Arm Candy (19 page)

The two collapsed in a heap of dewy bliss, both aglow with patchy apple hues of flushed skin, scratched backs, love bites, and lust bruises that would appear at sunrise. Not bad for a night that began with a dinner seated across from someone else. A sweet girl diametrically opposed to the sexy, iconic woman Chase woke up with. He had dined with Betty Draper but slept with Bettie Page.

—Benjamin Franklin

 

 

 

“O
H NO, YOU DI-IN!” Allison squealed.

“Guilty as charged,” admitted Eden, fuchsia with abashment.

“I’m in shock. SHOCK! You totally cougared out!” Allison said, laughing.

“Puma,” corrected Eden, twisting the phone wire in her fingers.

“Oh well, I beg your pardon.”

“Don’t. It’s splitting hairs. It’s all the same. We both know I am a disgusting molester. I’m gross, right?”

“NO! Not at all—this is major! He is
to-die-for
gorgeous.”

“Yeah, gorgeous and barely legal!”

“Oh, please. Look, you were every guy’s arm candy for years and years. Now you’ve earned the right to be the arm. And enjoy that tasty candy!”

“He is cute, isn’t he?” Eden blushed.

“Um-hmmm.”

“And sweet. And warm. And—”

“Look at you! You never do this! I’m freaking OUT!” Allison said giddily. “Tell me more.”

“I mean, yes, okay, obviously he’s stunning. But he’s also so kind and good,” she mused, picturing his earnest face. “God, he’s also just so wound up. Remember I told you he seemed to have this pent-up passion ready to explode? Well, I was right.”

“He did, didn’t he.”

“Yup. And not just physically. I mean, sure, that was incredible. I just felt like there was this charming sweetness in him, that innocence. Maybe it’s his youth?”

“Come on, he’s twenty-eight, not eighteen! He can’t be that naïve.”

“It’s not that, it’s just a general . . .
goodness,
I guess. Does that sound so
Little House on the Prairie
?”

“Guess what: After everything you’ve been through with chucky Otto you could use a little Ma and Pa goodness. And a solid butter-churning, if you know what I mean.”

“ALLI!”

Allison’s eyes flashed with girlish mischief. “The great maestro Otto Clyde would simply die. Just keel over.”

“I know,” Eden said solemnly, the wind suddenly out of her sails. “That’s why I want to keep this all a secret. He’s not ready, I’m not ready. Plus, Chase literally just split up with his girlfriend. And Cole . . . oh my God, he would die, too.”

“He would totally freak.”

“Poor Cole. As much as I miss him, it’s so for the best that he’s in school far away right now,” Eden said, remembering how she had fought him tooth and nail to stay on the East Coast. It was a good thing he was headstrong like his parents and moved west, anyway.

“Oh, I love that adorable Cole. Is he still painting?”

“No, unfortunately,” Eden said, missing her son. “He knows he’s talented, gifted really, but he doesn’t want Julian Lennon syndrome.”

“I hear ya. All those fucking critics . . .”

“Otto always said critics were the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. They never create; they just tear down.”

“Please. I never read a bad review of an Otto Clyde show in my life.”

“Yeah, well . . . he’s their darling. Tamed those wild horses, I guess.”

“Listen to me: I know he’s your friend, but fuck Otto,” instructed Allison between sips from her green Starbucks straw. “This is the dawn of the era of Eden. You have to live for you now. You lived for Otto and for Cole and now you have to live for you, for your moment.”

“I realize that. It’s just that I still work with him, you know. We have a huge show coming up soon. We’re a team, and he’s always taken care of me.”

“As he should! You made him!”

“Or he made me, depending on how you look at it,” Eden said, rolling up the purple sleeve of her cowl-neck sweater to see her watch. “Oh shit, I have to bolt and get down to the studio.”

On the number 6 train, Eden swayed from side to side as the underground engine powered the rocking cars. The occasional hipster with messenger bag or uptown lady heading to Soho to shop each saw her and knew immediately it was Eden Clyde. But the giddy inamorata was too adrift in her own world of post-Chase high to realize they were staring. Everything at that moment was dazzling. Even the rainbow-covered ads for Dr. Z, curer of anal fissures, didn’t gross her out. Spanish ads for lawyers, night school posters, dating Web sites—all seemed colorful and made her smile. Eden breathed in the air of a new lover, a feeling she had known previously but hadn’t felt in eons.

She barely knew Chase at all, really, but there was something so familiar about him. Something comforting. She put her arms around herself as a chill traced its way up her back. She smiled, knowing she would see him again soon. She breathed deeply as the subway car bustled south along the track. Meanwhile, the mental train in her head skidded off the tracks she’d known for so long, headed off into a strange, exciting new direction.

—Voltaire

 

 

 

T
he Lydons ate dinner together every Sunday night come hell, high water, or
Sopranos
series finale. Nothing—not even pneumonia (from which Pierce once suffered after surfing in Costa Rica for a month)—would relieve these aristocrats from Brooke’s Chippendale table. Luigi and Clemenza, the couple the Lydons employed, who resided in a one bedroom in the same building (back elevator), served each family member as napkins were put on laps. Luigi poured wine from a Saint-Émilion vineyard owned by the DuPrees. Chase had shared many a bottle with his grandmother Ruth, sitting on the front porch of the family summer home. There had been many late nights during which he had nursed his one glass while Ruth slammed back several. Vinyl Billie Holiday records played, and Ruth’s jokes got dirtier as the hours passed and more wine was decanted. But now the family sipped the same wine without revelry, the sound of awkwardly clanking dinner silver their only soundtrack. Price pounded the fine vintage as if it were Colt 45, not a care in the world about the rare grapes and their pressing, bottling, and aging. It was booze, dude.

Chase took a deep breath. “So I have some news,” he said as The Family looked at him. “Liesel and I have parted ways.”

“NO! Oh no. NO!” Brooke screamed in a tone normally reserved for Hiroshima-level news. “I simply cannot BELIEVE you did this,” Brooke seethed. “This is all your fault. It is because you did not step up to the plate! I knew this would happen!”

Chase hadn’t wanted to tell his mother about Liesel and Wills—it would only send her into orbits of rage, vilifying Liesel when he was also to blame.

“Mother, it simply wasn’t meant to be. I’m sorry if I’ve upset you, but—”

“THREE YEARS! There was good stuff there, my God! Three years, for Christ sakes! I mean, really Chase. It’s time to be a grown-up.”

Chase inhaled deeply, trying not to exude the anger he felt boiling inside.

“Mother. With all due respect, I
am
a grown-up. If anything . . . I believe I’m too grown up. Grandma even said on her deathbed that I should loosen up and live for once.”

“Please. What garbage. Ruth was a perpetual Peter Pan,” fumed Brooke. “Of course she told you to loosen up, she was OLD! She was on her way out. You’re in a different place.”

A different place indeed. Despite his mother’s ferocious rantings, Chase was in heaven. Cloud nine. As his mother droned on about facing Liesel’s parents at so-and-so’s annual party or at the River Club, his mind wandered back to Eden; just the memory of her was intoxicating. He replayed their thunderous night in a stop-and-rewind delirium. It was close to torture, then, to be trapped in the austere surroundings of his family home—prim, proper, and pulled to perfection, but held together with sharp pins.

“I’m simply mortified to see the Van Delfts. They’ll be at the opera gala; they always take a table. Always.” Brooke steamed.

“Too bad it’s not like that Save Venice ball with those masks,” Pierce said with a laugh.

“Yeah, you could wear one of those huge headdress things and totally avoid them!” chimed Price.

“I’M SERIOUS!” Brooke said, shaking her head.

“I wouldn’t worry, dear, these things happen,” Grant said calmly. The patriarch was just like his youngest son, ever calm, rarely riled. He sipped his whiskey on the rocks from a monogrammed tumbler. “The Van Delfts won’t blame you for Chase’s wrongdoings.”

Chase wanted to pull the rip cord and get the hell out of there.

“Should I call them, you think? This is really going to be so awkward. I cannot believe you put me in this position, Chase! What on earth do I say when I see them at the event?”

Chase inhaled sharply, not wanting to cause a rift. He wanted to get up and storm out, rebel, finally, but of course, he couldn’t. Chase was the good son, reliable and stable. But the burden of the so-called righteous path was getting to be simply too much to shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Mother. That’s all I can say. Father, I’m going to work early tomorrow and should go. Clemenza, delicious dinner, thank you.”

The truth was, Chase would rather be alone than with these people. In that moment, Chase could not relate to his family at all. In fact, he almost loathed them.

On his walk home, while he may have donned a suit and tie and dutifully marched with steady pace up Fifth Avenue, his heart was doing the moonwalk backward. His libido was doing mental back handsprings Béla Károlyi would freak for. And when he passed the rowdy crowd in front of the Plaza cheering the ol’ school break-dancers, rigid, wooden Chase Lydon wished he could join them in a rollicking sidewalk spin. He wanted to get down on the ground, feel the beat box that echoed in his bursting cocoon, and twirl until his body was as dizzy as his thoughts.

—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

 

 

 

“M
od, have you met someone?” Otto asked as he studied Eden’s blushing cheeks. He knew her face so well. After two decades of capturing her every expression, each gleam and twinkle, the famed artist instantly decoded the distinct glint that was now present in Eden’s green eyes. Someone had had her last night.

“What?” asked Eden, alarmed and suddenly feeling naked, though in the series Otto had just started, she was wearing a long, billowy white dress.

Otto left his easel and walked slowly toward her, paintbrush in hand. As he moved closer to her, he never broke eye contact.

“There’s no
what
. The question is who?
Who is he?
” His tone was teasing, as if he didn’t care, but naturally he did. Deeply, in fact. “I knew there would be someone in the picture soon enough. How long have you ever gone without a man doting on you? You couldn’t survive long out there unattached, right? The attention is like a lung, no?”

“No one, okay?”

“Whatever you say.”

Otto walked back to the easel as Eden reclined on an antique chaise. As her ex returned to his canvas, Eden became lost in her thoughts of Chase. At one point, feeling the warmth in her chest, recalling how Chase kissed her clavicle and breast, she accidentally smirked. Shit.

“Aha!” quipped Otto, as if uncovering a forensic clue that cracked his case. “I knew it. Who is he?”

“Otto. I don’t want to talk about this.”

“You
don’t want to talk about this
. That’s an admission; now it’s out there! You see, I got you. I
knew
it.” Otto was the type of person whose affectations caused him to pronounce the word “knew” like
nyoo.

“I just
knew
it.” He was very satisfied with himself. “It’s some big collector, right? I know! Henry Kincaid Sanderson. He’s lusted after you forever! He has two private jets. A staff. Homes all over the world. You’ll be living the high life, no?”

“No, Otto.”

“Hmmm,” Otto said, staring at her, walking around the chaise slowly, inhaling a joint, which he then handed to Eden. “Ah, I know. Lucas McGillicuddy. And he’s what, sixty-nine, right? Well, you’d be earning every penny with that one. And really, who wants to be wife number four?”

“I’m not playing this game,” responded Eden.

“So it
is
him.”

“No.”

“I’ll find out at some point. I really don’t care, to be honest, so you might as well be open about it. I know you too well, don’t you see that, honey? I’m your closest friend; you can’t get anything past me.”

The truth was, he was right. She hated that he was right. And she didn’t have many friends at all. The camaraderie of the busy studio was a built-in circle, and instant party, a gang. The rapports had been so strong that she never felt the need to cultivate relationships outside the studio other than with Allison. But now that she was on the other side, Eden knew that all those people—the other models, hangers-on, assistants, publicists, gallerinas,
everyone
—was on Team Otto since the split. After all, he was the one paying their bills.