Nancy’s Theory of Style (36 page)

GP showed her his schedule for delivery
of the sets and props and ran down numbers with her. As he was leaving, he
said, “I’m going to make this totally kick-ass for you, princess. Just you wait
and see.”

Then she was alone with Derek. She tried
to keep everything professional, but just before she left to pick up Eugenia
she said, “I hope things went well with
Prescott
.”

“Indeed. I understand precisely where I
stand with him and that is very reassuring.”

“Good, wonderful. I want you to be
happy, Derek,” and she more grief at losing the man she never could have had,
than at leaving the one she’d pledged her life to.

Eugenia was so eager to return to her
kitten that she rushed back to Château Winkles and didn’t seem to notice that
the mood had shifted.

“His name is Blackbeard,” she told the
adults. “He has little swords in his paws. She and Nancy took the kitten to the
vet for shots and bought a travel case, food, a sandbox, and toys for the cat.

By Tuesday afternoon,
Nancy
was anxious to see Bailey, thinking
that he could be the bracing tonic of heterosexuality that would cleanse away
her fervid longing for Derek. Sloane had already agreed to watch Eugenia and
even offered to watch the kitten.

Blackbeard didn’t like his travel case
and mewed loudly all the way to Sloane’s house in the Avenues.
Nancy
found these neighborhoods depressing. They
were as foggy as hers, but the fog seemed dirtier. The houses were smacked side
to side and some were covered with layers of grime from car and bus exhaust.

“No hors de control antics with Miss
Sloane,”
Nancy
said. “Do what she says and say please and thank-you.”

“Okay.”

“She’s a very nice lady and her boys are
well-behaved.”

“Okay.”

As Nancy and Eugenia stood on the stairs
to the taupe house, the child said, “Auntie Nanny, will you come back for me?”

“I will always come back for you,
Eugenia. But I’ll be out late, so I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning to take you
to school. You can have a slumber party.”

“Like with Derek?”

“Yes, but don’t tell anyone about that. It’s
a secret. Adults don’t have slumber parties.”

“Mama does with her bedfriends.”

The door opened and Sloane stood there
flanked by two curious boys with curly brown hair and freckles.

“Hi, Mrs. Chambers,” they said and
hugged her.

“Hello, boys. This is my niece, Eugenia.
Eugenia, one of these children is Lloyd and the other is Dobler. I can never
tell which is which.”

One said, “I’m Dobler,” and the other
said, “No, I’m Dobler!” and they shoved each other.

Sloane said, “Come in,
Nancy
. The boys were so happy when I told
them you were coming.”

“I think they are dreadful children,”
Nancy
said and mussed the
hair of the smaller child, who asked, “Did you bring me a present?”

“Why would I do that? Is it Christmas? Is
it your birthday?”

“We brought toys,” Eugenia said. “And I
brought my cat. His name is Blackbeard.”

Nancy
pulled the gifts out of her tote bag
for the boys. They ripped through the wrapping and
Nancy
said, “You’re really little monsters,
aren’t you? The store clerk told me that boys like grotesque robot things.”

“Thank you! Thank you!” the boys shouted

“
Nancy
,
you spoil them. You don’t have to bring presents every time you see them.”

“Children have such undeveloped little
brains, it’s the only way I can make sure they’ll remember me when I’m in a
home and need someone to tell the nurse to turn me over once a day.”

Sloane laughed. “You say such awful
things. Where are you going tonight?”

Nancy
looked at Sloane’s living room. Toys
were everywhere and photos of the boys were displayed in cheap Plexiglas frames.
The olive green wall-to-wall carpeting was worn and faded. A dining table was
set up for a tea party with plastic cups and saucers and a plate of crackers
with peanut butter. It looked comfortable.

“I’m having dinner with Bailey Whiteside
and maybe a club. I guess you were gone before he showed up at Gigi’s party. Do
you know him?”

“He was a friend of my husband’s.” Sloane
continued to smile, but she seemed uneasy. She rarely mentioned the man who had
abandoned her. “They shared an apartment in
Boston
for a year. We all used to go out
together. We even took trips together.”

 
Nancy
couldn’t imagine
homebody Sloane larking around with Bailey and his crowd. “Todd and Bailey met
through mutual friends when Todd was in biz school, but I didn’t know you were
close.”

“It was a long time ago. I feel like a
different person now with my boys. It’s been so long, I’m sure Bailey’s
different, too.”

Nancy
thought that the de-sparkling effect of
motherhood must surely be more dramatic than whatever maturing Bailey had had. “I’ll
come get Eugenia at 8:30 tomorrow.”

The children were running through the
house and shouting. Sloane smiled and said, “I thought you told me she was
quiet.”

“She was quiet. But lately she’s
becoming very obstinate and outspoken. It’s not very ladylike.”

“She must be feeling safer.”

Nancy
called, “Eugenia, I’m going now. Adieu.”
Eugenia ran over and
Nancy
obligingly bent over to give her a kiss goodbye.

The girl whispered, “You’ll come back?”

“I told you I would. I promised and I
keep my promises.” Well, with a few exceptions. “I’ll see you tomorrow
morning.”

Nancy
went home and cleared Eugenia’s plastic
toys out of the bathtub and into a red bin. Once in the shower, she picked up
her bottle of fig apricot body gel and squirted some onto her bath mitt. Nothing
came out. She squeezed harder and then shook it. It was empty.

She reached for a tube of nectarine
blossom and honey gel. Empty. She opened the container of almond body scrub. Soapy
water splashed out of the jar. The only things Eugenia hadn’t plundered were
the hair care products on a high shelf.

Nancy
put on a body-skimming jungle green
v-neck dress with skinny shoulder straps and teal suede heels with cutouts. She
wore delicate dangly gold and smoky quartz earrings and a trio of thin gold
bracelets.

Bailey buzzed the intercom and
Nancy
told him she’d be
right down.

In her bedroom, she reached for the
bottle of L’Heure Bleue and stopped. Then she dabbed on her old scent and
wished that Junie Burns hadn’t hijacked it. She topped the outfit with a
dandelion yellow cropped jacket that her cousin Sissy had made for her.

As she walked down the stairs to the
lobby, she thought of Junie and the other so-called friends who hadn’t bothered
to call her.

Bailey was in the lobby chatting with
Miss Winkles. He was attractive in a narrow gray jacket, pale gray shirt open
at the collar, and charcoal jeans. These were nice neutrals.

Miss Winkles, in one of her lumpy knit
suits, said to
Nancy
,
“I thought this one was your handsome Derek at first, but he’s just a
Whiteside.”

“Is there anything wrong with that?”
Bailey asked with a flash of teeth.

“My sister, Dody, made the mistake of
going out with a Whiteside. We called him The Mouth-Breather,” Miss Winkles
said and walked to the elevator doors. “Girl Carrington, tell Derek to bring
Eugenia to tea and her piano lesson tomorrow. I need him to fix a shelf for
me.”

“Miss Winkles, Derek is extremely busy
right now.”

Miss Winkles gave her a threatening
look, so
Nancy
said, “But I’m sure he can make the time to help you.”

“Good,” Miss Winkles said and got in the
elevator.

As Nancy and Bailey went to his car, he
said, “You look very pretty tonight. Is Miss Winkles becoming senile?”

“Miss Winkles is as effervescent as
always,” she said as he held the car door open for her. When he got in, too,
and started the engine, she asked, “Where are we off to?”

“A private party at a new restaurant. Is
your niece still with you?”

“She’s spending the night with Sloane
and her boys.”

“Sloane?”

“Sloane Seitz, Lewis’s wife. Don’t you
know her?”

“Oh, that Sloane. Yeah, I knew Lewis
before he bailed. Good guy, but weak.”

“I never met him.”

“He let his habits get the best of him. I
wonder where he is these days. Did Sloane say?”

“No. She only told me that you were
friends and used to go out together. I can’t imagine Sloane partying. She’s
such a professional mommy.”

“She was nice. Too bad she married a
loser.”

His tone reminded her unpleasantly of
Todd. “He was your friend.”

“I was pretty kicked back in those days
and I thought he was a cool guy. But when I saw where he was headed, I had to
cut ties. Let’s talk about us.”

She glanced at his nice, if not
exceptional, profile. “I am still married, and I need you to respect that,
Bailey.”

“I’m trying to, Nance, but if it’s over
with Todd, I’d like to know.”

Nancy
stared at her hands and noticed that
her enamel had chipped on two fingers. “I’ll tell you if that happens.”

Bailey pulled to the curb in front of a
South of Market restaurant, got out and handed his keys to the valet. Another
valet opened the door for
Nancy
.

Bailey took her arm and led her inside. “Bailey
Whiteside and guest,” he told the hostess.

She checked his name and then said,
“Enjoy your evening.”

The restaurant was already full and
Bailey looked over the crowd. His eyes fixed on a man sitting at the end of the
bar looking out of place. Bailey dropped his head and said quietly, “Linus
Boschert. Northern European development chief of a biotech, but he’s here for
two months. Let’s make friends.”

They talked to the newcomer, shared wine
and hors d’oeuvres, and Bailey introduced Linus to a pretty young architect.

“That was nice of you to make him
comfortable,”
Nancy
said.

“It’s good to have friends in the right
places. I can use a place to stay if I visit
Geneva
.”

“There are already places for that. They’re
called hotels. I recommend the Beau-Rivage.”

“Why spend money on a room, when I can
stay with someone and develop a connection at the same time?”

“You’re the most openly ambitious person
I know, Bailey.”

“Thank you. Who shall we talk to next?”

Nancy
ran into a friend of GP’s who asked her
about buying a table at the
Barbary Coast
fundraiser.

“I’ll messenger an invitation to you
tomorrow. It’s for a wonderful cause – carrying on the great legacy of the
pirates who founded our city.”

As they moved to talk to another group,
Bailey said to her, “Did you say that pirates founded our city?”

“It is a universal dream to dress like a
pirate,” she said, but Bailey didn’t seem to find her comment funny. “You still
haven’t responded to your invitation.”

“I wanted to make sure you would be my
date.”

“I’ll be working the whole time,” she
said, “but I’ll put you down for two tickets.”

People came in and out of the party and
she talked, exchanged business cards, and then a band appeared and there was
dancing, and four buff, bare-chested men carried in a stretcher with a
tub-shaped ice sculpture filled with bottles of vodka and caviar.

In the ladies’ room, a dermatologist
gave shots of Botox, and girls exchanged prescription drugs.
Nancy
scored Percocets and OxyContins that would
be handy for her earthquake kit and put them in her eel skin clutch.

When she came out, Bailey was waiting
for her.

“Do you have time to come see my place?”

“Tomorrow’s a work day.”

“Walnut paneling and those plaster
decorations that look like scrolls and leaves. I promise not to take advantage
of the situation.”

Nancy
tilted her head and said, “I’ve always
had a weakness for a fine cartouche.”