Original Sin (16 page)

‘So I take it you haven’t found your pashmina–wearing Prince Charming yet?’ smiled Tess.

She laughed again, casting a glance towards the couple at the next table. ‘No. The problem is, I think those banker types are pricks,’ she whispered.

Tess giggled.

‘Not that I’ve given up, of course. I even went to this “Fashion and Finance” speed–dating thing the other week,’ continued Becky. ‘Very popular right now, full of pretty girls and rich guys all looking for love, but I have to say I was absolutely bored to tears. I ended up going home with a woman.’

Tess’s eyes opened like saucers. ‘Her name was Dita,’ smiled Becky. ‘A freelance fashion PR. We had much more in common than any of those boring farts in their sensible shoes.’

‘Wow,’ gasped Tess. ‘So what happened?’

‘Nothing,’ laughed Becky. ‘Mother nature kicked in; I couldn’t do it. But that’s New York, baby. That’s how desperate it is out there. I think it was God’s way of telling me I am destined to be alone. Anyway, how’s the very sexy Dom?’ she asked, sipping her water. ‘I think he always wanted to work in New York more than both of us.’

Tess’s smile faded at the mention of her boyfriend. ‘Dom’s still in London.’

‘You guys haven’t finished, have you?’ said Becky, her expression softening.

‘No, no, nothing like that. He hasn’t got a visa, so we’re having a transatlantic affair.’

‘Very chic,’ said Becky. ‘Are you missing him?’

‘Working fourteen hours days I’ve not had a chance to miss him.’

‘Hmm. Or maybe you just don’t,’ said Becky, raising a brow.

Tess looked thoughtful. ‘No, I think it’s more that I had to come here to get out of my comfort zone.’

Becks laughed. ‘You two are hardly in a rut, are you? Whenever I hear from you, you’re always off flying to some exotic location.’

‘Maybe not, but we’ve been together for nearly nine years. Sometimes distance can bring you closer together.’

Becky paused, playing with her fork.

‘Do you trust him, Tess?’ she asked softly. ‘No disrespect to Dom, but I don’t think I would leave a man that fine alone two minutes in big, bad London. More to the point, do you trust yourself to be let loose in this big city?’

‘The answer is yes,’ said Tess firmly. ‘Yes and yes.’

Although she couldn’t help thinking back to the one time she’d been unfaithful. It had been eighteen months into their relationship when she began struggling with the idea of commitment. She was only twenty–three. Should she not be young, free, and single. and enjoying all London had to offer? One weekend, Dom had been away on a snowboarding trip with his friends, and Tess had been invited to a party by an associate editor on the
Globe
. It had been at a big Victorian villa in Barnes, stuffed to the gills with media types she recognized from the TV or from their photo by–lines in the papers. The moment she saw Charlie, she knew something was going to happen. He was thirty, an advertising director and the son of the old chief executive of the
Globe
group. He was also engaged, but that hadn’t stopped him stroking Tess’s neck. She’d been flattered by the attention of someone older and infinitely more successful, so they’d gone back to her flat in Clapham and the sex had been explosive. Charlie had left at seven the next morning, but not before telling her about a features editor position he knew was coming up at the
Globe
. ‘Keep what happened last night between us,’ he’d told her and she had kept her word. Three months later she was the youngest senior journalist at the
Globe
.

She looked up and had the uncomfortable feeling that Becky had been reading her thoughts.

‘Don’t get too comfortable without him, honey,’ she said seriously. ‘Let Dom go and you might be single for the next five years. Some people call New York a jungle. Well, let me tell you, when it comes to love, it’s a fricking desert.’

CHAPTER NINE

David grabbed Brooke’s hand and led her past the doorman into the lobby of 740 Park Avenue, one of Manhattan’s most prestigious apartment blocks.

‘It’s going to be fine,’ he whispered, his voice almost lost against the tip–tapping of Brooke’s heels on the black–and–white chequered marble.

Brooke smiled weakly, feeling her anxiety grow. The last thing she felt was fine. She had spent the last three days torturing herself over the revelations in the
Oracle
about her relationship with Jeff Daniels, swinging back and forth between disgust, disappointment, and anger. Her first instinct was to run away and hide, but she knew deep down that the only thing to do was put on a brave face ‘Step up to the plate’ – wasn’t that what they said? She had been able to keep up a façade of calm at work, where she knew and trusted most of her colleagues, but it was quite another thing to face people on David’s extensive social circuit. Brooke didn’t understand David’s insistence about coming tonight – Carl and Estella Winston were not particularly good friends of his – but she had not felt in a strong enough position to argue. David had been a rock since the scandal had broken. He’d been in Boston on a CTV conference and had rushed back to Brooke’s apartment to be with her. Although Brooke was sure he’d had to endure a severe tongue–lashing from his father, David had been calm and relaxed, running her a bath and giving her a heavenly foot massage while he had said lots of reassuring things about how none of it mattered and how much he trusted her.

Brooke pressed the button for the elevator and turned to her fiancé. ‘If people are whispering about me, we’re staying twenty minutes and then we’re going home.’

David chuckled. ‘Honey, these people are not
Oracle
or Page Six readers – most of them consider the
Wall Street Journal
light reading. Anyway, they fancy themselves as having more important things to talk about than your college adventures.’

Just then the lift doors pinged open and a smartly dressed couple stepped out. They walked past, and Brooke heard the woman give a low laugh that echoed around the lobby.

David read her thoughts and shot her a crooked smile. ‘Don’t be paranoid, darling,’ he said. Brooke knew he was right, but this crisis had only confirmed Brooke’s love–hate relationship with the Upper East Side. She had called this, the wealthiest pocket of Manhattan home for over twenty years, and in many ways it felt safe and familiar, but it could be a cold place, its inhabitants mocking and judgemental. The truth was, whether David’s friends were Page Six readers or not, they thrived on gossip as much as any celeb–obsessed housewife. Gossip was the lifeblood of polite society.

The elevator doors slid open and the sounds of smooth jazz and lively conversation met them from the open door of Carl and Estella Winston’s sixth–floor apartment. There were already about fifty people in the room as a waiter took their coats; most were in their thirties and forties, although their conservative clothes and stiff bearing made them seem about ten years older. Women were in trouser suits or little black dresses, sporting short, serious haircuts and few accessories except for the aura of self–confidence. Carl was the editor of a glossy political magazine; his wife the daughter of one of New York’s biggest Republican donors. According to David, the rest of the guests were a mix of media players, academics, and politicos.

‘Don’t leave me,’ she whispered as she accepted a flute of champagne with a smile.

Before he had time to reply, a slim man in a black polo–neck jumper and grey sports coat came over to shake David’s hand. She recognized him as Neil Donald, a right–wing columnist, TV commentator and author of
Power and Prestige: America’s political future on the world stage.

‘David, Brooke. How are you both? You look lovely, Brooke,’ he smiled, although Brooke noticed how he had directed all of his pleasantries to David, never even glancing at her.

‘We enjoyed your report on China the other week,’ said Neil, taking a thoughtful sip of Krug: Brooke had been dismissed. Neil Donald was the sort of society bigwig that Brooke loathed most of all. Pompous, smug, arrogant. She remembered another interminable dinner party when she had been forced to listen to Neil boast that he had not only attended Harvard, but had been a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, then later had heard him quip how David had only ‘scraped’ into Yale. Brooke wanted to hit him.

Instead she touched David on the arm and whispered, ‘Excuse me.’ She drifted off, looking for sanctuary. She’d been to dozens of parties with David, and while most of them were fun, she found these gatherings of New York’s intelligentsia pompous and boring.

But while she didn’t enjoy them, at least learned how to survive them. Small talk with the host about bland, uncontroversial topics, letting other people ramble on about themselves (there was nothing a New Yorker liked better than talking about themselves), or spending long periods ‘touching up her make–up’ in the powder room, Brooke was an expert at making herself invisible.

But one thing she always loved was having a discreet snoop around other people’s homes, and Carl and Estelle’s duplex was a spectacular space. Lofty ceilings, virgin cream carpet, original art – including, she recognized, Dufy and Chagall – sleek, expensive, bespoke furniture. It was the sort of place that demanded you wear something beautiful to complement its sophistication, but Brooke was glad she had dressed down in a black sleeveless Alice Roi dress worn with a simple gold choker. She had even dispensed with her favourite black heels, fearing them a little too racy; she knew how suspiciously she would be viewed tonight. New York society women were notoriously icy at the best of times, but encountering someone with a newly minted reputation as a home–wrecker might drive them to freeze her on sight.

‘What’s your view on the trade deficit?’ asked a smooth female voice behind her.

Brooke’s throat felt thick with anxiety. She felt as if she was about to go into a exam.

She turned to face an elegant brunette in a wasp–waisted dress that was the reddy–gold colour of a Japanese maple leaf. She had an outrageously pretty face, and she was not much older than Brooke.

‘Yes, er, the trade deficit …’ stuttered Brooke, before the woman’s wide mouth broke out into a smile. Brooke laughed.

‘Sorry,’ whispered the woman. ‘It can get a little tedious at these things, so I like to have a little joke.’

Brooke smiled, grateful that she had found at least one kindred spirit.

‘I thought the whole point of a party was to enjoy yourself,’ agreed Brooke. ‘No one exactly looks as if they’re having a good time.’

‘Well, parties like this are all about alignment. David always used to say, “We can’t socialize with who we want to all of the time.” He’s right, of course. The people in that room will be advising government in five years’ time. Some already are.’

She took a sip of champagne and held out a pale hand. ‘Alicia Wintrop,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t come to the engagement party. I hear it was fantastic.’

It took a second for Brooke to make the connection, then her heart lurched. David had once dated a girl called Ally Wintrop.

‘You’re
Ally
Wintrop?’

Alicia laughed. ‘Oh I know, old names die hard, don’t they? David and I dated when we were kids. Our families had cottages in Newport just by one another. Everyone knew me as Ally back then.’

‘Oh, I thought you dated more recently than that,’ said Brooke as casually as she could.

Alicia nodded. ‘I worked in Rome after college … I was at Brown two or three years ahead of you, I think.

‘You were at Brown?’ replied Brooke curiously.

She nodded. ‘Anyway, David and I started dating again when I came back to New York, but when David got the foreign news job at CTV I just couldn’t handle all that travel. It felt like I was dating a nomad. I think we were just both
too busy
to be together.’

‘Oh really. Too busy?’ said Brooke with as much politeness as she could muster.

‘Um–hmm,’ said Alicia. ‘I curate a gallery downtown. The Halcyon on Spring Street. Fabulous exhibition on at the moment of Masai warrior painters. They paint with spears; it’s so
conceptual
. You must come down. I do some art consulting too, in Europe. I spend an awful lot of Russian money.’

Brooke started planning her escape strategy. She knew, of course, that David had a past with plenty of ex–girlfriends, but she didn’t particularly want to stand there talking to one. She realized that she was squeezing her champagne flute a little too tightly.

‘I’m sorry about that business with the
Oracle
,’ said Alicia. She sounded sympathetic, but Brooke wasn’t convinced.

Brooke shrugged. ‘I guess it goes with the turf.’

‘Luckily I didn’t have it so much,’ said Alicia lightly. ‘Perhaps it would have been different if we had become engaged. Or perhaps we were too
obvious
a couple to be interesting.’

Brooke smiled thinly. Before she could feign a headache to get away, David came over and handed her a glass of champagne. He looked buoyed up and happy.