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Authors: Bridie Clark

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BOOK: the Overnight Socialite
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"Fizzy?" She snorted. "Seriously, you think
Fizzy
is an improvement on
Lucy Jo
?"
"For our purposes, yes. Or we could simply drop the Jo. Your full name will be Lucia. That's pretty. Now we just need a middle name, to round it out a bit. What's your mother's maiden name?"
"Ellis."
"What's your father's last name, then--maybe we can use that."
"No clue," she said flatly. "And don't ask me his first name, because I don't know that either."
Wyatt frowned, and then picked up the black Social Register. "Let's see." He flipped it open at random. "Would you prefer to be Lucia Montgomery Ellis? Lucia Haverford Ellis? Lucia Bancroft Ellis?"
"Lucia, um, Haverford has a nice ring to it, I guess," Lucy said.
"Settled. And everyone simply calls you Lucy."
And just like that, a new identity was born. Well, more or less.
Day Two, 2:54 PM
"Help!" Lucy yelled when she saw Wyatt walk past the doorway to his home gym, where she was currently imprisoned with Derrick, her ex-Navy SEAL trainer. Wyatt poked his head in. She'd never sweat so profusely in her life. It felt more like melting. As if the predawn run in Central Park with Derrick wasn't a big enough insult to the system, now the guy was whipping her through a weight-lifting circuit. "How long is this torture going to last?" Lucy panted, expending what little oxygen she had left.
"Just until you're a sample size," Wyatt answered. He had his finger in a book--
Social Dominance in Primates
, she read on the spine. Nerd.
Derrick pushed a three-foot box toward her. "Jump-ups," he said with a twisted smile. "Go!"
"Isn't it enough that I froze my ass off doing wind sprints this morning?" Lucy jumped, narrowly clearing the box's edge, arms flapping to help her keep her balance.
Wyatt, crossing the room, made a big show of checking out her backside. "No, it's definitely still there." He and Derrick laughed.
"That's not funny!" she shouted indignantly, almost falling off the box for a second time. "And you want to teach me manners?"
Wyatt scowled. "Maybe I picked the wrong girl," he said brusquely. "You can quit today, no hard feelings."
Lucy Jo jumped back to earth. "I never said I wanted to quit. I just don't want to be exercised to death."
"Don't be so melodramatic. I'm telling you, if I hear one more complaint--one more 'do I have to?'--you're out for good, and there
will
be hard feelings. Got that?"
She caught her breath, reminding herself that her dream was on the line. Wyatt was just her means to an end. If she could put up with him for just a few months, he'd help her find a job with a designer, and her career could accelerate toward producing a line of her own someday. "Fine," she said, feeling a fresh determination.
"Jump!" Derrick barked.
When Wyatt headed for the door, Lucy couldn't resist sticking her tongue out at him--which she promptly bit, so hard she could taste blood. "Ow!" she hollered, blaming him for the pain.
"Serves you right," Wyatt said, his back still toward her.
Day Three, 12:24 PM
"I'm sorry," Margaret said, setting a murky green shake in front of Lucy Jo. It looked like pond scum. "How do you expect the poor girl to drink this stuff, Wyatt? Honestly, it's cruel."
"It's just a seven-day juice cleanse, Margaret," said Wyatt impatiently, pulling his napkin onto his lap and digging into his steak frites. He tossed the brochure with a skinny yogi on the cover across the table at them. "All the models swear by it."
"Today's lunch is a rejuvenating combination of kale, broccoli, and seaweed--with a few shots of wheatgrass," read Lucy Jo in a dismayed voice. "Sounds like code for
swamp
, if you ask me." From across the table, Wyatt could hear her stomach growl in protest. But she picked up the shake, pinched her nose, and swallowed.
"Not so bad, right?" he said lightly, choosing to ignore the seconds-from-puking expression on Lucy's face. He dipped a fry in bearnaise sauce and popped it into his mouth. "Now, we've got ground to cover. There's the matter of your education. I don't dare try to pull off Brearley or Exeter. We'd be exposed in a minute. We'll say you went to Miss Dillard's School in New Hampshire. All the women in my family went there."
"Couldn't someone just dig a little? Find out we're lying?"
"I've made arrangements. It'll check out." Wyatt had called in a favor with the headmaster, who happened to be an old Hasty Pudding buddy and was willing to pretend that Lucy Jo was an alumna.
"Arrangements?" Lucy looked thoroughly baffled.
Sometimes her naivete is astounding
, Wyatt thought, making a mental note for the book. How did she think things got done?
"Once we get our stories straight," he continued, "I thought it'd be a good idea to get Rex Newhouse to write a short profile on his blog. Just a little something introducing you. Once the 'facts' have been written a few times, nobody will bother to check them."
"So I'm a graduate of Miss Dillard's High School--"
"Miss Dillard's School. All girls. Even when you were accepted to Andover, Mother wouldn't hear of it. That reminds me--leave off the pronoun when you're speaking about members of your family. It's Mother, Dad, Grandmere, and so on."
"Grandmere?" Lucy giggled. "Sounds like a horse."
"No college, you said?" Wyatt asked, consulting his notebook.
"I had to work," Lucy said, chin tipped.
Wyatt thought for a moment. "Well, college is less important. We'll say you went to the New School, here in New York, but never graduated because you wanted to travel."
"This is totally amazing." Lucy wiped a few drops of foul juice that had escaped down her chin.
I've seen chimps with better table manners
. "What's that?"
"In just three days, I've become Lucia Haverford Ellis, a blue-blooded, prep-school educated daughter of fortune."
Wyatt, looking up from his list, peered at her across the dining room table. "It's not quite as simple as saying the right things, or wearing the right clothes. It's your carriage, your delivery, your manners, your . . . aura. We're just sketching out some outlines that you'll have to fill in, and that's no small task. Everything about you will need to change for this to work."
"Awesome pep talk," Lucy muttered. "Hey, what do I say if someone asks about us?"
"Us?" Wyatt repeated. Margaret looked at him with curiosity.
"Yeah,
us
. I mean, I assume we'll be going out together a lot. What's our relationship?"
A good question. Wyatt couldn't decide what was riskier to his rep--claiming Lucy as a relative, or as a girlfriend. "We'll tell people we're old family friends. Known each other since birth. Practically cousins."
Lucy gave him a sideways look. "Got it, coz."
"Yeah, don't call me that. I'm just your wiser, older friend, showing you around the city as you take your place in society."
"Wiser, huh?" She took another swig of her juice, forgetting to pinch her nose. The shake left a disgusting algae-green residue over her top lip.
What have I gotten myself into?
Wyatt blanched as she wiped her lip with the back of her hand.
Day Four, 4:52 PM
"Allow me to get the door for you, Miss Ellis," insisted the driver, rushing around to the side of the car before Harold, the doorman, could scramble out from Wyatt's building. Wyatt came out the front door just steps behind him.
"Thank you, Mark," Lucy said, feeling like royalty. She was sheathed in a mod navy minidress that made her legs look surprisingly long and attractive. Sliding out of the backseat, she caught her own reflection in the shiny window of the Town Car and tried not to gape. But
wow.
Pair Eloise's black book of beauty gurus with Wyatt's black Amex, and the results were pretty astounding.
That morning, Lucy's hair had been layered into a soft bob that reached almost down to her shoulders. Very Katie Holmes, claimed the hairstylist, after declaring Lucy's previous $9.99 Supercuts chop a crime against humanity. Her brows had been perfectly, painfully, painstakingly shaped by a so-called eyebrow doctor. Her smile had been brightened. Her skin, lavished with attention during an oxygen-infused facial, had never looked more radiant. Her feet and hands had luxuriated in warm almond-honey butter. She'd been waxed, buffed, shined like a BMW after a long winter.
"Ta da!" She curtsied before Harold and Wyatt.
"Not so fast." Wyatt looked stern. "Back in the car."
"Do I have another beauty appointment?" Every square inch of Lucy's body had been polished to a sheen. What more could be done?
"You're not Britney Spears. You need to learn how to get out of a car without flashing an entire city block. Try it again."
Lucy flushed. Not that she'd been expecting a compliment or anything crazy like that--but she couldn't help feeling a bit deflated. It was so like Wyatt to find something to criticize. "I'm
wearing
under-wear."
"I know. Purple."
"And I know how to get out of a car!"
"Apparently not."
She got back in the car, cursing him silently. Then she slid out--
again
--this time scooching across the backseat in little jerky motions.
"Again," he ordered.
"Okay, I know I didn't flash anything that time. Harold, did you see anything?"
Harold shook his head. He seemed disappointed.
"You looked ridiculous," Wyatt said, sounding exasperated. "This time keep your knees firmly pressed together, and don't wiggle so much. It should be a smooth, graceful movement."
She tried it again.
"No," he said.
Again and again, she piled in and out of the car door. Several taxis beeped at the parked car, but Wyatt waved them off. "I'm getting butt burn!" Lucy complained on the fifth take.
"Not perfect, but better," Wyatt finally declared when she'd managed to keep her ankles together. "Come inside. Now we're behind schedule."
Could he be any more condescending?
"Thanks for the lift, Mark," Lucy called to the driver, who'd returned to the front seat.
"Anytime. You look great, Lucy, like a real movie star."
"Aren't you nice?" She gave Wyatt a pointed look as they headed inside, but he didn't seem to notice.
Day Five, 10:43 AM
"Right hip forward, left leg back." Angelique, the German model Wyatt had recruited to teach Lucy proper carriage, demonstrated the pose in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror that took up one entire wall of Wyatt's private dressing room. She gestured for Lucy to do the same.
"It looks like you're about to steal second base," Wyatt chimed in from his armchair in the corner.
"I'm trying!" she yelled back. Lucy adjusted her back leg but she still looked awkward. There was just nothing natural about standing like this, even if it did "shave inches off her hips," according to Angelique. Lucy wondered briefly whether Wyatt and Angelique had a romantic history. Judging by the flirty little smiles the model kept sending his way, she guessed they did--or soon would.
"Why don't we try walking instead?" Angelique was losing patience.
"Don't let her off the hook that easily, Ange. Lucy can't walk before she's mastered at least one camera-friendly pose."
"But that could take hours." Angelique's full lips popped into a pout.
Lucy felt her temper flare. A towering six-foot beauty with long blonde locks and cheekbones that could cut stone, Angelique probably couldn't relate to anyone who didn't roll out of bed ready for a close-up. Annoyed, Lucy jutted out her hip again, throwing back her chin slightly.
"Yes!" Wyatt exclaimed. "Much better."
"
Finally
," Angelique said. "Now try this one." She pivoted her willowy frame so that the imaginary camera in front of her caught one side of her body and a bit of her back. Then she coquettishly turned her head, chin nearly at her shoulder, and smiled.
Lucy imitated, casting an insouciant grin at Wyatt in the mirror. He squinted back, examining her clinically, and then nodded. "Not bad," he declared. "Great job."
"Hey, thanks!" Lucy spun around to face him, shocked to hear praise escape his lips.
"Great job,
Angelique
. Now, Lucy, you may try walking."
Day Six, 3:12 PM
"Fill in the blank," Wyatt said. When Lucy emerged from the dressing room at Bergdorf in a black satin Dolce & Gabbana, he immediately shook his head. The dress was too overtly sexy for their purposes. He sent her back behind the black velvet curtain to try on the next outfit. "The gay male walker is a
blank
part of the socialite's arsenal."
BOOK: the Overnight Socialite
12.51Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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