Nancy’s Theory of Style (12 page)

Of course, she had a little assistance
from one of the spa stylists. He applied
Nancy
’s
makeup, including Shu Uemura false eyelashes. Then he fluffed, spritzed, and
crunched
Nancy
’s
hair, applied a fixative to seal her makeup, and gave her shoulders a
mini-massage.

Nancy
did a mirror check and was pleased to
see how authoritative and professional she looked in her PJs, cream marabou
slippers, headset and clipboard.

She descended the majestic grand
staircase and paused half-way to observe the wonders she had wrought. Everything
that could sparkle sparkled. The musicians were warming up. The waiters, spa attendants,
and other staff wore similar indigo pajamas, but in a cotton/rayon blend.
Nancy
reached the bottom
of the staircase feeling like the captain of a ship.

“
Nancy
!”
Sloane was rushing across the hall in her pajamas, which had an unfortunate bag
of potatoes effect on her figure. Her face had a sheen and strands of hair had
slipped loose from her ponytail.

“Sloane, how is everything on your end?”

After Sloane reported her activities,
Nancy
said, “Do you want
to go upstairs and touch up your makeup and hair?”

Her friend shook her head. “Thanks, but
I can’t spare the time.”

“I care. Turn around.”
Nancy
pulled off the band around Sloane’s
hair, pulled all the strands together, banded the hair again, and then tucked
the ponytail into itself, making the mess look intentional. “Much better,” she
said. “I’ve got my makeup kit in the Palladium Room.”

“Nancy, no one cares what I look like,”
Sloane said.

Nancy
felt a pang of sorrow that even her
friend’s soul had been de-sparkled, but her duties kept her from pondering
whether the desparkling was a permanent condition.

Nancy and her team stayed on their feet
all night making sure that the guests ate, drank, danced, and passed out in
absolute comfort.

Sloane and the first shift left at
midnight. By 3 a.m., when most of Gigi’s friends had visited her spa and were
wearing their thick white robes (monogrammed with “I Slept with Gigi”), Nancy
realized that she was having problems coordinating her body movements.

“
Nancy
!”

Bailey Whiteside was standing in front
of her wearing a red onesie and a flannel nightcap. In one hand, he held a
tumbler of amber liquid. He looked good even in these ridiculous pajamas. Especially
in the soft, caressing fabric of his pajamas. Don’t look down, she told
herself.

“So you decided to show up,” she said.

“I wanted to see you again.” His hazel
eyes gazed into hers. “I remember your wedding reception here. You were so
beautiful.”

She was so exhausted that the compliment
made her sad. Her eyes began to well. “Thank you.”

“I wanted to carry you off. I could
never figure out how Todd got to you before me.” Bailey tipped his drink toward
her lips and she took a sip of the scotch.

Her brain was foggier than the sky
outside. “You could have tried to steal me away before I got married,” she said.
“You always flirted, but you’re a flirt.”

“I always flirted with you, Nancy,” he
said, “because you’re so pretty and fun. I wasn’t going to do anything unless
you gave me an indication that I had a chance. Do you remember that winter when
we went to that funky old lodge in Donner?”

“You came alone,” she said. “I got a
cold and you stayed and made me cocoa and you taught me how to play Texas
Hold-Em.”

“Hoping for my chance with you. I really
wanted to play strip poker.”

“And then I got married,” she said.

“Then you got married,” he said. “But
now that you’ve left Todd, maybe…” He began running his free hand up and down
her arm, sending shivers through her.

“I haven’t left Todd. I am focusing on
Froth. I’m doing it as we speak. Froth. It’s a funny word, isn’t it? Froth.”

“When do you get off tonight? Come sleep
at my place and we’ll go out to brunch tomorrow.”

“I can’t. I’m married, and I have to
stay here and be the captain of the ship. Do you know that Todd put a wet-bar
in the bedroom?”

“Maybe you can show me your bedroom
sometime.” Bailey handed her the drink and said, “Go ahead, finish it.”

She hadn’t had dinner, and she was
thirsty. The scotch burned nicely on the way down. “Are you going to Lizette
and Bill’s wine country weekend?”

“No, they’d just try to set me up so I
can be stuck married and bored like them. Not that all married women are boring.”
Bailey put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her lightly.

Nancy
could taste the scotch on his lips.
Bailey put his lips to her ear and whispered, “Come home with me.”

“Mrs. Carrington-Chambers.”

She pulled away from Bailey and turned
to see Derek standing close. “Hmmm? Bailey, this is my fabulous new assistant,
Derek.”

“Hey,” Bailey said.

“Good evening, sir,” Derek said.
“Madame, if I could have a moment?”

“Of course.”
Nancy
noticed that she was wavering on her
feet. Derek came to her side and she swayed against him.

“I’ll call you, Nancy,” Bailey said and
left, his red posterior hazy in
Nancy
’s
exhaustion.

She looked at her lovely assistant and
said, “Am I supposed to be doing something for the party?”

“You’re completely knackered. We’re
going to have a kip. The guest rooms are occupied, so I’ve set up something for
you.” Derek put his arm around her waist and she leaned against him as he took
her to the Palladium Room. “Is Mr. Whiteside a special friend of yours, Madame?”

“Bailey Carson Whiteside the Third came
to my wedding. It was a very, very beautiful wedding. I looked like a fairy
princess.” Propped against her assistant, she stared into his sympathetic eyes.
“My parents and all our friends think that I’m a failure for leaving Todd. But
the house, that horrible house. It’s in a hideous development, Villagio Tuscana.
Todd put a wet-bar in the bedroom and…”

“Yes?”

“His underwear is always wrong,” she
said before closing her eyes. She had a sensation of falling and then strong
arms around her, supporting her, and she knew she was safe.

Four hours later,
Nancy
was pulled out of warm, deep sleep by
the click-click-click of footsteps on the polished stone floor. She opened her
eyes and saw that she was lying in a nest of soft comforters and pillows. Mrs.
Yao had come into the room.

“Good morning,
Nancy
. Time to get up.”

“Thank you. I’ll just brush my teeth and
see to the breakfast.”

Mrs. Yao looked amused and said, “That’s
a good idea,” as she left.

Nancy
got up and saw Derrick rolled up on a
blanket on the floor on the other side of the room. He had excellent bed head
and his morning shadow made him look a little dangerous.

She went to him, bent over and shook him.
“Wake up.”

He threw an arm around her legs, pulling
her down beside him.

“Come back to bed, Mel” he said and rolled
on his back.

Nancy
shouldn’t have been surprised at what
she saw, because Derek was a man and men had natural bodily reactions, what
Todd called his “morning rudder,” but Derek was her assistant and she jumped up
and away.

Her sudden movement was enough to startle
Derek fully awake.

“Well, uhm, well,”
Nancy
said, feeling envious of Mel. That must
be Derek’s lover.

Her assistant soon understood the reason
for her reaction. He calmly arranged the comforter to obscure the protrusion. “My
apologies, Madame. I mistook you for my special friend in the depth of my
slumber.”

Nancy
wasn’t going to be less sophisticated
than he was. “Don’t worry about it. Meet me in the kitchen when you’ve, uhm, collect
yourself.”

She grabbed her headset, slipped on her
marabou slippers, and hurried through the main hall, cupping her hand to her
mouth to check her breath, and then went to the kitchen. Two cooks were already
grilling traditional breakfast foods, and a woman was unpacking big plastic
bins of cereals and toppings.

“Good morning,”
Nancy
said brightly to her. “You’ll be
setting up the cereal bar on the patio slash cafe.”

“Morning,” said the spiky haired woman. “You’re
rocking the goth look.”

“Thank you.”
Nancy
tried to surreptitiously catch her
reflection in the wall of stainless steel refrigerators across the room. “I
have something urgent to take care of and then I’ll be back to supervise.”

“What’s to supervise? It’s cereal,” the
manager said flatly. “Trix are for kids.”

“Yes, of course.”
Nancy
smiled and nodded at a cook flipping
hash browns on the grill. She continued to smile at the few guests she passed
on her way upstairs to room that was reserved for the spa stylists.

She rushed to the mirror. Her hair was
completely flattened on one side and stuck out on the other. Her smear-proof
makeup wasn’t. Dark circles ringed her eyes, and one of her false eyelashes had
migrated onto her cheek.

Nancy
tried to wash off the makeup, but the
fixative wouldn’t dissolve in soap and water. She used a washcloth to scrub it
off, leaving red blotches. She tried to cover the ruddy marks with powder,
which caked on her wet skin.

Nancy
was about to start over when she heard
Gigi’s contralto calling, “
Nancy
!”

Nancy
went into the hallway to see her
hostess strolling gracefully in a long, gossamer thin silk nightgown and wrap. “There
you are. Now we can finally talk over a bowl of Coco Puffs. Do you know that
I’ve never tasted them? Milagro called and told me that you had taken a female
lover, but she kept laughing, so I didn’t actually believe her.”

“But, Gigi,”
Nancy
began and raked her hair with her
fingers.

 
“I’m going to nibble and then fall asleep on
the massage table.” Gigi hooked her arm through
Nancy
’s and pulled her toward the hall. “You
don’t happen to have any Halcion on you, do you?”

“No, but, Gigi---“

“I was completely surprised when you
showed up with that yummy assistant. Mrs. Yao tells me that you both slept in
the Music Room.”

“We slept separately, and he’s gay.”

“So was my third husband, but we were
both flexible. He was double-jointed, as a matter of fact. He pretended to be
an Italian count, but he was actually a Croatian bank clerk,” Gigi said as they
turned to the grand staircase and began walking down. “He was after my money,
can you imagine? But he was a wonderfully amusing man and he had a spectacular…”
Gigi spotted a friend and held her arms out wide. “Peter!”

Gigi’s gesture set Nancy off balance,
and the heel of her marabou slipper caught in the hem of her pajama pants, yanking
them down and sending Nancy slipping on the dangerous marble steps.

She desperately reached out for the
banister and grabbed it, righting herself just as a camera flashed.

Nancy
used her last reserve of energy to
drive home from the party, and she slept until the afternoon. She dreamt about
a tall man. His lips nuzzled her neck and he slipped his hand between her
thighs sending the most incredible sensations through her – and then a car alarm
on the street started blaring. She fought to stay in the dream, but it was too
late. She was awake.

 
Still,
Nancy
felt
better than she had in years. She felt hopeful. Everyone had loved the slumber
party, only a few had witnessed her stumble on the stairs, and Bailey had
flirted with her. The faceless man in her dream must have been Bailey. Her
subconscious was giving her a sign.

Nancy
’s family and friends might have a
different idea about her marriage if she started dating Bailey. Nancy
Carrington-Chambers-Whiteside, she thought to herself. Nancy Whiteside. Nancy Edith
Carrington-Whiteside. Mrs. Carrington-Whiteside.

Nancy
liked that Bailey was ambitious. She
would look like the ideal confidante/advisor as he made his acceptance speeches
for increasingly important offices. She’d have to find out his political party.