Being Audrey Hepburn (31 page)

I didn’t know how I’d talk about it, where I would even begin. So I managed a small smile and a weary nod.

“Well, I’m grateful for another opportunity to entertain you. Come,” he said, reaching for my hand. “It’s time for me to dazzle you with my wit and good looks.” I followed him through the apartment. “Besides, I need a good-luck charm,” he added.

As we passed from room to room, I heard a shrill cackle, and I knew instantly that Dahlia was somewhere nearby. I glanced around and saw her in the den off the side of the main room. She was smoking a cigar and shooting pool with yet another brace of handsome men. She sunk her shot, and they all laughed, toasting whiskies. I had hoped she was sufficiently preoccupied to miss our crossing, but I was wrong.

Her head turned with laser precision, catching my glance. Her fierce gaze seemed utterly aware of what I was doing and where I was going and whose hand I was holding, mocking me as if saying,
you won’t get away with it
. Then she went back to her crowd, laughing and joking as though she had never left their company. It chilled me.

ZK led me into a room that was heavy with smoke and dark except for a bright light hovering over a poker table. We took our seats near the end of the table. There was a big haphazard pile of cash in the middle.

One by one, the gents all stood as I arrived, introducing themselves: Brad, Hugh, Ian, Baird, and names like that, one blue-eyed trust-fund type after the next, all incredibly handsome. They already had summer-in-the-Hamptons tans and were built like they were on the rowing team somewhere. I bet they had jackets in their closets with Harvard, Yale, and Princeton logos on them. They sat and resumed their high-stakes poker game.

“Okay, everybody show ’em,” the dealer said. Four of the five players turned over their hands, but the last guy, Brad, was teasing each card, turning them over one at a time, “slowrolling” they call it, while everyone sat and watched. I knew a little bit about poker from Nan, who taught me how to play when I was seven. Brad had a very good hand, an ace high flush, so he was rubbing it in and a being a major jerk. “A gracious winner,” Nan used to say, “never slowrolls.”

“Flush!” Brad yelled, and took a big puff of his cigar as he scraped up the pile of money. The other players groaned and bowed their heads.

ZK anted up, and the next dealer dealt him in. I peeked over at his hand. He was on his way to a high straight, but not by much. He smiled when he noticed I was watching his cards and everyone else’s for that matter. He drew a two of spades and folded after a few minutes. The same guy, Brad, won again with a fist pump, and everyone mumbled under their breath.

Twenty minutes later, these boys were losing huge amounts of money to each other, mostly to Brad, who couldn’t resist declaring that he was on a roll every time he won a hand.

I wished Nan were there. “Nothing is more charming than an elegant lady who plays poker,” she would say, and she should know. Nan could always clean up on “casino night” at Montclair Manor if she wanted. She used to count the cards so that she
didn’t
win all of the time. I’ve sat with Nan and watched her fold a perfectly good hand to let some other old biddy get the pot.

The deal moved to the next player, who dealt ZK another hand, two down. The cards were lousy—a queen of diamonds and a ten of spades—“rags” Nan used to call them. But when they dealt ZK a card up, it was an ace of spades. Everyone else showed poor cards, except of course Brad. He had an ace of diamonds showing. I knew from playing with Nan that the chances of two aces up were slim and would probably unnerve the other players. But ZK was smart enough to know that he didn’t have much of a hand, so he was ready to fold. But I wanted to see what would happen if everyone thought he had a good hand, just to find out.

“Hold,” I whispered in his ear.

“What? But it’s…”

“Just ante and hold,” I whispered again. He gave me a sly questioning look, but turned to the guy dealing and said he’d hold and anted up. Everyone perked up, especially the big winner, Brad, who also had an ace. I knew he wouldn’t fold as long as he thought he was still on a winning streak.

After a few more cards, ZK’s hand appeared decent if you didn’t know that there wasn’t anything good in the down-turned cards. Because Brad and ZK kept anteing up, the pot grew steadily bigger. Brad was hanging in, even though his table cards were terrible. I couldn’t imagine he had any kind of hand.

Finally it was time for the players to make one more bet.

“Double down,” I whispered. “Make it big.” ZK examined my face to see if I was serious, and then shoved half of his cash into the pile.

“I call,” he said. A couple of guys dropped out right away. Then everyone grew quiet waiting for Big Man Brad to make his move. He puffed and puffed on his cigar, and after debating for a few moments, he folded. ZK took the pot, which had to be a couple of thousand by my reckoning. I threw ZK’s cards in the pile before anyone could ask to see them. ZK was laughing and shaking his head as he raked it in.

“Brilliant, you really know how to play,” he whispered under his breath. I guess I’ve always been a better faker than I thought. Why not bluff when you have nothing to lose?

“Why don’t you play a round?” ZK asked.

“I never carry cash,” I whispered, my new excuse for not having any money. He laughed.

“No problem. I’ll stake you. Come on—let’s switch seats.” He stood up, offered me his chair, and slid out a wad of hundreds. I wondered how he had the cash to play with this crowd. Or for that matter, stake me, considering what Tabitha had said about his status as a Madoff Millionaire.

“Hey boys, get ready, ZK’s brought a ringer to the table,” Big Brad said, giving me a wink as he shuffled the deck. Everyone laughed.

“How about I split my winnings with you?” I said to ZK quietly.

Brad, Hugh, Ian, and Baird overheard me and found the idea to be completely uproarious.

“Lucky guy, ZK, she’s going to split her winnings with you!” chortled Brad. I noticed he was wearing a twenty-thousand-dollar Patek Philippe watch. He really was a show-off. I decided to play innocent, as I knew Audrey would.

“Now, if you boys don’t mind explaining, what’s a good hand again?” I asked. ZK raised an eyebrow, as the boys interrupted each other trying to tell me how to play the game.

An hour later, I had won four hands in a row, although I had to split the pot on a game of seven-card high-low. Brad had dropped twenty or twenty-five thousand, and ZK and I were up about seventeen thousand. My Nan knew how to hold ’em and fold ’em, and she taught me well. The trust-fund boys were no longer laughing.

“Darlings, you have been too kind to me,” I said. “Thank you for showing me the game. Apologies for my beginner’s luck, but I’m quite exhausted. So if you’ll permit me, I’ll retire for the evening.”

ZK scooped up our winnings with a satisfied grin. There was lots of mumbling around the table until Brad grew more vocal.

“Come on, ZK,” he said, “she has to give us a chance to win our money back.”

“You should be glad she’s quitting now,” ZK said. “If she stays at the table, you might just leave here tonight in a different tax bracket.” He slid his arm around my waist, which sent a shiver down my back, and escorted me from the table.

46

We walked outside to the terrace and leaned on the marble banisters, glancing out over the city.

“Are you cold?” he asked, smoothly removing his jacket and placing it over my shoulders.

“Thank you,” I said.

“It almost goes with your dress.”

I laughed and slipped my hand into the crook of his arm.

“Where did you learn to play like that?” he asked.

“My Nan.” I smiled, thinking that she’d love to hear all about my poker-playing prowess. “She’s a debutante card shark. I’m just a good student.”

He slid out the wad of bills in his pocket and handed it to me.

“No, I couldn’t—it was your money,” I said, trying to be cool about it, although I hadn’t picked up a paycheck in weeks. Tabitha said he didn’t have any
real money.
So what kind of money did he have? Just a couple thousand in pocket change for poker?

“You should keep the winnings.”

He peeled off a few hundred-dollar bills.

“This covers my stake; the rest is yours.”

“Thank you, but we did say fifty-fifty, right?” I cut the wad of money by half and handed it back. He hesitated for a second. “If you don’t take it, I won’t be your good-luck charm next time,” I added.

“Yeah, well, you’ve got way more than luck going on,” he said and pocketed the cash. I stuffed the remaining $8,500 in my tiny cocktail purse as though it was a common occurrence.

In that half-empty moment I secretly observed ZK. Although he was standing right beside me, a blank expression crossed his eyes, and he seemed like a forlorn little boy.

I thought back to all the times I had seen him since that evening at the Met when I was outside the fishbowl looking in, a mere onlooker. I remembered even then, there was a moment where he was alone and detached as the cameras flashed around him. I remembered other moments like that; those tiny instances where he let his guard down, where his fabulousness evaporated and he was more boy than man, as if he were just hoping to find a way from one empty moment to the next. I knew that feeling. His solitude made me want to hold him, care for him, and love him more.

We stood there, the city a twinkling galaxy of lights. Our legs touched innocently, but I didn’t move, and neither did he. It seemed to snap him out of his moment.

“Come on, let’s toast your success,” ZK said.

“As long as it’s not a pink martini, you’re on,” I replied. He didn’t seem to know what I was talking about, but I wondered if he was aware what went on in the penthouse upstairs.

We headed to the bar. ZK snatched a bottle of Macallan 18 and two glasses, ignoring the bartender’s annoyed look. He poured us each a single malt, dropping one cube in both glasses and swirling it around.

“Here’s to the mysterious Lisbeth Dulac,” he said. “You know, I’ve never met a woman like you.” I felt suddenly shy as we clinked glasses.

“You’ll be coming to the Hamptons with Tabitha, won’t you?” he asked.

“It depends, I guess.” Apparently the Hamptons was on everyone’s agenda.

“Well, I’ll be there,” he said. “Somehow I can’t imagine not seeing you for the rest of the summer.”

The terrace was dotted with plants and small trees in terracotta containers. I dropped down onto the cushy outdoor sofa, sipping my whiskey, and ZK sat next to me, his knee touching mine. He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me onto his lap. I put my arms around his neck, aching for the warmth of his body, inhaling his scent, listening to the sound of his breathing. He gazed into my eyes, moving toward me a millimeter at a time until, at last, his lips, soft and strong, touched mine.

In that moment there was nothing but ZK and me, the lights of the city, and the dark abyss of the night. I couldn’t help thinking that this was where I was meant to be.

47

On the PATH train back to Jersey, I squeezed in among the shopping-bag-toting, Starbucks-sipping, iPod-listening masses, grateful for a little downtime.

Thumbing the keyboard on my phone, I lined up five new entries promoting Designer X’s new line of “secret dresses” and hinted at big news to come. I had downloaded the app that allowed me to post to my blog from anywhere, and now I could shoot pictures on the fly anytime I saw something I liked and post them immediately. When I logged on to my Tumblr, I was blown away that there were so many followers. I featured pictures of last night’s Designer X masterpiece on my blog, including close-ups of the lyrical embroidery. Isak commented almost immediately, raising the count of my followers numerically.

“When do we get to meet Designer X!” he demanded in a later comment, and literally 237 followers cheered him on in a chorus. “X! X! X! X! X! X! X!” one person chanted, and then others repeated and reblogged, driving up traffic on the Web site exponentially.

I hugged my pocketbook and vagabond bag close to me. I wasn’t about to let that $8, 500 slip out of my grasp—$8,555 to be exact. I had big plans for that money, and I wanted to get started on them.

I guided the Purple Beast from the PATH station’s commuter parking lot directly home. I had a text from Courtney saying she was dropping out of school next semester. That bummed me out because I knew Ryan hadn’t finished his year of middle school. None of us were staying in school, which would definitely pain Mom if she knew.

I hadn’t heard much from Courtney about Mom’s condition for a while, so I was surprised when I walked in the screen door and saw Mom sitting at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette, and sorting through the bills just as before. I was relieved that things were back to normal until I realized it wasn’t Mom. It was Courtney.

Shoulders slumped, Courtney looked so much like Mom it was unnerving. I felt terrible for her. Her biggest nightmare was true—she was becoming mom.

As I put down my bags, she gazed up at me, her face pained and worried, as if she knew what I was thinking. She still wore the sweatpants and oversize T tied at the waist. I don’t think she had changed in days. She tapped her cigarette in the ashtray the same way Mom used to and arranged the bills in rows as Mom used to do; Jersey Power and Light, Comcast Cable, Montclair Propane and Gas, and all the others.

Like a fly caught on flypaper whose fate was sealed, she seemed caught up in something bigger, unable to stop it all from happening.

“Do you know how many fucking bills we can’t afford to pay?” she asked.

Ryan was playing Warcrack in the living room, and I could hear the computer-generated cries of creatures being vaporized and destroyed. The place was a wreck. Some things never changed. I sat down beside her.

“I’m going to go back to work for Harris, at the bar,” she said, rearranging the bills on the table. “Luckily Mom’s got coverage at the hospital as long as they keep her there. But I don’t know how she’s going to make any money when she gets out.” She tilted back in the chair on just two chair legs just like Mom used to and gave me a helpless look.