Arm Candy (15 page)

Chase was not wired to cry. He simply couldn’t. Always the stoic, he was used to being everyone’s rock, and he wasn’t about to collapse now. He locked his emotions even deeper and swallowed the horse pill of grief, dry and choking.

—W. B. Pitkin

 

 

 

“H
oney, tilt your head a bit to the left, would you?” asked Otto. Eden obliged, though she felt a tiny hint of annoyance; he was micromanaging her more than normal. “The light there is fantastic. You are aglow, lamb.”

Eden was posed with her back to the canvas, looking over her shoulder
Odalisque
-style, minus the fatness.

“So when is this show due?” Eden asked, looking out the enormous studio windows at the rooftops dotted with water towers.

“Lyle needs only this last one, but I think it could be the image for all the press and marketing, so I need to finish it soon, like three or four weeks. You’re coming to Venice, of course?”

This was the first she was hearing of it. “Oh, I . . . didn’t know you wanted me there.”

“Honey, you are the magnet! They want you, you’re the star! We are still a team, no?”

“But this would be our first opening since we’ve split up. I mean, you don’t really need me there, do you?”

“Are you suggesting that I need you there any less because we don’t share a bed? We still are partners, we still talk, we still go out to parties,” he scoffed.

“I’ll think about it,” Eden said casually, counting the water towers in the distance, which she’d always done from her post in the studio, the same spot where she had posed in various states of undress for the better part of twenty years.

“You’ll
think
about it? No. Eden, you’re coming. You’re part of the package, honey!”

Eden remained quiet, drifting into her thoughts as Otto painted her.
Honey, honey, honey
. Suddenly the faintest of memories, like tracks of a cirrus cloud, blew across her brain. She smiled to herself as she posed, remembering how Wes used to call her Maple or sometimes Mapes. Over time, Otto’s commonplace nickname grew sickly sweet. Since their split, it had become like aspartame—you can taste the fakeness.

“What are you thinking with that twinkle in your eye?” Otto probed.

“Oh, nothing,” Eden said. “Just daydreaming.”

The door opened and in walked Mary, Otto’s gal pal. She was so Iowan, you could smell the corn on her.

“Hi there, Mary,” Eden said. She was barely two years older than their son, Cole. “I got some great stuff, from Kipp,” Mary told Otto, excitedly. “It’s insane, so pure.”

The sweet Midwesterner proceeded to cut perfect lines of coke with her Metrocard, the white-line-maker of choice for nose-candy-happy New Yorkers. Credit cards were so
Less Than Zero
. Otto stared at Eden’s silhouetted breast as he mixed just the right ivory to paint the teardrop slope, then casually put down his brush, walked over to Mary, patted her ass, then bent down for a line. Barf. Otto obviously would never grow up. Eden was so glad she was the hell out of there. Her perpetual Peter Pan ex had found his new fairy-dust partner to keep him flying, Hugh Hefner-style, until Social Security kicked in.

“Kipp always gets the best shit. Oh, this is great. Eden?”

“No, thanks, I’m okay.”

“No, you have to, it’s insane. You can’t turn down amazing shit like this.”

Eden ignored the offer.

As she watched Otto lasciviously watch a bent-over Mary, Eden realized that despite rumors that women’s sexual peak was their late thirties, she strangely felt her libido turned off since her split. Which terrified her. And as she got older, like Matthew Mc-Conaughey in
Dazed and Confused
said, Otto’s young off-the-Greyhound hard-bodied sycophants and suck-o-phants seemed to eerily “stay the same age, yes they do.”

Eden decided to get dressed. “I think your work is clearly done for today, so I’m off.”

“So soon?” Otto asked, mildly alarmed at her eagerness to leave.

“I have to finish my care package for Cole’s birthday.”

“Okay, then . . . ,” Otto said, not wanting her to leave.

Eden opened the large steel industrial door onto the street and breathed in the fresh air. In that gulp of oxygen she realized just how happy she was to get the hell out of there, the place she once upon a time drooled over. She had been euphoric to unpack her belongings in there, to be the mistress of that killer domain. It was New York real estate heaven, full of exaggerated broker superlatives, but now it seemed like Hades. Somehow, even though the cubic footage of the large looming loft was gargantuan, Eden was growing claustro despite its gleaming massive white walls. And oddly, in her snug and cozy one bedroom, devoid of massive floor-to-ceiling windows, skylights, and space, she felt sublimely released, like her snug living room was an airy field, wide-open and free.

—Audrey Hepburn

 

 

 

I
t was in Trevi Nails on Lexington that Eden connected the social dots. Allison was leafing through
Gotham
magazine, perusing the hottest bachelors in the city, when her finger landed on a candid shot of Wills Fine, the überstudly buff best pal of Chase Lydon.

“Oh, spread me some of that on toast points!” cooed Allison. “Yummy. I love the Eligible Bachelors issue. I read it in bed at night during Jon Stewart.”

“You’re too funny,” replied Eden, checking out the nail polish hues. “What does Andrew say?”

“He doesn’t care! He knows I am mad for him.”

Min-Wah Kwang, known in this nation as Roseanna (selected because of the song by Toto), filed Eden’s perfect nails to a smooth clean finish. “Whacala?” she asked.

“Let’s see,” said Eden, studying the names of the tiny bottles of pinks, peaches, and reds. “These nail polish names are hilarious. I mean,
Vampire Bite
?
Vegas Quickie
? What’s next,
Gstaad Roadwhore
?”

“How bout
Back Seat B.J
.,” laughed Allison.

“Okay,” said Eden, handing Roseanna two bottles. “I’ll do one coat of
Limousine Lovin’
and one coat of
Hamptons Orgy
.”

Allison turned the page of the magazine to find a huge photo of Wills’s best friend, Chase Lydon, ranked as the Number One bachelor in New York City.

“Holy shit,” Eden said. She jerked mid-top coat, causing Roseanna to paint her skin.

“Whoops, sorry!” Eden said.

“I fix, I fix,” said Roseanna, dipping her stick into the acetone.

“Alli,
that’s
the guy—the guy Chase I met on the street who I saw at that benefit,” Eden explained. “He’s in this magazine? Who is he?”

“Wait a minute—Eden, he’s only the HOTTEST guy in town. You didn’t know who he was?”

“No, why would I? I’ve been living downtown for twenty years. I don’t know the Upper East Side from Minsk.”

“Oh my gosh, he is so fine. I bet you he is, like, in love with you already.”

“No. He has a girlfriend. I saw them at that benefit. She’s pretty.”

“So? You are foxier than all those girls.”

“
Really
pretty. Blond Muffy type. Betty Draper.”

“I bet she’s completely asexual! Those socialites are all the same. You think she shags him rotten? Hell to the No. She’s probably some cold fish country club matron who would rather do TV than KY, if you know what I mean. They know
Grey’s Anatomy
better than their husband’s anatomy.”

“It’s weird, I’m so much older, but we did have this bizarre flicker of chemistry.”

“See? Toldja. You know with these things! When I met Andrew I knew right away!”

Allison tilted the magazine toward Eden, revealing a photo of Chase with his brothers at a sailing regatta looking J. Crew-ready and so sexily outdoorsy you could practically smell the salt air. Whale pants central. Ribbon belts galore. Cough and a Teva might fly out.

“Look! It’s from a new coffee table book of photos by Patrick McMullan all about the good life. See?” Allison said.

“Whatever. He doesn’t need an almost-forty-year-old hag when he has that young blondie with the pearls,” Eden said.

“Let me guess, you saw Mary?” Allison ventured. “I’ve never seen you threatened by blondes, or any woman for that matter.”

“I did see Mary. Damn, she’s young. She’s, like, half my age!”

“Eden. You have got to get over this. If you are going to get depressed about the inevitable, then you will be inevitably depressed.”

“I know. I hate myself like this.”

“Come on, E. You know you still got it.”

“Trust me, I might have ‘it’ for some guys, but not some cute prep type like him,” Eden said, gesturing to Chase’s photo with her chin as her polished nails were drying to a shine.

“You never know,” said Allison. “You can’t tell about people from the outside. Look, everyone thought you and Otto were the perfect duo. Every paper in town wrote you were the It Couple. And then what? Maybe Chase is bored with her. Maybe he’s itching inside that bespoke suit. Maybe someone like you is just what he needs.”

Maybe. Eden exhaled with a shrug. She didn’t know. But she did know one thing: whether she was feeling up to it or not, it was time to get back out there.

—
Christian Dior

 

 

 

T
he Lydons sat down to dinner in their grand dining room, the low chandelier light glistening off the crystal and china.

“Sorry I’m late,” Price said, waltzing in wearing a T-shirt and messenger bag. “I was out with Fitz.”

“Dude, I hear Duke lost his job again. What’s he gonna fucking do now, go ski in Aspen for two years like last time?” asked Pierce between mouthfuls of food.

“Pierce DuPree Lydon!” his father said furiously, restrained by his impeccable manners. “Mind your mouth.”

“Sorry, Dad,” Pierce replied sheepishly. He was thirty-one, but if you reversed the digits you would find his actual maturity level.

“Nah, he’s gonna go be a gardener again. Remember he spent some winter in Palm Beach doing that? Slept with half the married women on Ocean Boulevard!”

“Nice, he’s going from hedge fund to trimming hedges.”

“Yeah, I wonder if the ladies’ hedges are trimmed down there!” he joked, raising his arm up for a high five. “Awww, yeah!”

“Guys,” Chase interrupted, out of respect for his mother, despite the fact that she hadn’t a clue that her sons were discussing pubic landscaping at her dinner table. I mean, please. As Prince once crooned,
Act your age, not your shoe size
.

“Yeah, wasn’t he banging Cooper’s mom after the divorce?” Price gave a mischievous grin.

“Who wasn’t?” Pierce replied.

“BOYS! Knock it off. This instant!” Mr. Lydon fumed. He looked at his son Chase, dutiful and calm, eating in silence. At least he had one son he could count on.

In an effort to change the subject, Chase asked about his parents’ previous weekend at Lyford for a wedding.

“Oh, it was so lovely,” Brooke said, dreaming of wedding bells for her own family. “Actually,” she said, looking to her husband carefully, “we bumped into Skip and Bitsey van Delft down there. And I know it’s none of my beeswax—”