Cat's Meow (21 page)

I babbled on about our cost-effective production ethics, our low overhead, our growing recognition and acclaim. “We’ve been reviewed by the
South China Post
and
Saudi Arabia Today!
” I was so immersed in conversation I didn’t even notice that someone had joined the edge of our group and was listening to everything I said.

During the final night’s hoedown, I do-si-doed with a corpulent telecommunications magnate and twirled him over to India, who was sitting by herself in the corner inhaling marshmallows. She should be careful, I thought, even with Xenical, if she didn’t look out she’d have major FOP: fat over platforms. I left the two of them to finish the dance and called home to find out how Bannerjee and Boing were holding up.

“Banny darling! How are you?”

“Mmmff?” Bannerjee mumbled into the phone.

“HOW ARE YOU!” I yelled again.

“Fffpppfff Mxsadfadsdaf.”

“Banny, I can’t hear you? Is someone there?” I asked. In the background was the unmistakable sound of loud music blaring and snippets of conversation in … hmm … was that Norwegian-accented English? “Dutte, this direct TV rocks out, man!” “Banny, where is Cristal?” and even, “Duuutte, I’ve gotta get back to the club, I work door tonight.”

“Oh, is nothing, Miss Cat, the television is on,” Bannerjee assured me when the static had cleared. Tired of watching television through a pair of binoculars, especially since our neighbor seemed to have a fondness for boring nature shows on the Discovery Channel, I had a new satellite dish installed so Boing could watch Cantonese soap operas. It would help her understand where she came from.

“Let me talk to the baby,” I said. “Why don’t you put her on the line?”

“Huh? Oh, yes, um, just wait a minute—”

And the line went dead.

I tried calling again but this time there was no answer. Strange. I berated myself for leaving the two of them alone, what with the stalker milling around. I had told Heidi to call him off, but she told me she had no idea what I was talking about.

Dear Lord, what if there really was an evil man who was keeping track of all my actions? I had a flash of anxiety as I morbidly fantasized what would happen if Boing were kidnapped in my absence. Would she be found, ten years later, living in a shack upstate and thinking herself to be just another ordinary hick, not knowing her true, fabulous identity? Would she then publish a book,
I Know My Name Is Boing?
Would I be given my own network television show,
America’s Most Hunted!
What about film rights—who would play me in the heart-wrenching story of my adopted baby daughter’s disappearance? (Michelle Pfeiffer? Jessica Lange?)

I tried to shrug off my fears and rejoined the party to rescue the red-faced telecommunications mogul from India’s clutches.

“That’s the ticket! That’s the ticket!” India encouraged him as the old codger twirled her around and around so that she looked like a multicolored Mexican piñata.

Finally, it was our last day at the retreat. I, for one, was glad to be done with all this consensus building, strategic partnership, and cultural-dissemination thingamajig. Plus, I hadn’t been able to shop in three days! I was suffering from Barneys withdrawal. Unlike Aspen, there were no off-road designer boutiques in Sun Valley. I found the next best thing and ravaged the neighboring Native American reservation for something, anything, to buy, and picked up some choice feather headdresses to go with my resort-collection Gallianos.

“’Bye, darlings,” I told the movie hunk and big-cheese producer when we were packed and ready to depart. “Shanti-Astangi to you both!”

“As-Salaamu’Alaykum.” They nodded.

The same stretch limousines returned us to the airfield, but when we arrived to board the plane, we were stopped by the pilot, who met us in front of the landing strip.

“We’re not going to be able to take off!” he told us. “There’s no radio contact from Los Angeles or New York! I can’t bring up the tower!”

We gasped. It was all fine to drink in the country air and the beauty of the Idaho mountains for a weekend—but not for one second more. The moguls and entertainers and CEOs around us attempted to find out what was happening, punching in numbers on their cell phones and booting up wireless Internet connections on their Palm Pilots, but it was useless. Finally, the chief of the Native American reservation came out to explain what had happened. He had picked up the news from sending a cloud to his cousin in the Hudson River Valley.

Apparently a crippling computer virus had devastated the world’s electronic system in forty-eight hours, garnering it the nickname “the Hong Kong flu.” Forwarding itself through international e-mailboxes, it had instantly grounded planes, short-circuited ATM machines, blown out satellites (no cell phones, faxes, computers, Palm Pilots, Genies, beepers, television, cable, nothing!), and had left the entire country in a blackout. The looting and rioting had begun in the major metropolitan areas and the National Guard had been dispatched to restore peace, giving them a break from disarming children in the Midwest. I’d never seen so many billionaires look so gloomy since the AOL Time Warner merger. We were ferried back to the resort, which was empty as all the staff had already been sent home. It looked like we’d have to take care of ourselves.

Several of the assembled guests didn’t take to the news too well—after all, it was one thing to be invited to a swank Adventureland escape, where helpful outdoor counselors rounded up the walleyes for you to spearfish in the shallows, but quite another to realize that we were trapped in a remote mountain hideaway with only our nonworking electronic equipment to keep us company. Where
was Tom Hanks when you needed him? Several of the moguls took the news stoically and quickly shifted into leadership mode, organizing the assembled into tribes: hunters, gatherers, and whiners.

I turned to India and our two bunkmates.

“Here, try this,” the big-cheese movie producer said to his hunky movie star boyfriend as he handed him his cell phone.

The hunky movie star then rubbed the cell phone and the Palm Pilot together in an attempt to ignite a spark and light a fire.

“Oh, good Lord, let me do it,” India huffed. “Cat, take off your shoes.”

I took off my Blahniks with a worried look on my face. “What are you doing?”

“Pish-pish,” India dismissed me, as she took my shoes and rubbed them together. Slowly, smoke began to form.

“Wooden heels,” India explained.

I was traumatized at the loss of my shoes, but glad to have the warmth of the campfire. My thoughts then turned to Banny and Boing back home. I hoped they were all right in New York.

As the days progressed, we learned to survive through ancient techniques taught to us by Chief Speeding Jet and from our collective memories of
Survivor
. We subsisted on corncakes and yams, and smoke signal junkies were limited to five clouds a day. In the evenings, we sat around the campfire telling horror stories about badly executed takeovers and 100 percent stock dives. I even became a full-fledged member of the Native American tribe. My beaded Swarovski necklace came in
über
-handy. I was now the proud owner of Manhattan.

“Cat! Cat! Look up in the sky!” India exclaimed one afternoon as we harvested corn from the fields.

“What is it?”

“It’s an airplane! We’re saved! They’ve fixed the computer virus!”

“Oh, thank God!” I said. “I’d kill for an air conditioner right now!”

I went back to my cabin to pack up, when I saw Stephan headed my way, looking weary and fatigued.

“Oh, hi,” I said, affecting an air of insouciance.

“Cat,” he said with relief. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

“Really? Why?”

“I wanted to apologize. For Paris. I would have liked to apologize earlier but you’re still unlisted. So I thought I’d find you through
Arbiteur,
but even that number’s been disconnected.”

I flushed. “So?”

“Well, I just wanted to explain why I didn’t see you that night. I did go to the lobby of the Ritz, to meet you. But when I arrived I saw you with Brick Winthrop and I just thought … well.” He shook his head. “Cece always told me you were still pining for him. So I thought you were playing a game or something. Saying you’ll meet me for dinner but then meeting your ex-boyfriend instead.”

“But Brick and I were just talking … it was nothing.”

“It was?”

“Yes. Of course. But what about you?” I asked.

“What about me?”

“Aren’t you—aren’t you engaged to Teeny?”

“To Teeny?” He laughed out loud. “No, of course not!”

“So you’re not going to marry her?”

“Marry her? Where on earth did you get that idea?”

“But you—you took her to my birthday party. I mean, that party at that club—where she blew out the candles.”

“For some reason she really wanted to go to that party. She was a friend of Cece’s so I obliged. It was a favor.”

“And I saw you having lunch with her downtown.”

“You did? Why didn’t you say hello?”

I shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. And in Paris I assumed … you’re really not with Teeny?”

Stephan grimaced. “No. I told you, she’s just a friend,” he said impatiently.

“But Cece said—”

“Cece, it appears, says a lot of things,” he said wisely. “She told me you were still in love with Brick.”

“But I’m not,” I protested.

“No, you’re not. But funnily enough, Teeny is.”

“Teeny’s in love with Brick?” I gaped.

“Yes, that’s all she talks about, actually. It’s why she wanted to go to your birthday party—she thought Brick would be there.”

A dim memory of Teeny throwing herself at Brick during our engagement party several years before entered my mind. I was so used to Teeny wanting exactly what I wanted that it never occurred to me that she was still fixated on my old flame. And come to think of it, the night she had introduced him to Pasha, the Slavic supermodel, Teeny had looked just as furious as I had when Brick left the party with her.

“Listen, Cat, I’m only in Sun Valley because I wanted to see you again.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because I’m, uh, quite taken with you, if you haven’t noticed.” He coughed.

Oh. Oh. Oh.

We had that long-awaited kiss. Delirious. Delicious. Much better than I had anticipated. This was it! Who would have thought? The handsome eye-patch-wearing Westonian prince—mine! Lights—camera—comeback! I
knew
I would soon be joining that great committee meeting in the sky—I mean, at the Costume Institute.

S
tephan proposed on bended knee, and I immediately accepted, of course. We went back to MogulFest to pack our bags and to share the good news with India.

“Darling, that’s wonderful!” she cheered, enveloping me in a giant bear hug. “Congratulations!”

“I know!” I cheered back. “I’m going to be a princess!”

“Of Westonia!”

“Not even a last name—just a country!”

India dropped me a demure curtsey. It was just like in that scene in that television movie of the week where Catherine Oxenberg played you-know-who and her “flatmates” all bowed down to her. I was touched.

On the plane ride back to civilization I daydreamed about the perfect wedding: the whole grand striped-tent, American-roses, white-glove affair that entailed the services of the Peter Duchin Orchestra and a much-anticipated trip to Vera Wang’s cozy boutique. Or perhaps I could go the downtown route: wedding as “happening.” Like Vanessa Beecroft’s, it would be a memorable frisson and fusion of avant garde and Old Guard. Three words: White. Plastic. Versace. A minidress and thigh-high white patent-leather boots. We would exchange vows in a loft, overlooking the city skyline, as the Gay Men’s Chorus sang Bette Midier and Edith Piaf tunes. A disco ball and drag queen attendants—what better way to cross the threshold than with India by my side. Guests would include Happy Rockefeller next to Li’l Kim next to Norman Mailer. It would be glorious!

But of course there was only one dead celebrity whose wedding dress I could wear for the most important day of my life—yes, the dead celebrity of all dead celebrities! Princess Diana’s wedding dress. Thank God I had had the foresight to buy it on eBay years ago!

I looked down at Stephan, slumbering against my shoulder, and wondered if he owned a military dress uniform from Westonia.

And with Stephan’s riches, he would secure funding for
Arbiteur
; oh, it was too perfect.

Back in Manhattan, Stephan and I drove right from the airport to Harry Winston. While his proposal was as romantic as I could have hoped, there was still the matter of
the ring
.

“What about this one?” I asked, pointing to a fifteen-carat wonder that could obliterate the sun. “I know, I could ask them to put it aside and you can surprise me with it!” I said breathlessly.

“Mmm…”

Stephan suggested he move in with me immediately, and I didn’t see why not. “Don’t you need anything from your apartment?” I asked, seeing that he only had a backpack with him from the trip.