Cat's Meow (24 page)

W
hen I returned, I was determined to have that conversation with Stephan. If he loved me, he wouldn’t think I was a gold digger, would he? Nevertheless, I simply had no choice. There was a company to save, a boss to keep out of jail, and an au pair to rescue from deportation. His bazillions would come in handy, oh, just about now. I found him in the middle of the room, singing softly to the baby.

“Darling?” I said. “Can we have a moment?”

“Oh, of course,” he said. “Should I put Boing back in her coat?”

“Yes, that would be good.”

He picked up the baby and put her back gently in the duvet. “Well?”

“I was thinking … you know your bazillions?”

“My what?”

“Well—your money. I need it,” I blurted.

“Oh.” His eyes widened.

“I need to pay a lawyer to stop Bannerjee from being deported, and to defend
Arbiteur
from a crippling lawsuit,” I explained. “Otherwise Billy’s going to jail, or we’re selling off
Arbiteur
and India can’t be a part of it, and I can’t allow that to happen because India’s friendship means the world to me, and … and …”

“But why do you need
my
money?” he asked.

“Because … well, I don’t have any.”

“You don’t?” He gagged.

“No.”

“What do you mean you don’t? I thought—”

“What?”

“That you were famous. You knew Cece and Teeny. They’re the two richest women in Manhattan.”

“Yeesss… I do. I went to grammar school with them. That was a long time ago.”

“But the penthouse?”

“I leased it at my accountant’s behest. I couldn’t afford to live there anymore.”

“What about all the photographers during Fashion Week? Front row at all the fashion shows?”

“I upgraded my seat.”

“You … what did you say?”

“Upgraded my seat,” I repeated.

“Why?”

“Because I only got standing room, that’s why,” I said crossly.

“But you said you didn’t have to work.”

“I lied.”

“You lied?”

“I don’t. Have. Money. I’m bankrupt. I was working for
Arbiteur
and we were all set to have an IPO and make gazillions but then Catwalk.com threatened to sue us for stealing their streaming video coverage and our bankers dropped our IPO and now I’m broke. But now someone wants to buy the website—but only for a million dollars, which is insane, especially since we’re in debt for much more than that—but even if we sell it to them, they don’t want India to be part of it, which of course we can’t let happen because she’s my very best friend in the whole world.”

“Oh.” He looked perplexed. “But I thought—”

“Darling,” I said, a thought forming in my head. “Where is Westonia?”

“It’s… umm … in the Baltic,” he hedged.

“I thought it was in the Balkans?”

“It isn’t. At least, I don’t think it is.”

“Are you sure?”

“Am I sure of what?”

Trembling, I reached for his eye patch.

“What—what are you doing?” he asked fearfully.

I took his eye patch … and I moved it to the other eye. Then I remembered—whenever I saw him at Barneys, his eye patch was on the left eye. Whenever I saw him out at social events, it was on the right. It had been a clever disguise, because even if anyone he met on the social circuit bumped into him at Barneys, he or she would never have recognized him—most of the crowd were too narcissistic to notice.

“I can explain,” he said in a completely unambiguous Continental accent—except it came from this continent. The northern one.

“Explain what?”

“I’m not the Prince of Westonia.”

Of course you’re not,” I said dully.

“Fm a tailor at Barneys.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

“Brick finally remembered how he knew you.”

“Ah. I wondered when he would. He was a good customer.”

“But you were at that twenty-thousand-dollars-a-plate benefit…”

“Cece paid for my ticket. I told her my accounts hadn’t been set up yet.”

“And all those parties…”

“You should know as well as I do that it’s very easy to score party invitations. After all, I worked at Barneys and I had—”

“The Fashion Calendar?”

He nodded.

“And the fashion shows?”

“I told you, a friend invited me. And I was in Paris to pick up some new fabric for our custom-made suits.”

“But Sun Valley, the moguls…”

“That was a little harder. One of my clients had left his invitation in a coat pocket I was altering, so I pinched it.”

“Brick!” I said, remembering how sore Brick had been about not being invited to Sun Valley this year.

“Yes. It was his ticket. I knew you were going to be at that retreat, and I wanted to see you.”

“But how did you—”

“Infiltrate? Dupe the crème de la crème of New York society?” He laughed. “I’m a paparazzo. I worked in Europe for years taking photographs of the jet set. I know all their tricks. I decided, why should they have all the fun?”

“Why, indeed.”

“I found this site on the Internet, E-Royalty-to-Go.com,” he explained. “For a hundred ninety-nine dollars you can buy yourself a title. Any title. European. Middle Eastern. Whatever. It’s like those sites where you can buy university degrees even though youv’e never attended one of those schools.”

“Yes, I know of them.”

“Well, that’s what I got. And since I recognized everyone from society, I just ingratiated myself to one of the more gullible socialites.”

“Cece Phipps-Langley.”

“Yes. I didn’t even have to tell her anything—I just said I was an exiled prince and she just assumed—”

“Homes in Baden-Baden? Beverly Hills? Bedford?”

“Yes.”

“But when I saw you, you said you lived on Fifth Avenue.”

“I did. On Fifth Avenue and East One Hundred and Tenth Street.”

“East One Hundred and Tenth! Isn’t that—”

“The camera obscura apartment,” he said wistfully.

“I thought it was your studio!”

“Yes, in a sense it was, but I got evicted last week,” he explained sheepishly.

“So what
do
you have?”

“Well, when my parents died, I inherited their farmhouse in Michigan.”

“A landowner,” I sniped.

“Cat—please, don’t be upset.”

“Upset? Why would I be upset? The only job I’ve ever had is gone, and the only man I’ve ever loved turns out to be from
Michigan
.’” Flyoverland. The horror, the horror!

“Is that so bad?”

“Please leave.”

“But where will I go?”

“I don’t care,” I said, all steely-like. “Just get out of my sight. I can’t stand … I can’t… oh God …” I crumpled, thinking of the humiliation in store for me.

Stephan left.

It began as soon as I opened my eyes. For a while there, I thought it was all just a bad, bad dream. But then I had to answer the phone. It was India.

“Cat! Have you seen the papers?” she asked breathlessly.

“Is it a story about Stephan and my engagement?” I groaned.

“Well, yes.”

“And?”

“Cat, he’s an impostor! He’s not a prince at all!” India cried.

“I know. He told me last night,” I said. “How bad is it?”

“Well, let’s just put it this way—
no one s ever going to forget you now
.”

I padded out to my doorway to collect the heap of newspapers and tabloids.

“Prince of Lies!” the Post trumpeted. “The Con Artist Formerly Known as the Prince”—that from
the Daily News
. The
Times
had
run a small mention in “Public Lives,” in its usual restrained fashion.
New York
magazine had the full story, which included nasty asides from several well-heeled anonymous socialites who had welcomed “the Prince of Westonia” into their homes and were now counting the silver and making sure nothing had been stolen. Teeny Wong Finklestein Van der Hominie was quoted as saying she had known all along that he was a fake, as he didn’t play polo nor did he know how to sail. The paper also mentioned that Teeny was planning a million-dollar wedding in Malibu to billionaire poloplaying venture capitalist Brockton Moorehouse Winthrop the Third. Apparently she had been successful in that venture as well.

I rang Heidi to see if there was any way to combat this egregious affair. I’d call a press conference! I’d give teary interviews! I’d play the woman wronged! I’d … I’d … Heidi wasn’t picking up the phone and when she did, she did not sound pleased to hear from me.

“Vooo eezz dees?” she asked suspiciously.

“Heidi, it’s me, Cat.”

“Vooo?”

“Cat.”

“I zon’t know a Caf,” she said darkly.

“Heidi, please, you’ve got to help me.”

Reluctantly, Heidi told me it was the worst press she had seen in years. “And, yes, there ees soch a theeng as bad press, Caf.”

All the magazines, television shows, and newspapers were now begging to talk to me, of course—not because I was engaged to a prince, but because I was the fiancée of a fool. Instead of puffy profiles dedicated to my wedding trousseau and whirlwind romance, I would now be described as the hopeless debutante dupe who had fallen for a hustler. It was terrible. Already I had been bumped off the committees to fight colitis and aggravated bowel movements. Even the Dumpster Disaster in the Philippines committee didn’t want me. I was worse than trash.

Photographers were stalking my loft. Boing and I were besieged at every turn, and I hid out in
Arbiteur
HQ, the only safe place from
the prying eyes of the media monster. Billy was sympathetic when I told him the news.

“Well, it’s not like it’s a crime,” Billy argued. He was very touchy about what was and wasn’t illegal these days.

“Impersonating a prince? I suppose not,” I agreed, cheering up.

“Well, the investors have sent over the papers,” Billy said glumly.

“So that’s it? We’re just giving up?” I asked.

“I mean, India can’t stay mad forever, can
she?
” Billy asked. “What else can we do?”

“Nothing—absolutely nothing,” I lamented.

When I arrived home, I found Stephan in the apartment. I had forgotten we had agreed for him to collect his things that afternoon.

“Well, it was fun while it lasted,” he said. “I guess I’ll be going back to my acre in Michigan now. Or I could go back to shooting for the
Globe
. I’m sure Princess Caroline misses me.”

“Right.”

He looked so forlorn, standing against the wall. He wasn’t even wearing the eye patch anymore—what was the point? He was no longer a dashing exiled Westonian prince but just another unmasked social upstart. At least Andrew Cunanan went out in a blaze of attention-grabbing glory. We would have to live through ours.

“OK.”

“OK.”

He headed over to the door.

“Wait.”

He turned back and looked at me expectantly.

“Nothing.” I shrugged. “I thought you had maybe forgotten something.”

“Oh.” He sighed.

Suddenly I realized the pain I was feeling was not from every hurtful headline or gleefully wicked investigative piece or even the newest revelation from the Smoking Gun website that Stephan
had attended agriculture school. He turned away and I noticed, not for the first time, how broad his shoulders were and how nice his profile was. I remembered how kind he had been the first time we had met, and how he was staunchly on the side of beleaguered party crashers everywhere—a perverse kindness to be sure, but still a generosity of spirit that was rare in me-first Manhattan. He was the only man who saw the crazy world I lived in for what it was—upside down and backward. Besides, he even had the good humor to put up with a woman who named her adopted child Boing and lived in a converted campground. I didn’t just love Stephan. I liked him. And he liked me, which was even more important, really.

“Wait,” I said again. “Don’t go.”

“Gee, Cat, I didn’t know you really cared,” he said, smiling shyly.

Neither did I. But, hell, who really wanted to be rich and famous anyway? Look what happened when Diana married a real prince. There was more to life than being a princess. Did I really want to end up throwing myself at international playboys for the rest of my life?

“So what are we going to do now?” I asked Stephan, snuggling into his arms.

“I don’t know … move to Michigan?” he joked.

“Well, it’s not a bad idea,” I said, contemplating the thought. “We could justify it by saying we’ve given up on the rat race and have decided to live life on a simpler, more monastic level. You know, like all those lawyers who become chefs, or investment bankers who leave Wall Street to surf in Maui. Everyone is moving to Nebraska or Wisconsin or Montana, anyhow,” I mused. “Like Demi Moore—she’s in Idaho. Or Ted Turner; he’s in Montana. And Todd Oldham is in Pennsylvania. All those models are living in the Catskills. Even Donovan Leitch lives in the countryside.” Slowly, I was warming to the idea. I could subscribe to all those new magazines that advocated the simple life—like
Simplycity
and
Real Simple
. Of course! New York was so over. How had I not noticed this before?