Being Audrey Hepburn (36 page)

He allowed the final chord of the bridge to ring out, and it was over. Jake exited offstage, never glancing back.

As soon as the crowd began to leave, I tried to run out. I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible, but Chase stopped me.

“You have to stay,” he said and handed me a handkerchief. I hadn’t realized I was crying.

“Why?” I said. “I can’t.”

“You’ve got to say hello to the guy,” he said. “Whatever you guys had, he put his heart out on the line.” Through my tears I nodded no, looking at Chase as if he were crazy. It was too much to ask.

I couldn’t handle it, but we stayed as the club goers poured out onto the street. I tried to pull myself together as best I could.

“Here he comes,” Chase said. We saw Jake, wearing one of his vintage flannels, enter the wings on the other side of the stage, about to walk our way when someone called him from behind and he turned.

As I feared, the woman from Reilly’s, the one in the swag cowboy gear, appeared. She came running up to him, giving him a kiss.

It was more than I could stand.

Even Chase stared in stunned silence.

I ran out of the club as quickly as I could and kept running.

54

The next morning, I slipped out of Tabitha’s house before anyone could see me. Zoya was up, but everyone else was snoring away. I hadn’t been able to sleep for all the obvious reasons.

Chase had been unbelievably cool about the Talkhouse, especially since I had all sorts of regrets and paranoid fears afterward. I was worried that Chase would be faced with the fact that I’m a fake from New Jersey. I’m not sure he had put that together or cared to.

He had given me a ride home in his equipment van and, to change the subject, pitched a video concept for my blog if I wanted to try it.

“You could be exceptional on camera, totally fierce,” he said. “It would be great for your blog and not bad for me, either.” I was too messed up to talk about it but promised I would consider it. He was going back to the city soon. He had hoped there’d be more social events to cover in the Hamptons, but he was finding it hard to get into most of them. He promised to check up on me before he went back to the city and gave me his number in case I needed it.

I called Courtney while walking into town. I didn’t think she’d even answer that early in the morning, but I needed to hear a familiar voice, even if it was just voice mail. I didn’t want to call Jess. There were too many things I hadn’t done for her show, and I felt guilty still hanging out in the Hamptons. I was surprised Courtney picked up. Her voice seemed totally different on the phone, totally upbeat.

“How are Mom and Nan getting along?” I asked.

“There have been a few big fights,” she said.

“Who’s winning?”

“Unclear. But Ryan finished summer school.” That alone was remarkable. “Nan says hi. You should call her,” Courtney said.

“I will,” I said, feeling guilty.

In town I found a coffee shop in one of the stores on Amagansett Square and tried to regain my focus. In the frenzy of last night, I hadn’t noticed a text I received from Jess.

“WE GOT THE GALLERY!”

I texted back. “FOR FASHION’S NIGHT OUT?”

She responded a few minutes later. “WORKING ON THAT.”

Thankfully I had something to think about besides Jake. I’d planned to make a few entries on my blog and prepare an announcement for Designer X’s pop-up show. Playing on the flash-mob idea, I hoped I could intrigue my followers to show up spontaneously and make the event something that they all had a part in making happen.

If the gallery would give us Fashion’s Night Out, I’d have to get back to the city in three days at the latest. I posted my first tease.

Designer X Unmasked! Exclusive Pop Up Show near the High Line. Your presence required. Details to come!

Then another text from Jess popped up on my phone.

“R U OK?” That simple question gave me pause. Don’t ask why, but my gung ho spirit deserted me, and feelings from last night opened up like a trapdoor beneath me. What could I say?

I found myself pathetically googling Jake Berns and his band. Their Web site popped up. The press clippings revealed how far the Rockets had come over the summer. They’d been picked by WFUV’s Internet feed as a band to watch and were being mentioned as opening acts to all kinds of great bands. I knew the gigs probably didn’t pay much yet. I wondered if Jake still worked at the Hole. It was painful seeing him play for the first time in the Hamptons of all places.

There were a half dozen pictures of the band. I scoured them for any sign of Monica in the background or nearby. She was in two of them. Always wearing that swag country style. She certainly dressed as if she had some serious money.

It was hard to believe I had just arrived in the Hamptons a few days before. It was so fabulous and hopeful when I was sitting with Flo talking about click-throughs. Yesterday morning I could do anything, and now I felt worthless. Closing my eyes, I’d see Jake singing to me and, just a moment later, kissing her. How could he do that?

It was self-torture, but I downloaded “That One Night” from the iTunes store in the Indie Up and Coming section and played it over and over until I felt sick.

Walking back to Tabitha’s, I saw an East Hampton Town Police car pulling away. So I assumed the police were following up on the Talkhouse dispute. I wondered if it had hit the local newspapers and New York gossip blogs yet. Mocha, standing guard, nodded as I entered the house and headed toward Tabitha’s bedroom.

“You don’t want to go in there.” I heard someone say. I turned to see ZK.

I was so glad to see him that I threw myself into his arms, hugging him so tightly I almost knocked him down. I could tell he didn’t quite know what to do—the man who always knew how to handle everything.

“Oh I missed you,” I said.

“Has it been that long?” he said, smiling.

“I don’t know. It feels like forever.”

“Well I’ve come to whisk you away.”

“I’d like that,” I said.

“Where’s Tabitha? I need to talk to her first.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“Robert’s in there. She called him.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t feel bad. There’s nothing you can do. Tabitha’s always been this way,” he said. “Robert’s here to pick up the pieces and get her going again.”

“I should have stopped her somehow.”

“She would have just punched you instead. Talk to her later, after she’s rested. In the meantime, I’m here to entertain you.”

“Really? What do you have in mind?”

“Let’s see, first I’ll have to get you something white.”

55

ZK became the antidote to how adrift I felt, not because he was so much more together than me, but because he felt the same way. After I grabbed a tennis skirt, socks, shoes, and blouse from the Maidstone Club tennis boutique, ZK showed me to the dressing room. I reappeared dressed for the part, ready to play but without a clue how to even hold a tennis racket.

There is no name for the luscious deep-green of the grass courts in the yellow afternoon sun at the Maidstone Club. A cooling breeze drifted through the trees as ZK diligently tried to teach me how to hit a basic groundstroke. To me the ultraexclusive golf and tennis club seemed like the ideal setting for a glass of wine. Tennis not so much.

On the court farthest away from the clubhouse, at the edge of the hill above the pond, ZK fed me ball after ball. I hit the fuzzy yellow thing everywhere but in the court, several times forcing profuse apologies to those unfortunate people trying to play doubles nearby.

It was more fun when we were the last ones left and the sun was setting. ZK finally abandoned any pretense of actually teaching me the game of tennis, and I just hit the ball whatever goofy way I could. I even hit a few in the court. I concocted a story about how I never learned tennis as a child because of some infantile illness. The story was so elaborate it was pointless.

We ended up in his car, where he kissed me again. It felt so nice to be held by someone who wanted to hold me. Unbelievable, really, that it was none other than ZK Northcott, practically the most eligible bachelor in America. Was I the only one who knew the wayward boy he sheltered inside? He was a good kisser, that boy. I felt bad that I was taking him for granted.

Back at the house, Tabitha was still sleeping so I didn’t disturb her. I decided to eek out a day or two more with ZK. I’d still have time to get back to the city for Jess’s show. I hoped that I could reach Isak and push my Tumblr and blog following and that we’d put on a pop-up show that could make a splash. I would have invited Tabitha, but there seemed to be a tacit understanding that no one should bother her. I figured I’d save her invite for the last minute before I left.

Flo found me as I headed to my room.

“Lisbeth, I have something for you,” she said, reaching into a giant pink straw bag. “It’s symbolic really.” She pulled out a long blue check. “You’ll probably just want to frame it.” I think my mouth was open as I read my name across the top line and the amount in the box to the side: $2,987.00. “It’s coming together much faster than I expected.” She had a mischievous, self-satisfied smile. “This advance is one of our company checks and is simply based on the tracking data. More checks will come later, but I wanted you to have some idea of what we might expect initially. A little pocket change can’t hurt, right?”

She happily demurred to my profuse thanks, and we gossiped a bit about Tabitha. In a conspiratorial tone, she told me they had given her something to calm her down and that, as a result, she hadn’t come out of her room in days. I told her I was off for an evening with ZK. The mention of his name brought an amused smile to her lips.

“He’s such a good boy,” she said tactfully. “It’s his family I’d be cautious of. I hear the entire Northcott family is unwinding, and that can make one do things one wouldn’t do normally. But I’m sure you can handle him.”

Her words were still resonating in my ears that night as ZK and I entered Nick and Toni’s for dinner. After our first glass of wine, I noticed people staring at us.

“Is it my imagination, or are we under observation?” I asked. ZK didn’t glance up as he cut his steak, but he must have noticed.

“I told you, being a Northcott comes with a fair amount of unwanted attention,” he said.

Although it persisted throughout dinner, I didn’t mention it again. There was something on ZK’s mind, or so it seemed, as he was not as lighthearted as he had been earlier in the day.

The table next to us was occupied by two couples, middle aged, very well dressed, a bit stuffy, and noticeably well-off. I couldn’t help observing the wives smirking and whispering. ZK seemed to grow more tense as the night went on, no matter what kind of small talk I made. He asked for the check at last, and I figured that would be the end of it.

As we were leaving, one of the men at the table began talking in a voice that all the tables around us could hear. “His father should pay for the rest of his life—it’s despicable,” the man said, undeniably making a point.

ZK pivoted, thrust the chairs out of his way, reached across the table, and picked the man up by his collar, shoving him against the wall. Silverware and plates fell to the floor.

“Don’t you ever say a word about my father again,” ZK said, his teeth clenched. The panic-stricken man’s face was turning blue. I thought ZK would choke him or he’d have a heart attack. The maître d’ and bartender stepped in, separating them, and I hustled ZK out. It wasn’t until we got in the car and drove away that I dared ask him what was going on.

“I apologize for my behavior,” he said. I wasn’t sure how to ask him about his family, how far to go, and what I should know. But it came spilling out of him anyway.

“My father is in more trouble than we ever thought,” ZK said, visibly stiffening, reverting to some schooled behavior. “There are issues now for the whole family.” He said he was reluctant to go into the details, but gradually it came pouring out.

Years ago his father had invested with Bernie Madoff and lost most of the family fortune, which was bad enough. But as time passed and many of the investigations took years to complete, it surfaced that Northcott Sr. had not only invested with the Ponzi con man but fronted the fund to many families in his social set for preferred fees in the last days of the scam. He narrowly avoided a prison term by ratting out other people he knew who had done the same thing, ruining their families as a result. The revelations were coming to light after years and years of investigations. As a result, at sixty-eight he earned the animosity of his oldest friends in New York’s Social Register.

ZK’s mother filed for divorce to protect herself and the other children from further repercussions, and his father had withdrawn to their mansion on Gin Lane, one of the last original houses near Georgica Beach, not far from the famous Grey Gardens.

His father had squandered the remaining family funds to pay his hefty legal fees to avoid jail, failing to pay the bank mortgage. Now the Bank of America—a bank the Northcott’s helped found in 1904—had sold the land and begun the process of auctioning the actual house out from under him plank by plank. It was the house in which ZK had spent every summer of his childhood.

56

It was remarkable how dull Tabitha’s house had become since she remained sequestered in her room. The houseguests dwindled, including Flo and Balty. Zoya was especially happy I had decided to stay a few days. She told Tabitha, hoping that would motivate her to leave her room, but it didn’t.

Occasional reporters would appear outside and try to gain entry, but it seemed that Robert Francis or a PR agent or someone had successfully kept a lid on the incident at the Talkhouse. It made me think that for every LiLo event we heard about on TMZ, there were at least two or three more.

Jess was haggling with the gallery about the date, and, though she was confident they would come through, she was afraid to let me send out my eBlast. Keeping track of days passing was a challenge. Waking up at noon and staying up until four in the morning made it hard to determine where one day ended and another began.