Nancy’s Theory of Style (44 page)

Boxes of files and photo albums sat atop
the ‘70s mod furniture, and framed photos and advertising posters featuring the
Winkles Triplets hung on the walls. “Miss Winkles, thank you for telling
Der…Rick. He told me when Eugenia’s coming back to the city.”

“Excuse the mess. I’ve been going
through all my photographs. Your boyfriend helped me take the boxes out of the
closets and I finally found what I was looking for.”

“He’s not my boyfriend. He hates me.”

“Young people are always so
melodramatic.” Miss Winkles was sealing two manila envelopes. “This apartment
is too big for me now. It was crowded when I was here with my sisters and all
our admirers.”

“Where are your sisters?”

“
Duluth
,
where we’re from, with their children and grandchildren.”

“You didn’t want to get married?”

“There was only one man for me. He
wanted me to give up my career and go with him to
Maui
,
where he was building a hotel. He did very well for himself.” Miss Winkles
picked up a pen and addressed the manila envelopes.

“So you lost him forever?”

“No, I acted like a grown-up and got on
a plane and went after him. We had a passionate long-distance relationship
until he passed away.” She held out the envelopes to
Nancy
. “Give this to Abigail Friendly and
give the other to Rick.”

Nancy
took the envelopes and saw that the top
one was written to Rick Zivotovsky and had a
Noe
Valley
address. “I’m not going to see him again. Mrs. Friendly ripped me apart at the
gala so I’m not going to darken her door. I can mail your letters.”

Miss Winkles let out an exasperated huh!
“These are much too important to be mailed. You will have to face Abigail
sooner or later, so take them and deliver them.”

Nancy
returned to her apartment and propped
the envelopes on the mantle next to one of Eugenia’s drawings. Rick Zivotovsky.
What kind of name was that? It was too long to write in a heart.

She had to wait until Thursday. Curiosity
overcame her and she turned on the television once to the local news. She
watched local reports before a story about the
Barbary Coast
Historical
Museum
came on. The reporter
said, “Socialite Nancy Carrington-Chambers, known for her extravagant wedding
and wealthy connections, is still in hiding after a fire and melee at a
historic landmark. Anonymous sources state that an empty bottle of vodka was
seen among her belongings…”

Nancy
turned the sound off and watched the
images. There was footage from the party, exterior shots of Chateau Winkles,
the photo from Rich Bitches, and photos she hadn’t seen before of her at the
end of the gala in a torn, grimy dress splattered with cocktail sauce.

There were also photos from her wedding,
where she had looked like a fairy princess and been surrounded by people she
thought were her friends. There were photos of her horrible house and the
failed development.

She was about to turn off the television
when she saw a picture from
Stinson
Beach
. She was sitting on
the beach with Derek and Eugenia was playing nearby. The other family must have
taken it.
Nancy
went to the screen and touched the tiny figure of Eugenia until the screen was
filled by the fake tan face of the over-coiffed reporter.

Over the next days,
Nancy
’s phone rang many times, but the only
calls she answered were from her mother, who had arrived safely at Aunt
Frilly’s. She deleted all text messages and emails without reading them.

She ate organic macaroni and cheese,
graham crackers, and apple slices. She made a dozen small capes inspired by
Eugenia’s drawings and she tacked Rick’s drawings of “The Adventures of Pirate
Girl” on the mantle.

She opened the composition book with her
Theory of Style, looking for wisdom, but what good was it knowing that
monochromaticism isn’t style, or that leopard prints are a timeless classic
when one’s life was in the balance?

On Monday,
Nancy
decided to answer a call from Mrs.
Kanbar. “Hello,” she said, her voice cracking because she hadn’t spoken to
anyone all day.

“Hello,
Nancy
. Eve told me that Eugenia’s mother is
back. I wanted to know if you’ve had a chance to talk to her about our opening
at Three Bridges.”

“I’m sorry -- I should have called. Eugenia’s
taking a vacation with her mother this week, but she’ll be back on Monday and
we’d like to keep her in your school.”

“That’s wonderful! You can pay the
monthly fee then. We’ll see you then.”

Nancy
went to her laptop and calculated her
personal and business expenses. Then she went to her bank’s website to transfer
this amount from her joint checking account. The account balance was zero. Todd
had cleaned it out.

Nancy
sent her father an email requesting
that he move this amount from her trust fund to her personal account
immediately and waited for her father’s call, which came five minutes later.

“Nanny, do you want to explain what’s
going on? I knew you were spoiled and silly, but I didn’t think you’d be so
stupid as to make a public spectacle of yourself. You’re destroying your
marriage and you’ve convinced Frilly that your mother is at death’s door. She
also said you’re want to raise her granddaughter, which is ridiculous since you
can’t even manage your own life.”

Nancy
went for the indirect, immediate attack
and said, “I knew it was too much to think you’d be calling to support me. Instead
you lecture me without even knowing the facts.” She shifted her position. “It
probably wouldn’t matter since the facts are even worse than the gossip.”

“Don’t take that sarcastic tone with me,
Nancy Edith.”
“That’s rich, coming from a man who ignored his children for his work, ignores
his wife for his mistresses, and would rather ignore his wife’s alcoholism than
do anything to help.”

“How dare you?”

“How dare you!” she countered, shifting
positions. “If you aren’t willing to transfer my money, then I’ll be holding a
very public garage sale this weekend at my House of Horrors. We’ll talk when
you get your affairs in order and are prepared to apologize. Adieu.”

Nancy
had talked back to Julian Stephens
Carrington and wondered why it had taken her so long to do it. Half-an-hour
later, she checked her personal account and saw that the transfer had been
made.

On Wednesday, she snuck downstairs to
leave an envelope with a check for Sloane in the outgoing mail. Her own mailbox
contained a thick stack of letters, including one from Mrs. Friendly and one
from the art gallery. She opened the letter from the art gallery, which was a
receipt for the vase. She threw the rest of the unopened envelopes away.

When
Nancy
talked to her attorney, Renee said, “I
drew up your custody docs, but I strongly advise you to think this over for a
month or more. Raising a child is a serious lifelong commitment.”

“I know it is, and I know I’m not in the
ideal place, but I love Eugenia and I’m not going to risk Eugenia’s safety and
happiness just so I can plop her in the perfect setting.”

“All right, Nancy,” Renee said and
exhaled a sigh. “Now as to your husband, he’s agreed to abide by the pre-nup.”

Nancy
was stunned. “I don’t understand. He
cleared out our shared account, hired a spy, set up mutual friends to betray
me, and had my car booted. These are hostile acts.”

“That’s how divorce goes,
Nancy
. I’d be shocked
that he backed off if I hadn’t received some info about him. Would you like to
hear it now, or do you want to meet with me?”

“Tell me now.”

“Okay, brace yourself. For the last ten
months, Todd’s been paying half the rent for an apartment with a June Allison
Burns.”

“From last summer?”

“The wives are always the last to know,”
Renee said.

“Junie and Todd,”
Nancy
said slowly, trying to process the
information. “I think I didn’t want to know. I was relieved when he was gone
and I didn’t have to deal with him.”
Nancy
recalled how Junie had always gazed at Todd with moony moo-cow eyes. Todd liked
to be admired. “How’d you find out?”

“An anonymous source, and I’d bet the
same info has been sent to Todd, which is why he’s being so agreeable,” Renee
said. “
Nancy
,
I’ve got enough that we could recover everything you dumped into the house.”

“I’m as responsible for the house as he
is, and if he’s willing to go along with the pre-nup as is, so am I. I’ll come
by at 8:30 on Friday to pick up the custody papers.”

 
Nancy
wondered who the
anonymous source was. One person had had access to her address book and all her
contacts.

She’d tried not to think about Rick and
she’d tried not to miss Derek and wonder, what if…. What if she hadn’t said
that stupid thing at Stinson? What if he’d confessed to her earlier, or if she
had figured it all out and they’d laughed about it?

What if they had just met like normal
people in a market by the organic produce and gone out for a drink or to a
cafe?

Nancy
went to his writing desk and opened the
laptop that Todd had provided for her assistant. The screensaver was one of
Eugenia’s drawings.
Nancy
went through the documents, but they were all work related. She checked the
files that had been moved to the recycling bin, but not deleted. There were
four video files.

She opened the one labeled Pirate Girl. It
was the video of Eugenia doing her runway walk. She was grinning and
brandishing her stick, her cape flapping in the wind, her eyes sparkling, and
he’d set it to a song from “Muppet Treasure Island” called “A Professional
Pirate.”

Nancy
watched it five times before opening
the one labeled Nancy Fancy. She hardly recognized herself. He’d put the video
in black and white and set it to the theme song from “The Avengers,” the
television show he’d told her about. She looked sexy and sophisticated. She
looked happier than she had looked at her wedding.

His own video hadn’t been edited. He
walked down the street, a handsome, confident, beautifully dressed man with
l’heure bleue eyes.

The last video was of all three of them
sauntering, swaggering, and, in Eugenia’s case, skipping.
Nancy
had that sense of trueness and
rightness when she watched the video. She sang along to the song, “Walking on
Sunshine.”

Nancy
rose early on Friday. Her plan was to
meet Birdie at the airport. She dressed as anonymously as she could, in old
jeans and a button-down blouse. She pinned on her butterfly brooch and then she
packed a bag with snacks, a juice box, books and toys. She took off her wedding
rings and put them in a wall safe behind her dresser.

She peeked out her front window. A
suspicious car had been parked there since yesterday and she saw the shadow of
a person inside.

Nancy
ran upstairs and knocked on Miss
Winkles’ door.

When the Miss Winkles answered,
Nancy
said, “I need to
get away, but there’s someone watching the building. I don’t know if it’s
someone from a tabloid or an avenging ninja.”

“Have you delivered my letters yet?”

“I haven’t been outside.”

“I told you they were important. If you
will see that they’re delivered, I could do a star turn for whomever is
outside.”

“Yes, yes, I’ll make sure that they’re
delivered,”
Nancy
said.

Miss Winkles smiled. “Just let me change
into something that will look good on camera.”

Ten minutes later, Miss Winkles went
downstairs in a red knit suit and a small-brimmed navy blue hat with a giant
red silk rose on it.
Nancy
,
with large sunglasses and her hair tucked into a fedora, crept behind her,
keeping close to the wall where she couldn’t be seen by someone at the glass
front door.

Miss Winkles went out the door and
walked past the parked car.

The car door opened and a man with a
handheld video camera got out.
Nancy
saw Miss Winkles’ feigned look of surprise and then she lured the tabloid
writer down the block to a sunny spot and posed for him. While he had the video
camera on her, his back was to Chateau Winkles.