deluded. I couldn’t postpone! I couldn’t even contemplate thinking about not marrying Zach. It was like I’d drunk the Kool-Aid: there was no going back now. And anyway, Muffy was twenty-four hours away from throwing me this divine engagement party. She’d gone even more overboard than Daphne and hired Lexington Kinnicut to do the flowers. He is New York’s uncontested king of the Rose Jungle (the in jungle after Lily Jungles). The wait list for Lexington Kinnicut is comparable only to the wait list for the YSL horn bags. If I called off my engagement and Muffy had to cancel Lexington, she’d die on the spot, literally. The other thing was, I’d planned to introduce Julie and Charlie at the party: if I postponed there’d be no party and no introduction.

Even though there was absolutely no way I was planning to postpone, the second I got home from Bergdorf’s I did call Mom for a postponement consultation. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, because it is, but I was confused beyond belief. I guess I was starting to realize that rushing into marriage with Patrick Bateman wasn’t nearly as appealing as rushing into marriage with Jude Law. I told Mom, in strictest confidence, that Zach and I had a few issues in the Brazilian department and that if I wasn’t exactly considering a postponement, a mini-delay might be in the offing. I made her promise not to tell a soul, since our New York engagement party was the following night. Zach mustn’t find out I had any doubts. After all, why spoil a fabulous party before (especially after Lexington had flown in 200 pink orchids from the Dominican Republic to make the Rose Jungle more exotic), when I could experience the really fabulous party and spoil it afterward?

I went out to run some errands and when I returned a few hours later, my voice mail was flashing like crazy. I knew all my girlfriends would be calling to ask what to wear that night. I listened to my messages:

“This is the manager at Swyre Castle Conference Center. So sorry about the cancellation; we’ll be keeping the three-thousand-pound deposit.”

“Hi, it’s your dad. How terrible about the broken engagement. Mom told me today. Is it true you hadn’t had sex in three months?”

God, why does my family always have to exaggerate everything so much? I’d told Mom it was three
weeks
.

“This is Debbie Stoddard,
Daily Mail
Diary, London. We’re running an item tomorrow about your broken engagement. Could you call me back to confirm?”

“Mom, how
could
you?” I cried when I got through to her. I was furious.

“Well, darling, it just would have been so inconvenient for the Swyres, and embarrassing for me in the village, if you cancelled last minute, so I just gave everyone a bit of advance warning—”

“The Swyres don’t even live there now. It’s a conference center, Mom, and what’s so embarrassing about cancelling a conference center? I am never telling you a private secret again. I
haven’t
cancelled. I was just thinking a mini-delay might be appropriate.”

I put the phone down, furious. What on earth was I going to do now? I had to make sure Zach never found out about this. That minute, Julie called. She was very excited about meeting Charlie.

“I just Googled him. He’s like the most amazing director, totally eligible—”

“You Googled him? Julie!” I said.

“Everyone Googles everyone in New York. It’s an integral part of dating now,” she explained.

Sometimes the things Julie says make me feel like dating in New York is worse than it is on
Sex and the City
. And I always used to think
Sex and the City
is as terrifying as dating can possibly get.

“Anyway, whatever. Charlie makes the best movies,” added Julie.

“You’ve seen the movies?” I said, confused.

“Eew, nooo! They sound way too depressing. But the reviews in
The New Yorker
are killer. Can you bear it? I’m so totally in love with him already, I mean, apparently he’s an
auteur
in the making.”

“Julie, you’re being so cynical.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing! Now, do you think he’s into double- or single-process blondes? Because I can always nip back to Bergdorf’s quickly.”

I spent the next day—the day of Muffy’s party—secretly un-cancelling everything Mom had cancelled. This was beyond traumatic because it meant I didn’t have time for a fake bake or makeup or anything and the worry of everything had gotten inside my brain and turned my complexion whiter than an entire Lily Jungle. All that mattered was that Zach never found out what Mom had done behind his back.

The only good thing about the day of the party was that I got to spend it in my apartment, which, by the way, I adore. I couldn’t believe it when I found it, it was a steal. It’s deep in the West Village, on the corner of Perry Street and Washington Street, the whole top floor of a redbrick, prewar walk-up. I’ve got pretty windows on two sides and I can just glimpse the river sparkling in the distance through them. I’ve painted all the walls a pale azure to match the water. It’s not very big—just a bedroom, sitting room with a fireplace, and an alcove study—but it’s pretty as hell with my things in it. It’s sort of vintagey, but not cluttered with junk like some girls’ apartments can be in New York. Shoes everywhere is something I’m totally allergic to actually, and I can’t really be friends with girls who are into having rails and rails of clothes instead of furniture. I’m into clean vintage, if you get my meaning. I mean, I have this beautiful chandelier I found in Paris in the sitting room, and old photographs and things on the wall, and a soft, pale blue sofa that I lie on and read books for hours, listening to music. And then everything in my bedroom is covered in antique white linen that Mom sends over from England, when she’s not busy doing annoying things like cancelling my wedding without telling me. God! Mom! Nightmare.