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Authors: Bridie Clark

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BOOK: the Overnight Socialite
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"Bless you," Trip said. He offered his handkerchief.
"Thanks," she said, accepting it. "That's real nice of you."
Wyatt lowered his voice. "If I could teach a common, average wallflower . . . a girl you'd never look twice at if you passed her on the street--" The girl sneezed more loudly, and Wyatt instinctively stepped away from her. She sneezed again. And again. On the sixth sneeze, he finally looked back at her.
Her dark hair hung lifelessly on either side of an open, friendly face.
From the Midwest
, he judged,
and she hasn't lived here longer than a year.
She was tall, maybe five-nine, and not thin. Even though she was buried under a Michelin-man-size winter parka, Wyatt could tell there was meat on her bones. But her features--particularly her dark, expansive eyes--weren't bad. All in all, she struck him as a fixer-upper; a block of clay ready for Pygmalion's chisel. "What's your name?" he asked.
"My name?"
"That's right, your name." Wyatt handed her his business card, hand-engraved on card stock that was thick enough to cut butter.
"It's . . . um, Lucy Jo Ellis," she said reluctantly, taking the proffered card.
Wyatt scratched his chin. "Not much of a name, but we could work on that."
"Excuse me?"
He studied her carefully. She was the walking definition of average. Except for her outfit, a soggy rag of a neon pink cocktail dress, there wasn't anything memorable about her appearance.
"Wyatt! You're scaring the poor girl." Trip admonished under his breath.
"That's ridiculous." He guessed she lived in Murray Hill, or maybe in the nineties near the FDR, possibly with a roommate. No wedding ring--he guessed she was single. There was just something about her that said
alone in the world.
"Please, Peters, I'm offering to expand the girl's entire social status, her entire life."
"Improve my
social status
?" Lucy Jo repeated, her voice rising about an octave.
"Give me a few months," Wyatt continued deafly, still addressing Trip, "and I could turn her into a social luminary. She'd make the rest of the pack look like dim little tea lights."
"Are you insane?" the woman spat at him. "You don't even know me!"
"I'm really sorry," Trip said. "My friend's been drinking." She just shook her head. Her lips were pursed into a tight line, and a blotchy red circle had formed on each of her full cheeks. "Please just ignore him. Wyatt, let's go."
But Wyatt felt more certain than ever. Meeting this girl tonight--it felt like fate. And her selection would be
truly
random, making a perfect start to his book. "I could turn her into the toast of Manhattan. She'd make those silver-spooned heiresses green with envy. I'd put her up in a nice apartment. With the right clothes, education, social grooming--"
Whaaaaaaaap!
The girl's right hand laid twenty pounds of slap against his cold cheek. "What the hell was that for?" Wyatt bellowed, rubbing his face to erase the pink impression of Lucy Jo's palm. "You idiotic--"
"Do I look like the Happy Hooker? Or a charity case? I don't know what your issue is, buddy, but I'm not that kind of girl!" Lucy Jo yelled. She stepped indignantly out into the rain, which beat down so hard on her that she could barely open her eyes.
"Calm down." Wyatt grabbed her arm to pull her out of the waterfall. In one motion she wrenched it free, and he quickly stepped back, surprised by her strength. "You think I'm trying to pick you up or something? You're missing the entire point!"
"Well, you're--you're missing some marbles!" Lucy Jo shouted over a peal of thunder. But she stepped back under the awning. There were no taxis in sight.
Wyatt, still pressing his injured cheek, felt his temper rise. "Imagine flying off the handle because someone offered you the opportunity of a lifetime!"
"Imagine having your head so far up your ass that you feel entitled to insult a perfect stranger!" Lucy Jo snapped back.
The two of them stood silently under the awning, huffy as an old married couple having the same fight for the umpteenth time. Then, as though remembering she was free to go, she stepped back toward the street. "Your handkerchief--" Lucy Jo glanced down at the wet linen square that Trip had given her.
"All yours. And here, please take my umbrella."
"Nah, that's okay--"
"It's the least I can do," Trip insisted. "I'm sorry that he upset you like that. He's a moron--"
"Hey!" Wyatt shouted. "I'm standing right here."
"But I promise he wasn't trying to suggest anything sketchy."
"You got the moron part right," said Lucy Jo, but her expression softened. She accepted Trip's umbrella with a thankful nod, and hurried off down the block.
7
please join parker lewis for a
holiday housewarming
86 laight street, sixth floor
tribeca
wednesday, december 2nd
10 PM
T
his is precisely why we need a driver," Fernanda Fairchild, thirty-one and counting, whined to her mother. The two stared glumly out the front door of Nello. Nightmare! The rain had started during the endive salad. Now it was coming down in sheets.
"Always the nights I wear velvet," clucked Martha Fairchild, running a protective hand down the sleeve of her Chanel jacket. Maximilian, Fernanda's older brother, had gone out to hail a cab. He'd been at it without success for the better part of five minutes, and the ladies were beginning to panic.
"I knew it'd be a disaster tonight!" Fernanda exclaimed. She'd honed a special gift for predicting disasters. "Is Max, like, getting out there? You've got to be aggressive to get a taxi on a night like this. You've got to throw yourself in front and dare the cabbie not to run you over!"
"You know your brother," Mrs. Fairchild said pessimistically.
For those who don't: Max Fairchild was thirty-four, gorgeous, outdoorsy, athletic, blond, and gentle natured. The only thing he was missing was a backbone, which his many female admirers generously forgave. He wasn't what you'd call brainy, either, but he did just fine at his uncle's firm.
Fernanda, who took after their pale, beaky late father, pulled the ends of her jet-black hair in agony. "I knew we shouldn't have tried to squeeze in dinner after the
Townhouse
party. I'll be drenched and curly by the time I get to Parker's!" Fernanda's hair was her one vanity. Lovely and thick, it took a full hour to blow-dry during twice-weekly appointments at Garren. And that very afternoon--after a month on the waiting list, not to mention her entire week's salary at Christie's--she'd finally gotten her first cut-color-blowout appointment with the Lower East Side shut-in that Cornelia and all the girls raved about. The guy's musty apartment made Fern's skin crawl, but Cornelia insisted he was the best. She was totally right, of course. Cornelia was just lucky that her astronomical bills were handled--and never questioned--by one of her family's accountants. Anyway, it was too infuriating; now all Fernanda's effort would be for naught.
A very wet Max suddenly emerged from the street, his cherubic blond curls matted dark against his brow, his ravaged black umbrella looking like an origami swan. "It's awful out--"
"Did you get one?" Fernanda demanded, peering out through the cloudy glass.
"I tried," Max said. "I walked over to Park, too, and then up a few blocks--nothing!"
"So what do you suggest we do, Maximilian? Take the bus?" Mrs. Fairchild was only being sarcastic, of course, and was not pleased when Max fished out a yellow MetroCard from the pocket of his trench. "Stop being ridiculous! Go get us a taxi
tout de suite
!"
"Hey, there's one!" Fernanda shouted, pushing her drenched brother back out the door and toward a barely visible on-duty light making its way up Madison.
"Someone's got it already--" Max called over his shoulder, pointing toward a young woman who'd been desperately trying to hail a cab since he went outside. "That girl's been waiting--"
"
That girl
is not wearing Carolina Herrera and python Manolos!" Fernanda shrieked. Nor, presumably, was that girl heading to the home of a man she'd been doggedly hunting for months. Fernanda couldn't be late for Parker Lewis's party. He was ideal husband material: forty-five, recently divorced, distinguished, social, wealthy. Not much to look at, but who cared? If Fernanda showed up late--well, she just knew that the circling hyenas would beat her to the kill. This was a pivotal night. She'd invested four grand in her outfit alone, and she needed to see a return.
"Just get it already, Max," Mrs. Fairchild commanded, in a quieter but equally emphatic tone.
Max charged out the door and raced toward the taxi. The girl was closing in on it, too, and as she saw Max coming, a wave of disbelief--then disgust--transformed her face.
He gulped; this was not a proud moment. But what was the fleeting wrath of a stranger compared to the hours of verbal thrashing he'd get from his mother and sister? Max lunged, beating the girl to the door by less than a step. All those squash matches at the Racquet Club were good for something.
"What is
wrong
with you?" the girl yelled as Max threw open the door and dove into the backseat. She struggled to maneuver around him, but he played great defense.
"I'm really sorry," he muttered. God, she was soaked. She clutched an umbrella, but it still looked like she'd been out in the rain for days. Max slammed the door as kindly as he could, under the circumstances, and the girl smacked her open palm against the window in protest.
"My sister and mother are right . . . up . . . there, under that awning," Max told the driver, ashamed of what the man must think of him.
The girl--much to Max's chagrin--followed the car right down the block, refusing to accept defeat.
"H-he just stole this taxi from me!" Max heard her appeal to Martha and Fernanda as they scurried out from the restaurant under borrowed umbrellas, opened the door, and dove in. "It was mine--"
"Sorry, dear," the elder lady called out, shutting the door.
Once safely inside, Martha turned sharply to her pouting daughter. "Do you think I don't
know
we need a driver, Fernanda? You think I
choose
to live like this?"
Fernanda let out a deep sigh. Max shifted uncomfortably in his seat, pretending to stare out the fogged-up window.
The Fairchilds possessed one of those painful family secrets that everybody knew. Henry Fairchild--Max and Fern's father--had been a fourth-generation wastrel who'd squandered a shocking amount of his family's once robust steel fortune. Unlike his savvy forefathers, Henry had a nose that pointed him toward get-poor-quick schemes and dot-com fiascoes. Then he'd had the gall to keel over at age fifty-three, leaving his family stranded in a classic eight on 82nd and Park.
They weren't penniless. In truth, the Fairchilds spent more money in a year than most people could hope to see in a lifetime. None of them had ever scrubbed a toilet, hemmed a pair of pants, or walked their own dachshunds at an inconvenient time. They still had some of the influence and power conferred by their last name. So all had not been lost.
But the rich have their own sliding scale for what it means to be truly comfortable. And thanks to Henry's ineptitude, the Fairchilds had slid. Max couldn't be counted on to restore the family fortune to its onetime glory. Fernanda still lived at home, which galled her. Just the other day, she'd had to ask her boss for a raise. Because
she'd needed one.
That had not been an easy moment to bear. Being past thirty and single made it all the worse.
"Laight Street, between Hudson and Varick," Max said to the taxi driver. His sister and mother sat in grim silence.
The long and short of it: Fernanda needed a husband immediately, if not sooner, but she'd already struck out with a stable of eligible men. Thank God for divorce, as mother and daughter agreed. The mere rumor of a marriage on the brink could buoy both their spirits. Thus they'd been downright thrilled to hear that Parker's wife had left him for her Vedic astrologer and a "simple life" in Arizona.
Bon riddance
, Fernanda thought, with the thirst of a vulture stumbling across juicy roadkill.
Now she just had to get there first.
Watching the second stolen taxi of the evening speed off, Lucy Jo could no longer hold back her tears. She was exhausted from trolling the lower 60s in the rain, the skin on her bare legs now rubbery-wet, her lips purple. Another cab pulled over to pick her up just minutes later, but the psychic damage had been done. As the red and yellow lights of the city melted down Lucy Jo's rain-streaked window, she slumped in the backseat, the night's events flashing through her mind like a torturous slide show. Her entire world had collapsed along with that runway. She'd been humiliated in front of a room full of her idols. She had been fired from a job she'd pretty much hated, but would now beg to have back. Then that rich bitch Cornelia What's-her-face had shamelessly stolen her cab. She'd been insulted and propositioned by a stranger, before losing another cab to another heartless preppy.
BOOK: the Overnight Socialite
10.36Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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