Being Audrey Hepburn (37 page)

The next night I shared my fanciful pursuit of Donna Karan with ZK. He laughed.

“Lisbeth Dulac has the hottest indie fashion blog and you’re not sure you’re worthy to meet Donna Karan?” he said. “These are the things that make me wonder whether you arrived here from outer space. Would it help to meet Donna’s daughter, Gabby?” he asked. I nodded eagerly.

“So let’s go to Tutto,” he said. Tutto Il Giorno was this ultracool Italian restaurant in Sag Harbor owned by Donna Karan’s daughter, Gabby. True to form, ZK was an old buddy of Gabby’s husband Gianpaolo, who shared ZK’s passion for racing Ducati motorcycles. I decided to take my first check and celebrate and, at the same time, make a potential connection for Designer X.

ZK picked me up at Tabitha’s on his Ducati 1100 S, and before long we were eating and drinking the night away with Gianpaolo, Gabby, and Maurizio, the restaurant’s other owner and chef. Espresso martinis were the drink of choice. Gabby was more than generous in accepting my invitation to the forthcoming Designer X fashion show. She said she would be heading back to the city the next day and would love to attend.

As we closed the restaurant down, the men began to argue about the relative merits of their motorcycles. This turned into a bet, and they decided to race to Sagaponack.

I held on to ZK for my life as we zipped down the back roads of Sag Harbor to Sagaponack. ZK was winning, but I think he pulled back when he noticed my nails digging into his leather jacket. I was holding on in sheer terror. We smoothly pulled into the driveway of an empty ultramodern mansion owned by a Bosnian multimillionaire friend of Maurizio’s. After a few touches of the security pad, we were all inside.

Here was an entire nine-bedroom villa fully lit up without a soul in sight. In the Hamptons the locals call these “zombie houses”—kept absolutely dustless, the refrigerator fully stocked, the wine cellar with three hundred bottles chilled exactly at fifty-five degrees, the air-conditioning full blast throughout the house, with not a leaf in the swimming pool in the middle of the summer. It was just one of the thousands of mansions expensively maintained throughout the Hamptons, with landscape lighting illuminating every tree on the property throughout the night as if it were Christmas.

ZK grabbed a twenty-year-old bottle of wine and some glasses as we all drifted through the rooms of the house.

“Here’s to being in the Limelight,” ZK said to me as we toasted. After a little while, Maurizio and Gianpaolo wandered off and ZK gave me a tour of the trove of modern art displayed throughout the house—artists that ZK knew well and sometimes personally. Artists I didn’t have a clue about. I nodded as if I had some awareness of art history, which I did not. Nervously spinning my bracelet about my wrist, I worried once again that I was over my head with ZK. But he was so comfortably inebriated and we were so relaxed in each other’s company, I felt reassured.

“We’re two drifters, you know,” ZK said to me. “We should escape! I could start over in L.A. We don’t have to stay here. We’d be better off leaving. It would be good for you, too, a new fashion world to conquer.” I wondered if he meant to leave everyone he knew and grew up with. More than that, I wondered if he really meant to take me to L.A. with him. The fantasy made my head spin.

We kissed by the pool and kissed in the living room. We kissed again in the kitchen and kissed in bedroom after bedroom after bedroom until we were more than kissing. We stripped off our clothes, letting them fall into puddles on the lacquered oak floors, and fell into the nearest bed.

Before, ZK’s kisses would sweep me away, seizing me, engulfing me. But that night we were unhurried and slow, deliberately drowning in each other’s arms, soothing each other and losing who we were.

“I’m not Holly. I’m not Lula Mae, either,” Audrey said in
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
. “I don’t know who I am. I’m like Cat here, a no-name slob.” Like Audrey pretending to be Lula Mae pretending to be Holly Golightly, I pretended to be somebody I wasn’t and ZK was my Fred. His inner life was so secret; who knew whom he was pretending to be?

We cuddled in the master bedroom beneath the weight of luxurious comforters overlooking an arbor that glowed in the dark sky. That night the lost lonely little boy inside ZK, not the flawless dashing Kennedyesque fashion darling, made me shiver and melt. It was the man who seemed apart; more so after sharing with me his family’s fall from fortune. Resting in his arms, I pulled myself tight against his body.

Somewhere in the middle of the night I woke up with a start and realized ZK was watching me. We kissed again and I curled up into him, trying to hold every part of him close. Comparing this moment to any other moment in my life, I couldn’t recall being more content; words didn’t come close to truly describing how I felt.

“It’s a shame that you fell for someone like me,” he said. “I was hoping you wouldn’t.”

I put my finger to his lips.

“Be quiet. Don’t say that,” I said and snuggled closer. Someday I would tell him the truth about where I came from, and he would realize how little his father’s stature and money mattered to me.

Our naked bodies fit in a tangle of arms and legs like complementary halves, like pieces of a puzzle. It felt so good to feel the texture of his skin and to have him right up against me. I wanted to stay that way forever, holding him until his worries faded and were forgotten.

The next morning I awoke and he was gone. Only a note was left.

My father called. Have business to finish. Meet me at Robert’s tonight—ZK.

57

I tore apart the bedsheets.

On my hands and knees, I crawled over every square inch of the bedroom floor. Methodically, I retraced the location of every kiss and embrace, rewinding the entire evening back to the wine cellar, scouring every corner of the villa over and over. Pacing the driveway where the motorcycles were parked, I was dumbfounded and heartbroken as I realized it was gone. Nan’s bracelet had disappeared.

ZK had left so mysteriously that it made my stomach churn. I was alone in this strange, empty house, trying to come up with rational reasons that made it okay. Everything about his sudden departure was wrong. I cast about for excuses and picked apart my own behavior. Was I too willing? Had my Jersey pedigree come through and put him off? Did his blue-blood instincts sniff me out? Or was this the reason he was a player and never stayed with anyone for long?

I called Zoya, Tabitha’s maid, and she sent Mocha, who arrived in no time. It was good to see his familiar face. As the villa faded from view in the rear window, I thought of Nan, wishing I could call her about the bracelet, but I feared she’d be too worried. My phone buzzed.

“HAVEN’T HEARD FROM U. EVERYTHING OK?”

It was Jess.

“GOOD,” I thumbed halfheartedly.

“THEN GET YOUR ASS TO NYC! WE HAVE A DATE! FASH NITE OUT LIKE U SAID! THERE STILL ENUF TIME??”

I couldn’t deal with it.

I reread ZK’s note instead.

Meet me at Robert’s tonight.

The last place I wanted to go, although everyone else seemed perfectly comfortable hanging around him. Speaking to ZK was the only thing I could think about. I couldn’t leave for the city without seeing him first.

My thoughts spun like a dreadful merry-go-round, returning to last night, the rowdy dinner with so many fascinating people, the crazy motorcycle race, ZK’s museum tour of the art on the villa walls, our endless kisses, our pile of clothes, the fit of our naked bodies.

Then, falling into confusion, I thought of Nan’s lost bracelet, the way ZK was awake watching me, his self-deprecating, almost self-pitying comment. I tried to put myself in his place—his family broken by his father’s recklessness. People whispering. The grand name that once opened doors dragged through the mud.

My father called. Have business to finish.

Why a sudden call from his father? When had that occurred?

It was still early morning and Tabitha’s house was asleep when I returned. The balmy sea breeze rippled through the lush trees, swaying the branches and exposing the underside of their leaves. It was soothingly quiet by the pool.

I kept checking my phone messages, my texts, hoping for something from ZK. I started to text ZK and stopped. I felt like there was a hole where my heart used to be and it was sucking everything inside.

As more time passed, it was becoming difficult not to feel hurt and stupid that I was worried about him. But then I’d feel guilty, fretting that something terrible might have happened to his father and that I was being insensitive.

Unfinished business …
what did that mean?

I rose and returned to my room to take a bath and rest and prepare myself for the inevitable visit to Robert’s.

58

As soon as the white limo drove up in front of Tabitha’s mansion, Zoya and Mocha and the entire house staff were in an upheaval. From the balcony window I saw the flurry of activity in the driveway. A tall, gorgeous man with long black hair stepped out first. His shoulders were so broad, his jaw so chiseled, he looked like Superman.

A rail-thin woman followed and required the aid of the Superman to steady her. She had strawlike bleach-blond hair and wore a floral-print, rose-colored dress that seemed inappropriately short for her advanced age. At the same time, the Peter Pan collar made her appear like a prematurely aged child. Her large, gaudy jewelry, no doubt very expensive, made her bony wrists seem even skinnier.

I heard someone on the staff whisper that this was Tabitha’s mother, Eva Eden. Tabitha said she was forty-eight years old. She looked like she was in her sixties.

Downstairs, I found Tabitha outside her bedroom for the first time in days. Already swept up in her mother’s sudden arrival, she seemed both terrified and excited.

“Did you hear? Mommy is here! She’ll be thrilled to meet you!” Tabitha said, sounding like she was fifteen. “We’re having afternoon tea by the pool. You have to join us! Mommy’s so British these days. She said she’s going to stay long enough to clear up the whole guardian situation. Isn’t that wonderful?”

I was speechless, wondering how to react. Not a mention from Tabitha of the fact that she had stayed in her room for two full days or the incident that had caused her confinement. Not a word about Robert and the police.

“You’re going to Robert’s this evening, aren’t you?” she asked excitedly. “You’ll come with us in Mommy’s tacky white stretch, right?”

“Of course,” I said reassuringly. I hadn’t seen Tabitha like this for a while, agitated, childlike with an undercurrent of desperation. I wondered if she was afraid that her mother would disappoint her. I wondered how she felt about Robert in the aftermath of her run-in with the East Hampton police.

“Come, Mommy’s waiting,” Tabitha said. We headed for the pool, where I could see that Zoya had set up a full tea service for the four of us, including Eva’s hunk.

“So sorry about the other night,” Tabitha confided in a whisper to me as we entered the pool area. “I’m sure with Mother here I can get back on track. Please don’t give up on me?”

“Of course not,” I said. How bad I felt for Tabitha. It was the only thing that made me forget how bad I felt for myself.

Eva held out her bony hand as I approached. “It’s so nice to see that Tabby has a new friend,” she said. I held her hand, not knowing whether to shake it or just let it go. It was so fragile I feared it might break.

“Lovely to meet you Mrs. Eden,” I said. Her rag-mop hair spilled over her tiny shoulders chaotically as she gave me a huge gummy smile.

“Call me Eva—everyone does,” she said. Up close you could see the wear and tear on her face that no amount of plastic surgery could restore. As we sat, I felt her empty eyes staring at me as if she were seeing me from far away.

“I’m considerably more fun than the rest of the people Tabby hangs out with,” she added with an incongruous laugh. Zoya served caviar and toast points along with the tea.

“So tell me about yourself, Lisbeth. What is your family name?” Eva’s hand shook unsteadily as she raised her cup of tea.

“Dulac,” I said. “Not much to tell, I’m afraid. But I do have to say your daughter has been absolutely wonderful to me.” I hoped to move the attention away from myself as quickly as possible while finding anything I could say that might help Tabitha.

“Lisbeth is always too modest,” Tabitha chided. “She has a blog that has gone viral and she’s the sponsor of a very mysterious clothing designer called Designer X.” So that is how my life appeared to someone on the wealthier side. I was “sponsoring” Jess. Wonder what Jess would think of that.

“I hope you’ll tell me more,” she said. Zoya returned to pour more tea, but Eva covered the top of her cup with her hand. “Make me a vodka martini, dirty with olives,” she whispered to Zoya.

“Yes ma’am,” the maid said, making a little bow. “Lisbeth and ZK have been very chummy lately,” Tabitha added to refocus her mother. The comment made me flinch. It took a moment to realize that Tabitha had no idea what had happened since she disappeared into her room.

“What a lovely boy. ZK is my favorite,” Eva said. Zoya arrived with the martini, and Eva’s eyes widened as she reached for it. “It’s always more fun meeting people over martinis, don’t you think?” She took a long swallow and seemed to come alive.

“Mother’s here to talk to Robert,” Tabitha said. I tried to decipher her expression; she seemed to be trying her hardest to appear calm and assured.

“Oh Tabby, you worry too much about these things. Everything will turn out fine, you’ll see. They always do, don’t they?” she said and ran her skeletal hand through Tabitha’s hair.

Eva Eden totally creeped me out. I couldn’t imagine a more terrifying mother, and it wasn’t like my mother was easy.

My phone buzzed. When I checked, it was a text from Jess. I used it as a reason to get away.

“I hope you don’t mind if I excuse myself,” I said, holding up my phone. “This is Designer X now.” I rose to leave.