Cat's Meow (8 page)

“Please.” I nodded.

“Cat!” It was a familiar booming voice—except this time it wasn’t muffled by the sound of helicopter blades or transcontinental static. It could only be Brick.

“Hi, darling.” I proffered my hand. Brick looked like he always did. Rich. He was losing his hair, and his postcollegiate beer belly had hardened into a tough paunch, but he was handsome enough; men with a bazillion dollars in their account were handsome by any standard. It came from the burnished sheen that could only be the result of being rich enough to buy everything and anybody, or from the thousand dollars’ worth of male beauty products. The Slavic supermodel was dangling on his arm, vacuously staring off into space. The last time I saw Brick—God, I couldn’t even remember. He had broken up with me via e-mail.

“So—it’s good to see you.” Brick nodded. He looked at Stephan skeptically.

Oh, Brick, this is Stephan of Westonia,” I said proudly. “Stephan, this is—”

“Brockton Moore house Winthrop,” Brick interrupted heartily, shaking his hand. “You look familiar!” he boomed.

“No, I don’t believe we’ve met,” Stephan answered with a doubtful smile.

“Polo?”

“Excuse me?”

“Didn’t we play on a team together once?”

“Ah, actually, I don’t play,” Stephan said apologetically.

“So, what’s new, Brick?” I asked, changing the subject as it had become tedious.

“Busy—busy. As usual.” He shrugged. “You’ll have to come out to see us this summer. Got a new player on the team. Venezuelan. Incredible to have on a chukker. We’re playing Charles.”

That would be Prince Charles to you, he wanted to say. Even with his bazillions Brick was always an irrepressible name-dropper. It was always Steven Spielberg this and Michael Eisner that. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course.

“Anyway, we’d best be going. Good to see you, Cat. Pasha?” The supermodel minced after him, following two steps behind.

“So, you were together, yes?” Stephan asked when Brick had left.

“How did you know?”

“Oh, easy enough,” he said dismissively.

“We were engaged for eight years,” I admitted. “But that was a long time ago.” Actually, only four months, and then I was discarded like last year’s Prada mules, but who was counting? “Who can compete with the Tits from Transylvania?” I asked.

“They are stupendous,” he agreed, and my confidence faltered at that.

“So why don’t you play polo, darling?” I asked coyly. “I thought you grew up in Argentina.”

“Yes, I did,” he said heartily. “In Buenos Aires. A beautiful city. Have you ever been?”

“No, but I’ve always wanted to,” I replied, hinting broadly.

“Shame. It’s a little bit of Paris in South America. Stupendous.”

Hmmpf.

“But in answer to your question, I used to play polo, but not since this,” he said, motioning to his eye patch.

“Can I ask how—?”

“Sailing accident.”

“Wow.”

“Yes, unfortunately I’m not much of a sailor either.”

Interesting! Self-deprecating
and
handsome. We talked a little more, and I attempted to steer the conversation toward Westonia. “It’s a little principality, like, um, Monaco,” he explained. “Although not as many tourists.”

“Is there gambling?” I asked. If so, my mother probably knew it well, I told him.

“No, not really. Not like Monte Carlo. Mostly just a bunch of peasants and their livestock. It’s very barren, very rocky. A dreadful place.”

“Do you wish you weren’t kicked out?” I sighed dreamily.

“Kicked out?”

“Of the country. By the military junta,” I said, remembering the information from the website.

“That was a long time ago,” he said soberly. “I had not even been born yet. You know, I find this American obsession with titles really quite appalling.”

“Oh?”

“Because it’s all so meaningless. Why should it make a difference who my great-great-great-grandfather was? It doesn’t. Titles are so worthless,” he said carelessly.

“For you, maybe,” I protested. “But then again, you have one.”

He shrugged, and I was suitably impressed by his casual indifference to such a genetic stroke of luck. If I had a title, you could be certain I would have had all of Manhattan bowing so deeply everyone’s foreheads would bear footprints.

“So what brought you to New York?” I asked.

Oh, ah…I was… transferred.”

“By your bank?” I asked, picturing a large investment bank on Wallstreet.

“Yes, yes. Right. I’m with Civilian Financial Citation Holdings, but enough about me—my life is boring. What about you?”

“What do you want to know?”

“Whatever you want to tell me,” he said, giving me a crooked smile. So I told him. Everything. All about my parents, and Hollywood, and Japan—and he even said he thought he had recognized me, which was a lie but a nice one. I realized I was actually enjoying his company rather than merely pretending to, which was a
nouveau
experience. Usually I found that most successful men tended to bore you with the details of their business, investments, or current fascination with maneuvering their twin-hulled, dual-finned America’s Cup catamaran around the globe. Surprisingly, Stephan seemed to be more interested in learning about me than telling me about himself. I made a mental note to tell India that small talk was surprisingly easy—all I had to do was talk about myself. “I don’t think I mentioned it the last time we spoke,” I said, “but I’m adopting a Chinese baby.”

His eyes widened. “Really. I didn’t think you were so… serious about your commitment to the cause.” I knew it!
Floored
.

“Well—you know, I mean, it’s just that it’s all well and good to throw parties for them and drink champagne on their behalf, but I thought I would make a personal contribution instead,” I said modestly.

“I agree. So, when are you going to China?”

Oh, I’m not,” I protested. “I’ve sent my au pair.”

He laughed again—a deep and resonant laugh that was warm and generous, so that I didn’t think he was really laughing at me. I started laughing as well, because come to think of it, the situation was absurd. I had sent my au pair to China to pick up a baby! What was I thinking? He seemed to like it though.

“Darling, I’m not joking,” I said, when our laughter had subsided.

“Oh, I never doubted it.”

If he was going to be a handbag, I decided, Stephan would definitely be an Hermès. They kept you on the waiting list forever, but once it’s yours, it’s irreplaceable. Brick would be more like something you chucked after the trend had passed for small, embroidered
shoulder bags in the shape of French pastry that were never big enough to hold all your essentials.

“Stephan! Stephan!” This time we were interrupted by Cece Phipps-Langley, the socialite who had told me all about him in the first place. She sped toward our table like a heat-seeking missile in duchesse satin and antique Victorian jewelry. “Oh, hi, Cat,” she said in a less-than-enthusiastic tone. “Did you see Brick and Pasha? Such a doll, isn’t she just?”

“Just,” I replied, curling my lip.

“Stephan, darling, you can’t sit all by yourself here in the dark. There are people I want you to meet,” she said, grasping his arm protectively. “You don’t mind, do you, Cat?” she asked.

“No, of course not.”

“Excuse me,” Stephan said reluctantly. “It’s good to see you again. Good luck with the baby.”

“Baby!” Cece exclaimed with a contemptuous snort. “Cat doesn’t even have a boyfriend!” She gave Stephan a look. “Teeny’s over there and she wanted to know where you had wandered off to,” she chided, pulling his arm like an impatient helmet-headed Chihuahua.

“It was great to see you again,” he said graciously before leaving. “You know,” he added, looking thoughtful, “I know somebody who is very much interested in adopting a Chinese baby as well. Would you mind if I—”

“Not at all,” I said smoothly, reaching into my vintage Whiting & Davis bag and handing him my card. “I’d be happy to tell them everything I know.”

Cece watched with narrowed eyes as he pocketed it.

When they left, I found India by the bar. “This suckths,” she said, slurring her words.

“Why, what’s wrong?”

India waved her empty flute toward the dance floor, where I spotted her generous patron, the wealthy trannie chaser who provided her with a Fifth Avenue aerie and kept her in collagen treatments and floor-length chinchilla. He was deep in conversation
with Venus de Milosevic, India’s biggest rival in the transsexual stakes. Venus was a fierce Serbian drag queen, whose popular cabaret act involved taking no prisoners.

“Why I oughta …” India said, lunging drunkenly in their direction.

It took all of my power to restrain her from confronting them.

“Darling, let it go. She’s nothing. He’s only paying attention to her because lately you’ve been ignoring him in favor of your nineteen-year-old go-go dancer. He’ll come around eventually.”

“And the bah’s run hout of chumpagne, can you believe it?” She hiccuped.

“Darling, listen to me. I’ve got great news. Stephan’s asked for my number.”

India raised her eyebrows. “You don’t (hic) say?”

“Well, actually he said it was for a friend. Someone interested in adopting a Chinese baby,” I confessed. “I gave him my card. Do you think he’ll call?”

“Why (hic) wouldn’t he?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it really was for a friend,” I said morosely, looking wistfully to where Teeny, Cece, and Stephan were sharing a laugh with Brick and Pasha. Teeny was touching Stephan’s arm lightly as she giggled at something he said.

“Nonthense,” India declared. “Sthe’s thill (hic) married to that Austhrian ballet danther.”

“That’s never stopped her before,” I reminded India. “Do you know, I swear there’s something different about him tonight.”

India shrugged. “I didn’t nothithe.”

“I did. Is it the hair? Does he seem taller, maybe?”

“Maybe,” India conceded. “Or maybe you’re juth theeing things (hic). Oh, wait, there is thomething …”

Just then the bartender miraculously found an unopened bottle of bubbly and India forgot her train of thought in her determination to score herself a glass.

*  *  *

I returned home to find a message on the machine from the hotel in San Marco. Apparently I had just missed my mother by a few days. Sigh. There would be no emergency funds coming my way, so it: looked like I’d have to face the music—or more specifically, my accountant.

M
r. Bartleby-Smythe was a nice fellow of florid complexion and meticulous handwriting. He had known me since I was a baby, and could probably say he’d pinched my inner thighs. As Daddy’s most trusted adviser and the executor of the will, he had been responsible for my financial well-being ever since I was ten years old. In college, it was he who convinced my father that I would actually use the money to pay for tuition instead of endless shopping sprees. Daddy had been quite sore over the Tokyo debacle—he couldn’t understand how an underage model could accumulate so many debts.

Sarah Lawrence was open-minded enough to consider a few years at prep school, several with a Hollywood acting coach, and my stint in Tokyo’s school of hard knocks equivalent to a GED and accepted me.

What I learned in college: abnormal behavior, method acting, how to seduce your roommate’s boyfriend.

If Hollywood was all about the size of your entourage and Tokyo the quality of your look book, college was all about discovering the social activist within. I threw myself completely into an aristobohemian lifestyle. Like most of my friends, my room smelled of patchouli and I hardly bathed. I ate couscous and organic veggies, took back the night, wrote angry, affected poetry referring cleverly to my genitalia, and attempted to grow dreadlocks. I hosted communist tea parties, organized financial aid sit-ins, staged Columbus Day protests, renounced all material possessions, and debated Wittgenstein’s theories while conducting numerous affairs with bearded professors decked out in full
haute
tenure (suede-patch sport coats, scuffed Nubucks).

Except for my inability to keep awake during class, I was the perfect student. Plus, I was special—the only one in school who had a trust fund
and
received financial aid. See, even though I received an exorbitant allowance that should have been more than enough to keep me in J. Crew pea coats in every color, I spent it faster than the bank could deposit it. Thus, the amount was hardly enough to sustain
all
of my activities. Radical chic didn’t come cheap, mind you. Someone had to pay for all those placards and megaphones. By the end of the semester I was banned from opening a checking account at the local bank, and evicted from a series of luxury apartments. Through Mr. Bartleby-Smythe, Daddy would always send another check—he was relieved that I was actually still in school. He was so proud when I graduated Phi Beta Kappa, especially since Sarah Lawrence didn’t bother with such things as grades.

“Ah, Cat, come in,” Mr. Bartleby-Smythe said jovially, ushering me into his mahogany-paneled office. “I haven’t seen you in a while. I was starting to wonder if you’d forgotten about us.”